Archive Magazine 1995/ARCHIVE95.iso/text/magazine/volume_06/issue_06

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 270KB | 5,724 lines

Improved Service to Education?
6.6
The aim of Acornæs educational dealership criteria is to improve the
service given to educational establishments. That is also our aim, too.
However, unfortunately, at this present time, Acorn say they are unable
to grant education dealership status to Norwich Computer Services. We
have made efforts to improve our service and have re-applied in the hope
of being accepted in the future.
6.6
In the meantime, I regret that we cannot offer full educational discount
to educational establishments unless they either send cheque with order
or pay invoices within seven days of delivery.
6.6
Staff Changes
6.6
After almost four years, Ali Don is moving on to higher things. She is
getting married soon and will be living in Abingdon. (Her fiancΘ works
for Research Machines!) She has worked tremendously hard to build up
Norwich Computer Services. Thanks, Ali. We wish you well for the future!
6.6
Vera Cooke, whom we appointed as Office Manager in November, has worked
out her 3-month notice period in her previous job and has started work
here at 96a. Welcome on board, Vera!
6.6
The editor who is now older, greyer and (hopefully) wiser is still,
6.6
Yours as ever,

6.6
Products Available
6.6
Å   2067BC Ö This arcade adventure game from Oregan Developmentsæ which
was reviewed in Archive 6.4 p31 is now available through Archive for
ú18.
6.6
Å   16 bit per pixel upgrade for G8 Plus Ö With the introduction of the 16
bpp Replay de-compressor from Acorn, State Machine have released an
upgrade for their G8 colour card that allows full animation
compatibility in the new 32768 true colour modes.
6.6
As well as offering a variety of animation-compatible true colour modes,
24 bpp clear files can be loaded which are converted and displayed
automatically by a new !TrueView application. !TrueView allows panning
and scaling of images larger than the screen and will cope with all
formats of clear files.
6.6
Along with !TrueView, the new !ARMovie application licensed from Acorn
Computers Ltd is included along with some sample clear files.
6.6
This upgrade allows 25 frames per second animation in true colour at
medium resolutions. The new modes available are 576╫424, 800╫300 and a
50 frames per second update, 384╫288, which can be double buffered for
flicker free animation. With this upgrade, 16 bpp digitisers will be
able to offer high quality real time preview modes without dithering.
6.6
The upgrade is available when purchasing the G8 card for an extra ú30
+VAT. As a special offer to existing G8 users, the 16 bpp upgrade is
available for ú20 +VAT including p&p and new software.
6.6
A further enhancement to the G8 allows all TV broadcast modes (modes 12,
13, etc) to be displayed at full-size on any monitor. All G8 cards now
include this feature as standard and any existing users of the G8 that
require full screen TV broadcast modes (e.g. to play Interdictor on VGA
monitors) can be upgraded for ú10 +VAT including return postage. Note
that this upgrade is included with the 16 bpp upgrade.
6.6
Å   Amateur radio software Ö Steve Hunt (G3TXQ) has a selection of amateur
radio software available for the Archimedes. A morse tutor, an antenna
designer, frequency prediction and filter design programs are available
on a compilation disc priced ú9.95 (inc VAT and p&p). For details, send
an S.A.E. to Steve Hunt, 21 Green Street, Milton Malsor, Northampton NN7
3AT.
6.6
Å   Archivist Ö Oregan Developmentsæ data management system is now up to
version 4.7. Extra features include store/display sprites, drawfiles and
text, play Symphony/Maestro/Tracker files, Impression Impulse link,
Specific label printer and enhanced reports generator. Anyone with
version 4.00 or later can upgrade free of charge from Oregan by
returning their registration cards. Anyone with an earlier version can
upgrade for ú5 direct from Oregan. Archivist is now available through
Archive for ú32.
6.6
Å   ArtWorks Viewer Ö This software allows ArtWorks files to be viewed on
Archimedes computers that donæt have ArtWorks installed. Since it can be
distributed without charge, it is an ideal way of passing on ArtWorks
files. The images can be loaded using the ArtWorks Viewer and,
furthermore, they can be examined in more or less detail by zooming in
and out. The Viewer is now included in the ArtWorks package and a free
copy can be obtained on request by calling Computer Concepts.
6.6
Å   Balloons + The Zoo is Freddy Teddyæs latest adventure encouraging
children with counting and addition. It costs ú30 +VAT from Topologika
or ú33 through Archive.
6.6
Å   Broadcast Loader Ö This product is no longer available as its
facilities are contained as standard in the new operating system, RISC-
OS 3.1.
6.6
Å   CASA update Ö There is now a RISC-OS 3.1 version of CASA (Computer
Assisted Structural Analysis). Because of the different way that RISC-OS
3 handles integers, it needed a re-write of the software, the result
being that the program now needs a minimum of 2Mb to run it. Please note
also that CASA is available only from W. C. Smith & Associates and NOT
from Vision Six Ltd. (Only the name has changed Ö the address remains
the same.)
6.6
Å   Christmas Adventure Ö (Slightly unseasonal, sorry!) Help Father
Christmas to find his map and ensure that the children get their
presents. This adventure game from Storm Educational Software is aimed
at children aged 5 to 8 and should help them in reading, mapping, memory
work and decision-making. The price is ú25.99 from Storm or ú24 through
Archive.
6.6
Å   ColourCard updates Ö In my comparisons of the Colourcard and the
G8Plus (Archive 6.4 p27), I said that I preferred the 25Hz screen update
speed which the G8 offered despite the fact that this slightly reduced
the processor speed. Well, CC have now released a free software update
for the ColourCard which gives users the option to configure the screen
update speed to 25Hz, rather than the default 12Hz. This software-only
upgrade is available free on request from both Computer Concepts and
Wild Vision (but not from Norwich Computer Services).
6.6
Another development of the ColourCard is a new (external) A3000 version
of the board. This is now available as an option at the time of purchase
or as an upgrade kit for existing owners. Wild Vision say that it can be
fitted by the individual but that a number of people may prefer to have
a local dealer do the fitting. If you have an existing card and want to
fit it onto an A3000, the fitting kit can be obtained from Wild Vision
for a handling charge of ú8.50 +VAT. This applies to boards that say
öIssue 2ò on them but if you have one of the very early Issue 1 boards,
you will have to return it to Wild Vision for updating and the handling
charge will be ú10 +VAT.
6.6
Å   Concept keyboard Ö Northwest SEMERC have now produced an A4 version of
the Oldham Overlay Keyboard (a concept keyboard by any other name). This
A4 board is an exact scaled down version of the A3 board so that
overlays can be reduced or enlarged on a photocopier for use on either
keyboard. The educational price of the A4 keyboard is ú115 +VAT from NW
SEMERC.
6.6
Å   Curves software pack Ö This is a set of eleven programs from
Topologika aimed at junior and middle school children but it also
enables GCSE students to explore complex curves and loci. The pack
includes the programs and a 90-page book entitled Curves. It contains an
audio tape with stories and other educational material and a 48-page
activities book. The complete pack costs ú40 +VAT from Topologika or ú43
through Archive.
6.6
Å   Digital Symphony Ö This is a Soundtrack Editor from Oregan
Developments which is said to be fully Amiga compatible. Its features
include built-in sample editing, standard musical notation display, 40
special effects, importing of Maestro and OctaMED files, fully Midi
compatible, CD quality sample playback rate, track size only limited by
memory size, flexible cut/paste options and global search/replace/
exchange. Digital Symphony costs ú49.95 all inclusive from Oregan
Developments or ú48 through Archive.
6.6
Å   Eizo 340iW Ö Eizo have just launched an excellent new monitor which
can be used on the Archimedes computers. It is a flat screen, 15ö
monitor with electronic control Ö just like the more expensive 17ò Eizos
(F550i and T560iT). This means you can program it to get the best size,
position, shape, etc for each of the different modes you use. It has the
same dot pitch as the 9060 Ö 0.28mm Ö which means that the screen in
made up of more dots and therefore gives a better resolution. I have
tried it with a G8Plus graphics card and I can display (in the 1600 ╫
600 dot mode) a double page A4 spread, such as the Archive magazine and
read and edit the text perfectly well!
6.6
There are two other improvements of this monitor over its predecessors
(apart from its more Émodernæ styling). Firstly, the power cable and the
video cable are in a recess under the back of the monitor so they donæt
stick out and add that extra 2 or 3 inconvenient inches to the depth of
the monitor. Secondly, Eizo have introduced a power-saving feature
(thatæs the ÉWæ in the model name). If you use a normal software screen-
blanker, this will reduce consumption to about 80% but then if, after 3
minutes, the monitor sees that there is still no (blue) signal coming
from the computer, it shuts down to a standby mode which reduces power
to about 10%. Then after a user-selectable time (5 to 60 mins) it drops
further to a 7% power consumption level. Then as soon as you touch the
mouse or keyboard and restore the video output, the monitor comes back
to its normal display.
6.6
The price? Oh yes, I nearly forgot. For the extra 1ö in screen size,
plus electronic control, plus power saving, you only have to pay ú120
more than the 9060, i.e. its Archive price is ú670 inc VAT and carriage.
6.6
Å   Fanfold paper for inkjets Ö Following a request for any company that
supplied fanfold paper for use on inkjet printers, Mike King of Guernsey
came up with Inmac Ltd of Runcorn, Cheshire. (Phone 0928Ö579000, Fax
0800 611116) Apparently they supply fanfold paper in the following
sizes: 280 ╫ 210 (ú16.90), 305 ╫ 210 (ú17.90), A4 (ú19.95). The prices
are per 1,000 sheets but do not include carriage.
6.6
Å   Faxpack Ö CC have finally implemented the long-awaited FaxPack file
transfer and answering machine features. The new software also includes
an option to transmit faxes through the Mercury Network, for users who
already subscribe to Mercury. The software and EPROM upgrade is
available free on request. (Computer Concepts will do the upgrade if
customers feel nervous about changing the EPROM themselves.)
6.6
(Iæve just had a thought! How many Archive contributors have got
FaxPacks? If I set one up out-of-hours, you could file-transfer articles
to me. If you are an Archive contributor and would be interested in
doing that, perhaps you would let me know. Thanks. Ed.)
6.6
Å   Look and Listen Ö This is a series of five educational programs from
Brilliant Computing aimed at encouraging children to be more aware when
crossing the road. It appears that a fundamental requirement of safe
road use is an awareness of sound, which direction it is coming from and
if it is an incoming or an outgoing source. These games use the high
quality stereo sound output of the Archimedes to develop sound
discrimination and awareness. The price is ú25 +VAT from Brilliant
Computing.
6.6
Å   Numerator Workcards Ö This is a FREE 54-page A4 workbook for use with
Numerator. It provides a set of activity sheets providing ideas for
using Numerator in the classroom from beginners to more advanced users.
Registered Numerator users may obtain a free copy by ringing the Longman
Logotron sales desk on 0223Ö425558.
6.6
Å   Masterfile 3 Ö Risc Developmentsæ database is now available through
Archive for ú54.
6.6
Å   Myth of Moby Dick Ö This is an adventure game with maths, geography
and language elements. It is suitable for special needs as well as
mainstream pupils. The cost is ú30 +VAT from Topologika or ú33 through
Archive.
6.6
Å   PipeDream price drop Ö PipeDream3 is now ú79 +VAT (ú85 through
Archive) and PipeDream4 is ú129+VAT (ú140 through Archive).
6.6
Å   Round the World Yacht Race Ö This is an extensive project package from
Storm Educational Software based around a computer program but with
program guide, study notes, flow chart and a map of the prevailing winds
and currents. It is aimed at 9+ year olds and develops skills in
science, maths, geography, science & technology and encourages role
play. The price is ú34.99 from Storm or ú32 through Archive.
6.6
Å   Smart Alex Ö Brilliant Computing have produced an interesting
educational program in which children can Étalkæ, via the keyboard, to
Alex (who can be male, female, caucasian or coloured), encouraging them
to talk about feelings, emotions and expressions. The price is ú25 +VAT
from Brilliant Computing.
6.6
Å   Smudge the Spaniel Ö This consists of three educational programs from
Storm Educational Software aimed at Maths and English for children aged
4 to 8 years. This involves early learners in counting, reading, writing
and ordering. One of the programs reinforces addition and subtraction
and should encourage language development. The programs have options to
suit a range of ages and abilities. The price is ú25.99 inclusive from
Storm or ú24 through Archive.
6.6
Å   Squish Ö This is a transparent sprite compactor designed for use with
existing applications. It is aimed at publishers who are running out of
disc space or want to speed up sprite loading. This is designed for use
by software developers or ötechnically awareò users. For more details,
contact Ian Sowden of Honeypot.
6.6
Å   Stock Pack Ö Topologika have produced a content-free stock control and
simple accounting pack aimed at education Ö secondary or F.E. levels.
Handle 450 products and 250 customers Ö and make sure you get the VAT
correct. This costs ú40 +VAT from Topologika or ú43 through Archive.
6.6
Å   Teletext on AUN networks Ö XOB have produced a version of their
Teletext serving software which is AUN compatible. It runs from a Morley
Teletext adaptor and provides Teletext access to all machines on the
network, Ethernet or Econet, across bridges and through gateways. The
cost of the site licence is ú154 +VAT from XOB.
6.6
Å   TextAid Ö Rheingold Enterprisesæ utilities for manipulating text which
can be used alongside other RISC-OS packages has grown in scope and
(slightly) in price. It is now ú12.95 inclusive from Rheingold
Enterprises or ú12 through Archive. (We have a long and favourable
review which we hope to fit in next monthæs magazine. It does seem to
offer a wide range of facilities Ö which is why we have added it to the
Archive Price List. Ed)
6.6
Å   The Spoken Word Ö This is a new educational package from Wyddfa
Software aimed at National Curriculum AT 1 and 21 at level 1. It aims to
encourage an understanding of the spoken word and to stimulate an
interest in reading. The child can produce bright pictures, the colours
being shown with their written names and different objects can be
selected from their written names and/or from an outline drawing. The
computer responds aloud by naming both the chosen colour and the object.
The software costs ú20 inclusive from Wyddfa Software.
6.6
Å   Ultimate Expansion Confusion Ö HCCSæs Ultimate Expansion System is
very impressive but a little confusing to work out whatæs what. We
didnæt help by introducing a couple of mistakes into the information we
gave. (Our excuse is that the article was produced at very high speed
after the BETT Show.) First of all, we got the pricing of the Starter
Packs wrong on the Price List Ö that wasnæt too difficult to spot
because the prices of the micropodules were quoted as being identical to
the Starter Packs. The Archive prices were correct in the article, viz:
HiVision Starter Pack ú166, Laser Express Starter Pack ú300 and SCSI
Starter Pack ú133.
6.6
However, what the article did get wrong was the description of what you
actually get in a Starter Pack. i.e. you get the micropodule plus a
power supply and fan, as stated, but you also get the multipodule to put
it onto Ö so it really is very good value for money (although HCCS say
these are introductory prices). If you take the SCSI podule, for
example, and add up the micropodule plus multipodule plus p.s.u., it
comes to an Archive price of ú110 + ú43 + ú33 = ú186. Compare that to
the Pack price of ú133 and you see that you get a ú53 saving!
6.6
Please note too that you MUST tell us which model of computer you are
putting the podules into as the Starter Packs are different for A3000,
A3010, A3020, A4000 and Éthe restæ. Also, because there are so many
different permutations and combinations, we cannot guarantee to hold
them all in stock, so the turn-around for orders may not be up to our
usual (hopefully high) standard. If you are in a rush, you will have to
forego the Archive discount and go direct to HCCS.
6.6
Å   Used floppy discs Ö We have a large number of used floppy discs, some
of which have hardly ever been used, e.g. PD discs that had the wrong
label on. We have reformatted them and are making them available for
charity at ú20 for 50 discs.
6.6
Review software received...
6.6
We have received review copies of the following: Aldebaran, Ancient
Greece, Arcade, ArcTrack, Badger Trails, Choices, Grannyæs Garden,
Insight, Ixion, Landmarks Ö Civil War, LinkWord Ö Spanish, Numerator
Workcards, PenDown Etoiles, Picture It!, Precision, Punctuate,
QuickTile, SatPack 1, Screenplay Training Video, Smudge the Spaniel,
Soapbox, Splash, SpySnatcher, Squish, The Puddle and the Wardrobe,
ThinkLink, Through the Dragonæs Eye, Tiles, Whale Facts, Xword, Yes
Chancellor II.ááA

6.6
Government Health Warning Ö Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health.
6.6
The murder of 2 year-old James Bulger has sent shock-waves around the
UK. My 14 year-old son thought about it in terms of the 2 year-old son
of some family friends and two of his own young friends and drew the
obvious parallel. His reaction? öOh, Dadò, he said, öThatæs sick!ò.
6.6
What should our reaction be? Surely, the problem is much bigger than the
individuals involved in this one case, albeit a particularly horrific
crime. We canæt just rant and rave against those who are accused of
having perpetrated this murder Ö we have to ask what we, as a sick
society, can learn from it.
6.6
öWe must crack down on crime!ò says one public figure. öThere should be
less sympathy for the criminals and more insistence on the moral values
that we expect people to uphold.ò says another.
6.6
I donæt pretend to have an immediate solution but I do offer an analysis
of the problem. Itæs not my analysis, I hasten to add, but the bibleæs
analysis. See if you think it sounds plausible.
6.6
Suppose for a moment that God does exist and that He created the world,
including mankind. Presumably, therefore, He ought to know how
individuals in society can function best. The bible teaches plainly and
unequivocally that a stable family based on a husband and wife in a
loving, life-long committed relationship to one another is Godæs ideal
for mankind.
6.6
How does the UK measure up to that ideal? Obviously, there are people
who hold to that ideal but the vocal majority says, öPersonal freedom is
the most important thing. I should be free to do what I like... as long
as I donæt harm anyone, of course. No-one has any right to tell me how
to live my life. I will have whatever relationships I like.ò
6.6
What I have to say is not a very popular message but I believe it to be
true... If society says, öWe donæt need Godæs standards. We can organise
things our own way without reference to Him.ò then it is on the slippery
slope. If we as a society and as individuals turn our back on God and
His standards then we will reap what we sow.
6.6


6.6
Norwich Computer Services 96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD.
0603Ö766592 (Ö764011)

6.6
4th Dimension    P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742Ö700661) (0742Ö781091)
6.6
4Mation    11 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon  EX32
8PA. (0271Ö25353) (0271Ö22974)
6.6
Abacus Training   29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts  SN2
6QA.
6.6
Ace Computing   27 Victoria Road, Cambridge  CB4 3BW. (0223Ö322559)
(0223Ö69180)
6.6
Acorn Computers Ltd   Fulbourn
Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge  CB1 4JN. (0223Ö254254) (0223Ö254262)
6.6
Brilliant Computing    FREEPOST,
P.O.Box 142, Bradford, BD9 4BR. (0274Ö497617) (0274Ö497617)
6.6
CIS     Unit 2a, 436 Essex Road, London  N1 3QP. (071Ö226Ö3340)
(071Ö226Ö3408)
6.6
Circle Software    33 Restrop View, Purton, Swindon, Wilts  SN5 9DG.
(0793Ö770021)
6.6
Clares Micro Supplies   98
Middlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire  CW9 7DA. (0606Ö48511)
(0606Ö48512)
6.6
Colton Software (p27)   2 Signet
Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge  CB5 8LA. (0223Ö311881) (0223Ö312010)
6.6
Computer Concepts (p11/22)   Gaddesden
Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts  HP2 6EX. (0442Ö63933) (0442Ö231632)
6.6
David Pilling    P.O.Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool, FY5 1LR.
6.6
Design Concept    30 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh  EH9 2HG.
(031Ö668Ö2000)
6.6
HCCS Ltd    575Ö583 Durham Road, Gateshead  NE9 5JJ. (091Ö487Ö0760)
(091Ö491Ö0431)
6.6
Honeypot    Exeter Road, Wheatley, Doncaster  DN2 4PY. (0302Ö340331)
(0302Ö328735)
6.6
ICS Ltd    1 Kington Road, West Kirby, Wirral  L48 5ET. (051Ö625Ö1006)
(051Ö625Ö1007)
6.6
Iota Software Ltd   St Johnæs Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge
CB4 4WS. (0223Ö421542) (0223Ö421543)
6.6
Krisalis Software    Teque House,
Masonæs Yard, Downs Row, Moorgate, Rotherham  S60á2HD. (0709Ö372290)
6.6
Longman-Logotron    124 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4
4ZS. (0223Ö425558) (0223Ö425349)
6.6
LOOKsystems (p15)   47 Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, Norwich  NR5 9AY.
(0603Ö764114) (0603Ö764011)
6.6
Mijas Software    Winchester Road, Micheldever, Winchester  SO21 3DJ.
(0962Ö774352)
6.6
Minerva Systems    Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter  EX1 1TL.
(0392Ö437756) (0392Ö421762)
6.6
Morley Electronics    Morley
House, Norham Road, North Shields, Tyne & Wear  NE29 7TY. (091Ö257Ö6355)
(091Ö257Ö6373)
6.6
Northwest SEMERC    Fitton Hill CDC, Rosary Road, Oldham  OL8 2QE.
(061Ö627Ö4469)
6.6
Oak Solutions (p28)   Suite 25,
Robin Enterprise Centre, Leeds Road, Idle, Yorkshire BD10 9TE.
(0274Ö620423) (0274Ö620419)
6.6
Oregan Developments   36 Grosvenor
Avenue, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield  B74 3PE.
6.6


6.6
ÉJamesæ of Cambridge University, please read the Help Column. Ed.

6.6
Techsoft
6.6
New artwork
6.6
(or 6.3 p9 if it doesnæt arrive in time!!)

6.6
Hints and Tips
6.6
Å   Applications launcher Ö When working on various tasks on my
Archimedes, I often find that I need to launch more than one
application. For example, I have a wide selection of regularly used
clipart stored in Library format within Draw Plus. These clipart items
form regular input while using Ovation or Impressions. Therefore, when
working on DTP materials I will, on most occasions, be running Draw Plus
as well. The following ÉPseudo Applicationæ was therefore devised to
automate the launch of the required cluster of applications (in this
case Ovation & Draw Plus).
6.6
Begin by creating an application directory (i.e. one where the name
begins with a !) with a name to suite the task cluster (e.g. !DTP).
Within this you need to create a !Boot and a !Run file, both Obey files,
using !Edit. The !Boot file only needs to contain the single line ....
6.6
IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
6.6
while the !Run file should contain the following...
6.6
IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
6.6
Desktop -FILE <Obey$Dir>.
6.6
FileLaunch
6.6
In each case, the IconSprites command directs the system to the !Sprites
file for the pseudo-application while the Desktop command in the !Run
file instructs the system to execute a series of commands held within
the file called ÉFileLaunchæ.
6.6
Again within !Edit, create a new textfile, to be called ÉFileLaunchæ. It
is the contents of this file that will determine which applications are
to be launched by your pseudo-application. For example, the following
will launch both Ovation and Draw Plus as well as opening the directory
viewer to my ÉFilesæ folder and my Draw Plus Library folder. The exact
contents being dependent on the organisation of your own system.
6.6
Filer_CloseDir ADFS::4
6.6
ADFS::4.$.MoreApps.!Ovation
6.6
ADFS::4.$.!DrawPlus
6.6
Filer_OpenDir ADFS::4.$.Files
6.6
Filer_OpenDir ADFS::4.$.Files. DrawLibs
6.6
Save this as ÉFileLaunchæ within the pseudo-application.
6.6
The final job is to create an appropriate sprite to represent your new
pseudo-application. This should be 34 ╫ 17 units in size. For mine, I
have merged the small display icons from Ovation and Draw Plus. Once all
is completed, double clicking on the application will, as if it were a
normal application, launch the specified applications and open the
required directory viewers.
6.6
Although this was initially developed on a hard disc based system, it
can be just as useful to floppy based systems. For example, it can be
set up to launch an application along with an appropriate printer driver
or launch a collection of floppy disc based utilities. For users still
working with Risc-OS 2, if the application is given the name !Boot and
placed on the root directory, with the drive set to *OPT 4 2, it gives
many of the same basic facilities as the new Desktop Boot of RISC-OS
3.10.
6.6
NOTE: This system does not effect the normal action when you double
click on an applications file. This will, as always, launch its own
application and load in the file clicked on.á Mike McNamara, Dunstable.
6.6
Å   ArcLaser 1.68 and PipeDream Ö With ArcLaser installed, PipeDream
(3.14) wonæt print using its own driver. It is necessary not only to
quit ArcLaser but to RMkill the LQEmulator module.á Richard Torrens,
Cambridgeshire.
6.6
Å   BJ10e/ex with CC Turbo Driver Ö Under Risc-OS 3/3.10 there is a
conflict between the Turbo Driver and the new !Printers system. If you
contact CC, they will tell you to issue the following from the * prompt
....
6.6
RMKill PDriver
6.6
RMREInit PDriver
6.6
A far more elegant way is to place these two commands within the !Run
file of the !Printers application. They should be added immediately
before the line which reads ....
6.6
RMEnsure PDriver 3.16 Error etc
6.6
You will now be able to switch between the two systems without further
problems!
6.6
Mike McNamara, Dunstable.
6.6
Å   Dongle problems Ö Various people have found that, on occasion, they
cannot print from other applications when using an Impression or
Artworks dongle. The situation seems to be worse under RISC-OS 3. The
(temporary) solution is to run Impression or Artworks and quit it. All
should then work OK. (Hint offered by various readers.) (For more
discussion, see the Comment Column on page 18.)
6.6
Å   FoxPro version2 Ö Anyone who has tried to run FoxPro version2 under
version 1.8 of the PC Emulator will have found that it does not work. If
you still have an earlier version of the Emulator, try using that
because it is said to run under some of the earlier versions.á David
Wild, Hemel Hempstead.
6.6
Å   Pocket Book power supply Ö Maplin sell a 300mA regulated transformer
for ú8.95 (+ú1.20 p&p) which will do the same job as the Pocket Book
mains adaptor and more besides. Maplinæs code is YB23A and the
polarisation should be negative at the tip at 9V.
6.6
You cannot format Flash SSDs above 256Kb unless the Pocket Book is
connected to an adaptor.  Apparently, the Flash SSDs require 12-15V when
formatting.á Mark Goodwin, Worcester.
6.6
(N.B. You canæt just use any old transformer for the PocketBook and we
canæt, of course, be held responsible for any damage which occurs if a
particular power supply does not work. We still cannot get the Acorn
Pocket Book mains adaptors but are buying some Psion ones which we will
be able to sell at the same price Ö ú15 inclusive. Ed)
6.6
Å Printers, margins, etc Ö I disagree with the statement in Archive 6.5
p37 that the X Y origin is not stored. There seems to be a fundamental
lack of understanding in this area. If you want a full explanation, I
will do one but, in brief, the offsets should be set using the technique
described in the readme file in the Printers directory using the TopLeft
printer file. Paper margins should then be set to be at least as big as
the X Y values, then when the printer tries to print, it says to itself,
öleft margin 20mm (say) so I have to move the printer head 20mm before I
start printing. Ah, but wait a minute, the print head is already Xmm
from the edge, so I only need to move another (20 Ö X)mm before I start
printing.ò
6.6
The same is true for Y. None of the default definitions I have looked at
are anywhere near right which doesnæt help. BJ330 printers auto sense
the left hand edge of the paper so goodness knows what happens then! á
Tim Nicholson, Cranleigh.
6.6
Å   Scrap file Ö Floppy disc users may be pleased to know that the
Wimp$Scrap file, used for in-memory transfer, does not have to be on a
physical medium. I have included the line:
6.6
Set Wimp$Scrap RAM::RamDisc0.$ .ScrapFile
6.6
in my !System.!Boot file. I have configured the machine to automatically
create a RAM disc on switching on and have since avoided much disc
swapping. The !Scrap folder can be avoided, though the Printers (RISC-OS
3) application needs to see it. It can be placed inside the Printers
directory, and the line:
6.6
Obey <Obey$Dir>.!Scrap.!Boot
6.6
included near the beginning of the !Printers.!Run file.á Robert Fuller,
Basingstoke.
6.6
Å   !Squash Ö This program is a side product of the new printer drivers Ö
the printer definition files are held in squash format. If you change
the filetype of a printer definition file to Squash (filetype_FCA) and
drag it into Squash, it will be unsquashed. Loading into Edit will
reveal a file not unlike the old OS2 PrDataSrc files, although the
graphics data is held differently. RISC-OS 3 requires the definition
files in the unsquashed format. PrintEdit will happily edit files in
either format but always produce Squashed output.
6.6
Å   Squirrel and Compression Ö If, like me, you routinely run your
Squirrel tables from a Compression window, you may eventually get an
error message, öBad File Formatò. If you then open the tableæs
directory, you will find that some of the files inside show the white
File_xxx icon.
6.6
Setting the filetype to Squirrelæs DB7 format, will still result in an
error message.
6.6
Here is what Digital Services told me: There is Ö they think Ö a bug in
Compression, which causes this effect very intermittently. The thing to
do then is to set the filetype to CFSlzw and then uncompress those
files.á Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln.
6.6
Å   Symbolic links Ö If you want to have a program in more than one
folder, it is easy enough to store the program once and then create a
link to this program in other folders. In RISC OS 3.1: load !Edit and
create a new Obey file. Shift-drag the program into this window. Save
the Obey file where you want to have the link. Then a double click on
the link-Obey file executes the original program. This works with any
filetype Ö not just applications.á Thomas Goseberg, Germany.ááA

6.6
Music Column Ö Desktop Tracker
6.6
Stewart Watson
6.6
Desktop Tracker from Leading Edge is based on the earlier Tracker
application but has many enhancements. I phoned Leading Edge, who were
extremely helpful, and was told that Desktop Tracker is not an update,
but a complete rewrite. The package comes in a sturdy A5 folder
containing an A5 ring bound manual, a key strip, the main program disc
V1.03, a tunes disc and two discs of samples.
6.6
Protection
6.6
The program disc is not protected but when first delivered does not
include the save routines. To receive your full version of the software,
you register your purchase with Leading Edge, who send you the complete
version with all the features contained in the manual, with your name
and address encoded on the disc. The main program requires 320Kb to run.
6.6
Readme
6.6
The readme file on the program disc contains the latest information on
the program, including six alterations to the key strip, four additions
and two changes. Iæve made the appropriate changes and included a
drawfile keystrip for inclusion on the monthly program disc.
6.6
Manual
6.6
The manual looks very good, and all the necessary information is there.
The layout is good, with plenty of diagrams to illustrate the various
features of the program. One small quibble is that Iæm not convinced
that all the chapters are in the best possible order. For instance, the
chapter on hard disc installation appears near the end, in Appendix C.
That apart, it is a well-presented document, complete with a detailed
index.
6.6
Appendices
6.6
The manual has several appendices, the first of which is a step by step
introduction to entering music into Desktop Tracker. I had one problem
here, in that no matter what I did, I found that the <home> key could
not be persuaded to move the cursor as it should. Everything else went
according to plan, and entering notes is rather like entering notes in
step time into a sequencer Ö the entry method might appeal more to non-
keyboard players though there is a MIDI option available.
6.6
Pull-out sheets
6.6
Pages 97 and 98 of the manual (one double sided A5 sheet) has a copy of
all the keyboard related functions, including the function keys, plus a
diagram of the pitches associated with the various QWERTY keys. This is
printed on cardboard and will be a boon to all those who donæt like to
spend a lot of time consulting manuals. A copy of these two pages is
provided on pages 99 and 100 in case of accidental loss.
6.6
The program
6.6
Iæve listed below some of the additional features in Desktop Tracker.
6.6
Ö More effects have been defined to allow greater compatibility with the
Amiga SoundTracker
6.6
ÖáFull desktop editing facilities, including a simple sample editor
6.6
ÖáSustain, as well as repeat loops, can be defined in samples
6.6
ÖáLarger samples can be loaded in (memory limited)
6.6
Öá256 events per pattern
6.6
Öá256 patterns can be written
6.6
Öá4 effects per event
6.6
ÖáVirtually unlimited tune length
6.6
ÖáUp to 16 voice polyphony
6.6
The program disc
6.6
The main program disc contains the following applications:-
6.6
!SysMerge & !System
6.6
!DeskTrack Ö the main application
6.6
!DTTBars Ö displays a bar graph öspectrum analyserò on the screen
together with a display of which voices are playing.
6.6
!DTTContrl Ö allows various system parameters for Desktop Tracker to be
changed.
6.6
!DTTConv Ö used to convert SoundTracker or Tracker files into Desktop
Tracker files.
6.6
!DTTJuke Ö a Desktop Tracker player routine
6.6
!DTTScope Ö displays an oscilloscope display of a voice that is being
played
6.6
!DTTSounds Ö a sample converter that allows samples to be taken from
other programs and converts them into Desktop Tracker format.
6.6
!ReadMe Ö latest information on changes since the manual was printed
6.6
Using Desktop Tracker
6.6
When you load the program, after the obligatory title page has
disappeared, two windows appear on the screen and the program installs
itself on the iconbar. Window one is the main editing window, in which
notes are entered and edited, and window two is the player window which
controls the various playing options of the program. I found the default
colours a bit dark but the options menu on the main program icon allows
you to customise the colours to your own taste.
6.6
Note entry
6.6
The note entry procedure is fairly straightforward, because the QWERTY
keyboard is used as a three octave music keyboard. Just select the
required track, load a sample you wish to use, then type in the required
notes. There is also the option of entering monophonic lines from a MIDI
keyboard, provided you have an appropriate interface, and this does make
life a lot easier. Unfortunately, the facility to output via MIDI is
missing at the moment.
6.6
The tunes disc
6.6
The tunes disc contains eight example files demonstrating only some of
Desktop Trackeræs abilities. I was disappointed that they had not
included a 16 track demo, as Leading Edge claim that Desktop Tracker is
the first such program capable of running sixteen concurrent tracks. I
suspect that the rush to get the program released meant that this was
overlooked.  There are, of course, a multitude of public domain tracker
files available which can be converted into Desktop Tracker file format
and which you could use a starting point for building your own library
of files.
6.6
Sample discs
6.6
The two sample discs contain 131 sampled sounds and there is sufficient
variety, from Flute to AhYeah! or Yam-Death1, to meet most peopleæs
requirements. Tracker files can be loaded in and the various samples
used can be stripped out, giving users access to a vast collection of
sounds at a nominal cost. The sounds provided are in Notes and
Percussion directories in disc 1, and Musical, Orchestra and Voices
directories, on disc 2. Any of the sounds provided can be modified and
re-saved using the facilities in Desktop Tracker.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
This is a very interesting product capable of sophisticated musical
applications. The facilities provided are comprehensive and there is a
vast store of tracker material available in public domain libraries. The
fact that no other equipment is necessary, makes it an attractive
starting package for those interested in music on a low budget, and many
more experienced musicians will find many uses for the features
provided.
6.6
Desktop Tracker costs ú63 through Archive.ááA

6.6
ArtWorks Column
6.6
Trevor Sutton
6.6
I am now beginning to find the tools and hot keys in AW very natural to
use. In fact, on returning to Draw, I find myself reaching for some of
AWæs key combinations. On my visit to BETT,  I mentioned to CC the
usefulness of the <ctrl-Q> and <ctrl-W> in Draw. This was carefully
noted and so I am hopeful. I have always found CC to be good listeners.
6.6
ArtWorks 1.100
6.6
Yes, version 1.100, it looks like a very long wait then for version
2.000!
6.6
Though I have had this version of AW for just two days, I have checked
the problem with rom based fonts like Trinity and Homerton and they will
now rotate and print correctly. Though support for the colour card is a
main feature of this upgrade, there are some facilities which will
appeal to everyone.
6.6
There is little point in going into great detail because good manual-
style notes are included with the discs. I will briefly summarise the
extra facilities with a few suggestions as to their use. This will form
an addendum to the full Archive review of AW. (Archive 6.1 p33.)
6.6
Outline-only printing is supported and it works in an intelligent way,
using white rather than no fill, to replace colours. This means that
deep layers do not show through. This is useful for quick prints and for
small prints of images as reference material. Painting by numbers is, as
CC suggest, a possibility! Tiling has been changed and has become more
logical. So all you bill-posters will no doubt be happier.
6.6
A useful feature for tracing work is that background layers are now
tinted 50% towards white. So it is much easier to see a black or
coloured line as you work over a background image. I may, at last,
attempt that relief map. There is now a Sprite info box which is
available either from the Object menu or <shift-f1> (not <ctrl-f1> as it
suggests in the notes). Process allows sprites with a range of colours
to be edited and Contone allows monochrome (or two colours with
intermediate shades). So your black and white scans can now, with ease,
become glorious sepia.
6.6
One of the most significant features of this version is undoubtedly the
support for the colour card and I was stunned by some of the images from
AW which I saw displayed at the BETT exhibition. At present, the new
modes do not work within the Archimedes desktop environment and so AW
takes over the whole screen and the image can be magnified or reduced.
6.6
There is a new version of the FlipTop application which now provides
detailed information about the current mode including processor speed,
refresh rate and an interesting comparison with the previous mode. Some
useful palettes are available and the irritating countdown in
QuickChange, which turned choosing modes into an arcade game, has been
removed.
6.6
A new application, !AWviewer, is included which simply displays AW
files, allowing zooms and WYSIWYG. This can be freely distributed with
your own AW files to make people jealous or perhaps encourage them to
buy the program. Itæs a shrewd move on the part of CC.
6.6
Impression 2.18
6.6
This is now available and the support for AW files seems to work well
and with a WYSIWYG option in the Misc menu. This means outlines of
images can be used to speed up redrawing.
6.6
Palettes
6.6
Choosing colours in AW can be a little hit and miss, especially if you
are ultimately aiming to print your work to one of the many ribbon,
inkjet or even bubblejet or laser colour printers. It helps, of course,
to print a few samples and I have found the clipart accompanying the AW
package to be useful. It is possible to save the palettes for each of
these clips separately Ö some of them give a vast and unuseable list of
colours. Just try the ColourMap file from AW Disc 3 and have a look at
the palette. It is clear, from conversations with CC at BETT, that more
usable palette layout and accessibility are being considered. The
facility to pick up a colour already in use (as in most painting
applications) will, I hope, soon be implemented. Mr T.M. Smith has
written to say that he is currently working on a palette of flesh tones.
Perhaps useful palettes could be shared? I have submitted a 256 Paint
palette for inclusion on the monthly disc. This is large but gives
groups of shades in a fairly usable order.
6.6
Customising AWæs toolbox
6.6
At first, I wondered why anyone would want to change the original
toolbox layout in AW. I realise that, with the potential of extra
modules, this is an important facility but there was a feeling of power
having all the tools instantly available in a block. However, I have
just decided to experiment with the re-ordering of the toolbox. My aim
was to produce a layout similar to that of Draw.
6.6
Using <adjust> dragging allows icons to be swapped, while <adjust>
dragging off the toolbox adds the tool to a group Ö only sensible groups
of tools are possible. A menu pointer appears when the pointer moves
over a group of tools. The single width toolbox is an option from the
Choices Ö ArtWorks option from the iconbar menu.
6.6
So my links are as follows:
6.6
Ö Curve tool Ö Straight line tool, Freehand tool
6.6
Ö Rectangle tool Ö Oval tool, Rounded rectangle tool
6.6
Ö Flat fill tool Ö Linear fill tool, Radial fill tool
6.6
Ö Scaling tool Ö Rotate tool
6.6
Ö Zoom tool Ö Push tool
6.6
Ö Blend tool Ö Envelope tool, Perspective tool
6.6
Ö Text tool
6.6
Ö Select tool
6.6
Once an alternative tool is selected, it moves to the toolbox. This
facility shows much forethought and will no doubt be vital when we have
Hatched fill tools, Trace tools, Sprite manipulation tools, etc! You
might not like the end result but itæs worth a try!
6.6
Rulers in AW
6.6
Mr J. Jordan sensibly suggests a route to producing rulers in AW.
Drawing them in a background layer and saving the file as the DefDoc in
the Auto directory. This would give a default background layer with
rulers. I welcome this suggestion Ö perhaps someone could draw some and
offer them for the Archive magazine discs.
6.6
Printing
6.6
Mr Smith found that printing from AW to his HP Deskjet 500C produced
colour banding in graduated fills and blends. However, after purchasing
the Ace RISC-OS 3, 24 bit Pro-Drivers, the quality improved
dramatically.
6.6
The printer driver for the Deskjet also provides improved printing on a
Citizen Swift when the appropriate printer definition is loaded. (That
was a good discovery by my friend Charlie!)
6.6
Steve Hutchinson has sent in some observations of printing problems
(along with other useful information which I will use for further
columns). He says...
6.6
I have tried to produce a few items using the Fit Lots option Ö for
example, a prayer bookmark. I change the page setup to a Custom size,
70mm wide by 148mm high. This will give me six bookmarks to an A4 page.
The manual says to reduce the scaling in the Print Dialogue box, a
little, to allow for the margins, which I do; 97% gives ÉFit Lots (6)æ.
However on printing out, AW hasnæt taken the margins into account. It
positions the six copies based on the left bottom corner and I lose
anything too near the bottom. If it centred it, as Impression does, all
would be well. If it isnæt going to centre it properly, it should allow
Print Lots (6) with 100% scaling.
6.6
I have not used this facility yet. Any comments?
6.6
Fonts again
6.6
Steve Hutchinson offers some different ideas for font organisation.
6.6
Reading Michael Carteræs comments on the fonts supplied with Artworks,
what I want is an automatic version of !FontInst. That is, a program
that looks at a document before it loads it, to discover the required
fonts and then loads those that are not in the current FontList. It
could do this from the HardDisc or archived directory, or even by asking
for the right floppy disc, if it kept a record of where the fonts were.
It sounds like the next version of !FontDir to me Ö how about it Adrian?
(Watch this space! Ed.)
6.6
Thanks Steve. Perhaps someone will solve our problems. I have found,
though, that after either Impression or AW has failed to find a font and
replaced it with their choice, the correct fonts can be included by
subsequently loading the appropriate font directories.
6.6
Coda
6.6
As in a musical piece, this section will form a tailpiece to the column.
It will sometimes offer questions to be answered and perhaps even
provoke discussion.
6.6
AW is a package which encourages creativity. The trouble is, we computer
folk enjoy the technology too much. Let us therefore have some
suggestions for experimentation or your favourite special effect. Which
blends or fills work well for you? Have you tried curve stitching?ááA

6.6
CC
6.6
new Artwork

6.6
Safesell
6.6
new Artwork

6.6
SpaceTech
6.6
From 6.5 page 40

6.6
Comment Column
6.6
Å   AKF18 monitor problems? Ö I recently purchased a Acorn Multiscan
Monitor type AKF18 for use with my A3000. I found, however, that it
would not display correctly in the mode 20/21 multiscan modes.
6.6
I telephoned Acorn Customer Services for assistance, only to be told
that they do not provide Technical Support over the telephone. I then
wrote to Acorn explaining, in detail, my problem. After about four
weeks, the following response was received:
6.6
öIt is possible, by means of an adaptor, to attach the AKF18 monitor to
an A3000. It was never designed to be used with this computer and
therefore compatibility problems such as those described in your local
letter will arise.ò
6.6
My local dealeræs comments were that he was not aware of this problem.
Need I say any more to potential purchasers than YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.á
D West, Maidenhead.
6.6
In our experience, it is possible to get AKF18 monitors working OK on
pre-A5000 computers. If you have problems, itæs probably worth getting
Careware 18 Ö it has some utilities which will help. Ed.
6.6
Å   A-Link limitations Ö It seems that the A-Link for the Acorn Pocket
Book will only work on RISC-OS 3.10 and not on 3.00. (Apologies to A5000
owners still waiting for an upgrade. Ed)á P Hooper, Norfolk.
6.6
Å   ArcFax & Hayes/BABT-approved modems Ö What Philip Green says in his
review of ArcFax is not true Ö there are several BABT-approved Hayes
modems. I have a Pace Microlin which is definitely Hayes and has a green
sticker. I believe the US Robotics (nΘe Miracom) are approved and they
are Hayes as well.
6.6
David Pillling tells me that he is about to start a revision of ArcFax
incorporating feedback from users. I believe it will also incorporate
support for third party serial ports which will help overcome the
bottleneck in the Archimedes native port.
6.6
I think that the reason for the time difference between sending and
receiving faxes may in part be due to the fact that a real Fax machine
is having to scan and compress on the fly whereas, when sending via
ArcFax, that part of the job is already done. Some Fax modems can only
transmit at 9,600 baud whilst receiving at 14,400. Others work at 14,400
both ways and, more commonly, at 9,600 both ways. If you are buying a
modem, it is worth checking out its performance. All the BABT-approved
units I have come across seem to be 9,600 only. As yet, it is only the
unapproved ones that seem to be capable of 14,400.á Tim Nicholson,
Cranleigh.
6.6
Å   Archimedes in the Arabian Gulf Ö In this far-flung outpost of
Archimedian society, it is sometimes difficult to maintain the stimulus
and interest which is greatly enhanced by magazine editorial and comment
such as provided in Archive. (I wonder if the same letter will appear
elsewhere?! Ed) There are at least four personal users of Acorn RISC
machines in Abu Dhabi that I know of plus the english-speaking junior
schools in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and interest in Acorn machines is
growing all the time. If any Archive member has been öpostedò or is
considering a posting in the Arabian Gulf and would like to correspond,
I would be most happy to hear from them. Graham Howard, c/o ADGAS,
P.O.Box 3500, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
6.6
Å   ArcSimp upgrade Ö As I write this (early February), Mijas Software
have updated their simulation software ArcSimp to version 1.55. Several
bugs have been fixed and some improvements to the WIMP interface make
the handling even better than before.
6.6
In addition, they have put a new example simulation onto the disc, which
shows some of the scope of the program: The acceleration of a
öperformance carò can be manipulated by changing the setup of the gear
box (number of gears, transmission ratios). Registered users should, by
now, have received their free upgrade.
6.6
The next major revision (version 2.00) with a new, more detailed manual,
has been announced for öprobably the first quarter of æ93ò. If this new
manual is carefully done, it will be a real boon.á Jochen Konietzko,
K÷ln, Germany.
6.6
Å   CD-ROMs Ö Now that CD-ROMs are becoming more popular, I am tempted to
look across to the PC world. There, games are often available on CD-ROM,
whilst in the Acorn market all we can get are art files. Now, I am sure
that games manufacturers will be reluctant to make game CDs until the
demand is there, but I also feel that some people will be reluctant to
buy a CD-ROM drive until the supply is there. Which came first, the
chicken or the egg? Neil Walker, Norwich.
6.6
Å Ceramic Solutions Ö The Colton pottery team have done it again. To
celebrate their 5th Anniversary they have produced another mug.
6.6
öSo whatæs new?ò cry dedicated Colton watchers. Precisely nothing I am
afraid Ö same conventional open top, closed bottom circular cross
section; same vertically aligned handle. OK there are now three colours.
My A level class scratched their befuddled heads and asked, öIs that one
and a half bit colour?ò No lads, itæs not. See you all next year.
6.6
Steve, the director of computer-based learning, was quick to recognise
an opportunity, öwrite them a good review and tell Colton you want to
review two more.ò In our budget, mugs come under Éconsumablesæ.
6.6
The decoration might be described by graphic designers as öa broad
frieze of penguinsò Ö but it would only be described in this way once,
since few things annoy the folk who hang around listening to graphic
designers so much as weak puns.
6.6
Colton, keen to emphasise the power and ease of use of their new word
processor chose to advertise Wordz at the BETT show with a word
processed year planner. Good try, but will it do letters? Now that I
have described the mug as Énothing newæ, I suppose I will find out
because they will probably write to me asking for their free mug back.á
Robert Chrismas, Gosport.
6.6
Å   Compression, version 1.17 is an upgrade worth installing: Compression
is now fully RISC-OS 3 and 3.10 compatible, so that it can also be
included into a boot file without difficulty.
6.6
In addition, there is a very useful new keyboard short cut. Simply
pressing <Ctrl-Insert> opens the öotherò directory window (Compression
or normal), which is particularly valuable if you are somewhere deep
inside the directory tree and want to compress or decompress a file.á
Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany.
6.6
Å   Credit where credit is due Ö When I wrote (Archive 6.2, p8) about my
experiences with my SCSI hard disc, I expected to get it back within the
next week or so.
6.6
When it still had not arrived after more than two months, in
exasperation, I phoned Morley. It turned out that they had sent the disc
long ago and a subsequent check was able to trace it up to the point
where it left the UK, then it vanished.
6.6
Rather than wait for the insurance company to act, Morley decided to
send a replacement straight away. This arrived within ten days but,
somewhere along the way, someone had obviously used the parcel for
target practice because there was a big hole in the side. Most of the
Styrofoam chips had vanished and the drive had suffer a head crash!
6.6
This prompted Morley to send a third disc (a newer model Ö mine was no
longer available Ö they wrote öhope you donæt mindò) and to compensate
me for the long wait, they even threw in (free of charge) a new EPROM
for their SCSI podule which contains CDFS (someone obviously remembered
I had asked about this a while ago).
6.6
Now that is what I call service!á Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany.
6.6
Å   Dongle problems Ö On occasions, I find that I cannot print from other
applications until I have run Impression and quit it and when I recently
used a Canon BubbleJet, instead of my own LaserDirect, I experienced the
same problem. Perhaps I can offer the following explanation.
6.6
The Impression dongle contains various circuits which need power. The
power is obtained by rectifying two data lines from the Archimedesæ
printer interface (D1 and D8) and two lines from the printer (SLCT and
NACK); the rectified voltage is stored on a capacitor and powers the
dongle. In normal operation, Impression activates the dongle every time
it is run but if Impression has not been run there is no guarantee that
power will be delivered to the dongle. (This also seems to be more of a
problem on RISC-OS 3.1. Ed.)
6.6
D1, D8 and NSTB from the computer and BUSY from the printer are buffered
on the dongle by one of the ICs, so no power on the dongle means no
output to the printer. Also, the BUSY line from the dongle to the
computer stays high, telling the computer that the printer is busy and
unable to take any input. The printer data stays in the Archimedes,
which then freezes up, waiting; this is an un-delightful feature of
RISC-OS 3.1 which doesnæt seem to let its buffers fill before hanging.
6.6
(Incidentally, people with old dongles will discover that on the newer
Archimedes machines, the bidirectional printer interface will not work
from printer to computer as CC did not wire up all the pins between the
connectors.)
6.6
The DIY solution of shorting pins together on the dongle may work
(although I canæt see why it should) and it shouldnæt damage anything
but it isnæt really the answer. Affected users should write to Computer
Concepts demanding a better solution e.g. (1) Computer Concepts write a
short module which will Éexerciseæ the dongle, or (2) redesign it, or
(3) use a more sensible method of software protection such as
installation routines which burn-in registration codes provided by CC on
the telephone Ö quite a common method on PC software.á Seßn Kelly,
Leighton Buzzard.
6.6
Å   RISC-OS 3.1 upgrades Ö Here is what we wrote in the Price List last
month...
6.6
I am sorry to say that the position with regard to A5000 RISC-OS 3.1
upgrades has still not resolved itself. (Itæs now nearly 6 months since
I placed the order with the distributor!) In fact, Acorn have just told
us that they have sent out more A5000 upgrades than they have made
A5000s.
6.6
So what has happened to these upgrades? Iæll tell you where I think they
are. Owners of pre-A5000 computers have bought them Ö they have ignored
Acornæs licence conditions and have installed them in non-A5000
computers to save themselves ú30 a set.
6.6
In other words, a number of selfish people have taken advantage of
Acornæs goodwill in allowing A5000 owners to have 3.1 chips virtually at
cost and have thereby left bona fide A5000 owners without their 3.1
upgrades.
6.6
Here is a response from a reader...
6.6
I read with interest your comments in the latest Archive about the
shortage of RISC-OS 3.10 upgrades, but was very puzzled by your comments
about people öbreaking the licence conditionsò by fitting these upgrades
to older machines; I have checked the licence and there is no such
condition!
6.6
Iæm sure that Acorn arenæt stupid Ö if they didnæt want the upgrades to
be fitted to older machines then they would have imposed some definite
conditions, rather than relying on goodwill and peopleæs öhonestyò.
6.6
Could you please check the licence conditions? I can see none that
people would be breaking through buying A5000 upgrade packs. Indeed, the
printed manual and extra delivery expense make me wonder if Acorn makes
any more profit on the full upgrade packs compared with the A5000 packs.
6.6
Given that the number of ROM sets coming into the country is limited, it
strikes me that Acorn has got to make the decision whether it is more
important to upgrade users from RISC-OS 3.00 to RISC-OS 3.10 or from
RISC-OS 2.0x to RISC-OS 3.10. That is surely the true reason for the
shortage of A5000 upgrade packs?
6.6
I, too, have checked the licence agreement and the reader is correct
that there is nothing which specifically refers to its use (or
otherwise) on any other computers. Iæm sorry that I didnæt check my
facts properly but I still maintain that it is taking advantage of
Acornæs goodwill. Ed.
6.6
Å   The Good, The Bad and the Pocket Book Ö A short story by the non-
technical partner in a computer household.
6.6
The Bad (Sad) News Ö sold our old faithful (much modified) BBC B.
6.6
The Good News Ö bought a Pocket Book (from NCS).
6.6
The Bad News Ö NCS had not received any stocks of A-links or power
packs.
6.6
Weeks Later Ö The Good News Ö the A-link arrived.
6.6
The Bad News Ö it needs RISC-OS 3.1, not 3.0! We donæt have 3.1 on our
A5000 and neither does any dealer in the country it appears!
6.6
The Good News Ö a kind friend offers the use of her A5000 (that has the
upgrade) to transfer the now bulging files on the Pocket Book.
6.6
I arrive complete with A-link, software and manual. The coffee comes out
and resigned faces show they expect they are in for a long evening.
6.6
The Even Better News Ö it worked first time! Ten minutes later, all the
files are transferred and we enjoy a pleasant evening swapping stories
about Acorn and the non-availability of items.
6.6
öWell ...?ò was the comment on my return home. öAll done. Easy.ò I reply
with a grin.
6.6
Now to transfer the word processing files in Edit into First Word Plus.
He sits and tries different ways Ö I get out the manual! Unfortunately,
it was not written for a Énormalæ person like me. I read out the
instructions for ÉImporting text from plain text editorsæ. I read
exactly and he types in as I speak, presses <return>, clicks on boxes,
etc but all to no avail. (öGive it to me, youæve misread something.ò The
usual mutterings follow.)
6.6
WHY didnæt it work Ö because the instructions are not exact. You have to
realise that, because you clicked on <End of File Replace> during the
first operation (and itæs never mentioned again) you should do it every
time. Well, I didnæt realise. To my non-technical brain, if it doesnæt
say do something then you probably shouldnæt do it!
6.6
Itæs that kind of problem in the manuals that make your average computer
user (and I mean that word USER Ö they want to USE it for a particular
purpose) give up using an expensive and very useful tool.
6.6
**********
6.6
The Pocket Book is great, easy to use and very useful for taking notes
in meetings, reminding you of appointments, telling the time, having an
address book database; all in a smaller space than my Filofax.
6.6
However, its biggest bonus is then to transfer those meeting minutes,
lecture notes, etc into another document or DTP publication.
6.6
(The same will apply to using the spreadsheet and database but I havenæt
got that far yet.)
6.6
So, come on Acorn, make life easy for the likes of me. Give me the Ébits
and piecesæ that I need to make everything work together. Also, remember
that we are all not technically minded (nor have hours to spend
Éfiddling aroundæ) and make the manuals a bit more USER friendly.
6.6
**********
6.6
The Bad News Ö NCS still havenæt received the power packs and as for the
RISC-OS 3.1 ......
6.6
Sue Hooper, Martham, Norfolk.
6.6
(We have got some Psion mains adaptors but have still only received less
than 100 of the 250 sets of A5000 RISC-OS upgrades that I ordered on 1st
September. Ed)
6.6
Å   When is a K not a k? Ö Following on from the comments last month about
kb and Kb, I have been informed by more than one reader that K is an
accepted (though not SI-approved) unit meaning 210 i.e. 1024. This then
distinguishes it from k which is 103. (Mind you what distinguishes 106
(M) from 220 (M)?) Well, I think Iæll stick as I am with Mb and Kb. OK?
Ed.
6.6
Å   Wish list for a new Acorn machine:
6.6
Modular design. Have memory boards (inc MEMC) on a daughter board (like
A540).
6.6
CPU (and socket for FPU) on daughter board. Also make the CPU much
faster.
6.6
Graphics card with VIDC20 or better including 512Kb or more of its own
dual-port memory.
6.6
Memory upgrade to go to greater than 4Mb as on an A540. (Yes I know
about 8 Mb upgrades for 400 series but Acorn donæt produce them.)
6.6
Built-in IDE controller to save a podule slot. (Iæd prefer built-in
SCSI! Ed.)
6.6
More than four expansion slots Ö one option would be to have them
vertically stacked. This would, however, preclude full-width podules,
e.g. I/O podule, and would also make the case taller Ö not in keeping
with Acornæs current style. (Chris hadnæt seen the February magazine
when he wrote this. I think Ultimate Expansion System may be one answer.
Ed.)
6.6
Again, as per the A540, a hefty PSU.
6.6
I▓C lines brought out on a separate connector. I have to lose the use of
one podule connector because I use a Morley Teletext adaptor which uses
these lines.
6.6
The idea behind these suggestions is that the machine can easily be
upgraded as and when different parts become available. It might also
make manufacture easier and therefore cheaper. For example, Acorn could
simply have a plain mother board and plug in an ARM2, ARM3 board or
ARM600 board depending on the customeræs specification. The same applies
to the graphics system, with a choice of VIDC or VIDC20. The dual port
memory would allow the VIDC 20 to use higher resolutions and colours
without loss of speed.á Chris Walker, Norwich.ááA

6.6
News Flash ... Ethernet and Econet ...
6.6
   Get Teletext
6.6
                on all stations
6.6
                           of an AUN Network

6.6
The XOB Teletext Server is the only AUN compatible teletext server.
6.6
It will deliver teletext pages to stations on Econet and Ethernet
networks, over bridges and through gateways.
6.6
The server is multi-tasking and RISC OS compliant on Archimedes series
machines. It allows pages to be saved as sprites so that graphics may be
incorporated in published reports. Pages may be saved as text as the
basis for newspaper articles. Pages may also be saved in viewdata
format.
6.6
Terminal software is also supplied for BBC-B and Master series machines.
6.6
   Site Licence: ú154.00 (ex VAT)
6.6
   XOB, Balkeerie, Eassie, Angus  DD8 1SR.  Tel. [phone].

6.6
!System and !Scrap ù A Beginneræs Guide
6.6
Richard Hallas
6.6
After Paulæs plea last month for article for beginners, I thought I
would have a go at explaining !System and !Scrap. If you try to run
them, nothing appears to happen, so why do we need them and what are
they for?
6.6
All that is needed here is a little basic understanding of how the Acorn
operating system works. RISC-OS is what is known as a Émodularæ
operating system, which means that it is comprised of lots of small
components, each of which has its own function: these are modules. You
can check this out by pressing <f12> (after which a star should appear
at the bottom of the screen) and typing HELP MODULES. Press <return>,
and a long list of titles will scroll up the screen. These are the
components from which the operating system is built up Ö each has a
version number and date next to it. Most of the names will be self-
explanatory, such as öFont Managerò for looking after the outline fonts,
and öHourglassò, which takes care of the egg-timer pointer shape you see
when an operation takes a long time. (If you want to return to the
desktop at this point, press <shift> to allow this list to continue to
its end and then press <return> again.)
6.6
The point about modules is that each is a self-contained set of routines
which is only used when needed. Different teams of programmers were
responsible for writing the different modules at different times and
many modules have undergone revisions since they were first created,
either to improve their facilities or to correct mistakes, or both.
6.6
One of the really nice things about RISC-OS is that if a module has been
revised since its original inclusion in the operating system, a copy of
the updated version can be loaded from disc. For example, the copy of
the Font Manager built into RISC¡OSá2 is a very early version which
cannot cope with the now standard outline fonts. Therefore, RISC¡OSá2
applications which use outline fonts have to make sure that a more
recent version of the Font Manager has been loaded from disc. Whatæs
more, it is also possible to load additional modules from disc to extend
the facilities of the operating system.
6.6
!System
6.6
!System is a directory tha   t contains
later versions of some of the modules built into the operating system.
It also contains copies of extra modules that provide facilities which
may be needed by certain applications but which are not built into the
operating system.
6.6
An example of one of these is a module called öInterface Managerò. Many
applications, especially ones in the public domain, have nice-looking 3D
buttons and borders. (Impression was the first application to use this
style, although the effects are created by its own proprietary system.)
To provide this effect, the Interface Manager module is needed and so
when you load an application that uses it, the application will try to
make sure that the module is available. First it checks to see if the
module has been loaded already and then, if not, it tries to find a copy
within the !System directory.
6.6
If your computer does not know where your !System is located, you will,
at this point, get an error message along the lines of öSystem resources
cannot be foundò. This is why it is important to let the computer know
where there is a copy of !System when you first switch it on. If you
have a hard disc, !System should be located in the first directory to
open when you click on the hard disc icon.
6.6
All that is needed to tell the computer where !System is located, is to
open a directory containing it. To be doubly sure, you can double-click
on !System to Érunæ it. This has the effect of telling the computer that
you really want it to use this particular copy of !System. This is
useful if you have used a floppy disc which has a copy of !System on it,
and you want to make sure the computer is not using that copy of !System
by mistake.
6.6
The last point illustrates why it can be confusing to have more than one
copy of !System available. The computer can only know about the location
of one !System at once, so you should have your own working copy into
which you copy all the latest modules as you receive them. An
application called !SysMerge from Acorn will make the process of
updating modules in !System very straight forward.
6.6
If you do have an out-of-date module in your !System, you may get a
slightly confusing error message when you try to run an application. It
may say something like, öYou need Clib 3.75 or laterò. Clib, which is
short for Shared C Library, is a module which is needed by applications
which were written in the ÉCæ programming language. The error message
simply indicates that the copy in your !System is out of date and the
application you are trying to use needs some facilities provided by a
later version of the module. A copy of the relevant version will
probably be supplied with the application, in which case you can either
use the !SysMerge utility to update your !System.
6.6
(If you prefer to öseeò what is going on, you can open up your !System,
by holding down <shift> while double-clicking on it, open the Modules
sub-directory that is inside it and copy the module into it yourself.)
6.6
If the updated module has not been provided with the application, you
will probably be able to get a copy from a local Acorn dealer or by
buying Shareware 17 from Archive.
6.6
There is one very important point to bear in mind when you have just
updated a module. If the old version of the module is loaded (and in
use) when you load the application which needs the newer version, the
computer is quite likely to crash. For this reason, you should save all
your work in progress, update your !System and then reset the machine.
6.6
So, to summarise: !System is simply a place to keep updated and new
modules. The computer must know where it is located so that it can load
the modules when it needs them.
6.6
!Scrap
6.6
!Scrap uses the same icon as !System but is, if anything, slightly more
mysterious. As with !System, you should only have one copy of !Scrap
available, and opening a directory containing it (or double-clicking on
it) will tell the computer where it is located. The computer often has
to write things into !Scrap, so those of you with a hard disc drive are
at an advantage. If !Scrap is on your hard disc, the computer can write
things to it without you knowing or having to insert the floppy disc
containing it.
6.6
The precise purposes of !Scrap are slightly less well-defined than those
of !System, but basically it has two uses. One is to facilitate the
smooth running of the system when transferring data and the other is to
provide a Ésafety netæ if an application crashes. If you open up !Scrap
(by double-clicking on it with <Shift> held down) you will see that it
contains a directory called öScrapDirò. This directory will probably be
empty but it may contain one or more other directories, or perhaps a
file.
6.6
When you use two applications together, such as a drawing program and a
desktop publisher, you may want to save data from one program into the
other. You may perhaps drag a picture from the drawing application into
a graphic frame in the DTP package. When this happens, the drawing
program may send the graphic directly into the DTP package using the
computeræs own memory (direct memory transfer) or it may save the
picture to disc and tell the desktop publisher to load it. If the latter
method is used, the drawing program will save the picture into !Scrap.
The desktop publisher will then load the picture from inside !Scrap,
display it in the frame and delete the disc copy. All this will be
transparent to the user but if something goes wrong and the drawing
program crashes (say), you may find that there is still a copy of the
drawing inside !Scrap.
6.6
The second purpose of !Scrap is to provide a place for applications to
save data if they crash unexpectedly. For example, RISC-OS 3.1æs built-
in copy of !Paint is not particularly reliable and can quite easily
crash in the middle of editing a large sprite file. However, it has the
redeeming feature of often saving the edited file before it quits. If
you look inside !Scrapsæs öScrapDirò directory, you may find it contains
another directory with the name öPaintò which, in turn, contains the
file you were working on when the program crashed. If you leave your
!Scrap untended, you may find that it occasionally acquires other
directories when applications crash and save their data inside it. It is
important, therefore, that you do not keep !Scrap on a write-protected
disc or the computer will not be able to work properly.ááA
6.6
Thanks, Richard. If anyone else feels there is a subject they could
explain clearly for the uninitiated, get in touch with me or with Laura
Handoca, our new Beginnersæ Column editor. Ed.

6.6
CC
6.6
From 6.5 page 19

6.6
PipeLine-Z
6.6
Gerald Fitton
6.6
It is the help readers of this column give each other (rather than my
monthly words) which makes PipeLine-Z such a success. Hereæs an
example...
6.6
DataBase
6.6
In the Januaryá1993 PipeLine column, I included a request for help in
changing the structure of a database. I have had several replies which
involve the use of !Edit. Let me start by reminding you of the problem
which was posed by Roger King. Roger has a number of records in a format
similar to the one below (four columns) with one record per row:
6.6
   ColáAááColáBááColáCááColáD
6.6
What he wants to do is to change it to a format which uses two rows per
record but with only three columns:
6.6
   ColáAááColáBááColáD
6.6
               ColáC
6.6
Roger does not want to type all the records again but wants a way of
transferring the data from his Éoldæ database to the new one.
6.6
I received many replies which used variants of the same basic technique
of combining the features of PipeDream and Edit. However, I would like
to give special mention to Howard Snow and to Bruce Brown who exchanged
discs and ideas with Roger King.
6.6
On the Archive monthly disc you will find disc versions with the details
of the conversion procedures recommended by Howard and Bruce.
6.6
Bruce summarises the advantages of using the combination of PipeDream
and Edit to solve database manipulation problems.
6.6
1. Nearly all databases and word processors can export data as ASCII.
(CSV is also very useful when numbers and text are involved.)
6.6
2. PipeDream is marvellous for getting tabbed ASCII files into columns
which allows the order of the data, both fields and records, to be
changed at will using block moves and sorts.
6.6
3. Virtually any search and replace operation can be carried out in
Edit. This applies particularly to RISC-OS 3 Edit and SrceEdit which
have the more versatile Wildcard option as well as Magic characters.
6.6
If you have more examples of using a combination of PipeDream with some
other package (such as Edit or Basic) then please send them to me.
6.6
Upgrades
6.6
Wordz was launched at the BETT Show in January 1993 as version 1.00. I
now have version 1.01 and Iæve been told that version 1.02 is just
around the corner.
6.6
This brings me round to asking you to write to me with your views about
software upgrades. Rather longer ago than I care to mention, I read for
a degree in Applied Mathematics at Imperial College, London. One of the
extra curricular courses I attended was about publishing the result of
research work. The course started with fundamentals such as grammar,
spelling, the use of the word örespectivelyò and the (still much
misused) apostrophe Ö but it also included a series of lectures on the
topic öWhen to Publish?ò
6.6
This topic was introduced in the form of the question, öShould you
publish some unfinished research to Éget in before the competitionæ or
should you wait until youære certain youæve explored every aspect of the
subject?ò Many times, when I was in industry, I had an invention not
quite ready to patent and deliberated, weighed the odds of being pipped
at the post and thought about my college lectures.
6.6
Releasing software for sale is not quite the same problem as publishing
research but it has similarities. A large package such as Squirrel,
Impression, PipeDream or Wordz requires many hours of development (and
expenditure) in advance of any revenue. With such a package, it is
almost impossible for the software team to write the program in such a
way that it is Éguaranteedæ to be bug free. (Mind you, I have read a
Defence Specification which goes a long way towards developing a
philosophy, based on set theory, which might lead to a method of writing
programs which are guaranteed to be bug free!)
6.6
In addition to delaying release dates because of known or potential
bugs, programmers are notorious for wanting to add a new feature or
wanting to improve the method of implementing an established feature
(ease, flexibility, speed). So, when do you release the software for
sale? The answer is definitely not to wait until it is completely bug
free and when the package has all the features that it is possible to
think of Ö for that day, like tomorrow, never comes!
6.6
From what I have seen, Colton Software, like so many other software
suppliers, wait until a package is Éuseableæ rather than Éperfectæ
before releasing it. My experience of them is that, when they release
software for sale, they are aware of things which could be improved but
they honestly believe that purchasers will be able to get good use out
of the package as it stands at version 1.00.
6.6
So, letæs accept that it would be unreasonable to delay the release of a
version 1.00 because desirable features are not yet implemented or
because of minor bugs known or potential. When the package is improved
who should pay? There is a cost involved in providing upgrades and
someone something has to pay it. Should that be the customer, the
distributor, the dealer or the software house? So that you donæt get
your mind locked into the current set of conventions, letæs consider one
possible scenario which might prove popular in some sectors!
Distributors (such as NCS) take a profit margin on the original sale.
Should they pay the software house for the extra work involved in
upgrading the package but pass the benefit to their customer free of
charge? Should the customer pay? Should the software house keep
supplying free upgrades for ever?
6.6
I notice that the most recent upgrade to Squirrel is free but, if you
want to make use of the new features, you will have to buy a new
handbook for about ú15. The latest version of Impression, version 2.18,
will cost you about ú10 if you want to upgrade.
6.6
I am a great believer in the concept of controlling Cash Flow (rather
than mere Profit) as a method of keeping a company financially healthy.
In times of economic expansion, my insistence on projecting Cash Flow as
well as ultimate Profit has been treated with suspicion (and even
ridicule) by some of my colleagues in industry but, in a time of
recession, Cash Flow (and not Profit) becomes the criterion for
survival! (Funny you should mention that, Gerald Ö we nearly learned
that the hard way last month! Ed.)
6.6
All links in the software distribution chain need positive cash flow if
they are to thrive and prosper. There is negative cash flow to the
writers of packages during its development, positive cash flow during
the sale but further negative cash flow every time a free upgrade is
supplied to the user.
6.6
So hereæs my question to you. öHow should upgrades by financed?ò Should
it be the software house, the distributor, the dealer, the user or some
combination of all these people?
6.6
If you have an early version of Wordz, send both your program and your
examples disc to Colton Software for a free upgrade to what will
probably be version 1.02. It will save Colton Software administrative
costs if you include a self addressed label (and a stamp) with your
discs.ááA

6.6
Colton
6.6
From 6.5 page 20

6.6
Oak
6.6
From 6.5 page 14

6.6
Principles of Desk Top Publishing Ö Part 1
6.6
Mike McNamara
6.6
In my role as a college lecturer, I run regular introductory courses in
DTP. In these, I am often asked whether anyone could learn to use DTP.
The simple answer to this is Éyesæ but then, this is not really the
right question. What they should have asked is Écan anyone learn to use
DTP to good effect?æ. The answer to this is far less clear-cut, although
still basically Éyesæ, or more accurately Éyes ifæ. The aim of this
article is to look at some of these Éifsæ.
6.6
An interesting side-effect of the power of the Archimedes is that a very
high proportion of its users have access to DTP. This is due to the
simple fact that Impression and Ovation are designed to be used for both
DTP and word processing, while on other systems like Macintosh or IBM
these two tasks require two packages. Through being able to combine the
two into one package Archimedes users have very cost-effective access to
high quality DTP software. Combine this with the ease of access to all
Archimedes software through RISC-OS and the temptation to exploit the
full potential of the software is irresistible.
6.6
However, power has its risks (no pun intended). Having access to
professional DTP software does not turn you into a professional DTP
user, any more than access to word processing turns you into a best-
selling writer. DTP is far more than simply combining text and graphics
and adding a few fancy headings. DTP is a design process and needs
considerable thought. If you already have a design background then you
are well ahead of the game. If not, then be prepared to invest a little
time to learning some basic principles. Unfortunately, there are no set
rules to good design. If there were then they would be built into the
software and we could all produce perfect results every time. What may
be considered good design today will be old hat and cliched by tomorrow.
Design is an aspect of fashion and, as with any fashion, it changes with
time.
6.6
There are a few basic principles that can help guide us but, at the end
of the day, trust your own judgement. If you like the look of what
youæve produced then go for it. Donæt be afraid to use the work of
others to help develop your own ideas.
6.6
Suck it and see!
6.6
The first, and possibly most important, of these principles is to
experiment. Get into the habit of trying out ideas Ö not on the computer
but on paper. The reason for working on paper first is quite simple. If
you work directly on the computer then your creativity will be led, at
least in part, by the software youære using. The less familiar you are
with the software, the more restricted your ideas will become.
6.6
By working with pencil and paper, you can let your creative ideas take
over. Work as quickly as you can. Allow one idea to follow another and
donæt discard any. I tend to find that the faster I work, the more ideas
I seem to get. Donæt try to be too precise but work in rough concepts Ö
use wiggly lines to represent the text and simple cartoon or stick
characters for graphics (see below).
6.6
Once you have a collection of possible designs, you can then select
those which seem most effective and/or pleasing, and refine these. From
the paper you are then ready to move to the computer and use the power
of the software to bring your final idea(s) to life.
6.6
When playing with design ideas, never lose sight of the purpose for
which the materials are being designed. Here you need to remember that
the design is going to play a direct part in the success, or otherwise,
of the message you are trying to present. For example, complex, fancy
layouts take time to read. They are not therefore suited to situations
where the reader needs to get the message quickly.
6.6
The more material you put onto the page, the darker and more crowded the
page becomes. A darker page (less white space) looks more intimidating
to the reader. A Édarkeræ page design may be more appropriate for a more
formal message while something like a party invite comes across better
when Élighteræ. Itæs all a matter of balance and this is something that
you develop a feel for with practice. The degree of Édarknessæ or
Élightnessæ of the page can be effected by many aspects of your design.
The most obvious of these is simply the amount of material you try to
fit onto the page. The closer things crowd together, the darker the
effect. On top of this, your selection of font, font leading, margin
sizes, text alignment, columns, gutters, etc will all play a part. If
some of these terms donæt mean anything to you Ö DONæT PANIC Ö I shall
be expanding on them, and a number of other topics, in later articles.
6.6
For now, get your pencil and paper out and start playing around with
ideas. It may even help to start a scrapbook of other peopleæs work Ö
company cards, advertising flyers, brochures, price lists, letterheads,
etc. These can provide invaluable inspiration, sparking off all sorts of
new ideas for your own work in the future.
6.6
Above all, donæt be afraid to experiment. Rejected ideas are not
failures. They are simply inappropriate for the particular task at hand.
They may well provide you with valuable ideas for later projects.
6.6
In the best teaching tradition Ö we learn through our mistakes; and
looking back at some of my own earlier work, Iæve made quite a few!
6.6
Frame power
6.6
To end this month, I would also like to draw your attention more closely
to the Éframeæ within DTP. Those of you already familiar with DTP will
inevitably understand the basic concept of the frame. For the newcomer a
little explanation is in order.
6.6
Anything placed onto the page within a DTP package is placed within a
frame. In both Ovation and Impression these frames need to be created
before the item they are to contain can be imported or created. A frame
can contain either text or graphics and may in turn contain other frames
(not necessarily of the same type). Thus, you might create a graphic
frame, place within it a picture and then, again within the graphic
frame, create a text frame to hold a caption.
6.6
Therefore, for anyone getting into DTP it is essential that you spend
time getting to know how to create, move, refine and fill frames. Until
these skills are mastered, all other aspects of the DTP environment will
appear all but impossible to control.
6.6
However, frames are far more important to the DTP user than simply as
the containers for items on the page. The creative and imaginative use
of frames opens up vast new areas in page design.
6.6
To begin with, if you find that the effect you are trying to achieve is
proving somewhat complex, consider splitting some of the element between
frames and then altering the interaction of the frames.
6.6
or example, how do you create the effect of a Drop Cap (as shown at the
start of this paragraph)? If you try to do it with a single block of
text within a single text frame Ö you canæt. When you start to think in
terms of multiple frames, the task is fairly simple Ö simply remove the
initial letter from the paragraph and place it in a frame of its own.
Increase its size as you require and then move it into the appropriate
position.
6.6
For even finer control, make the initial letter frame passive. By
default a text frame will repel the contents of other, closely
associated, text frames by a set distance. A passive frame has had this
repel action switched off, thus allowing the contents of others to flow
over it. Now create a third, empty frame, with the repel still on and
size it to move the remainder of the paragraph as required. You should
also find here that frames sit not only alongside each other but also in
front of or behind others. Thus you may need to alter this order to get
the final effect.
6.6
Next month: Fonts and Format Ö Some guidelines on how to select the
right font for the job and how these selections and the layout format
you choose can change the image of the message you put across.ááA

6.6
F

6.6
Help!!!!
6.6
Å   Colour printers Ö Does anyone have access to both a Canon BJC800 and
an HP Deskjet 550C? We need someone to do some side-by-side comparisons
of speed and output quality. Any offers? Ed.
6.6
Å   Genesis/Magpie Column? Ö The Multimedia Column covers some of the
broader issues of Multimedia but perhaps there is scope for a Genesis/
Magpie Column? Does anyone have any contribution to make to such a
column and/or fancy helping to edit it? Ed.
6.6
Å   ÉJamesæ of Cambridge University Ö Thanks for your letter. I would like
to be able to reply but you didnæt given me an address. I donæt have a
Ésolutionæ but I think it might help to discuss it. Ed.
6.6
Å   LinTrack Ö With this pre-RISC-OS program, when it is used under RISC-
OS 3.1, the printing slows down considerably. It seems as if the output
via the serial port takes place one command at a time rather than
continuing until the buffer fills up. A PCB layout which used to take 3
hours to plot now takes 10 hours! Can anyone help, please? Or is there a
newer PCB layout to which I can transfer existing LinTrack layouts?
(Sorry, Iæve lost track of who asked the question. Ed.)
6.6
Å   Strategy games Ö At present there are very few strategy games for the
Archimedes. Does anyone want to help in writing games of this type,
either PD or Éprofessionalæ? Contact David Jones, 160 Hazelwood Drive,
St Albans, Herts  AL4 0UE.
6.6
Å   Spreadsheet Column Ö Chris Johnson has offered to edit a Spreadsheets
Column. Since PipeDream is well covered, I suspect this effectively
means a Schema/Eureka Column. If you have ideas, hints & tips,
questions, bugs, etc, write to Dr C A F Johnson, Chemistry Dept, Heriot-
Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS. (It would probably be
helpful to state the version number of the program you are using.) His
E-mail address is CHECAJ @ UK.AC. HERRIOT-WATT.CLUSTER or  CHECAJ @
UK.AC.W.CLUST.ááA
6.6
Help Offered
6.6
Å   Circuit diagrams Ö I have been using DrawPlus for drawing circuit
diagrams for some time now. If anyone would like a library of symbols,
please contact me. Richard Torrens, 30 Reach Road, Burwell,
Cambridgeshireá CB5 0AH.
6.6
Å   Digitising sounds Ö In response to B J Edwardsæ request in Archive 6.5
p17, Dave Shepherdson would be happy to try to digitise any sounds that
Archive readers would like transferring into module form. Send an audio
tape, formatted disc and return postage to Dave Shepherdson, 3 Tarn
Villas, Cowpasture Road, Ilkley  LS29 8RH.
6.6
Å   Impression to bromide Ö Anyone looking for a service for outputting
Impression files to bromide should contact Taylor Lambert Advertising.
They charged me ú3.50 +VAT per A4 page (min charge ú15) and they were
very helpful Ö they seemed to know all about Impression, Draw, etc.á
Paul Cayton, Guisley.
6.6
Å   Spectrum emulator Ö If anyone would like a Spectrum emulator, Carsten
Witt has one which has data transfer on 232/423 i/o port, screen module,
LOAD and SAVE in Spectrum Basic but executed on Acorn ADFS. Contact
Carsten at Rostockerstrasse 5, D-4353 Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany. (Phone
010Ö49Ö2368Ö57910.)ááA

6.6
Ovation Column
6.6
Maurice Edmundson
6.6
Pamphlet printing & book production
6.6
Two recent additions to Ovation are the pamphlet printing and the galley
printing modes. I was pleased to see these enhancements appear,
especially the former, since a good deal of my output is produced in A5
format, ranging from one folded A4 sheet (4 pages) to multiple sheets in
booklet form. I have also had a long letter followed by a telephone
conversation with a reader who was fairly new to the Archimedes and to
Ovation and was hoping, when he had gained more experience, to produce
books to professional standards. Perhaps there are others with similar
interests and ambitions.
6.6
If you are preparing material which will be sent to a commercial printer
for production in booklet form, then almost certainly work would be
carried out on A4 sheets in the önormalò way. Perhaps I could return to
this in a later column. For the moment, I want to concentrate on how to
produce copy which will be printed from the Archimedes using the
pamphlet mode within Ovation.
6.6
Whatever you are preparing, if you intend to use pamphlet printing, it
must be typed on an A4 page. Ovation will automatically reduce this in
size to A5 and rotate the pages into the landscape position. From the
File menu, select <Print Setup> and in this dialogue box, highlight the
Pamphlet button. This removes the highlight from the paper orientation
buttons. Now obtain the Print dialogue box, highlight <Even Pages> and
print. Pages will be printed on one side of the paper in correct
sequence. For the second run, highlight <Odd Pages>, feed the pages in
the same order as for the first run, but turned over so that the second
side will be printed. It is an easy process. If you use a sheet feeder,
keep an eye on the printer to ensure it doesnæt pull through two sheets
instead of one by mistake.
6.6
One other point to note is that, because of the 70% reduction in size,
this must be allowed for during the preparation of the document.
Margins, font sizes, pictures, etc should all be larger on the screen
than is required in the final pamphlet.
6.6
The folded A4 sheet is the simplest document and the easiest to make.
Any four successive A4 document pages can be printed in pamphlet mode.
One or more of these can be blank but the print will always produce a
leaflet with the outer right hand page as page 1 progressing to pages 2
and 3 inside the fold and page 4 on the rear outside. Producing a larger
booklet is a different matter, requiring much more preparation and I
should like to look at this technique in more detail.
6.6
There are several ways in which Ovation might be used for book
production. One could produce a Style Sheet incorporating the various
formats for the book Ö its title pages, contents pages, font styles,
etc. (A style sheet can contain more than one Master Page.) Every new
book would use it as the starting point. Some people prefer to start
each chapter afresh as a new document with its own Master Page and only
combine them when the task is finished. My preference is to prepare a
set of document pages with suitable master pages along the lines of the
first model quoted above, saved not as a style sheet but as a (blank)
Ovation document. The reason I hold to this preference is that printing
a book involves double pages, and with the need to keep all page entries
as page-pairs, I feel my template method is simpler, especially for
someone relatively new to Ovation.
6.6
On screen, the double-sided pages of the book may be viewed in one of
two ways. First with alternate pages scrolling upwards one after the
other, each one filling the whole screen (the default mode). Second, by
selecting <Show double pages> from the View menu, with each pair side by
side. If <Fit in window> is also selected, they can be viewed together
which is useful for checking but probably too small for typing.
6.6
Preparing the template
6.6
From the iconbar menu, choose <New Document>. This dialogue box appears
and the values I have chosen are suitable for a trial book.
6.6

6.6
Making the inner margin slightly wider has two advantages: as a rule,
extra width is required for the binding at the fold; also it is easy to
see at a glance on the screen whether the page is a right or left hand
page. Select <OK> and obtain the new document page. This single frame
right-hand page will be used for the Title pages and the Contents pages
but for the main text pages I will consider the more complex case where
pages have two columns of text like this magazine.
6.6
Glance at the bottom left corner of the tools panel and verify that you
have 1/1 Ö chapter one, page one. Type at the top left of the page the
word öTitleò for reference. Press <Enter> on the key pad; the next page
comes into view and the caret is passed to the top left. Type öReverse
of title pageò. Scroll the page up the screen with the scroll bar and
check that the indicator reads 1/2. From the Page menu choose <New
Chapter Ö after the current chapter>. On the new page of the new chapter
(2/3), type öContentsò. Press <enter> again to get the caret to the top
of the next page (2/4) and type öreverse of contents pageò.
6.6
We now want a third chapter with modified master pages. Obtain another
new öchapter -afterò indicated by 3/5. Use <adjust> on the page menu for
<Show Master Pages> (3L) then select <Page Guidelines>. You now have a
similar dialogue box to the New Document box pictured above. Modify it
to give in addition, Header = Footer = 12mm; 2 columns; gutter = 6mm.
<OK>. The new two-column Master Page appears. Hide the Master Page but,
as yet, the document page has not adopted the new style and is single
frame. Select <Delete Page> from the page menu and get this dialogue
box:
6.6

6.6
Remembering that we have always to work in pairs of pages, we must
delete two pages not one. These are pages 5 to 6. When these go, they
are instantly replaced with two more pages, containing the two columns
we require. In fact, only page 5 comes on the screen. Use <Enter> twice;
on the first press the caret goes to the top of column 2 and on the
second press it goes to the top of the left column on page 6.
6.6
At this stage, your book consists of a right hand page for the title and
its reverse, a right hand page for the contents and its reverse and the
first two pages for the text of chapter 1 (although to the computer,
this is chapter 3).
6.6
Preparing the fonts
6.6
Now prepare the paragraph styles for the book. Of course, you can make
amendments later but it is useful to have the main selection already
defined in the Style Sheet. Firstly, select and edit Body Text. This
might be 14pt Trinity Normal, justified, with the other parameters as
already set. (Remember 14pt on screen will become 10pt when printed).
Then Main Heading, e.g. 24pt SwissB bold, centre aligned with 6pt Space
after; Sub Heading, 21pt ditto left aligned with 4pt Space after; Small
Head say 18pt Trinity bold, left aligned with 4pt Space after. Using the
öSpace afterò facility gives just the required degree of separation
between the heading and the paragraph. Spacing by always using carriage
returns is bad practice Ö a left over from the manual typewriter.
6.6
Using the prepared template
6.6
It is wise to divide even a small booklet into chapters. Chapters are
easier to keep tidy as they go through several re-writes and other
editing. Text never flows across chapters.
6.6
All is now set to begin writing. Using appropriate fonts, enter the
details on the title page and its reverse if required. I suggest you
keep the contents page free for the time being, using it mainly as a
notepad to keep a check on the various chapters as you write the book.
From the first text page show the master pages in order to fill in the
headers and the footers, once on a left hand master page and once on its
right hand counterpart. (When selecting master pages, it is always the
left one which appears first.) Activate the header frame, choose from
Paragraph styles, HeaderL and enter your text, e.g. Chapter 1. Setting
the scene. It will be aligned to the left of the frame. Move to the
footer frame and, using the same style, press <insert> to start the
automatic page numbering system. Type the word page in front of the #
sign if preferred. Scroll to the RH Master page and repeat the procedure
using HeaderR for the text style.
6.6
Hide the master pages and you will probably find that on the document
page, the footer shows the wrong page number. From the page menu select
<Modify chapter> to get the following dialogue box. Here you can choose
the starting number, 1 in my example. You will also appreciate that if
you want an Introduction at the beginning of the book which is not to be
included in the main page numbers, you can have these pages numbered
separately in Roman numerals.
6.6

6.6
There are obviously many other hints and tips to be covered about book
production which I can return to again. In the meantime, I would welcome
your comments.ááA

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6
Dear Mr. Evans,

6.6
My address permanently typed here.

6.6
23 February 1993

6.6
Mr. J. W. Barlow
6.6
22 Sedgemore Drive
6.6
Bolton
6.6
BO5 6XU

6.6
Fig. 1

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6
 Dear [merge2] [merge1],

6.6
[merge2] [merge3] [merge1]
6.6
[merge4]
6.6
[merge5]
6.6
[merge6]

6.6
Fig. 2

6.6
Universal Widgets Ltd.
6.6

6.6

6.6

6.6
Dear [Merge2][Merge1],
6.6
I shall be visiting [Merge5] during the second week of April. I have a
number of new lines which I would like to discuss with you and I hope to
bring along a sample of one of these which I believe will be of
particular interest to your business.  You will find details of the
present state of your account on the enclosed invoice.  it would be
helpful if you could let me have your cheque within the next week or so.
[Merge8].
6.6

6.6
I look forward to meeting you once again,

6.6
Tom Jones (Area 5)
6.6
8 Lindhurst Road
6.6
London NW7 9ZA
6.6
Tel: [phone]

6.6
15 February 1993

6.6
[Merge2][Merge3][Merge1]
6.6
[Merge7][Merge4]
6.6
[Merge5]
6.6
[Merge6]

6.6
With apologies to Maurice, these three figures were missed out of last
monthæs Ovation Column. Ed

6.6
C From Basic
6.6
Thomas Down
6.6
Users of the Archimedes series computers are very lucky in that they
have a very powerful structured version of the Basic programming
language built-in. However, it is not perfect: it is not really suitable
for speed-critical tasks (unless you are experienced enough to use the
built-in assembler) and its support for RISC-OS windows is virtually
non-existent, except at the very lowest command level (SYS calls).
6.6
Due to these failings, many programmers decide to change to another
programming language. Although there are several alternatives on the
Archimedes, by far the best supported, at least up until now, is C. So
it was this that I chose to use.
6.6
Compilers
6.6
Before you can begin programming in C, you need a special program, known
as a compiler, to translate the program (written as a text file) into
machine code. There are two available on the Archimedes. I will look at
each separately.
6.6
The cheapest option is available from Risc Developments (Beebug C). It
comes in an Impression style box with a ring-bound manual and two discs.
It runs without problems on anything from a 1Mb A3000 upwards, although
you may have trouble compiling large WIMP programs on a 1Mb machine. It
runs fine, although rather more slowly, from floppy discs. When loaded,
it installs a single Ébig Cæ icon on the iconbar. At first, the program
looks much the same as Edit but it has a compile option on the menu.
This opens a window displaying the compileræs progress. The system works
quite well but somehow lacks the overall professional appearance of
Acornæs offering. It also suffers from occasional crashes which can be
very disconcerting. It does, however, include a built-in assembler,
similar to (although slightly less flexible than) the Basic Assembler.
6.6
The alternative is marketed by Acorn themselves, although it appears to
be written by a company called Codemist. It is fully compliant with the
ANSI C standard and will be referred to as ANSI C from now on. This is a
really professional system which has been used to write many of our most
popular programs. Version four is supplied on four discs, together with
Acornæs DDE environment. The whole system is efficient and business-
like, allowing you to write both applications and (with the help of a
separate utility) relocatable modules. It also comes with a debugger
which makes it much easier to find subtle bugs in major programs. The
only real drawback is the price Ö around three times that of Beebug C.
Also it requires a higher system specification Ö 2Mb of RAM and a hard
disc are needed to use the system seriously.
6.6
Comparisons
6.6
I do not usually like to rely on speed comparisons but I could not
resist trying one simple benchmark test. The following comparisons
relate to the dhrystone benchmark which tests string handling and simple
integer manipulation. They were run on an ARM 3 A440/1 with IDE hard
disc and RISC-OS 3. All timings were done in mode 35 (larger screen,
standard resolution, 16 colour).
6.6
Beebug C
6.6
Time to Compile Ö 15 seconds
6.6
Dhrystones/Second Ö 7705.3
6.6
Size Ö 6580
6.6
ANSI C v4
6.6
Time to Compile Ö 4 seconds
6.6
Dhrystones/Second Ö 7714.3
6.6
Size Ö 20420 (squeezed to 6847)
6.6
The results of these comparisons are quite surprising. There is no real
speed difference and the cheaper compiler produces more compact code.
However, the difference is not so significant when the ANSI C code is
compressed with the squeeze utility supplied and results may well be
different for larger programs.
6.6
Editors
6.6
Both these compilers are supplied with a program editor which allows
dynamic error correction (called Éthrowbackæ by Acorn). This means that
any errors found in your program when compiling are displayed in a
window. When you click on an error, the editor automatically moves to
the particular line.
6.6
Both the supplied editors provide much the same features as Edit but I
find that, except for the error-correcting facilities, they provide very
little help when writing large amounts of C program. A much better
solution is to use DeskEdit 2 (also from Risc Developments).
Surprisingly, this only provides dynamic error correction with Acornæs
compiler! This seems a very strange policy, to say the least.
6.6
Learning the lingo
6.6
Having bought a compiler, before you can use it seriously, you really
need a tutorial guide to the language. There are a number of these
around but the one I used was ÉThe C Programming Languageæ, written by
the languageæs inventors, Kernighan and Ritchie (usually known as K&R).
This book contains an extensive reference section as well as the
tutorial. However, there are many other books available and they are
probably just as effective.
6.6
When working with C, you will soon realise that it is a very small
language, only providing basic commands. A lot of the functionality
(including all I/O) is provided by a Élibraryæ of standard functions,
which are available to all C programs.
6.6
Fully structured
6.6
C is a highly structured programming language, encouraging the use of
separate functions wherever appropriate. Even the main program is a
function (called main()). GOTO is supported, but instead of specifying a
line number, the name of a tag in the program is given. However, its use
is not encouraged unless it is really needed. On a more positive note, C
allows variables to be grouped together into objects called structures.
This can make data storage in programs far tidier.
6.6
The language also allows large programs to be split into a number of
files. Once compiled, these files are linked together into a single
application. Both compilers include a so-called Émakeæ utility which
helps the management of multi-file programs by examining the date stamps
of the files, and re-compiling any files which have changed. The ANSI C
linking program also allows a program to be linked together into several
overlay files which are automatically loaded from disc when needed,
allowing the development of very large programs.
6.6
Command line only
6.6
As you work your way through your chosen C tutorial book, you will soon
notice the lack of any form of support for graphics in the basic C
standard, let alone access to the window environment. The closest you
can get to this, while still only using standard commands, is a program
running in an Edit task window.
6.6
To do any form of machine-specific work in C, you must use a second
library. Under ANSI C this is called RISC_OSLib. With Beebug C, it is
split up into several parts but the functions provided are the same.
6.6
The easiest operations within RISC_OSLib are the so-called BBC-style
graphics commands. This part of the library provides all the missing
graphics commands, even using the same names as Basic. However, the real
power of the library comes in the way it can be used to produce a
window-based application. When your program initialises, you simply tell
the library which function to call when a particular event occurs. For
instance, there will be a function which is called when the iconbar icon
is clicked and another to handle selections from the menus.
6.6
The library also provides a number of Éspecialæ windows where most, or
sometimes even all, the WIMP programming is done for you. A Édboxæ is a
simplified window which only contains icons. The handler function for a
dbox is told which icon has been clicked. All you need to program
yourself is a Éswitchæ statement (equivalent to Basicæs CASE) containing
the code to be executed when each icon is clicked. This system makes it
simplicity itself to implement something like the Print... dialogue box
in Impression.
6.6
Another special is the txt (sic) system (supported only by Acorn C).
This allows easy display of text in a window and, when used with another
part of the library, allows full editing too! However, my personal
favourite is the Ésaveasæ command. When this is called, a full save box
appears on the screen. All you need to do is specify a function in your
program to be called when the icon has been dragged to a directory
viewer.
6.6
Getting started
6.6
All this may seem very complicated but, with the help of a good example
application, you can quite quickly pick up the basics. You really do
need an example though, preferably a Érealæ application. I used David
Pillingæs Chess game (which was proudly advertised as including full
source code) to good effect.
6.6
Once you have overcome the initial learning period, the C library offers
an extremely convenient approach to writing C programs, as is proved by
the number of applications written using it.
6.6
I have included on the monthly program disc a very simple example of how
the dbox module can be used to write a simple window-based application.
Implementation of graphics windows is a little more complicated but it
is still easier than using SYS calls from Basic.
6.6
The future
6.6
Since the launch of the Archimedes, Acorn have developed their compiler
(and the library with it) through four major releases Ö and it seems
unlikely that they will stop here. Anyone who has had a good look at
RISC-OS 3 will probably have noticed that there is a RISC_OSLib
directory in the resources. Closer examination reveals that the
RISC_OSLib code is included in the ROM SharedCLibrary (which previously
only contained ANSI standard functions). Although this does not
currently appear to be available to programmers outside Acorn, when the
files required to use it become available, this could considerably
reduce the size of WIMP programs.
6.6
Secondly, Acorn are now apparently working on a C++ compiler. This is a
variant of C which has become popular on many other systems. It provides
a simple form of object-orientation (see Archive 6.3 p55, A Little
OOPS), by allowing functions to be defined within structures. This means
that these special structures can be considered as individual objects,
accessed by calling the functions within them. So the internal layout of
data within a structure becomes irrelevant. This can make program layout
much tidier.
6.6
Conclusions
6.6
If you want to do some serious WIMP programming, it is well worth
investigating C as an alternative to Basic. Before you start, you have
to consider which compiler to use. Although ANSI C provides a much
better, more stable, development environment (and a faster compiler),
there is very little difference in the compiled code. So you really have
to consider whether your greatest priority is price or the general
stability and ease of use of the development system.ááA

6.6
Calling all Puzzled Beginners...
6.6
Laura Handoca
6.6
You may have noticed a paragraph on p17 last month concerning the
development of a beginnersæ hints and tips column. Well, this is going
to appear in all its glory in the next issue of Archive.
6.6
For now, I just want to outline how I would like this column to develop.
There will be occasional special articles on common problems or useful
techniques. Two such items that are presently in the pipeline concern
!System and !Scrap folders, and the use of Edit and Draw in combination.
(The first one has already come out of the pipeline Ö see page 23.  Ed.)
6.6
In general, however, the plan is to publish readersæ questions and
answers. öBeginnerò covers a fairly wide range of abilities, so I hope
the column will cover a broad selection of topics. Therefore please do
write in, however basic you think your query is.
6.6
öWhat sort of questions?ò, I hear you cry. The answer is just about
anything which you donæt understand or donæt know how to do:
difficulties with printers (hands up, if youæve never experienced any!),
strange error messages, etc Ö almost anything can be a problem if youære
as computer-illiterate as I am!
6.6
I must emphasize that although Iæm editing this column, Iæm also a
beginner having only been an Archimedes user since August last year, so
donæt be afraid that I will laugh at your Éobviousæ questions. I
probably wonæt know the answer myself. I am fortunate in having a very
good friend who is extremely knowledgeable about Acorn computers but I
know that without his help I would have come unstuck on numerous
occasions, so donæt be embarrassed to ask if youære stuck!
6.6
Please send any questions, tips or ideas for articles for this column to
me at the address below. Hopefully, the next issue will reflect the
bulging mailbag I am expecting. Remember, this column is for your
benefit, but it will only work if you join in.
6.6
Laura Handoca, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of
Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS.ááA

6.6
PD Column
6.6
David Holden
6.6
It is often suggested to me that I should publish a list of Archimedes
PD libraries. I have not done so because, as a PD author, I normally see
libraries from the Éother sideæ and so the criteria by which I judge
them is rather different from that used by most people. However, what I
will do is explain one of the factors by which I judge libraries,
although I expect that this will flood my doormat with letters from
people that disagree.
6.6
The first thing that places a library high on my list is if they have
ever written to me. This is not just for egotistical reasons. I have
been a PD author from the earliest days of the Archimedes and I have yet
to find a library that does not have some of my programs. Most PD and
Shareware authors are constantly updating and improving their work,
myself included. A good library should, of course, be aware of this fact
and try to obtain the latest versions. Most authors are particularly
concerned about this because we donæt want old versions of programs in
circulation, particularly if they contain bugs which have since been
eliminated. Many now include a condition in their distribution licence
saying that the program may only be distributed by libraries which have
been given permission. This ensures that the author knows where to send
updates.
6.6
One of my programs which contains this condition is Architype. Now (and
this is my ego speaking) I donæt think that any PD library worthy of the
name could exist without a copy of Architype Ö certainly anyone who is
involved with Archimedes Shareware or PD should be aware of it. So far
only one major library has actually written and asked for permission to
include it and this is The Datafile.
6.6
For a library to offer good service to its customers, it must also offer
service to authors. One of the reasons that I was happy to take over
A.P.D.L. was that it was a library that had always followed this
principle. Building up a catalogue of PD and Shareware programs is not a
Éonce onlyæ job. It is a continual process of updating discs. I am in
regular contact with over a hundred authors and I am constantly updating
discs, yet I am aware that there are probably later versions of many
other programs that I do not have. Very few libraries publish the
version numbers of the programs in their catalogue. Quite often when a
version number is shown, I am aware of several later ones.
6.6
Clipart
6.6
There are now quite a few companies selling discs of clipart. I have
been looking at some of these commercial offerings recently and have
noticed that a lot of it is taken from PC public domain discs and
converted to Archimedes sprites or drawfiles.
6.6
There is nothing technically wrong with this. If work is declared public
domain then the original author no longer has any claim upon it so there
is no bar to anyone else using it for profit. What I would urge you to
do is to examine some of the material available from PD libraries before
you spend money on the commercial discs. I have some discs of clipart
which were obviously taken from the same PC PD source as certain
commercial discs that I have seen. The biggest difference is that the
discs that I have contain about 50% more material and a lot more trouble
has been taken over the conversion. So check out the PD libraries first
Ö you might be pleasantly surprised.
6.6
F18 Hornet II
6.6
I am writing this two days after my February Archive arrived and already
I have had a lot of requests for the New Dawn disc magazine. Since the
response to all of the offers I have made has been very high, I shall
continue to make them whenever I discover something out of the ordinary
that I think is worthy of your attention.
6.6
This monthæs disc is coincidentally from one of the authors of New Dawn.
It is a flight simulator created using the SIMIS Flight Simulator
Toolkit called F18 Hornet II. This is rather similar to Interdictor but
a lot cheaper. It is actually Shareware, and regular readers will be
aware that I am always eager to encourage Archimedes Shareware authors.
The ÉPDæ version is fully functional and you can obtain a copy from good
PD libraries or in the usual way by sending four first class stamps or a
cheque for ú1 to me at the address below. The registered version comes
on two discs and is normally available direct from the authors for
ú7.50. It has various additional features including extra missions.
6.6
Please continue to write to me at the usual address, 39 Knighton Park
Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RNááA

6.6
Language Column
6.6
David Wild
6.6
I am sorry that this column has been absent for the last two months;
various problems have got in my way. Apart from minor illness, the most
important one has been a hard disc failure and, of course, I didnæt have
backups of several important files. A whole month was spent slaving away
with Adrian Lookæs disc editor searching for relevant files. Itæs an
obvious case of not following the principles I have taught for years and
I certainly donæt want to go through that again.
6.6
You will see, within future issues of Archive, what seems to be a
promising series on ÉCæ for beginners. The first article has, among
other things, a comparison of the ÉCæ compilers available for the
Archimedes. It would obviously be inappropriate for me to recommend one
but I would emphasise that you should pick a compiler carefully if you
are going to do a lot of programming. Make sure that the one you buy
fits with your way of working and donæt be tempted to buy a different
one just to save money; the consequences will stay with you for a lot
longer time than you will feel the extra cost. At the same time, if the
cheaper one suits you best donæt think that the dearer one ought to be
better.
6.6
In one of this monthæs Acorn magazines there is a correspondent
regretting the fact that ÉC++æ is not available for the Archimedes and
suggesting that the inability to port programs from other machines will
have serious consequences. While I am always pleased to see new
languages becoming available for the Archimedes, I am not totally
convinced that we need a lot of programs transferring from other
machines. What is much more important is that we maximise data
compatibility. Among the reasons for buying an Archimedes are programs
such as öImpressionò and öArtworksò, which will do things that cannot be
done on a PC for anything like the same price.
6.6
Now if Impression can import data from the popular PC word processors, I
can offer to produce DTP output for someone by saying östick it on a
disc and send it to meò without their needing to know what program I am
using. Equally, a program like öSquirrelò ought to be able to read dBase
files, at least, and possibly those from the more popular other
databases. If this is possible, I can provide services and be judged by
my results: ordinary users are not likely to ask, beforehand, which
program I use and if the result is good enough they are not likely to be
worried that it wasnæt a standard PC program. We must remember that most
computer users are not enthusiasts and are only interested in the
results produced.
6.6
I was taken to task recently for my comments about ÉCæ on the desktop
because I didnæt like to see it at the top level. Itæs not because it is
ÉCæ; my ideal desktop would have directories for things like these
articles, the jobs I do for work and the newsletter which I produce for
a society which has nothing at all to do with computers. One of the
glories of a system like RISC-OS is that it frees us from the tyranny of
the öWordstar Directoryò. I have spent many hours going through a
wordprocessor directory trying to find a particular file, where someone
is not entirely sure of the name, or where there is a need to öweedò
some of the files which are no longer needed. Archimedes users can
create a directory for the task in hand and include all sorts of file in
it Ö Impression, Draw, PipeDream, etc. With fewer files, we have less
trouble in naming them and, when the task is over, we can copy the whole
directory on to a floppy disc for storage. I can do the job of looking
after the data files but I would like the computer to do the tedious job
of finding the actual tools I need.ááA

6.6
Small Ads
6.6
(Small ads for Archimedes and related products are free for subscribers
but we reserve the right to publish all, part or none of the material
you send, as we think fit. i.e. some people donæt know what Ésmallæ
means and there are certain things, as you can imagine, that we would
not be prepared to advertise as a matter of principle. Sending small ads
(especially long ones!) on disc is helpful but not essential. Ed)
6.6
Å   40MB ST506 drive, brackets & cables ú120, Atomwide (Avie) ST506 drive
podule unused ú75 o.n.o., PC emulator (1.80) ú70, Arcterm 7 ú55, MiG 29
ú30, UIM ú10, Twinworld ú10, Guild of Thieves ú10, Tactic ú7, 5╝ö 40/80
Switchable drive plus interface ú50 o.n.o. Arthur P.R.M.s Offers? Phone
0247Ö457655.
6.6
Å   A310 with 4Mb RAM, 40Mb hard disc, ARM3, VIDC enhancer and software,
ú600. Phone 0744Ö58404.
6.6
Å   A440/1, ARM3, 50Mb drive, 4Mb RAM, ú490. Software and extras ú100.
Will split. Phone Sheffield 0742Ö724554.
6.6
Å   A5000 4Mb RAM, Acorn multisync, Learning Curve with PC Emulator v1.8,
ú1400. Acorn Desktop C ú150. Clares Illusionist ú50. CC Compression ú25.
Risc User complete ú30. Archive complete ú30. Beebug complete ú30. v21/
22/23/22bis/42/42bis MNP 4/5 modem, Terminals Plus, Arch to Hayes lead,
ú150. All for ú1700. Phone 081Ö698Ö3772.
6.6
Å Acorn AKF30 14ö monitor. Free to an educational establishment, ú10
otherwise. Phone 0483Ö766729 (eves).
6.6
Å   CC Scan-Light 256 (original version for A300/400) ú90; 2nd 3╜ö drive &
fascia for A300 series ú45; Pro Artisan ú30. Phone 0388Ö537412.
6.6
Å   Multistore 2 ú90, Presenter 2 ú10, Hotlink ú15, Showpage ú80, Archway2
ú50, MultiFS ú20, ALPS Creator ú15, Powerband ú5, E-Type Designer ú5,
Holed Out Designer ú5, Masterfile II ú5, FWP v1 ú5, Beebug 5╝ö interface
ú10, !Help guide ú4. Write to D Bell, 2 Braes View, Shieldhill, Falkirk,
FK1 2EB.
6.6
Å   Ovation 1.35S ú49 o.n.o. Phone Tom Johnson on 9752Ö556684.
6.6
Å   PC Emulator V1.34 with DR DOS 3.41 and PC DOS 3.30. Offers to Chris
Walker on 0953Ö604255 (eve).
6.6
Å   PC Emulator 1.8 ú70, Numerator ú40, Clares Archimedes Toolkit ú5,
Droom ú10, Interdictor ú15, System Delta Plus ú30, Dreadnoughts ú20,
Cartoon Line (without case) ú15, The WIMP Game (without case) ú10, C-
Front (For C release 3) ú10. Phone 0286Ö870101.
6.6
Å   Phillips Monochrome (green screen) monitor ú20 (buyer pays postage),
External 5╝ö 80/40 track disc drive with PSU and 310 interface ú20,
Archway 2 ú25, Spellmaster for Z88 ú15. Phone Joe Gallagher
081Ö986Ö4442.
6.6
Å   RISC-OS 3.10, boxed and unused, ú35. Beebug 5╝ö disc interface, 40
track drive, DFS reader software and 50 5╝ò discs, the lot for only ú45
o.n.o. +p&p. Phone Derby 0332Ö557751.
6.6
Å   Star LC200 Dot Matrix Printer, little used, ú110 o.n.o. Phone
0732Ö454707.
6.6
Å   Tape backup. Oak high speed 150Mb tape drive with 8 tape cartridges,
(total cost new over ú900), for sale ú399. Phone Chris on 0276Ö20575
after 6.
6.6
Å   Wanted Ö öDesigner Castles and Medieval Villagesò by Data Design.
Phone Eddie on 0342Ö714905.
6.6
Å   Wanted Ö Sheet feeder for Panasonic KX-P1124. Phone Derby 0332Ö557751.
6.6
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.
6.6
(If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes computers you
could donate for charity, 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.)
6.6
Arcticulate ú5, Arctist (art package) ú3, EMACS (D Pilling) ú2, Fan for
A310 ú5, First Word Plus (v1) ú3, MicroDrive (golf) ú6, Inter-Sheet on
ROM ú5, Saloon Cars ú10, Serial interface for Panasonic KX-P1080, 1091,
1092, 1592 or 3131 ú4, System Delta Plus Ref Guide ú3, UIM ú4, Wordwise
Plus A (disc) inc. manuals ú8.ááA

6.6
The DTP Column
6.6
Richard Hallas
6.6
Impression 2.18
6.6
Although announced in my last column (Archive 6.2 p29), Impression 2.18
has just started to be shipped as I write. Although, on the face of it,
there donæt seem to be very many improvements, the ones that have been
implemented are significant and useful, and they required some fairly
major internal changes to Impression Ö which is the reason for the
delay. Version 2.18 is the release which brings Impression into line
with ArtWorks and it has three major enhancements:
6.6
ÅáIt will render ArtWorks files directly, along with sprites and
drawfiles. Some of ArtWorksæ code is now built into Impression, so
ArtWorks files will be rendered much more quickly than drawfiles on the
screen.
6.6
ÅáIt can now cope with more than 255 fonts. This is primarily brought
about by the fact that ArtWorks comes with over 220 fonts but the
improvement will benefit any user who has a lot of fonts.
6.6
ÅáMost significantly, for non-ArtWorks users, is the fact that the
spelling checker will now accept top-bit-set characters, i.e. those in
the range of ASCII 128Ö255. This range contains all the accented
characters, diphthongs and ligatures, so it will at last be possible to
include words like Émediµvalæ, Éna∩veæ and É₧lesæ.
6.6
Owners of both Impression and ArtWorks can upgrade to Impression 2.18
for free, as before. However, there is an upgrade fee of ú10 +VAT if you
donæt own ArtWorks. (Upgrades are only done through CC.)
6.6
PMS version 2
6.6
Further to the comments made in my Music Typesetting part 1 article
(Archive 5.11 p37), there have been some very significant changes made
to PMS. It has been completely rewritten as a multitasking desktop
application, and many of the restrictions of version 1 have been
removed. The printout quality has been dramatically improved, largely
due to a much higher quality pair of outline fonts now being supplied
with the package.
6.6
The principle of operation is still the same: you still have to write
your own text files of musical öcommandsò which PMS then processes, but
now everything happens in the desktop, and the music is displayed in a
window from which you can print, save drawfiles or ù for the first time
ù play the scores. The playback facilities are intended simply for
proof-hearing purposes and are therefore of Maestro-type quality.
6.6
Some of the main improvements and new features of version 2 are as
follows:
6.6
ÅáBetter quality printed outputáand full desktop compliance with music
appearing in a window.
6.6
ÅáPlayback facilities for proof-hearing purposes.
6.6
ÅáFull drawing facilities implemented as Éproceduresæ. The drawing
facilities provide variables so that your shapes can accommodate
whatever notes or chords they are Éattachedæ to. You can therefore build
up libraries of esoteric shapes if you need them, and use the shapes as
often as you wish with only one definition.
6.6
ÅáGreater flexibility of slurs, ties, hairpins, underlay and other text:
better positioning, more options, etc.
6.6
ÅáNew markings for dynamics, time signatures, etc.
6.6
ÅáFacilities for creating incipits.
6.6
ÅáPMS now works to a resolution of one thousandth of a point, as opposed
to one point in version 1.
6.6
Generally, version 2 can do everything that version 1 could but more
easily and flexibly. There are too many improvements and extensions to
list here. Files are broadly compatible with version 1, although some
small changes will be necessary to print old files successfully. If you
are a PMS1 user, an upgrade to version 2 is available for ú50, and if
you make good use of the program, this is money well spent.
6.6
PMS2 exists in two basic versions: PostScript and non-PostScript. Apart
from the extra printing facilities of the PostScript version, the two
programsæ capabilities are identical. If you are going to use either
version of the program in a professional environment, then you need to
buy a commercial licence, which doubles the price: non-PostScript
version ú175 (commercial ú350); PostScript version ú250 (commercial
ú500). The PostScript versions are capable of driving typesetting
machines directly. The basic non-commercial non-PostScript version is
available from EMR, but all four versions are available directly from
the author, whom you should contact for details: Philip Hazel, 33
Metcalfe Road, Cambridge CB4 2DB. (0223Ö65518)
6.6
Printing problems with LaserDirect and RISC OS 3╖1?
6.6
I think a lot of us are suffering at the moment from the effects of
upgrading to RISC-OS 3╖1. Many users have complained of occasional poor
quality prints, with black areas being rendered by the LaserDirect as
grey-scale and of poor quality text appearing.
6.6
The fault is intermittent, but there is a work-around: if you find that
the problem has occurred and your LaserDirect has produced a nasty
print, open up the printer setup window and change the resolution. This
will clear the faulty printing state. Then switch the resolution back to
however you want it. The problem only surfaces after one print has been
made, so you can always be sure that your initial print will be all
right.
6.6
The faulty printouts only happen when Quick Text is switched off, so to
stop the problem occurring completely, switch the Quick Text option ON
and save the settings. Of course, you then have the problem that if you
use any RISC-OS 3 format fonts (either the built-in ones or those from
EFF) in your documents, you will have to switch Quick Text OFF again and
hope for the best, because the LaserDirect drivers do not as yet know
how to deal with the new format fonts. (CC have just released 2.09 which
improves the situation. Ed.)
6.6
A plea
6.6
Colton Software have furnished the DTP Column with a copy of their new
word processor, Wordz. If you have any DTP-related queries or hints and
tips regarding this application or, of course, Impression and Ovation,
do share them with your fellow readers. The postbag seems to have been
quite empty of late. In order for this column to be interesting and
relevant, we need to know what interests you and what you want to read
about. If you have some practical advice to share, so much the better!
6.6
Wordz Review
6.6
Further to Gerald Fittonæs preview last month, this is a review of the
full version (1╖01) of the new word processor. Wordz has been in the
pipeline (sic!) for several months now; so what does yet another RISC-OS
word processor have to offer?
6.6
Wordz arrives in a gaudily coloured cardboard box containing a disc
wallet of the same shrieking orange, and a pleasant blue spiral-bound
manual. Installing the software involves typing in your name, which is
written into the program along with a unique serial number. Your name is
then immortalised in the Info box, but the software can otherwise be
backed up freely. This is surely the best possible method of software
protection, and is of no inconvenience to anyone except a pirate.
6.6
The manual is quite hefty at around 175 pages, but much of it is
unnecessary for the simple reason that Wordz is so straightforward to
use. A lot of the manual is devoted to very simple step-by-step
explanations which are ideal for absolute beginners, although I found
that they sometimes verged on the pedantic. An experienced user will
find that there is a lot of very basic material to wade through before
any useful information is found, which is a pity; however, the manual is
well written (despite a few minor inaccuracies) and is extremely well
presented and printed, with a decent index and some very good contents
pages.
6.6
Two discs are provided: one contains just the main program, whilst the
second contains a wide variety of examples and exercises. It is assumed
that the purchaser already has the outline font manager and some fonts,
as none are provided. The examples disc contains some excellent support
material, including a general-purpose application to tabulate plain
ASCII files. There are files relating to tutorial sections of the
manual, as well as some sample tables and styles for your own use and
experimentation, and demonstrations of various aspects of Wordzæ
facilities. Finally, there are also a couple of very nicely presented
1993 year planners ready to print out.
6.6
Using Wordz
6.6
Clicking <select> on the iconbar icon doesnæt immediately open a fresh
document in Wordz, as you might expect it to. Instead you are presented
with a list of templates contained within the application and you must
select one of these as the basis of your new document. This is actually
a very handy system, although I would also have liked the option to open
a default template straight away (perhaps by clicking <adjust> instead).
You can easily build up a library of often-used document formats and
save them away inside Wordz itself so that they donæt clutter up your
work directory. Of course, since they are templates, you canæt
accidentally overwrite them by forgetting to rename your document before
saving it.
6.6
The document window is subdivided into several areas, many of which can
be turned on and off independently. At the top is the button bar which
provides handy shortcuts to many of the features. Below it is a status
line. This shows helpful messages when you point at the buttons and,
more usefully, it also displays the word count and dynamic readings as
you alter the position of tabs, etc on the ruler. There are both
horizontal and vertical rulers available and, in addition, you can turn
on column and row borders which contain large numbered labels in the
manner of a spreadsheet. These can really be quite handy, as clicking on
a row heading (each of which corresponds to a paragraph) will highlight
the whole paragraph to which it refers, and dragging the bottom of any
row label will resize it and modify the space after the paragraph. The
column headings work in a similar way, although you will normally only
have one column of text: Wordz has no proper facilities for creating
multi-column pages. The column headings come into their own when
creating tables.
6.6
The table facilities provided within Wordz are really splendid and
enormously flexible. Creating a table couldnæt be easier: simply open
the table box, enter the number of rows and columns you want and click
OK. The table appears in the text straight away and, by dragging the row
and column borders (or the margin markings on the rulers), the cells can
be dragged to whatever size you want. Itæs even possible to alter the
widths of individual cells within a table, making them different from
the cells below and above them. Cells can contain as many lines of text
as you want, and styles can be applied to the whole table or to
individual cells. Extra highlight boxes can be added, in different line
styles and colours, both around and within cells, and individual cell
borders can also be turned on and off. (In fact, the box styles are
available to paragraphs too, so itæs an easy matter to put a box around
a piece of text.) Itæs very difficult to think of tables that Wordz
couldnæt handle, and the speed with which really complicated tables can
be created is very impressive.
6.6
Another innovation of Wordz lies in its handling of graphics. You simply
drop your graphic onto the page and it immediately attaches itself to
the text, so that if you add more text above the picture, it will move
down the page to accommodate it. However, it is also possible to attach
the bottom of the picture to text independently of the top. This means
that not only can images flow along with the text (in the same way as
embedded graphic frames do in Impression), but you can also enter text
within the picture, and it will stretch itself vertically to accommodate
whatever you type. This is a really clever approach to the problem of
adding fancy borders to a non-frame-based text processor, to name one
simple example.
6.6
You can also place pictures in front of or behind the text. Imported
graphics can be turned into background images, filling the page behind
the text, which is good for stationery. When saving a document, the
graphics used within it are normally saved as well, but you can,
instead, opt for Wordz to reference the original disc files which the
graphics came from. This makes documents less portable, but can
potentially save an enormous amount of disc space. If you later decide
you want to save the graphics within the document, there is a simple
menu option to let you do so. Once on the page, the graphics can of
course be resized and dragged around, although there is no means of
rotation or precise positioning, and no attempt is made to reformat or
even repel text: you have to look after all that side of things
yourself.
6.6
Text handling is generally very good and resembles Impression rather
than Ovation with respect to styles, although in some ways it is like a
cross between the two. Whilst not being as flexible as Impressionæs
style system, Wordzæ styles can be overlaid freely which makes them more
powerful that the whole-paragraph style system of Ovation. It combines
its Impression-like styles with Ovationæs clever application of Bold and
Italic to any font as attributes in their own right. Another clever new
feature is a Éregionsæ facility in which the styles in use in a
highlighted area can be investigated one by one, and individually
removed if necessary.
6.6
The button bar provides quick access to styles and effects, and the only
difference in use between the two is that you have to give a name to a
style before you define it. In fact, you can change your mind whilst
defining an effect and make it into a style after all. In terms of
whatæs available and how you set it up, styles and effects are identical
and use exactly the same selection window.
6.6
This selection window is another extremely well designed aspect of the
application. It provides a set of radio icons down the left hand side
corresponding to text options, spacing, colours, etc. Clicking on one of
these, changes the contents of the window to enable you to alter your
chosen aspect. Each radio icon has a little green indicator next to it
which lights up if you change anything, so you can immediately see which
areas have been modified ù a very nice touch which is surprisingly
useful.
6.6
One other icon on the button bar is worthy of a mention: the View
Control, represented by a pair of glasses. Clicking on this opens a
window with a host of options. The expected percentage zoom entry box is
there, along with a few handy presets and a Éfit to screenæ button.
There is a New View button which allows you to open as many windows onto
your document as you wish, and you can choose whether to display the
full page, the printing area only or just the main text area (excluding
headers and footers). Unusually, in addition to the New View option, it
is also possible to split any windows to show different areas of the
document at once. You can create a vertical split for viewing two sides
of a wide table, a horizontal split for comparing two areas of a
document, or even both together! This creates an amazing array of window
controls, as each split can be dragged around, and the sub-windows
scrolled independently of one another.
6.6
Headers and footers
6.6
Being a word processor rather than a frame-based desktop publisher,
Wordz lacks such refinements as master pages and multiple text areas on
one page. You are limited to the single text story which flows from one
page to the next. However, a system of headers and footers is provided
and these are about as flexible as they could be. By default, their
contents repeat from page to page as you would expect and you can add a
Éliveæ page number if you wish. However, you can alter them part-way
through the document and resize them freely at any point. It is even
possible to restart page numbering at any number, so chapter creation is
perfectly feasible.
6.6
Printing
6.6
Wordzæ printing facilities are reasonable without being as extensive as
Impression or Ovation. RISC¡OS drivers are used, although it is possible
to produce a fast draft print in conjunction with a special page
template. There is no portrait or landscape setting as such, because
this falls under the page setup heading, and you choose orientation at
the same time as picking paper size, margins, etc.
6.6
The initial print box just has a copies box and a whole document or
range selector. However, there is also a button marked Extra, and
clicking on this leads to a second print window with more extensive
options. This window lets you print even or odd pages only, and select
collated printing and reverse order. You can also print Étwo upæ, with
two pages appearing on one sheet of paper. There is also a Pamphlet
button associated with this option which sets up Wordz to print pages in
the correct order, side by side, on single sheets which you can then
staple together to make a properly numbered booklet. There is no control
for sizing the printout and, unlike Impression, it is not possible to
fit more than two pages on a single sheet at once.
6.6
However, Wordz has one really excellent innovation in its printing
facilities and this is the range box in the extended print window.
Rather than the usual two boxes for page ranges, Wordz provides a
multiple line entry area into which you can type detailed printing
instructions, including blank pages. This allows you to set up prints in
the most flexible way possible, especially in conjunction with the Two
Up option. For example, you can enter ö4 6Ö9 11ò to print pages 4, 6, 7,
8, 9 and 11, and you can include B for Blank to indicate empty pages: so
öB 1ò in combination with the Two Up option would print page 1 to the
right of a blank page, which is correct for pamphlet printing. In fact,
all that the Pamphlet button in the print box does is to set up the
range box for you automatically (as well as making sure Two Up is
switched on). This ranges box is such an excellent idea, Iæm surprised
no-one else has implemented it before. Something similar would be
absolutely ideal in Impression.
6.6
Of course, such facilities as a word count and find and replace are
provided, as is a spelling checker of around 55,000 words, which I
believe is PipeDream compatible. Therefore, all the basic facilities you
would expect from a word processor are present. The manual states that
the kerning information built into RISC-OS 3 fonts is used
automatically, although when I compared some text in a Wordz window with
the same text in a Vector window with kerning manually switched on, this
did not appear to be the case. No doubt this problem will be corrected
but I was disappointed that no actual kerning option was provided in the
program.
6.6
I was also slightly disappointed that there werenæt a few more advanced
text handling facilities available. Naturally all the standard effects
are available but some of the more exotic effects available in
Impression and, more particularly, Ovation were not available. I am
quite a fan of small capitals in titles, and Ovation is currently the
only package to offer them, as well as a number of other effects such as
tracking. The RISC-OS world is still waiting for a word processor or DTP
package that can do its own automatic inter-letter spacing. Wordz has no
facilities for looking after footnotes, which is a shame.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
I basically like Wordz very much. Itæs very nicely presented, extremely
well designed, and the advertsæ claims about ease of use are not
exaggerated: it really is extremely quick and easy to master. All the
features it contains are very well conceived and implemented; my only
concern is that it doesnæt do quite as much as it might. The price is
reasonable but competes directly with Ovation and so I have to ask if
you are getting similar value for money. Wordz is a straightforward word
processor whereas Ovation is a full DTP package. Traditionally, in this
situation, you would expect the word processor to be better of the two
as a writing tool, but the Archimedes being the machine it is, Ovation
is in fact just as good a word processor as Wordz, and better in some
ways because it has a bigger range of text effects and better page
layout facilities.
6.6
In Wordzæ defence, it is a lot easier to use than Ovation, and if you
have much need for the table creation facilities then itæs obviously the
one to go for. Of course, itæs also possible to create tables in Ovation
but theyære an awful lot harder to set up, and they donæt flow with the
text. Wordzæ style system is also a lot friendlier and more flexible
than Ovationæs.
6.6
There is another consideration too: Wordz is the first in a series of
packages which will integrate together, the next release being the
spreadsheet, Resultz. Presumably, combining these packages will result
in a product that is greater than the sum of its parts; the Wordz manual
hints at a couple of things to do with spreadsheets imported from
Resultz. I hope that Colton Software will continue to develop Wordz and
add a few more exotic features in future releases because I feel that,
overall, it is slightly under-powered at the moment.
6.6
If you want a word processor that can do sophisticated page layout, you
are much better off looking at Ovation for a similar price. However, as
a word processor in its own right, Wordz is excellent and if you are
more interested in being able to integrate some different packages
together, or youære after sophisticated table creation, or if you simply
want a very easy to use word processor, then Wordz is well worth a
look.ááA

6.6
NetView
6.6
Glynn Parry
6.6
As a teacher of IT using a bridged Econet network, split over two
teaching rooms and an office and consisting of thirty Archimedes A310/
A3000 machines served by an ARM3 upgraded 310 running Level 4, I was
intrigued by the potential of this piece of software.
6.6
Initial impressions
6.6
!Netview arrives on a single disc with a short (9 page) pamphlet
documenting its features and method of operation. Unusually, it also
comes with a password that is hand-written on a slip of paper inside the
disc wrapper. This password was not, as I expected, a form of copy
protection/software registration but simply controls access to the
software itself and, for this reason, it is changeable by the user (and
should, in fact, be changed immediately by the user, for network
security reasons).
6.6
Setting up
6.6
Installation is simply a matter of dragging the file to a suitable
directory and, in operation, the software appears fully RISC-OS
compliant. The file is run by double-clicking whilst logged onto an
Econet network and entering the current password (this is case-
sensitive). Changing the password involves choosing the Épasswordæ
option from the application menu and typing in the old password,
followed by the new password twice. You then save it using Ésave
optionsæ.
6.6
In use
6.6
The software allows the Network Manager to view the screen of any user
currently logged onto any part of an Econet network that you may be
logged onto. It also allows you to send notify messages simultaneously
to multiple selected logged-on users. Notify messages may be GS Trans
(*echo-ed) or sent direct. In either case they end up in an error window
on the usersæ machines if the users are working in the desktop. To help
you, the software also allows you to obtain a list of machines currently
connected to your network. I was very quickly able to obtain screen
images of several users logged onto our thirty-station Econet network,
each within their own window and each updating at 10 second intervals.
öWonderfulò, I thought, öI can now see Jonathan using his computer for
the preparation of electronic graffiti, I can send him a message warning
him of the consequences, and dissuade him from undesirable usage.ò Ö or
words to that effect! On further investigation, it rapidly became
obvious that although the software was doing exactly what it was
supposed to do, there were obvious limitations to this kind of activity,
some serious, others merely frustrating.
6.6
Problems arising
6.6
1)   áThe Notify statements are received by the user in the standard
error box and this forces the user into positive action to cancel it
before they can proceed with their own work and then the message is
lost. This is not Éfriendlyæ as it can kill the flow of ideas. A pupil
in full flow on a major piece of examination course-work is not going to
appreciate this kind of disruption to their activity. A module should be
supplied to intercept this and put it into a text window from which it
could be saved for reference or dealt with as a * command to be acted on
directly (dependent on whether the message is sent GSTrans-ed or not).
This would allow the class teacher to, for example, send messages to
preload software and specified files into groups of machines before a
class arrives.
6.6
2)   áMore than one or two active views updating frequently on our ARM2
machines prevents the Network manager from making any sensible use of
other software at the same time as Netview partly because of the
continued öegg-timerò activity, and partly because each update from
Netview brings that window to the front, often hiding your own working
window. I was unable to test this with ARM3, but I would not expect the
situation to be substantially improved Ö Econet bandwidth and
transmission rates being potentially the major limiting factors.
6.6
3)áLooking at any useræs machine with Netview whilst it is involved in
any processor intensive activity initiates a östation not listeningò
error and a lot of egg-timer activity on the Network Manageræs machine
and (more seriously) either causes similar activity on the useræs
machine, prompting the users to perform a <ctrl-break> and restart
(which spoils the point of the software!) or worse still causes the
useræs machine to ölock upò Ö recoverable by nothing short of a <ctrl-
reset>. The same occurs if your machine is doing anything moderately
processor intensive Ö even typing this review into Impression with
Netview windows active, was sufficient to crash four usersæ machines
simultaneously Ö one using Revelation ImagePro, one using Vector and
another doing no more than typing a letter home using Impression. This
occurs even when viewing single machines. I was not able to test its use
with BBC machines, as our only Beeb acts as a network Teletext-server
not as a net user.
6.6
The documentation does warn that Éviewing a station is a delicate
processæ, that it Émay fail for a number of reasonsæ and it may
Éoccasionally crash the remote machineæ. The author of the software also
includes a disclaimer absolving himself from any responsibility for any
loss of data or other undesirable occurrences and he recommends not
viewing stations which are carrying out any critical activity.
Unfortunately, if you know what is happening on the stations, you have
no need for this kind of utility.
6.6
On the plus side, if these problems could be overcome, I can see this
kind of utility becoming indispensable Ö for example, a phone call from
a department with a request for help could be responded to without
putting the phone down Ö just Netview the screen and advise!
6.6
Even better would be the possibility of using the Notify facility in
conjunction with software on the useræs machine to receive and use the
Notify commands. It would then be possible to operate directly on the
remote useræs machine to deal with the problem and to see and check the
results of the changes on the view on your own screen.
6.6
On balance though, the problems mentioned above are non-trivial Ö indeed
frequently fatal Ö and I cannot therefore recommend this software for
serious network use in its current state.
6.6
I have one final concern for when it does work properly. What happens
when a pupil or other network user gets hold of this software and uses
it to view your Éconfidentialæ work, such as pupil reports, exam
preparation, etc, etc?
6.6
Netview is ú34.99 (no VAT) from Sanjay Pattni, Flat 11, 86 Ifield Road,
London  SW10 9AD.ááA

6.6
Fonts Workshop Ö RISC-OS 3 Fonts
6.6
Roger Spooner
6.6
With the release of RISC-OS 3, Acorn have taken the opportunity to
upgrade the fonts which the Archimedes machines use. This means a new
font manager module, version 2.98 and a new set of font files, version 8
(although you wonæt see that number).
6.6
There are a couple of real differences which will affect users and,
apart from that, the files are just different.
6.6
There are also some changes in the Font Manager module to improve it in
several ways.
6.6
Kerning tables
6.6
It is now possible to control the spacing between any two characters
specifically, as compared to the previous option of defining the width
of any one character and hoping that it fits with most purposes.
6.6
As in the diagram, the letters A and Y do not normally go together very
well; both have been designed to go beside something like an I and are
therefore given a width assignment appropriate to their widest point.
When put together, they appear very far apart.
6.6

6.6
Spacing for the widest part of letters.
6.6
Kerning tables allow for a general width to apply to most uses, and a
set of specific widths relating to certain combinations of letters. Thus
the spacing for A followed by Y will be more like that in the diagram
below; I have included three widths each for the letters; the top,
middle and bottom parts. Thus the letters can be brought together until
any of these levels touch. Of course, the kerning table could contain
spacings calculated by hand or by any mechanical means.
6.6

6.6
In this case, it is the lowest thirds which have touched.
6.6
More characters
6.6
The new font files can now contain far more characters, if required.
This can go up to 768. Thus, most conceivable characters including
foreign, greek, symbolic and other character sets can all be included in
the same font file. In practice, this is more likely to include a few
hundred characters at most. I do not know the mappings for which
positions to use, nor how to make the later positions appear.
6.6
Future proofing
6.6
The files include some surplus information space which could be used in
the future for other details which are not known yet.
6.6
Encodings files
6.6
There is a new set of files which describes which positions in the font
file are mapped to which characters. There is a list of names of
characters including A, B, C and space, exclam, quotedbl which describe
all the known characters. Thus, for fonts which have been transferred
from other formats, it would be easy to map the characters around so
that they appear when you press the right key, without the pound sign,
say, being in position 163 in the font file. There can be as many sets
of encodings as required.
6.6
Linear links
6.6
I am unsure as to whether the files prohibited this before but it is now
definitely possible to include several copies of one character in
another. Previously the dots on iæs were copied from the full stop, but
it was not quite so easy to make a colon (:) of two full stops, and much
more difficult to get an ellipsis (╝). It is now possible to link
several dots, or whatever, into the same destination character.
6.6
Font file names
6.6
The font files now end in 0 typically. This is the alphabet number,
ready for use with other encodings files. Thus in a normal font
directory will be IntMetric0 and Outlines0 instead of the old names.
6.6
The Font Manager
6.6
A number of changes have been made to the font manager module which sits
in memory. This is supplied in ROM in RISC-OS 3. It has a number of
changes to make it even easier to enjoy.
6.6
Individual cacheing
6.6
With the old font manager (2.44, etc), when a program tried to display
one letter, a whole group of 32 would be loaded from disc and processed.
This involved turning the outline shapes to bitmaps (pixel patterns) and
then anti-aliasing them at the right size. This could take a long time,
often long enough to notice and sometimes as long as ten or twenty
seconds. This is now no faster, but it is organised differently; when a
character is requested for display (and if it is not already cached and
ready), memory will be allocated for the 32 characters of that block,
the outlines file will be loaded, but only the one character will be
processed. It will be stored in its cached form and displayed
immediately. When other characters in the same block are requested they
will be taken from the loaded outlines file to the cache quite quickly.
The effect of all this is to make characters appear within fractions of
a second. The whole page will appear no quicker, but it looks as if
something is happening.
6.6
As the page is drawn, it accelerates, finding that more and more
characters are already available and do not need to be processed at all.
6.6
Reformed memory management
6.6
When a font is requested, memory for it is allocated in the Font Cache.
This is not released until the font is declared no longer required. The
use of this varies depending on the software; Draw declares all fonts
Énot neededæ immediately after use but Impression keeps them until you
remove the document. This leads to a larger font cache and more Éfont
cache fullæ errors.
6.6
Rotation
6.6
The new font manager can also perform arbitrary fixed matrix
transformations on the fonts. This means, in real terms, that it can
stretch or squeeze the fonts and rotate them.
6.6
T1ToFont
6.6
Also supplied with RISC-OS 3 is an application called !T1toFont. This
converts fonts from PostScript type 1 format to Archimedes format, ready
for normal use. It is somewhat temperamental and requires a file for
each font (AFM) which is often not supplied as Macintosh users do not
require it. Nevertheless, it is a useful program if you do have access
to other sources of fonts.
6.6
FontPrint
6.6
Also supplied is !FontPrint, an application to send an Archimedes font
from disc to a local PostScript printer. This then occupies memory in
the postscript machine and allows it to print in your favourite fonts.
It will work in school situations where the printer is available by wire
but not where the user wishes to print by disc to a PostScript bureau
(because the transfer of the font is bi-directional).
6.6
The effect on the end user
6.6
All this new technology has a couple of significant parts:
6.6
The software does tricks with the old font files, e.g. FontFX and
LaserDirect in QuickText mode will not work with the new fonts. FontFX
is stuffed and LaserDirect can be put into normal Éslowæ mode.
6.6
The single character cacheing is much more pleasant to watch; it seems
to display the picture much more quickly without the ugly delays and
hourglass.
6.6
You may find the ÉFont Cache Fullæ error annoying, depending on the
circumstances. This is unfortunate but it does reduce unnecessary
discarding of important cached fonts.ááA

6.6
Five Typing Tutors
6.6
Evelyn Grant
6.6
In this comparative review, I shall be looking at five touch typing
tutors of various prices:
6.6
Touch Type   Iota   ú46 (Archive)
6.6
Turbo Type   CIS   ú23 (Archive)
6.6
Fast Type   Sword Software   ú19.95
(Sword)
6.6
Architype   Shareware 45   ú2 (Archive)
6.6
TypeWrite   Shareware 47   ú2 (Archive)
6.6
Three basic principles must be observed when learning to touch type:
6.6
Å Do not look at your hands/fingers.
6.6
Å Use all your fingers Ö on the correct keys.
6.6
Å Repeat each level until you are competent and then move on (a system
of continual repetition and extension).
6.6
All the programs attempt to encourage these principles but some more
effectively than others.
6.6
Posture
6.6
Bad posture and technique may lead to repetitive strain injury. I was
concerned that none of the programs start by emphasising the importance
of posture and technique of movement. Although this was covered in some
of the documentation, particularly Fast Typeæs, it was not given
sufficient prominence. These programs are not a substitute for a typing
course with professional supervision and instruction.
6.6
Speech and sounds
6.6
Two of the programs Ésayæ the letter you need to type next. This is
helpful for partially sighted users but the speech cannot keep up with
faster typing speeds and ends up sounding like Donald Duck. In any case,
a classroom full of machines talking to their users would do wonders for
Aspirin sales! Touch Type sensibly recommends the use of headphones.
6.6
Some of the programs use a metronome sound effect, whose speed can be
increased as progress is made. This can be helpful but the idea that all
keyboard strokes should be strictly rhythmic lost favour some time ago.
The accent now is on accuracy and fluency.
6.6
Touch Type
6.6
This is a talking RISC-OS compliant program.
6.6
The lessons are well organised, paying special attention to common key
combinations, and also giving equal weight to less common keys such as
Éqæ, Ézæ and Éxæ, giving the learner the opportunity to achieve maximum
dexterity.
6.6

6.6
Touch type keyboard window
6.6
The keyboard on the screen highlights each letter, indicating Érightæ
and Éwrongæ key depressions, and a ÉHandsæ window shows which finger you
should use.
6.6
There is a clear display showing your rate of progress and the
characters which you need to practice more to achieve a high rate of
accuracy.
6.6
The concept of Édraggingæ the exercises from the directory may be
difficult for learners who have little experience of the desktop but,
once mastered, presents few problems.
6.6
I found Touch Type to be very satisfactory as a teaching program,
enabling users to progress at their own rate, yet still achieving full
potential on the keyboard. There was one technical problem. Removing the
disk then quitting the program without closing any windows causes Touch
Type to crash out and leave you with the dreaded ÉFileCore in useæ
error. This may have something to do with Iotaæs disk protection.
6.6
Turbo Type
6.6
Turbo Type puts an icon on the iconbar. When you click on the icon,
Turbo Type mono-tasks Ö pressing <escape> takes you back to the intact
desktop. This is another talking program.
6.6
The exercises are divided into ÉBeginnersæ, ÉIntermediateæ, ÉAdvancedæ
and ÉNumericæ (on the numeric keypad). The range of exercises appear to
cover all abilities and allows more experienced users to improve on
keyboard manipulation and accuracy.
6.6
The ÉBeginnersæ exercises follow the standard öHome Keysò method. After
each exercise the program displays the typing speed and accuracy rate.
The exercises for more advanced users are well designed and should build
a high level of speed and accuracy. A separate application !TTEditor
allows you to create your own exercises.
6.6
I am not sure whether it is the speech or the protection but this
program takes ages to load.
6.6
Fast Type
6.6
Fast Type is RISC-OS compliant and it supports !Help. It does not talk
at the moment although a Évoiceæ option is indicated in the menu. The
keyboard window does not change to show which key is next which
unfortunately encourages users to look down at the keyboard, rather than
maintaining a watch on the screen.
6.6
A finger in the ÉHandsæ window changes colour to show which finger you
should be using. This is distracting in the middle of an exercise. It
would be better if there was an introduction explaining how each key in
the exercise should be fingered.
6.6

6.6
Fast Type on the desktop
6.6
The lesson structure was good, based on traditional typing lessons.
Progression is only possible when an exercise is completed. However, the
content of the lessons was very basic. A great many more lessons
offering wider use of different keyboard combinations are needed to make
this a useful program.
6.6
The manual contained a number of spelling mistakes and grammatical
errors.
6.6
Archi   type
6.6
Architype puts an icon on the iconbar. When you click on the icon it
mono-tasks. A menu option allows you to return to an intact desktop.
6.6
There are two different practice methods, lessons and exercises. In the
lessons, you are presented with one letter at a time from a list of
letters. In the exercises, you have to copy a short passage.
6.6
The staccato-like way in which the keys were presented in the lessons
was very difficult, despite being highlighted on the keyboard as well. I
was also dismayed to find that some of the home keys, namely Éaæ and É;æ
were considered to be of little importance and thus rarely displayed in
the initial lessons.
6.6

6.6
A completed exercise
6.6
The lessons do not end Ö the user must press <escape> when he/she has
had enough. Presenting the keys individually without any warning of what
key is coming next did not encourage grouping and the development of
fluency.
6.6
Architype could be used to provide basic instruction in the use of the
keyboard, but it is not suitable for training touch typists.
6.6
TypeWrite
6.6
This is a mono-tasking program which looks like an up-dated BBC program.
6.6
There is a good introduction which gives details of fingering and a
well-designed keyboard chart which is used throughout the program.
6.6

6.6
The user can choose the number of times an exercise needs to be
repeated, thus regulating their own learning.
6.6
There are not enough exercises and the only way to add new ones is to
change the program. Like the previous Shareware program, this might do
to become more familiar with the keyboard but it will not teach you to
be a professional touch typist.
6.6
There are a number of punctuation and spelling errors in the
instructions, and the program uses the Memalloc module.
6.6
(Many thanks to Robert Chrismas, my colleague and fellow lecturer, for
his technical assistance in the preparation of this review.)ááA

6.6
Getting Started with PipeDream4
6.6
Charles Hill
6.6
Getting Started with PipeDream4 (for Spreadsheets and Charts) is a 32
page booklet costing ú3.95 + p&p from Colton Software (or ú2.95 per copy
for 30+ copies).
6.6
Content
6.6
The booklet contains a step-by-step guide to setting up spreadsheets and
producing charts. It has a format similar to the PD4 Tutorial but is
somewhat simpler to follow. It starts at a lower level and is only
concerned with using PD4 as a spreadsheet. The Getting Started section
includes loading, printing and saving, moving around the screen,
entering numbers and formulae, relative and absolute references, editing
slots and altering slot displays and operations on blocks. A section
called Charting includes drawing and changing charts, adding and
removing data to/from charts, printing and saving charts and editing
saved charts. Further sections include formatting of spreadsheets and
charts, functions, naming slots and ranges, sorting and fixing columns
or rows.
6.6
Comments
6.6
This is a useful booklet and a valuable introduction for those wishing
to use PD4 as a spreadsheet.  Even though it seems to start off at a
simpler level than the Tutorial (which I also think is very user
friendly) it does seem to progress further than the Tutorial but in easy
stages. The booklet is also very well set out and clearly illustrated. A
few minor niggles include the lack of an index (although this is hardly
fair as it is intended as a tutorial not a reference book and the
contents list is very detailed), the lack of a mention that charts can
be further edited in !Draw (although this can be inferred from the
information that charts are saved as drawfiles) and in the section on
functions, the explanation of the Lookup function made reference to
slots which were not illustrated and so made the section difficult to
follow. For an experienced PD4 user, there is probably little in the
bookletæs content which could not be gained from the PD4 Tutorial or
Reference manuals Ö the bookletæs strength is in its ease of use, not
its comprehensive coverage of all spreadsheet and chart options.
6.6
Getting Started with PipeDream4 (for Spreadsheets and Charts) has been
published as part of the öComputer-based Modelling across the
Curriculumò project by AU Enterprises and NORICC.ááA

6.6
Using RISC¡OSá3.1
6.6
Hugh Eagle
6.6
öDonæt blame it all on RISC-OS 3!ò Archive staff have, on a number of
occasions recently, given this advice to Archimedes users. öBut it has
only happened since I changed to RISC-OS 3...ò Yes, but that doesnæt
mean itæs the fault of RISC-OS 3. Often itæs a hardware fault that was
set off by fiddling with the p.c.b. of an old computer Ö or, as in some
of the cases in Hughæs column this month, it is caused by a change in
configuration that occurred when you did a <delete-powerup> (or because
you didnæt do one!). The final reason is that you havenæt read the
manual Ö if I had a pound for every time I have had to give advice that
was basically, öRead the manualò... Ed.
6.6
Once again Iæve been nearly overwhelmed by the flood of correspondence.
However, do keep the letters coming, please; Iæll try to use them all in
due course, I promise! My address remains: 48áSmithbarn, Horsham,
Sussex, RH13á6DX.
6.6
Paul says, öTry to be briefò, so Iæll get started.
6.6
Programmersæ Reference Manual
6.6
I was told at the BETT show in January that the new PRM will be ready in
öthe second quarterò of 1993.
6.6
Programs and hardware that work
6.6
Some additions to the lists of previous months:
6.6
Ö Chocks Away
6.6
Ö Conqueror
6.6
Ö DrawBender
6.6
Ö öMost 4Mation softwareò
6.6
ÖáTaskAnsi (from David Pilling) (However, Tord Eriksson adds that you
may want to upgrade it anyway to take advantage of enhancements.)
6.6
ÖáScanlight Junior 256 (it öseems to thriveò)
6.6
Ö Pendown and Pendown+
6.6
Ö PC emulator (öthe oldestò version)
6.6
ÖáPineapple Digitiser (another confirmation that it works, contrary to
the report in Archive 6.3 p15)
6.6
ÖáXOB Remote Logon (Correction!) Ray Wright has found that the problem
he reported last month (Archive 6.5 p29) was in fact a fault in his BBC
Micro, and that Remote Logon works fine. Apologies to XOB.
6.6
ÖáAcorn DTP (Needs to be patched using the Patch from the Support disc.)
6.6
Problem programs
6.6
ShowPage Ö Tord Eriksson says this öworks fine so long as there is no
on-screen text! Not much use for ShowPage therefore, you might say, but
some stunning graphics are possible as shown by the examples supplied
with the program.ò
6.6
Atelier Ö Andrew Campbell has found that Atelier causes his A5000 to
hang whether he uses RISC¡OSá3.0 or RISC¡OSá3.10. (The sequencer loads
but not the main program. He has tried old modules to no effect.)
However, Atelier does still run on his A3000 after the upgrade to
RISC¡OSá3.10.
6.6
The following have been reported as not working:
6.6
Fun School 4 (Under 5æs)
6.6
Satfoot (a satellite tracker from AMSAT-UK)
6.6
Copy Opts (öa handy little utilityò) Ö Tord Eriksson has problems using
his version of ArcFS and the Pinboard: if he glues an arcæd directory to
the Pinboard then tries to open it, the computer freezes! (Perhaps this
is a problem that has been solved in a more recent version of ArcFS.)
6.6
Tord has also found that Ballarena works perfectly but messes up all the
configuration settings (so see the section below called öSaving the
configurationò before you run it!)
6.6
Tord says that he made Powerband work by öediting out lines 430 and
following setting up the voices, and a line further on checking the
voices.ò
6.6
Some games, like 4th Dimensionæs Saloon Cars, crash with a
öWindowManager:Sprites24ò error. What is a öSprites24ò anyway?
6.6
!Psion
6.6
Chris Dawson says that the Psion to Archimedes data transfer program by
Mark Taylor (v 1.65) no longer works with his Psion II. He has tried
everything he can think of, even three different re-wiring
configurations that he has seen. Can anyone help?
6.6
Interrupt (Archive Shareware disc no. 6)
6.6
M. P. Sawle has, up to now, made good use of the Interrupt module, with
the commands *RMLoad Intmodule and *Interrupt 0 in a loading file to
enable subsequent access to the command line with <ctrl-@> from within
both Basic programs and the original version of First Word Plus.
6.6
Having installed RISC¡OSá3.10 he finds that:
6.6
Å   within Basic programs: <ctrl-@> still works, but <Esc> has the same
effect and this takes priority over the normal programmed effect of the
Escape key at the time.
6.6
Å   within First Word Plus: <ctrl-@> works but he cannot return to 1wp
properly (sometimes the current document is lost), also two presses of
<Esc> take him to the command line but the document is always totally
lost.
6.6
Å   Lemmings wonæt run unless he RMKills the Interrupt module first.
6.6
Can anyone help?
6.6
Investigator II works on the older machines, but not on the A3010/A3020/
A4000/A5000 (presumably because the hardware is different).
6.6
LaserDirect and ROM fonts
6.6
The reason why LaserDirect (and presumably the Turbo Drivers) have
problems with the Corpus and Homerton Oblique fonts in ROM is that the
Outlines files for these fonts do not contain full descriptions of the
letters but simply contain cross-references to the related upright
fonts. (Because these two fonts are simply slanted versions of the
upright fonts, not proper öitalicò fonts, all the new font manager needs
to know is where to find the outlines of the upright fonts and what
angle to slant them at.)
6.6
So far as I can tell, it is not necessary to disable the ROM fonts (with
a FontRemove command in the !Boot and/or !Run files of !Fonts) and
include full descriptions of Corpus, Homerton and Trinity on disc (they
would need about 250Kb); I have found that Impression and LaserDirect
manage perfectly well if I just include the following sub-directories in
my !Fonts directory on disc:
6.6
Corpus.Bold.Oblique
6.6
Corpus.Medium.Oblique
6.6
Homerton.Bold.Oblique
6.6
Homerton.Medium.Oblique
6.6
(the files add up to 108924 bytes).
6.6
Turning anti-aliasing off
6.6
Tord Eriksson finds that a, Σ and σ are rather difficult to distinguish
with anti-aliasing on, so he turns it off by setting FontMax1 to
FontMax5 all to 0, except FontMax 3, which determines the maximum size
of font that is cached and which he sets to 200.
6.6
Replacing the system font
6.6
R. W. Darlingtonæs prayer in Archive 6.4 p11 has been answered! Rob
Davison has sent in an application (included on this monthæs program
disc) called !DeskFonts, which will allow you to replace the system font
on the desktop with an outline font of your choice.
6.6
Electronic Font Foundry RISC¡OSá3 fonts
6.6
Colin Singleton thinks that last monthæs comment may have been a bit
unfair to EFF in referring to their new fonts as ömore expensiveò. He
suspects that the old fonts have been reduced in price and the new ones
introduced at the previous price of the old.
6.6
What is ökerning dataò?
6.6
Colin Singleton says that he had read about this several times before he
found out what it meant. Kerning is the process of adjusting the space
between letters so that they look more natural. A common example is the
word AWAY. When printed like that, the letters appear too widely spread,
but with kerning the word can be made to look like AWAY. (I have
exaggerated the kerning to make it more obvious.) This can be done
manually in applications like Impression.
6.6
The RISC¡OSá3 font manager provides the facility for automatic
adjustment of the spacing between any pair of letters, but in order for
this to work firstly the font has to contain a ökerning tableò
indicating the preferred spacing for each possible pair of letters and
secondly the application has to be aware of this facility and to make
the appropriate calls to the font manager. (Archive 5.11 pp5/6 give
details of the font manager calls, showing how you can use them in your
programs.)
6.6
Kerning tables are built into the ROM fonts as well as the newer fonts
from EFF (and other suppliers?) I donæt know which applications use
them; presumably newer versions of Impression, etc. will.
6.6
Filing systems: SCSI
6.6
C. Purvisæs problems (icon in wrong place, öbad driveò error, etc ù see
6.5 p26) have been solved by a new ROM for his SCSI podule, supplied
free of charge by Oak.
6.6
Tord Eriksson at first had problems that sounded similar to C. Purvisæs,
then happened to find that his SCSI drive had been öset to 0ò and after
öresetting to 4ò everything worked perfectly. (I explained this last
month, p27. Ed.)
6.6
Philip Lardner, who has a Brainsoft SCSI podule, is having great
difficulties in copying, moving or deleting files to, from or in the
root directory. It generates all sorts of error messages such as: öCanæt
create ÉSCSI::SCSI.$æ ... ò. Philip has found that he can get round the
problem by copying via the RAM disc and deleting using a trash-can
application but he would obviously be interested in a proper öfixò. (I
donæt know whether it might be relevant but he has put öSet Alias$Free
ShowFree -FS scsi %0ò, as recommended last month, in his !Boot file in
order to activate the free space window.)
6.6
Philip has also found that his PC Emulator 1.8 sometimes suddenly hangs
the machine either during or shortly after booting up, or after quitting
the emulator.
6.6
HCCS HardCard 45
6.6
Barry Thompson says this needs a ROM and PAL change by HCCS costing ú10
plus VAT.
6.6
IDE
6.6
John Birchenough was initially unable to access his Risc Developments
IDE disc drive. However, with a third (free) replacement ROM fitted in
his podule, it is now working!
6.6
Allan Woods says that the tip given last month for getting the Free
Space window to work with SCSI drives doesnæt work with his Risc
Developments IDE drive. Bernard Perry says he knows someone with an ICS
IDE drive with the same problem. Has anyone got any ideas?
6.6
Barry Thompson says the early Orion IDE drives do not function and
wonders whether the new proprietors at Orion are going to support them.
6.6
Watford 5╝ö drive interface
6.6
Gordon Lindsay-Jones has found that his problem is not with his Watford
buffer, as reported last month. The buffer worked properly with another
disc drive. However, he is still trying to find out what is wrong with
his drive.
6.6
Printing Ö HP Paintjet, Draw and Poster
6.6
Christopher Price (Sidcup) is having constant problems trying to print
from the RISC¡OSá3.10 version of Draw and Poster 1.21 via an Ace printer
driver (he doesnæt know which version) to an HP Paintjet on his A420.
The printer appears not even to acknowledge Draw and refuses to output.
With Poster he gets output sometimes, though white text generally
appears black and the printer öseems to bug out if the artwork involves
clipartò imported from elsewhere. Can anyone help?
6.6
Carriage returns and linefeeds
6.6
Philip Woodward uses a bubblejet printer and often prints direct (i.e.
not via a RISC¡OSádriver). He finds that if he makes the slightest
error, such as trying to print a non-existent file, when he next tries
to print, everything gets printed on one line. Does anyone have any
suggestions?
6.6
BJ-330
6.6
Tord Eriksson has had numerous difficulties printing on his Canon BJ330.
Using the LQ-860 driver is agonisingly slow (it makes four passes for
each line) and it sometimes gives stripes in graphics areas. He also had
a printer head (costing ú200!) written off as a result of a öprintout
crashing.ò Also he finds that printing can abort before the job is
finished ù if he uses 180╫180 dpi there are no problems but with 180╫360
or higher just part of the page gets printed. He comments that the
printer driver seems to work differently in that it now seems to
calculate the entire bitmap before starting printing and he wonders if
he now needs more than 4 Mbytes just to print an A4 page. Any hints or
tips would be very welcome indeed!
6.6
Tord asks if there is any Archive reader who has tested the plotter
version of the BJ-330.
6.6
Non direct drive laser printers
6.6
Tord also asks for suggestions about laser printers that work well with
RISC¡OSá3. Direct drive lasers are out of the question because all his
podule slots are full! What printer drivers exist for Canon laser
printers that use Canonæs own page description language? (How about the
Ace Pro-Driver for LBP4/8 at ú44 through Archive?)
6.6
Printing in the background
6.6
Tord Eriksson says that the tip in Archive 6.3 p16 about having two
printer drivers loaded is impossible: if he loads a second !Printers the
first is erased. However, I think he has misunderstood the point: you
should only run !Printers once, but within that application you should
have two drivers loaded and active. (See p62 of the RISC¡OSá3 User Guide
for details.)
6.6
Keith Matthews spells out the procedure in more detail: you should drag
two copies of the appropriate printer driver into the Printer control
window of !Printers. Then click <menu> over the Printer control window,
choose the Connection option and connect the first driver to a suitable
file, then give the driver a name ending in Éfæ. The second copy should
be connected to the printer and named with a Épæ. When the printer
manager is subsequently loaded, two icons appear: the first is selected
by default, so applications will öprintò to the file. To produce hard
copy as a background task, just drag the file icon onto the ö......pò
icon (you donæt need to select it first.) (I still maintain this is a
ridiculous palaver: why isnæt there a setup option whereby you can tell
the print manager to print first to a file and then automatically send
it to the printer?)
6.6
Keith points out that (although he hasnæt tried queueing printouts) the
printer queue window provides one queue for each printer icon.
Obviously, print image files would have to be created under different
file names and you would need a hard disc to accommodate them all.
6.6
LaserDirect and Turbo Driver news
6.6
Michael Lowe has received a copy of version 2.09 of the LaserDirect
driver which has fixed the speckling problem (see Archive 6.5 pp30/31).
6.6
Computer Concepts have also told both him and Dave Leckie that RISC¡OSá3
drivers öare under development and might be available as early as April
but the amount of work involved shouldnæt be underestimated.ò Presumably
these will handle rotated text and sprites and work under the RISC¡OSá3
printer manager. (Dave Leckie notes, however, that CC have said that
they will not support RISC¡OSá3.0.)
6.6
Using a RISC¡OSá3 driver after LaserDirect, etc.
6.6
In Archive 6.5 p30 there was a tip that, in order to use a RISC¡OSá3
driver after using a RISC¡OSá2 driver such as LaserDirect, ArcLaser or
the Turbo drivers you should use the two * commands:
6.6
RMKill PDriver
6.6
RMReinit PDriver
6.6
Maurice Edmundson has pointed out that a convenient place to put these
commands is in the !Run file of !Printers before the first of the
RMEnsure commands.
6.6
Saving paper size settings
6.6
Acorn have advised that there is a fault in RISC¡OSá3.0 whereby, if you
alter the page sizes and save them, the new settings are not saved. The
work-around is to <shift-double-click> on !Printers then load the file
PaperRW into !Edit, manually change the settings then save the altered
file. This bug has been fixed in RISC¡OSá3.10.
6.6
First Word Plus driver for Deskjet 550C?
6.6
Can anyone supply a printer definition file (Barry Thompson asks)?
6.6
PC Emulator
6.6
John Birchenoughæs emulator, version 1.7, will only access the internal
drive A. Even when he makes the default drive B or C, the computer
insists on having a disc in drive A and then operates on the contents of
that drive. Also, it always asks for a disc to be inserted in B even
though it means A. He tried the patch supplied on the Support disc, but
that refused to work with a version higher than 1.6. He has also tried
changing his Config.sys file with variations of the Driver.sys and
Drivparm commands but to no effect. Can anyone help?
6.6
Is RISC¡OSá3 faster or slower?
6.6
Some think one, some the other! A number of people have commented that
the machine seems to take longer to redraw the desktop screen or to go
through its initialisation routine. Relying on memory, it is obviously
difficult to tell. Raymond Wright says Pipedream 3.1 appears to take
longer to get spreadsheets loaded. He finds that, initially, he gets a
screen full of zeros which are slowly replaced by real data. (I wonder
if this is because of the way he has got it set up? Robert Macmillan
from Colton said ù see Archive 6.3 p12 ù that all versions from 3.10 on
work better in RISC¡OSá3.) Raymond is sure that RISC¡OSá2 was quicker
but heæs not going to reinstall it just to find out.
6.6
Ken Gardner has, however, done just that. He did some controlled timings
before updating to RISC¡OSá3.10 and reverted back to RISC¡OSá2 to
confirm the anomaly that he found. The timings are as shown below
6.6
For the tests, ADFS buffers were set to zero for both RISC¡OSá2 and
RISC¡OSá3.10. When Ken changed ADFSBuffers to 2K the time to read the
serial file fell from 48 secs to 19 secs but the Multistore random
access read only dropped from 176 secs. to 170ásecs. This is a logical
result but it prompts Ken to ask why we have been instructed to set
ADFSBuffers to zero when this gives so much slower a result than in
RISC¡OSá2. Can anyone tell us for sure whether there is a bug or not?
(Is there a danger of losing data if the Buffers are set to a non-zero
value?) (Yes, but only on a 1Mb machine. In 3.11, this has been improved
over 3.10. Ed.)
6.6
Miscellaneous Hints & Tips
6.6
How to avoid continual disc swapping,
6.6
and more on !Scrap files
6.6
Philip Woodward recommends that, on a floppy-disc only system, if you
have several discs for different classes of work and include a !Scrap
file on each, donæt forget to click on the !Scrap icon when you insert a
new disc. If you do forget, you will find that whenever you load a
printer driver, or try to print a drawing, the operating system will ask
you to insert some other disc which has no apparent relevance.
6.6
Draw crashing
6.6
Philip Woodward finds, like a number of others, that Draw crashes quite
frequently reporting an öaddress exceptionò error. Does anyone know if
there is anything he can do to avoid this? The error message goes on to
say:
6.6
preserving files in <Wimp$ScrapDir>.Draw before exiting.
6.6
This means that !Draw will attempt to save the work-in-progress as a
file called Draw in the scrap directory. (If it is successful, you will
be able to retrieve the file by opening that directory and double-
clicking on the drawfile icon to run !Draw again and load the file in ù
after first making a backup copy of the file if it is important. To find
where the scrap directory is, press <ctrl-f12> to open a Task window and
type the command *Show Wimp$ScrapDir)
6.6
Positioning drawings imported into Draw
6.6
Philip Woodward has also found that, whereas in the RISC¡OSá2 version of
Draw, one could superimpose a previous drawing (e.g. one saved on a RAM
disc) in exactly the position it originally occupied in the window by
setting the grid lock on and dragging the file onto the new drawing and
positioning the pointer at the bottom left of the window, this no longer
works. The minimum bounding frame of the old drawing is placed with its
bottom left corner at the mouse position, regardless of the original
position in the old drawing. To reproduce the RISC¡OSá2 behaviour, you
have to put something, such as a dummy rectangle, at the bottom left
corner of the old drawingæs window.
6.6
Alarm options
6.6
Philip Woodward has pointed out that, if you include a line in your
!Boot file to set Alarm$Options, you must include % in front of each of
the -format parameters (see Applications Guide p137 for details). Also,
you must put the format string in quotes (which is not, perhaps,
emphasised sufficiently strongly in the Manual.) In both these respects,
it differs from Edit$Options, Draw$Options, etc.
6.6
To illustrate the point, consecutive lines in !Boot might read:
6.6
Set Alarm$Options -format ö%w3 %z12:%mi %m3 %zdyò
6.6
Set Edit$Options B12 M99 L1 D
6.6
To get the Alarm$Options to take effect, you also have to choose the
öUser definedò option in the Alarm setup window (choose the Setup...
option from the iconbar menu.) Itæs not clear from the manual but I
assume that the choice of this option is saved in the CMOS RAM so
doesnæt have to be included in the !Boot file. Itæs all a bit confusing,
isnæt it?
6.6
Arm3 hare and tortoise icons
6.6
I didnæt have enough time last month to try out G÷tz Kohlbergæs tip
(Archive 6.5 p33) about the hare and tortoise module. Now I have, and
Iæm totally confused! Whatever combination of commands I use, I seem to
be unable to get the machine to boot up with the cache on without the
hare and tortoise swapping jobs. One thought Iæve had is that I might
swap the names of the hare and tortoise icons inside the !Arm3.!Sprites
file. (Another thought is that perhaps youære meant to click on the hare
to get the machine to go faster, and that this never worked properly in
RISC¡OSá2!) Help!
6.6
Faster filer operations
6.6
If you click <menu> over a filer operation window (e.g. the window that
pops up when you copy files which keeps you informed of progress) and
choose öFasterò, screen update will be less frequent and the filer
operation will be faster. (Marc Evans)
6.6
Copying a large directory to floppy
6.6
If you run out of space when copying a directory or application to a
floppy, insert a new disc, rename it with the same name as the full disc
and click on öRetryò. (Marc Evans) (Someone else has already suggested
that but when I tried it, it said öambiguous filenameò. Ed.)
6.6
<Shift-select> on toggle size icon
6.6
If you click <shift-select> on the toggle size icon, the window will
open as far as it can without obscuring the icon bar. (Marc Evans) (This
seems to depend on the application. Draw windows behave as described,
but Impression windows donæt.)
6.6
False sprites on the Pinboard
6.6
Marc Evansæ Pinboard seems to get confused over icon sizes and sprites
under certain conditions. For instance, it sometimes makes icons three
times bigger and uses the wrong sprites. Tord Eriksson says that in mode
78 (from Computer Concepts NewModes?) some icons disappear, some hide
behind others and some appear twice; a single click on each one restores
peace, but should he have to? Has anyone else found this?
6.6
Configured modes
6.6
Marc Evans has found that *Configure Mode and *Configure Wimpmode seem
to be interlinked ù whatever one is configured to the other one follows.
He used to have Mode configured to 0 to save memory when outside the
Desktop, but canæt anymore.
6.6
Tord Eriksson had great problems until he discovered that you canæt
öconfigureò a non-standard mode. If you want to start up in, say, mode
78 from the Computer Concepts Newmodes module, you have to include in
your !Boot file first a command to load the NewModes module then a
*WimpMode 78 command.
6.6
Icon button types
6.6
A comment for WIMP programmers is that when icons have the double click
flag set, they invert at the first click and group with adjust (like
Filer icons). To get around this, your program must trap for any icon
clicked on and unset the selected bit. (Marc Evans)
6.6
Saving the configuration
6.6
Mike Williams finds that the configuration file saved by !Configure
doesnæt cover all the things he needs to restore after having attempted
to run a rogue program that changes the configuration. He has therefore
built himself a command file containing all the *Configure commands
required to get back to normal plus *RMReinit commands for all the
modules. He created it by doing
6.6
*Spool cfgfile
6.6
*Status
6.6
*ROMModules
6.6
*Spool
6.6
then editing the resulting file into the correct syntax and changing the
filetype to öCommandò. (The pukka way of creating such a file is not to
use the pre-RISC-OS *Spool command, but to press <ctrl-f12> to open a
Task window, type Status, <return>, ROMModules and <return>, then press
<menu>, choose the öUnlinkò option and save the contents of the Task
window.)
6.6
Several years ago, Risc User published a program called !CMOS_Edit which
allows easy saving and reloading of all the CMOS settings. This seems to
work fine.
6.6
Opening sub-menus automatically
6.6
Richard Hallas has noticed that, if you choose the öOpen submenus
automaticallyò configuration option, then if the pointer is resting to
the left of the öparentò menu item (in the space where a tick would
appear) when the submenu opens it appears on top of the parent menu
rather than to its right. Also, moving around a single menu with several
submenu pointers can have some peculiar effects: sometimes the submenu
pointers are ignored, and it is even possible to have two copies of the
same submenu open.
6.6
Preventing access to !Configure and !Alarm
6.6
Last month we gave the hint that you can prevent users from interfering
with the configuration by unplugging the !Configure module so that they
canæt access the !Configure application. In Acornæs education newsletter
Arc, there is a hint that you can do the same with !Alarm.
6.6
Opening a directory without booting
6.6
Richard Hallas reports that, if you open a directory with <ctrl> held
down to stop the Filer executing all the !Boot files inside the
applications within the directory, then copying, renaming or deleting
files will cause the directory to be booted unless you remember to press
<ctrl> again.
6.6
Also, if you open a directory with <ctrl> held down and then copy an
application out of it to another directory, then (assuming the Filer has
not already seen the !Sprites file for the application) a ö!Sprites not
foundò error will be reported. This doesnæt have any ill effects: itæs
just a nuisance.
6.6
Various Matters Arising
6.6
Screen blanker (Archive 6.4 p12)
6.6
Keith Raven has found (in p163 of the User Guide) that *Blanktime sets
the time (in seconds) before the screen goes blank. *Blanktime 0 turns
the screen blanker off. (What I would like to know is: does the
operating system provide any easy means of firing up a graphical routine
as an alternative to the blank screen?)
6.6
Shift key behaviour (Archive 6.5 p34)
6.6
John Woodgate suggests that the ú/ñ key may be acting as if it were
pressed as well as the <shift> key. He suggests cleaning with iso propyl
alcohol or proprietary switch cleaner. (For details on how to clean a
keyboard, see 5.1 p25. Ed.)
6.6
Solid sprite dragging (Archive 6.5 p36)
6.6
Barry Thompson writes that the way to turn this on is to use the *
command *FX162,28,3 (It seems really weird to me that a feature like
this, quite a selling point one would have thought, has been implemented
in such a half-hearted way!)
6.6
Spaces in *Set commands
6.6
Brian Fielding has found that whereas in RISC¡OSá2 you could use spaces
in *Set or *SetMacro, RISC¡OSá3.10 does not allow you to do so:
6.6
SET PipeDream$Path ADFS::Dream_ file.$.,<PipeDream$Dir>.
6.6
was permissible in RISC¡OSá2 but you must use
6.6
SET PipeDream$Path ADFS::Dream_ file.$.,<PipeDream$Dir>.
6.6
in RISC¡OSá3.10.
6.6
Locked directories in ROM/RAM podule
6.6
Brian Fielding also reports that if you create a New directory in
Computer Conceptæs ROM/RAM podule, it creates the directory with a lock.
This lock cannot be removed and the directory can never be deleted
except by re-initialising the Podule.Other problems occur when copying
files into directories on the Podule but these can be ÉSKIPedæ. He has
written to CC about this but they have no plans to alter the podule
software to work fully with RISC-OS3.ááA

6.6
Timings for various operations (RISC-OS 2 v RISC-OS 3.10)
6.6

6.6
      RISC-OS 2   RISC-OS 3.10   relative
speed
6.6
      (secs)   (secs)   RO3.1 : RO2
6.6
Read a serial file to a string array (50,000 items)   25.4
   48.4   half as fast
6.6
Sort 50,000 strings (using Armsort)   8.0
   8.0   same
6.6
load and sort a Multistore file (2,400 items):
6.6
   load   166   176   slightly slower
6.6
   sort   221   214   slightly faster
6.6
   total   387   390   same
6.6
Print a Draw file (with 32Kb buffer in printer)
6.6
   release computer   500   239
   twice as fast
6.6
   release printer   533   289
   twice as fast
6.6
Mandelbrot (recalculate Clessidra)   90.3
   90.5   same
6.6


6.6
Landmarks Ö Columbus
6.6
Hilary Ferns
6.6
Columbus from Longman Logotron is one of the latest in the Landmarks
series of educational programs. It deals with life on board one of
Christopher Columbusæ ships on a voyage of discovery.
6.6
The program comes with an excellent pupilsæ book, with photocopiable
sheets, which could be used as a basis for further work on the topic. A
board game idea is also included, to further reinforce ideas about life
on board ship with the explorers. The teachersæ book provides notes on
how to run the program for Archimedes, IBM and Nimbus, a few suggestions
for classroom use, cross-curricular links and keystrips.
6.6
The program loads and installs on the iconbar in the usual RISC-OS way.
Clicking on the icon opens two windows side by side, as in all other
Landmarks programs. The right hand window always contains a monochrome
picture of the present location, (Please, please, Longman Logotron,
could you possibly start using detailed colour pictures in these
programs?) and the left-hand window contains the dialogue. The user
interacts with the program by typing questions into this window. The
conversation can be saved as a named textfile (provided öFile onò has
been typed) and so can be printed out using a standard RISC-OS driver.
6.6
At the start of the conversation, we are introduced to Pedro, a young
boy on the Santa Maria, with Christopher Columbus as Captain. He is
referred to in the program as Captain Colon, the Spanish name which he
took for the voyage. Function keys can be used to ask some of the common
questions like öWhat can you see?ò, öWhere are you?ò and öDescribe. . .ò
Other function keys give direction commands such as öGo forwardò, and
öGo aftò. A useful simple plan of the ship is provided in the pupilsæ
book showing Port, Starboard, Forward and Aft.
6.6
Thinking about the right questions
6.6
Initially, I became frustrated by the answers given to my questions.
Often the answers were totally irrelevant to what I was asking. I soon
realised that the answers are probably chosen by searching through the
question for a keyword. For example, I asked Pedro the following:
6.6
öDescribe the cooking pot.ò
6.6
öIt is a large pot in which our food is cooked.ò
6.6
öWhat food do you cook ?ò
6.6
öI have many jobs on the ship. I turn the glass and ring the bell, sweep
the deck, help to cook our meals, serve the officers, check the rigging
... ò
6.6
(This was the same answer which was given for öWhat do you have for your
meals?ò and öWhat are your jobs?ò)
6.6
öHow much dried meat do you eat each day?ò
6.6
öThursdayò.
6.6
Eventually, while I was still near the cooking pot, I asked öWhat is
your food for today?ò To this Pedro came up with a sensible and
interesting answer.
6.6
I also learnt that a sensible strategy is asking Pedro to describe only
the things he can see in any given location. Several times I was told öI
donæt knowò or öYou ask so many questions Ö let us speak of something
else.ò However, once I got the idea of wording my questions carefully,
it was really quite good fun and I started feeling part of the scene,
coming away having gained some knowledge about Pedroæs life on board. In
fact, my 11 year old son got the hang of it with very little guidance.
He simply started off by using the function keystrip, very soon getting
some sense out of the program. He climbed the rigging with Pedro and
later found it rather unfair that Pedro was often left with the maggot-
infested biscuit!
6.6
The passage of time
6.6
The program is linked with real time, by using the setting of the
computeræs clock. Simply a gimmick, you may say, but I think it really
does help to make Pedro seem more real. Pedro remembers who he has been
speaking to and each time you go back to using the program, he demands
to know if he is still talking to the same person. If there is a long
silence from you, he asks if anyone is still there and eventually gets
fed up with waiting, signing off with öFarewellò. This can actually be
rather annoying, as you find yourself having to reload the program. This
happens even if you are using another program meanwhile, i.e. the
program still continues to flow even if it is not the current window on
screen. When you join Pedro again on day two, land has been sighted.
Pedro goes ashore with the landing party, and the exploration of the
island begins. Therefore it is important to speak to Pedro on two
consecutive days to get all the possible information out of the program.
I was a little annoyed that once ashore, I could find no way to instruct
Pedro to go back to the boat Ö I can only assume that it was the wrong
time of day for this to happen. On the third day Pedro says that he is
too busy to speak and the program automatically resets to the beginning,
ready for Pedro to introduce himself to someone else. At any time you
can do this manually by typing öResetò.
6.6
So what use is the program?
6.6
I assume these programs were never intended to be exciting adventures in
the same way as many home computer games, and I feel it would be unfair
to make comparisons in this area. In the home, quite honestly, its use
is limited, and I would not recommend it for anything other than
classroom use, where it provides an interesting interaction between the
children and Pedro on board Columbusæ ship. At times one really can
begin to feel part of Pedroæs world. I can see the program fitting quite
nicely into classroom topic work. I would perhaps use it as an
introduction to the topic, taking Pedroæs information as a launch pad
for further study. Pedro could almost become a part of the classroom.
One could ask the children öHave you asked Pedro about that?ò or öHas
anyone spoken to Pedro yet today?ò Lower ability readers and writers
would obviously have more of a problem, and be limited to questions
which are programmed into the function keys. However, I would not rule
it out for Special Needs use. The children do have to be accurate in
their typing and spelling in order for the questions to make sense to
the computer. Generally suitable for Years 5 & 6.ááA

6.6
MicroDrive 2 / MicroDrive Designer
6.6
Jochen Konietzko
6.6
Since my review of the MicroDrive golf simulator (Archive 5.11, p34),
things have changed a lot Ö there is a new, improved Version 2 and also
a course designer!
6.6
Version 2.1: The package
6.6
Except for the number 2, nothing has changed on the outside cover Ö even
the names of the seven courses are identical. Inside, there is one (very
welcome) difference: The manual now describes every detail of the game
briefly yet comprehensively on five pages of text, plus a table of
contents.
6.6
Installation
6.6
Installation on a hard disk has stayed the same but running the game
from a hard disk is slightly different, as now there is a copy
protection Ö the master disk must always be present, as a Ékeyæ, when
the game is first started.
6.6
The game has grown slightly Ö together with the five extra courses, it
now occupies 560 Kb when Compression is used, or 1480 Kb in uncompressed
form.
6.6
The game now needs 460 Kb to run, and too little RAM is reported by way
of the usual error message. However, the programmer has done something
rather nasty to make sure that the game will find enough room for
loading. Irrespective of the available memory, MicroDrive always sets
the font cache to zero.
6.6
Playing the game
6.6
The game is basically still the same as in Version 1 but a number of
changes make it even more attractive. The status window has been
redesigned so that the screen seems bigger.
6.6
The three pictures opposite show a view in Version 1 and the same view
in Version 2, before and after a club has been chosen.
6.6
As you can see, the scenery has been subtly changed between the two
versions. (By the way, the old courses disk seems to work perfectly with
the new master disk.) Note the different positions of the flag in the
two Version 2 screen shots, which were taken in different rounds.
6.6
The player sprites have been modified slightly (they now Éhunker downæ
before putting) and the most important change of all Ö there is now a
Quit option!
6.6
Price
6.6
MicroDrive is produced by Cambridge International Software. The update
from Version 1 costs ú9.95 and Version 2 (World Edition) is priced at
ú34.95 (or ú32 from Archive).
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
I am not quite sure about it being a ÉVersion 2.1æ. The amount of change
makes this new game appear to me more like Version 1.2 or 1.3 Ö still, I
have no complaints.
6.6
MicroDrive is now just as I wanted Version 1 to be. The only additional
improvement I would like to see is an increase in sound effects (bird
song?). However, there is one improvement which no Archimedes game can
have Ö the latest version of Links, the high-end PC golf simulator, has
Super VGA graphics which are very nearly photo-like in their quality. In
the world of the Archimedes, such pictures are simply not possible.
6.6
Subjectively....
6.6
Those of you who read the review of this game in Octoberæs Archimedes
World, may wonder if Duncan Evans and I were writing about the same
game! This shows how much the personal preferences of a reviewer
influence his conclusions. When you read such an article, you should
therefore try to read between the lines, to see whether the reviewer has
the same tastes as you.
6.6
The main point at issue seems to be the number of gadgets and gimmicks
one expects to see. MicroDrive tries to come as close as possible to the
atmosphere of a real life round of golf, so it makes perfect sense that
there is no glut of statistics as in most American simulators, no
surveyoræs staff which you can move around the course to get exact
distances, no option to view the course from the perspective of the
flying ball, no... etc.
6.6
If you are expecting all this paraphernalia, then MicroDrive must indeed
appear as an Éout of condition, under-powered lightweightæ, as Mr. Evans
puts it. If itæs straight, undiluted golf you are interested in, then
MicroDrive is for you.
6.6
MicroDrive Designer
6.6
Packed in a colourful cardboard sleeve, the designer comes with an
excellent instruction leaflet Ö 22 pages, table of contents and lots of
screen shots. The manual includes hints for successful course design and
even classifies the available trees (names and regions where they grow).
6.6
The disk contains the designer itself, a file which you need to create a
new empty disk for your own courses, and several example files.
6.6
The example horizons are especially helpful because it is much easier to
modify a 3200╫16 sprite than to create it from scratch.
6.6
As with the game itself, the designer can be installed on a hard disk
but the original disk must be present for a few seconds during loading.
6.6
Using the program is simplicity itself. You choose the general
properties of your course, such as the speed of the greens and the depth
of the bunkers, then you start on the individual holes.
6.6
A number of icons lead to various windows from which you can pick (by
Édrag and dropæ) 24 kinds of trees and bushes, 48 different greens, 48
shapes of bunkers, etc. All these objects can be scaled and flipped at
will, giving an almost infinite number of variations.
6.6
The icons in the picture mean Quit, Trees, Greens, Tees, Water, Bunkers,
Fairway, Rough, Playing, Viewing, Flag positions, Orientation (this
decides the lay of the hole in relation to the horizon), Description,
Measuring/fixing the par, Landscaping, Out of bounds. In all, 159
objects may be placed on each hole.
6.6
One thing which must be done is landscaping Ö otherwise, you get ÉError:
No billiard tables allowed in this simulationæ! You can see the result
of this activity on a three dimensional grid.
6.6
Price
6.6
The MicroDrive Designer costs ú39.95 from CIS or ú37 from Archive.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
Itæs great! There is just one problem Ö as with a powerful, easy-to-use
art package, the Designer is a tool which is only as good as the
individuals who use it.
6.6
Our very first hole was finished (or so we thought) in about ten
minutes. Unfortunately, it proved to be unplayable because we had placed
a ravine across the fairway Ö it was so deep that, if the ball dropped
into it, it was impossible to get it out again! Chastened by this
failure, we stuck to Rob Deaconæs hints (ÉMake a plan of your course on
paper ... aim for realism ... ), and the course developed very nicely.
6.6
After one weekend of hard work, we have now fine-tuned our first course
to such an extent that we are satisfied Ö at least for the time being.
After all, as Rob writes, ÉSome of the best courses in the world are
still getting minor tweaks 100 years after they were first
constructed!æááA

6.6
Version 1

6.6
Version 2 Ö Before selecting a club

6.6
Version 2 Ö After selecting a club

6.6
Lotus Turbo Challenge II
6.6
Neil Walker
6.6
Lotus Turbo Challenge (henceforth LTC) is one of the latest conversions
by Krisalis. It was tested on an A310, with 4Mb of memory and a hard-
disc.
6.6
The plot
6.6
LTC became well known on other formats as one of, if not the best
driving game ever seen. In it, one drives a Lotus Elan and a Lotus
Esprit. The choice of car is made for you depending upon the course on
which you are driving Ö there are eight courses. The cars can be driven
with either manual or automatic gears.
6.6
The aim of the game is to drive the car from the start to the finish,
passing through checkpoints on the way. If you do not reach the
checkpoint within a certain time limit, your attempt is over and you
must try again.
6.6
LTC was designed as a game and not as a driving simulation. Therefore,
contact with other cars, rocks and all other manner of objects will
merely slow you down and push the car away from the object.
6.6
One and two player modes are available. In one-player mode, the whole
screen is dedicated to the one car whereas, in two-player mode, the
screen is split in two, allowing the two players to race against each
other.
6.6
The Archimedes
6.6
LTC comes in a box, containing a bag in which there are two discs, an
instruction booklet and a registration card.
6.6
LTC can be installed onto a hard-disc but uses the key-disc method of
protection. This means that one disc does tend to lie about on the desk.
However, Krisalis say that any disc which fails will be replaced free of
charge. The key-disc is looked at once only, when the game is started.
6.6
Not having seen LTC on other formats, I cannot make comparisons of that
type but as it is similar, in some respects, to E-Type, I will make a
brief comparison between the two.
6.6
LTC is controlled by the keyboard or joystick, whereas E-Type uses the
mouse. I personally find the keyboard the easier of the two to use, but
that is a matter of opinion. To control the car, five keys are needed
(which can be redefined). These are : Left, Right, Up, Down and Fire.
Left and Right are obvious, Up and Down control the gears in a manual
while Down works as a brake in the automatic and Fire works as the
accelerator.
6.6
Both Vertical Twist and RTFM joystick types are supported and the
controls outlined above still apply. However, it is possible to switch
the effects of Up and Fire, in order to make pushing the joystick
forward work as the accelerator.
6.6
Whilst the graphics on E-Type are good, those on LTC are even better,
and the same is true of sound. The cars are instantly recognisable Ö
they are clear and well-defined. Backgrounds are excellent and provide
an interesting alternative to watching the road Ö if you dare to take
your eyes off it! The sampled speech and the engine noise are very good.
There is also an excellent metallic chink if a collision should occur.
(Even if the car is made of glass-fibre!)
6.6
The one thing that is very clear about LTC is the speed. It is fast Ö
very fast. After playing it for a couple of days, I loaded up Saloon
Cars. Suffice it to say that Saloon Cars, which I used to think played
at a reasonable speed, now seemed slow.
6.6
Bad news for ARM 3 users, however, as Krisalis say the cache should be
turned off, to reduce colour split flicker. However, I donæt think the
game would be playable if it was much faster!
6.6
Unfortunately, the gameplay is too easy, and I completed all eight
scenarios within a week. Within a fortnight, I had driven from start to
finish on several occasions. Even so, the two player mode means that the
life of the game is extended, as you get the chance to force the
competition off the road!
6.6
There are a few small things that irritate but arenæt major enough to
say that the game is poor. Firstly, on the last two stages, there are
bonuses. These lie on the road, in the form of coloured spheres. To
collect them, one should drive through them. However, I tend to find
that the game is rather temperamental as to whether or not it says that
I have collected them. Secondly, on the desert course there are
occasions when it is possible to Éloseæ the engine noise. Finally, when
I finish the game, which Iæve done more than once now, there is no
screen telling me that Iæm brilliant at the game. I personally like such
screens, as it creates a sense of satisfaction.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
LTC is a very good game. It offers a fun alternative to the hard-core
simulators and lets you hit objects as fast as you like, without being
told that you just Édied horriblyæ! However, my main criticism would be
that, as already stated, the game is too easy.
6.6
LTC is available from Krisalis for ú24.99 and through Archive for
ú24.ááA

6.6
Desktop Office 2
6.6
Dave Wilcox
6.6
Desktop Office 2 is the latest update from Minerva for their Archimedes
equivalent of the BBC Mini Office Suite. The package is ú99 + VAT or
ú108 through Archive. (Desktop Office 1 owners can upgrade from Minerva
for ú20 + VAT.)
6.6
The package
6.6
This new version of Desktop Office comes on two discs. The first is the
Desktop Office package, comprising DTOWord, DTOSheet, DTOBase, DTOChart
and DTOComms. These are accompanied by the as usual !System and
!Sysmerge. There is also a useful utility called !Flasher.
6.6
On the second disc is EasiWord. This word processor has been included by
Minerva, apparently as a replacement to DTOWord. Both discs have an
accompanying manual. The DTO manual is spring bound and sectioned for
easy reference to each program. The EasiWord manual is a folded, stapled
book. Both manuals have a tutorial section giving a brief outline of
each program and a reference section with more detailed explanations.
Both manuals are well thought out and easy to use. This is all packaged
in a cardboard folder, just slightly smaller than A4.
6.6
The programs
6.6
It is possible (and advisable) before running these programs, to backup
the original discs. This can be done with the desktop backup facility as
neither disc has any copy protection. On first running the Desktop
Office suite, you could be forgiven for thinking you had in fact
received version 1. For reasons best known to Minerva, the Desktop
Office suite is version 1.08 and EasiWord is version 1.02. A check with
Minerva revealed these to be the latest versions of DTO. However,
Easiword itself is currently on version 1.03. The programs are RISC-OS
compliant, so double-clicking the program loads it onto the iconbar and
clicking the loaded icon enters the program.
6.6
Before going into detail about the programs, several points were raised
in earlier Archive reviews of Desktop Office. If you wish to read these
they were published in Archive 4.1 p40 and Archive 4.2 p55. Reference
was made to Easiword in Archive 3.9 p2 and there is a full review of
Easiword also in this issue Ö see page 73. For those who do not have
these earlier issues, here is a brief summary:
6.6
DTOWord is said to be a Wordwise look-a-like which had no printer driver
routines and therefore used embedded codes. There was no spell-check
facility and no word count. Also DTOChart output (sprites) could not be
loaded.
6.6
DTOSheet was deemed to be too small, the maximum sheet size being 32 ╫
64 cells. It was not possible for labels to overflow the cell size and
was restrictive as far as built-in functions were concerned, only having
basic arithmetic and about ten predefined functions.
6.6
DTOBase had one main complaint Ö it only had one search facility,
Ésearch anywhere in fieldæ.
6.6
DTOChart was unable to put a title to a chart or to label the axes.
Output was saved in sprite format which is memory hungry.
6.6
DTOComms was deemed to be adequate and workable.
6.6
EasiWord, not then included with Desktop Office, was another Wordwise
look-a-like and was also without spell-check facilities. So whatæs new?
6.6
DTOWord
6.6
This program is still a Wordwise look-a-like. When I had a BBC B, this
system was good but, with the power and capacity of the Archimedes, it
is now rather antiquated. This is obviously a view shared by Minerva,
hence the inclusion of EasiWord. For those that still wish to use this
program, however, it is easy to use. Double click on the icon to load
the program onto the iconbar. Click on this icon to enter the program. A
window opens to show part of the current work page. Pressing menu over
this page gives the normal options expected for a word processor
package, i.e. editing, selection and file operations. The most necessary
option in this menu is the command option which allows the easy entry of
embedded commands within the document e.g. underline, bold or printer
output commands. You cannot incorporate graphics into your text.
6.6
DTOSheet
6.6
The maximum size of the spreadsheet in this version is now 55 ╫ 99 cells
and the program has been enhanced considerably. It is still not possible
to exceed the cell size with labels but other complaints have been
tackled. The spreadsheet now has some twenty built in functions
including the normal geometric, mathematical and statistical functions
normally expected in such a package. The toolbox is comprehensive and
allows easy selection of justification settings and auto cursor movement
settings. Paper, ink and negative number colour settings are also easily
selected. Entered data can be saved out as a spooled text file, CSV file
or ASCII text file. This choice gives a format suitable for most other
Archimedes packages that handle data, including the other members of
this suite.
6.6
DTOBase
6.6
The search facility, or lack of one, was the major complaint with
earlier versions of this package. Minerva have put this to rights with a
vengeance. You can now search the database on any of the fields or a
combination of the same. You can also include the normal logic operators
within search definitions. The package has been restricted in card size
Ö you are allowed 32 fields per card and each field can be up to 78
characters long. Fields are easily defined and can easily be positioned
on the card. The overall database size is only restricted by the size of
the media on which the file is stored. As a database is usually
concerned at some stage with names and addresses, Minerva has included a
special print section devoted to producing labels from a file.
6.6
DTOChart
6.6
As with the other parts of this package, some of the earlier complaints
have been put to rights and others have not. You can now enter chart
titles and axis headings easily from a menu. Data is usually entered in
the form of a CSV file produced via DTOBase or DTOSheet but you can
enter data directly if you wish. From this data, you can produce a Bar,
Line, Scatter or Pie Chart. These charts can have up to three sets of
data displayed. The resultant chart is still saved as a sprite file.
6.6
DTOComms
6.6
This program was reported as working to a satisfactory standard in
earlier versions Ö I found the current version did the same. For those
people spoilt by Hearsay, or the like, this program appears, on first
loading, a bit sparse to say the least. It opens with a blank window, no
tools of any sort being visible. All actions and settings are performed
by pressing <menu> over the comms window or the iconbar icon. Line
settings are set from the iconbar with baud rates from 50 to 19,200.
Parity, stop bits, and data bits are set with radio buttons. Also, the
interpretation of line feeds and carriage returns are selected from this
menu.
6.6
In the comms window, you have a choice of two terminals Ö ANSI or
TVI925. These will give access to most private boards and others such as
Telecom Gold. For those with Hayes compatible modems, you can enter the
Hayes commands in the comms window, e.g. autodial. Configuration
settings can be saved out as script files for future setting, or can
then be modified in Edit for auto log-on, password entry, etc. It must
be stressed that this is a basic comms package.
6.6
!Flasher
6.6
This is a nice little utility. Basically, if you have several
overlapping windows open, the window with the input focus will have a
flashing cursor instead of a steady one. Also, if this window is out of
view and the cursor is therefore not visible, click on the iconbar icon
and the target window will come to the front, and the cursor will drift
to the caret location. This application has been around for some time,
written in 1990, but I must confess it is a new one to me and is now a
full time resident on my iconbar.
6.6
EasiWord 2
6.6
This wordprocessor is a clone of First Word Plus 2. A lot of people say
that this program is now getting a little long in the tooth. I leave
that for debate. EasiWord has some of the rough edges smoothed slightly
and most of the alterations appear to be cosmetic. From the iconbar it
is possible to set preferences for auto loading of the dictionary and/or
3D icons. When the program is run, the page opens with white paper
surrounded by a grey border. The top ruler is displayed showing the
default ruler settings with green markers for tab stops and limit
markers. Tabs are set/unset by double-clicking <select>. If double-
clicked with <adjust> they step through left tab, right tab, centre tab
and decimal point tab.
6.6
The main menu is the same as First Word Plus only laid out differently.
EasiWord types in black text with merge commands being in green Ö better
than the grey and light option of First Word Plus.
6.6
A nice touch to this program is the ruler scope display available down
the left side of the page. This option shows how far a ruler format
covers and therefore how far-reaching any ruler changes will be.
6.6
Mail-merging in this program is simplified considerably Ö all you need
to do is to load your document with its embedded merge commands, drag a
data file into the window and the resultant documents for each entry in
the data file are produced Ö a lot simpler than First Mail.
6.6
There is a spell-check facility included, with a dictionary of some
50,000 words. You cannot, however, incorporate pictures into the
documents produced with EasiWord, as you could with First Word Plus 2.
6.6
Problems?
6.6
I have only come across one problem with this suite of programs and that
is the old favourite of printer compatibility. I am using a Canon BJ300
running under RISC-OS 3.1. There is a driver available for the BJ but
this package requires the driver to be Epson compatible. The BJ driver
apparently is not. This means using the Epson LQ860 driver and changing
d.i.p. switch settings when changing driver Ö not the best method.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
This package gives the impression of being a Éjack of all trades, master
of noneæ. DTOWord, I feel, is now obsolete. With regards to putting
drawings into your documents, there are mixed views. I tend to the one
that if you want this facility, you really should get a DTP program.
EasiWord was obviously designed to follow this trend and, as such, is
designed for entry and manipulation of text, and this it does quite
well.
6.6
The other programs in this package also do the job they were designed
for, but could always be improved upon. The programs are not designed
for the person who wishes to create an enormous spreadsheet with
multiple graph outputs for a major companyæs yearly trade report but for
the small user with restricted input and output needs it is fine.
6.6
Overall, this package is the size and price that should appeal to the
home user, school user or small business user (although I have
reservations about its suitability for this latter group). They have a
short learning curve and therefore enable the user to obtain a finished
product reasonably quickly and with little pain.ááA

6.6
Fervour
6.6
Richard Rymarz
6.6
Fervour, written by Andrew Hersee, published by Clares and costing ú23
through Archive, is a good game. It has certainly grabbed my attention
and since most of my time is spent writing reports and balancing budgets
with little time for playing games, it was a pleasure to review this
piece of software.
6.6
The game
6.6
I will not waste time outlining the plot surrounding the game. Suffice
it to say that Fervour is an extremely hot planet and your job is to
retrieve oxygen from its surface.
6.6
What matters is the gameplay and this is the major attraction of
Fervour. Basically, it updates a very enjoyable game on the BBC a few
years ago called ÉSpheres of Destinyæ. The idea is to guide a spherical
droid along what the story line tells us is a series of Ébands of
varying pure energyæ. These look like space motorways constructed of
coloured rectangles which disappear into the distance. At later levels
they curve, making control particularly tricky. (The display is very
attractive with scrolling stars in the background which move very
effectively in relation to your droid adding to the impression of three
dimensional depth and speed.)
6.6
Most of the fifteen colours of squares subject your droid to effects
such as adding bounce credits, extra lives, score bonuses, instant
stopping, speeding up, automatic bouncing, extra time, etc. Four lives
are given to complete each level with unused ones being carried forward
to the next one. Lives are lost in three ways: by falling off the
spaceway; falling into one of the black holes or runing out of time. The
first two are accompanied by some digitised speech which squeaks, öOh
no!ò. When a level is completed a password is given and you very quickly
move onto the next level. Occasionally, you are asked to type in your
name for the high score table.
6.6
On-screen information includes your score, the number of bounce credits,
number of lives, the time limit and the distance covered along a route
indicated by a yellow horizontal bar. At the top is a message bar which
is fully editable. The game takes up about three quarters of the screen
with about half of it actual playing area.
6.6
Installation
6.6
Fervour does what, to my mind, all games should do. After registering
the disc (an excellent way of protecting software), booting it shows
five applications: the game itself, an application to maximise memory
allocation for 1 Mbyte users, another to help with the kind of monitor
you have and two that affect any joysticks present.
6.6
Clicking on the game application results in five more applications, four
of which are groups of games. These are defined as Beginner, General,
Puzzle and Fast. Selecting any one installs the game on the iconbar.
Clicking <menu> brings up a very comprehensive menu which allows you to
set music and sound-effect levels; use of keys, mouse or joysticks;
definition of keys; and function key information. The internal speaker
can even be switched off. Having set this information, clicking <select>
runs the game. Pressing <f12> stops the game and returns the user to the
desktop with all information present. This is a joy to use.
6.6
Editor
6.6
The final application !Blanklev can be used to create your own group of
levels. Everything can be personalised using a comprehensive list of
tools. The user is taken through the process by the written tutorial.
For those who wish to create devious puzzles for their friends, the
process should not be too difficult.
6.6
Conclusions
6.6
Fervour has tremendous gameplay, 256 colour graphics that are speedy and
slick, user defined options, a well written wire-bound manual, full use
of the desktop and a comprehensive editor. What more could a game
contain? Well, if I were to be ultra-critical, I would have liked two
things: use of the full screen and a more interesting, though not
necessarily spectacular, ending when a level is completed. However,
Fervour is a game that contains that vital ingredient Ö the I-must-have-
one-more-go factor.ááA

6.6
DeskJet 500C Printer Drivers Revisited
6.6
Jochen Konietzko
6.6
Acornæs RISC-OS 3.10 comes with a printer driver for the HP Deskjet 500;
colour, however, is not supported. I therefore bought the three printer
drivers which, according to articles in Archive, might be suitable for
the 500C. These are: Risc Developmentsæ Colour Printer Driver and the
Ace ProDriver (earlier versions of both were described in Archive 5.7, p
15), and also ICSæs ColourSep, version 1.00, 01-Sep-92 (see Archive
5.12, p 34 and 6.1, pá17).
6.6
The Colour Printer Driver
6.6
Risc Developments send a disk without a printed manual; it contains a
RISC-OS 2 printer driver, PrinterDJ, and Acornæs Merge application so
that the existing RISC-OS 3 driver can be modified for colour.
6.6
Running Merge simply adds the options Écolour (small halftone)æ and
Écolour (dithered)æ to the driveræs Quality menu.
6.6
This enables the PrData file for the Deskjet C to be installed giving
the ability to print in 256 colours.
6.6
The ProDriver
6.6
Ace Computingsends its product in a CD sleeve. Inside is one disk and a
9-page instruction leaflet Ö short but so far I have found all the
information I needed.
6.6
The disk is jam-packed with software:
6.6
Öá!Printers, to replace the standard RISC-OS 3.10 printer driver (a
modified RISC-OS 3 driver, version 0.33, with the Ace of Spades on the
applicationæs icon and a different iconbar icon showing, I think, a
LaserJet),
6.6
ÖáAutoSpool, which triggers spooling via the printer queue,
6.6
ÖáPrintSeps, ver. 1.01 (more about this later),
6.6
ÖáPrData files for the DeskJet 500C, the PaintJet and the PaintJet
XL300,
6.6
Öáfive drawfiles for fine-tuning the printer driver,
6.6
Öásome example files for the Ace Projector.
6.6
!Printers offers all the options of the original and, in addition, six
colour qualities Ö Écolouræ and É24 bitæ(!), each in Ésmall halftoneæ,
Élarge halftoneæ and Éditheredæ).
6.6
The one big problem which the DeskJet 500C presents is the way it
produces shades of grey in pictures by mixing cyan, magenta and yellow.
This means that a colour like the desktopæs grey usually has a most
noticeable (brownish or greenish) tinge!
6.6
This is where PrintSeps springs into action. It gives you a degree of
control over colour handling. The most effective way of printing out
pictures which contain areas of grey or black is to print everything but
the black content using the three colour cartridge (PrintSeps does the
colour separation), then the black content (called Key) in a second go.
6.6
(It must be said, however, that the problem of obtaining decent grey
shades can be minimised even without colour separation simply by finding
the right paper; I have sent some printouts to Paul, and I think he will
agree that the difference between the various papers is bigger than that
between one-pass and two-pass printing on the best quality paper!) (Yes,
I can confirm that. Ed.)
6.6
Running a sheet of paper through the printer two or more times is no
real problem because the DeskJetæs registration is quite good. Even
colour photos work out very well. (Just make sure that the stack of
paper in the in-tray is pushed flat against the back wall; then align
the top sheet carefully with the rest of the paper before each go.
6.6
Print the black content last because it makes the paper particularly
soggy, so that, if you donæt wait long enough for it to dry, it can
stick to the sheet below, which ruins the registration.)
6.6
It is also possible to print out each colour individually, thus giving
full four colour separation. Prints can all be black, for a professional
typesetter, or in colour. In addition, you can choose Spot or No Spot,
which singles out one RGB shade for printing or not printing, and you
can define a Éspecialæ shade which will appear on each colour
separation, giving you cut or alignment marks.
6.6
There is not, unfortunately, an option to change the intensity of the
printed colours Ö yet. I have been told that Ace may produce an update
in three to four months time, after a current project has been
concluded.
6.6
ColourSep
6.6
Unlike PrintSeps, ColourSep from ICS does offer the option to change the
printeræs colours. In a way, ColourSep does not quite fit into this
article, as it is not a printer driver in its own right but, like
PrintSeps, it works as an add-on to an existing driver. This means that,
to print pictures in two passes on the DeskJet 500C, you will also need
a colour printer driver.
6.6
My first impression was rather less positive than Stuart Bellæs: ICS
were certainly correct, when they advised Archiveáreaders (Archive 5.12,
p37) to ignore Stuartæs description of handbook and disk Ö the program
now arrives in a transparent plastic breakfast bag which contains an ICS
catalogue and price list, one disk and a manual Ö of sorts! It is not in
colour and it is extremely sketchy.
6.6
To give just one example, ColourSep has an option ÉNormal Key
Substitutionæ but all the manual has to say about this is that it should
always be switched on for maximum quality, using as much black and as
little coloured ink as possible.
6.6
What I would like to know is: Why is it there? What circumstances would
make it advisable to switch it off? If there are no such circumstances,
why didnæt they eliminate this option?
6.6
All in all, the manual is quite inadequate for a powerful application
like ColourSep.
6.6
The disk, too, has become leaner Ö unlike Stuartæs version, it now
contains only one drawfile.
6.6
Luckily, operation from the iconbar icon is more or less self-
explanatory and the program does its job quite well. Stuart has given a
detailed description of the program in his articles; now there is an
added option to create a CMY separation for printers like the Deskjet
500 C; each colour of this separation can be manipulated in just the way
Stuart described for the single colour separations.
6.6
There is one comment I would like to make on Stuartæs articles: He moans
just a bit about the way in which you have to Ésuck it and seeæ. Well, I
asked an acquaintance of mine, who works as a professional printer for
an illustrated magazine, for his opinion. He laughed and asked simply
ÉJust why do you think I have had to have several years of training
before I could work in this job?æ, and then he mentioned some of the
many points which make colour printing far from trivial:
6.6
Öádifferent colour monitors often show the same colours quite
differently (anyone can see this effect in big TV shops which have a
whole wall full of TV sets all showing the same program),
6.6
Öáprinting uses subtractive colour mixing, cathode ray tubes use
additive mixing,
6.6
ÖáCMYK offers only a (relatively small) subset of all those colours
available in the RGB system Ö and the RGB colours in turn are just a
subset of all visible colours,
6.6
Ö and, and, and, ...
6.6
I think that, all things considered, ColourSep truly does a very
creditable job and, with a decent manual, it could become quite a superb
program. The only problem I have found is in producing complex 24-bit
graphics; sometimes there seems to be a slight hitch in the cooperation
between ColourSep and the ProDriver.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
If all you need is colour for an occasional highlight in a text, the low
price Beebug driver is probably quite sufficient.
6.6
If you want more colour options, and especially if you sometimes work
with a 24-bit graphics package (like Artworks, or even just like Draw!),
it has to be the ProDriver.
6.6
If you also want to have control over the way the colours appear on the
paper, ColourSep, together with one of the other programs, should prove
a good if rather expensive buy.
6.6
Of course, if you donæt have a colour printer yet, the very best
alternative probably is to wait a few more months until the four colour
DeskJet 550C has dropped sufficiently in price. (There are already two
drivers available for this new model.)
6.6
Prices
6.6
The Colour Printer Drivers are produced by Risc Developments Ltd at ú15
+ VAT.
6.6
ProDriver is produced by Ace Computing and it costs ú44 from Archive.
6.6
ColourSep is produced by ICS (Ian Copestake Software) and costs ú25 +
VAT.ááA

6.6
EasiWord 2
6.6
Robert Chrismas
6.6
EasiWord 2 is a word processor from Minerva. A version of EasiWord is
supplied with Family Solution and Learning Curve A3010 packages. The
review copy of EasiWord 2 (version 1.02mw) has some features, including
mailmerge, which are not present in the A3010 packages. EasiWord 2 is
available from Archive for ú64.
6.6
If EasiWord 2 had to be summed up in less than ten words, they might be
ÉLike First Word Plus but with RISC-OS printing.æ There is a bit more to
it than that, but users of First Word Plus will soon feel at home with
EasiWord.
6.6
People use word processors in different ways. Some just use one to write
letters and other simple documents. For more ambitious documents, they
may enter the text on a word processor first, but then use a DTP package
for the end product. Other people want a word processor which can
produce large, good looking documents on its own. EasiWord is aimed at
the first type of user.
6.6
Like First Word Plus, EasiWord uses the system font with bold, italic,
underline, superscript and subscript effects. Rulers can be inserted
anywhere in the document. Rulers have a left and right margin with left,
right and centred tabs. The print pitch can be set to condensed, elite,
pica or expanded. There are the usual editing and searching features and
there is also a 50,000 word spelling checker.
6.6
The manual
6.6
The manual is a 76 page A5 booklet. A rather solemn passage at the
start, advising the reader to read it carefully Éto avoid possible
confusionæ and a sentence with Ésectionedæ as the verb (ÉThis manual has
been sectioned for ease of use ...æ) rather put me off.
6.6
It is written in an earnest style and there are only 32 illustrations.
However, it covers all you need to know and, in any case, users familiar
with other word processors, and with RISC-OS, should not need to refer
to it often.
6.6
Editing
6.6
Unlike First Word Plus, text is reformatted as soon as you edit it or
alter a ruler. Fully justified text is shown correctly on screen.
6.6
The Acorn guidelines for editing say that programs should behave like
Edit, with a separate marked block and cursor. This advice has been
energetically criticised by Computer Concepts (for example in The
Archimedean Issue 3) and Impression uses a different editing system
which allows either a cursor or a marked block but not both. EasiWord
lets the user select either model, using the preferences menu option.
Neither option supports Editæs distinctive movement of the cursor when
you scroll the window.
6.6
Computer Concepts say of Impression öonce a region ... has been
selected, it is replaced by any subsequent text entry ... this is one of
the most useful editing features ...ò (Archimedean Issue 3). In the
EasiWord manual it says that ömany people find this disconcerting ...ò
Accordingly, an option on the EasiWord preferences allow this öuseful
editing featureò to be disabled.
6.6
This is the first program I have seen which allows the user to choose
the editing model. Teachers may find it hard to cope with different
copies of the program configured in different ways, but we seem able to
manage computers with different configurations. This is a very useful
feature Ö I think we will be seeing it in other programs.
6.6
Files
6.6
EasiWord reads and writes files in First Word Plus format. It can also
handle plain text files. Text files are saved in Éparagraphæ format with
carriage returns only where you have typed them. This makes transferring
files to DTP programs simpler.
6.6
Problems and limitation
6.6
I know that no-one is likely to want all the effects switched on at once
but when I tried it, EasiWord crashed. It does not happen every time but
I have managed to repeat the problem.
6.6
The ability to interface with the interactive help program is a good
feature but if you go through the menus to ÉEdit ruleræ, the interactive
help flickers between two different messages. It is a minor point but
this happens every time and it should have been corrected.
6.6
Open menus do not automatically disappear when you enter text. This is
another minor point but it is disconcerting until you get used to it.
6.6
The only way to centre a line of text seems to be to create a new ruler
with a centre tab in the middle. Of course, you could just use the space
bar and centre it by eye.
6.6
The headers and footers have left, centred and right aligned sections.
When they are printed, the length of the ruler is taken into account but
not the position of the left margin. The program seems to assume the
left margin is always set to the left edge of the page. If the left
margin has been moved in, the headers and footers are not aligned
properly with the text.
6.6
In any word processor, there will be a problem with headers and footers
if the document has more than one ruler. Which ruler is to control the
headers and footers? As far as I can see, the best solution is to give
headers and footers their own ruler.
6.6
When you printed with First Word Plus, there was an option ÉLeft margin
offsetæ and ÉAlternate left marginæ which allowed you to have different
left margins on alternate pages. This is useful if you want to put pages
back-to-back and need one wide margin for binding. You might do this
with rulers, but since each page would need a different ruler, it would
be tedious.
6.6
To be fair, the ÉLeft margin offsetæ does cause problems when people are
using First Word Plus. Many students set the left and right margins so
the document looks right on screen. Then when they print, the default
left margin offset pushes the whole lot eight more spaces to the right
and the print ends up on the right hand sprocket holes. They will not
have this problem with EasiWord.
6.6
I often wanted to have a section with an indented ruler, then to
continue with the same ruler I had before. It seems impossible to copy a
ruler, so I have to create a new ruler manually with the same settings I
used before.
6.6
EasiWord does not know anything about hyphens. It does not offer you a
chance to hyphenate words and it does not split words at hyphens.
6.6
You cannot have footnotes.
6.6
I think that a preference which selects 3D or 2D icons is not so much
user-friendly as user over-familiar.
6.6
Menus
6.6
There are three different menus for the document window. The Émainæ menu
appears if you click over the document. If you click <menu> over the
border on the left side of the document window, you get a menu which
determines whether page breaks or ruler scope are displayed. Clicking
over the ruler opens a menu which lets you create tabs or edit the
ruler. The last two menus are different but they both have the title
ÉRuleræ. I do not think this accords with Acornæs guidelines.
6.6
Mailmerge
6.6
There is a mailmerge facility built into EasiWord but it has fewer
features than the separate First Mail application which came with First
Word Plus. The most serious limitation is that data files for
mailmerging must be in Desktop Office, Multistore or Flexifile format. I
was not able to test mailmerging very thoroughly but the example files
worked. The example was a 1Kb letter with a 12Kb data file. Alarmed at
the quantity of paper this would use, I sent the output to a RAM disk.
Imagine my surprise when I found that the output was less than 4Kb, just
three letters. I am sure all the zeros in data files are important!
6.6
Printing
6.6
EasiWord uses the standard RISC-OS printer drivers. Since it uses the
text printing options, RISC-OS 2 users will need printer drivers version
2.44 (or later). The printer driver must be set up properly but this
should be no problem because the manual gives details of the right
setting.
6.6
Thanks to a well-designed page layout window, there is no need to
remember which is the Éheader marginæ and which is the Étop marginæ any
more.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
EasiWord 2 has a limited range of features but it is easy to use,
comparatively cheap and it does not use much memory. RISC-OS printing
and instant reformatting make this a better word processor for the
Family Solution and Learning Curve packages.
6.6
However, it does not give owners of First Word Plus many reasons for
spending over ú60 and, of course, there are now users who have no use
for what they will see as a Éno frillsæ word processor.ááA

6.6
Composite picture showing the different EasiWord menus which appear
6.6
when you click on the ruler, the document or the left margin.
6.6


6.6
Nebulus
6.6
Gareth Bellaby
6.6
Nebulus is a game from Krisalis with a somewhat unusual story line.
Someone has been building towers in the sea without planning permission,
and you must knock them down by climbing to the top of each of them.
6.6
Although the game comes in a large box, there is only a single disc and
a short two-page manual inside. The program is well behaved. It runs by
double-clicking on the program directory and it returns you to the
desktop leaving other programs intact when you finish playing. The game
is copy-protected and will not allow a backup to be made but it can be
installed on a hard drive and used without the need for the original
disc.
6.6
The game has elements of both platform and arcade games. The towers are
round and shown from the side. You start at the bottom of each tower
having arrived in your submarine. The towers are covered with various
ledges, tunnels and lifts and you have to find your way up a tower using
the lifts and the doorways through the middle of the tower. Some of the
ledges dissolve when you stand on them and some slippery ledges will
push you left or right. Furthermore, not all of the tunnels lead in a
helpful direction.
6.6
To make things difficult, each tower is also inhabited by a number of
different creatures. For example, there are bouncing balls which can be
destroyed by shooting snowballs at them. These balls will also start to
bounce down the tower once your get close to them. All other creatures
in the game are indestructible. However, as you move up the tower,
creatures lower down the tower are removed. On each tower there is also
a pesky robot which, every so often, sweeps around the tower near to
you.
6.6
One of the features of the game is that none of the creatures or traps
directly kill you, they merely knock you off your current ledge
hopefully onto the ledge below. Only if you fall into the sea do you
lose a life. When you enter the final door at the top of the tower, a
destruction sequence is set off. There is a time limit placed on getting
to the top of each tower. The game is fast paced but it can be paused.
6.6
Once a tower has been destroyed, you travel in your submarine to the
next one. During this time, you have to try to catch fish by shooting
air bubbles at them. Each fish caught gives a time bonus for the next
tower. To my great irritation, music plays during this intermediate
sequence and it is not possible to turn off the music without silencing
the game completely.
6.6
You start the game with three lives. Up to two extra lives are gained as
you score points. (The manual does not point out that there is any limit
on the number of extra lives gained.)
6.6
The manual is also lacking elsewhere. For instance, the keys used for
movement are not specified in the manual (ÉPæ for up/enter door, ÉLæ for
down, ÉZæ for move left, ÉXæ for move right and the space bar to fire.)
These keys can also be redefined. Whilst the process for redefining the
keys is simple, the new definition cannot be saved to disc and so, if
you want to use an alternate layout, this must be specified each time
that you reload the program.
6.6
The game cannot be saved. If you run out of lives, you have to begin the
game again from the start. This lack of a save function seems to be a
consequence of the copy protection, since the manual warns that any
attempt to write to the original disc will corrupt it. This also means
that the high score table is not saved between games.
6.6
The graphics are nothing spectacular and I found the colour scheme on
one of the towers painful to my eyes.
6.6
Nebulus is not an easy game and it has some interesting puzzles. If you
like a fast game which tests your reflexes then Nebulus may be for you.
However, for my taste, the game has too great a degree of luck and
relies too heavily on the manual dexterity and speed of the player. I am
afraid that I ultimately found the game to be more irritating than
enthralling. For instance, if you fail to carry out the correct sequence
of actions it can become impossible to make it up the tower.
6.6
If I were to compare it to Gods, another game just released by Krisalis,
I would rate Nebulus a very second best choice. The game is priced at
ú25.99 (ú24 from Archive).ááA

6.6
Naughty Stories
6.6
Joe Gallagher
6.6
A familiar sight in many infant classrooms is that of a group of
youngsters huddled around a tape recorder following a story with the aid
of an audio cassette. As well as promoting listening skills, it provides
an alternative to an adult sharing a book with an child. Of course,
there is no substitute for the real thing but sufficient adults are not
always to hand to provide this sort of experience. Taped stories do have
their drawbacks, especially for younger readers. The pace is dictated in
advance and they can lose their place easily if they miss the audio cue
which indicates when to turn the page. Also, there is no guarantee that
the child is following the text in the way that the teacher might wish.
6.6
Talking books
6.6
The concept of the computer as a talking book is an attempt to address
some of these problems. The idea is that the computer mimics the actions
of an adult reading with a young child by telling the story while
pointing to the text in question. Up until now, the only examples that I
have come across have been very americanised ones on the Apple Mac. The
six stories in the Naughty Stories suite from Sherston Software are the
first of the genre to reach the Archimedes.
6.6
They each come on a single disc accompanied by an instruction sheet and
the book of the story. The books are perhaps the weakest part of the
package. This is not altogether surprising as colour publishing is an
expensive process and at the asking price of ú9.95 per story, one
shouldnæt expect too much. Nevertheless, I did rather fear the worst
when I opened the package up. The books themselves were a bit flimsy by
todayæs standards and the titles sounded as if they were made up by a
ten year old who had just discovered alliteration: Doris the Dotty Dog
and Terryæs Tricky Trainers to name but two. While none of them are
potential candidates for the Kate Greenaway Prize, the stories come over
surprisingly well on the computer. My personal favourite is the highly
moral tale of Billy the Bothersome Bully Ö a nasty piece of work, if
there ever was one, who has a decidedly sinister but fetching laugh.
6.6
Ease of use
6.6
Sherston use a key disc approach to protection. This means that,
although you need the original disc when you start up the program, you
can remove this and use a copy throughout the rest of the session. This
does not apply to those establishments which have purchased a site
licence and the program does run much faster from a hard drive as each
page is loaded separately from disc.
6.6
When it starts up, you are offered the option of switching to mode 15.
It is obvious that considerable thought has gone into tailoring the
screen layout for young children. The programs use simple on-screen
buttons and are straightforward enough for most five year olds to
navigate their way through the story.
6.6
On each page there is an arrow to advance a page and one to go back a
page. To have the text read to you there is a button in the shape of an
ear and to see animation, or hear sound effects on a page, you just
click on the eye icon. Individual words can be sounded out merely by
clicking on them and thatæs about all there is to it. It is an
exceptionally easy to use program.
6.6
My only reservation was that each action required a fairly clear,
positive click. As a result, the first word of each page tended to sound
a bit slurred and it was fairly easy for very young fingers to become a
bit trigger happy when moving through the program so that whole pages
could whizz past unread. I should add that this only happened with the
youngest of my guinea pigs Ö one aged three and a half. The program can
be configured by the teacher (or parent) to turn off the option which
allows the whole page to be read. When you do this, the child is
encouraged to click on only those words that are unknown. Individual
words which are clicked on by the user, can be recorded in a logfile to
enable the adult to monitor the progress of the reader.
6.6
In use
6.6
The recorded speech comes over as a bit gravelly but is sufficiently
clear for its purpose and the scanned illustrations are bright and
attractive. The stories are quite short running to eight pages each and
are based around simple themes which appear to have been chosen mainly
for their potential in terms of animation and sound effects. Several
teachers, who had a chance to look at the software, were a bit doubtful
as to the content of the stories but all testified to the ease of use
and popularity of the programs amongst the children. Sherston are to be
congratulated on squeezing so much in terms of sound and animation on to
one floppy disc and producing a very capable program which will run on
even the minimum hardware set up. The programs deserve to sell well.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
I think it is possible to be over harsh as regards the literary quality
of the stories. However, if Sherston could secure, at reasonable cost,
licences to produce talking book versions of some of the more popular
early years story books, they could have a runaway success on their
hands. Inspection copies of the stories are available on approval for 28
days and are certainly worth a look.
6.6
Naughty Stories are available from Sherston Software Ltd at ú9.95 +VAT
per disc or ú49.75 for all six programs in the suite. (ú11 each or ú55
for all 6 through Archive.)ááA

6.6
Impact the Database
6.6
Dave Wilcox
6.6
Impact, the database, is a program released by Circle Software. The
first version of this program was seen in September 1992. Circle
Software appear to pay attention to customers wishes as the program has
been updated twice since the original release (ver. 1.05) and we now
have version 1.07 which, from the enclosed text file, is enhanced
considerably from the earlier versions. Registered users may upgrade
free of charge by returning their disc with return postage. This program
is priced at ú49.95 + VAT (ú58.69).
6.6
The package
6.6
The program comes on one disk containing the application, !System,
!Scrap and !SysMerge. The System directory contains nothing new, having
versions of CLib 3.75 and FPEmulator 2.80. The manual is a 50 page A5,
folded, stapled book. It is written in plain English with a lot of
snapshots of windows to demonstrate relevant points.
6.6
The software
6.6
Circle Software have approached circulation of this software in a novel
way. To use the program fully, your name and a valid security code must
be entered via the icon bar menu, by selecting the ÉRegisteræ option.
6.6
If you have a Épaid foræ retail copy, you may obtain your security code
by calling Circle Software and registering it.
6.6
If it is a free demo version, it may be converted to a fully working
version by calling Circle Software and quoting your credit card number
in payment of the full retail price. The instruction manual will be
forwarded by post.
6.6
Alternatively, you may write enclosing your credit card authorization,
cheque or postal order, etc, and the serial number of your copy. Your
security code and instructions will be sent by return of post.
6.6
Once the software is registered, there is no copy protection so you can
make yourself a working copy using the desktop backup facility. The
program can also be copied straight onto a hard drive. If you do install
it onto hard disc, it is possible to edit the !Run file to point to the
Directory/ies where you wish to store the data files. The default is to
store data files within the application in a directory ÉDataFilesæ.
Inside this directory is one example file of names and addresses.
6.6
Database creation
6.6
This has to be one of the most refreshing points of this program Ö it is
so simple. To start the program, double-click on the icon. This in the
normal RISC-OS fashion, installs the icon onto the iconbar, taking 160Kb
of memory. Pressing <menu> over the icon gives you several options
including create. Clicking on create will open two windows, one being
the default card, set out as graph paper, the other being a toolbox for
selection of field types, borders, boxes, etc.
6.6
From the toolbox you have a choice of six field types Ö Money, Date,
Number, Integer, Text or Flag. There are three other tools available Ö
Legend, Box and Database Name. Creation of the card layout is now a
matter of dragging the required boxes to the desired layout on the card.
The legend option is for tagging boxes to remind you which field is
which. It is an editable text field and is dragged in a similar manner
to the data fields. The layout can be fine-tuned by using the menu
options or by dragging box sides with <adjust>.
6.6
It is here that thought must be put into the layout and construction of
the card because, as with numerous other packages, once the card is
created, it is not possible to add or delete the fields, although it is
possible to rearrange the layout. If you find out later that you need a
new field, you will have to set up a new database and export data from
the old file into the new file.
6.6
Once you are satisfied with the layout, give the database a name in the
editable text field and click on ÉOKæ. The usual RISC-OS type save
window opens and if you click on ÉOKæ, the database is saved into the
default directory within the application. If you prefer, the icon can be
dragged to another directory as normal.
6.6
Viewing and editing files
6.6
Viewing or editing existing databases is also a simple matter. To gain
access to your databases, simply click on the iconbar icon. This opens
the edit window and, from here, it is an easy matter to use menus to
open databases, set indexes and filters, enter data and delete records
or a whole database. All selection options are carried out by the mouse.
6.6
At first, I thought that it might be nice to have the database files
execute by double-clicking on them as with Impression. However, having
worked with this package and having set the paths for the database
directories, I do not feel this is really necessary now Ö the chosen
method is adequate.
6.6
Index and filter options
6.6
As you would expect with a database application, you can sort your data
into an order or select certain entries from within it that fulfil your
chosen criteria. Let us first look at the filter option. A filter is
created from the iconbar icon and can be simple or compound in nature.
The filter requires a unique name and the database name with which to
work. This filter can be applied to any of the entry fields and can
perform tests of =, <>, >,<, range and partial match. The test data is
entered and an option for case match set as required.
6.6
The compound filter has a second filter field for combining simple
filters together and has test choices of And, Or, Nor, Xor and again has
case sensitive choice. This process can be continued to combine compound
filters with other filters to achieve even finer control over your data.
As with other options, the majority of choices are made from menus with
the mouse. This gives a reasonable control over selection of cards.
6.6
Once selected, these cards can then be indexed. Indexing is really
another term for sorting. These cards can then be sorted on any of the
fields and can incorporate one of the filter options if defined. This
resultant selection of cards is then viewed in this sorted order. A
simple mouse selection will take you back to viewing in numerical entry
order if so desired.
6.6
Exporting data
6.6
Data is exported using the export option from the iconbar. This data can
be selected using any filters or indexes you have, to select a special
set of cards. From these cards, you can then select which fields you
wish to incorporate into the export. Once these have been selected you
have options of tab or comma separation, quoted text fields, carriage
returns and line feeds. Once selected, there are two output styles, text
and CSV files. The usual save box is present and icons can be dragged to
other directories or applications if in-memory transfer is acceptable.
6.6
Importing data
6.6
Data can be imported into Impact from other applications which save data
in a CSV format and TSV format. Importing data is selected from the
iconbar icon again. This opens a window where you are asked to set the
separators used in the file to be imported, and to set whether quotes
are used around the text fields. The file is then dragged onto the
window and the file is read into the database.
6.6
Merging data
6.6
This application has the facility to use the Impulse II module from
Computer Concepts. Basically, documents can be created within Impression
and <merge> commands set to take date from the Impact database. There is
a handy view option available so that output can be checked prior to
printing. Data can also be output for use in the First Word Plus mail
merge application, however before using the resultant data file, it will
need to be set-typed to text.
6.6
Conclusion
6.6
This package is not aimed at the business user who would require reports
from his data, but at the small business, club, school or home user. It
is very friendly and easy to use and so is quick to learn. It cannot
store graphics data. One major omission, in my opinion, is in the
movement through the database. There is no option to move to the start
or end of the database or to jump to a specific card, be it by number
entry or slider entry. This would cause little problem on a small
database but could be infuriating on a larger one. Having said that,
this is a pleasing package to use. I hope Circle Software keep on
improving and expanding it.ááA

6.6
Rheingold Enterprises   17 Ingfield
Terrace, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield  HD7 5BJ. (0925Ö210657)
6.6
Risc Developments    117 Hatfield
Road, St Albans, Herts  AL1 4JS. (0727Ö840303) (0727Ö860263)
6.6
Safesell Exhibitions (p12)   Market
House, Cross Road, Tadworth, Surrey KT20 5SR.
6.6
Sherston Software    Swan Barton,
Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH. (0666Ö840433) (0666Ö840048)
6.6
Spacetech (p16)   21 West Wools, Portland, Dorset  DT5 2EA.
(0305Ö822753) (0305Ö860483)
6.6
State Machine    75 Upper Wellington Street, Luton, Bedfordshire  LU1
5AA. (0582Ö483377) (0582Ö480833)
6.6
Sword Software    58 The Square, Newtongrange, Midlothian  EH22 4QE.
(031Ö663Ö0888)
6.6
Taylor Lambert Advertising   Tanneræs
Court, Brockham, Surrey, RH3 7NH. (0737Ö844044)
6.6
Techsoft UK Ltd (p6)   Old School
Lane, Erryrs, Mold, Clwyd  CH7 4DA. (082Ö43318)
6.6
Topologika   P.O. Box 39, Stilton, Peterborough  PE7 3RL. (0733Ö244682)
6.6
W. C. Smith & Associates   40 Royal
Oak, Alnwick, Northumberland  NE66 2DA.  (0665Ö510682) (0665Ö510692)
6.6
Wild Vision   15 Witney Way, Boldon Colliery, Tyne & Wear NE35 9PE.
(091Ö519Ö1455) (091Ö519Ö1929)
6.6
Wyddfa Software   3 Preswylfa, Llanberis, Gwynedd  LL55 4LF.
(0286Ö870101) (0286Ö871722)
6.6
XOB (p21)   Balkeerie, Eassie by Forfar, Angus  DD8 1SR. (0307Ö84364)
6.6

6.6


6.6
Paul Beverley
6.6