Archive Magazine 1995/ARCHIVE95.iso/text/products/volume_01/issue_06

Text File | 1995-02-21 | 8KB | 133 lines

Å  CCD Computer Services are offering three new pieces of Archimedes
software: A graphics library for Fortran (ú49.50), a text editor for
compiled languages with full screen editing, an editing command language
and access to the operating system, handling 5,000 lines of text
(ú19.50), and a printer buffer module (ú12.50).
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Å Font Designer Ö an editor for BBC fonts on the Archimedes. (N.B. 8 x 8
characters, not fancy fonts) For ú8.95, APL Software send you an editor,
manual and 15 sample fonts including scientific symbols. Weæve got a
review copy and it looks quite good Ö you can invert, flip, rotate,
shift, angle, copy etc Ö all mouse-driven.
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Å  Archimedes Logo is here! Logotron have released their full Archimedes
version of Logo (i.e. it does not run under the 6502 emulator). It is
claimed to be over 10 times faster than BBC Logo, will use all Archi
medes graphics modes plus a 1024 x 960 pixel graphics resolution mode.
It gives program control over error handling so that the level of help
offered by error messages can be adjusted to suit studentsæ needs, it
supports the FPU and has a multiple screen turtle control mode. For ú60
you get reference manual, tutorial manual and example files. (Note that
extension modules written in 6502 code will NOT be compatible. Logotron
say that various Archimedes extension modules will appear during 1988.)
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Å  4096 colour screen dump for Integrex 132 colour ink jet printer.
Musbury Consultants (!) have produced a screen dump which will cope with
the full 4096 colours that Archimedes can generate. A full screen takes
about 4 minutes to dump and the results are quite impressive from the
samples they sent us Ö even the aspect ratio is correct Ö circles are
circular! The full price is ú30 but they are prepared to offer a
discount through Archive magazine, so if you send your orders in to us,
you only need send ú25.
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Å  Maths Movies╔ Manchester Polytechnic has made some computer Émoviesæ
to help students appreciate the subtleties of things like fourier
transforms. The transforms of moving two-dimensional shapes are
calculated and re-played as slowly or as quickly as you like Ö up to 5
frames a second. Each disc, costing ú10, consists of two movies, each of
21 frames, of specific moving objects, e.g. growing squares, rotating
bars and grid patterns. The programs need a 1M machine and each disc
comes with a text file explaining the theory of the transform and
special points to note with the particular movies. For a full list of
movie discs, write to Dr J Slater, Dept. of Maths & Physics, John Dalton
Building, Manchester Polytechnic, Manchester.
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Å  Although not specifically for Archimedes, those of you with an
Archimedes and perhaps a BBC and who are rich enough to own TWO
printers(!) will like to know about a öCross Switchò by Data Switches
available from Datastore in Bromley. It has a single switch which swops
over the two printers between the two computers. It costs ú66.95, but
presumably you would also need to buy two Centronics-Centronics cables
to link to each of the printers.
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Å  Graphics Library. Micro Studio are launching a three disk set of
colour graphics pictures for inclusion in programs or for use with
Artisan or GraphicWriter. This first set of disks (ú21.95) should be
available by the time you read this and others will become available
through the year. The sample disc they sent had some very good animal
pictures and a few others that were very clever but a number of the
others were what I would call Éidiosyncraticæ, amongst which I would
include the head of a gentleman with a black beard and horns against a
red background! (To be fair, there was also a picture of Jesus, breaking
bread!)
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Å  Database Management System Ö Flying Start II (öRecords, Files, Lists
and Labels in an Instantò) is now available from Mitre Software to work
on the Archimedes (using the PC emulator). Price ú69.95.
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Å  öDesktop Gamesò is the title of the first offering from Gem Elec
tronics who specialise solely in Archimedes and aim to produce öquality
software at sensible pricesò. For just ú5.95 inclusive, you get
Mastermind, Sliding Block Puzzles and Solitaire as add-ons to your
desktop. All three have different levels of difficulty and you can use
your own pictures (created with Artisan, Paint etc) with SBP.
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Even if you donæt really want the games,  it might be worth the ú5.95 to
get the other utility that comes with it which enables you to enter *-
commands from within the desktop!
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Å  CJE Micros have a disc interface for an external 5.25ö drive Ö ú30,
quite neat, says one reader, has link settings so that you can swop the
internal and external drive identities, i.e. make the 5.25ò drive into
drive 0 Ö very useful with the PC emulator for running protected
software.
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Å  Ace Computing are about to launch ÉEuclidæ, their 3-D graphics
animation system. (End of March, hopefully.) The idea is to provide ARM
code routines which a relatively inexperienced programmer could access
from within BASIC. Objects can be built up from a library of simple
geometric shapes. Re-drawing, from the sample weæve seen, is extremely
fast (written in ARM code) so that you could get smooth animation of
simple shapes, zooming in and out and rotating around, even without
using shadow screens. It will come with a basic library of shapes and
users are encouraged to share the shapes they generate with other Euclid
users. Details from Tony Cheal at ACE Computing.
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Å  Computer Concepts ROM Podule We havenæt actually got any ROMs to put
in it yet, but what we are getting excited about is the RAM filing
system which allows you to do all sorts of useful things.
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The RAM filing system is like the ADFS in many ways though obviously you
cannot use  *DRIVE, *FORMAT, *TITLE, *VERIFY, etc) Ö you can, however,
have directories, you can *COPY things and you can put your favourite
utility programs in it. Itæs great!
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To copy between the ADFS and RFS, for example, you might say:
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*COPY ADFS:$.file  RFS:$.file
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For me, the best facility is being able to have all my own special
little programs in the RFS so that they are always available Ö as if
they were in the LIBRARY directory on the current disc except that they
are always available even when you change discs. To set it up you have
to set the Éfilepath aliasæ so that the Archimedes looks in the RFS as
well as the ADFS library for files. You might think that you would
therefore have to set this up every time you switch on the machine Ö
perhaps by using a disc with a special boot file. Not a bit of it!
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You can set the Archimedes to boot up in the RFS by altering the
configuration. The RFS boot program can then set up the filepath alias
(and other aliases that you use regularly or function key definitions)
and then return to the ADFS and continue as though nothing had happened.
That way you can have your RFS library and your own aliases permanently
installed as if they were part of the operating system. So even when you
do a <ctrl-break>, say after *configuring something, it restores all
your aliases and function key definitions!
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The ROM podule with battery-backup is ú63 to Archive members and the 32k
ram chips are ú9.50 each (128k chips are not currently available.) The
podules are becoming available, but demand is far out-stripping supply,
so all dealers are being strickly rationed. If you want one, send in
your order and weæll hold onto your cheque until we can supply them.
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