Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/products/volume_2

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 101KB | 1,883 lines

•  RISC Forth − Blue-Grey Software seems to have disappeared, but RISC
Forth has been taken on by Silicon Vision Ltd who are now it sole
distributors. The price has unfortunately gone up to £99.95.
2.1
•  PCB layout software − Silicon Vision Ltd are doing a P.C.B. design
system for £195 inc VAT with full auto-routing, rats nesting, surface
mount capability, 0.001 inch resolution, 32“ x 32” max board size, on-
line help, fast zoom, pan and re-draw. Test and silkscreen are also
included with variable line, pad, text and grid sizes, parts libraries,
block move, copy, rotate, mirror and delete options. It supports
Plotmate, Graphtec and all HP-GL compatible plotters. It also includes a
hi-res hard copy for Epson compatible printers. It can be run from hard
disc and/or Econet.
2.1
There is now also an Entry-level version of this software which has all
the features of the full version except the auto-routing. The price of
the entry-level version is £99.95 inclusive.
2.1
•  BASIC Compiler − Dabs Press are close to launching their ABC (Archi
medes BASIC Compiler) written by Paul Fellows − for £99 inclusive, you
get the compiler, a 40 page user guide and a disc of sample programs. It
will compile BASIC programs either into absolute code or as a relocat
able module and it will allow you to implement star commands. The claims
for speed increase are that generally it is up to ten times faster than
interpreted BASIC but obviously this doesn’t apply where programs are
making heavy use of disc access or operating system commands since the
speed of such calls will remain unchanged.
2.1
•  Spreadsheets − If you are trying to make up your mind which spread
sheet would best suit your needs, Gordon Taylor has written a very good
comparative review in Personal Computer World, October 1988, page 182.
He looks in detail at four spreadsheets; Logistix, Matrix-3, PipeDream
and SigmaSheet (all of which can be purchased through Archive.)
2.1
•  A410’s − No, don’t get too excited, they are not actually “available”
as such yet, but I thought you would like to know the prognosis. Top
managers inside Acorn tell me that they are going to be ready “next
year” and “hopefully as early as possible in the year”, but they cannot
make any promises because of lead times on components and because
various elements of the development and testing  are not finished yet.
2.1
•  PC Emulator up-grades − Beebug are saying that if you send your 1.09
version, they will up-grade it to 1.20 for just £3 compared with Acorn’s
£15, though this latter includes the up-dated manual. (Well, if Beebug
are doing it, why shouldn’t we? Feel free to send your PC disc to us for
up-grading at £3 a go! Ed.)
2.1

•  Repton3 − yes, it is being done (in native mode) for the Archimedes,
and it should be released by Superior Software at the end of October,
i.e. it should have been released by the time you read this!
2.2
•  Inter Series on Disc!!! − Computer Concepts have bowed to pressure
from various quarters and are now selling Inter-Word, Inter-Sheet,
Inter-Chart and Spell-Master on disc. (£29, £29, £19 and £39 respec
tively, all + VAT, cf £39, £39, £25 and £51.30 for the ROM versions.)
They still work under the emulator and there is no ROM-LINK facility as
there is on the BBC micro versions. (Archive prices are £30, £30, £20
and £41 inclusive of VAT + p&p.)
2.2
•  Desktop Enhancer Enhanced! − The new version has options to copy read
only files during backup and to boot floppy disc from the FDD icon menu.
Mitre Software have also added a utility to change the machine con
figuration without <ctrl-break>. Existing users can return their discs
with an S.A.E. for a free up-grade. (Other software houses, please
note!) (Available through Archive for £27.)
2.2
•  Pro-Artisan − Should be available from Clares Micros soon though at
the time of going to press, we’re still waiting. “Probably mid
NovemberÉ”.
2.2
•  Artisan Gallery Discs − Clares now have three discs at £6 each or (£15
for the set) each containing nine Artisan pictures. (Only available from
Clares as no dealer discount is available.)
2.2
•  Pipedream SpellCheck should be available from Colton Software at the
beginning of November, price £49.45 (£45 through Archive.)
2.2
•  Colour Convertor − Lingenuity’s single width podule (£169.95 +VAT) −
converts the Watford  digitiser into full colour! Hardware controls of
both contrast and saturation of the separate colours. Controlling
software is mouse driven and allows you to save a picture, scale it or
set the parameters for the hardware controls. They hope it will be
available by 11th November. (£185 fromArchive)
2.2
•  Control Panel (£14.95 + VAT) − Lingenuity are also producing a WIMP
driven control panel with on-screen help which will allow you to set up
the configuration of your machine including loading standard configura
tions from disc for use with your various applications. (£16 from
Archive)
2.2
•  Xample Story − the presentation graphics package from Holland,
mentioned in last month’s review from the PC Show (page 7) is now being
distributed by Lingenuity.
2.2
•  AIM the Image processing package from Delft University, mentioned in
the September issue is now also being distributed by Lingenuity. They
are providing the disc and the documentation (see the review on page 52)
at cost price which will be “about £6” and this includes a pound which
will be sent to the Delft University students.
2.2
•  BASIC Compilers − the two new BASIC compilers, one from Dabs Press at
£99.95 inclusive and the other from Silicon Vision also at £99.95 should
both be ready by the time you read this. We hope to have a comparative
review next month. (Both will be available through Archive at £92.)
2.2
•  Links to Psion Organiser − XOB have written ARCPERX which runs under
the 6502 emulator and uses the 1MHz bus on the I/O podule to link up to
a Psion Organiser.
2.2
•  DFS utilities − CJE Micros do a DFS utilities disc for £20 inclusive
which allows you to read and write and format DFS discs from the
Archimedes − it will even read dual catalogue discs.
2.2
•  Multi-syncs galore − Solidisk Technology have several multi-sync
monitors for the Archimedes. If you want colour, there’s the Quadram at
£300 or the TVM/MD11 at £329 but if you want the high resolution but
aren’t worried about having colour, they have two grey scale multi-
syncs, NEC and TVM, both £159. All the monitors mentioned are 14“ and to
all the prices you need to add VAT and carriage. (I haven’t seen any of
them ‘in the flesh’, so we’d welcome comments from anyone who has.)
2.2
•  Relational Database − ‘Reporter’ (£39.95) from Minerva Systems extends
the power of System Delta Plus − a fully relational report-writer with
averaging, totalling etc. Should be available by the time you get this
magazine. (£37 through Archive)
2.2
•  Mailshot & Label printing − ‘Mailshot’ (£39.95) from Minerva Systems
also extends the power of System Delta Plus − print sticky labels or do
your mailmerge from your database,  “advanced date handling includes
conversion of numbers to words!” (£37 through Archive)
2.2
•  Drawing Board − £59 inc. Another innovative program from Jansons who
produced ArcImEd, the art package that generates program listings. It’s
a drawing packagedesigned for dot matrix printers. On demonstration it
looked very impressive. See the advert on page 9 for a sample of the
output.
2.2
•  Two new games from GEM Electronics − Word Up Word Down − “a new
concept in word games featuring a 3D game board”! and Startrader, “a
large scale space adventure game”. Each is £17.95 inclusive and if you
buy them both, you get their Desktop Games (£5.95) free!
2.2
•  Arckey − a keystrip flip-over holder from Ian Copestake − self
adhesive clear plastic allows you to stick your keystrips together into
a ‘book’.
2.2
•  Crossword puzzles − you can now get puzzles from the Times and the Sun
newspapers on computer with help offered if you need it. Akom Ltd are
offering Times puzzles for £16.95 and Sun puzzles for £15.95. (Also
available for BBC micro.)
2.2
•  New Archimedes bulletin board − if you have got tired of waiting for
Eureka!, why not give ARC-port a ring on 0252−737065, 300/300 or 1200/
75, 8n1. It’s run on an Archimedes and is open Mon − Friday 6.00 p.m. to
8.00 a.m. + 24 hrs at weekends.
2.2
•  New Archive Shareware Disc − (though I think, according to Ken
Biddle’s definition, we should call it PD! Ooops!) Shareware Disc 2 will
be ready by the time you read this. £3 as usual. I’ll try to put more
details on the Order Form of what is on it.
2.2
Review Software Received...
2.2
Apart from reviews already written we have received review copies of the
following software: Ovid Toolkit Module, Akom Crossword puzzles, Cobra
(like the BBC snake game that eats things and gets longer) from Richard
Millican, Plague Planet from Alpine Software, Shares and Accounts from
Ian Hamilton.
2.2

•  Repton 3 is here! Well, just about − it should be available before
Christmas. We have the pre-release version of John Wallace’s adaptation
of the ever popular BBC celebrity. The Archimedes version, which runs in
mode 9, has four different tunes and an ‘off’ option(!), it runs 25%
faster than the BBC version and it has a very useful extra feature of
allowing you to save the position you have reached so that if you have
just negotiated a difficult bit, you don’t have to go back to the
beginning if you get killed. There is also an editor so that you can
design your own screens (16 colours) and your own men. It’s called
Repton 3 because you’ve got three of the Repton stories in one: The Life
of Repton, Around the World in 80 Screens and Repton through Time. All
the passwords are different from the BBC ones as are the competition
codes, so it’s start from scratch time for all you BBC Reptonians.
£19.95 from Superior Software. (£18 through Archive.)
2.3
•  Jet Fighter − Minerva’s latest games program £14.95 (£14 through
Archive) − “Alone on a forgotten planet, you must defend yourself
against all-comers whilst, aided by your jet powered back-pack, you re-
build your broken rocket ship, then fuel it and take off to the next
level.”
2.3
•  PacMania − At last, the only game I ever spent time playing on the BBC
− PacMan − has now been converted to the Archimedes. Grandslam’s
PacMania (£19.95 or £18 through Archive) is a 3D version where you can,
amongst other things, jump over the monsters! (Needs 1 Mbyte minimum.)
2.3
•  Home Accounts − £49.95 from Minerva (£46 through Archive) is their
first application that will run under RISCOS in single or multi-tasking
modes. Designed to keep club or home finances, it will control multiple
bank accounts, credit cards or building societies and does automatic
posting of standing orders and transfers of funds between accounts. It
includes budgeting and cashflow forecasts, provides a full analysis and
even warns of bank charges or overdraft situations. Also includes simple
bank reconciliation. N.B. this is self-standing software and not an add-
on to System Delta Plus as is the case with the Business Accounts
software. (See small ads if you need a copy of Business Accounts.)
2.3
•  Clares’ Alphabase − This has rather got for-gotten, but it is a
perfectly respectable database for the Archimedes at £49.95 (£46 through
Archive.) We have a copy for review if anyone is interested.
2.3
•  Software Developer’s Toolbox from Acorn contains a Symbolic Debugger
and a set of utilities working in C, Pascal, Fortran 77 or BASIC: Common
− lists the most common words in a list of files, Dbug − machine code
debugger for use with multiple languages, Diff − compares two files and
lists their differences, Grope − searches files for a given pattern,
Libfile − manipulates library files, Link − links object files and
libraries to form an image file, Amu − controls compilation of multiple
sources in large programs, Memtest − tests the application memory of the
machine, Objlib − lists the symbols in a library file, Shell − allows
BASIC to be used as a command language, Squeeze − compresses image files
to conserve disc space, Wc − counts characters, words and lines in a
file. Acorn price £199 + VAT, Archive special price (while stocks last)
£130
2.3
•  Nine discs of programs − We’ve had a list of nine program discs at
£5.99 each from David Pilling, P.O.Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Black
pool, FY5 1LR. (Buy four, get one free!) They are: EMACS programmers/
text editor, Micro Spell, Fortune Cookie, XLISP, C Toolkit, Kermit,
Chess, Cross Star, File Tools.
2.3
•  PD−PROLOG − A public domain version of PROLOG is available from The
Advisory Unit, Endymion Road, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 8AU. It works under
the PC emulator, so just send them a formatted MS-DOS disc along with a
return envelope and postage.
2.3
•  Extended Precision from within BASIC. − EpBAS from Abacus Training
allows you to use all 27 floating point uniop & binops from within
BASIC. You can get 19 significant figure precision in BASIC and use
numbers from 10^−4931 to 10^+4931. Extended precision numbers are stored
in BASIC strings or Ep registers. EpBAS is £30 inclusive and comes with
examples on disc e.g. 2 x 2 determinant, the square root of 2 as 2*SIN
(ATN(1)) and the solution of a triangle.
2.3
•  Maths Co-Processor − No, not available yet, but I thought you’d like
an up-date. The latest target is 2nd quarter ‘89 and the price is still
quoted as ‘between £500 and £1000’.
2.3
•  ArVis Videographics Expansion − Video Electronics Ltd have a range of
products for the Archimedes: a PAL encoder board, a video Controller
board and a very exciting looking Videographics podule. The podule
extends the display capabilities of the Archimedes from 256 to 32000
colours and is complete with a built-in real-time colour digitiser and a
384 kbyte x 16 bit video framestore. It also combines the digitised
video images with live video and the normal Archimedes graphics output
for professional videographics applications. Video Electronics sent us
some very impressive screen shots of digitised images.
2.3
•  Colour Converter improved − Lindis Inter-national have added some
extra software for their colour converter. This is in addition to the
original software and registered users will automatically be up-graded.
There is now “error correction dith-ering” which allows the simulation
of 256,000 colours and a mode 12 facility to allow you to import
digitised pictures into Artisan or First Word Plus. (The colour
converter basically takes a colour signal from a recorder or a camera,
splits it up into the three colour elements and allows you to feed each
colour separately through to the Watford digitiser. The three digitised
images can then be superimposed to give the colour picture. Matthew
Treagus will be reviewing it in due course.)
2.3
•  Yet another art package − Pax is a 256 colour art package from Z & Z
Software, price £15.95.
2.3
•  Cobra − a snake-eating-up-the-bits game for the Archimedes, £6 from
Richard Millican 10 Stokesay, Bidston, Birkenhead, L43 7PU.
2.3
•  RISC OS − next month we will be giving a lot more detail about the
RISC OS 2.0, but you are now able to place advance orders for £33 inc.
VAT + £3.00 p&p. (We can’t say exactly how much it will be for overseas
customers because we don’t know how heavy it will be, but I estimate
that you will have to add £10, £12 or £15 postage, depending on the
postal area, instead of £3.) If you want to place an advanced order,
place send a separate post-dated cheque (April 1st 1989!) which we will
hold until we have the RISC OS packages ready to send out to you.
Remember that after an initial period, the price of RISCOS will revert
to the full £56.35 + postage.
2.3
•  Euclid up-grade now available − Euclid, the 3D graphics package has
been up-graded and registered users will get a free up-grade. New
features include lighting effects and the ability to colour objects by
selecting from a range of colours in a colour wheel. The viewing of
scenes from different angles has been simplified as have the methods of
constructing scenes and there is a new help facility. (Euclid costs £45
from ACE comp-uting or £42 from Archive.)
2.3
•  Wimp Template Editor has been delayed a little but should be ready by
the time you read this. Adrian has been making sure that it is compat
ible with RISC OS, rather than having to up-date it later.
2.3
Review Software Received...
2.3
Apart from reviews already being written we have received review copies
of the following software: Alpha-Base from Clares (months ago someone
offered to do a review though nothing came of it), Cobra from Richard
Millican, Extended Precision in BASIC from Abacus, Floating Point
Assembler from Abacus, Ovid Toolkit module, Pax, 256 colour art package
from Z & Z Software, P.R.E.S. Archimedes Utilities.
2.3
Shareware Concept Takes off!
2.3
Since the early days of Archive, we’ve been intend-ing to get going on
setting up the Shareware concept but it’s never really taken off until
now. We did do the graphics demo disc fairly early on and then the first
Shareware disc, both of which are valuable in their own way, but this
latest Shareware disc really is in a different league. Last month, I
wasn’t exactly sure what we had available to put on it − all I knew was
that there was quite a bit of it. When Adrian presented me with the
finished disc, I was certain that it would be well worth £3 of anyone’s
money. Just look at the list below and you’ll see what I mean. I’m not
saying that all the programs are wonderfully well written, though some
certainly are, but if just one of the major programs is of use to you,
it’s well worth £3.
2.3
More of the same, please!
2.3
So what we want now is more of the same! It is in everyone’s interests
(apart from the commercial software houses − Sorry chaps!) to generate
and distribute more of these Shareware discs. So if you have a program
or programs that you have written that are at least reasonably good,
send them in. Also, if you take one of the existing programs and add
various new facilities to it or improve others, send it in and we can
put the modified program on a later disc. If the program needs documen
tation, please send it as a readme file with the program.
2.3
Here is a list of what is on the discs that we currently have available.
2.3
Graphics Demo Disc − 49 graphics demo programs plus “MenuMaster” − a
program which allows you to add in your own demos, and edit the order in
which the programs are run, including repeating some demos and making
the demo into a complete loop.
2.3
Shareware Disc N¼ 1 − MenuMaster  with 7 more graphics demo programs
plus Life, Mandelbrots, European Geography, Structured Directory Lister.
2.3
Shareware Disc N¼ 2 − DFS reader, backup and archiver. Nine more
graphics demos, 256 colour Sprite Editor, CMOS ram Editor, Disc Copier,
LQ printer Font Definer, Matrix Functions, Memory Mappings & Vector
Listings, BASIC Fast Screenload, Connect Four, Mastermind, Solitaire and
Star Trek.
2.3
Monthly Program Discs
2.3
We are still getting requests to organise a monthly program disc
subscription. The position is, as I think we said in an earlier issue,
that we will accept pre-payment for any number of program discs at £3
each, so you can pay for 3 at a time, 6 at a time, 10 at a time or pay
for the next 5 years’ discs all at one go if you really want to! I’m
afraid we just do not have time to formalise it into a disc subscription
and I think that at £3 (compared with A&B’s £7, Acorn User’s £50 for 12
and RISC User’s £5.25) you are getting good value for money.
2.3

•  Arc Trivia − £24.95 from Moray Computing (or £23 from Archive) − 7,000
questions and an editor to allow you to add your own specialised
questions, works on 1Mbyte machines upwards.
2.4
•  MS-DOS Shareware Disc − Ken Biddle is compiling a Shareware disc for
Archimedes MS-DOS users, so if you send him (through the Archive office)
an MS-DOS formatted 3.5“ disc with return packing and postage, he will
send you a copy free of charge.
2.4
•  ABC Version 2 − Dabs Press have now done a version 2 of their
Archimedes BASIC Compiler. The up-grade is free of charge to existing
users and includes a new user guide. Should be ready by mid January.
Includes double & extended precision floating point variables, RETURN is
now implemented, Local error handling and various other changes.
2.4
Review Software Received...
2.4
Apart from reviews already written we have received review copies of the
following software: Word Up Word Down and Star-Trader from Gem Elec
tronics, version 1.01 of Extended precision in BASIC from Abacus.
2.4

•  Acorn Languages − Release 2 of Fortran 77, Iso-Pascal and ANSI-C are
all available now from Acorn at the same price as before − £99 + VAT (or
through Archive at £99 inclusive). If you already have release 1 and
want an upgrade, send the original disc (just the disc and not all the
documentation) with a cheque for £30 to Acorn Direct, Studland Road,
Kingsthorpe, Northampton, NN2 6NA. (N.B. This offer is only open until
April 1st 1989.) (N.B.2 The symbolic debugger, which forms part of the
Software Developers Toolbox, will only work with release 2 languages.)
2.5
•  Arc P.C.B. from Silicon Vision Ltd. is now NOT going to be available
in the cheaper non-auto-routing version. It is however still available
as the full package at £195 (£170 inc. through Archive).
2.5
•  Arcade 3 Compilation from Clares Micros £14.95 (£14 through Archive).
This consists of Mazey Man (a derivative of Snapper), Bounce-a-Ball (an
Arcanoids game like breakout) and Zarcon Invasion. We have a review copy
and it looks  good value except that it does not, at the moment, work on
computers that have a Computer Concepts ROM podule installed. (I’ve
asked Dave Clare and Charles Moir to see if they can sort it out!)
2.5
•  Arcendium from Dabs Press £14.95 (£14 through Archive). Draughts,
Reversi, 4 in a row and Backgammon. Play against the computer or some-
one else. We’ve got a copy for review − looks good.
2.5
•  Archway from Simtron is a set of tools for handling the WIMP environ
ment. For £79.95 inc VAT, you will get 4 x 800k unprotected discs and a
300 page ring bound User Guide, although it is not actually available
yet. Version 1.1 for RISC-OS “will be available in May” and will be 5
discs and will cost £99.95.
2.5
•  Bumper Pack 2 − £19.95 from HS Software − five entertaining English
and Number games plus a complete package of programs for designing,
solving and printing your own crosswords (includes 20 ready-made
crosswords). The games are suitable for children 5 − 12 and the
crosswords package is also suitable for adults. (RISC-OS compatible)
2.5
•  Digi-Sim − from Musbury Consultants will be available “mid-February”
costing “round about £45”. (Archive will be stocking it, ring to confirm
price and availability.) It consists of a program that simulates
different logic circuit elements including an unlimited (really?!)
number of gates. Circuits are made by dragging gates onto the screen and
then wiring them up using the mouse and pointer. When the circuit is
completed, the diagram is animated, wires change colour to indicate the
logic level on them, LED’s glow red, 7-segment displays change to
reflect their logic inputs. Also included is a logic tutorial program.
2.5
•  EpBAS − Extended Precision in BASIC (see Archive 2.3, page 2). Abacus
Training have responded to suggestions for improving their software for
extended precision within BASIC. Version 2.00, which is still £30, is
available for existing users on a free disc-for-disc upgrade and gives
extra functions such as factorial, binomial coefficient, hypotenuse
(i.e. square root of the squares of two numbers − particularly useful
for crunching complex numbers as in Mandelbrots), hyperbolic and inverse
hyperbolic functions, degrees to radians and vice versa.
2.5
•  Extended Pipedream? Aarow Software have set up an impressive sounding
system for the small business user (or big private user?) of Pipedream
to keep track of letters, send mailshots etc at the press of just a few
buttons. £23 inclusive. For more details, contact Graham Hobson, 0705
511056. (We are hoping to get someone to try it out.)
2.5
•  Fireball − Arcade game from Go-dax Entertain-ment £19.95 (£18 through
Archive). Basically a “brickout” type game but with 100 screens to get
through! Eight different colours of bricks with different points scores
plus five special types of bricks that do different things. You can edit
the screens and change the order in which they appear. The bricks also
throw out different types of bonus objects which you can use if you can
catch them without missing the ball.
2.5
•  First Word Plus Extended Dictionary − 80,000 words plus specialised
supplementary dictionaries, only £6.95 inclusive from Science Frontiers.
2.5
•  Fish − Adventure game from Magnetic Scrolls, £24.95 (£23 through
Archive). Review next month.
2.5
•  GreyDumps from Musbury Consultants, £15, (£13 through Archive) is a
graphics tone dump for Epson FX80 or compatible printers.
2.5
•  Hearsay upgrade − version 1.06 of Hearsay includes, amongst other
things, the possibility to edit the call bands (this is of particular
use to those who are not BT subscribers, i.e. those outside the UK) and
improved modem initialisation on start-up. Call Beebug for the cost of
the upgrade − “Should be about £5”.
2.5
•  Hyperbook from Logotron (of Logo fame) is an on-screen book-
researchers tool £49 + VAT. It allows you to read specially prepared
books on screen (with prices varying from £10 to £25) and to create
indexes, glossaries and cross-references.
2.5
•  Macro Assembler Version 2 from Wingpass Ltd (£49.95) takes ARM
assembly language files and produces AOF files for linking with similar
files from high level compilers.
2.5
•  Numerator, also from Logotron, is a maths teaching package, £69 + VAT,
which aims to tackle pupils’ conceptual difficulties by the use of
construction models on screen.
2.5
•  Oak Computers have various new goodies for Archimedes users − a 20“
hi-res multi-sync monitor (£1495), a 47 Mbyte winchester upgrade for the
440, a range of external winchester drives (20, 40 or 47 Mb at £300,
£499 and £599 respectively) and an interface for their PDT allowing the
import and export of DXF and HPGL files and the export of IGES files
(£149).
2.5
•  PipeDream under RISC-OS − contrary to reports from Bruce Smith in A &
B Computing, Pipedream does work under RISC-OS. There is no need to up-
grade beyond the current 2.0 version.
2.5
•  SolidCAD − 3D draughting system £49.95 (inc VAT & carriage) from
Silicon Vision (£46 through Archive). Allows drawings to be done in 3
elevations with a 3-D projection to aid visualis-ation. Realtime Solids
modeller, which includes SolidCAD, allows animation of objects created
by SolidCAD. £89.95 (£79 through Archive).
2.5
•  System Delta Plus Version II (System Delta Plus Plus?). This new
version (£79.95 inc VAT or £69 through Archive) will now work on RISC-OS
and has ‘many up-dated features’ and they have improved the manual.
Minerva say, “Existing System Delta Plus users need not worry as a disc
will be provided to enable them to run the current version of SDP with
the new RISC-OS.”, but there is no mention of the cost. Version II will
be released when existing stocks expire, anticipated date − end February
1989.
2.5
•  Thundermonk − the latest games offering from Minerva should be
available by the end of February, £14.95 (£14 through Archive). Sounds
from the press release like a maze game but one in which you can cheat
by walking through walls!
2.5
•  Timetabler − the latest “serious” offering from Minerva should be
available by the end of February. No price set as yet. It will “reduce
the time spent on preparing school, college and university timetables
from weeks to minutes. It is unbelievably fast and powerful, taking
around 10 minutes to produce the timetable for the largest school in
England!”
2.5
Review Software Received...
2.5
Apart from reviews already written, we have received copies of the
following software: Bumper Pack 2, Arcade 3, Arcendium and Fish.
2.5
The Order Form growsÉ
2.5
There is more and more software and hardware available now for the
Archimedes, and a lot of it is available through Archive at a discount.
2.5
We are working on a deal to offer Computerware hard disks. The prices
should be finalised by the time we print the order form (which goes to
the printers a week after the magazine itself) so check the order form
for prices and availability. Overseas Archivists should note that we
have been told that the drives, having been imported from the States,
must not be re-exported. However, you can buy the podule separately and
it comes with all the metal-work for mounting the drive. All you then
need to do is to buy a bare 3.5“ drive from your local suppliers.
2.5

•  A305 owners! The half Mbyte up-grades are now available. They are in
stock at the distributors, so we should be able to get them at two days
notice. (£159 through Archive)
2.6
•  Ancestry − £79.95 inc VAT from Minerva Software. (£70 through Archive)
On screen display of your family tree, ‘zoom in’ to see more details
about a specific person, comprehensive reporting facilities including
sideways printout of the family tree. Includes a demo file with a 19
generation tree of English kings and queens.
2.6
•  ANSI C problems − There are 2 bugs in the library of release 2 ANSI C
from Acorn. This only applies to issue 1 and is corrected on issue 2.
Look at the release notes and check the second line of the title. If it
says “Release 2: Issue 2” you’ve got no problems but if it just says
“Release 2” you need to send the disc back to Customer Services at
Fulbourn Road and they will replace it f.o.c.
2.6
•  “Archimedes Operating System − a User Guide” a book by Alex and Nic
van Someren covering both Arthur and RISC-OS. £14.95 (£13.50 through
Archive). There is also a disc containing all the programs listed in the
book plus various extra utilities. If you buy the book and the disc from
Dabs, it will cost £21.95. (Archive sell the disc separately for £8.50)
Review on page 45.
2.6
•  Arc-DFS − Users of Richard Averill’s Arc-DFS utilities (Shareware 2)
may like to know that they can get updated versions of the software
including an on-line manual by sending a blank formatted disc and £3 “as
a handling and development charge” to Richard at 28 Crichton Road,
Carshalton, Surrey, SM5 3LS. (Richard is just doing GCSE’s, so I suspect
he would appreciate your support!)
2.6
•  Art Nouveau − an impressive new art package at £42.50 from CAL Ltd
(£39 through Archive) with facilities rivalling Pro-Artisan but at about
one quarter the cost. (Review on page 17)
2.6
•  Cheat it Again, Archie − Cheat your way to success on some of those
frustrating Archimedes games that you can’t quite conquer. Allows you to
cheat “most of the available Archimedes games”. £11.95 from Impact
Software (£11 from Archive)
2.6
•  Computerware Hard Drives and Podules − Computerware now do a range of
drives − 20 & 40 M internal and 20, 40 and 60M external. The podules
allow one internal and one external drive. (Access times, for the
technically minded are 40 ms on the 20M drives and 28 ms on the 40M
drives. The systems are fully Acorn compatible and come complete with
utility software. The drives are available through Archive at the
following prices (incl. VAT & carriage): podule only, £240; 20M &
podule, £390; 40M & podule, £680; external drives w/o podule but with
p.s.u. 20M, £335; 40M, £485; 60M £740.
2.6
•  DP’s PD software list grows − David Pilling has added two more to the
current list of 10 public domain program discs: Disc 11 Small Talk,
comes complete with C source code, Disc 12: The World, a digitised
outline of the world’s continents and islands, complete with Pascal
source code and some suggested student assignments. Discs are £5.99
each, buy four and get one free.
2.6
•  Graphics tablet − Mike Harrison writesÉ I’ve just written a module to
allow a graphics tablet to be used instead of a mouse, which is
wonderful for graphics applications like Artisan and Autosketch. The
module emulates all mouse calls, and so works with any mouse driven
software which doesn’t use the serial port.  The tablet used is the
Genius GT-1212 12x12 inch tablet with 4 button puck, which Watford are
selling for £225 + VAT. The perform-ance and accuracy is as good as many
other tablets costing twice as much. This will shortly be available as a
package of Tablet, Software and special lead for £249 + VAT.
2.6
•  PC shareware − Contex Computing have several discs of PC Shareware
which they are distributing at £7.50 per disc. It has all been checked
and works OK on the Archimedes under the PC emulator.
2.6
•  Shareware Disc 4 is now available. (Well, it should be by the time you
read this!) I don’t know exactly what will be on it, but I’ll try to put
some info on the back of the order form.
2.6
•  Sigma Sheet Upgrade − If you are having problems trying to print text
across the screen where it loses characters between columns then Minerva
will give you a FREE upgrade if you send your disc back to them.
2.6
•  Silicon Vision’s BASIC compiler RiscBASIC  should be ready by the time
you read this. (£99.95 or £89 through Archive)
2.6
•  FilmMaker − £79.95, also from Silicon Vision is available now.
Animated 3D scenes with real-time calculation. Supplied with a library
of scenes and a database of flightpaths. (£69 through Archive)
2.6
•  Gate Array Design Teaching System − £89.95, also from Silicon Vision
for teaching silicon chip design. (£79 through Archive)
2.6
•  Studio 24 Plus Version 2 is being prepared and will be available
around Easter at £149. Full technical details from E.M.R. Users of
version 1 will be able to up-date, through E.M.R., for the difference in
price between the two versions.
2.6
(Note that you can use Studio24 Plus without a midi instrument,
inputting tunes from the keyboard and playing them with the Archimedes’
own (limited) range of sounds or with the sounds available with
SoundSynth and/or Creations.  − We hope to review Studio 24 Plus next
month.)
2.6
•  HandiMusic − Music for handicapped folk to play − details from E.M.R.
2.6

•  Archimedes A205??? − The growing rumours of a new ‘Amiga basher’ are
fueled again this week by a detailed report in the Times Educational
Supple-ment, which largely concurs with other details circulating at the
moment. The main points are:
2.7
•  Aimed for junior schools who can’t afford current Archimedes prices
(which are going up anyway!)
2.7
•  1Mb expandable to 2Mb
2.7
•  Would include a user port, for things like Concept Keyboard
2.7
•  Around £500  − £700 (+VAT)
2.7
•  One box, with a disc drive at the side
2.7
•  Will run under RISC-OS
2.7
I suspect that by the time this magazine gets into your hands there will
be some more definite news. Give Eureka a ring for the latest news.
2.7
•  Archimedes Prices Rise − The prices of all the Archimedes computers
went up on 1st April. So, anyone wanting to save money by getting RISC-
OS “free” by waiting until after 1st April is in for a disappointment.
Instead of paying £36 for the up-grade, you will have to fork out an
extra £74 for the basic A310 without a monitor. All the other prices
have gone up too but, at the time of writing (March 27th) we don’t know
all the other prices. (This does point up the importance of Eureka
Bulletin boards. The news of the price rises was given on both Eureka I
and Eureka II in early March.)
2.7
•  Archive Index Disc − Yes, we too have found it a real nuisance not to
be able to find a particular hint or article when we want it, so in
response to a Help plea, Jim Poll, Paul Hobbs and Alex Hopkins have come
up with an Archive Index on disc − two in fact − one of them is self-
standing and the other is a set of data files that runs under Beebug’s
ArcScan program. (You can get a copy of ArcScan from Beebug by buying
their RISC User special disc which costs £13.16 or £12.50 to R.U.
members.) The Archive index is being distributed as Shareware disc N¼7
and costs £3.
2.7
•  Computerware hard discs for export? − I’m afraid that, as we said in
the magazine a couple of months ago, we cannot export the Computerware
hard drives because they are imported from the U.S. under a special
licence agreement. We can, however, export the podules and they include
all the metalwork for mounting a standard off-the-shelf ST506 3.5“ hard
drive, which you could buy locally. The cost of the podules without VAT
but including postage and insurance is £215 to Europe (£221/£223/£224 to
the other areas of the world). If you have a 4-slot backplane as well,
it comes to £264 for Europe and £270/£273/£275 for the rest of the
world.
2.7
•  Euclid 3-D graphics package − Ace Computing has now produced a new
multi-tasking RISC-OS-only version with several added features, £70 inc
VAT. Then there is Mogul, a “film-making” add-on allowing Euclid’s 3-D
objects to be added in a animated sequence to ‘scenery’ created in an
artwork package. Mogul is available to registered Euclid users for £20
inc VAT.
2.7
•  Hard discs − The Archive price of the Computerware 40M internal drive
(with podule) has dropped from £680 to £590, inclusive. This is because
the price of drives is very much dependent on the quantity you buy and,
now that the sale of 40M drives is beginning to catch up on 20M’s,
Computerware have been able to get a better price which they have passed
on to us. (Even at £590, the price of the internal 40M drive is high
compared to the 40M external. The reason for this is that the external
one is a 5.25“ drive which would not fit inside the computer but which
is rather cheaper to buy than the 3.5”.)
2.7
 •  Watford Hard Drives − During April, Watford will be selling their
new 40M hard disc plus podule for £499 + (£7? carriage) + VAT = £582
which just beats Computerware’s price of £590 inclusive through Archive.
However, after April, their price goes up to £525 (£611 inclusive) so
the Computer-ware 40M drive will then be cheaper.
2.7
•  Image  Processing − Wild Vision’s new Hawk V10 system, starting from
£650 + VAT, provides “affordable, high-performance image processing”. It
captures, stores and displays four separate images − 256x256 by 8-bits
with 256 levels of grey scale − in real-time and totally independent of
the host machine, leaving the computer to do the complex calculations
needed for fast image processing. Col-our can be achieved by doing
separate scans for red, green and blue. The board uses a separate
monitor to display the video and the controlling software is in a ROM on
the board. (See picture below.)
2.7
•  Mornington Crescent − Following my comments last month about the
Mornington Crescent game, Mike Cook has sent us what is, admittedly, a
text-only BBC implementation but it runs on the Archimedes. I’ve tried
to play it and have found it to be such a good implementation that I
cannot beat it. However, it does look as if he is playing under the
rather unusual “Cringleford Conventions” and no explanation of these is
given, so anyone not used to playing that particular convention may not
be able to get very far with it. Anyway, for what it is worth, we’ve put
it on the program disc for free distribution. Mike is not making any
charge, but if you do find the program useful, perhaps you would give an
appropriate donation to charity. (How about someone combining Mike’s
algorithm with the Underground map from Shareware N¼3? It would give it
tremendous visual impact. Any offers?)
2.7
•  Ram upgrade for A305 − It has been impossible to get these upgrades
for almost a year now through the official Acorn channels. I heard a
rumour that some were coming available, but when I enquired at the
distributor level, they were pessimistic − some even said it was
“discontinued”. I consulted Acorn and was told by an Acorn spokeswoman
that “this product has been discontinued”, “Surely not?!?!”, “I will
checkÉ yes, definitely”, “You can’t do that!!!”. Then after a bit of
telephoning and stirring, they decided that I had been misinformed and
that in fact they are in stock at the warehouse ready to go out to
distributorsÉ well, there were actually 30 sets of chips available!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we are still waiting for upgrades we
have ordered through the official channels but have found an alternative
source and I have about 10 sets IN STOCK − £159 each. (I suggest you
telephone to confirm their availability before sending cheques.) Stop
Press!! 4 sets of genuine Acorn 0.5 meg upgrades have just arrived!!
2.7
•  ScanLight − Computer Concepts’ 200 dots per inch scanner (£449 + VAT)
(£490 inc VAT and carriage through Archive) is the scanner part of their
Fax Pack (which won’t be available before May). If you buy the scanner,
it will enable you to scan pictures for inclusion in your programs as
sprites or in your documents using First Word Plus or whatever or into
PAINT or other art packages. (Or in Impression − CC’s DTP package which
is also scheduled for May-ish.)
2.7
The scanner is A4 width and can be supplied with an optional sheet
feeder (£150 + VAT) (£165 through Archive) which makes it easier to
avoid a skewed picture. The controlling software, which is included in a
ROM on the controller board, is WIMP based and allows scanning in
monochrome (best for text) and half-tone (best for pictures). The image
can be viewed in mono or 16 level grey scale and the pictures can be
edited a pixel at a time using up to 999% zoom magnification. (We
actually have a Scan Light here in the office. It is very easy to set up
and quite fun to use. We’ll try to do a review in due course.)
2.7
(People have asked about whether the Fax Pack could be used in place of
an ordinary modem since it runs at up to 9600 baud. The bad news is that
the modem is synchronous whereas those used for accessing Prestel or
whatever are asynchronous so they can only talk to similar devices. The
good news is that when the Fax Pack receives a signal, it tries to
interrogate the sender to see if it too is a CC Fax Pack. If it is, it
exchanges a few pleasantries and then it can be used for straight file
transfer between the two computers.
2.7
•  Scorewriter from EMR, £499 + VAT provides high quality music output to
a laser printer. You can produce bar lines, multiple staves, clefs,
ties, accidentals and lots of other things I have never even heard of!
The music is transcribed by creating a text file using letters for the
notes and all sorts of symbols for the timings and other marks. It
sounds a bit laborious to create the scores − it isn’t WYSIWIG, though
you can do on-screen previewing. The output is very impressive − you
would think it was “proper” printed music. We haven’t been able to get a
system to review (not even to borrow one to try on our LaserWriter) but
the sample of output we were sent looked good. (We are not quoting an
Archive price, but if you want one, let us know and we will see what we
can do.)
2.7
•  Shareware 5 disc is now available which consists of lots of music for
the Welcome disc Music Editor. There is classical, modern and even some
greek music.
2.7
•  Shareware 6 disc is not going to be far behind. It is specifically a
disc for users of First Word Plus and contains things like printer
drivers etc.
2.7
•  Teletext Adaptor − Solidisk have improved the software for their
Teletext Adaptor and they will send you an up-date if you send your disc
back. Unfortunately, judging by the comments we’ve had so far, although
it is a bit better than it was, there are still problems. Solidisk have
been informed of the problems and are, hopefully, looking into them.
2.7
•  Yes, Chancellor − a business simulation program in which you run the
British economy! £17.50 + 50p p&p from Topologika. Uses the PC emulator.
(Also available from the same stable are ‘Countdown to Doom’, ‘Acheton’,
‘Philosopher’s Quest’ and ‘Kingdom of Hamil’ on a single 3.5“ MS-DOS
disc (£19.95 + £1 p& p) and ‘Giant Killer’ using BBC emulator (£19.50)
and ‘Return to Doom’ (£17.50) on MS-DOS.)
2.7

•  BASIC V manual − For those of you who have ordered the new A400/1
series machines, you will find that you have a language called BASIC in
your computer but that you have no documentation for it! Acorn have now
produced a separate BASIC V manual which you can buy for £19.95 (or £19
from Archive including p & p). This is in stock at the Acorn warehouse
even though, at the time of writ-ing, the 400/1 computers are not
available.
2.8
•  DIGIT Image Analysis Software (manual, 3.5“ disc and connecting lead)
£150 from the Institute of Ophthalmology. DIGIT is used for the accurate
measurement of objects traced on a high resolution Summagraphics Bit Pad
2 digitiser tablet (£405 + VAT). Video screens captured with the Watford
Video Digitiser may also be measured with a screen cursor controlled by
the Archimedes mouse or the tablet.  DIGIT is simple to use and performs
all the functions of expensive image analysis systems costing many
thousands of pounds for a minimum system cost of about £1,500.
2.8
•  DiscTree − Search and save utility for RISC-OS from Mitre Software
(£49.95 or £44 through Archive) allows hard disc users to archive and
restore files and provides search facilities to find those lost files
that you put on the hard disc some-where! There is a review on page 24.
(Desktop Enhancer users can get a 20% discount on DiscTree when
purchased direct from Mitre Software by simply returning their DTE
master disc with a cheque for £39.95. Send it direct to Mitre, NOT to
Archive.)
2.8
•  Noah Paint Professional − 256 colour art package from GMA in Hamburg.
Instructions are written in English! We have one available for review,
so if the reviewer thinks it is good, we could stock it and offer it at
a discount. From GMA, it costs £129 +VAT.
2.8
•  Paul Hobbs’ shareware disk which we mentioned in Archive has now been
updated to include RISC-OS versions of the Video Tape Indexer and
Cassette Inlay Printer and he now has a second disk which will have the
ARCSCAN modifications and indexes for Archive plus a RISC-OS version of
the ‘PhoneBook’ program from an early Archive Shareware disk. This is
available for £1.50 plus a blank formatted disk as was the first disk.
The first disk incidentally also contains extensive BASIC library files
including one for the WIMP manager as requested by somebody in Archive
2.6. The applications, even if they are not of any interest in them
selves, are based around a common skeleton program and between them they
demonstrate how existing programs can be adapted to run under the WIMP
manager.
2.8
•  R140’s at Archive prices? If anyone is inter-ested in buying one or
more of the new Acorn Unix machines (list price £2949 plus VAT) at
Archive discount prices let us know (by letter, phone or via Eureka II)
and we will see what we can arrange.
2.8
•  Shareware Summary − Here is a list of all the different Shareware
discs that are now available. Shareware N¼0 − Originally called the
“Graphics Demo Disc” − 49 graphics demo programs plus “MenuMaster” − a
program which allows you to add in your own demos and edit the order in
which the programs are run.
2.8
Shareware N¼1 − MenuMaster with 7 more graphics demo programs plus Life,
Mandelbrots, European Geography, Structured Directory Lister.
2.8
Shareware N¼2 − DFS reader, backup and archiver, 9 graphics demos, 256
colour Sprite Editor, CMOS ram Editor, Disc Copier, LQ printer Font
Definer, Matrix Functions, Memory Mappings & Vector Listings, BASIC Fast
Screenload, Connect Four, Mastermind, Solitaire and Star Trek. (Cost
£4.50)
2.8
Shareware N¼3 − Epson printer setup, Underground map update, CMOS editor
update, System Delta to FWPlus mailshot, Audio tape inlay printer /
database, Videotape database, File transfer with a Liberator, Monitor
test pattern generator, Contours Demo, Graphics Demo, VTR count-down
clock, “ARC” file compressor / decomp-ressor, Flip Game, Night Shooter,
Let Drop.
2.8
Shareware N¼4 − BBC font character editor, Bird watcher’s database, 3D
Mandelbrots (BASIC), Graphical shape transformations, 8 “pretty
patterns” programs, Hidden line graph plotting, FWPlus printer driver
editor, File transfer and sorting utility, Patience, Golf.
2.8
Shareware N¼5 − 51 pieces  of music, some classical, some modern, for
the Music Editor.
2.8
Shareware N¼6 − Full of utilities etc for First Word Plus − some new
items but mainly a compilation of all the items previously available
through the monthly program discs.
2.8
Shareware N¼7 − A disc database of Archive magazine plus data files for
Archive, Risc User and Beebug for use with the ArcScan Database
available from Beebug.
2.8
Shareware N¼8 is a single game “YAIG” − Yet Another Invaders Game from
Bj¿rn Fl¿tten in Norway. We decided it was good enough to stand as a
single disc − in any case, it occupies over 600k of disc space. (Works
only on 1 Mbyte+ machines.)
2.8
Shareware N¼9 contains various graphics demos and examples of computer
graphics, several file utilities (EXALL, disc tree printer, filetypes
and ‘filedo’ utilities and a disc recoverer), mode 15 to mode 12
converter, palette converter (Arthur to RISC-OS), NEC printer utilities,
two fast fade programs as requested in Archive 2.6 p 22, System Delta
export utility, ADFS disassembler (Arthur only), bank account manager
and three games: 3D breakout, bowls and roller ball.
2.8
Shareware N¼10 contains Address book database (WIMP based), 4096 colour
selector, expenses manager (WIMP based), Reversi game, Star Trek game, a
simple 3D volume of rotation program and 29 astronomical programs from
Dr P. Duffet-Smith’s book ‘Astronomy with your personal computer’,
converted for Archimedes by Mr D. Fagandini.
2.8
Shareware N¼11 contains 6 concerti in Maestro form, one each from
Messers Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Liszt, Mozart and Schumann.
2.8
Disc copier − There was some confusion caused by an advert we put in
some of the major magazines which referred to the disc copier on
Shareware N¼2 as a ‘disc editor’. Sorry about that. If you want a disc
sector editor, there is one on the program disc Volume 1 N¼ 6. The disc
copier is for allowing you to do backups of discs that have some sectors
damaged so it can be used for recovering duff discs as long as the duff
sector is not part of a directory. It could also be used to make a
backup copy of commercially protected discs to allow you to keep a
backup copy in a safe place.
2.8
•  Vietnamese fonts − Ian Copestake Software now has Vietnamese fonts for
use with First Word Plus on the Archimedes.
2.8
Review Software Received...
2.8
Apart from reviews already written we have received review copies of the
following software: Noah Paint Professional. (In case you are wondering
why so little of the software actually reviewed in Archive appears on
this monthly list of what is available, that is because I advertise them
on Eureka II and they usually get snapped up before the magazine goes
into print.)
2.8

2.8
A
2.8
•  A410/1, A420/1 and A440/1 − The new range of Archimedes has been
announced (I use that word advisedly!) which has the re-styled case, the
new p.c.b. and is said to run 10% faster. The 410/1 (£1199 +VAT) has 1
Mbyte upgradable to 4. It has the hard disc controller hardware but no
hard disc and has a four-slot backplane as standard. The 420/1 (£1699
+VAT) has 2 Mbytes and an internal 20 Mbyte drive. (i.e. it is equiva
lent to the existing A440 less 2 Mbyte of RAM.). Finally, the A440/1
(£2499) has 4 Mbyte RAM and a 50 Mbyte internal drive. (These prices do
not include a monitor.)
2.8
•  ARM3 chip for Archimedes / R140 − Here is an interesting press release
which I reproduce in full....
2.8
New Acorn Processor to upgrade existing Arcs
2.8
With the announcement by VLSI Technology Inc of Acorn Computer’s new ARM
processor, colloquially known as ‘ARM3’, comes news of an upgrade kit
for existing Archimedes 300- and 400- series and R140 computers.
2.8
Cambridge-based Aleph One Ltd says it will supply a small circuit board
which replaces the ARM2 processor with an ARM3 and control circuitry for
“a few hundred pounds” available from “the middle of the year”. This may
be fitted in seconds using a simple tool provided as part of the kit.
2.8
The ARM3 processor is based on the same RISC microprocessor core as the
current ARM2 but adds 4 Kbytes of very fast ‘cache’ RAM and bus
synchronization circuitry. This allows the processor to spend much of
its time running from its local cache memory but still allows external
memory access at the usual speed when necessary. Standard upgrades are
expected to run the processor core at 24 MHz, with 48 MHz available when
supplies permit.
2.8
Tests prove that the ARM3 is fully ARM2 software compatible (both RISC
OS and Unix run unmodified) and typically offers a factor of two to
three speed improvement over ARM2, occasionally reaching a factor of
five. In particular, the reduction in memory bandwidth used by the
processor means that high resolution graphics modes which have slowed
ARM2 systems, affect the processor considerably less. This makes ARM3
upgrades particularly useful in graphics-intensive applications, notably
RISC OS and X Desktop.
2.8
~~~~~~END~~~~~~
2.8
I checked with Aleph One Ltd and they said that although they hadn’t
actually been able to get a chip to try out their new board, their
claims were based on work done on evaluation samples within Acorn. The
speed increase is particularly noticeable on graphics-intensive tasks
since Acorn have written the RISC-OS graphics routines so that they can
run within the 4k of cache ram on the chip itself.
2.8
The speed increases refer to the 24 MHz chips and clearly, the 48 MHz
chips (when the silicon becomes available) will provide even more speed
increase though not another factor of two since the whole process is
limited by the speed of the main ram. Because the speed increase is very
dependent on the type of application, they say they are prepared to run
speed tests on any software that people want to send them, though
obviously they cannot do so until they actually have the chips available
from VTI to try it out on. If you are interested, contact Aleph One Ltd
on 0223-811679.
2.8
•  Atelier − A new art package (£99.95) from Minerva available week
beginning 29th May.
2.8
•  Desktop Publishing − There are two packages that we know of that are
under development. Computer Concepts’ ‘Impression’ is said to be
“available some time in the summer” and Acorn’s own DTP package should
be “some time in June” and will cost “round about £150 +VAT”.
2.8
•  GraphBox − from Minerva Software is, to quote their press release,
2.8
“an impressive multitasking data presentation package.  There are twenty
different types of graph to suit varying data and presentation require
ments.  Data entry is in spreadsheet form or may be dragged between
other programs such as Arc Edit or Draw.  It is fully multi-tasking.
Many graphs may be plotted on one axis or in monochrome if desired.
2.8
Chart and graphs include: Scatter (with Error Bars), Line (with Error
Bars), Bubble, Polar Scatter, Stacked Area, Cumulative Area, Bar, Wire
Surface, 3D Bar, Stacked Bar, Percentage Bar, Horizontal Bar, Horizontal
3D Bar, Horizontal Stacked Bar, Horizontal Percentage Bar, Pie, Surface,
Polar Line
2.8
The X, Y or Z axes may be linear, logarithmic, squared or a function of
your choice.  All mathe-matical functions are accepted as input
including COS, SIN, RAD, ACS, LN, etc.  Integrates with ALL suitable
RISC-OS applications e.g. spreadsheets, databases, DTP, CAD, etc. or
load data from CSV, TSV, ASCII and other files.”
2.8
•  Ibix the Viking − A new game (£19.95) from Minerva available week
beginning 22nd May
2.8
•  Mach Technology are advertising, in a double page colour spread in A &
B Computing (i.e. over £1,000 worth of advertising!), four major new
products: Hyperbase (£49.95) an advanced database which supports cards
and stacks containing textual and graphical data in any combination;
Modula-2 compiler (£89.95) − an optimising compiler based on Wirth’s 4th
edition definition; Mach BASIC (£39.95) − a BASIC compiler with “full
BASIC V support” which “correctly handles dynamic scoping, local
variables and arrays unlike the competitors”. Their claim is that it is
“the fastest compiler on the market”; 20Mbyte hard disc and podule
(£249) − no, that’s not a typing error, the advert does say £249 and
that is inclusive of VAT though carriage is extra. All the other prices
are inc VAT and p&p.
2.8
It is strange that this is the first that we have heard of this company
offering four such major products at such amazingly low prices. I have
not yet managed to find anything out about the availability of the
products as I only got the magazine yesterday and it is now bank holiday
weekend, but I will try to find out and put it on the Order Form which
goes to the printers a few days later than the magazine.
2.8
•  Timewatch from Mitre Software is a time management tool costing £29.95
and which should be available “late May”. It manages appointments,
includes a day-to-day notebook and allows the management of a ‘To Do’
list for tasks. For the forgetful, details of anniversaries, birthdays
etc can also be entered. You can organise the timing and duration of
appointments and it keeps track of ‘ongoing’ and ‘overdue’ tasks. It
will do searches of the data and, of course, allow you to print out the
data in various ways. It is RISC-OS only, but allows you to import data
from Arthur diary files.
2.8
•  Programmers’ Reference Manual (version 2) − Available “some time in
August”, say Acorn.
2.8

•  Acorn Selling off old stock of A440’s − Does anyone want one of the
old style A440’s (with 20 Mbyte drive)? Acorn are doing them at a
special price, so we can sell them for £2750 (inc VAT & carriage). That
price includes colour monitor and RISC-OS. (Remember that the new 440/
1’s with 50 Mbyte drives cost £3391 without a monitor.) Let us know
fairly quickly if you want one. I don’t think they have got vast stocks
of the things.
2.9
•  BASIC Compilers − We now have both Risc BASIC from Silicon Vision and
Dabs Press’ ABC version 2 in stock, though no sign yet of Mach Technol
ogy’s offering.
2.9
•  CLabel − A label and ticket printing utility for just £6.95 from Z & Z
Software.
2.9
•  Film-Maker − The interactive 3D animation system, £79.95 from Silicon
Vision is now in stock. (£69 through Archive).
2.9
•  Geoscan − a computer database and program on world development for
A310 and up. Gives information in the form of text, tables, maps, graphs
and diagrams about 100 countries of the world. Suitable for geography,
economics and general studies in schools and colleges from middle and
lower secondary upwards. Costs £45 inc VAT and p&p from Passkey
Marketing.
2.9
•  Golf Game − Holed Out! − A new game from 4mation has just come into
stock − a 3D animated golf game offering  match or stroke play, 14
clubs, 4 skill levels, left or right handed players, variable wind
speeds, digitised sound etc, etc. Reviewed in last month’s A & B
Computing as ‘Game of the Month’. (See also page 38) (£19.95 or £18
through Archive)
2.9
•  Hard Drives for the new 400 series machines including cables and
metalwork − Computerware drives are available through Archive: 20 Mbytes
for £230 (inc VAT & carriage) and 40 Mbytes for £420.
2.9
•  Ibix the Viking − £19.95 from Minerva (£18 through Archive) is “more
than just a game”. It is basically a maze game along the lines of
Hoverbod and Thundermonk but it has three completely different levels.
Young children can play it at the beginners’ level, then there is a
harder level for the more adventurous and finally an editor level in
which you can create your own mazes and your own characters. Hence the
break in the tradition of all Minerva’s games costing £14.95.
2.9
•  Integrex Screen Dump from Musbury Consultants now has a quarter size
dump as well as all the other sizes. If you have an older version which
does not have a copy of this dump, send your disc back to Musbury and
they will up-date it f.o.c. (N.B. This does not apply to the Canon dump
because the Canon printer does not have the extra graphics mode
necessary.)
2.9
•  Newsmaster 2, from LTS, £60 + VAT, improves on their original DTP
package (though it still works through the PC emulator) by allowing
screens to be imported from other programs such as Lotus 1-2-3 and PC
Paintbrush. It also has improved printing quality.
2.9
•  PrintMaster − Also available from LTS is PrintMaster, £40 +VAT, for
designing posters, long banners, headed stationery, calendars, greetings
cards etc. It has ten fonts, displayable in 5 styles, 11 different
borders and 120 clip art graphics plus a graphics editor for creating
your own pictures.
2.9
•  Numerator − Maths learning package for Logotron Ltd is now available
in a newer, bigger, better etc format which is Arthur and RISC-OS
compatible. £69 or a site licence for £250.
2.9
•  PAL programmer from Atomwide − A single width podule with its own
separate power supply is provided with software to allow you to compile
and program all the commonly used 20 and 24 pin PAL devices. £199 +VAT
+£2.50 carriage (or £220 through Archive).
2.9
•  RAM upgrade for 410/420 − Technomatic have ram chips in stock at £180
+ VAT + carriage per 1 Mbyte. All you have to do is open up the computer
and plug in the chips (the right way round!) − couldn’t be easier.
2.9
•  RISC-OS versions of CCD software are now available: Fortran Libraries,
£49.50 (reviewed Archive 1.8 p 20 and 1.9 p 22), Xed Text Editor, £19.50
(Archive 1.9 p 23) and Printer Buffer Module £12.50 (Archive 2.1 p 30).
They also have a new product: C to Fortran Interface Tools which
facilitates conversion of programs between the two languages, £34.50.
(All prices inclusive of VAT & p&p.)
2.9
•  ScanLight − 200 d.p.i. A4 width hand held scanner with podule and
software − works under Arthur or RISC-OS. Ideal for use with graphics,
art and DTP programs. Now in stock at £449+VAT + carriage or £495
inclusive through Archive.
2.9
•  Science Frontier 40 Mbyte Hard drives: For 310’s there is a podule
plus drive plus cables etc £621, for new 410’s there is a drive plus
cables plus metalwork for £435.85 and if you just want a bare drive to
replace an existing one, i.e. without cables or metalwork, they charge
£419.75. (Prices are inclusive of VAT and carriage.) The drives in each
case are 35 ms Fujitsu drives and the podules are Acorn’s own. They are
available from G.E.S. Computer Supplies in Aberdeen and are, at the time
of writing, available from stock.
2.9
•  Sound Samplers from Armadillo − Armadillo now do a range of sound
samplers, starting from the A448 (£135 +VAT +carriage or £150 inc.
through Archive) which is an 8-bit mono sampler with a maximum sample
rate of 41 kHz. It has its own software allowing for loading, saving,
editing, sampling and playback. The sampling and playback can be
controlled through BASIC, Assembler, or C via system calls. Then there
is the A448b which is a stereo version of the A448 which also includes a
new WIMP software package, “Highnote”. (£160 +VAT +carriage or £180 inc.
through Archive.) If you want to add a MIDI port, in, through and out,
you can choose the A448m (£190 +VAT +carriage or £210 inc. through
Archive). Finally, if you want 16-bit sampling (CD quality) with the
HighNote software, 44kHz sampling rate with 4 times over-sampling on
playback, Midi in, through and out, you need the A616 − a snip at £1150
+VAT +carriage! (or £1290 inc. through Archive.) Finally, there is fast
fourier transform software which performs a 256 point FFT in just 10 ms!
Spectra Fourier Analysis package cost £60 +VAT +carriage (or £66 inc.
through Archive).
2.9
•  Voice Generator − MJD Software are preparing a WIMP based voice
generator allowing you to create your own voices either by editing
sampled waveforms or by combining waveforms, amplitude envelopes and
pitch envelopes etc etc. No price given. Details from Mark Davis on
01−567−4284.
2.9
•  Wingpass Assembler − There is now a version 2.06 which clears one or
two floating point bugs. However, the main reason for issuing it was
that the changes that Acorn made in the latest version of their linker
output file created an incompatibility with relocatable modules as
reported by Tom Crane last month (Archive 2.8 p 41).  You can get the
new version by sending your Release Disk back to Wingpass and they will
replace it free of charge.
2.9
Review Software Received...
2.9
Apart from reviews already written we have received review copies of the
following software: CLabel, and Clares’ Arcade 3
2.9
•  A3000 − the new BBC Microcomputer − Acorn say that they have already
had orders for 3,000 machines including 500 from Durham L.E.A. On
Acorn’s past performance, and since I doubt that they will be planning
to make more than a few thousand before the end of the year, this does
not bode too well for the average man-in-the-street getting hold of one
beforeÉ well, what do you think? Christmas?  Or is that being too hard
on Acorn? We’ve ordered a couple from the distributors and will
obviously shout fairly loudly when they arrive. Acorn say that there
will be a “limited number” of machines available in June, but these are
being offered to L.E.A.s on a “5 maximum per L.E.A.” basis. They say
that “full production” is due to start in July.
2.9
•  Atelier, £99.95 (or £85 through Archive) is a 256 colour art package
complete with animation − Peter Clements who is doing a review for A & B
says it is very, very impressive and thinks that it is even better than
Pro-Artisan (and cheaper!). In particular, he says that the range of
different fill routines is outstanding. Availability? Well, it may be
ready by the time you read this. Please ring if you are interested.
2.9
•  Mach Technology Ltd update − Further to the item on page 4 of the May
magazine about ultra cheap drives and other software from Mach Technol
ogy, I gather from them that the drives advertised at £249 are firstly
not inclusive of VAT − the advert was a little confusing on this issue.
The actual cost is thus £286.35 plus carriage − still very cheap!
Secondly, they are 65 millisecond drives and thirdly they are external
drives, boxed with p.s.u., attached by cable to an internal podule.
There is at present no connector for a second hard drive, either
internal or external, but Mach Technology say they are going to do
upgrades later.
2.9
Having said all that, they are offering a range of drives, 20, 30 and 40
Mbyte, all external, all including podule at prices up to £399 +VAT.
They said they would send me a sample drive at the begin-ning of May but
I haven’t had one yet − obviously I will let you know as soon as
possible whether they are as good value as they seem. In fact I rang
them today and they are still not available for sale. They hope they
will be available “in a week or so”.
2.9
Mach Technology also said that the other three items of software, the
Database, Modula-2 and Mach BASIC compiler were “ready for shipping”.
However, we haven’t actually received any of them yet. They are now
saying (24th May) that Hyperbase should be “two or three days”, Mach
BASIC should be “about a week or so” but Modula-2 is “a bit further
off”.
2.9
They are also promising other exciting products. Firstly there is an MS-
DOS podule with an 80286 processor and 640k of ram. This will be
available for £299 inc VAT. Secondly they are promising memory upgrades
for the 300 series computers − £391 for upgrade to 2 Mbytes and £598 for
upgrade to the full 4 Mbytes.
2.9
•  Structural Analysis −  Neale Smith has taken a 2D structural analysis
program written for the BBC by Dr David Brohn and converted it and
enhanced it on the Archimedes. This is to be marketed in the near
future, but in the meantime, enquiries should be sent to Neale Smith, 13
Paddock Wood, Prudhoe, Northumberland, NE42 5BJ.
2.9
•  Studio 24 Plus Version 2 will be available later in the year and will
be an upgrade for existing customers, handling data from version 1.0. It
will retailing at approx £149.00.  It will support Render Bender
pictures during playing and various other animation techniques, from
realtime notation to video, using SMPTE timecode from the EMR  SMPTE
podule if required for serious film and art work with music.  Other
features include full multitasking control and extra edit pages, music
keyboard recorder function control. A professional version is also being
prepared called MegaStudio with unlimited tracks and up to 8000 Midi
channel control via one cable on  the EMR MINI (Musical Instrument
Network Interface) expansion podule.
2.9
About to be launched is the VuMusic program (which creates patterns from
Midi data via Acorn or EMR interfaces and can be run as a stand-alone or
within Studio 24 Plus V2.0. Price £19.95 inc VAT. The EMR Sampler 8
podule is now available − sample sounds for inclusion in SoundSynth −
£99 inc VAT.  Also imminent is a versatile program called Rhythm Box
that uses grid edit pages for making up to 8 internal sounds per bar
(made with SoundSynth or from Creations disks) − each bar can use
different sounds and tempo changes as well as pitch and rhythm patterns
to form a complete song.  Price £29.95 inc VAT.
2.9

•  RISC-OS price rise!! − We do now, at last, have RISC-OS in stock.
Indeed, we can get as many as we want so you can send in your orders.
However, please note that the price is due to increase at the end of
June to £69 + VAT (£70 through Archive). Yes, I know that, by the time
you read this, the deadline will be past, but we have bought in some
stocks at the old price (£36). As they have gone, however, the price
will have to go up to £70.
2.10
•  A305 RAM Upgrades down in price − The price of 1/2 Mbyte RAM upgrades
for the A305 has come down from £159 to £130. The reason for this is to
clear the existing stocks that I have got. Because it was impossible to
buy them for months, I assumed there would be lots of people waiting to
buy them so, to get a better price, I bought lots of them. Now I can’t
get rid of them! So to avoid cash-flow problems I’m having to sell them
off at a loss. We’ll even fit them f.o.c. if you can call in to the
office!
2.10
•  A410’s, A420’s or A440’s anyone? − I have now managed to get hold of
some A410’s (I think the supply must be improving!) but no A420’s and
A440/1’s are even further off. However, I do have 20M and 40M upgrade
drives for the A410 and upgrade RAM in stock (which has now gone down in
price, see below!), so I can make up various configurations for you, at
the following VAT and UK carriage inclusive prices: (and each comes with
a voucher for £100 worth of free software)
2.10
A410 + 2M + 20M drive (i.e. an A420)  £1780
2.10
A410 + 4M + 20M drive  £2160
2.10
A410 + 2M + 40M drive  £1980
2.10
A410 + 4M + 40M drive (i.e. an A440)  £2360
2.10
Add £60 for the M version (i.e. with the PC emulator) and/or £230 for an
Acorn colour monitor. If you want to include a multisync monitor (Eizo
9060S or N.E.C. 3D) , add £535 to the prices above.
2.10
•  A410/420 RAM Upgrades down in price − The price of 1 Mbyte RAM
upgrades for the A410/20 has come down from £205 to £185.
2.10
•  ArcComm − New comms software from BBC Enterprises. £29.95 (or £28
through Archive) offers videotext and scrolling terminals with Hayes,
DTI or manual modems. (RISC-OS only).
2.10
•  Atelier − the Minerva art package (£85 through Archive) is now
available. It will allow you to create 256-colour graphics and claims
370 effects, including 60 shades of black and white, rotate and distort,
texture mapping, air brush simulation and the ability to create
perspective, light and shade.
2.10
•  Careware N¼ 1 − Since my comments in last month’s magazine we have
received enough good software to set up Careware N¼1. It contains:
Othello game, LabelPrinter, “Make” utility, Calendar, Headstand module
(= turn the screen upside down!), Sliding Block puzzles, ‘Simon’ game,
plus lots of simple games programs and graphics demos, e.g. Biorhythms
etc. The cost is £6 so that £3 is divided between the three charities
mentioned on page 7 last month.
2.10
Stop Press: Matthew reckons he will have Careware N¼2 ready by the time
you read this and also Shareware N¼12 and also a RISC-OS update disc
which we will do as Shareware N¼13. This will contain programs that have
been on previous Shareware or program discs but which have been updated
(and, in some cases, improved) to run under RISC-OS. If these are ready
in time, I’ll put information on the back of the Price List.
2.10
•  DTP from Acorn is here! (Well, in limited quantity, anyway − sounds a
familiar story.) At last, a full function DTP taking text and graphics
from various sources and outputting the resulting document to a range of
printers from cheap 9-pin DM printers to high-performance laser
printers. The price is £149 + VAT (£145 through Archive).
2.10
•  Euclid update − A RISC-OS version of Euclid 3-D modelling and
animation system is now available for just £70 inc VAT (or £60 through
Archive.) Registered Euclid users can upgrade through Ace Computing for
£25. Euclid “attachments” available include Mogul (£20) which allows the
production of films of moving objects, Projector (free) − a PD projector
for Mogul films and Splice (£30) − a full function version of the
Projector program allowing single frame editing, film splicing, sound
tracks etc.
2.10
•  First Fonts (Maths/Scientific) is now available for 9-pin printers and
also for the H.P. LaserJet and DeskJet. There’s no need to specify the
printer because the different drivers are all in the one package, still
at £19 +VAT (£20 through Archive).
2.10
•  Hard Drives now Exportable − Computerware have now found a supply of
hard drives on which there are no re-export restrictions, so we can
supply complete hard drive systems to any part of the world. The costs
for overseas customers of buying podules only, was given in the April
issue, page 2. If you want to buy a complete drive system, take the
prices on the current price list, divide by 1.15 to subtract VAT. Then
European customers should add £20 for carriage and those further afield
should write or ring for a quotation for the cost of carriage.
2.10
•  MewSoft programs are now fully RISC-OS compatible − Faxfile Manager
for the owner of a personal organiser, Forms Manager combining large
size and standard text with lines boxes and grids, standard and sideways
A4 and Fancy Labeller which gives (8) fancy fonts and (20) fancy frames.
Each program is £27.90 inc p&p.
2.10
•  Micro-Librarian ‘Professional’ (version 3.0) £300 from Micro-Librarian
Systems is a suite of over 30 integrated programs which can easily be
transferred to hard disc. A training/demo disc with sample catalogue and
readership is available for £5.
2.10
•  Modems down in price! − The prices of the two 2400 baud modems that we
sell through Archive have been reduced thanks to two eagle-eyed readers
who found better sources for us. The Miracle WS3000 is down by £40 to
£350 and the Amstrad SM2400 is down by £30 to £235.
2.10
•  Monthly program discs − “What’s on the program discs” is a question I
get asked fairly frequently, so here is a summary of the story so far:
2.10
Volume One
2.10
1−6: Arthur 1.2 desktop accessories, findfile, *commands and structured
directory listing.
2.10
7:  RS423 patch (v1.24), FastRM updates, Mandelbrot screens, Life
update
2.10
8:  Tunes for the Music Editor
2.10
9:  Phone number database
2.10
10: FWP printer drivers (Canons + Kaga), Mode conversion programs,
Mandelbrot program
2.10
11: Desktop accessories, more FWP printer drivers (Citizen & Kaga Taxan
120),  Partial renumber program, Beebug’s PD ‘Arc’ compression prog-ram,
hard-disc boot program, more screen shots
2.10
12: Another FWP printer driver (Star Gemini 10xi), Alerion & GammaPlot
screen shots, Hard Disc backup program, ‘The Gig’ animation demo
2.10
Volume Two
2.10
1:  Freddy’s Folly, Leonardo, & Orion screenshots
2.10
2:  Speeding up the ARM, FWP printer driver generator program, a new
window system?, Fractal landscape screen shots
2.10
3:  FWP IBM fonts
2.10
4:  FWP printer driver (HP-DeskJet), Musical Mandelbrots, Quazar
screen shots
2.10
5:  ArcTerm v3.09, Serial Fix v1.24, Logistix examples, Mandelbrot
Sprites
2.10
6:  FWP & Pipedream titbits, more compression programs, Artisan
example screen shots, fade routines
2.10
7:  Repton utility, screen loading programs, FWP fonts (NEC) and font
designer
2.10
8:  More tunes, Hard disc backup update
2.10
9:  RISC-OS disc copier, RISC-OS window demo, new BASIC error
messages, full list of Repton passwords, BASIC timing program.
2.10
The other question I get is, “Is there a program disc subscription? Or
one for the Shareware/Careware discs for that matter?” The answer is
basically that at £3 each, (unchanged since Archive started nearly two
years ago)  we cannot really discount them. What we can do is to accept
pre-payment for discs. As long as you state clearly what you want, we
can just prepare some pre-printed address labels and will send you a
reminder when we send out your last pre-paid disc.
2.10
•  News for NewsMaster users! − For those people using NewsMaster, the
desktop publishing package that runs under the PC Emulator, MGA
Microsystems are selling some additional Art Galleries. They also have a
graphics editor and a whole load of other goodies. They have a compre
hensive catalogue available on request.
2.10
•  RISC-OS Companion − Software Solutions have launched a set of RISC-OS
utilities disc, which enhance the facilities offered by the desktop. The
utilities adhere to the RISC-OS user interface guidelines and so provide
consistency between applications. The disc includes utilities such as a
terminal emulator, changing filetypes, a note pad, the bin (as on the
Apple Mac), additional star commands, file conversion programs for View,
Wordwise, First Word Plus and !Edit. The disc costs £49.95 + VAT (site
licences are available).
2.10
•  SPARK − David Pilling, who originally wrote the Beebug file compressor
utility called ARC, has now extended and improved it. It now works under
RISC-OS and is very simple to use − just drag the file in question onto
the SPARK icon on desktop iconbar. The disc costs £5.99 and is available
direct from David Pilling.
2.10
•  Z88’s down in price − Cambridge Micros have dropped the price of the
Z88 computer so we can now offer it for just £240 instead of £280. (When
comparing prices, remember that our price includes VAT and carriage.)
2.10
•  Review Software Received... Apart from reviews already written. we
have received review copies of the following software: •Structural
Analysis from VisionSix (needs a qualified engineer to review it),
•EpBAS(*) from Abacus Training − Extended precision from BASIC, •Geoscan
− an educational database and program on world development and •Faxfile,
•Forms Manager, and •Fancy Labeller from MewSoft (see above).
2.10
(*I think I may have already sent an older version of this to someone
but if I have, I can’t remember who! − If I have, there’s an updated
version for you and, if not, someone else can have a go!)
2.10
•  A3000 − Acorn’s new machine will be on sale for the first time at the
1989 BBC Acorn User show. The doors will open at Alexandra Place on 21st
July, visitors will be offered instant 0% finance and a special carry-
away service. To take advantage of this offer, you must first sign up
with any exhibitor displaying the machine. Once this is done, you will
be able to pick up your A3000 from a giant pantechnicon lorry which will
be parked outside. The 0% finance option (underwritten by Acorn) can be
obtained from Mercantile Credit, who will be at the show. (Norwich
Computer Services will be at the Show, stand 93A, but we will not be
involved in 0% finance selling. Ed.)
2.10
•  A3000 products − PRES are launching several new products to compliment
the A3000, some of which will appear at the 1989 BBC Acorn User Show.
One of the products is a plinth (costing around £20Ê−Ê£30), which has
been produced because the design of the new machine does not allow a
monitor to rest on top of it. If desk space is tight, the machine can be
stored under the plinth and slides out only when needed. You can also
buy a plinth which can contain a Winchester hard drive and one or two
floppy disc drives (either two 3.5 inch drives or one 3.5 inch drive and
one 5.25 inch drive). PRES have also turned their attentions to A3000
expansion cards − they have designed a case for the external expansion
port so that Archimedes cards can be used without any alterations. In
addition, the company is in the process of producing an extra board
which will allow up to four extension cards (mini podules) to be fitted.
2.10
•  Adventure games − Topologika will be launching compilations of
adventure games for the Archimedes. The games were originally written on
the BBC for Acornsoft and are being expanded and re-released in ‘native’
Archimedes code. Two compilations will be available at the BBC Acorn
User Show. The first contains “Countdown to Doom”, “Return to Doom” and
“Philosopher’s Quest” at £19.95; and the second contains “Kingdom of
Hamil” and “Acheton” also at £19.95. Topologika will also be launching a
brand new title at the show. It is based on the plays of William
Shakespeare and it is claimed that you don’t have to be an expert to
play it. The game is called “AVON” and will sell at £19.95.
2.10
•  ARM-Tracker − 8-channel sound sequencer from The Serial Port for
producing music suitable for insertion into games and demos, or just for
your own listening. Mouse-driven front end includes VU meters, spectrum
analyser, pattern display and timecounter.
2.10
•  Dabs Press are bringing out 3 new productsÉ
2.10
•  ABC65 is an Archimedes-to-6502 cross com-piler, running on the
Archimedes. It will convert programs written in BBC BASIC V into stand
alone 6502 machine code that can be run on any BBC Microcomputer. It
will sell at £69.95 inc VAT and includes 2 discs and a 150-page user
guide.
2.10
•  ABC Dynamic Extensions, priced at £49.95 inc VAT, provides utilities
which extends Dabs Press’ Archimedes BASIC Compiler. It comes with a
user guide and includes three programs: Library Maker, Cross Referencer
and Profiler.
2.10
•  Instigator provides extension to the Archimedes operating system. It
is a module which contains over 80 star commands which extend and
simplify existing features of both Arthur 1.2 and RISC-OS. The main
features are: single command windows, command archiving, a file finder,
colour palette utilities, a file compressor, a comprehensive line
editor, an internal clipboard, memory manipulation facilities and a
screen dumper. It is supplied with a 120 page user guide and will cost
£49.95 inc VAT.
2.10
•  Disc copier (as yet un-named) from The Serial Port − “The most
powerful bit copier available for the Archimedes”. It is claimed to be
able to copy almost any Archimedes/PC/ST discs.
2.10
•  DTP from AVP − The new multi-tasking RISC-OS version of Pixel Perfect
from AVP will be on demonstration at the Acorn User Show. It is “the
only DTP package for the Archimedes written specifically with the school
user in mind.”
2.10
•  DTP from Beebug − Joining the DTP race are Beebug, whose new package
is to be on demonstration at the Acorn User Show.
2.10
•  External Expansion Boxes − SGB Computer Services will be producing
external expansion boxes with PSU, linked to the Archimedes via a buffer
card. They hope to offer a 10 watt version, supporting either 3 single
or 3 double podules and a 25 watt version, supporting up to 5 single
width podules or 3 double width podules. This will allow the A300 and
A400 series to have 4 to 8 slot and the A3000 2 (1 mini, 1 standard
size) to 6 slots. They are planned for release in early August.
2.10
•  Graphics Tablet from Watford Electronics − launch price £259 including
tablet, leads and soft-ware which allows mouse-based applications to be
run from the tablet. The pointer is moved over the 12“ x 12” tablet via
a four button puck with trans-parent lens with cross hairs. Three
buttons emulate the normal mouse buttons and the fourth is used for
special effects.
2.10
•  Holed Out − More courses are being made available for Holed Out −
harder than the existing courses. Impact are going to be releasing two
packages, each with two courses, but each will be a complete Holed Out
package in itself and they will only cost £16.95 (£16 through Archive)
instead of £18.95 which is what the original Holed Out costs.
2.10
•  Mach Technology Update − Further to the comments in last month’s
magazine, the latest word from Mach Technology (22nd June) is that
nothing is actually ready for shipping yet, but many of the products are
“nearly ready to go out”.
2.10
•  Pipedream3 from Colton Software(£169.05) is due to be launched at the
Acorn User Show. This is a fully RISC-OS version and includes lots of
extra features: •many documents loaded at once (to one copy of PipeD
ream), each in separate window •slot protection •natural recalculation
with optimised minimal recalculation •external references between
several loaded files for 3-D modelling •iteration •optional splitting/
joining of line on carriage return, delete •inclusion, display and
printing of pictures generated by other applications  •Z88 filing system
provided to load and save files directly to Z88 via serial port. (This
requires the PC LINK II EPROM fitted to the Z88 and a Z88-Archimedes
leadand it also requires serial port upgrade if used with Archimedes
A3000) •Built-in Spelling Checker (93,000 words) •Multi-tasking User
Interface •Files loaded by double-clicking PipeDream icons in directory
viewer or dragging file to PipeDream icon •Drag files to/from other
windows, including Edit, Acorn DTP •Automatic context-sensitive dynamic
help system •extra “thousands” display format, i.e. 1,234,567.89 instead
of 1234567.89 •extra spreadsheet functions: atn2, rand, round, month-
days, dcounta.
2.10
•  Presenter II − an upgraded version of Lingen-uity’s Presenter will be
available at the BBC Acorn User Show. It works under RISC-OS and
includes greater choice of chart options, 3D pie charts and a larger
data area. It will retail at £39.95 + VAT and existing owners of
Presenter can obtain an upgrade for £14.95.
2.10
•  Presenter Story has been designed to cater for most professional
presentation requirements. It was developed by X-AMPLE Technology in
Holland and will be distributed by Lingenuity at the BBC Acorn User
Show. It includes features such as a logo editor, business graphics,
charts, histograms, anti-aliased fonts with various styles and a variety
of screen scrolling features. It is claimed that screens can be prepared
quickly and altered easily to allow for last minute changes. It supports
a screen resolution of 640 x 256 pixels in 16 colours (i.e. mode 12) and
will retail at £199.95 + VAT.
2.10
•  RISC-OS P.R.M. − Rumour has it that the new RISC-OS PRM will be
available late in the 3rd quarter. It is expected to consist of four
volumes, totalling 1400 pages.
2.10
•  Scanner − a hand-held scanner for £149 from Watford Electronics − up
to 400 d.p.i., 4“ wide. RISC-OS software allows cropping and scaling to
any size including stretching in X and Y directions separately, colour
tinting, X and Y flip, edge detection which turns solid objects into
outlines, selective directional copying allowing features like lines or
text to be made thicker or thinner.
2.10
•  Scanner − a hand-held scanner for “under £200 inc VAT” from Beebug is
to be on demonstration at the Acorn User Show.
2.10
•  SCSI Interface and Real Time Digitiser − Lindis International (alias
Lingenuity) are planning to produce a hard disc drive interface (approx.
price £199.95 + VAT) and a real time digitiser which allows for frame
grabbing (approx. £699.95)
2.10

•  Armadeus sound sampling software from Clares Micros, as described in
Archive 2.9, page 17, is now available − £79.95 or £70 through Archive.
2.11
•  Careware Discs N¼s 2 and 3 are now available at £6 each − N¼2
includes: Asteroids, Maxgammon (a commercially available backgammon game
now donated to the public domain), Fractal curves, Desktop Calendar, ARM
disassembler, Disc editor (ADFS & MS-DOS), Icon for BASIC editor, BASIC
program compressor. N¼3 includes: Breakout, Fruit machine, 3D O&X’s,
Forth language, Hard Disc backup, Graphical file dump, ‘Examine ’ for
MS-DOS, and (another) Icon for BASIC editor.
2.11
•  Shareware Discs N¼s 12 and 13 are also now available at the usual £3
each. We abandoned the idea of doing a specific RISC-OS update disc and
decided instead to slot them in amongst the other excellent programs.
(N.B. These two discs are RISC-OS only.) Those programs with a (u) are
upgrades of previous programs. So N¼ 12 contains: Descent to Xeer,
Rubik’s cube, *settype and *stamp files from the desktop, BASIC
compressor (u), Sinclair QL disc reader, Calculating your central
heating requirements, Making cassette inlays (u), Test your floppy drive
speed, Address book (u). N¼s 13 contains: Utilities: (another) Hard disc
backup, Rubik’s clock, Interrupt module (u), Dustbin, Outline processor,
Mandelbrots (u), Video database (u), Calendar, Golf (u). (Other programs
for later Careware/Shareware discs include: Fourier transform movie,
Labyrinth, Fortune Cookies, Astronomy (u). Check the price list to see
if we’ve got Shareware N¼14 done yet!)
2.11
•  Colour Dump for LC10 − Musbury Consultants have added to their range
of colour dumps by providing one for the Star LC10. The cost is £30 (or
£25 through Archive) and it provides three sizes of dump: 7.6“ x 6”,
9.45“ x 7.6” and 19“ x 15.2”.
2.11
•  Graphics Library from Micro Studio comes in two formats, one for First
Word Plus and one for use with Acorn’s new DTP package. Either set costs
£17.25 inc VAT and p&p. Also available is a colour graphics library at
£19.95 for use with any RISC-OS application.
2.11
•  SCSI Hard discs − Two suppliers (at least) are providing SCSI
interface cards for the A310 and the A3000: Oak Computers and Lingenuity
(Lindis International). Prices of the Lingenuity drives are as follows
(all excluding VAT):  A3000 card only: £149; A310 card only: £199;
A3000, 20 Mbyte (external) + card: £475; A310, 45 Mbyte (internal) +
card: £499. (They will quote for other sizes. Please ring them for
details.)
2.11
Oak Computers quote a wider range: For the A310 you can buy a controller
card with an internal drive: 20Mb: £375, 45Mb: £495 or 70Mb: £895. You
can also add one of their external drives: 20 Mb: £435, 45 Mb: £555, 70
Mb: £955, 100 Mb: £1350, 200 Mb: £1750, 330 Mb: £2300.  For the A3000,
you can buy a card on its own for £199 or alternatively, you can buy a
controller together with an external drive, the prices being £100 more
than the straight external drives you would use with the A310, e.g. 20
Mb: £535, 45 Mb: £655, 70 Mb: £1055 etc. If you would prefer to have a
controller card and an external drive for the A310, or for a 400 series
machine, for that matter, the prices are exactly as for the A3000: £535,
£655, £1055 etc.
2.11
If you want any of these drives, either from Oak or Lingenuity, we can
supply them to Archive members at a discount. If you are interested,
give us a ring and we’ll work out some details.
2.11
Any of the SCSI drives quoted for the 310 could be used in the 410,
though you would still need the SCSI podule since he existing disc
controller is for ST506 standard hard drives. Similarly, they can be
added to 420/440 machines but you must obviously use the external
drives. The advantage of using SCSI drives is that you can have up to
four different hard drives on the one system each up to 512 Mbyte
capacity! (“Oh, I use an A410 with 2 Gigabytes of hard disc storage.”
How’s that for one-up-man-ship!) The other advantage of SCSI is that you
can daisy-chain other devices on it such as tape-streamers and video
discs (once the software is written to control them). Also, Oak
computers claim that SCSI drives are faster than ST506, but until we
have done our disc tests, we cannot substantiate that claim.
2.11
•  Termulator from Intelligent Interfaces is a terminal emulator
providing VT52, VT102, VT202 and Tektronics Graphics terminals for £59 +
VAT.
2.11
•  “ARM Assembly Language Programming” by Pete Cockerell. Yes, I know
this was the very first ARM book available and that it was on the market
even before the Archimedes itself and, yes, I know it is now out of
print. However, Bookmark Publishing Ltd have taken it on from M.T.C.
(alias Computer Concepts) and are revising it and up-dating it by
putting in more details about ARM 3 and RISC-OS.  Price £13.95, due for
release in September. (Yes, I know that it should be in the Forthcoming
Products section, but this is the only entry this month, so I cheated.)
2.11

•  A420/1 and A440/1 down in price − No, Acorn have not dropped their
prices, but because of the dramatic fall in prices of the ram for A400/1
series, we are able to buy 410/1’s and make up 420 and 440 equivalents.
So, if you buy an A410 from us at £1380 (and get £100 free software with
it!) you can have extra ram fitted in it at £150 per Mbyte and a hard
disc for £215, £400 or £500 for 20M, 40M or 47M respectively. (The 47M
is the same one that Acorn put in their A440/1 and call a 50M drive − it
actually formats at about 47.6 Mbyte.)/np212/n
So a 420/1 equivalent would cost you £1745, and a 440/1 equivalent
£2330, compared with Acorn’s own prices of £1954 and £2874, and we can
make up any combination of drive and/or ram, remem-bering that RISC-OS
only recognises 1, 2 or 4 Mbytes of ram. Please ring to check the price
before ordering because the price of the ram will, I suspect, fall even
further.
2.12
(If you want to buy a PC emulator at the same time as your up-graded
410, add £60, if you want an Acorn monitor, add £230 or if you want an
Eizo 9060S multi-sync monitor, add £525.)
2.12
•  Acorn DTP Advanced User Guide − Emerald Publishing have released an
advanced user guide with a disc of examples providing useful formats you
can adapt for your own needs. Book on its own: £14.95, with disc £18.90.
(£17 through Archive)
2.12
•  Animations discs − Clares Micros have released discs of the winning
entries in our Render Bender Competition! For £10, they will supply you
with four discs, each containing one animation, three from Brian Trott
and one from A.Weir. Each disc also contains the RB script so that you
can see how the effects have been achieved. We have only seen one of
them: Brian Trott’s Soldiers and that is superb. Dave Clare could not
sort out between the two entries but awarded one Armadeus package to
each of them.
2.12
•  C Front End − Mitre Software Ltd have produced “C-Front”, £19.95 (or
£18 through Archive) which allows the user to choose the options and
then to compile by simply dragging it to the application.
2.12
•  Econet applications produced jointly by Software Solutions and XOB −
Disc Sharer allows users of BBC Micros and Archimedes to access
transparently the hard disc of another Archimedes across Econet. Printer
Spooler accepts files from up to 24 stations and queues them to the
printer. Remote Logon allows users to access their Archimedes floppy or
hard drive from another machine on Econet whilst retaining full
ownership of all files and directories.
2.12
•  First Word Plus book − Norfolk TVEI Unit have published a First Word
Plus Study Guide with acc-ompanying disc. Packs of 10 guides: £19.50,
top-up packs of 5 guides: £9.25, Discs: £10, Single copy with disc: £10.
This is meant to be a self-study guide with examples available on disc
for you to work on. (ISBN−1−85526−005−0) (There is no dealer discount,
so Archive will not be stocking this book.)
2.12
•  Keyword − Dynamic Word Finder from Swift Software − 10,000 synonyms
and antonyms with nearly 1,000 main subject headings. Fully RISC-OS
multi-tasking software for finding that word you need but can’t quite
think of.
2.12
•  Prototyping Cards − Following the success of the articles by Alex van
Someren in the August and September issues of Acorn User (pages 88 and
61 respectively) we are now stocking Atomwide’s Archimedes Prototyping
Expansion Card (APEC). It includes a fully buffered expansion interface
with provision for a variety of sizes of EPROM or RAM devices for
support software and optional interrupt circuitry and over half the area
of the board is covered with plated through square pads for adding your
own circuitry. It comes in three formsÉ a bare card with a 2764 ROM for
£27 (fully inclusive Archive price), a fully built and tested board with
a 2764 ROM (£38) and a fully built and tested board with a 6264 RAM and
a disc of utility software (£40) . Several demonstration circuits are
also provided with the board.
2.12
•  Shareware 14 contains Arctist Plus, a 256 colour art package which was
donated to the public dom-ain by Nigel Stuart. It works under RISC-OS
and Arthur 1.2.
2.12
Check the price list for the latest additions to the Shareware range.
These will include some or all of the following: a fourier transforms
movie, fortune cookies, astronomy programs, a map of the world, more
maestro tunes, hypertext and several utilities & graphics demos.
2.12
•  Low Price RISC-OS in stock!! − At the time of writing, we still have a
few low price RISC-OS’s (£36 in UK) but when they are gone, the price
will have to go up to £70.
2.12
Review Software Received...
2.12
Apart from reviews already written, we have received review copies of
the following software: Acorn DTP Advanced Guide and Disc, First Word
Plus Study Guide and Disc.
2.12
•  Clares’ DTP package, “Tempest”, was originally scheduled for Septem
ber, but Clares are now saying that the specification has been modified
and so they cannot give a date for availability.
2.12
•  Clares’ Primary WP package is a first word processor for primary
schools developed in con-junction with Derbyshire LEA. The cost is
£39.95 inclusive and it was originally scheduled for release in
September, but Clares say that the specification has been modified and
so they cannot give a date for availability.
2.12
•  External Hard & Floppy Drives & Adaptors for A3000 − Akhter Computers
Ltd is offering a range of hard and floppy drives for attaching to your
A3000 − 20 or 50 Mbyte with optional 5.25“ floppy fitted into a metal
monitor stand. Also available are 5.25” and 3.5“ external drives and a
5.25” / 3.5“ adaptor. These will be available in a couple of weeks time.
2.12
•  Interdictor − flight simulator from Clares £34.95 (£30 through
Archive) should be available in a couple of weeks time.
2.12
•  Knowledge Organiser is a free-form text database from Clares £59.95
(£50 through Arch-ive) which is a “much enhanced” version of ArcTFS (see
Archive 1.12 p 48). It should be available in a couple of weeks time.
2.12
•  Mach Technology say that their 286 board is at least two weeks away,
the BASIC compiler (which now has a higher spec) is a few weeks away,
their hard discs are being shipped now (they are sending us one next
week − I will put details on the price list if it arrives in time) and
Hyperbase is about one week away from being ready to ship out. (This
information was obtained by a telephone call on 30th August 1989. It
required the use of a modem automatically re-dialling the number every
30 seconds for approximately 3 hours, so if you don’t get through first
time, don’t give up − you will get through in due course!)
2.12
•  Memory upgrades for A310? − No, sorry, none are actually available
yet. The companies we know of who are actively working on them are, in
alphabetic order, CJE Micros, Computerware, Mach Technology and Watford
Electronics. CJE are hoping to have theirs available by the end of
September. It will be a soldered-in job, fitted by CJE themselves,
prices being £385 and £650 for 2 and 4 Mbyte, inclusive of fitting and
return to the customer (inc VAT). Mach Technology say their ram boards
are going to be available next week some time, the prices being £340 and
£520 (+ VAT) though there is a plan to drop the prices to £299 and £399
to reflect the falling price of ram. Neither Computerware nor Watford
Electronics could give a definite availability, but both are working
hard to get them out as soon as possible.
2.12
•  RISC-OS Programmers Reference Manuals − The latest indication I can
get from Acorn is that it will be several volumes, available “in
September” and will cost “£79 + VAT”. (I thought there was no VAT on
books!)
2.12