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|-------------------------- Acorn News Service --------------------------|
| http://www.acornusers.org/ans/ |
| ISSUE 57 14 May 2000 |
| |
| An independent fortnightly newsletter for the Acorn world. |
| Send your news items or comments to ans@acornusers.org. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Featured site this issue: http://ragingsearch.altavista.com/ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Contents
--------
1) General News
2) Commercial News
3) PD/Shareware News
4) ANS information
General News
------------
1) Wakefield 2000 - The Acorn RISC OS Show
Wakefield 2000 opens at 09:45 on Saturday 20th May, at Thornes Park
Athletics Stadium, Wakefield.
In addition to the 55 stands in the main hall there will be a large show
theatre running throughout each day, featuring:
* Castle Technology New Acorn Developments
* Cerilica Cerilica into 2000
* Millipede Graphics Imago and the Future
* Mike Cook ARM chips in set-top boxes
* RISCOS Ltd. What is next from RISCOS
* RiscStation RiscStation Presents
Visit the show's web site for more information:
<http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/wakefield/>
2) ROX-Filer
ROX-Filer, the core component of the ROX desktop, has been significantly
updated. For details see <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~tal197/rox.php3>.
The ROX desktop aims to provide a free (GPL), RISC OS style GUI on
Unix machines. Currently the filer is mostly finished and the desktop
already supports drag-and-drop loading and saving, application directories
and an iconbar.
As ROX is not directly relevant to the ANS newsletter anyone interested in
keeping up to date with ROX news should subscribe to the ROX mailing list
(send an email to: <rox-request@ecs.soton.ac.uk> with the single line
'subscribe' as the body).
3) RISC OS Ghostscript e-mail discussion list
An e-mail discussion list has been setup on for matters relating to
Ghostscript on RISC OS.
The list will also be used for announcements of updates and new versions
if and when they happen.
To subscribe send any message to ghostscript-subscribe@acornusers.org.
4) Sponsored bike ride
Paul Beverley, editor of Archive magazine, is doing a sponsored bike ride
for Sustrans (who set up the National Cycle Network and the "Safe Routes
to Schools" scheme).
For more information, and a sponsorship form, please see:
<http://come.to/harwich-hull>.
5) Compo Clues updated
The 'Compo Clues' web site, which provides useful information for users
of Composition, has been updated to coincide with the release of
Compo 1.18j which has a number of useful new features.
The main page of the 'Compo Clues' site is at:
<http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Compo/clues.html>
Users of Composition can obtain upgrades from:
<http://jove.prohosting.com/~compo/>
6) News from RISCOS Ltd.
At the AGM on Friday, 5 May 2000, RISCOS Limited shareholders agreed that
the Board should be reduced in size "for increased efficiency, and to be
commensurate with the size of the Company". The new Board is:
* Gareth Dykes - Chairman
* Nick Way - Company Secretary
* Aaron Timbrell - Product Development
* Paul Middleton - Managing Director
* Richard Nicoll - Pace Director
Gareth Dykes said, "My thanks go to Laurie van Someren, Bernard Bollons
and Christopher Evans for their vision in contributing to the formation of
the Company and for Laurie's hard work as Chairman and Company Secretary,
and for Bernard's and Chris's valuable contributions to the Board."
As part of the 'slimming down' of the board Justin Fletcher and Matthew
Bullock, who were alternate directors representing the employees, step
down from the Board. Andrew Rawnsley, who had earlier left the Company to
concentrate on his computer businesses, did not restand for the Board.
RISCOS Ltd. has also recently released a statement on what it described
as "some misleading information posted to the Acorn Cybervillage":
"The RON project has not been cancelled by the new board. The project
will be reviewed in the same way as all other projects undertaken by
RISCOS Ltd. There are a couple of technical problems that need solving
to do with the filing system, but the project has not been cancelled.
"However the future of the project may well be damaged by this sort of
rumour. The situation with RISCOS Ltd is quite simple. If customers buy
RISC OS 4 then projects such as RON can continue. If customers do not
buy RISC OS 4 then it will not be possible to fund future products.
So if you want to see the continual development of RISC OS, RON and
other projects buy a copy of RISC OS 4."
Commercial News
---------------
1) Artex Software update
Artex will be at the Wakefield Show 2000, on Stand 37 with demos of the
games TEK and Iron Dignity.
The Artex web site is now at <http://www.artexsoft.com/>, and has been
updated with the latest news on TEK development.
2) Special offer on Pace Professional ISDN Terminal Adapters
On May 3rd Surftec Ltd announced a special offer on the remaining stock of
Pace Professional ISDN Terminal Adapters, offered for just GBP55 excluding
VAT.
Stock is limited, and remember the original announcement was nearly two
weeks ago.
Contact Surftec for further details or to order on +44 (0)1428 608121.
<http://www.surftec.net/>
3) Castle announce new browser, new Risc PC for Wakefield
Castle has announced further details of new releases for the Wakefield
Acorn show, 20th and 21st May 2000.
Oregano <http://www.castle.org.uk/oregano/>, will be released and
available to buy at the show. Boasting a long list of features, including
TLS/SSL, Javascript, and support for future plug-ins, Oregano is claimed
to set new standards for speed and ease of use.
Oregano will have a full time support team working on it, and is to be
installed on all new Castle machines.
Castle also announced it will be launching a new StrongARM based computer
at Wakefield. The exact details of the hardware have not been released but
are expected to include a major speed enhancement and added features to
the Risc PC range of computers.
The hardware and supporting RISC OS development has now been fully
completed and the new technology will be available to buy at the May show.
Jack Lillingston, managing director at Castle, said: "We are delighted
to bring this news to the RISC OS world. This product marks the start of
a new progressive development plan. You can expect to see further major
new hardware over the forthcoming years."
For those unable to attend the Acorn RISC OS Show in Wakefield, full
details will be available on Castle's web site <http://www.castle.org.uk/>
from mid afternoon on the first day of the show (20th May 2000).
4) ViewFinder graphics expansion card for Risc PC
ViewFinder is an Acorn conformant DEBI expansion card for the Risc PC that
offers higher desktop resolutions than ever before, as well as hardware
acceleration of a large number of common graphics operations resulting in
a very smooth desktop feel, even at the highest resolutions.
In effect, ViewFinder is an advanced Risc PC interface to AGP graphics
cards. In the future, if this card becomes a success, support for AGP
graphics cards other than the one initially supplied with the ViewFinder
may be added, perhaps offering even higher resolutions or 3D
functionality.
ViewFinder has been tested successfully on RISC OS versions 4.02, 3.70
and 3.60, using both StrongARM and ARM710 processors.
ViewFinder will be available soon, the first batch is already being
produced. Pricing is expected to be in the region of NLG800 inc. VAT
(EUR363, DEM710, and at the current exchange rate around GBP220).
ViewFinder is a product of Windfall Engineering (John Kortink). For more
information see <http://web.inter.NL.net/users/J.Kortink/viewfinder.htm>.
Link from Acorn Cybervillage <http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/hotnet/>.
5) DrawWorks New Millennium
iSV Products will release the latest version of its DrawWorks graphic
design software at the Wakefield show.
DrawWorks New Millennium (DWNM) runs alongside the normal RISC OS Draw
package to produce an advanced vector and bitmap design environment,
whilst maintaining full Acorn Drawfile compatibility.
DWNM includes all the features of previous versions of DrawWorks along
with many new features and improvements requested by customers.
More details are available from <http://www.isvproducts.co.uk/>.
6) Hard Disc Companion
Beebug have released a new RISC OS 4 compatible version of the
Hard Disc Companion. GBP25, contact sales@beebug.co.uk.
<http://www.beebug.co.uk/software/companion.html>
PD/Shareware News
-----------------
You can access all of the software featured in ANS, and over 350 other
items, at the ANS Filebase <http://filebase.acornusers.org/>.
1) New Global Clipboard Manager
ClipMan, a new product from Mad Cow Software, allows detailed management
of the RISC OS Global Clipboard.
Unlike the usual single Cut/Copy/Paste action, Clipman will allow the
temporary or permanent storage and renaming of multiple items Cut/Copied
to the Clipboard.
Objects can, at any time, be selected from the Clipman main window and
pasted into suitable apps and locations, as and when required. Using
either the ^X/^C/^V convention, or drag and drop. They can also be edited
or viewed whilst on the clipboard using OLE.
All apps and filetypes are provided for including Ovation Pro, The
Impression family, Fresco, Easiwriter, Pluto and Messenger.
If you use your computer for word processing, DTP or the Internet then
this is likely to be an invaluable addition to your software collection.
Free to download from <http://madsoft.cjb.net/>.
2) New software
* LCLint 2.4b (RISC OS port v1.00)
Port of a command line tool for checking C source code before
compilation. It can be used to detect problems such as memory management
errors, the use of undefined storage, null pointer dereferencing, etc.
<http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/leenoar/lclint/>
* Overcast, freeware game
A large graphical adventure with an overhead view. Compatible with and
suitable for RISC OS 4 machines equipped with a StrongARM although it
should work on most Risc PCs.
<http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/awestern/over2.html>
3) Updated software summary
* Aladdin Ghostscript v6.01
Ghostscript allows conversion of Postscript and PDF documents to a
variety of formats, including PDF and many printer and image types.
Now includes may improvements to PDF writing, as well as much more.
<http://www.acornusers.org/ghostscript/>
* DigitalCD: new AudioMPEG/DiskSample versions
New versions of two audio MPEG related modules are available: the
DiskSample module which does the file data fetching and audio playing
while the AudioMPEG module does the actual MPEG decoding. Also TimPlayer
had been updated.
<http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/4471/>
* Jcut v2.03
Cut & paste for JPEGs without the image degradation that results if you
decompress the original and then re-compress the processed bit-image
file. Minor update to cope with Eig0 modes and other obscure displays.
<http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/#jt>
* MagPi-Mo' v1.14
A combination Magnifier, Pointer-Info and Mouse-Setter. Minor update
to cope with Eig0 modes and other obscure displays.
<http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/#mpm>
* NetLM v0.34b
Easy to use front-end for either the LanManFS or LanMan98 modules to
allow RISC OS users to logon to LanManager shares and access their
personal work area. This version fixes a bug, so user names can now
contain dots.
<http://www.teletec.f9.co.uk/networking/riscos/programs.htm>
* Nuke v0.91a
A convenient front end for Sergio Monesi's powerful utility 'nuke',
which enables you to overwrite the sectors occupied by files or free
space on disc, making it impossible to recover the data. Identical to
v0.91 except for a minor modification to ensure compatibility with the
latest versions of RISC OS. If you have experienced problems with
Nuke 0.91 when using RISC OS 4.03, you are advised to upgrade.
<http://web.bham.ac.uk/N.M.Queen/pgp/acorn.html>
* TAB
TAB is a program to typeset lute tablature, which works like TeX.
There is a new version of the program, at a new web site:
<http://web.tiscalinet.it/leddit/Tab/>
* Tidy 30-Apr-2000
Port of the latest version of Tidy, a program which tidies HTML pages.
<http://www.toth.org.uk/~aardvark/programs/tidy.shtml>
Club News
---------
1) Upcoming meetings
* Wakefield Acorn RISC OS Show 2000, 20th and 21st May
<http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/wakefield/>
* RISCOS.be (Belgium), 26th May
<http://gallery.uunet.be/John.Tytgat/riscosbe/>
* BARUG (Bristol), 31st May - Interfacing for the common man
<http://www.snave.demon.co.uk/BARUG/>
* ICENI (Suffolk), 7th June
<http://www.archipel.demon.co.uk/ICENI/>
* WACG (Wakefield), 7th June - RiscStation and "Evolution"
<http://www.cumbrian.demon.co.uk/wacg/>
* WHCC (Welwyn/Hatfield), 9th June
<http://website.lineone.net/~bunsen/whcc/>
* DARC (Derbyshire), 12th June - Paul Vigay
<http://homepages.enterprise.net/julianp/darc/>
* SASAUG (Surrey/Sussex), 12th June - David Coronel of The Data Store
<http://www.poppyfields.net/sasaug/>
* Check the club web site to confirm times, location and topic. Please
e-mail ans@acornusers.org with details of your club's meetings, at least
two weeks in advance, preferably more.
ANS Information
---------------
1) Contact ANS
Editor - James Sears - james@ans.acornusers.org
Webmaster - Stephen Courtney - stephen@ans.acornusers.org
Translator - Michael Gerbracht - michael@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
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>.
Also if you have an Acorn related announcements mailing list, feel free
to subscribe ans@acornusers.org.
3) How to subscribe to ANS
If you are reading this on the ANS web site, or have received a forwarded
copy of ANS and would like to subscribe to the mailing list, simply send
any e-mail to ans-subscribe@ans.acornusers.org. Alternatively use the form
on the ANS web site at <http://www.acornusers.org/ans/subscribe.html>.
For details of other commands e-mail ans-help@ans.acornusers.org.
------------ Acorn News Service, http://www.acornusers.org/ans/ ------------