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|-------------------------- Acorn News Service --------------------------|
| http://www.acornusers.org/ans/ |
| ISSUE 45 21 November 1999 |
| |
| An independent fortnightly newsletter for the Acorn world. |
| Send your news items or comments to ans@acornusers.org. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Featured site this issue: http://www.drobe.co.uk/ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Contents
--------
1) General News
2) Commercial News
3) PD/Shareware News
4) Club News
5) ANS information
General News
------------
1) Wakefield 2000 - The Acorn RISC OS Show
The 5th Wakefield Show will take place over the weekend of the 20/21st May
2000, at the Thornes Park Athletics Stadium, Horbury Road, Wakefield.
Advance tickets will be available from mid January. For more details check
the show website at <http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/wakefield/>.
2) Guttorm Vik's web pages moved
As Guttorm Vik, author of many excellent freeware and shareware (StrongED,
StrongHelp and others) has left the Acorn scene, he could not update his
programs/utilities.
The new home of StrongED and StrongHelp is now:
<http://freenet.barnet.ac.uk/manuals/g.vik/strong.html>.
The old page at <http://home.eunet.no/~guttorvi/strong.html> is still
online but will not be updated.
Commercial News
---------------
1) Octopus Teletext & Caller Display
The Octopus Systems web site has been unavailable recently due to a
problem with the service provider, which had prompted a lot of customers
to contact us, fearing Octopus Systems had closed down.
The web site is now back up with full details of products:
http://www.octosys.co.uk/ Home page
http://www.octosys.co.uk/cid.html Caller Display
http://www.octosys.co.uk/ttx.html Teletext+
http://www.octosys.co.uk/psion.html Psion Series 5mx
http://www.octosys.co.uk/soft.html Bespoke software development
http://www.octosys.co.uk/price.html Price list
http://www.octosys.co.uk/srch.html QuickaVista Internet search page
The QuickaVista search page provides fast access to some of the best
Internet search systems, finding everything from web pages and news items
to UK telephone numbers.
2) Castle first to sign RISC OS 4 licence
Castle Technology Ltd are the first company to licence RISC OS 4 for
inclusion in the production of desktop computers.
Castle will be offering the recently released RISC OS 4 operating system
as a pre-installed option on their Risc PC and A7000+ Odyssey computers.
The Managing Director of RISCOS Ltd, Paul Middleton, said, "It is
appropriate that Castle are the first licensees for RISC OS 4. Following
the closure of the Acorn workstation division last October, Castle was the
first company to make a commitment to producing RISC OS computers."
Jack Lillingston, Managing Director of Castle commented that "RISC OS 4
has passed our quality tests with flying colours. We are delighted to
offer our customers the increased performance and enhancements that
continue to make Acorn computers the best in the market place."
For more details see <http://www.castle.org.uk/castle/091199.htm>.
3) Cerilica launches new multimedia keyboard
The Cerilica Multimedia Keyboard (MMK) is capable running on pre-RISC OS 4
hardware and provides many extra buttons and functions thanks to
Cerilica's unique software control.
The stylish keyboard is coloured to match Acorn RiscPC cases and monitors,
plugs directly into the existing keyboard port and is supplied with a
detachable wrist rest.
Cerilica's exclusive MMK Hotkey software allows direct control over the
four Web, List, Link and Find keys to launch any application or file even
allowing a selection of operations per key. Defining what each key should
do is simplicity itself to set up and once done, the settings will remain
for your next session.
Due to the new 'CD' control buttons as well as the intuitive volume
control knob, once installed, the software will automatically control many
of the popular DigitalCD functions allowing easy play, pause, fast forward
etc operations at the press of a button. DigitalCD is supplied with the
keyboard and is a great PD application giving endless CD and file-based
music functions.
For details see <http://www.cerilica.com/>. Also now that Cerilica Vantage
is nearing completion the web site will contain the latest news on the
powerful new graphics product.
4) New version of "The Illustrated Holy Bible"
This application was originally written back in 1992 and distributed by
Cumana. Due to popular demand Paul Vigay has updated the application to
prevent an error being given if you have too many fonts installed on your
system.
There are also some new new features and it is RISC OS 4 compatible.
People with a copy of the original CD can download the upgrade from
<http://www.vigay.com/riscos/tp/bible.html>.
Copies of the CD are still be available from Cumana
<http://www.cumana.demon.co.uk/>.
PD/Shareware News
-----------------
1) New software
* Compare v0.20 beta
This new Wimp application compares files and displays any differences
in a useful way. It can compare the files by byte, word, line, block,
BASIC, and code, ideal for different types of file data.
<http://www.avisoft.force9.co.uk/Compare.htm>
* IEurl
IEurl allows easy use of Microsoft Internet Explorer favourites files
with ANT Fresco on RISC OS.
<http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/qs/ieurl.stm>
Also see <http://www.operasoftware.com/> for an alternative to MSIE!
* MirrorsII
New freeware game, you, the little green square, have to move about and
place mirrors in appropriate place in order to hit the opponent.
<http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/rpcmorgan/mirror.html>
* TimeSheet
TimeSheet allows you to keeps track of the time spent on a project, or
any job or task. The time spent on up to 10 individual tasks within the
project can be recorded.
<http://www.quercuscomputers.co.uk/download.htm>
* WB_Compr
WB_Compr is an application to assist with the development of programs.
It compares the code exported from WimpBasic programs; reporting
procedures and functions which are the same, different, or missing,
from one or other of the two programs. Details of the differences can
also be reported. Useful to answer the usual question: "What on earth
did I change to cause that bug?"
<http://www.quercuscomputers.co.uk/download.htm>
2) Updated software summary
* AntUtils v1.28
Various add-ons for the ANT suite. Now includes a number of new features
such as display options for the AntUtils icon, including interactive
online time.
<http://www.vigay.com/riscos/comms.html#antutils>
* DigitalCD v2.43
DigitalCD is a desktop music player, which provides independent control
panels for any connected CD drive and music files play lists. The new
version improves TimPlayer and adds support for PTM files, and provides
support for the multimedia keyboard.
<http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/4471/digital.htm>
* ECS Utils v2.37e
ECS Utils, the desktop utility for RISC OS 3 and higher is still being
developed, but has moved (new URL below). New version adds rudimentary
Pinboard storage facilities.
<http://www.torty.org.uk/sware.html>
* FTPc v1.20
FTPc is a freeware Internet File Transfer Protocol Client. New version
includes Wimp Messages allowing Multitasking ftp functions from your own
programs, BASIC library (FTPcBasLib) enables you to write multitasking
scripts relatively easily in BASIC, proxy and other improvements.
<http://www.c-granville.freeserve.co.uk/>
* GNU GCC v2.95.2 (pre-release 3)
GCC is a free collection of compilers that provide a powerful tool for
translating C, C++ and Fortran source into fast ARM assembler that is
suitable for execution on RISC OS. This release fixes many of the bugs
and issues raised over the last two months. The compiler toolset should
be considered stable. Future development will be directed towards
providing additional features.
<http://hard-mofo.dsvr.net/gcc/>
* Samba v0.04
Samba is a port of Samba which allows MS Windows and Unix machines to
share RISC OS discs using the Microsoft File Sharing Protocol (now
known as CIFS). This version of smbserver has been tested running on
RISC OS 4.02, is easier to configure, uses Mimemap, and features other
enhancements.
<http://www.merddin.demon.co.uk/>
* Stark v0.20
Stark provides a menu environment for a collection of tasks performed
mainly by the use of Obey (*) files. Version 0.20 will display a tick
against the last item you have selected in any menu.
<http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/>
* Vice v1.1.28 beta
Vice, the Versatile Commodore Emulator, comprises emulators for 5 CBM
machines, the C64, C128, VIC20, PET and CBM2. Another full Vice release
is imminent, people who would like to help test the current developer
version 1.1.28 can download it from:
<http://www.forwiss.tu-muenchen.de/~dehmel/Software.html>
Club News
---------
1) November / December meeting dates from AAUG
The following user group meetings are planned for November and December.
Always check the AAUG web site <http://www.aaug.net/> to confirm details.
November 1999
=============
23rd - MAUG - RISC OS 4 - Moving forward
24th - BARUG - Book case study
30th - Blackpool meeting
December 1999
=============
1st - SARC meeting
4th - Somerset - Preliminary meeting
17th - Blackpool meeting
The AAUG website provides details of all the user groups worldwide, and
how you can benefit from becoming a member. For more information, visit
<http://www.aaug.net/>.
2) New Acorn User Group in Somerset
There is a possibility that a club will be set up for Acorn enthusiasts in
Somerset and surrounding counties, who would like to meet regularly on a
monthly basis.
To determine whether there is sufficient interest in setting up a club or
not, a preliminary meeting has been organised, with the aim of discussing
a suitable name for the club, the future of the club in general, and its
content, which could include talks, discussions, demonstrations, or simply
an opportunity to chat with fellow members over a cup of tea or coffee.
The meeting will start at 11am, on Saturday 4th December, at Fleet Air Arm
Museum, RNAS Yeovilton, Nr Ilchester (just off the A303), Somerset. Anyone
interested should e-mail John Stonier <acornshow@argonet.co.uk> or phone
(01935) 413170.
3) RISCOS Ltd at Manchester Acorn User Group, 23rd Nov
The next meeting of the Manchester Acorn User Group will be "RISC OS 4 -
Moving Forward", presented by Andrew Rawnsley, Technical Director, RISCOS
Ltd, at 7:30pm on Tuesday 23rd November.
Andrew Rawnsley will demo the release version of RISC OS 4, but also, more
importantly, talk about the future of RISC OS, and the work that is being
done to develop it for new hardware, and to update Printers.
<http://www.acorn.manchester.ac.uk/>
4) BARUG November Meeting
The next Bristol Acorn RISC User Group meeting is on 24th November 1999.
The meeting features a case study: How to design and produce a hardback
book with lots of B&W and colour illustrations and a book jacket.
Jack Evans and Tony Cropper will be presenting it, together with Andy
Bissex of Micro Laser Designs who did the colour separations. Jim Nagel
who also has experience in the field hopes make a contribution too.
BARUG meet regularly on the last Wednesday of the month at 7.30pm at the
Burden Neurological Institute, Coldharbour Lane, just along the road from
the University of the West of England.
For details see <http://www.snave.demon.co.uk/BARUG/>.
ANS Information
---------------
1) Contact ANS
Editor - James Sears - james@ans.acornusers.org
Webmaster - Stephen Courtney - stephen@ans.acornusers.org
Founder - Eytan Abrahams - eytan@ans.acornusers.org
Life-Webmaster - Richard Hesketh - richard@ans.acornusers.org
ADL Moderator - Paul Johnson - paul@ans.acornusers.org
Translator - Michael Gerbracht - michael@ans.acornusers.org
2) How to send in news
To send in your news items simply e-mail ans@acornusers.org, or use the
form on the ANS website <http://www.acornusers.org/ans/newsdesk.html>.
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4) Fetching web pages via e-mail
If you do not have web access you can fetch any URL referenced in ANS by
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------------ Acorn News Service, http://www.acornusers.org/ans/ ------------