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|-------------------------- Acorn News Service --------------------------|
| http://www.acornusers.org/ans/ |
| ISSUE 58 28 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://www.iconbar.com/news/wakefield2000/ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Contents
--------
1) General News
2) Commercial News
3) PD/Shareware News
4) ANS information
General News
------------
1) The Icon Bar - new RISC OS news and resources website
The Icon Bar <http://www.iconbar.com/> is a brand new resource for all
users of RISC OS computers. Brought to you by the same team as the award
winning Acorn Arcade games site, the new site has been under development
for several months.
The Icon Bar features all the latest news as well as everything from
program tutorials to articles on online shopping. There is also a
discussion board for visitors to post their opinions on all things
RISC OS.
The site already includes details on Castle's new Kinetic upgrade for the
Risc PC, other news from the Wakefield show, and the new Composition site
<http://compo.iconbar.com/>.
2) Wakefield photos
A wide range of images from the Wakefield show on Sunday is now available
on the ROUGOL website at: <http://rougol.jellybaby.net/wakefield/2000/>.
3) CodeCraft#2 looking for sponsors and vote counters
CodeCraft are looking for companies or shareware authors who want to
sponsor the CodeCraft#2 competition, and somebody to act as an independent
vote receiver/counter. <http://topix.student.utwente.nl/codecraft/>
4) ICGroup Quality Compliance
The ICGroup Germany offers a special service for RISC OS software vendors
called Quality Compliance Committee (QCC). The QCC certifies software
meets some user interface criteria.
For more information visit <http://www.icgroup-qcc.de/>. ICGroup hope to
open the English section in a few weeks, at the moment there is a German
section with a database of currently certified products.
ICGroup would like comments from RISC OS users on these certificates.
Commercial News
---------------
1) Cerilica Nucleus announced
Cerilica Nucleus will be the first new RISC OS machine to contain the
Millipede Imago motherboard. The Nucleus prototype was unveiled at last
week's Wakefield 2000 Show, after a year of utmost development secrecy,
to much acclaim.
A single photo of the first Nucleus prototype, taken at Wakefield, is
present on the Nucleus status page <http://www.cerilica.com/nucleus/>.
Official images are set to follow shortly.
Cerilica also continue to add to Cerilica Vantage's impressive list of
features, and have released a RiScript upgrade. <http://www.cerilica.com/>
2) TBA Classics
R-Comp Interactive has released the "TBA Classics" games collection on CD.
The pack contains most of TBA Software's hit games for RISC OS, all on one
CD-ROM.
Not only do you get games like BHP, Formula Two Thousand (FTT), Cobalt
Seed and DragonBall, it also includes the source code to some games
(including BHP, with support for extra tracks), as well as the
TAG/Holograph games development system used to build many of the titles.
The CD is available now from RCI at a price of GBP22 including VAT and
delivery. <http://www.rcomp.co.uk/>
3) WebsterXL with SSL and more
A new version of WebsterXL, v1.95, is now available. It is a major upgrade
which includes support for 128bit TLS/SSL, improved JavaScript handling,
a new interface, better frame and table rendering, plugin support for
Flash, and more.
This update is free for all existing customers. WebsterXL is available
for GBP25. <http://www.rcomp.co.uk/webster/>
4) MicroDigital & RiscStation
On May 5th, MicroDigital Ltd. and RiscStation Ltd. signed a memorandum
of understanding. The two companies have agreed to come to a commercial
understanding whereby they will participate in the development of a new
generation of RISC OS based computers, starting with an ARM7500-based
portable computer.
RiscStation and MicroDigital intend to produce new designs based on common
technologies so that compatibility is maintained across the brands.
It is intended that other hardware manufacturers will be invited to join
this common approach to future developments of hardware for RISC OS.
5) Intelligent Interfaces Fortran software
Intelligent Interfaces <http://www.intint.demon.co.uk/news/index.html>
new news page gives details of a number of new products, including the
Kinetic Risc PC.
The Intelligent Interfaces web site also includes information on their
range of expansion cards for RISC OS based computers, and their Desktop
Fortran compiler. Two of Intelligent Interfaces' Fortran Libraries
enable the large fast 66MHz SDRAM to be accessed from Fortran, and the
IFMem Fortran Library enables Dynamic Areas to be allocated and freed
from Fortran.
6) Clares Micro show prices
Clares Micro show prices will be available to everyone until June 9th.
The full list can be found at <http://www.claresmicro.com/prices.html>.
Highlights include reductions on Compo (graphics image combination) and
Compo upgrade, Schema 2 (spreadsheet) and Rhapsody 4 (musical notation).
7) ViewFinder now available to order
ViewFinder, the high resolution graphics card for the Risc PC mentioned
last issue, is now available to order.
For details, please refer to the 'Availability' section on:
<http://web.inter.NL.net/users/J.Kortink/viewfinder.htm>.
PD/Shareware News
-----------------
You can find all of the software featured in ANS, and over 400 other
items, at the ANS Filebase <http://filebase.acornusers.org/>.
1) Riscster, Napster client
Riscster is a RISC OS client for the Napster online music community.
The Napster protocol allows users to share MPEG audio layer 3 files
directly; with a central server used to allow searching for particular
tracks.
Riscster has been in development and testing for some time, and now has
sufficient functionality to allow searching for and downloading of
audio MPEG files.
Released with source under the GPL. <http://www.riscster.cwc.net/>
2) THSound 2
THSound 2 is out now: <http://www.caspian.uklinux.net/free.html#thsound>.
The original version was a simple module allowing samples in VIDC format
to be played from memory as raw data. It is now more sophisticated: as
well as an extra SWI to allow linear sample data to be played in the same
way, it has got a brand new set of calls to provide a convenient API for
playing ARMovie (Replay) sound samples, either from memory or disc, using
the decompressor code provided with ARMovie.
The companion program, THPlay, has been upgraded to support DTTSamp,
Armadeus, ARMovie and WAV (MovieFS or its demo required) files, and also
provides an example of how to use THSound.
<http://www.caspian.uklinux.net/free.html#thsound>
3) Updated software summary
* 68Host v0.02
Emulates a computer based on the 8-bit Motorola MC6800 CPU. New version
includes bug fixes, increased maximum number of opcodes-per-pass.
<ftp://ftp.acornusers.org/pub/cbsa/Emulators/68host.zip>
* Amp v2.00
A general purpose music player in the vein of the MS Windows program
WinAmp (and uses the same skin files). A number of new features.
<http://homepage.eircom.net/~djkoshea/amp.html>
* ANTutils
The freeware package ANTutils has been updated. Contains ANTfix (helps
stop DLL errors when using Fresco); Fetch (collects/sends email/news
every XX seconds); GetmyMail (autoloads the ANT suite to get email);
IEurl (allows MSIE favourite files to be used); MailCheck (informs you
when there is email/news to read or sent).
<ftp://ftp.cybervillage.co.uk/pub/acorn/ANT/ANTutils.zip>
* Castle Harenae
Castle Harenae is a top down maze game for two players. Six new plugins
are now available for download.
<http://for.mat.bham.ac.uk/llewelld/ch.htm>
* DigitalCD: AudioMPEG v0.14, DiskSample v0.18
An audio MPEG decoder which was originally, used by DigitalCD.
Bug fixes. DiskSample has also been updated to v0.18.
<http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/4471/dev.htm>
* FTPc v1.29
A freeware Internet File Transfer Protocol Client. Due to problems on
some sites with PASV data transfers, PASV mode (introduced in 1.28) is
now a manual selection. Note new URL.
<http://www.ftpc.iconbar.com/>
* MagPi-Mo' v1.20
A combination Magnifier, Pointer-Info and Mouse-Setter. The magnifier
can now have its window aspect set to show a full line of text.
<http://www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/#mpm>
* Organizer v1.50
Shareware desktop personal organizer. A greatly improved version. The
first chargeable upgrade, this costs registered users GBP5, and GBP10
for others.
<http://www.organizer.ukgateway.net/latest.htm>
* Overcast patch
A simple patch to allow joysticks to be used with the 'Overcast' game.
<http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/awestern/over2.html>
* PatchCDFS v1.2
Adds support for RockRidge filenames on CDs. Now properly filetypes
files with two extensions (eg /tar/gz).
<http://homepage.eircom.net/~djkoshea/patchcdfs.html>
* PPPServ v1.3
A little program which makes it easy to establish a PPP connection
between two machines. Now does not idle-disconnect and automatically
loads the PPP module if necessary.
<http://homepage.eircom.net/~djkoshea/pppserv.html>
* Reporter v2.11
Provides commands which enable information to be easily displayed from
a BASIC program in a separate multi-tasking debugging window. The new
version can save text to a file, and adds a command *ReportMem for a
BASIC memory usage summary.
<http://www.avisoft.force9.co.uk/Reporter.htm>
* RiscPCB v0.44
A freeware printed circuit board designer. Fixes a few bugs, adds
support for more than 16 colours.
<http://www.idealist.demon.co.uk/soft.htm>
* WebProxy v0.064
A web proxy using Acorn's fetcher modules. Bug fix.
<http://www.toth.org.uk/~aardvark/programs/webproxy.shtml>
Club News
---------
1) Upcoming meetings
* 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/>
* RISCOS.be (Belgium), 9th June
<http://gallery.uunet.be/John.Tytgat/riscosbe/>
* 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/>
* EAUG (Essex), 13th June - Mike Williams of Akalat Publishing
<http://www.wattys.fsnet.co.uk/eaug.html>
* 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/ ------------