Archive Magazine 1995/ARCHIVE95.iso/text/products/volume_05/issue_01

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 18KB | 393 lines

Å   A5000, the New Archimedes Machine Ö At the Acorn User Show, Acorn will
be launching, and actually selling, the new ARM3 based Archimedes
computer, the A5000. It is such an exciting product that we have
dedicated a complete supplement to explaining all about it.
5.1
The basic facts are:
5.1
Å   25MHz ARM3 processor (giving 13 MIPs)
5.1
Å   Fast (12 MHz) 2M memory expandable to 4M
5.1
Å   Bundled with Acorn multisync monitor
5.1
Å   1.6M floppy capable for reading (intelligently) all the Acorn formats
and also the 720k and 1.44M PC formats
5.1
Å   40M internal IDE hard drive
5.1
Å   RISC-OS 3 operating system
5.1
Å   Unit starting price, including m/s monitor and hard drive ú1499 +VAT
(ú1761)
5.1
(No, thatæs not a misprint Ö it really is less than ú1800!) This looks
like a real winner especially when you take that price into account.
Well done Acorn! All they have to do now is produce lots of them Ö and
quickly!
5.1
Å   A5000 Learning Curve Ö For an extra ú38, you can buy an A5000 Learning
Curve (ú1799 inc VAT) which gives you PC Emulator (1.6), DR-DOS 5.0,
Genesis Plus, First Word Plus, Acorn DTP, Pacmania and Lemmings plus a
two-hour tutorial on two audio cassettes and a Home Computing magazine.
5.1
Å   A410/420/540/R260 price drops Ö The A440 has been discontinued but the
A410 and A420 are still available and their ex-VAT prices have been
dropped by ú200 to ú899 and ú1099 respectively (ú1049 and ú1284 inc
VAT). The A540 and the R260 Unix machine have each been dropped by ú500
to ú2495 and ú3495 respectively (ú2925 and ú4088 inc VAT).
5.1
(The A3000 price is unchanged at ú599 +VAT.)
5.1
Å   Acorn badged printer Ö Also to be launched at the A.U. Show is a JP150
inkjet printer with an Acorn badge. The cost is ú276 inc VAT when bought
with an A3000 or A5000.
5.1
Å   85M Removable drives Ö We are now stocking the new Syquest 88M
removable drives in Mac-type external cases. I have been trying one out
and they seem fine. They run at 900 kbytes/second (cf the 42M removables
at 580 k/sec). The formatted capacity is 84.7 Mbytes. The drives cost
ú690 and spare cartridges are ú140 each. (More details on page 21.)
5.1
Å   A310 memory upgrades Ö IFEL have improved the deal they are offering
us on their 4M ram upgrades so we can now do it for ú320 inclusive. It
is worth remembering that, as we say in our adverts, öprice isnæt
everythingò. In other words, you can buy memory upgrades at less than
ú320 even including fitting plus carrier collection and delivery but it
may not necessarily be a good buy. From our experience, plug-in type
upgrades which use the ROM sockets are generally OK, but if your
computer is one of those where problems do occur, the money saving may
well not be worth it in the long run. We believe that the soldered-in
variety are the best bet.
5.1
Also, you will see adverts claiming öMEMC1a not neededò. We do not think
this is a good idea. Again, from our experience, most computers probably
will get away without fitting the MEMC1a on these upgrades but some can
cause problems and the problems may only become obvious when some other
hardware is added to the computer. For example, we had an A310 returned
with a SCSI hard drive which, apparently, would not work properly. Our
engineer, Ray Maidstone, eventually discovered that, although there was
a problem with the SCSI drive, the whole thing was compounded by
interaction with the memory board. This had been fitted some time ago
and had worked properly even without a MEMC1a. However, with the
addition of the SCSI drive, the combination would not work properly
without a MEMC1a. Although neither the memory upgrade nor the SCSI
controller apparently needed a MEMC1a on its own, we found that the
combination most definitely did.
5.1
Beware, too, of cheap DIY upgrades. If they work, thatæs great, but we
have had more than one computer which Ray has had to spend quite a long
time on to find what was wrong. Often it was not due to bad soldering Ö
with many, it was a fault revealed by doing the upgrade. Whatever the
cause, it works out to be a very expensive way of getting a cheap
upgrade!
5.1
Å   Archimedes Disc Rescue Ö No longer should öBroken Directoryò or öBad
Free Space Mapò strike terror into your hearts, even if it is on the
root directory of your 100Mb SCSI hard drive! LOOKsystems have produced
their Archimedes Disc Rescue package which allows you to repair your
discs quickly and easily. The programs work with both hard drives and
floppy discs on most Archimedes filing systems such as ADFS, SCSI, IDE,
etc. The package includes three utilities, which will repair and recover
files, directories and disc maps by selecting the appropriate filing
system and drive number or by dragging the ailing file or directory onto
the icon bar. There is also a sophisticated disc editor, for more
confident users, allowing you to navigate around, edit and repair discs.
(It is even possible to edit some non-Archimedes formats such as DFS and
IBM.) The programs are accompanied by a manual that includes a disc
repair primer and an explanation of the Archimedesæ disc formats. It
costs ú35 inclusive of p&p (no VAT) from LOOKsystems.
5.1
Å   Bit-Mapped Fonts Ö Wyddfa Software has produced a family of four bit-
mapped fonts. Anwen medium, bold, italic and upright. They cost ú3 each
or ú9 for all four. These are not outline fonts and so you do not need
to have a copy Acornæs outline font manager. However, the printout is
not as good as with outline fonts.
5.1
Å   Capsoft Disc N║2 Ö A disc full of Draw files for just ú9 from Capsoft
(B J Thompson). It has a number of drawn fonts for poster and display
purposes and frame borders for DTP use. See page 53 for a review.
5.1
Å   Careware Disc 14 Ö consists of !FarBeyond which is Tetris with a
colourful twist, !PolySaw which is a desktop polymos, an interactive
hyper cube, the classic game of life, Mandelbrot generator, caret
blinker module, !CheckTemp which displays info on WIMP template files,
an HP Deskjet 500 setup utility, an Epson FX printer emulator, a Basic
program compressor, a word wrapped printer utility for text files, a
Lempel-Zev-Welch compression utility and some easy FNs to produce Draw
files from Basic.
5.1
Å   Christmas Allsorts is a collection of Christmas oriented Draw files
from Sherston Software. The price is ú16.95 +VAT.
5.1
Å   Clip Art / Line Art Ö Some new discs of clip art are available this
month from G.A. Herdman and Southern Printers. Contact them for details.
5.1
Å   Compression Ö Computer Concepts are releasing a new utility which uses
Lempel-Zev-Welch (LZW) compression to load and save files in compressed
format öfive to ten times as fast as other utilities such as !Sparkò.
This should not be confused with the LZW utility on the Careware 14 disc
(see above) which is only a set of SWI calls for use within a program
environment. It is a full desktop filing system so it operates with all
RISC-OS applications directly. This costs ú49 +VAT or ú53 through
Archive. This means that for just ú53, you can effectively double the
capacity of your hard disc Ö which has to be good value for money even
with the falling drive prices mentioned below.
5.1
(We have just got hold of a copy and it looks as if loading and saving
times are never more than 50% more than uncompressed filing and file
size savings can be as much as 80% on sprites, 70% on Drawfiles and even
text files go down by 50%. Programs, however, are not compressed at all
and the utility doesnæt even bother to try. One disadvantage is that it
takes up about 200k of RAM which may not be too helpful for those with
only 1Mbyte! A de-compressor is also provided which can be freely
distributed, so you can send compressed files to other people and they
will be able to un-compress them.)
5.1
Å   Enter the Realm Ö The 4th Dimension has extended its games list to
include Enter the Realm which is due to be released at the Acorn User
Show. This is an arcade style game with 6 layer full parallax scrolling,
sampled sound & speech, 16 colour graphics with 256 colour screens to
set the scene. It has a story line that runs throughout the game, you
have various weapons, pickups, monsters, interactive characters to
interrogate, buildings to enter, scoreboard etc. The price is ú24.95 or
ú23 through Archive.
5.1
Å   FaxScan Ö SpaceTechæs Faxscan which turns an Amstrad FX9600T or
FX9600AT fax into an Archimedes scanner is now available through Archive
(see Archive 4.12 p3). The interface on its own is ú110. Please check
that your fax has a label underneath saying öFX2ò. If it says öFX1ò you
have a very early model and will need a different version of the
interface Ö but it still costs ú110. The complete package of FX9600AT +
interface + printer cable is ú570. Remember that what you get for is a
plain paper fax that will also send faxes straight from the computer
without having to print them out, a plain paper copier, an Epson
compatible printer, an answering machine, a telephone and a 200 dpi
scanner with sheet-feeder!
5.1
Å    Fireball II Extra Ö The popular Archimedes öBreakoutò type game,
Fireball II has now been re-released with a few extra features including
an editor but with 180 öfiendishly difficultò screens to complete. The
price is down from ú24.95 to ú14.95 from Cambridge International
Software or ú14 through Archive.
5.1
Å   First Impression Ö At last, there is some help with Impression (as
well as Archive magazine)! Stephen Ibbs, a lecturer at Bilston Community
College, has produced öFirst Impressionò Ö a tutorial package for
Impression II. It consists of 250 pages in a ring binder looking
remarkable similar to the Impression ring binder and contains 13
tutorial chapters and 11 appendix chapters plus a couple of floppy discs
with example documents and templates. First Impression contains
reminders, hints & tips and self-assessment tasks. The cost is ú29.95
from Stephenæs company, öWord Processingò or ú28 through Archive. Both
include p&p.
5.1
If you want even more help, Stephen is offering a distance learning
package from Bilston College which is intended for those who cannot
attend normal college classes and wish to study at home. The course will
be ú35 (plus the cost of the tutorial guide) and is suitable for all
ages.
5.1
More details of First Impression are given in the review on page 17.
5.1
Å   Fun & Games Ö HS Software has provided us with three games in one,
under the title öFun & Gamesò. It is aimed at helping 5 to 9 year olds
on National Curriculum Maths and English. öCoconutsò helps children with
sequencing and devising and repeating patterns. In öBurger Boyò, you
have to help make up orders for a fast food take-away. This covers a
range of skills including reading, matching, sequencing, auditory and
visual memory and addition to 10 and beyond. Finally there is öTidyò in
which you help Emma and her pet parrot to tidy her bedroom. This again
helps with a range of skills. Fun & Games costs ú19.95 from HS Software
or ú18 through Archive.
5.1
Å   Guitar Chord & Piano Keyboard outline fonts Ö Dalmation Publications
have produced two specialist outline fonts at ú5.50 each (ú10 for both).
ÉGuitaræ makes it easy to produce chord windows for a range of stringed
instruments and ÉPianoæ provides a chord box creator for keyboards in
general.
5.1
Å   Hi-Fi Sound Upgrade Module Ö Ray Maidstone has produced a plug-in unit
with flying leads to connect to an external amplifier. It bypasses the
high-pass filter circuit and so gives a much clearer sound than the
straight output. The unit is user-fittable and comes with full instruc
tions. The price is ú24.80 from Ray Maidstone or ú23 through Archive.
5.1
Å   Karaoke Performer Ö EMR are launching a karaoke system that will work
with any cassette player and any Archimedes computer. Each set consists
of 6 professional backing tracks on audio cassette for just ú10 + ú1.50
p&p +VAT. The text of the song scrolls in various ways on the screen in
sync with the audio. The control program also allows a separate graphics
program or video controller to be used to make original backgrounds
during the performance. A free graphics animation is provided with each
set. Over 90 sets are already available from 50æs to 80æs hits and
featured artists. EMR also sell a Karaoke unit with echo microphone,
mixer and amplifier + speaker system to compliment the Karaoke Performer
costing ú69 inc VAT.
5.1
Å   Laser Direct HiRes4 Ö Computer Concepts are now producing a 600 dpi
laser printer for öunder ú1000ò (plus VAT). They are using the very
popular Canon LBP4 and combining it with their Laser Direct interface
for just ú999 +VAT (ú1,100 through Archive). All the comments we have
made about this combination in earlier issues apply but the price has
now dropped, thanks to Computer Concepts, from ú1,255 to ú1,100. HiRes4
has an Epson emulation (128 grey-level printing), Econet & Nexus network
options, PC (and other) compatibility via the serial & parallel
interfaces and a 1-year on-site maintenance is included. This will help
to keep Archimedes DTP as the most affordable and effective DTP system
available on any computer system (especially when combined with the new
A5000!)
5.1
Just think about it..... A5000 + Impression + HiRes4 gives you 600 dpi
DTP for just ú1760 + ú180 + ú1100 = ú3040 (= ú2587 ex VAT). Remembering
that the A5000 has ARM3 and 40M drive, you have a very powerful system.
The only thing you might want to add is another 2M ram.
5.1
For a professional flatbed 300 dpi scanner (see below), add ú990 + ú200
for a SCSI interface or buy a SCSI drive and use the interface.
5.1
Surely, thatæs an unbeatable system! Will someone with contacts in the
outside world (well, outside Acorn) please tell them about this system?
5.1
Å   Pandoraæs Box Ö Another of 4th Dimensionæs games to be released at the
Acorn User Show is Pandoraæs Box which combines classic puzzles and
arcade action. It uses isometric 3D graphics. The game play is basically
that the beast has escaped from Pandoraæs box and has to be captured and
returned from whence he came before he does untold damage to mankind.
The price is ú24.95 or ú23 through Archive.
5.1
Å   Penguin lovers should go to the Colton Software stand (59) at the
Acorn User Show. Donæt ask me why. Rob Macmillan says itæs serious!
5.1
Å   Scanlight Professional Ö A flatbed scanner offering 300 dpi 256
greyscale scanning. It uses the SCSI interface (which many people are
already using for hard drives), white-light scanning for accurate grey-
level scans and enhanced Scanlight software which includes scan selected
region, full grey-map control of brightness and contrast, instant image
rotate by any angle, sampling options to reduce Moire patterns, image
enhance options such as blurring, sharpening, etc. The price is just
ú899 +VAT or ú990 through Archive.
5.1
Å   Scanlight special offer Ö For a limited time, we are offering
Scanlight Seniors (both A3000 and A300/400) for ú380 instead of ú434
(CCæs full price is ú468.82). This is only while stocks last. Also, we
still have some of the Scanlight Juniors (mono) at ú189 (cf CCæs price
of ú220.07).
5.1
Å   SCSI drives prices down Ö The drives we introduced last month are
selling well and weæve managed to reduce the prices. We have also now
extended the range to include internal drives. When they are supplied to
us, they come with metalwork and cables suitable for the Apple Macin
tosh. However, the prices are so good that it is worthwhile buying new
metalwork to make them fit properly into the Archimedes. Part of the
pricing table we included last month is repeated so that you can see the
improvements in pricing. Also, Oak Solutions have changed their pricing.
Some of their drives have also decreased in price. (20M drives are no
longer available through N.C.S.)
5.1
EXTERNAL drives WITH poduleááááá
5.1
   WW   HS   Frog   AW
5.1
45M   500      520
5.1
50M      560      620
5.1
65M         550
5.1
80M   565
5.1
100M   695   760   620   790
5.1
200M   1060   1180   870
5.1
300M      2100   1290
5.1
640M      2850   1690
5.1
1000M         2290
5.1
If you look at the prices without podule, i.e. for those of you looking
for a second SCSI drive, the differences in price are more marked....
5.1
EXTERNAL drives WITHOUT poduleá
5.1
   WW   HS   Frog   AW
5.1
45M   400      320
5.1
50M      460      420
5.1
65M         350
5.1
80M   465
5.1
100M   595   660   420   590
5.1
200M   960   1080   670
5.1
300M      2000   1090
5.1
640M      2750   1490
5.1
1000M         2090
5.1
INTERNAL drives WITH poduleááá
5.1
   WW   HS   Frog   AW
5.1
45M   405      490
5.1
50M      470      535
5.1
65M         520
5.1
80M   450
5.1
100M   570   660   590   700
5.1
200M   995   1090   840
5.1
Again, the prices without podule, show a more marked difference....
5.1
INTERNAL drives WITHOUT poduleááá
5.1
   WW   HS   Frog   AW
5.1
45M   305      290
5.1
50M      370      335
5.1
65M         320
5.1
80M   350
5.1
100M   470   560   390   500
5.1
200M   895   990   640
5.1
Å   Stop Watch Ö G.A.Herdman has produced a twin timer stop watch working
in the desktop. It has a large display suitable for class viewing using
either Porterhouse fonts from Applications Disc 1 or the outline font,
Trinity for better effect. It also has a lap-timer and will give a count
down with audible warning. It displays hours, minutes and seconds to
0.01s and 100 hours. ú19.99 + ú1.50 p&p from G.A. Herdman.
5.1
Å   Three new games are due to be released by Krisalis at the Acorn User
Show: Lemmings which, in other computer formats, won a öGame of the
Yearò award, Chuck Rock which according to the advert in Acorn User,
includes öparolex scrollò (Sorry, I couldnæt resist that Ö but even my
spellingæs not purfect!) and Manchester United Europe which takes that
club into European knockout competitions with both management decisions
to make and arcade action matches to play. Each game is ú25.99 or ú23
through Archive.
5.1
Å   Turbo Type is a typing tutor from Cambridge International Software
Ltd. It features an on-screen keyboard during all exercises, digitised
sounds, large text option, exercise editor, metronome for improved
typing rhythm and has four levels of exercises: beginners who can
practise subsets or the complete keyboard, intermediate for typing easy
sentences, advanced for difficult sentences and short paragraphs and
numeric for those wanting to practice the numeric keypad. TurboType is
ú24.95 from Cambridge International or ú23 through Archive.