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Archive Magazine 1995
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1995-02-16
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Å A5000æs back in stock Ö The stock situation on A5000æs seems to change
weekly. Anyway, as I write (2/1/92) we have both A5000 Learning Curves
and straight A5000æs without Learning Curves in stock. No, sorry, not
the A5000 1FD (1M no hard drive version). We have some on order but we
gather that Acorn are not releasing any for the foreseeable future. As
far as we know, Acorn are only supplying them to VARs (Value Added
Resellers), i.e. companies who buy them and add their own software and
hardware etc which they then sell as a complete system.
5.4
We can help you in customising by (a) offering alternative monitors
e.g. we supply an Eizo 9060S for ú200 above the price including the
Acorn multi-sync (b) offering a second additional internal 100M IDE
drive for ú380 (having tested that it is compatible with the Acorn IDE
interface Ö see comments on page 12) and (c) offering ú100 in part
exchange on a Conner 40M IDE drive (i.e. replace the 40M with 100M for
ú280) but this offer is at our discretion as we donæt want to end up
with lots of 40M IDEæs we canæt get rid of. Also, we can offer (subject
to availability) a second additional internal 40M IDE drive for ú120
(the extra is to account for extra cabling and labour) but I wonæt put
this on the Price List Ö itæs complicated enough already. If you are
interested, give us a ring. So, based on a Learning Curve pack, here are
the combined prices...
5.4
2Máá 4Máá 8Máá
5.4
A5000 (40M) ú1799 ú1929
ú2399
5.4
A5000 (40M + 40M) ú1919 ú2049
ú2519
5.4
A5000 (100M) ú2079 ú2209
ú2679
5.4
A5000 (40M + 100M) ú2179
ú2309 ú2779
5.4
then add ú200 if you want an Eizo 9060S instead of an Acorn m/s or ú270
if you would prefer a Taxan 795 or ú460 for an Eizo 9070 (16ö) or ú910
if you want an Eizo T560i 17ò Trinitron (see below for details).
5.4
Å A5000 Technical reference manuals Ö Acorn have produced a technical
reference manual for the A5000 which consists of about 40 pages of text
plus 9 A1-size drawings including assembly diagrams, circuit diagrams
and component layouts. The price is ú65 from Acorn or ú62 through
Archive. (They are in stock now.)
5.4
Å Atomwide 200M SCSI drives Ö The 200M Pro Quantum drive mechanisms that
Oak Solutions use in their High Speed drives are now available from
Atomwide in their own boxes. I am using one on my A540 and it is
noticeably faster than the 100M Conner in the A540 itself. (1350 kbytes/
sec cf 790 k/sec) The prices, through Archive, are ú705 for an internal
drive and ú795 for an external. (These prices are without podule.)
5.4
Å Careware and Shareware Four new discs of PD software are available
this month:
5.4
Careware 15 is Éreligiousæ clip art: dove, lion, lamb, fish, sheep,
spring lamb, whale, holly, Santa, snowman, snowflakes, tree, 14
different crosses, handshake, open hands, praying hands, anchor, bible,
censor, crown of thorns, handbell, pulpit, scroll, baptism, boy praying,
person kneeling, nun, bishop, singers, robed figure, Bede, Coverdale,
Tyndale, Wycliffe, church yard, lighthouse, Westminster, helmet, inri
scroll, signpost.
5.4
Careware 16 has clip art images from ILEA designed to promote öpositive
imagesò of people of different races, gender, ages and disabilities.
5.4
Shareware 42 has twilight, sun and moon rise/set calculator, gravity
simulator, various blank sheets for personal organiser, clipart
(includes typewriter plus sprites of car, crash, masks, town crier,
tanks, policeman, poundsign, scissors, scouts symbol, world map),
desktop Pacman game, draughts, Escape from Exeria, Guardians of the
Labyrinth, various desktop patterns, wall paper designer(?), address
label database, desktop backdrop, öapproximateò clock, current directory
set utility.
5.4
Shareware 43 is a DBK raytracer with demo files. (Membersæ prices are ú6
for Careware and ú3 for Shareware.)
5.4
Å ChartWell is a sophisticated graph and chart package from Risc
Developments. It provides horizontal and vertical bar charts, line
graphs, pie charts, scatter diagrams and polar plots. ú29.95 from Risc
Developments Ltd. (Although it has the same address as Beebug Ltd, they
ask us to make clear that this is a separate company.)
5.4
Å Cumana SCSI interfaces Ö Cumana have now released three SCSI inter
faces: 16 bit internal for A310/400/5000, 16 bit external for A3000 and
8 bit internal for A3000. The prices are ú151, ú161 and ú130 respec
tively (+VAT). One major plus of these interfaces is that they include
CDFS so you wonæt need to pay for an upgrade to the software if you buy
a CD-ROM system. (We have one of each for evaluation, so we hope to
check whether, for instance, they will work with Computer Conceptsæ
ScanLight Professional. A report will, hopefully, appear next month.)
5.4
Å Eizo T560i monitor Ö If you want a really top-notch 17ö monitor for
the Archimedes, this is it! Itæs a Trinitron tube with 0.26mm dot pitch
which, on a 17ò monitor is very fine and it has the advantage of the
flat Trinitron tube. However, the best part about it is that it is
(extremely) intelligent. It is microprocessor controlled so what you do
is to teach it any new mode you want to use. With a push button control,
you can adjust brightness, H size, V size, H position, V position, side
pin (to cut out pincushion distortion), trapezoidal (again alters the
shape of the screen), H static convergence and V static convergence.
Then having adjusted each of those parameters for that particular screen
mode, it remembers them so that when the same signal appears again, the
monitor says, öAh, I know that modeò and displays it exactly as you had
adjusted it. Then you can switch to another mode you use commonly and
adjust that to get optimum use of the screen.
5.4
The price? Oh, yes, the price... öonlyò ú1240 inc VAT and carriage! Is
it worth it? Well, Iæm using one at the moment and it is certainly very
impressive but for me personally, the extra ú450 over the Eizo 9070
would be difficult to justify. This is partly because I use the same
mode 99.9% of the time, so having to re-adjust the screen when going
from mode to mode doesnæt worry me. Also, the T560i, like the Taxan 875,
canæt quite cope with mode 102 (1152╫448) and so you have to use mode
106 (1088╫448) i.e. 6% fewer dots across the screen. Still, if you
change modes a lot and especially if you want to use the same monitor on
different types of computer and want the extra resolution then the T560i
is for you.
5.4
(Iæve got one of the new Microvitec 20ö autoscan (microprocessor-
controlled) monitors on order, so Iæll let you know how I get on with
that Ö the Archive price is likely to be ú1590.)
5.4
Å Flight Sim Toolkit Ö Simis Ltd have released a flight simulator editor
for just ú44.95 inc VAT or ú42 through Archive. It allows you to produce
your own flight simulations by using a ground editor, a 3D shape editor
for objects like trucks, planes, etc, an aircraft model editor which
controls the planeæs flying characteristics and, finally, a cockpit
editor.
5.4
Å Freddy Teddy is back Ö Topologika have released a third in the Freddy
Teddy series for infants. This time Freddy Teddy is in The Playground.
The Playground is ú29.95 +VAT, which includes a free site licence, or
ú32 through Archive.
5.4
Å Hard Disc Companion II Ö Risc Developmentsæ update of their hard disc
backup program is now available for ú45 +VAT. It is faster than the
original and has many new features including backup to hard drive as an
alternative to floppies, backup certain filetypes only or ignore certain
filetypes. It can also be used for backing up networks. (Their adver
tisements claim that it is öthe best selling hard disc backup programò
but I doubt whether, at ú45+VAT, they could possibly have sold as many
as Shareware 36 which, at ú3, has a hard disc backup as one of its many
programs and utilities.)
5.4
Å Hearsay II Ö Beebugæs new comms package is now fully multi-tasking.
ú75+VAT from Beebug or ú82 through Archive. See the review on page 34
for more details.
5.4
Å Morley prices drop Ö The Morley SCSI disc drives have dropped in price
and the 40M drives have been replaced by 50M. The new prices are given
on the price list but are summarised here in comparison with various
other drives. Atomwide (AW) and Frog drives come without podule and so
can be paired with Oak, Morley uncached (Mu/c) or Morley cached (Mc)
podules. The figures in italic are high speed drives.
5.4
EXTERNAL drives (with podule)
5.4
WW HS Frog Frog Frog AW
AW AW Mrly Mrly
5.4
Oak Mu/c Mc Oak
Mu/c Mc Mu/c Mc
5.4
45M 500 520 460 510
5.4
50M 560
620 560 610 435 485
5.4
65M 550 490 540
5.4
80M 565
5.4
100M 695 760 620 560 610
790 730 780 570 620
5.4
200M 1060 1180 870 810
860 995 935 985
5.4
300M 2100 1290 1230
1280
5.4
640M 2850 1690 1630
1680
5.4
1000M 2290 2230 2280
5.4
5.5
5.4
INTERNAL drives (with podule)
5.4
WW HS Frog Frog Frog AW
AW AW Mrly Mrly
5.4
Oak Mu/c Mc Oak
Mu/c Mc Mu/c Mc
5.4
45M 405 490 430 480
5.4
50M 470
535 475 525 360 410
5.4
65M 520 460 510
5.4
80M 450
5.4
100M 570 660 590 530 580
700 640 690 570 620
5.4
200M 995 1090 840 780
830 905 845 895
5.4
Å Prophet Ö Apricote Studioæs combined Stock Control, Invoicing and
Accounts program is called öProphetò. (Iæm sure there is a good reason
for the name though it escapes me at the moment unless it relates to the
biblical quote, öand behold, he shall make a great prophetò!) The price
is ú169.95 from Apricote or ú157 through Archive. If you already have
either Account Book or Invoice Program, you can get the full package for
ú69.95 from Apricote and if you have both, it will cost you just ú39.95.
5.4
Å ScanLight prices drop Ö With the coming of the ScanLight Professional,
Computer Concepts have dropped the price of the A4 Scanlight to ú399
+VAT with sheetfeeder and ú299 without. (Archive prices are ú435 and
ú325 respectively.) They have also dropped the Price of ScanLight Junior
(not the 256 version) to ú129 +VAT or ú140 through Archive. There is
also an upgrade to the software which offers improved grey-map control
using a bezier curve along with simpler brightness and contrast
controls. It now also includes image enhancement functions such as
sharpening. CC claim that ScanLight is the only scanner software that
offers realtime greyscale dithering of images to produce near photo
graphic on-screen representations. This software upgrade will be
available to all existing ScanLight owners free of charge.
5.4
N.B. ScanLight Professional only works reliably with certain SCSI
controller boards Ö Acorn, Morley and Lingenuity. In some cases, it
works OK with the Oak SCSI board and CC are actively trying to get it so
that it works consistently with Oak boards. However, they are NOT
working on any others because they are not Acorn compatible. It does NOT
work with the TechnoSCSI board. ScanLight Professional is available
through Archive at ú970 inc VAT or ú1070 with a SCSI podule.
5.4
Å ScreenTurtle Ö Topologikaæs latest release is a öfriendlyò turtle
graphics program called ScreenTurtle. It uses a parser so that if it
doesnæt know the command you type in, it guesses! It has on-screen
interactive help and it Éticksæ commands that it likes. As well as the
standard Logo features, it has absolute directions, öBEARINGò and
öHEADINGò, as well as positive and negative Cartesian co-ordinates. To
extend turtle graphics into the realm of art, there is a turtle
generated colour FILL as well as a mouse controlled PAINT. The price is
ú39.95 +VAT from Topologika or ú43 through Archive.
5.4
Å Software from Germany Ö There is a thriving Archimedes software
industry in Germany. One example of this is Klein Computers from
Ruesselsheim, near Frankfurt. They have developed five items of
Archimedes software: MouseRecorder (ú25) for creation of demos, BestForm
(ú49) which is a formula-editor for DTP, 2D/3D FunctionPlotter (ú20)
which includes Drawfile output, G-Draft (ú49) a CAD package and HD-
Backup (ú10) which includes other disc utilities. All these prices
exclude VAT which, presumably, would be charged by customs on entry to
UK, though small items are often ignored, I think. Klein computers would
prefer a Eurocheque written in DM (but who, in the UK, uses Eurocheques?
even in 1992!). (A demo of BestForm appears on the monthly program
disc.)
5.4
Å TinyLogo/TinyDraw is now available from Topologika in a new version
(at the same price of ú29.95 +VAT or ú32 through Archive) which includes
adjustable shapes, colours preserved on export, undo, error checking, 3
pencil thicknesses etc. An upgrade for existing users is available for
ú5 +VAT (+ ú1.50 p&p) if you send back your old disc plus proof of
purchase to Topologika (not to Archive).
5.4
Å !Transfer is a new utility which will allow you to transfer text from
any icon in any RISC-OS application to any other. This has many
applications Ö for example, you could grab a name and address from a
database and drag it straight into a wordprocessor. !Transfer is just
ú8.95 from Apricote Studios or ú8 through Archive.
5.4
Å Typestudio is Risc Developments new text effects package which allows
you to draw and edit text, save in Draw or internal formats, print using
RISC-OS drivers and add or remove effects. These effects include
moulding to shapes, flowing along lines, shadowing, slanting, 3D and
mirroring. All this for just ú45 +VAT.
5.4