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1995-06-25
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Thanks again!
4.11
Hereæs a typical example of the öspirit of Archiveò Ö I mentioned last
month that I was going off to the States for three weeks and asked if
people would send articles in early. Within days of the magazine going
out, I was deluged with articles. Many thanks! Iæm just sorry that they
wonæt all be published this month Ö after the special effort you have
made. Still, when I get back, Iæm going to have to produce the September
issue fairly quickly (though it may be a little late) so itæs great
having extra articles ready to öpaste inò. Thanks again for all your
help and interest in Archive.
4.11
Cheaper Removable Drives!!??!!??
4.11
Each month, or at least every other month, I seem to be saying that the
price of the 42M removable drives has dropped again. Last month, I
foolishly said I didnæt think they would be dropping again for a while.
Well, I think Iæve found another supply of these drives Ö which could
involve another price drop. So, if youære thinking of buying a removable
drive, hold off for a few days and give me a ring Ö I should be back in
the Archive office on Friday 16th August.
4.11
We have moved!
4.11
No, donæt get too excited, weære not moving again. Itæs just that some
people are still sending letters and orders to 18 Mile End Road which we
left in November last year! Itæs usually öthe computeræs faultò because
it prints out the address label the way it has always done. Please tell
your computers we have moved! Thanks.
4.11
Bye for now,
4.11
Paul B.
4.11
4.11
4.11
Products Available
4.11
Å Arc Recorder Ö Hybrid Technology have produced a very cheap system for
sound sampling (ú27.95 + ú5 p&p +VAT). It consists of a microphone with
a switch and desk stand linked to the computer via the printer port and
desktop software that generates samples which can immediately be used in
other desktop applications. (This is NOT the same product as produced by
Oak Solutions despite the same name.)
4.11
Å Cartoon collection is the title of a four disc set of cartoon type
paint format clipart from Micro Studios. The price is ú19.95 or ú18
through Archive.
4.11
Å DeskJet 500 Ö Weæve had so many good reports from readers about the HP
DeskJet 500 printer that weæve worked out a special deal with our
distributors. We can offer them to Archive subscribers at ú395 inc VAT &
carriage.
4.11
Å Econet test box Ö ALSystems have produced an Econet test box which
should greatly reduce the time and effort needed to rectify faults on
Econet networks. It can detect broken cables, short circuits, cross-
connected cables. It measures cable resistance. It has LEDæs for
monitoring clock & data signals, a terminator tester and a filestore
clock test facility. The price is ú75 +VAT (+ú2.35 p&p).
4.11
Å Eizo 9080i utility Ö If anyone has an Eizo 9080i and wants to use it
on the Archimedes, GL Consulting Ltd produce a utility for just ú10
which makes it possible. For more details, see the 9080i review on page
39.
4.11
Å JISys is a journal indexing system (also available for IBM and BBC B)
which allows you to create your own journal article database. It allows
search & retrieval and cross-referencing. It has an on-line manual,
password for data protection and will cope with an index of up to 10,000
articles and authors. The price is ú75 inclusive from KAS Software.
4.11
Å LBP4 laser printers Ö There was a huge response to the special offer
last month on LBP4 laser printers (on the back of the Price List). We
had bought two printers from the distributor on their end of year
clearance but these were sold by about 10.00 a.m. on the day after the
magazines left this office! We could have sold them several times over
that day and the next. The good news is that, because of all the
interest, weæve been able to arrange a semi-permanent special deal with
the distributor. We can now sell the LBP4 with an extra 1Mbyte ram
(useful when not using the Laser Direct interface) for just ú875. This
price does not include the 250 sheet paper feed tray, but the printer
already has a 50-sheet tray, so itæs not essential. If you do want a
paper feed tray at the same time, add ú90 (instead of the normal price
of ú105).
4.11
When you add the CC Laser Direct interface at ú380 to the LBP4 at ú875,
you get ú1255 (my arithmetic was ú100 out last month!) which is not that
much more than the cost of the 300 d.p.i. Laser Direct Qume and as well
as having the advantage of 600 d.p.i., you get a printer that will run
on other computers and can even be connected via the serial or parallel
interfaces (all standard on the LBP4) to other computers Ö or indeed to
the same computer. You can then use the front panel switches to select
which interface you use. This is useful if you want to use the printer
in direct printing mode from, say, First Word Plus or from Basic.
4.11
So, by comparison, why should anyone want to pay ú1560 for the LBP8
Laser Direct since it can only be used with the Archimedes and not on
other computers? Well, it is faster in terms of pages per minute (8
instead of 4) even though the page preparation time will be the same on
both. Secondly, it looks to me to be a more robust printer which could
be useful, say, in a school situation.
4.11
The third point is that it has a straighter paper path. The LBP4 has an
S-shaped paper path feeding into an output hopper but you can open a
flap and make it C-shaped though it doesnæt then go into the hopper. The
LBP8 on the other hand normally has a C-shaped path. (This is useful
because it drops the sheets face down so that page 1 of a multi-page
document is at the top of the pile when you take it out of the hopper.)
If you fold out the catch tray at the opposite end to the input tray,
you get a completely straight paper path, if you are printing onto
labels or card so there is less chance of jamming and if you are
printing acetates, thereæs less danger of them getting curled up. The
advantage of the S-shaped path though is that the printer is more
compact as a result. (See diagrams opposite.)
4.11
Paper trays are a little confusing with the LBP4 but I think I have got
it sorted out now. Provided, as standard, with the printer is an
integral tray which takes about 50 sheets at a time. As an alternative,
you can buy a paper feed unit and cassette (Archive price ú105). This
forms a base under the printer and takes a removable paper cassette
which carries about 250 sheets of paper. You can also get spare
cassettes for the paper feed unit so that you can have different types
of paper in different cassettes. (Archive price ú57)
4.11
Å Mandelbrot Set Ö Explore Mandelbrot sets in mode 15 with this C
program which goes to magnifications of 100 million. Partial or
completed sets can be saved and re-loaded. The price is ú12.95 inclusive
from KAS Software.
4.11
Å PC Connect Ö DT Software have produced an interesting new piece of kit
for the Archimedes. It consists of a podule plus a board to go in a PC
(or compatible) plus the appropriate high speed interconnection. The
idea is that the two computers can then share peripherals including
comms, printers and hard drives and you can even run the PC from the
Archimedesæ keyboard. The cost is just ú169.95 +VAT.
4.11
Å PC Emulator upgrade Ö To get your PC emulator upgraded to version 1.60
which we mentioned last month, you need to send the PC emulator disc to
Acorn Direct in Wellingborough with a cheque made payable to ÉAcorn
Directæ for ú34.08 (ú29 + VAT). However, Learning Curve owners can get a
free upgrade! If you talk to the dealer from whom you bought your A3000
or Archimedes Learning Curve, he should have a form you can fill in and
send, with serial number and proof of purchase, to Acorn Direct and they
should send you a free upgrade to 1.60. (However, as I write (19/7/91)
it hasnæt actually appeared as a stock item!)
4.11
Å Panasonic printers Ö The KXP1124 printer has now been superseded by
the KXP1124i which we can sell at an Archive price of ú299 inc VAT &
carriage. We still have a couple of the older KXP1124æs which we can
sell at ú235. (The Archive price was ú281.)
4.11
Å Saloon Cars is here! 4th Dimensionæs new racing simulator is available
now Ö Archive price is ú23.
4.11
Å SCSI hard drive price drop Ö The prices of most of the Oak Computers
hard drives has dropped Ö see the Price List for full details. There
will also be some big reductions to clear existing stock. These are
listed on the back page of the Price List.
4.11
Å Shareware N║41 Ö Under the heading of Éeducationæ are an animation of
a four stroke engine, a control language for use in GCSE and a biology
program relating to Mendelian inheritance. There is a floating point
assembler Basic library and a desktop assembler test bed. The range of
utilities includes: a comms utility, a utility which reads BBC tapes via
an RS423 link to a BBC micro, a converter between ArcText, DOS, VAX and
FWP files, a disc cataloguer, an Edword- ASCII converter, a utility that
displays the current filing system, a filetype guesser and a desktop
file loader. Finally, there is a superb golf game which, on its own,
makes the disc worth the ú3.
4.11
Å STEbus interface Ö Intelligent Interfaces have produced an interface
which allows the connection of up to four STEbus interfaces to fitted to
be an Archimedes computer (only 2 on an A300 series or 3 on an A540)
providing access to a wide range of I/O devices including A/D, D/A,
parallel I/O, serial I/O, networking interfaces, stepper & servos
controllers etc, etc. The interface costs ú495 +VAT.
4.11
Review software received...
4.11
We have received review copies of the following software and hardware:
!ReaderS, !MapIT (Genesis II application), Guardians of the Labyrinth
(Soft Rock Software), Animynd Life, OutLook for Eizo 9080i.ááA
4.11
4.11
And now a word from our Sponsor....
4.11
If you ask a committed Christian what it was that first attracted him or
her to the Christian faith, I think you will find that the vast majority
will say something like... öWell, I knew some Christians and was
impressed by their attitude and life style and so I decided to look into
it.ò Thatæs certainly what started me on my search for the truth back in
the mid 1960æs.
4.11
On the other hand, if you find someone who is a firm non-believer who
just ödoesnæt want to knowò when the Christian faith is mentioned, it
often stems from a bad experience they have had with someone who öcalled
themselves a Christianò or of a church which was anything but the
öliving testimony to the love of Godò that it ought to be.
4.11
If you are someone who, like me, professes to be a Christian then the
way you live your life is absolutely vital. If your faith is real, it
will show in the quality of your life and people will be attracted to
the Christian faith through you. But if itæs not real and you just go to
church and wear the ömaskò of being a Christian, people will see through
it. The effect will be that non-believers will look at you and say, öIf
thatæs what being a Christian is all about then I donæt want to know,
thanks.ò
4.11
So, my appeal this month is to those of you who call yourselves
Christians but who know in your heart of hearts that your faith isnæt as
alive and active as it could be. Do you read your bible? Do you pray? Do
you meet with other Christians? If not, that might be part of the
problem. If you do and yet you are still not full of life and love, why
not go and see a Christian leader or even drop us a line Ö we might be
able to help.
4.11
If not for your own sake, then for the sake of those who donæt yet
believe in Jesus, resolve to find out what is missing in your life and
get it sorted out as soon as you possibly can.
4.11
4.11
4.11
Norwich Computer Services 96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD. 0603-
766592 (764011)
4.11
4.11
4th Dimension P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742Ö700661)
4.11
4mation 11 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32
8PA. (0271Ö25353) (Ö22974)
4.11
Abacus Training 29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2
6QA.
4.11
Acorn Direct 13 Dennington Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2RL.
4.11
Acorn Computers Ltd Fulbourn
Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, CB1 4JN. (0223Ö245200) (Ö210685)
4.11
Acorn Training Centre Unit 5,
Cambridge Technopark, 645 Newmarket Road, Cambridge CB5 8PB.
(0223Ö214411)
4.11
Ace Computing 27 Victoria Road, Cambridge, CB4 3BW. (0223Ö322559)
(Ö69180)
4.11
ALSystems 47 Winchester Road, Four Marks, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 5HG.
(0420Ö87213.)
4.11
Arnor Ltd 611 Lincoln Road, Peterborough, PE1 3HA. (0733Ö68909) (Ö67299)
4.11
Atomwide Ltd (p7) 23 The Greenway, Orpington, Kent, BR5 2AY.
(0689Ö838852) (Ö896088)
4.11
Avisoft 11 Meadow Close, Wolvey, Hinckley, LE10 3LW.
4.11
Clares Micro Supplies 98 Mid
dlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7DA. (0606Ö48511)
(Ö48512)
4.11
Colton Software (p14) 149Ö151 St
Neots Road, Hardwick, Cambridge, CB3 7QJ. (0954Ö211472) (Ö211607)
4.11
Computer Concepts (p30/31) Gaddesden
Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, HP2 6EX. (0442Ö63933) (Ö231632)
4.11
Cygnus Software 11 Newmarke Street, Leicester, LE1 5SS.
4.11
Dabhand Computing 5 Victoria Lane, Whitefield, Manchester, M25 6AL.
(061Ö766Ö8423) (Ö8425)
4.11
David Pilling P.O.Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool, FY5 1LR.
4.11
DT Software 13 Northumberland Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV32
6HE.
4.11
DT Software FREEPOST, Cambridge CB3 7BR. (0223Ö841099)
4.11
Eterna 4 rue de Massacan, 34740 Z.I. Vendargues, France. (010Ö33 +67 70
53 97)
4.11
GL Consulting Ltd 8 Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, KT21 2NF.
(0372Ö272937) (Ö279362)
4.11
Intelligent Interfaces 43B Wood
Street, Stratford-on-Avon, CV37 6JQ. (0789Ö415875) (Ö450926)
4.11
Irlam Instruments 133 London Road, Staines, Middlesex TW18 4HN.
(0895Ö811401)
4.11
ITV Software 6 Paul Street, London EC2A 4JH (071Ö247Ö5206)
4.11
KAS Software 74 Dovers Park, Bathford, Bath BA1 7UE. (0225Ö858464)
4.11
Longman-Logotron Dales Brewery, Gwydir Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LJ.
(0223Ö323656) (Ö460208)
4.11
MicroPower Ltd Northwood House, North Street, Leeds LS7 2AA.
(0532Ö458800)
4.11
Micro Studio Ltd 22 Churchgate Street, Soham, Ely, Cambridgeshire.
4.11
Northwest SEMERC ?????????????????????????
4.11
Oak Solutions (p19) Cross Park
House, Low Green, Rawdon, Leeds, LS19 6HA. (0532Ö502615) (Ö506868)
4.11
Paul Fray Ltd 4 Flint Lane, Ely Road, Waterbeach, Cambridge CB5 9QZ.
(0223Ö441134) (Ö441017).
4.11
P.R.E.S. 6 Ava House, Chobham, Surrey. (0276Ö72046)
4.11
Racing Car Computers 1 Mulberry
Cottage, Tye Green, Elsenham, Bishopæs Stortford, CM22 6DZ.
(0279Ö812496)
4.11
Ray Maidstone (p4 & 21) 421
Sprowston Road, Norwich, NR3 4EH. (0603Ö407060) (Ö417447)
4.11
RESOURCE Exeter Road, Doncaster, DN2 4PY. (0302Ö340331)
4.11
Safesell Exhibitions (p13) Market
House, Cross Road, Tadworth, Surrey KT20 5SR.
4.11
Sherston Software Swan Barton, Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH.
(0666Ö840433) (Ö840048)
4.11
Techsoft UK Ltd (p8) Old School
Lane, Erryrs, Mold, Clwyd, CH7 4DA. (082Ö43318)
4.11
The Serial Port Burcott Manor, Wells, Somerset, BA5 1NH. (0243Ö531194)
(Ö531196)
4.11
Topologika P.O. Box 39, Stilton, Peterborough, PE7 3RL. (0733Ö244682)
4.11
Vector Services Ltd 13 Denning
ton Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2RL.
4.11
4.11
LBP4 has ÉSæ and ÉCæ shaped paper paths
4.11
4.11
LBP8 has ÉCæ shaped and straight paper paths
4.11
4.11
Hints and Tips
4.11
Å Running applications Ö Carrying on from Hugh Eagleæs tip about running
one application from inside another, on a A310, if you only have
floppies and have, say, a DTP !Impression disc with !PrinterDM ,
!FontDraw and !DrawPlus all at the same level, you can tailor the !run
file of, say, !Impression to load other applications at the same
directory level, dependant on memory, by using the command
4.11
*desktop <obey$dir>.^.!second_
4.11
application_name
4.11
the <obey$dir> sets the filing system into the first selected appli
cation (!Impression.) and the .^. takes it back up to the level you were
at first! The next application then loads on the desktop ready for use.
Repeat the line with ö!third_ application_nameò and so on. Ned Abell
4.11
Å Colour separations Ö Last month, there was a question from John
Oversby about a colour separation program for !Draw or sprite files. One
solution is to use DrawPlus (Careware 13), actually drawing different
colours on different ölayersò. Another possible solution revolves around
the Impression Business Supplement which provides colour separation for
PostScript files. However, the ideal solution is a simple öfilterò
program which takes in a !Draw file and selects all objects of a
particular colour and puts them into a new !Draw file. Does anyone know
of such a program? I would be interested in using this for producing
double-sided printed circuit boards using !Draw. It is easy to write a
Basic program to do this starting from the !Draw format as specified in
the PRM Ö I could even do this myself Ö but making it RISC-OS-ified is
another matter. Brian Cowan
4.11
Impression H & T
4.11
Å Business Supplement Ö Like many of you I was excited about the release
of more software for serious users of Impression II. The addition of the
mail-merge facility is particularly useful. However, I have noticed that
it suffers from a problem that early versions of Impression had. Namely,
using the * print facility causes the print to crash after the first
document with öInvalid number of output bitsò in multiscan mode. The
problem is resolved by switching to mode 15. Also, beware of forgetting
to load your RISC-OS printer driver before requesting a print from
!Importer. This is because it wonæt warn you that you will receive a
draft copy Ö and worse, you have to close everything down and start
again.
4.11
Another word of warning to those of you planning to buy the supplement
thinking that the WordStar loader will solve all your translation
problems Ö it doesnæt (not on my version, anyway)! If I had thought
about it, the result one gets is obvious. All the ASCII spaces that mess
up justification are stripped Ö but this is at the cost of losing a
space at the end of a line. Consequently, numerous words are joined
together. If you are prepared to use the spellchecker to separate the
words again the utility is fine and it does stop those messy spaces
appearing whenever you make an alteration to the text. However, itæs
still hard work! John Brocks
4.11
Å Font usage Ö Is there a product or would someone like to write an
application which takes an Impression document and tells you what
fontsáare required? The reason for this is that some PD software
includes documentation prepared in Impression format. This is a great
idea but sometimes strange fonts are used. If you are using Adrian
Lookæs !FontDir (Shareware 36) then you need to know which fonts are
needed before Impression is booted up. Brian Cowan
4.11
That should be easy enough. If you want to do it manually, you can save
the text of an Impression document with styles and look at it in Edit.
You can search for öfont ò and look through all the references to
particular fonts as they occur in the style definitions and as effects
within the text. Mind you, that will give you the fonts that appear
within the style definitions regardless of whether those styles have
actually been used in the document. Anyone want to have a go at writing
such an application?
4.11
Is anyone interested in / able to convert between the Impression
Document Description File format and TeX? I think it should be possible
since both contain the same sort of information. This would be useful
for scientific applications where many journals accept material on disc
or by wire in TeX format. Brian Cowan
4.11
Å Labels and tickets Ö When I was printing video cassette labels onto a
roll of adhesive labels they were printing too far to the right. I
failed to understand that !Impression is smart and says, öright, you are
printing a document 165mm wide. I will print it 82.5mm to the right and
left of the centre line of the printerò. I have a mark on the case of my
Citizen 120D printer to align the left hand side of A4 paper, when
putting in individual sheets but I canæt centre different rolls of
labels accurately without putting several marks on the case which would
be confusing so I got round the problem by designing new master pages
that are always A4 width (210 mm) and creating a frame on that page that
is the right width for the labels and off centred to the left. I
continue to put the label roll edge to the mark.
4.11
I then had to change the !Printer DM page size to one 102mm by 210mm
wide which gives me the the right ögreyingò on the screen as I have
öPreferencesò, öShow page bordersò, switched on. This prints two perfect
sets of labels but I still get unwanted form feeds at the end of the
page! (Example supplied on monthly program disc.) Ned Abell
4.11
Å Retaining styles Ö Hugh Eaglesæs question about setting a style in a
blank Impression frame (Archive 4.9 p11) can be answered in terms of
ÉPlace holdingæ in the same way as my hint on re-aligning lines starting
with a different font (Archive 4.8 page 11). Just set the style and type
a Énullæ character in the frame (i.e. one which is not defined in the
font you are using) by using Alt and the keypad numbers. (EFF fonts are
rapidly filling up, making null characters harder to find, but try 136
or 139.) Bruce Goatly
4.11
Å Un-deleting Ö As you probably know, you can highlight a passage, type
over it and thereby replace it. Well, if you have second thoughts
immediately afterwards, you can restore the original by highlighting the
replacement passage and typing <ctrl-V>. This deletes the replacement
altogether rather than cutting it to the clipboard; the clipboard still
contains the original version. Bruce GoatlyááA
4.11
4.11
Help!!!!
4.11
Å Mac Scanner Ö Does anybody know of software to use a Mac AppleScanner
with a SCSI interface on an Archimedes? Brian Cowan
4.11
Å Podule expansion Ö Does anyone know of an expansion box which allows
more than 4 podules to be attached to an Archimedes computer at any one
time? A G Duckett, Telford.ááA
4.11
4.11
4.11
Unbeatable value!!
4.11
A540
4.11
just
4.11
ú2400
4.11
+vat
4.11
4.11
Tel. (0223) 467313
4.11
4.11
Atomwide
4.11
Separate sheet to replace this one
4.11
4.11
Techsoft
4.11
From 4.7 page 20
4.11
unless they get some new artwork to you by Wednesday.
4.11
(Please phone 082Ö43318 if in doubt)
4.11
4.11
Hardware Column
4.11
Brian Cowan
4.11
By all accounts, the October Acorn User Show at the Wembley Conference
Centre will be an exciting event (Wembley Conference Centre, October
11th Ö 13th Ö Weæll be there! Ed.). There should be a number of new
hardware products for the Archimedes range, some of which we have been
anticipating for quite some time. Also, there might even be new machines
from Acorn. But first a history lesson!
4.11
Floppy disc capacity
4.11
Before the Archimedes 300 range was released to the public, way back in
the summer of 1987 (was it really that long ago?) there was a pre-
production model produced for software developers and other lucky
people. A striking feature about this machine, I think it was called the
A500, was that it had a disc controller chip and a floppy disc drive
capable of supporting the high density 2 megabyte (unformatted) discs.
4.11
As we all know, when the production machines appeared, starting with the
model 305, we were back to the 1770 family controller chip running an
ADFS not exceeding 800 kbytes. In the DOS emulation environment, the
maximum floppy disc density was then 720 kbytes. These days that is
pretty prehistoric; Acornæs decision was a retrograde step.
4.11
I think that the only area where this is of crucial importance is in
reading and writing DOS discs Ö and DOS compatibility is vital Ö but
more on that later. So what would we like on the floppy drive front?
Ideally some enterprising company would produce a new floppy disc drive
interface and a high density drive which would replace the machineæs
internal disc drive. Then we would need a modified ADFS supporting 1.6
megabyte capacity and the facility to access high capacity DOS format
discs as well. I understand that one of the öqualityò companies is
working on just such a product. So look out at the Show.
4.11
PC emulation
4.11
By the time you read this, the new PC emulator should be available. This
is the multitasking all-singing all-dancing version we have been waiting
for. Apart from the facility of operating in a window (if you have
sufficient memory for this), other improvements are support for up to
four hard disc partitions, EGA and MDA graphics modes and öpartial
support for VGAò.
4.11
The old version of the emulator provided only CGA graphics. As I
understand it, the reason for this was the speed constraint. Emulating
the DOS screen was a serious speed bottleneck. So one waits in fear as
to the speed of this new emulator operating in the fancy screen modes. I
think things may be speeded up through the use of the Acorn font manager
to supervise writing to the screen under emulation but we will have to
wait and see. What speed increase can be obtained from an ARM3?
Presumably the emulator code has been written with the ARM3 cache in
mind. The turbo RAM of the Archimedes 540 will also give a modest speed
increase; I will have to run some benchmark tests.
4.11
There are some other questions concerning PC emulation. What actual CPU
is being emulated? Is it really still an 8086 or might it now be a æ286?
The emulator will emulate the presence of an 8087 maths coprocessor; a
really good idea.
4.11
DOS cards
4.11
Continuing with the topic of the (anticipated) poor speed of the PC
emulator, brings us to the sore point of DOS ösecond processorò cards.
Again rumours abound, but we all know what happened to Mach Technology
(but do we really know what really happened?). The time and the place to
look must be the October Show. I hope to see at least one company
exhibiting a DOS card.
4.11
There is real potential for some clever design here, so balancing
performance and price could be quite tricky. Although two years ago we
would have been öover the moonò with a æ286 card which made our
Archimedes simply pretend to be an IBM AT, things have now moved on Ö
particularly with the new multitasking emulator. When you consider that
even with a real DOS CPU there is still the problem of screen emulation,
you will realise that a DOS card will need to use a lot of code similar
to that of the software emulator. The DOS CPU could even öhook inò to
the emulator software....Letæs wait and see what the boffins come up
with.
4.11
A few further points to ponder. If the DOS card has a floating point
æx87 chip then this could be commissioned, in the background, to help
the ARM chip in doing its floating point work. Or DOS peripherals could
be accessed by the Archimedes. There are some very exciting possibili
ties for cross-CPU cooperation.
4.11
New machines?
4.11
In past Hardware Columns I have noted the fact that, frequently, third
party add-ons presage features of new Acorn machines. The Aleph One ARM3
add-on was a good example of this as was the Atomwide VIDC enhancer.
4.11
Since Acorn already publish the format specification for high density
ADFS floppy discs in the PRM, it seems likely that if new machines are
to be released, they will incorporate high density floppies. Add to this
the fact that at least one university was reluctant to purchase a suite
of Archimedes machines precisely because high density discs could not be
used. It must be good sense to move in this direction. (Take it from me,
2M floppies are a pretty safe bet. Ed.)
4.11
However, I doubt that we will ever see an Archimedes with an on-board
DOS CPU. I sympathise with the Acorn view of wanting to go forward
rather than backward, but one must be realistic. I think that one of the
advantages of a DOS card will be that confirmed DOS users might be
encouraged to purchase Archimedes machines because it is then an
adequate PC plus a whole lot else.
4.11
Things seem to have gone quiet on the portable front but rumours abound
concerning a new översionò of the A3000 with an ARM3 and 4M of ram, to
be sold at a competitive price. I donæt quite see who this is aimed at;
I would much prefer to see the existing A3000 reduced substantially in
price, together with an extensive and aggressive marketing policy.
4.11
If there are new machines on the way then one might speculate as to
their features. I have already mentioned high capacity floppies but
letæs think about hard discs. ST506 is becoming obsolete and IDE drives
are getting cheaper and cheaper. However, SCSI remains the most
versatile interface. So, at the low end of the market it is possible
that a new A3000-type machine might well incorporate an IDE interface,
possibly with space for fitting an internal drive. If Ethernet were
available at a reasonable price then such a remodelled A3000 could sell
like hot cakes to the öseriousò user.
4.11
Scanning Ö the hard way
4.11
Although I have been lucky in having a chance to try out many hardware
products for the Archimedes, a scanner has not been one of these. I
recently had the need to scan an image for a DTP application, but I had
no scanner. However, a Mac in my laboratory was equipped with a very
sophisticated flat bed scanner. Actually, the scanner had a SCSI
interface as does my office Archimedes (I know what you are thinking! Ö
but the software would be prohibitive).
4.11
This is what I decided to do: I would scan the image on the Mac and
store it in TIFF format on the Macæs hard disc. So far so good; that
worked. Next, I used a product called Apple File Exchange to write the
file, using the Mac, onto a DOS format disc. Eventually that worked. The
problem was that a full A4 page required just over a megabyte whereas
the DOS disc could only hold 720k. (Now you see my interest in high
capacity DOS discs!) I had to content myself with half a page and then I
was able to fit the image file on the disc. Next I loaded up MultiFS on
my Archimedes, inserted the disc and opened up the directory viewer.
There was my file shown on the disc as a PC file. I simply dropped this
file on ChangeFSI and there on the screen was my scanned image ready to
be exported as a sprite into Impression.
4.11
I learned quite a lot from this ordeal. They say that the Mac has the
best user interface going. Rubbish! Using a Mac is like trying to drive
to work on a lawn mower. It is slow, non-intuitive and highly annoying.
I came away fully appreciating the staggering power of my old Archimedes
310. I know that our secretaries become frustrated with the difficulties
they encounter with their Macs; now they certainly have my sympathy.
Unfortunately, I fear that my colleagues would regard it as but another
eccentricity if I were to suggest wholesale conversion to Archimedes.
However, a DOS card just might tip the balance my way.
4.11
ROM speedups
4.11
Last month I wrote of a few potential problems concerning the speeding
up of ROMs by reprogramming the MEMC chip. My 540 has EPROMs and these
certainly wonæt run faster; hopefully the release ROMs will. I thought
there was a problem with one of the 410/1 machines. From time to time
the screen would try to ödisintegrateò. I thought that speeding up the
ROMs was the problem, but it now appears that a marginal VIDC chip was
the culprit. So I have encountered no problems with the ROM speedup.
4.11
Programming EPROMs
4.11
About a year ago there was an announcement from a company calling itself
Racing Car Computers. They were advertising an EPROM programmer for the
Archimedes. In my laboratory all we have is a rather feeble programmer
purchased many years ago for the grand sum of ú20 from a company called
Solidisk (remember them?). It seems that Racing Car are having
production difficulties so my programmer has not arrived. However, they
did send me a demonstration disc of their software and it looks good.
4.11
It is amazing, but if software follows Acornæs RISC-OS guideline, the
most complex of things can become quite simple to become familiar with.
I looked at the Racing Car code which at present is mostly in Basic. It
certainly is impressive, providing a full range of programming algo
rithms for the various EPROM manufacturers. If you are desperate for an
Archimedes-based EPROM programmer then there is an RS232 driven device
available from Farnell Electronics which has software for driving it
from an Archimedes. However I shall wait for my racing car!ááA
4.11
4.11
CC
4.11
From 4.10 page 30
4.11
4.11
CC
4.11
From 4.10 page 31
4.11
4.11
Matters Arising
4.11
Å IFDD? Ö The launch of the promised Citizen IFDD drives (Archive 4.7
p57) is a bit up in the air at the moment. Iæm told that the launch of
the 20M drives is being delayed due to discussions in Japan with
competing manufacturers who wish to come out with drives that conform to
a standard. Thatæs good news!
4.11
A 4M drive seems to be coming on stream in that öEDò drives are
appearing in products Ö for example a new jingle player from Soniflex
which stores 16bit audio on 2M (öHDò) or 4M (öEDò) discs. Iæm not told
who the drive manufacturer is but the discs are from Verbatim and are
ú6.15 retail for a 4M formatted disc. Ned Abell
4.11
Å Public Domain confusion Ö Last month, Robert Chrismas referred to
FontEd as öpublic domainò software. We should point out that this is not
strictly true. Acorn Computers Ltd have allowed us, along with other
Acorn dealers, to distribute FontEd to customers and have allowed us to
make a charge for supplying it but they have not released it into the
public domain Ö it remains the intellectual property of Acorn Computers.
The reasoning behind this is to try to maintain some degree of control
about which version number of the software is available. Newer versions
are made available to those who are doing the distribution.
4.11
(Also, we said that FontEd was available on Shareware 7 Ö itæs not Ö
itæs on Careware 7. That was Edæs fault!)
4.11
Å Toolkit Plus Ö Following the hint last month (p9) about modifying
Toolkit Plus to make it work on E-format and SCSI, Dave Clare from
Clares Micro Supplies, points out that (a) the modification will not
work correctly in all circumstances and (b) it is not necessary anyway
because version 1.01 of Toolkit Plus, which has been available for about
a year now, deals with E formats and various filing systems. To obtain
your free upgrade, send the original program disc plus an S.A.E. to
Clares.
4.11
Å Virus Target Ö On this monthæs magazine disc there is a target
application which will report if it has been attacked by a virus and so
help to catch any infection a little earlier. The author also recommends
that users attempt to modify the program themselves to reduce detection
by an invading (and therefore possibly an evading) virus.ááA
4.11
4.11
Chocks Away Extra Missions
4.11
David Markland
4.11
This is a new exciting upgrade to the original Chocks Away flight
simulator from The 4th Dimension. You need the original Chocks Away to
run it and it is copy protected so cannot be used from hard disk. It
contains 16 new maps which includes one that enables you to take off
from underneath a pier. There are new flying conditions which include
blizzards and night flying. The digitised sound has been much improved.
There are over 1000 new targets which include Zeppelin Airships and
extremely large Super-Tankers.
4.11
The vector graphics are improved and you can opt for more detailed, but
slower, graphics while flying which is useful for identifying planes and
taking reconnaissance photos. For long distance flights there is a Fast
Forward option which makes you go 5 times faster, but this can only be
used when there are no enemy targets or planes around. There is also a
graphics outliner which highlights various targets.
4.11
You now have a wide range of views from enemy targets or from the
phantom plane which you can control while watching recorded flights. The
enemy have clever pilots now which make them harder to tail and shoot
down. Some of the missions take a bit of practise but are more fun than
the old Chocks Away ones.
4.11
Chocks Away permits two player games and is easier to use than either
Interdictor 1 or 2. Chocks Away is, however, fairly primitive until
Extra Missions is added. Chocks Away with Extra Missions is not a game
to get bored of quickly and is fairly realistic. My review copy has seen
hours of Éfield testingæ ! If you have the original Chocks Away then you
really should get a copy of this add on since itæs well worth ú20,
although I would recommend taking a look at MiG-29 if you donæt already
have Chocks Away. MiG-29 appears to be a cross between Chocks Away and
Interdictor.
4.11
The serial link option enhances two player games to full screen mode and
is a good idea if you have two Archimedes next to each other. I think
that its a bit bad though that the A3000 doesnæt have a serial port;
unless you buy extra hardware (ú21 per machine) the link up is not
possible. There is an ARM3 option for those who have an upgraded machine
or an A540.
4.11
If I had to give it marks, it would get:
4.11
Sound 8/10
4.11
Graphics 9/10
4.11
Playability 10/10
4.11
Life Span 9/10
4.11
Overall 9/10
4.11
On the whole these look rather good but I have to say that the best
flight simulator I ever played was the one by MicroSoft which I ran on a
386 with a VGA screen and it is miles better than any Archimedes
game.ááA
4.11
4.11
Safesell
4.11
From 4.10 page 5
4.11
4.11
Colton
4.11
From 4.10 page 15
4.11
unless you get some new artwork by Wednesday
4.11
(Or phone them on 0954Ö211472)
4.11
4.11
PipeLine
4.11
Gerald L Fitton
4.11
The most substantial Ématter arisingæ out of last monthæs PipeLine
column is calculating times in hours minutes and seconds (time has not
yet been decimalised!) so that subject, and hence integer arithmetic,
comes in for extensive treatment this month. But first...
4.11
National Curriculum
4.11
Ron Pearcy is the Principal of Irongate School, 17 Donegal Crescent,
Napier, New Zealand. He is still requiring National Curriculum files for
use with PipeDream. In particular, he needs the files for Maths, IT,
Social Studies and English Language. Now, here I have a confession to
make. I remember that someone wrote to me letting me know that all the
National Curriculum files were available through NERIS (an on-line
database which can be accessed directly or through a Prestel gateway). I
filed the letter so carefully that I now canæt find it! I donæt have any
telephone communications equipment which works with the Archimedes (and
Iæve cancelled my subscription to Prestel). I vaguely remember asking
whoever it was if they would download the files and let me have a copy.
I have looked through all the discs I have but I canæt find any NatCurAT
or similar. Anyway, what Iæm getting round to slowly is that, if you do
have a means of accessing NERIS (can they by contacted by post?) and
feel able to help Ron Pearcy then Iæm sure he would like to hear from
you Ö and so would I.
4.11
Ronæs PipeDream samples
4.11
Included on the Archive monthly disc are about a dozen files from Ron
which will be of interest to those of you in education. If only in
return for these files, can you help Ron with his National Curriculum
information?
4.11
Error Ö Filecore in use
4.11
William D Hine runs both Ovation and PipeDream simultaneously and
transfers files from one to the other. This Ébugæ is annoying him and he
would like to hear from anyone else to whom it happens, particularly if
you have even a partial solution. Send your letters to me at Abacus
Training and I will pass them on to William.
4.11
FontMenu module not found
4.11
If you get this error then I have a copy of the module and I can help
you. Drop me a line (or a disc).
4.11
Highlight 3
4.11
See Archive 4.8 p36 for details of this gripe by Peter Nye. Stephen
Gaynor reports that highlight 3 can be used as a general extended
sequence. As an example, suppose öEò is underline on and öRò is
underline off, then 3Eabcdef3R will print abcdef. Note that, in
PipeDream the 3s will appear in inverse video (white on black) when, and
only when, the cursor is in that line.
4.11
Recalculate & print
4.11
Alan Highet complained that, when running a macro which contains
recalculation and printing, the printing sometimes starts before the
recalculation is complete (not what he wants). Stephen Gaynor says this
point was covered by Albert Kitchensideæs article on the January 1991
PipeLine disc. My recollection is that Albert introduced pauses but I
canæt remember how!
4.11
Linking files
4.11
Colton Software insist that linking files are a hangover from before the
days of dependent documents. Although 3.14 is considered Éstableæ and no
upgrade is likely in the near future, how would you feel if V 3.15 did
away with linking files? I shall be interested in your views. Stephen,
like me, thinks that there are some things you can do with linking files
that canæt be done with dependent documents. Have you got any examples
that I can send on to him for his research into this? I will show your
examples to Colton Software if I get enough good ones.
4.11
Macro$Dir
4.11
If you write a macro which needs to find a file which is in the same
directory as your current files, then using the path name <Macro$Dir>
will allow you to copy the whole directory of files to another disc
without having to rewrite the file names within the macro. I need a few
examples of how to implement this idea. Can you help?
4.11
Base 60, 24 and others
4.11
Now to the tutorial but, as usual, please bear with me whilst I build up
to it slowly with a digression or two.
4.11
Most of the sums we all do these days are in base 10, denary. Most of
the sums done by computers are done in base 2, binary. I know quite a
few people who can do sums in base 16, hexadecimal, in their head and,
as youæll see from the next paragraph, not all of them have a degree in
computer studies!
4.11
Hereæs a simple problem in base 16. You have two parcels, one weighs
1lbá14oz and the other weighs 2lbá6oz. What do the two parcels weigh
together? Answer 4lb 4oz.
4.11
You might be one of my more Ématureæ readers who used to do mental
arithmetic in a system which used both base 12 and 20 (or even octal Ö
base 8)! Hereæs a sample question in such a mixture of bases that will
be familiar to our more mature readers. What would have been the cost of
12 gallons of petrol when it was 5sá10d per gallon? The answer is ú3/10/
0d!
4.11
I hope that these two examples show that number bases other than 10
(denary) have been around for some time and that you donæt have to have
been steeped in computers to have used them and to understand them.
4.11
Iæd like to build up gently to a question for the expert. Letæs start by
considering a few properties of numbers in base 10.
4.11
Any fraction can be expressed as either a terminating decimal or as a
recurring decimal. Examples of terminating decimals are 1/4á=á0.25 and
3/20á=á0.15. Examples of recurring decimals are 1/3 which is 0.3333....
and 1/7 which is 0.142857á142857á142857á.... With recurring decimals the
series of numbers goes on for ever. It is possible for you to predict
which fractions will terminate and which will not by resolving the
denominator (the 4, 20, 3 or 7 of the above examples) into their prime
factors. The prime factors of 20áareá2*2*5. Now, here is the rule. If
the prime factors of the base (in our case, base 10, these prime factors
are 2 and 5) are the only factors which occur in the denominator (e.g.
20 which can be made up out of multiplying 2s and 5s) then the decimal
terminates. Because 17 can not be made up out of 2s and 5s the fraction
1/17 does not terminate (1/17 is a recurring decimal having a 16 digit
cycle).
4.11
Now hereæs the first question for the expert. Can the number one tenth
(0.01 in decimal) be stored accurately in a computer which Éworksæ in
binary? Too hard? Hereæs an easier one. Does the fraction one tenth
terminate when expressed in binary? The answer is öNo!ò because 10 is
not a power of 2, one of its factors is 5. Only numbers such as: 1/2, 1/
4, 1/8, 1/16, etc terminate in binary. So, the answer to the expertæs
question is that 0.1 can not be held accurately on a computer which
stores numbers in binary because the non terminating representation has
to be truncated (cut off) somewhere. Look at figure 1 below. I have
added 100 lots of 0.1 in cell A102, in A103 I have subtracted 10 from
A102 and you will see that the Archimedes is short by about
0.00000000000002. This small error, called a truncation error, is the
effect of working in base 2 instead of base 10!
4.11
How then would you prevent a truncation error (in base 2) such as that
of figure 1 which would not occur if you worked in base 10? The answer
is to use binary coded decimal instead of binary! Of course, whatever
base you use, there will always be some fractions which can not be held
exactly. Isaac Newton wanted us to change from a base of 10 to a number
base of 12 for all scientific numerical calculations because he knew it
would reduce truncation errors (12 is divisible by 3). The ancient
Egyptians understood that it would be a good idea to use a base which is
the product of many of the lower value primes. They chose 60 as their
number base because it can be divided exactly by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12,
15, 20 and 30. It is because the Egyptians chose 60 as their number base
that we, like them, have 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour.
Whatever other decimalisations occur, I believe it will be a long time
before we change to a decimal system of say 100,000 seconds in a day.
Maybe by then, with everything worked in binary, we will have 64ksec in
a day (ie 64*1024 seconds). Until that binary coded day arrives we will
have to use integer arithmetic with base 60 if we want to preserve
perfect accuracy when doing sums in hours, minutes and seconds.
4.11
Integer arithmetic
4.11
As well as the PipeLine disc contributors Dr Mike Clark and David
Turner, I have had a succinct letter from J V Parker about time
calculations. The tutorial which follows uses many of their ideas plus a
few of my own.
4.11
Figure 2 shows a spreadsheet designed for the addition of times
expressed in hours, minutes and seconds; they are the playing times of
tracks on one of my compact discs. Iæm sure that, when youæve worked
through the tutorial, you will see that the principle employed, of using
only integers in every cell (called integer arithmetic), can be extended
to multiplication, division and even to evaluating functions such as
inverse sine (with the answer in degrees, minutes and seconds of arc).
4.11
If you have the Archive disc then load the file HrMinSec. If not then
you will have to work from figure 2.
4.11
The block C6E9 is made up of numbers (entered as expressions with <F2>).
The formula in cell D12 is sum(D5D10) + D11. Although the numbers to be
added are in rows 6 to 9, I have summed rows 5 to 10. The advantage of
including the two dummy rows (5 and 10) is that you can insert or even
sort the rows 6 to 9 without affecting the sum(D5D10) formula. Dummy
rows of this type are Égood practiceæ in a spreadsheet. The formula in
cell D12 can be replicated to C12 and E12. Cell D11 contains int(E12/
60). The 77 seconds in cell E12 is divided by 60 to convert it to
minutes and decimals of a minute. The function int is the integer part
of the value of (E12/60), i.e. the integer number of minutes, 1, which
has to be carried over into the minutes column. The formula in D11 can
be replicated into C11.
4.11
The formula in cell E14 is mod (E12,60). The function mod is the integer
remainder after dividing E12 by 60 i.e. it is the number of seconds left
from E12 after carrying the minutes over into D11. The formula in E14
can be replicated into D14 and C14.
4.11
As a check, I have used column G to convert the minutes and seconds of
columns C, D and E into seconds (I remember that this is the way I had
to do it at school when I was about 7 years old). Column G is summed in
cell G12 and converted to seconds, minutes and hours in cells E15, D15
and C15 respectively.
4.11
The important concept to grasp is that 77/60 is not stored as
1.28333333333333... minutes (which has to be approximate in both decimal
and binary because of truncation errors) but exactly, by splitting it
into two parts (shades of complex number pairs Ö but more of that
another month), the two parts being 1 minute and 17 seconds where the
numbers 1 and 17 are found by using the PipeDream functions int and mod
(as in the example). The everlasting calendar application which I
devised some years ago (included on the October 1990 PipeLine disc) uses
integer arithmetic in this way but the functions are more complicated.
By the way, Iæm sorry but, on the first few October 1990 discs I
dispatched, the year 2000 (but no other year) is one day out due to an
error in cell W6. In October 1991 I shall be issuing a revised version
of this disc so, if you can wait until then, you can get the corrected
version (plus other Éupgradesæ).
4.11
In conclusion
4.11
If you have an interesting example of integer arithmetic then I shall be
most pleased to hear about it. Please write to me at the Abacus Training
address on the inside back cover of Archive. I would prefer you to send
your application on a disc rather than as printed text. You will get
your disc back, honest!ááA
4.11
4.11
Figure 1
4.11
4.11
Figure 2
4.11
4.11
Arc for the Anxious
4.11
John Oversby
4.11
Resource is an organisation presently supported by the Local Education
Authorities of Humberside and South Yorkshire. In its time it has
produced educational software of a very high standard, aimed at children
from Primary to Sixth Form. Sadly, it is about to be closed down because
of lack of funding and öArc for the Anxiousò will be one of its last
publications. Its loss will be a big blow in the educational world.
4.11
Alison Tyldsley has aimed this booklet at newcomers to the BBC A3000,
although most of the contents will apply to any of the Archimedes range
of machines. It starts from basics such as: This is how to join all of
the equipment together and This is where the mouse fits in, or, This is
what a filer window looks like.
4.11
About half of the booklet is devoted to starting off on the A3000 and
Archimedes machines, in simple language. It received an initial warm
welcome from both adults and pupils in my school. I was surprised to see
that the illustrations, particularly those of screen displays, had been
drawn especially and were not the more realistic versions captured
directly from the screen. I prefer the latter. In seven A4 pages, it
covers connecting things up, windows, disc filing (which it strangely
calls disc structure), resetting the computer, formatting and copying
discs (but not using the RAMdisc) and printing. The section on printing
was, I felt, too brief to be really useful. There were many useful
sections I felt ought to have been included, such as ways of copying
parts of discs and using directories to provide simple screen displays
and saving display time.
4.11
The rest of the booklet is about !Draw and PenDown for the Archimedes.
We use PenDown throughout the school but this package comes with an
excellent User Guide aimed at the right level for beginners, so I do not
think I will be using the Resource version. In place of !Draw, we
frequently use !Draw+ (Careware 13), which we find much better. I have
had to produce my own booklet for this so I think I will stick to that.
4.11
Summary
4.11
If you really are new to the Archimedes then I would choose !Help from
Sherston Software with its helpful disc and sections on !Draw and
!Paint. A good try from Resource but I feel they should try again. It is
certainly not in the same category as its öIT for the Terrifiedò for the
BBC range which was comprehensive and very useful.
4.11
Arc for the Anxious ú4.95 from Resource.ááA
4.11
4.11
Oak
4.11
From 4.10 page 11
4.11
4.11
Chess on the Archimedes
4.11
Rajan Bedi
4.11
After the long awaited arrival of Chess 3D by MicroPower (the authors of
the infamous Dr Who have returned), a comparison between this package
and the popular package marketed by David Pilling could be useful for
potential buyers.
4.11
Chess 3D by MicroPower (v.1.33)
4.11
Chess 3D is packaged in a nice mega sized container, about the size of
two VHS video tapes. My initial reaction to this was, Éthis should be
goodæ, and you can just imagine my horror after opening the packaging Ö
all I found was a disc and a registration card (a severe case of over-
packaging). ÉWhere are the instructionsæ, I thought until I noticed the
small print on the disc label stating that the instructions were present
on the disc.
4.11
The program installs and runs like any standard multitasking application
(RISC-OS required) and will run on a 1Mb machine. The screen display is
quite impressive with most of the screen been taken up by a large three
dimensional traditional chess set. A small overhead view is also
provided which proved to be very useful.
4.11
As is the norm nowadays, you have the option of playing against the
computer or against another homo sapiens. You can even get the computer
to play itself and not only is this fun to watch (particularly with a
three dimensional view), it is also very educational. Micropower have
used a sort of a Étraffic lightæ structure to control the software which
really only becomes obvious after having read the instructions.
4.11
You move by clicking (on the 3D display or the overhead display) on the
square you wish to move from, which then becomes highlighted, and then
on the square you wish to move to. If the move is valid the pieces will
change position and the opponents clock will start. If the move is
invalid a two-tone beep is heard. The computer plays a mean game with
the level being set by allocating how much time the computer has to
respond. Conventions such as ÉEn Passantæ, Castling, Scholaræs Mate and
all piece promotion are catered for.
4.11
The package is excellent for beginners and improvers as well as advanced
players of chess. An edit option is provided allowing imaginary
scenarios to be set up and played. The game can be paused and play can
be resumed from an earlier move or edited and play resumed from this new
position. The user can also force the computer to move as well as having
the option of getting the computer to help in providing suggested
replies.
4.11
As the computer plays, it uses a book of standard openings and moves
which it will follow as long as you match its moves as it expects. If
you donæt, the book icon closes and the computer starts Éthinkingæ about
its next move. MicroPower have left room for more moves to be added to
this book by using the disc drive icon. Both the original or the
customised book can be printed, as can the list of moves of any game.
4.11
On machines with at least 2Mb, up to three games can be played
simultaneously (good for school chess clubs). The program makes full use
of the speed of the Archimedes, although, with three games running
simultaneously, the clocks run slower. Sometimes it can be difficult to
study the three dimensional board, so a lot of use is made of the
overhead view. However, the main board can be rotated by 90░ or 180░ to
overcome this. The program disc is copy protected and the program
functioned incorrectly when my backup copy was executed. However,
Micropower explicitly states that they will replace the disc if you
experience loading problems.
4.11
Conclusions
4.11
Overall, this is an excellent product which has been very professionally
produced and should be a part of your library. I look forward to the
next exciting instalment to be offered by Micropower.
4.11
Chess by David Pilling (V.1.27)
4.11
This chess program marketed by David Pilling installs and runs like any
other multitasking application. Both programs allow you execute some
other task while the computer is Éthinkingæ of a response and will
inform you when it is time for your next move by beeping. It runs on a
1Mb machine and the display is a very good overhead view. The program is
controlled using the standard intuitive menus provided by the Wimp
resulting in software which is very easy to use.
4.11
The game offers the same options as Chess 3D. You can play against the
computer, another human or have the computer battling it out against
itself. Once again, the standard of play is very good with the level
being set by controlling the time in minutes the computer has to make
sixty moves and the number of moves ahead the computer can think.
4.11
Beginners and improvers are also catered for with the same editing
facilities provided by Chess 3D also present in this package. The moves
list can be saved to disc and printed and, like Chess 3D, a game can be
saved and returned to at a later date.
4.11
Conclusions
4.11
This is a very good product and at ú5.99 represents excellent value for
money offering nearly all the facilities provided by Chess 3D.
4.11
Chess 3D vs Chess
4.11
Overall, both products are very good, fully RISC-OS compatible and
suitable for all ability levels. Both packages compare very favourably
with IBM (yuk!) equivalents such as ÉBattlechessæ by Interplay and
ÉChessmaster 2000æ by The Software Toolworks. For value for money, Chess
by David Pilling is unbeatable, and for a few small extras and some nice
graphics then Chess 3D is a good one for your collection.ááA
4.11
4.11
ProTips
4.11
Peter Jennings
4.11
This is a column of hints and tips for users of Protext 5. It is not
intended as a regular feature to rival PipeLine as there are probably
not yet enough users of the Archimedes version of Protext to support it.
Arnor have promised to keep me informed of developments to Protext,
particularly the eagerly awaited RISC-OS version, and I will pass the
details on in future issues of Archive, along with any hints or tips
that pioneering users of this exciting new word processor may care to
send by way of Paul Beverley.
4.11
In the meantime, here are a few hints of my own plus advice on an
irritating bug that has emerged from the software since I completed the
review in last monthæs Archive.
4.11
First the bug, which has suddenly appeared after lying dormant during
three monthsæ constant use of Protext. It shows itself during attempts
to save a file, either manually or automatically, with two messages, one
saying that the file öPROTEXT!Xò or öPROTEXT!Tò cannot be found and the
other: öError creating fileò. More alarmingly, the text sometimes
disappears from the screen. Any further attempt to save brings a öFile
openò message. My description of this as öirritatingò may seem rather
inadequate but, in fact, it is not disastrous and can be dealt with
quite easily. When the message about PROTEXT!X appears just type öcloseò
at the command line, followed by ösò (for save). Your original file name
will then be offered and pressing <return> will duly save it.
4.11
Arnor have not given me any fix for this fault but have just said,
rather uncertainly: öWe think we may have solved the problem in the next
version of Protext.ò Let us hope they have.
4.11
Omissions
4.11
Two strange omissions from Protext, so far, are a function key strip and
an icon. If you dislike the boring default applications icon, or the
blank squares representing files, you can always design your own icons,
using !Paint. First create a directory for them, called !Sprites, inside
the main !Protext directory. Then design an application icon named
!protext and a files icon called file_cdf, with additional small
versions if wanted. Finally, add an initial line to the !Boot file:
öIconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Spritesò. If you are not sure how to create
icons there are instructions in the chapter on öPaintò in the User Guide
or you can find a set of ready-made sprites in a !Sprites directory on
this monthæs program disc. You can just copy !Sprites into the !Protext
directory but do not forget to add the IconSprites line to the !Boot
file. The ready-mades have a simple öP5ò design, with a border round the
files sprite, but are colourful enough to be readily identified in a
desktop directory.
4.11
A do-it-yourself function key strip is also easily made, either using a
program which provides a template or by starting from scratch with
Protextæs excellent line drawing facility. One made this way is also on
this monthæs disc. It has to be printed in two sections, one below the
other, as Protext can not print down the paper in landscape form. Anyone
who has a wide-carriage printer can copy the second section beside the
first by using the Protext öboxò marking facility.
4.11
Line drawing
4.11
When making a grid by line drawing, the natural way is to begin by
drawing either the horizontal lines or the outside box shape and then
adding the verticals afterwards. If you do it this way, however, you may
find the vertical lines going slightly beyond the outside boundaries. To
correct this, draw the uprights with the up or down arrow key, as
normal, but use one of the horizontal, left or right, arrow keys for the
final stroke before reaching the horizontal boundary. The line will then
turn the corner to make a neat join instead of an intersection. Corners
are drawn in the same way.
4.11
Although Protext comes with 48 printer drivers, there isnæt one for the
very popular Panasonic KX-P1081 printer, which I use. The FX80 printer
driver is suitable for it but will not print line drawings. So the
function key strip needs to have the IBM9 printer driver loaded and one
of the printeræs tiny DIP switches changed. These can be found below and
immediately to the right of the printer head when it is in its öhomeò
position on the extreme left. Lift up the thin strip of clear plastic
covering them and use a small screwdriver or similar implement to push
switch number one, on the extreme left, down (for off). The other
switches can probably be left as set but if you still have a problem try
putting either switch six or seven up (for on).
4.11
Hopefully, Arnor will produce a key strip and their own official icons
when the RISC-OS version of Protext finally appears.
4.11
Obvious when you know
4.11
Finally, a few brief tips of the öitæs obvious when you knowò variety.
You can find your version number of Protext by pressing <escape> and
reading the bar above the command line. This also shows you the current
directory and the selected printer driver.
4.11
The öSwapò line at the top of the colour configuration menu puzzled me
for a time as it does not seem to be explained anywhere. I eventually
discovered that selecting it and pressing <return> shows the colours
used for alternate documents when more than one is loaded.
4.11
It is a good idea to lock the files of templates, such as letter
headings, to prevent them being overwritten if a document you are
working on is automatically saved with the templateæs name. If, for any
reason, you cannot lock the template, load it with the command ömò for
merge instead of ölò for load. The bar at the top of the screen will
show öNo fileò and you will be asked for a name before the document is
saved.ááA
4.11
4.11
Using a Second Floppy Drive
4.11
Tony Colombat
4.11
For those who have strived to purchase a wonderful and powerful computer
such as the Archimedes, with only the minimum of memory and single
floppy disc drive, it is soon apparent that to fully utilise fonts and
several multi-tasking applications that expansion is desirable to
overcome the need to constantly swap discs or copy !System and !Fonts
onto numerous application discs. A second megabyte of memory at around
ú80 (from Archive) is certainly worthwhile and is easy to fit. This
permits an increase in the number of applications to be installed on
Icon Bar, but the disc swapping remains unless memory is traded for a
RAM disc.
4.11
Hard disc versus Second drive
4.11
The purchase of a hard disc is the ultimate desire, and although the
cost for hard discs is coming down, its purchase remains a considerable
investment especially for an A3000. An alternative is to consider
attaching a second drive which can store the main !System modules and
permit the reading BBC DFS or PC format files. This is especially an
attractive proposition if you already have access to a 5╝ö 80 track
double sided disc drive with power supply. If however, you have to
purchase a drive then the ú100 for a 5╝ò drive, or ú138 for a 3╜ö drive
might be better saved towards a hard disc. (We still have a couple of
20M Oak A3000 drive available on special offer Ö see the back of the
Price List for details. Ed.)
4.11
External disc drive interface
4.11
To attach the drive to your Archimedes you will need to purchase a Disc
Interface which is available from various manufacturers ranging from ú12
to ú50. I have not had any success with the ú12 extension on any A3000 I
have tried it with, so be prepared to pay around ú30. It is also
necessary to check that the interface you are about to purchase is
suitable for your machine. My experience has been that the original A310
interface does not work with A400, and A3000 interfaces are different
again. Do check carefully.
4.11
Remember that having added an interface and second drive, the Archimedes
must be re-configured to utilise this drive with;
4.11
<f12>
4.11
* configure floppies 2 <Return>
4.11
followed by <Ctrl-Break>.
4.11
If any difficulty is experienced in accessing the internal floppy drive,
then it may be necessary to open up the added drive and change the links
from the ö0ò to ö1ò setting. Also, some of the interfaces have a number
of link settings to aid configuration of the various drives, so read the
instructions carefully.
4.11
Using a second drive
4.11
Some people express surprise to find out that a 5╝ö can format 5╝ò discs
to 800k capacity. This is so and I have not found new 5╝ö discs fail any
more regularly than ordinary 3╜ò discs. Older 5╝ö discs will probably be
all right, but I would treat them with more caution and check they are
double sided and double density, i.e. DDDS. Providing these discs format
without difficulty to 800k, I usually use these discs as a means of
backing up my more important 3╜ò discs.
4.11
Use only one !System and !Fonts
4.11
Having formatted a 5╝ö disc to 800k E format for speed, then copy the
!System onto this disc. It will be necessary to check that the !System
has within it all the modules for all the different applications which
you possess and are probably on your separate applications discs.
4.11
Acorn have produced a useful utility called !SysMerge which will do all
the hard work for you of transferring the latest version of modules onto
your main !System. I believe this is available from SID or your local
Acorn Dealer and hopefully may appear on a future Shareware/Careware
disc? Once you are sure that you have your !System sorted out, the
!Systems on your work discs can be deleted. Please note that I said
öwork discsò not the öoriginalsò.
4.11
!Fonts is more difficult as the original !Fonts supplied with the
Archimedes has now been superseded with outline fonts as used by all the
DTP packages and many other applications. These later fonts require a
new Font Manager and other modules. If you do not possess the new
outline !Fonts then the easiest way to obtain them is to purchase a
demonstration DTP disc as supplied by Beebug for öOvationò or Clares
öTempestò. An alternative way is to purchase such software as !Phases
for ú10 from NorthWest SEMERC which will also give you a cheap but
effective DTP package with their version of the Trinity.Medium Font, or
!Draw-Help at ú16 from Sherston Software which comes with two outline
fonts. Additional fonts can be purchased from a variety of sources, most
notably Electronic Font Foundry. Longman Logotron are offering some 12
fancy fonts for ú18. Beware, however, of purchasing fonts and then
realising you are likely to purchase a more expensive DTP application
which will supply !Fonts as part of the package.
4.11
Having obtained a number of fonts, these can be placed within the !Fonts
directory. However, on an 800k floppy disc which also houses !System,
only four families of fonts can be stored. I include the families of
Trinity, Homerton and Corpus plus one fancy font. I find this is
adequate for most DTP requirements but designing posters using fancy
fonts requires more organisation.
4.11
I am not sure that it is a good idea to add your printer driver to this
main System Disc, as by now it is becoming crowded and some space is
necessary to permit the correct transfer of data between multi-tasking
applications.
4.11
Operating with the second drive
4.11
Having set up the System Disc, keep it in the second drive and, on
starting up your machine, click on the second drive icon and then
immediately close the viewer window. The Archimedes now knows where to
find the !System and !Fonts so that other applications can be loaded as
required. Without !System and !Fonts on each of your applications discs,
more space is available for storing your files and far less disc
swapping is required.ááA
4.11
4.11
Scan-Light Junior 256
4.11
Robert Chrismas
4.11
(It is convenient to talk about scanning Épicturesæ but in this article
Épicturesæ includes cartoons, printed and written text.)
4.11
The Scan-Light 256 is a hand held grey scale scanner produced by
Computer Concepts. The complete package costs about ú260 and includes
the MHá105AL scanner, an expansion board, a disk and two manuals.
4.11
The manuals
4.11
The Scan-Light Plus manual (34 A5 pages including index) deals with the
Scan-Light software and the general principles of scanning. It also
includes some excellent advice on getting the best out of your scanner.
4.11
The Scan-Lightá256 manual (16 A5 pages) covers fitting the expansion
board and details specific to the MH105ALá256 scanner.
4.11
Both manuals are clear and together they cover all you need to know to
use the scanner successfully.
4.11
The scanner
4.11
The chief difference between this scanner and all the other hand held
scanners I have seen is that this one can produce true grey scale scans.
4.11
Scanners which do not produce grey scale scans can still be used to
reproduce pictures with grey scales. The scanner represents different
shades of grey as patterns of black and white dots. This is called
Éditheringæ. Additional software, usually provided with the scanner, can
then average the patterns of dots to produce grey scales. This is called
Ésamplingæ. Since it takes a number of black and white dots to produce
each grey scaled dot there is some loss of definition, but if the
picture is also reduced in size, the result can look acceptably sharp.
4.11
The Scan-Light 256 can scan a strip up to 105 mm wide. The length of the
strip depends on the memory available. It can be set to scan from 100 to
400 dots per inch.
4.11
Scanning modes
4.11
There are four scanning Émodesæ.
4.11
The ÉMæ mode scans all shades as either black or white. It is useful for
scanning text and black and white line drawings. Computer Concepts says
ÉMæ stands for Émonochromeæ Ö an unusual use of the word Émonochromeæ
which usually describes a picture with many different shades of the same
colour. Strictly speaking, all the modes produce a Émonochromeæ scan.
4.11
The ÉDæ mode produces a dithered image. This is how most hand held
scanner represent greys. There is no reason to use this mode since the
grey scale modes produce better results.
4.11
The É4æ and É8æ modes produce 16 and 256 grey scale images respectively.
4.11
The É8æ mode is not able to use the full width of the scanner at 300 or
400 dots per inch. At 400 dots per inch it can only scan a strip 52mm
wide.
4.11
4.11
4.11
4.11
4.11
4.11
4.11
4.11
Quality of the image
4.11
For some pictures, the Scan-Light 256 does not produce better results
than a cheaper Éditheringæ scanner. Provided the resolution is the same,
both types of scanner will produce identical results from black and
white images. Pictures with grey scales can be reproduced perfectly
satisfactorily with a Édithering scanneræ if the size of the picture can
be reduced significantly but the sampling values may have to be set more
carefully.
4.11
For pictures with a wide range of grey scale which must be reproduced
without significant reduction in size, the Scan-Light 256 produces
significantly better results than comparable Édithering scannersæ.
4.11
The software
4.11
So far as I can tell, the software is common to all Scan-Light scanners.
4.11
Most scanned images benefit from some form of processing, even if only
to crop the image. You often need to change the size and even grey scale
images can benefit from sampling to increase the range of the grey
scales. Despite the care you take in setting the brightness, the image
may be too dark or too light or you may wish to increase or reduce the
contrast.
4.11
The Computer Concepts software is easy to use and it offers a wide range
of facilities. It allows repeated attempts at sampling a scanned image
so you can alter the size of the sampling areas or adjust the number of
grey scales in the Éoutputæ sprite.
4.11
One of the most useful facilities is the ability to control the Égrey
mapæ. When an image is sampled, a number is calculated which represents
the average brightness of each small area of pixels. The grey map gives
you complete control over the grey shades onto which these numbers are
mapped. So you can easily change the contrast or make the whole picture
lighter or darker. You could even invert the picture to produce a
photographic negative effect.
4.11
The software also includes the facility to use this scanner and a Laser
Direct printer as a kind of photocopier. I have not tested this.
4.11
Possible problems
4.11
To get the best results with a hand held scanner, you need a steady
hand. Motor driven scanners remove this problem but most can only scan
single sheets of paper so you cannot scan an image directly from a book.
4.11
All scanners suffer from patterning. Printed pictures which use grey
scales or colours are made of patterns of tiny dots. These dot patterns
can create interference patterns when they are scanned. The manual
offers helpful advice for avoiding patterning. Incidentally, photographs
do have continuous grey tones and the results of scanning photographs
are usually excellent.
4.11
All the scanners I have seen seem to use a green light. Because of this,
faces which have pink shades tend to become darker when they are
scanned. Careful adjustment of the grey map usually corrects this.
4.11
If you have never fitted an extension board you may be a little hesitant
about fitting. The whole job takes less than five minutes though this is
assuming the computer has a backplane fitted Ö only A310æs do not have
one as standard. My worst problem was unplugging enough leads from the
back of my Archimedes to slide it out from under its shelf.
4.11
High resolution grey scale sprites need lots of memory, I would not
recommend using this scanner with computers of less than 2Mbytes.
4.11
Conclusions
4.11
It is worth thinking about what you want to use a scanner for because
you may find that a motor driven scanner (e.g. A4 Scan-Light Plus +
Sheet-feeder, Archive price ú434 + ú107), or a cheaper Éditheringæ
scanner (e.g. Scan-Light Junior, Archive price ú209 Ö but see below)
meets your requirements more closely. If, like me, you want to be able
to produce acceptable scans from a wide variety of types of picture this
scanner is good value at an Archive price of ú245.
4.11
This scanner is very versatile and it has produced excellent results
with everything I have used it for so far. It seems to be reliable, it
works as specified and the software which accompanies it is excellent.
4.11
(We have rather over-stocked on Scan-Light Juniors so weære selling them
off (both A300/400 and A3000 versions) for ú195 on a first-come-first-
served basis. Ed.)ááA
4.11
4.11
Most hand held scanners scan greys as dithered black and white dots.
Sampling then converts back to grey scales.
4.11
4.11
4.11
The Scan-Light 256 scans greys as greys.
4.11
4.11
The picture on the left was produced with the Scan-Light 256, the
picture on the right was produced with the Scan-Light Junior, a 400 DPI
dithering hand held scanner.
4.11
4.11
The Scan dialogue window
4.11
4.11
PRES Disc Interface and DFS
4.11
Graham Evans & Tony Colombat
4.11
Somewhere along the line I ended up with two reviews of these products
so Iæve started with the one that arrived first (Grahamæs) and then
added extracts from Tonyæs where it added something to Grahamæs review.
4.11
The package under review consisted of two items which are available
separately: PRES A3K6 (ú48. 95), a disc interface expansion card which
allows up to three extra 3╜ö or 5╝ò drives to be connected to an A3000
and PRES A3K12 (ú19.95), a 65Host DFS and a DFS Filer which consists of
a ROM and disc. The ROM is fitted to the A3K6 card so you cannot buy it
separately. In my case, the ROM had already been fitted.
4.11
Fitting the card
4.11
The Disc Interface Card came with two pamphlets, one of eight A5 pages,
the other a single sheet of A5 but the latter proved to be important
during fitting. The card came with the standard warning about fitting
and invalidating your warranty but I decided to try it myself.
4.11
The instructions were clear and concise and the fitting was straightfor
ward. Bear in mind that this was only the second time I had opened the
computer. After reassembling, I typed in *H. Modules as instructed in
the manual and saw that several new modules had been installed,
including Drivelatch.
4.11
I connected my double, 5╝ö drives to the mains and the ribbon cable to
the new connector at the back of my A3000 and typed in *CO. Floppies 3
and I had three floppy drive icons on the left hand side of the icon
bar.
4.11
Two drives called 0?
4.11
I clicked on Drive 0 and was greeted by the error message ÉDrive emptyæ.
I tried the other drives but got the same message. I rang PRES who were
most helpful. They explained that my double disc drives were set as 0
and 1, so the computer now thought I had two drives with the same name.
I had to change the links on the drives. They explained what to do and
it didnæt seem too hard so I tried it. I opened the disc drives and
looked for links with the numbers 0, 1, 2 or 3 by them. I soon found
them and changed my drives to 1 and 2. Ready to try again!
4.11
Links on the interface board
4.11
The drives were reassembled and I tried again, but got the same error
message. Another phone call to PRES and they suggested changing the
links on the board. I referred to the single sheet of A5 Ö there were
four links that could be changed. I opened the computer up again and, by
following the instructions plus a bit of by trial and error, I got the
drives to work. I changed the setting on link 34 so that all drives give
a ready signal and used link 4B which means that all external drive
lights come on when any drive is accessed Ö but at least it works!
4.11
The good news
4.11
The Drivelatch module allows any drive to be configured as Drive 0. The
default is Drivelatch 0123 8. Eight meaning 80 track, the other numbers
referring to drive numbers. Typing *CO. Drivelatch 2 0 1 would have the
effect of configuring Drive 2 as 0, Drive 0 as 1 and Drive 1 as 2. This
would be useful for running discs that have to be in Drive 0, but there
are numerous possibilities for this feature. The double stepping
features are implemented by adding 4 after the drive numbers and this
worked very well. The manual explains the many possibilities of these
features.
4.11
A3K12 and DFS software
4.11
This comes as a ROM and a disc but it was already fitted to the card I
had Ö thank goodness!
4.11
The disc had version 1.04 of !65Host and !DFSFiler on it. I also used
version 1.06, the most recent, but could not see any differences.
4.11
The DFSFiler is multitasking and is very good. It allows you to drag
part or all of a DFS disc to an ADFS disc and the whole process takes
seconds. I also dragged View files directly into PipeDream.
4.11
The Filer assigns programs with the appropriate SETTYPE code so that the
various parts of a program do not appear as little white squares. There
were occasions when this did not work but I prefer this method to
leaving the programs blank and expecting me to *SETTYPE each square.
4.11
!65Host starter
4.11
This provides a 65Host icon on the right hand side of the icon bar,
initially it will be grey. Opening a directory viewer with !65Host
changes the colour, clicking on the icon provides a full DFS on DFS
Drive 0 Ö in my case with three drives it was Drive 2 but with two
drives it would be Drive 1. If you are not happy with this arrangement
you can assign DFS Drive 0 to any of the drives with a simple * command.
Double stepping is available within the DFS by typing *STEP40.
4.11
Running BBC software
4.11
Having my Drive 2 as DFS Drive 0 worked very well. The majority of
software I use in the primary school where I teach runs including
4Mation and Sherston software. I also loaded in ROM images such as Logo,
Edword and View using the *SRLOAD command and all the programs could be
loaded from <shift-break> as on the BBC.
4.11
Conclusion
4.11
The Disc Interface Expansion Card seems sturdy and easily fitted. Had I
any prior knowledge of disc drives being assigned numbers, I could have
saved a lot of problems for myself. Also, if the possibility of having
to change the links on the interface card had been documented, I would
again have saved time and effort. If in doubt, have it fitted by a
dealer but donæt forget to get them to check the settings on the
additional disc drives. The Drivelatch module is extremely useful as is
the double stepping feature and I would not like to be without it for
lots of reasons.
4.11
The !65Host and DFS Filer were most welcome. I can run most of my school
software and the method of loading the program is identical to that used
in school i.e. <shift-break>.
4.11
The Filer is very good Ö dragging View files into Pipedream and seeing
the text exactly as it was, is quite a relief! I was also pleasantly
surprised that I could convert a lot of programs to 3╜ö ADFS by simply
dragging them over. Both items are well worth the money but remember
that you cannot use the DFS ROM unless you have the board fitted.
4.11
(Caution Ö I wanted to have an internal IDE hard drive fitted but, with
the PRES interface fitted, there is no room.)
4.11
And now, here are some comments from Tony Colombat....
4.11
Using the interface
4.11
The interface may be used to access an extra 800k drive whether this be
5╝ö or 3╜ò. This is very useful for those without a hard disc and
warrants an article in itself. (See the separate article written by Tony
on page 23.) However for many educationally/business institutions, the
value of the attachment of a 5╝ö drive is to enable them to read BBC B
DFS or PC discs and transfer their files to Archimedes ADFS format. Any
public domain software such as the DFS reader supplied by NCS (Shareware
2 or 31) or !PCDir (Careware 7) can be used to transfer files. Here,
however, a word of warning, for I have yet to find PD software which
reads 40 track discs correctly. Even if the drive is a switchable 40
track, or if the PRES DriveLatch command is used Ö the disc is not read.
The moral appears to be, ensure the files are on an 80 track disc or
order PRES DFSFiler software which will read 40 track DFS discs
correctly. (Öánot all 40 track discs, in our experience. Ed.).
4.11
The DFSfiler software
4.11
........ The limitation of the software is that discs can only be read,
and not written to, so if you wish to swap a file from ADFS to DFS
format this is not possible. To achieve this transfer, the ArcDFS
software from Dabs Press would be more useful.
4.11
With the new ROM fitted to the disc interface card, then on starting up
the computer, a greyed out BBC Icon appears on the right side of the
icon bar. This turns to its correct colours when the !65Host is spotted.
From now on, clicking on this icon will run the !65Host and the BBC
Emulator takes over the A3000. The claim from PRES is that protected
software may now be run on the A3000. Certainly my attempts at running
some old protected BBC öBò games did work without problem. I did
experience two difficulties, however. The first was that 40 track
software would not work without using the BBC Master command ö*drive 0
40ò. This was despite using a switchable 40/80 track drive and the
DriveLatch command to force double stepping. Only the above command
would work. Pressing <Break> resulted in having to retype the command
and so discs could not be started with <Shift-Break>. The second problem
was that I could not write to a disc and therefore the ability of using
BBC öBò original software which must write to a disc at any time under
the emulator was lost.
4.11
Conclusion
4.11
At over ú50 the disc interface buffer appears expensive but it is very
well made. For those people who wish to use their old BBC Software then
the DFSfiler at over just ú20 enhances the interface bearing in mind the
limitations mentioned. I have used the interface and software a great
deal and found it far more reliable than other such similar interfaces
so I feel I can recommend it.
4.11
PRES A3000 Disc Interface ú48.95 + VAT and PRES DFSfiler ú19.95+VAT.ááA
4.11
4.11
Multi-Media Column
4.11
Ian Lynch
4.11
The first thing I would like to do in this monthæs column is correct a
mistake in last monthæs piece about Avanti. The price of Avanti to non-
education users is ú2,150 not ú5,000 as I stated. The ú5,000 figure is
the price for Authorware Professional on a Mac, but even this may have
been revised recently. My apologies to Westland.
4.11
While on the subject of Avanti, I have been invited to Westland to have
a more detailed look at the product and so I should be able to give you
some ideas about its potential next month.
4.11
The Multi-Media Show
4.11
The Multi-Media Show was a little disappointing in that most of the
offerings were very similar to each other. The main thing which struck
me about the show as a whole was the increasing presence of presence of
Unix and X-windows.
4.11
One of the multi-media öbuzz wordsò is öparticipativeò activities and
these are supposed to make the user participate with the application
rather than simply interact by giving simple responses to options. I
suppose virtual reality is the ultimate participation. I did not see
much participation at Olympia Ö just the same tired salesmen trying to
catch the eyes of prospective customers with some flashy animations.
4.11
High quality video in a window
4.11
Every stand seemed to have a Unix X-Server running live video in a
window with the ability to digitise frames and resize the windows
distorting the image. On Sunæs stand I asked one of the demonstrators
about the product and he said that it involved adding a special
interface which did most of the work and so the machineæs processor was
relatively free to do other things. The price? ú8,000. öNot my most
immediate priority for an add-onò, thinks Ian. The system should be
portable to the R260 but when I went onto Acornæs stand I was in for a
pleasant surprise. Jim Irlam of Irlam Instruments had what looked like
an identical system running in a RISC-OS window. öShould be able to
retail at about the ú1000 markò, says Jim.
4.11
Without a detailed review, it is difficult to make comparisons but this
strikes me as another example of non-Archimedes users having to öpay
through the noseò for their add-ons. Well, such is life.
4.11
So what good is live video in a window? First, I must point out that the
quality of the image is superb and far better than the usual digitiser
images one usually sees. Secondly, it would be possible to run the video
and sequence other applications in other windows around it since, unless
the window is rescaled, the ARM is free from any overheads in displaying
the pictures. This is just another step towards the integration of video
technology and computer graphics applications at steadily lower prices.
4.11
Colour scanning
4.11
Another interesting new item from Irlam is an A4 colour scanner. This is
a Sharp device like their A6 scanner and produces higher quality
pictures more quickly. Clares also produce an A4 scanner based on Epson
technology and rumour has it that Iota are working in this direction
too. All these scanners are expensive (around ú2,000) but they can
produce 24 bit colour images which means that each of red, green and
blue has 255 possible levels giving umpteen million possible shades
instead of being restricted to 64 colours each with 4 levels of tint as
is the case with the current RISC-OS display. If the Archimedes is to
compete with the Mac and high-end PCs in applications involving colour
graphics, some inexpensive solutions to the Archimedesæ rather limited
(by current standards) graphics capability will be needed.
4.11
At this point, you may be wondering why companies are producing 24 bit
scanners for a computer with an 8 bit display. Perhaps they know of
developments we donæt, but in any case, obtaining a best fit 8 bit image
from 24 bit data generally gives better results than trying to match 8
bit data to 8 bit data. ChangeFSI and Translator both do a good job of
converting 24 bit data to 8 bit images.
4.11
Colour scanning and digitising is becoming increasingly important in
presentation applications which make use of still and animated graphics.
4.11
Eidos
4.11
Another interesting development on the Acorn stand was the Eidos project
Ö a video editing system which digitises and compresses video, storing
25 frames a second onto an optical drive. Any particular frame can be
retrieved in under a second with any amount of the recording cut and
pasted between windows rather like a word-processor but using video
frames. Over an hour of video can be saved to a single removable disc.
4.11
Eidos will be of use primarily as an off-line system which can be used
to experiment and quickly version a final film. The film on tape can
then be run and edited on the basis of the digital version. Unfor
tunately, the quality of the pictures after being digitised and
compressed is not high enough to use Eidos as a direct method of editing
video Ö well, not yet. The principle is, however, established and all
that is needed is more processing speed and greater storage in order to
make broadcast quality editing a reality.
4.11
New names
4.11
I now read that multi-media should be referred to as integrated media. I
suppose that a system which supports audio, video, text etc is multi-
media even if the various applications run separately. Integrating the
media is probably a better description of how to make a machine with
multi-media capability really useful. The key to doing this is through
software, and RISC-OS provides many advantages which make life easier
for the media integrationists.
4.11
Next month, I will be able to give a much better account of Avanti and I
have been trying to contact Logotron about Magpie. I will also get back
to Genesis II and explain some of the script language. Please write in
if you have any views. If you donæt, I will have to just follow the
lines which interest me!ááA
4.11
4.11
Language Column
4.11
David Wild
4.11
It is interesting to see that the debate about ÉCæ is springing up again
in some of the American magazines such as Byte. The June issue had a
letter claiming that difficulties with the language were at the bottom
of some of the famous debacles such as the original version of dBASE IV
and release r of Lotus 123.
4.11
At the same time, Paul has passed on to me a letter complaining about an
article in Archive 4.9 p32 which appeared to press the claims of Basic
as against ÉCæ. In the letter was the phrase öanti ÉCæ bigotsò but, to
be fair to the writer, he did refer to öpro ÉCæ bigotsò further down.
4.11
As regular readers will know, I am not enthusiastic about ÉCæ but I
would like to make it clear what the case against the language is. It is
not that ÉCæ cannot be made to do things; the work of David Pilling and
Hugo Fiennes shows that very good work can be done by dedicated
programmers. The complaint is that you need to be a very good programmer
to be able to use it properly. This is because of the flexibility that
is, rightly, seen as one of the main advantages of the language.
4.11
I feel that an appropriate analogy is with the activities of Motor Rally
drivers. They can do all sorts of things with high-powered sports cars;
including turning them over at high speeds and walking away from the
wreckage. The fact that they can do this doesnæt mean that their sort of
car, and driving, is suitable for the majority of drivers that use the
ordinary roads.
4.11
A language as flexible, and with as few restraints, as ÉCæ needs very
careful checking; and my own experience together with that of reviewers
in both Archimedes and PC magazines tends to suggest that checking of
programs is often very much neglected. It is tedious work whereas
writing programs is very much more interesting.
4.11
There was an article related to this in the July issue of öComputer
Shopperò where the writer complained of the uselessness of Beta testing.
His complaint is that the testers donæt dare to let ordinary users get
at the programs or dare to use it on the data that matters to their
company. This tends to mean that one or two interesting bits are looked
at, but it doesnæt get the sort of test that matters.
4.11
This problem applies to programming in all languages but my feeling is
that, in an ideal world, a programmer wouldnæt be allowed a ÉCæ licence
until he or she had proved his commitment to proper testing and checking
of all programs.
4.11
I recently visited the Unix Show at Olympia and was given a copy of an
American magazine called öComputer Languageò which I found to be very
interesting, but Iæm not sure how it can be purchased in this country.
An amusing touch is that two of the main articles in the June issue are
öHow to reverse engineerò and öProtect your code from Hackersò. I donæt
know if the authors have read one anothersæ work.
4.11
!Charm
4.11
I have just received an updated disk from David Pilling with the latest
version of this interesting language. Peter Nowosad, the author of the
program, has produced a tutorial which makes access to the language very
much easier. At only ú5.99 it is very well worth buying.
4.11
Smalltalk
4.11
At last there is an advertisement for Smalltalk for the Archimedes, but
Iæm afraid that most of us will not be trying it for some time yet
because the price, in the August öAcorn Userò is ú795 + VAT! The
advertisers, IDEA/Magrathea of 6, Falcon View, Winchester SO22 4EP
mention educational discounts, so it might be a reasonable proposition
for a university or college. I shall be asking them for more details
when I come back from holiday at the beginning of August.ááA
4.11
4.11
Small Ads
4.11
Å 2nd internal drive and front panel for A310 ú60, and a Roland MT-32
multi timbre sound module ú250. Contact John on 0902Ö674672.
4.11
Å 600 dpi laser printing service offered by North Norfolk Computer Club.
Phone Roy for details on 0263Ö70Ö669.
4.11
Å A310 with Acorn 20M drive ú550. RISC-OS P.R.M. ú69. ANSI C rel 3 ú99.
Citizen laser printer ú350. Phone 0256Ö892008.
4.11
Å Beebug Scavenger scanner with sheet feeder ú150. Panasonic KX-P3131U
daisy wheel printer ú60. Psion Organiser XM ú45, Acorn DTP ú25, Atelier
ú15, System Delta Plus ú10, The Real McCoy ú10, Ibix the Viking ú10,
Inertia ú5. Phone John on 0483Ö502507.
4.11
Å Brother HR-15 daisywheel printer with 3 wheels + ribbons ú200,
Interword ú15, Intersheet ú15, Interchart ú10, Spellmaster ú25, all
original on disc for Archimedes. Phone William on 081Ö989Ö2666.
4.11
Å Computerware hard disk podule, Atomwide 4-slot backplane with fan,
Acorn 2nd Floppy drive upgrade for 300 series, and a Morley Teletext
decoder for Archimedes with optional power supply for sale. Offers to
Chris Walker on 0953Ö604255.
4.11
Å Digitiser Ö Pineapple extended colour version, 16 bits per pixel,
512x256 pixels, full width podule. Cost ú362, as new, sell for ú225.
Phone Ned Abell 029922Ö249.
4.11
Å Epson LQ1060 wide carriage 24 pin + Ace RISC-OS colour printer driver.
Parallel & serial interfaces. Offers please. Phone 081Ö642Ö3012.
4.11
Å Free to anyone who can collect them Ö various issues of A & B
Computing, Micro User, Acorn User and Your Computer (1982 to 1990 about
80 issues in total). Michael Porter, 6 Summer Road, Thames Ditton,
Surrey. Phone 081Ö398Ö6401.
4.11
Å Genlock Ö Arvis videocontroller podule without plug-in encoder board
so takes RGB out and in. As new, cost ú339, sell for ú215. Phone Ned
Abell 029922Ö249.
4.11
Å Oak SCSI 70Mb hard disc with interface card ú450 o.n.o. Phone
0276Ö20575 after 6 p.m.
4.11
Å Plymouth User Group. Anybody interested in forming and A3000 or
Archimedes user group in the Plymouth area? If so please send an SAE to
David Heath, 26 Luxmore Close, Leigham, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 8NX.
4.11
Å Presenter II with hot links ú30 (unregistered), Flying Start II ú15
(unregistered), Genesis ú35 (unused), PC Emulator (MS-DOS) ú40. Phone Mr
Thompson on 0332Ö701969.
4.11
Å SF & Fantasy PD. 4M of data on 3 discs ú4. David Jones, 160 Hazelwood
Drive, St Albans, Herts AL4 0UZ.
4.11
Å System Delta + ú30, Atelier ú45, Artisan 2 ú25, Impression Junior ú50,
Schema ú65, Orrery ú55, WorraCAD ú50, Poster ú50, GraphBox ú40,
GammaPlot ú25, Watford 400 dpi hand scanner ú75, Watford video digitiser
Mk 2 ú125, Morley 1Mbyte RAM (A3000) ú50. All perfect. Phone
09274Ö20651.
4.11
Charity Sales Ö The following items are available for sale in aid of
charity. PLEASE do not just send money Ö ring us on 0603Ö766592 to check
if the items are still available. Thank you.
4.11
(If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes computers,
please send it in to the Archive office. If you have larger items where
post would be expensive, just send us details of the item(s) and how the
purchaser can get hold of them.)
4.11
User Guides ú1 + ú3 postage, Herewith the Clues ú8, Apocalypse ú12,
ArcWriter ú3, PC Emulator 1.34 (not upgradable) ú25, Serial Interface/
buffer for Epson FX80 ú12, Arcscan 2 ú4, InterWord (Disc) ú15, AlphaBase
ú18, Revelation ú35.ááA
4.11
4.11
Tracer Ö A First View
4.11
Ian OæHara
4.11
We are giving Ian a chance to öhave a goò at Tracer and then Ian Lynch
is going to act as referee Ö see the following article. Ed.
4.11
One of my main uses for my computer is to produce worksheets for school.
These need pictures and so I purchased a scanner. Fine, except for the
fact that bit-mapped graphics tend to use up vast amounts of memory.
Even 4Mb isnæt so large once one starts using 300-400k sprites. The
answer to this was Draw files. The problem then is how to convert
sprites into Draw files. One simple solution is to hand trace the
sprites but hand tracing is slow and tedious. Spending a whole evening
hand tracing sprites for a worksheet is marginally more interesting than
watching paint dry.
4.11
At the Acorn User show last Autumn, I thought I had found the answer to
all my prayers. Midnight Graphics were demonstrating a new program
called Tracer which would do the work for me. I was told it was only in
the development stages, but it looked very impressive. After various
pestering phone calls, I was finally told it would be available at BETT.
Along to BETT I went, official order clutched in my sweaty palm. A
demonstration was asked for and given. The program did all the things
asked of it. There was no manual available at that stage, but I was told
that it was so simple I didnæt need one. I parted with the schoolæs cash
and took a copy home.
4.11
The application was very easy to start. I simply double clicked on it
and it sat happily on the icon bar. Now to test it. Sprites are loaded
by dragging them onto the icon. Two windows opened, one for the sprite
and the other for the Drawfile-to-be. I remembered being told that
Tracer would only automatically trace monochrome images (that means just
black and white, no greys or anything else), so I loaded Paint and drew
a black box and a few black lines. Tracer made a real mess of these.
There were no right angles in the place. Time to try and remember what
the various options were.
4.11
The tracing is controlled by various parameters which can set and
altered. These are:-
4.11
1) Sample rate Ö determines how close the trace will follow the
border of the sprite.
4.11
2) Close Ö the distance between control points. The smaller the
value, the more closely it will follow kinky lines.
4.11
3) Smooth Ö changes the angle at which tracer will smooth the joining
of two lines to make a smooth curve.
4.11
4) Passes Ö the number of times Tracer will go over a sprite. The
greater the number, the more detail is picked up.
4.11
I changed these but never got Tracer to turn a sprite box into a draw
box. A simple shape and yet it couldnæt do it. I quote from the manual
öOne noticeable Éfeatureæ of Tracer is that it does not appear to
perform very well on the corners of rectangles.ò I havenæt found it too
good with straight lines either.
4.11
So it didnæt like boxes. The next task I gave it was tracing a mode 15
sprite of a care bear. I was told it would trace coloured sprites, but
they had to be done manually. This simply involves clicking on a
coloured area and just that area is traced. The computer was in mode 15
and I dragged the sprite into Tracer. Tracer decided it didnæt like the
colours and changed them. It appears that Tracer will only accept the
standard 16 colour desktop palette. As yet, I have not found anything in
the manual to tell me how to get real colours. Another bad start, but at
least the sprite had plenty of curves.
4.11
I clicked on the bear and Tracer went to work. The outline looked
reasonable. Next the sky and again Tracer went to work. Problem. The two
boundaries didnæt match and there were many large white gaps. OK, so the
manual tells me that the Draw files may need cleaning up, but what is
the point when the cleaning up takes longer than tracing the whole thing
by hand in the first place?
4.11
Tracer does have facilities to turn coloured and grey-scale sprites into
black and white images for automatic tracing. It even has a clean option
which removes odd pixels which cause noise and complicate tracing.
4.11
Just before Easter, I received the latest version of Tracer and the
manual. There was no appreciable difference in the results produced by
the two versions I have had. Having the manual was nice as it told me
what the various options meant and it admitted that the program did not
always do a perfect job by suggesting that one might need to take the
file into Draw to clean it up.
4.11
Tracer will cope with very complex black and white sprites quite well. I
traced some sprites from one of Beebugæs PD discs. These consisted of
images that looked as thought they had been scanned from a book on D&D.
The results were very good and I would never have attempted to trace
such sprites by hand. Unfortunately, the Draw files produced by this
were larger than the original bitmaps which isnæt too helpful!
4.11
I find it very difficult to recommend this package in the way some of
the magazines have done. The task it has to perform is not easy but for
ú50 or so I would have expected it to perform considerably better.ááA
4.11
4.11
Tracer Ö An Overview
4.11
Ian Lynch
4.11
Because of all the controversy over Midnight Tracer, I volunteered to
look at the letters that had been sent to Paul and then to use that
information, in conjunction with my own experience of the package, to
clarify certain points.
4.11
The manual
4.11
The manual I received certainly is not very professionally turned out.
The statement that it was printed at 600 dpi on a LaserDirect was
laughable Ö not to say that I disbelieve it, but the photocopying of the
laser copy has completely negated any advantage of hi-res printing. Also
the paper quality is not sufficient for this type of document. There are
6 sheets in the manual and using high grade paper such as Mellotex
should not have increased the price significantly. In fact, on a run of
600 it would almost be feasible to simply print the whole lot on the
laser printer if decent copying facilities were not available!
4.11
The content of the manual is reasonable and explains the procedures
quite well. Owing to the variability of results, more comment on
limitations would have been useful. The process of converting sprites to
vector graphics is certainly not trivial and there are control pro
cedures involved which, despite being reasonably well explained, require
a lot of time and practice to make the adjustments needed to get the
best results.
4.11
Sometimes, good results are just not achievable (I think) and in this
situation the user goes through self-doubt wondering whether it is the
software or lack of aptitude which is the problem. In one sense, the
software and documentation is at fault if this situation arises. On
modern computer systems, the user interface and documentation should be
good enough for an average user to obtain satisfactory results without
devoting the rest of his life to the task. On the other hand, there are
some applications which are complex and will take some learning. A
beginner would be unwise to buy ANSI C and expect to have it mastered in
an evening. Tracer is an inbetween product and it is not primarily the
content of the manual that is at fault or the user interface, but the
fact that Tracer is better on some subject matter than others which is
confusing to a new user.
4.11
The program
4.11
This brings me to the software itself. There have been a lot of
complaints about Tracer not being able to do what is claimed. Tracer
does indeed convert sprites into drawfiles and manages to do so quite
quickly and painlessly. I have found the best results with simple line
art of the type found in childrenæs comics. I have provided some
examples of drawfiles produced from images which originated using
Scanlight Plus. These were considerably reduced in the data space taken
up and allowed flood fills of some areas and other manipulation. I also
scanned my signature and turned it into a satisfactory drawfile.
4.11
Where I found Tracer pretty useless was in converting large complex
images with lots of half-toning. Tracer actually made a reasonable
attempt at some of these, but there were so many objects in the
resulting picture that it was virtually impossible to do anything with
it. Further, some very complicated sprites can generate drawfiles which
are nearly as data intensive as the original image. In fact, I have
reports of drawfiles which were bigger than the original though I
havenæt produced any myself. In conclusion, I have to say that I do find
Tracer useful in some areas of work, but I would only recommend it to
people who have a clear idea of what they are trying to achieve and a
clear idea of what Tracer can and can not do well.
4.11
Price
4.11
The final thing is price. A number of people have complained that Tracer
is too expensive. I think we have to appreciate the difficulties
suppliers have in pricing products, when they are unsure of sales
figures, but if we are to believe 600 sales at, say, ú30 to the company
it only results in ú18,000 of revenue to pay for distribution, advertis
ing, the programmer etc. Tracer is 26k long and development costs can be
as high as ú1 a byte depending on the method of writing. In the
Archimedes market, Tracer is quite expensive for what it does, but
currently it has no competition Ö another factor which determines price.
Certainly, at the price, I do not think that there is any excuse for a
shoddy manual or disc labelling that looks rather amateurish. Hindsight
is a wonderful thing, but suppliers need to be sensitive to customers
and should appreciate that many will take öturns sprites into drawfilesò
to mean that a sprite will become like the high quality clip art they
are used to. I do think there is some onus on the buyers to be careful
about their interpretation of advertising claims though I have found
some companies under-state their products.
4.11
Conclusion
4.11
I hope I have been fair to all concerned. Midnight Graphics need to
consider customer needs and aspirations more, particularly with
applications where the functionality can be interpreted differently. I
am pretty sure that they have released Tracer in good faith though a
little market research and öbeta testingò on non-experts would help
prevent these problems. Disappointed purchasers should perhaps try and
find local suppliers who will let them try things out before buying,
particularly if they are in any doubt about their understanding of a
product. Given that Tracer is not copy protected it is perhaps unfair to
expect a money back guarantee to dissatisfied customers as operated by
Computer Concepts.ááA
4.11
4.11
Competition Corner
4.11
4.11
I have caught Colin out this month by going to press early because of my
trip to the States, so this monthæs competition is set by me Ö so itæs a
silly one.
4.11
What you have to do is tell me what Schroeder (if thatæs the correct
spelling) is saying in the picture at bottom right of the opposite page.
Answers on a postcard, please!ááA
4.11
4.11
Archive Mugs for Sale!
4.11
Now that we have got the Archive mugs back from the manufacturers, I can
report that they really are rather attractive. If you imagine the top
couple of inches of the front cover (but without the date, issue number
and price!) in blue and black on a white mug, you will get the picture
of what the new Archive mugs look like.
4.11
I was hoping that someone would write in saying how nice they were so I
could give an unsolicited testimonial but no such luck. All I can do is
offer a money-back guarantee if you are not absolutely satisfied.
4.11
ú3 each (+ ú1 p&p) or four for ú10 (+ ú2 p&p)
4.11
(We normally quote prices inclusive of p&p but in this case it is such a
large proportion of the cost, I think itæs better to see it separately.)
4.11
Why not pop into the Archive office and pick up some mugs? Ö It saves
you the postage!
4.11
4.11
Eizo Flexscan 9080i Monitor
4.11
Martin Thorpe
4.11
GL Consulting Ltd
4.11
We donæt normally allow people to review their own products but in this
case, Martin is reviewing the monitor and, since his product, OutLook,
is what makes the monitor usable on the Archimedes, it seems natural for
him to mention it!
4.11
This article contains a review of the Eizo Flexscan 9080i monitor, and
gives more detailed information about the OutLook package provided by GL
Consulting, which we recommend for usage with the 9080i.
4.11
The Eizo Flexscan 9080i Monitor is a 16ö auto-scanning colour monitor
with a number of features that set it apart from its counterpart, the
9070SZ. The monitor has a micro-processor controlled screen adjustment
and a horizontal scanning range of 30kHz to 64kHz.
4.11
First Impressions
4.11
The first thing that you notice about the 9080i is its size. Closer
inspection reveals the micro-processor control panel below the display.
This panel controls the screen adjustments, the picture input and
colour, and brightness and contrast.
4.11
The panel has 6 LEDs and 2 push buttons. In any screen mode, if the
monitor can synchronise to the output signal, the green sync LED lights
and the display appears.
4.11
Pressing the Select control button turns on the yellow horizontal
position LED, inviting you to use the adjustment wheel to move the
picture. Pressing Enter confirms the adjustment. Further presses of
Select allow you to adjust the vertical position, the horizontal and
vertical sizes, and the pin-cushion distortion control. All the
adjustments are stored in non-volatile RAM inside the monitor.
4.11
The monitor has two sets of inputs. It has a D-Sub 9-pin input, which
connects to the Analogue RGB output on the back of the Archimedes. The
cable supplied is a high-density VGA cable, which is not suitable. The
correct cable to use is the Eizo MD-C18.
4.11
In addition to the D-Sub connector, five BNC inputs are provided. These
are used by the Archimedes to display high-resolution monochrome modes
such as 23 and 48 (1280 x 960, provided by OutLook) in their full
splendour. The Mono output on the back of the Archimedes should be
connected to one of Red, Green or Blue, depending on your personal
preference, and the sync output should be connected to the X (Composite)
sync input. To display these modes, the input selector should be set to
BNC and the colour selector should be switched to B/W.
4.11
In both cases, the Archimedes sync output should be set to Composite.
4.11
The quality of the display is truly amazing. The screen is rock-steady
and, should the display be slightly blurred, it can be focussed using
the screw on the back panel. Normally, you should be able to set up and
focus the monitor and then leave it.
4.11
OutLook
4.11
In order to provide support for higher resolution monitors such as the
Eizo 9080i and to enable the usage of even higher resolutions on A400
and 500 series Archimedes, we have developed OutLook. This package
provides support for Super VGA (800 x 600), 8514/A (1024 x simulated
768), 800 x 480, 1152 x 448 and 1280 x 960 monochrome modes on any
Archimedes with enough memory and a VIDC Enhancer, including the A540.
In addition, the VGA clock of the A540 is fully utilised to provide a
true VGA output. OutLook consists of a customised module for your
monitor and a WIMP front end, allowing the actions of OutLook to be
controlled. In addition, any mode may be selected from an informative
list and the pixel and OS-Unit resolutions, number of colours, memory
requirement, and screen and pixel frequencies of any mode may be
requested.
4.11
(OutLook is available from GL Consulting at a price of ú10. Site
licenses are also available.)
4.11
If anyone is interested, we can get the 9080i as we now buy direct from
Eizo UK! It costs ú1050 (list price ú1099 +VAT = ú1291) through
Archive.ááA
4.11
4.11
Iron Lord
4.11
Richard Forster
4.11
Iron Lord is one of the most delightful games I have played on the
Archimedes. It has plenty of well detailed and colourful pictures,
several atmospheric tunes and a general highly polished feel to it. What
is more, it manages to mix a variety of different game styles from
arcade to adventure and strategy. The game is easy to load and installs
onto hard disc without any problem. Even the manual is well done, with
an eight page introductory tale preceding fourteen clear, yet detailed,
pages of instructions.
4.11
You take the part of Iron Lord, a Crusader of Justice, who escaped a
massacre as a baby, during which his father, the King, was killed by his
evil uncle. After many years of being brought up in hiding, you have now
returned to the land to overthrow the oppression and injustice, and to
return it to the serene kingdom it once was.
4.11
The first part of the game has you wandering in search of armies so that
you can fight the forces of darkness, and is a public relations exercise
to get the people on your side. You begin the game with an overview of
the kingdom and a medieval tune. To move to one of the seven locations
you click on it and, as long as it is accessible from your present
position, you will be moved to it, accompanied by a small picture of
yourself riding towards it which moves along the screen, following the
route you travel.
4.11
When you get to your destination, the screen changes to display a
picture of the village etc where you are and a map at the top right,
above a text information screen. You can then move around this map using
keys or mouse until you encounter a building of interest, which you can
then enter. This was perhaps the only weak area in the game, as there
was no clear way of knowing which buildings could be entered despite the
information which would appear in the text.
4.11
Once inside, a picture of the inhabitant usually appears, and this is
accompanied by a different piece of music for each person. You then have
various options, from trading to talking. To talk, you simply cycle
through a list of conversation topics until you get the right one, then
click on it. Information gained in one part of the game usually adds new
topics, so for example, having been told by an irate farmer that he has
not been paid by a local innkeeper you can then go to the inn and ask
the innkeeper why.
4.11
Most people want something and, upon receiving it, usually become more
helpful, but the problem is that some of the things people want are not
easily accessible. Most are held by other characters (who generally want
something first), but a few can be gained by completion of the Éactionæ
sequences. These include arm wrestling, an event that involves quick
movement of the mouse and is exhausting, to several sword fights. There
is also gambling to be done (with an excellent sampled die roll), and an
archery contest. The archery relies on setting angles for varying
targets and is exceedingly difficult for the first few times, although
it becomes possible after a couple of hours practice.
4.11
Once you have gained the support of at least one band of people, you can
set off into the final battle. It is not advisable to go into battle
without all the possible groups because, even with them all, it is quite
difficult to win, and the enemy always starts with ten. The battle
itself is purely strategical, and involves programming your troops to
move around the battlefield. Once two enemy regiments move into each
other, a battle commences, the outcome of which depends on the amount of
energy each has and also the number of men, as well as points like
whether an enemy was surprised by being attacked from behind.
4.11
It took me quite a few goes to get past this stage, even with all ten
available troops and, somehow, whenever I was attacked, the enemy always
seemed stronger. However, after trying out various plans, I eventually
found one that won though and was rewarded by the final challenge of the
game Ö the labyrinth.
4.11
The labyrinth part of the game has six levels, each of which in two
stages. The first stage is a maze through which you move trying to find
various objects, opening doors and locating the entrance to the next
level. Once you have found the entrance, you must do an arcade phase
which is rather like space invaders, and then itæs onto the next level.
Unfortunately, I have not got to the final level because there is a time
limit on this part of the game and it is amazingly easy to get lost and
watch the time drain away. Fortunately, the game allows you to save
before you enter the labyrinth and so with a bit more persistence . . .
4.11
Overall, the game is well worth buying and there is plenty in it to keep
you occupied for a good while, wherever your gaming interests lie. The
nature of the game is such that you can solve it from various different
angles and, if you find a particular section too hard, you can easily
leave it to try for a different area first and, when you do finally
complete something, you can always save the game so that you do not have
to do it again if Iron Lord succumbs to the unknown.
4.11
ÉIron Lordæ is available from Cygnus Software or through Archive at
ú18.ááA
4.11
4.11
üüüüIn Search of Euleræs Constant
4.11
George McCavitt
4.11
The January Competition Corner was to generate and display an arbitrary
number of decimal places for e, Euleræs Constant. I used a Continued
Fraction to represent e as a vulgar fraction instead. I have adopted the
convention where the partial quotients are displayed as [a0; a1, a2, a3,
... an]; the semicolon separates the integer part of the fraction from
the rest. It is quite clever that such a list will regenerate both the
numerator and denominator.
4.11
A Simple Example
4.11
If you have access to a scientific calculator, or use !SciCalc (Share
ware 19), you can try the following simple example:
4.11
Select p = 3.141592653583238462643383279, to the accuracy of your
calculator.
4.11
Record and remove the integer part.
4.11
Take the reciprocal of the remaining fraction.
4.11
Repeat the last two stages for about five iterations.
4.11
The continued fraction for p is determined from the integer parts you
discarded, which should be something like [3; 7, 15, 1, 292, ...]. You
will see how this is used later on.
4.11
Surds can be shown to have a repeating part in their partial quotients,
which doesnæt terminate; they are infinite continued fractions. The
simplest is the square root of 2:
4.11
SQR(2) = [1; 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, ...].
4.11
Taking eleven partial quotients gets me to the accuracy of my 12-digit
calculator, and this surd is a slow grower. Try it. Enter 2, take its
reciprocal; add 2 and take the reciprocal of this sum; repeat the last
until bored and then add 1.
4.11
Calculating Convergents
4.11
Luckily, to condense such a continued fraction back into a conventional
fraction (p/q), there is no need to solve from the right. This handling
of reciprocals can be avoided using the equations:
4.11
p0 = a0 q0 = 1
4.11
p1 = a1a0 + 1 q1 = a1
4.11
pk = akpk-1 + pk-2 qk = akqk-1
+ qk-2,
4.11
both pk and qk use the same iterative formula but with different
starting conditions. Only one final division is necessary to form a
decimal fraction.
4.11
Proof of the Pudding (or Pi)
4.11
Using pk / qk for p from the above example, we get successive values of
3/1, 22/7, 333/106, 355/113, with decimal values of 3, 3.14, 3.1415,
3.141593.
4.11
The next value on is a better approximation to the true value. Check
that 355/113 is vastly superior to using 22/7 as a rational approxima
tion to p.
4.11
Back to Euler
4.11
e is known as the sum:
4.11
1 + 1/2! + 1/3! + 1/4! + ....
4.11
but Euler also gave it as a continued fraction [2; 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1,
6, 1, 1, 8, ...]. This recurring pattern can be used in an algorithm. In
Elementary Number Theory by D. M. Burton, Euler gave (e-1)/(e+1) as [0;
2, 6, 10, 14, 18, ...]. Using this gives e more quickly. The following
table and equations should explain how:
4.11
n 1 2 3 4 5 6
4.11
an 0 2 6 10 14 18
4.11
pn 0 1 6 61 860
17341
4.11
qn 1 2 13 132 1861
35298
4.11
pn + qn 1 3 19 193
2721 49171
4.11
qn - pn 1 1 7 71
1001 18089
4.11
Noting (e-1)/(e+1)=p/q, therefore e=(p+q)/(p-q)
4.11
so e can be condensed from the last two rows as:
4.11
1, 3, 2.7, 2.718, 2.718282 and 2.71828183.
4.11
Continued Fraction Procedure Description
4.11
As 32-bit arithmetic can only offer 10 decimal places of accuracy, an
alternative is needed for greater precision. A byte per digit would need
several lines of Basic. I instead chose to use the built-in features of
arrays. I use three, A%() to C%() all of length E%, set with the initial
conditions. Each element holds one digit. This fourfold trade-off is
faster as I presume they are C routines. Using parameters (3,1) and
(1,1) and setting an = 6, gave me my öfudgedò, iterative method, which I
coded as PROCContFrac as:
4.11
DEF PROCContFrac(over%,under%)
4.11
A%()=0: B%()=0
4.11
A%(0)=over%: B%(0)=under%
4.11
N%=6: SIZE=1
4.11
REPEAT
4.11
C%()=N%*A%(): C%()=C%()+B%()
4.11
PROCcarries
4.11
B%()=A%(): A%()=C%()
4.11
N%+=4: SIZE+=LOG(N%)
4.11
UNTIL SIZE>E%
4.11
ENDPROC
4.11
PROCcarries and FNmin would have been faster in assembler, but in Basic
they are:
4.11
DEF PROCcarries
4.11
FOR I%=0 TO FNmin(E%-1,SIZE)
4.11
C%(I%+1)+=(C%(I%) DIV 10)
4.11
C%(I%)=C%(I%) MOD 10
4.11
NEXT
4.11
ENDPROC
4.11
DEF PROCmin(a,b)
4.11
IF a<b THEN =a ELSE =b
4.11
The remainder of the program can be coded to your own purposes. To be
more general, N% needs to be replaced by an a array (remember pæs
quotients).
4.11
Conclusion
4.11
Continued fractions are a fascinating subject in themselves. I hope I
have given an insight into their power. By using Basic V array routines,
I found a solution to a problem I had long wanted to solve. How I made a
vulgar fraction a decimal one is another story.ááA
4.11
4.11
PenDown Fonts Disc
4.11
Dave Morrell
4.11
Some time ago I reviewed PenDown (3.13 p48 + 4.1 p42 + 4.6 p54). In that
review I expressed the hope that Longman Logotron would support the
Archimedes version of PenDown in the way that they supported the
original PenDown with extra fonts and borders etc. They seem to have
started their support with a disc of twelve fonts. All these fonts are
what I would call fancy headline or poster fonts but in certain
circumstances they could be used as body fonts.
4.11
ACUTE is a similar font to ÉShiveræ which came with Poster. There are
208 defined characters in the font and they seem to be the same
characters as Acornæs Trinity. 158 of the characters contain scaffold
lines.
4.11
BRIX is a similar font to Jumbo which came out with PenDown but most of
the characters are placed on a cube much like childrenæs play bricks.
The characters which are not on a cube are made to appear as if they are
made out of a fairly thick piece of material. Again, the same 208
characters are defined, 191 of which have scaffold lines.
4.11
DIGITAL, as the name implies, looks like the letters and numbers
associated with a digital display. It is a clear font and much easier to
read than other attempts I have seen of this style. The standard 208
character set has been defined, 136 of which contain scaffold lines.
4.11
DRIFT is my own favourite from this set of fonts. It is in the same vein
as the ÉSnowballæ font in Poster. There are 209 defined characters of
which 156 contain scaffold lines. Some of the characters have been
defined as small pictures making a short ÉChristmas Dingbatsæ set. The
characters not defined as pictures all have a vaguely horizontal line
running through them. When printed out, this line joins up to look like
the top of a snowdrift from which the snow covered letters appear. Even
the space character has this line.
4.11
HORIZON is built up from horizontal lines. When printed out it looks as
if every other pin of a dot-matrix printer is not working. It is a very
clear font and is easy to read. It is similar to one which appeared for
the original PenDown. There are 208 defined characters, of which 200
contain scaffold lines.
4.11
KOSMO is another ultra-modern font. It is a slightly oblique, very
square font with extra thickening of some lines. This is another 209
characters set of which 139 contain scaffold lines.
4.11
LINEOUT seems to be the outline font which appeared with the pre-release
version of Archimedes PenDown but not the final release. Again it is a
clear, easy to read font with 209 characters, 180 of which contain
scaffold lines.
4.11
QUAD is a rather square script-type font similar in some respects to
Kosmo. There are 208 defined characters of which 157 contain scaffold
lines.
4.11
RAZOR is another font I particularly liked but it is difficult to
describe. It is a blocky font in which all the edges appear to have been
ground down and sharpened, hence the name. Like BRIX, it gives a 3¡D
effect. Razor has 208 defined characters of which 180 contain scaffold
lines.
4.11
The final three fonts are, I think, pure gimmick. They are BRAILLE,
MORSE and SEMAPHORE. I rather liked Semaphore which has all the letters
of the alphabet defined plus one other. There are no scaffold lines and
the only difference between upper and lower case is the addition of the
letter on the figure in the upper case version. Upper case Braille and
Morse also have the letter on show.
4.11
The small characters in the Semaphore font will brighten up anybodyæs
presentation and could even be utilised as a border.
4.11
The facts about scaffold lines came from FontFix.
4.11
From what I can tell by eye, both on screen and on paper, the fonts seem
to be well hinted.
4.11
PenDown fonts disc is available from Longman Logotron at ú18 + VAT or
through Archive at ú19 inclusive. This is very good value even if you
only like two or three of the fonts and donæt forget, these fonts are
not just for use in PenDown Ö they can be used with any of the appli
cations that can deal with outline fonts.ááA
4.11
4.11
ARCterm7 Ö and Pilling Terminals
4.11
Brian Cowan
4.11
In the time I have been an Archimedes owner I must have tried every
terminal emulator produced for that machine, including the old BBC
terminal emulators together with 6502 emulation. Mostly, I use such
terminals for communication, at work, with our DEC VAX ömainframeò
computers, though occasionally I use my modem to log on to various
bulletin boards. I had seen, and briefly used, ARCterm 6 and I was quite
impressed with it. The problem, as with all the older generation of
terminal emulators, was that they did not run in a window; in fact, many
of them were originally written pre-RISC-OS.
4.11
Multi-tasking
4.11
It was only a matter of time until multi-tasking terminal emulators
appeared. I was very impressed when I first saw Acornæs Ethernet
software, as this included a multi-tasking VT220 terminal. Subsequently,
other packages came along. Although I have probably seen and briefly
tried all the terminal emulators around, I will not discuss most in
detail but concentrate on two. There have already been reviews of the
others in Archive. The first subject of the review, ARCterm7, I would
describe as the best terminal emulator and the other, David Pillingæs
terminal suite, is certainly the cheapest and, to my mind, the best
value for money.
4.11
Both packages are fully RISC-OS compatible, installing themselves on the
icon bar and opening up a window when clicked on. The bare essential
which one would require from a terminal emulator is that it should
provide emulation of a computer terminal Ö obviously! As I mentioned
above, my particular application is in communicating with DEC VAX
mainframe computers. Here the DEC VT standard is what emulators are
aiming at. Both terminal emulators give a good implementation of the
VT100 standard. David Pillingæs terminal also provides a subset of the
VT220 standard as well. I should note in passing that the Acorn Ethernet
TCP/IP software package includes an essentially complete implementation
of VT220, which supports communication down the RS423 port as well as
the main objective of Ethernet.
4.11
Compatibility
4.11
There are a number of standard tests which can be run to test full VT
compatibility. None of the terminal emulators passed completely,
misinterpreting the odd control code, but then all non-DEC terminals
fall down on something or other. However, the number of misinterpreted
codes was small. The latest version of David Pillingæs VT100 terminal is
near-perfect, as is ARCterm7.
4.11
Features
4.11
Taking full implementation of the emulated terminal for granted, what
distinguishes the various packages around is the range of öextrasò
supported. Here, the list of ARCterm7æs features is almost endless. A
full collection of modem drivers is provided and there is implementation
of many file transfer protocols including X, Y, Z and Jmodem and my
favourite, Kermit. A powerful feature of ARCterm7 is its script
language. In structure this is a sort of cross between C and Basic, and
it allows the user to customise the program to his/her precise require
ments. A script file can be ödroppedò on the terminal window and its
contents will be executed. Scripts are provided for logging on to
various of the bulletin boards, including The World of Cryton. It works
beautifully and painlessly. Another feature is that the Intelligent
Interfaces multiple serial port is supported; one can select which port
is used.
4.11
Hidden extras
4.11
ARCterm7 is still being improved. So far, I have received three upgrades
since the original release 1.00. New features have appeared which are
not covered in the manual (they are covered in a readme file on the disc
though) including additions to the script language. I was very happy to
find that there is now the option to open up a öhistoryò window which
contains a copy of the last 256 lines of the session and which can be
scrolled up and down. This I found most useful. Eventually I discovered
that sections of this may be selected and saved as a file or copied,
perhaps to an Edit window. The odd thing about this was that to öselectò
one had to use the öadjustò button of the mouse. There turns out to be a
certain internally consistent logic to this as ARCterm7 often uses
<adjust> for öselectò functions.
4.11
It is equally easy to transmit files using ARCterm7. Files can either be
sent directly or they can be queued for later transmission.
4.11
Documentation
4.11
The ARCterm manual is quite comprehensive, with a large section covering
the details of the script language. You only need to use the manual when
difficulties arise, which is not very often. It is well laid out and
there is a good index. Also there is an extensive collection of
appendices covering such diverse topics as choosing a modem, RS423
connections (potentially problematic with the Archimedes), and adding
sound to ARCterm7.
4.11
Complaints
4.11
Complaints are few and relatively minor. The cursor is a caret rather
than the usual DEC block. Most other terminal emulators allow a choice.
Also, with ARCterm7 there is no smooth scrolling mode; the screen moves
up a line at a time. Finally, the full ARCterm7 window is slightly
larger than a standard monitor screen so you canæt see everything
together. Essentially, the text window fills the screen so that the
scroll bars etc. fall outside.
4.11
I mention these three problems particularly because David Pillingæs VT
terminal emulator does not suffer from them. You can select the form of
cursor you require: a block or a flashing block perhaps, and there is
the option for a smoothly moving scroll. This I find much easier on the
eyes, particularly when scanning a long document. A clever idea in the
Pilling terminal is a slightly shrunken screen option whereby the whole
emulator window can be viewed on the screen.
4.11
Pilling terminals
4.11
Most of the David Pilling software is sold at the bargain price of ú5.99
per disc as was the original version of his RISC-OS terminals. There is
now a new version known as RISC-OS Terminals Plus with enhanced
features, selling at the still attractive price of ú17.99. The new
version comes with a 40 page manual and it has a number of useful
enhancements. There are now some commands to control the modem from the
computer, and there is enhanced printer support: as well as straight
ASCII, one can configure the terminal to use Epson LQ or IBM X24 codes.
The main enhancement, however, is in the file transfer protocols. The
original terminals provided for only Xmodem and pure ASCII Ö Terminals
Plus adds Kermit and Zmodem.
4.11
Comparison
4.11
These are all first rate products. Pillingæs terminals also has a script
language for configuring the terminals automatically. This is good but
nowhere near as comprehensive and versatile as ARCterm7És script
language. The main important features which ARCterm7 provide and
Pillingæs terminals do not are the history window and the extensive
range of modem drivers. It is interesting that Pillingæs terminals are
written directly in ARM code making them very compact and fast while
ARCterm7 is mainly in C, using ARM code for the speed critical parts.
4.11
Conclusion
4.11
My conclusion is that David Pillingæs original terminal emulator suite
is excellent value for money at the remarkable price of ú5.99. The new
improved version, at ú17.99, provides some extra features which might
well be desirable (you can upgrade from one to the other for ú17.99). If
you need a terminal emulator and you donæt yet have one then I would
advise you to purchase the cheaper Pilling terminals to start with. If
you then decide that there are other features which you would like, then
you can decide whether to upgrade to Terminals+ or purchase ARCterm7.
Certainly ARCterm7 has the most features and it is a joy to use. It is
quite simply the best, but then at ú79.99 you would expect it to be.ááA
4.11
4.11
Audio Data Compression
4.11
Ned Abell
4.11
When you next sit down and listen to your favourite CD, spare a thought
for all the little electrons beavering away to make it possible. They
really are raising a lather as the audio data is fed off the disc at
44.1 thousand times a second at 16 bits for the two channels Ö thatæs
around 1.4 Megabits per second.
4.11
Put another way, a 20 Mbyte hard disc could store only about half a Top
Ten single. Some would say that was a good thing! There is also the
problem of reading and writing that speed of data to storage Ö hard
discs can cope but floppies are too slow to work in real time.
4.11
Research Departments in many companies have been working overtime to
squeeze the audio öquartò into a pint pot thus allowing smaller capture
and carrying media or longer recording times. However, if you reduce the
sample rate too much, or the number of sampled bits per second, it
sounds very poor.
4.11
Spotting the difference
4.11
Audio Processing Technology (APT) was formed in 1988 by students at
Belfast University who were working on digital telephone systems. Their
approach to the problem is now coming on to the market through their
parent company Solid State Logic.
4.11
What Steven Smyth and his colleagues have done is to compress the 16 bit
sample to 4 by splitting the audio frequency into bands. The encoder
then uses predictions based on samples of the audio thatæs gone through.
The differences between the 16bit input and the predictions are turned
into a 4 bit code and thatæs what is saved.
4.11
For example, a note could have a fast attack time, then a period of
sustain and then a long period of decay. The changes in the note would
be minimal whilst it was sustained and greatest during its attack. These
differences take up a lot less room than writing essentially the same
sequence of data each 44 thousandth of a second.
4.11
..and in practice.
4.11
There has been a lot of work done on these coding techniques and the
result is impressive. Itæs not only the data that is predicted but also
what the brain makes of it. For example, some sounds are judged
critically by the ear because of their smoothness but others, which are
sharp, can be received less favourably. Thus, the coding changes are
more critical at times when the ear expects it!
4.11
The coding software drives processor chips and APT sells the resulting
encoder and decoder boards as units to manufacturers and a range of
products is starting to emerge
4.11
Products
4.11
Several manufacturers have seen the promise in this type of technology,
for example in radio broadcast studios, jingles and adverts have often
been played in using endless loop quarter inch magnetic tape cartridges
with stop and start pulses on them. These are plugged into a player as
they are wanted. They are prone to wear and sometimes donæt cue up or
cycle properly mostly due to öfinger troubleò. Soniflex now use 4
Megabyte floppy discs and apt-x 100 coding to store the audio so the
operator feels he is using a familiar system, plugging in discs but the
audio quality is better and access quicker Ö and finger trouble is
reduced.
4.11
Digital Audio Broadcasting is being broadcast experimentally now in
Britain and coding techniques like apt-x to reduce bit rates will be
used. For example, linking television Outside Broadcast vehicles to base
involves microwave transmission for the vision circuits and apt-x is
being used to code the stereo sound into the vision circuits to reduce
cost in a new ösound-in-syncsò decoder and encoder from Vistek.
4.11
For the IBM, there is an expansion card called the ACE100 that allows
you real time direct-to-disc stereo recording and playback with analog
or digital input/output. Data can be stored as normal 16 bit or 4 bit
apt at a range of sampling frequencies between 16 and 48kHz. You can
store over 30 minutes of stereo music on a 60Mbyte drive. You can access
the software on the board to program fades and emphasis and up to four
boards can be linked which would give an 8 track hard disc recorder.
4.11
and the Archimedes...?
4.11
Well there isnæt a specific apt-x board for the computer yet but Iæm not
ruling out the prospect given demand. Ironically, it will be determined
by other manufacturers selling multi-media equipment, raising its
profile and Archimedes suppliers following suit. I think the market is
there but then Iæm not investing cash in the research. As Digital Audio
Tape gains ground and when Digital Compact Cassette is launched, öhome
computerò editors will mushroom. The Archimedesæ speed coupled with an
APT board and some windowing editing software could be of great use.
4.11
The bottom line is a suitable data compression system for audio and
video. Invent that and you have a blank cheque!
4.11
Audio Processing Technology Ltd. Begbroke, Oxford OX5 1RU are currently
moving to Belfast on 0232-662714 and publish a newsletter detailing APT
products.ááA
4.11
4.11
ArcLight and SolidsRender Ray-tracers
4.11
Malcolm Banthorpe
4.11
Ray-tracing can be broadly described as a method of generating computer
graphic images which exhibit the maximum degree of realism that can be
achieved within the limits imposed by the display hardware. To do this,
it is necessary to take into account, as far as is practicable, all of
the possible paths that each ray of light can take from each light
source to the viewpoint. For a fuller explanation of what itæs all
about, see my review of another ray-tracing program, RenderBender, in
Archive 2.9. Jim Markland has already written about his experience of
ray-tracing with ArcLight for a specific application, namely the
representation of geological data, in Archive 4.4. This review takes a
more general look at both Arclight and SolidsRender.
4.11
Unlike RenderBender, which is intended to be used as a stand-alone
application and therefore contains everything necessary to construct
simple scenes, both of the applications reviewed here are designed as
accessories to be used with existing 3D graphics editors. This review
will therefore make most sense to those who already have experience of
either Euclid or SolidCAD and who wish to generate more realistic-
looking images of scenes or of individual objects. It may also be of
interest if you are contemplating the purchase of such a rendering
system, particularly if read in conjunction with reviews of the 3D
editors which have appeared elsewhere. Both 3D editors already allow
lighting to be represented to a limited degree by showing the effect of
shading on the various facets of an objectæs surface. With ray-tracing,
it is also possible to include shadows (a factor which alone contributes
quite a lot to the realism), transparency, reflection and refraction. In
order to achieve some degree of smooth shading from the 256 colour
palette, both applications, like RenderBender, make use of dithering.
4.11
ArcLight, from Ace Computing, is the latest addition to the Euclid
family and is specifically designed for the ray-tracing of scenes
created with the !Euclid 3D editor. If you also have !Mogul then ray-
traced animations can be produced which in turn can be edited with
!Splice. SolidsRender, from Silicon Vision, works in conjunction with
SolidCAD and it, too, can produce animations if you also have Film-
Maker. The application comes with a built-in sphere-generating primitive
and also included on the disc are files for a number of other primitives
such as cubes, cylinders and cones. Limited stand-alone use is therefore
possible and is the manner in which this review was conducted, making
use also of the sample scene files on the disc.
4.11
SolidsRender
4.11
SolidsRender is supplied on a single unprotected disc and comes with a
30-page instruction booklet. The program is not multi-tasking but is, I
think, what Acorn would call RISC-OS compatible. That is, it installs
itself on the icon bar when first run but when subsequently selected
does not make use of the WIMP system. The Quit option return to the
desktop as it was previously set. The operating environment is very
similar to that of SolidCAD and indeed the instruction booklet assumes
that the user is already familiar with it.
4.11
The screen is divided into four viewports showing plan, front and side
elevations for design and a projection port for the 3D display. All of
the views are wire-frame at this stage. At the right of the screen there
is a menu selection area, while help and status messages are shown, and
data entry takes place, at the foot of the screen. As mentioned earlier,
the scene, or at least its component parts, would normally be generated
using SolidCAD, although with the primitives provided, it is possible to
construct a simple scene with SolidsRender alone.
4.11
Very comprehensive facilities are provided for setting the surface
characteristics of each object in terms of colour, specular and diffuse
reflection, transparency, refraction etc. This includes texture-mapping
whereby a sprite or bit-map may be mapped onto a surface. This could be
used, for example, to give a surface the appearance of wood grain. A
bit-map is a two-level (that is, one bit per pixel) sprite. Each of the
two levels may be assigned different characteristics. So, for instance,
an object could have a patterned surface in which one part was metallic
gold and the other was transparent to blue light. Whatæs more, there are
three different types of texture mapping to choose from: surface, shrink
and project. If you choose the shrink option, then the texture file is
wrapped around the object in both X and Y directions whereas shrink sets
the texture to wrap in the X direction but to be projected directly onto
the surface in the Y direction. The project option sets the texture to
be directly projected in both directions. Obviously, thereæs a vast
number of possibilities for defining surface textures and some experi
mentation is required to find out how best to exploit this feature.
4.11
There are more options to choose from when it comes to the style menu.
Mode 15, 24, 28 or 21 may be chosen for the final image. Fortunately, an
image size as small as 1/8 screen may be chosen for the image size if
you are in a hurry to get some idea of what it will look like. Texture,
shadows, reflection, transmission and refraction may all be either on or
off, as may soft-focus and anti-aliasing. The dithering copes quite well
with representing subtle shading but I found the overall image quality
to be disappointing. The edges of objects were generally ragged in
appearance. I assume that the reason for this is that arithmetic
precision has been sacrificed to achieve speed in the ray-tracing
process. The overall appearance is changed but not really improved by
selecting the anti-alias option which smoothes the edges to some extent
at the expense of making everything look slightly blurred Ö similar to
the soft focus option but less so.
4.11
ArcLight
4.11
ArcLight is supplied on a single unprotected disc and comes with a 14
page instruction leaflet. To ray-trace a picture, the following
procedure is followed, once ArcLight has been installed on the icon bar.
On dragging a previously prepared Euclid file onto the icon, a Échoicesæ
dialogue box pops up and, assuming for the moment that you are happy
with the default settings, ray-tracing can be initiated by entering a
filename with which the resulting picture will be saved and dragging it
to a suitable directory viewer. There will then be a wait of possibly a
few seconds or maybe an hour or more, depending on the size of the
sprite to be generated and the complexity of the scene, until the
picture is complete. As the program is fully multi-tasking, it is
possible to get on with some other computing activity, e.g. word-
processing, while this is happening as long as the other activity is
also multi-tasking. An occasional glance at the ArcLight sprite window
will show how it is progressing. Performing another task at the same
time will necessarily slow down the ray-tracing process to a greater or
lesser degree depending on the extent to which your extra task demands
processor time, but at least the computer is still usable while you wait
for the final result. For maximum rendering speed there is a Éfastæ
option which allows ArcLight to claim exclusive use of the processor.
The display is also disabled in this mode, but can be re-enabled
instantly by clicking a mouse button if you should wish to check on the
progress of the image.
4.11
In order to speed up the ray-tracing process, ArcLight uses a spacial
sub-division algorithm. Briefly, the way it works is as follows. Imagine
a box just large enough to contain the whole three-dimensional scene. If
there are too many polygons in the scene to be dealt with simply, it is
sub-divided into eight smaller boxes called voxels Ö a sort of three-
dimensional pixel. Each voxel is then examined and if it still proves to
be too complex, it is further sub-divided. The sub-division can continue
to a maximum value, settable from the choices menu and known as Édepthæ.
A voxel is considered to be too complex if the number of polygons that
it contains exceeds a certain value, also settable from the choices
menu, known as Ésimplicityæ. Some trial and error is required to find
the best setting to achieve optimum use of available memory and speed,
and I found it best, most of the time, to stick to the default values of
six and one respectively.
4.11
A number of other parameters can be set from the choices menu. Perhaps
the most important are the image size and the screen mode in which the
final picture is to be generated. For the dithering to work, this must
be a 256-colour mode. User-defined screen modes for over-scanned images
also seem to work OK as long as they are eight-bits-per-pixel. The
desktop mode in use during the rendering can be set independently
without restrictions Ö mode 0 for maximum speed. The final image size
may be larger than the screen if required. There may seem little point
in doing this, particularly as itæs going to take longer. The advantage
is that a large image may subsequently be reduced by a program such as
ChangeFSI, resulting true anti-aliasing and an improvement in those
jagged edges imposed by the 256 lines of vertical resolution on a non-
multisync monitor.
4.11
Arclight showed occasional evidence of the limits of its arithmetic
precision in the form of ragged edges but in general I found this to be
considerably less noticeable than with SolidsRender. The problem showed
itself mainly as single pixel pinhole gaps at the common edges of
adjacent polygons and occurred sufficiently rarely that the image could
be tidied up fairly quickly using !Paint.
4.11
A number of surface types, such as wood, metal, mirror, glass can
already be selected within the Euclid 3D editor. User defined materials
are also possible but, like Jim Markland, I was unable to get this
option to work properly and never reached a definite conclusion as to
whether it was me or the software that was doing something wrong.
4.11
Conclusions
4.11
It would be inappropriate to recommend one of these ray-tracers as being
better than the other as they are aimed almost exclusively at two
different groups of users who already use their parent products. Both
are reasonably fast. I got the impression that Arclight had the edge for
speed particularly for complex scenes but was unable to compare them
using a similar source file. A comparison using a very simple scene Ö a
cube Ö on both showed only a small difference. SolidsRender has the
major advantage of texture mapping although, for me, this was negated by
the overall image quality.
4.11
Ray-tracing certainly adds an extra degree of realism to 3D images but
it is arguable whether the term öphoto-realisticò can be truly applied
to the Archimedes until someone produces a 24-bit graphics add-on (or
possibly the necessary hardware will included in a future incarnation of
the machine) to enable the full range of colours to be achieved without
the sacrifice of spatial resolution which is inherent in dithering.
Nevertheless, the results from both of these ray-tracers do considerably
enhance the images obtained from their respective parent 3D editors.ááA
4.11
4.11
Fine Racer
4.11
Geoff Scott
4.11
There may be some who remember Jet Boat for the BBC in which you guided
a fast jet boat around a multi-directional scrolling river network
within a certain time limit whilst avoiding barriers, abandoned logs,
boats and other various scattered objects. Well, Fine Racer is a BBC
equivalent. It is a fast and challenging game from Eterna in which you
have to guide a rally buggy around a multi-directional scrolling
landscape littered with roadworks, credits, barriers, trees, walls, etc.
4.11
Iæm not sure what that is saying, but just as I was addicted to Jet Boat
so I have became addicted to Fine Racer.
4.11
The game is, sadly, protected in a way which prevents hard disc
installation and personal backups. Also, like many of the early
Archimedes games, it reconfigures the machine, making return to the
desktop impossible.
4.11
On booting the game you are presented with a screen depicting a garage.
It is here you are given the chance to equip your buggy with all of the
latest features, but to buy these you will need credits.
4.11
Starting the actual game, you are one of four racers, each out to cause
as much trouble as possible to the others whilst aiming to collect eight
Échecksæ, and then to win the race. Simple? No. To add to your problems
you have to worry about the state of your buggy. The engine and the
tyres are damaged with each collision and, to make matters worse, I
found that the lack of brakes could not be compensated for completely by
careful use of the accelerator. This means that you are likely to shoot
off into a wall which is detrimental to the car, leading eventually to
its destruction.
4.11
There are many different tracks, each of which is quite large, making it
a struggle to survive one track in a good enough condition to even
consider beginning the next. Luckily there is the provision of a
training mode, in which a track is picked at random and you are given
unlimited time to explore it without having to worry about the other
cars Ö unfortunately, the checks and the other bonuses are also hidden.
4.11
There is also a third mode of racing which is called the labyrinth race.
The idea is to build up extra credits before trusting your car to the
main race, or simply to gain some driving practice.
4.11
The time limit which is imposed on you is effectively set by the third
car to get completely around the track. This is because, if you end up
in fourth position, you have to turn around and race back to the start,
but itæs not that simple because another car homes in on you to cause
your eventual destruction Ö a car belonging to the tyrant Mad Max!
4.11
Your car is one of the latest in buggy technology(!) Ö upgrades may be
added which add a welcome boost to the car, and you do not have to
remain defenceless against the wrath of the others as you can buy, for a
mere 50 credits, a bomb which will halt them for a while. From the
garage you can also buy accessories which will make the catching ability
of your car increase, a return to the race option, a more or less
sensitive steering system and also the option of which mode to play in.
This is also where you are given the most welcome options Ö repairs.
4.11
I thoroughly enjoy playing this game. The graphics are good and the
sound is excellent. It is well worth the money Ö ú19.95 from Vector
Services or ú18 through Archive.ááA
4.11
4.11
Viewpoints
4.11
Paul Welbank
4.11
Viewpoints is an appealing little application which could be used in a
variety of contexts within the primary and secondary school curriculum.
Its chief attraction is the high quality of the countryside Éviewsæ and
the collection of over fifty colourful and realistic sprites of British
wildlife. These are in normal sprite format, so could be extracted and
used elsewhere, for example in DTP.
4.11
The program comes on three discs; the ÉStartupæ disc is uncopyable, in
true Sherston style, while the Exploration and Database discs can be
backed up. It demonstrated an irritating sensitivity to machine
environment; it would not run on any of our networked Archimedes, nor on
my own machine with a hard-disc, without reconfiguring the default
filing systems; not very friendly! The introductory sequence of flashing
screens of various grey/brown hues is somewhat disconcerting and
amateurish, but eventually progresses to some attractive countryside
graphics.
4.11
Using the Exploration disc; the idea is for pupils to explore the map
provided, seeking likely habitats for discovering an assortment of
British wildlife species. If they come across a likely area, pupils can
Éwatch and waitæ or Élook closelyæ at selected regions of the displayed
view. At this point, a species will undoubtedly appear and the explorer
has the opportunity to Éphotographæ the animal using the mouse buttons
and a frame which appears. This is quite nicely done because, if you are
not quick enough, you will as likely as not chop off the animalæs head
or snap its disappearing back-side. Quite realistic really; and fun. You
can discard unsatisfactory snaps and try again. Eventually, sets of
snaps must be saved to disc or deposited in the database.
4.11
The exploratory side of the game can be approached in different ways. A
class can be asked to find as many species as they can in a given time
or they can work on a points basis, with more points given for rare
species. All of this will require them to interpret the map. There is
also a built-in Étreasure trailæ where pupils follow clues to find the
golden statue. Just the job for the last week of term! All the alterna
tives are well documented in the manual and selectable on the ÉTeacher
Controlæ menu, so that the tasks can be made simple or complex according
to the age/ability of the pupils. I was not able to test Viewpoints with
a class as this would have required running off 32 disc copies. We look
forward to the Econet version appearing.
4.11
The Viewpoints ÉDatabaseæ disc contains a database system which can be
used alongside the exploratory activities mentioned above, or indeed
independently as a simple database comprising text, numeric or picture
fields. In conjunction with the exploration, pupils can use the supplied
database format or create their own. As animals are photographed, the
pictures can be transferred into the database and the textual fields can
be filled in from the supplied information cards. The font used is
large, so you cannot expect to put large quantities of data in a record.
However, the inclusion of the picture sprites gives an attractive
introduction to database work, with primitive searching sorting and
graphing facilities available.
4.11
The Teachersæ Book is well presented and has extensive sections on
relevant subject-specific connections, suggestions for further activi
ties, National Curriculum Attainment Targets and useful addresses of
organisations and associations. All in all, a well presented, useful and
reasonably priced package Ö ú35 +VAT from Sherston Software.ááA
4.11
4.11
Key Plus
4.11
Joe Gallagher
4.11
Key, from ITV Software, appeared on the scene three years ago. It
aroused much interest at the time, not only because of the wealth of
facilities it offered in comparison to existing database packages for
schools, but also due to the fact that it was offered at the giveaway
price of ú5. ITVæs intention was that the data handling package itself
should act as a loss leader to enable it penetrate a fairly crowded
market. The datafiles accompanying the package (which tended to be
priced at a more realistic level) were not long in arriving and today,
Key can boast a range of support materials comparable with those of its
rivals of lengthier pedigree.
4.11
Another novel feature of Key was that, although it was designed to be
able to be used among the widest age range of children, the facilities
that it offered in respect of data handling, statistics and graphs, far
outstripped those of its rivals.
4.11
My one major reservation about the BBC version of Key concerned the
complexity of its menu structure. To carry out even the simplest of
tasks involved traversing a series of menus and submenus and, after
using them for a while with children, I began to appreciate, for once,
the spartan beauty of an old fashioned command driven approach as
typified by Quest. I was intrigued to see whether the RISC-OS version of
Key would address these issues.
4.11
RISC-OS Key
4.11
Key Plus, the Archimedes version, is supplied with two sample datafiles
and consists of two applications, Key Plus and Key Edit. Key Edit is
used for creating new datafiles and Key Plus is the main information
retrieval program. In fact, two versions of Key are supplied on the
disc. As well as the main RISC-OS version there is a version which runs
in full screen mode and provides a good emulation of the original BBC
program, though heaven knows why anyone should want it. Communicating
with other programs, in terms of output, is very easy, thanks to Keyæs
use of the RISC-OS data transfer facilities but the program is rather
limited in terms of files which it will accept. There is an accompanying
conversion program but it only works with datafiles produced by earlier
versions of Key.
4.11
Loading datafiles
4.11
In a way which is reminiscent of Impression, Keyæs datafiles consist of
directories containing a set of related files such as indexes or forms.
However, unlike Impression, the datafiles are not application style
directories and therefore cannot be loaded by double-clicking on the
icon. Instead they must be dragged on to the Key Plus icon on the icon
bar. This opens a small window displaying several useful items of
information about the current file including the number of fields and
records in the database and also the date when the file was last
updated. Clicking on the menu button brings up a list of search, sort
and display options.
4.11
Easy to use
4.11
Key Plus is basically RISC-OS compliant although the memory that it
requires severely limits its multi-tasking abilities on a 1Mbyte
machine. Even if you have more memory, you are still only allowed to
open one datafile at a time. Selecting the fields for display is
extremely easy using the Archimedesæ walking menus, and browsing through
records is achieved by clicking on video type buttons with a fast
forward/rewind option to increase the step rate from one to ten records
at a time. This gadget, however, does tend to disappear when a number of
windows are on screen and hunting for it can be an infuriating process.
A keyboard shortcut to retrieve it to the front of the screen would be a
most welcome addition and save a lot of window re-arranging.
4.11
New features
4.11
The original BBC Key was quite a trend setter in its use of maps and
graphics. This inception of the program is no less innovative. You can
load a map file and select records of places simply by drawing a
rectangle around their locations with the mouse and clicking. Key can
also control an interactive video disc player if you have a genlock
board fitted. Possibly with 1992 in mind, Key has been designed to run
in a variety of languages.
4.11
Index files
4.11
A lot of thought has gone into the display of information. The user is
able to design his or her own forms for displaying and printing data,
including an option for tabular display. Iæm not sure if this feature is
fully implemented as it seemed very easy to make a dogæs dinner of the
whole process. Unusually for a dedicated educational information
retrieval program, Key Plus can handle index files. When you have
carried out a search or a sort, you can save the criteria as an index
file for future reference. This can be re-used by dragging the index
file on to the appropriate menu and away you go. This feature, which is
a joy to use, is also available for user defined card formats.
4.11
Graphs
4.11
The graphing and statistical facilities are very comprehensive and are
easily accessed from the initial menu. These have a particularly nice
feature whereby graphs and charts are automatically rescaled when the
window is resized so that the whole graph remains in view. Graphs can
only be exported as sprite files at the moment although future enhance
ments of the program will include the ability to export them as
drawfiles.
4.11
Editing
4.11
New files are created by clicking on the create option on the Key Edit
icon on the menu bar and existing files are edited by dragging their
folder on to the same icon. You are offered three alternatives: to edit
data, structure or graphics. Unfortunately, you can only choose one of
these options per editing session and if you decide, after changing the
structure of the file, that you wish to edit the data, you need to close
down the datafile and reopen it again.
4.11
Datatypes
4.11
The program caters for an impressive range of data types. As well as the
more usual string and numeric handling facilities, the user can set up a
datafile which includes date, formula, graphic, map coordinate, video
and, most surprising of all, relational fields. In addition, token and
nominal fields with predefined (multiple choice type) categories can be
constructed. Because the data in this type of field is held in much the
same way that tokenized Basic keywords are stored, it can represent a
much larger amount of information in the final output of a file. This
feature not only reduces the amount of disc space required but also
lessens the likelihood of data entry errors. The down side of this
plethora of field types is that it presupposes a certain level of
sophistication on the part of the user. The manual (which in its present
form does not have an index) does give clear and concise explanations of
each field type. However, you can only subsequently alter the structure
of the datafile with respect to field lengths and not field types. One
very useful new feature is that numeric fields have a ödata unknownò
option, which is automatically excluded from all calculations. Data can
also be entered into these fields as units of measurement yet still have
all mathematical operations carried out on them.
4.11
Speed
4.11
My biggest criticism of Key is its speed. Editing a large file is rather
slow as the program seemed to need to access the disc very frequently.
It is possible to allocate a section of memory as a data cache, in much
the same way that font caches are used in Desktop Publishing. Unfor
tunately, the size of this is not alterable on the fly as one needs to
change the configuration file for Key. It would be much easier to be
able to set these parameters from a preferences option on the Key icon
or from within the program.
4.11
One other niggle concerns its apparent inability to search for a blank
field. For example in the supplied file, Pakfield 1851, I tried
unsuccessfully to see what sort of people had no form of occupation
listed against their name but was unsuccessful even though browsing
through the records revealed that there were many that matched this
condition. Does the government use Key to compile its unemployment
figures?
4.11
Conclusions
4.11
I think that Key Plus could be very attractive to the generalist user,
especially if they already happen to be acquainted with RISC-OS. Iæm
usually all in favour of discarding the manual and experimenting with a
program but I found myself dipping into it more frequently than I care
to admit. While itæs nice to see an educational package which is so
fully featured, itæs just possible that a novice user could become
overwhelmed by all the easy to access options and spend a long time
going down interesting but rather blind alleys. For instance, itæs
possible, in no time at all, to find your screen covered by myriad
windows. Having said that, there is no doubt that it is a marked
improvement on the labyrinth of menus and sub-menus that characterized
the BBC version.
4.11
Whilst I wouldnæt like to say that Key represents the final word in
school databases, it is certainly a step in the direction that other
(commercial) databases, such as Superbase running under Windows 3, are
going. ITV have an ongoing policy of improving the program in response
to feedback from users and this should help knock off some of the rough
edges of the program. I look forward to seeing the promised junior
version as well as the related KeyCalc spreadsheet.
4.11
Prices
4.11
ITV have adopted a very flexible pricing policy which takes account of
the pocket of the purchaser. The price of site licence ranges from ú60
for a small primary school to ú150 for a large secondary school with
more than 800 pupils. Individual purchasers can buy a single copy for
ú50 plus VAT. These prices represent excellent value for money for a
state of the art program positively bristling with powerful features.
4.11
Support is not built into the price of the package but is available for
ú15 per annum for three years. This also entitles you to regular program
upgrades as they become available. I think that this is a not unreason
able way of enabling ITV to charge a very low entry price while leaving
the option open for schools to invest an extra few pounds should they
feel that the program warrants it.ááA
4.11
4.11
Control Programming with Arachnid
4.11
Peter Thomson
4.11
Arachnid is a real-time extension for the Archimedes computer for
control systems. The reviewed system consisted of Termite Ö an interface
box to plug into the user port (ú132 +VAT) and Arachnid Ö a disc of
software with a very comprehensive manual (ú100 +VAT) both from Paul
Fray Ltd.
4.11
Hardware
4.11
The interface box is the same ÉTermiteæ as sold for the BBC-B. It plugs
into the user port on any I/O board and brings the 8 data lines out to
16 sockets giving 8 input and 8 output lines. These are optically
isolated both for input and output with a DC power supply supplied by
the user. The input line will drive the same output line so that
connections should not be made to both at the same time. The board is
well made, mounted in a plastic box.
4.11
A310 system
4.11
The Arachnid software has been developed to run on the A310 with Acorn
I/O board or with Paul Frayæs own interface boards. I ran it without any
problems on an A3000 with the Morley user port but it would not run with
the HCCS board. This could be because SWI öI/O_Podule_Hardwareò (&40500)
which can be used to report the base address of upgrade hardware is not
given a return value by the HCCS board.
4.11
Programmers only
4.11
You have to be able to program in Basic in order to use this package.
Arachnid software comes in two parts. A relocatable module that handles
input and output from all the ports available to the system and a large
library of Basic procedures that help with programming the processing
between input and output. These procedures are well written and
extremely well documented. All those I tried functioned effectively.
There is also a tutorial section that includes a number of simple
programs to demonstrate how the system works but after that it is up to
the programmer to create a working application using this system.
4.11
Mode of operation
4.11
The user sets up links between input and output by calling procedures
from the software library using appropriate parameters and additional
programming in Basic. The module code checks for any change of input
every 0.01s. If it detects a change in input that has been identified as
a link to output by the Basic program, it passes control to that
procedure. The module program will continue to put such input events
into a queue until the Basic procedure returns control. The Basic
procedure is not interrupted. If there is a further event in the queue
then the relevant procedure is called but if the queue is empty, the
system waits for the next event. For this system to work it is essential
that all procedures operate quickly without pause and then return
control.
4.11
Evaluation
4.11
The author has developed his own jargon to describe the operation of
control software. There is enough jargon about already and I found much
of this unnecessary.
4.11
The software assumes a linear relationship between input and output with
a particular input being linked to a specific output procedure. Many
control applications which need computer supervision rather than
dedicated logic are based on decision tables or a series of rules which
may vary with time, being dependent on the past history of input and
output as well as current events. This would require complex programming
with Arachnid because it has been deliberately written as an event
driven control system to avoid the need to set up this type of complex
decision table.
4.11
Another section of industrial control programming is achieved by
manually driving the system through the computer with the computer
monitoring and recording the relationships of input and output. This
file can then be edited before being used as the process control file.
This would also be difficult to program with this software.
4.11
Arachnid has a fixed order of priorities for handling the input ports
which cannot be changed. If a high priority event is using up all the
processor time then a lower priority event may never be called.
4.11
Facilities already available
4.11
The experienced programmer already has a range of facilities for real
time operation within the normal operating system.
4.11
OS_CallEvery (SWI &3C) will call a specified machine code program every
time a delay elapses. The shortest time interval is 0.01s and this can
be used to take measurements or monitor any input at regular intervals.
The code that is called must push all registers on entry and pull them
again on exit, with the exception of the stack pointer itself. The code
must not use any non re-entrant SWI if running as a background task to a
program in Basic. i.e. if a Basic program is producing text on screen
display then the called code cannot use a SWI to read the analogue port
or user port as both make use of SWI &06. It must read the port
directly.
4.11
OS_CallAfter (SWI &3B) will call a machine code program after a single
time delay. Again the shortest time is 0.01s.
4.11
OS_RemoveTickerEvent (SWI &3D) is used to remove a timed event from the
list.
4.11
OS_ReadMonotonicTime (SWI &42) gives time in 0.01s intervals since the
last hard reset. It can be used to replace all countdown clocks. To do
this, add the current clock time to the required interval and then store
it. Use OS_CallEvery to check any stored values for time intervals every
0.01s and report when the time interval is reached.
4.11
OS_GenerateEvent (SWI &22) can be used to generate interrupts from a
wide range of events such as any output buffer empty or full, key
pressed, ADC end conversion etc. The event also needs to be enabled with
OS_Byte 14. This can also be used within the code called by OS_CallEvery
to generate a user event.
4.11
Conclusion
4.11
Arachnid is an interesting package for those who already know something
of both programming and control. A competent programmer might not need
it, and I would think that a novice would find it too difficult. The
supporting documentation for the user is excellent but it does need a
good index.
4.11
It is worth purchasing if you are developing event driven control
applications.ááA
4.11
4.11
Conform
4.11
Diane Hobson
4.11
After a very long wait for any concept keyboard software for the
Archimedes, typically, two packages are released together! Last month I
reviewed Longman Logotronæs Concept Designer and now I will review
Conform and try to give a comparison at the end.
4.11
The package
4.11
Conform is available from Northwest Semerc for ú15.00 +VAT. The package
contains one disc, an A5 manual and four paper overlays in both A3 and
A4 size.
4.11
The disc contains two applications, !Conform, the overlay designer, and
!RunCK, the driver which enables an overlay to be used. Also, Jotter
font is included, which is a font suitable for Primary School use and is
the default font used by the program, and five example overlay files.
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The disc is not copy protected and easily installs on a hard disc.
Conform is not a ÉBlue Fileæ program like many from Northwest Semerc and
therefore is not freely copyable.
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The versions under review are !RunCK Ö 0.24 and !Conform Ö 1.24
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The manual
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The A5 manual is small and concise, reflecting the ease of use of the
package. There is neither a contents page nor an index but there should
be no difficulty in finding the information that you need.
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!RunCK
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When this is installed, overlay files can be loaded by double-clicking
or dragging to the !RunCK icon (on the left hand side of the icon bar).
Alternatively, just double click on the overlay file and !RunCK will
load automatically (provided it has been seen). The amount of memory
used is only 32k, so you should have enough memory available even on a
1M machine.
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When an overlay is loaded, the icon on the icon bar changes and the name
of the overlay is displayed underneath. The concept keyboard can then be
used with any multi-tasking program and also can enter text or commands
in Basic or at the command line.
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If you wish to change overlays, just drag the new one to the icon bar or
double click on it. This will then be the current overlay. Clicking
<menu> over !RunCK produces just three options: Info, On/Off and Quit.
On/Off allows you to switch concept keyboard input on and off. This does
not, of course, switch off the power to the concept keyboard, just the
ability to use it.
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!Conform
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!Conform is the overlay design program. It appears almost fully RISC-OS
compliant as you can use other RISC-OS programs at the same time, but
you cannot have more than one overlay file loaded at once. It requires
256k of memory.
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The application loads onto the right hand side of the icon bar. The icon
bar menu has three menu options Info, Configure (to alter the default
font and font size) and Quit.
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Designing the layout
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Clicking <select> over the icon opens a window that looks like a concept
keyboard. You can now design the layout of your overlay by either
choosing a ready defined grid from a menu option or set out your own. To
define an area on the concept keyboard just drag with <select> over the
cell(s) required. The chosen area will appear to be covered with a white
square or rectangle. Once defined, the size of an area cannot be changed
without first deleting the originally defined area. This is easily done
by dragging with <adjust> in any part of the area. Then a new area can
be defined as before.
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Entering the messages
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The messages are defined by double clicking on the white area required.
This opens up a dialogue box into which you enter your text. The text
you have entered will be shown on the white area nicely centred. If,
however, there is not enough room for the text you have entered, a red
border will appear and you will either have to edit the amount of text
by re-opening the dialogue box or change the size of the font (a menu
option (Style) is available for this). The Style option also allows you
to choose any font you have loaded.
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If you require to enter a special code such as <return> or <print>, you
double click as before but when the dialogue box appears you click on
the toggle size icon of this window and it will open up to reveal all
the available control codes. Just click on the one required and press
<return>. An area that has a code allocated to it will be shown with a
light blue border.
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The space bar is not included as a special key. This has to be defined
in the text dialogue box with just a press of the space bar. When the
overlay is printed, of course, this will just show as a blank space. One
way of getting round this would be to define the area with the text
öSpace Barò, print it out and then edit the overlay afterwards.
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Pictures
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Sprites and Draw files can be shown on the overlay for printing but
cannot be transferred to the screen via the concept keyboard, so you
must remember to enter the text you wish the picture to represent. The
Sprite or Draw files are just dragged onto the area and will be scaled
to fit. Although the text is then entered in the normal way, it will not
be shown on the overlay. The files can be dragged directly from any disc
but should also be copied to the Sprite or Draw directories within the
!Conform application so they can be found if the overlay is reloaded.
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Saving
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Once you have completed your overlay, you can save it by using the menu
option Save, into which you can enter the path or simply drag the icon
to the directory viewer. The overlays are given their own filetype (C83)
and icon and can be renamed after saving without this being affected.
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Printing
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Your completed overlay can be printed out via the menu using the RISC-OS
printer drivers. The overlay name will automatically be printed in the
top right hand corner in the font used for the rest of the text. The
printing does take a while, particularly if pictures are involved, but
it is well worth it for the result.
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Conclusion
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!Conform is everything it claims to be Ö a no frills, easy-to-use
overlay generator that I can thoroughly recommend.
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The only small niggle I have is that, in the !Conform menu option
öStyleò, the window cannot be moved around the screen making it rather
awkward if the text you are altering is below it. (If you own a copy of
FormEd you can easily rectify this.)
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Conform v. Concept Designer
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There are advantages and disadvantages with both packages, so I will try
to be fair and not too negative.
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Conform does have what I feel to be the biggest advantage and that is
being able to print the overlay. The concept keyboard can be used at the
command line and in Basic.
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The Concept Designer package is more sophisticated and contains more
applications than Conform with !SoftTouch, the concept keyboard emulator
and !TouchData, similar to Touch Explorer Plus on the BBC, which allows
text and pictures to be explored on the screen. Different levels of
overlays can be used and many more special commands can be entered.
Different types of concept keyboards i.e. Serial or PC are catered for
and keyboard delays can be altered.
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Neither program seems to have thought about the space bar and, unfor
tunately, the files are not compatible with each other.
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Your choice must depend on your needs. If you mainly require to use the
concept keyboard for Word Processing, Conform is probably all you need.
Even if you would make use of Concept Designersæ extra facilities and
programs, unless a print option is added, you may find, for only another
ú15, Conform would be worth buying too, just to print out the over
lays.ááA
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4.11
KAS Software 74 Dovers Park, Bathford, Bath BA1 7UE. (0225Ö858464)
4.11
Longman-Logotron Dales Brewery, Gwydir Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LJ.
(0223Ö323656) (Ö460208)
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MicroPower Ltd Northwood House, North Street, Leeds LS7 2AA.
(0532Ö458800)
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Micro Studio Ltd 22 Churchgate Street, Soham, Ely, Cambridgeshire.
4.11
Northwest SEMERC Fitton Hill CDC, Rosary Road, Oldham, OL8 2QE.
4.11
Oak Solutions (p19) Cross Park
House, Low Green, Rawdon, Leeds, LS19 6HA. (0532Ö502615) (Ö506868)
4.11
Paul Fray Ltd 4 Flint Lane, Ely Road, Waterbeach, Cambridge CB5 9QZ.
(0223Ö441134) (Ö441017).
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P.R.E.S. 6 Ava House, Chobham, Surrey. (0276Ö72046)
4.11
Racing Car Computers 1 Mulberry
Cottage, Tye Green, Elsenham, Bishopæs Stortford, CM22 6DZ.
(0279Ö812496)
4.11
Ray Maidstone (p4 & 21) 421
Sprowston Road, Norwich, NR3 4EH. (0603Ö407060) (Ö417447)
4.11
RESOURCE Exeter Road, Doncaster, DN2 4PY. (0302Ö340331)
4.11
Safesell Exhibitions (p13) Market
House, Cross Road, Tadworth, Surrey KT20 5SR.
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Sherston Software Swan Barton, Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH.
(0666Ö840433) (Ö840048)
4.11
Techsoft UK Ltd (p8) Old School
Lane, Erryrs, Mold, Clwyd, CH7 4DA. (082Ö43318)
4.11
The Serial Port Burcott Manor, Wells, Somerset, BA5 1NH. (0243Ö531194)
(Ö531196)
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Topologika P.O. Box 39, Stilton, Peterborough, PE7 3RL. (0733Ö244682)
4.11
Vector Services Ltd 13 Denning
ton Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2RL.
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4.11
Freddy Teddyæs Adventure
4.11
Diane Hobson
4.11
This is the latest Freddy Teddy release from Topologika priced at ú19.95
+VAT (or ú21 from Archive). It is described as a mouse and icon driven
adventure game for the very young and the aims of the program are öto
develop logical thinking, problem solving and decision makingò.
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The package contains the disc, a Teacheræs Booklet, a simple story book
and a letter from Freddy Teddy.
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The disc is not copy protected and you can make several backup copies,
provided they are used on one site, and easily installs on a hard disc.
The program may not be used on a network without full written
permission.
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Teachers booklet
4.11
The Teachers Booklet is concise and to the point, giving easy to follow
instructions on how to set up and play the adventure without spoiling
the fun by giving you the solution.
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The adventure
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Freddy Teddy wants to go on a picnic with his friends but, before he
can, the child(ren) must help him collect some items he needs.
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The program takes some time to load from floppy disc as all the voices
and sprites are loaded into memory, but the child is given an opportun
ity to count backwards as this is happening.
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You are first presented with a choice of the maximum numeral that will
be used in the counting activities (2-10). Then you can set a time
limit, Winter, Summer or no limit (Winter being the shortest, as are
Winter days). You can then choose to use either the mouse or the
keyboard. The settings chosen cannot be altered unless you quit and
restart the program.
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Now itæs the childrenæs turn to give Freddy Teddy some information and
they will be asked öHow many are in your group?ò (maximum 5), then öHow
many girls?ò and then öHow many boys?ò
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The adventure begins on a path in a wood and you can see a sign. You are
given the option of reading the sign. When you have chosen whether to
read it or not you are presented with eight small pictures representing
the scenes you can visit. The scenes have to be visited in a certain
order to collect each clue/item and if you get stuck the Wise Owl will
usually help. The child(ren) should be told to remember what they find
and the numbers they count as these will be needed later.
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If the scenes are successfully completed an invitation has to be filled
in and this is when the details of the adventure need to be remembered.
When the invitation is correctly completed there is a reward of an
animated picnic scene to the tune of Teddy Bearsæ Picnic. You are then
given the opportunity to play again.
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Pressing <escape> at any time during the adventure ends that attempt and
asks if you would like another go. The adventure must be completed in
one go as there is no facility to save when playing.
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Conclusion
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The graphics are superb and immediately appealing to young children. The
overall idea is very good and beautifully presented. However, I cannot
wholly recommend the program as I find the age range of the skills
involved rather diverse. The puzzles seem to be suitable for 3 or 4 year
olds but the memory, reading and sequencing skills are more suited to an
older child. (No specific age is recommended in the documentation).
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I do not feel that the program would appeal to one child for very long
because the adventure is almost identical each time, so home use may be
somewhat limited (I have to admit that perhaps a 3/4 year old might like
the repetition, but my 5 year old has certainly lost interest after
playing just three times and my 7 year old announced it was öboringò
after just two, despite her first reaction being favourable.)
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The program would be most useful in an early Infant School classroom
where it would not be repeated by the same child(ren) many times. The
adventure could be complimented by using the appealing sprites to
illustrate written work (this flexibility of RISC-OS can make these
graphical programs good value).ááA
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4.11
4.11
Iæm never too keen to publish uncomplimentary reviews, but the first
person to whom we sent Tracer for review said they didnæt want to review
it as they didnæt like to appear too negative.
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I mentioned this fact last month and that Midnight Graphics (Dabhand
Computing) said they had not had a single negative comment from any of
the over 600 users of Tracer. I asked for comments from readers and got
about a dozen letters all of which made mentions of the limitations of
Tracer and some of which said that what it does it does well enough.
(Also, many of them said that DrawPlus (Careware 13) was a boon in
touching up Traceræs output.) So I passed the letters on to Ian Lynch
to act as referee. His comments follow. Ed.
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