Archive Magazine 1995/ARCHIVE95.iso/text/products/volume_07/issue_07

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 20KB | 354 lines

Å  A5000 with larger drives Ö The 4Mb A5000 now has a 210Mb drive
instead of a 160Mb drive and the price has not changed Ö still ú1699 inc
VAT.
7.7
Å  Acorn Access Ö The plug-and-go Ethernet system from Acorn, was
described in Archive last month. The prices have now been finalised.
There are three versions: AEH70 for A5000 and older computers that take
standard size podule, AEH71 which is plug-in version for A3020/4000
(i.e. it does not take up the podule slot) and AEH 72 for the A3000
which is an internal mini-podule. They are all the same price Ö ú145
+VAT or ú162 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Acorn Level 4 Fileserver Ö The price of the new version has now been
set at ú399 +VAT or ú430 through Archive. The upgrade from earlier
versions is available from Acorn Direct in Wellingborough for ú99 +VAT
if you send the original disc.
7.7
Å  Advantage is a new spreadsheet for education from Longman Logotron.
It aims to provide, at a budget price, all the key features to perform
straight forward calculations, data analysis and basic charting. Its
range of öintuitive and easy-to-use functions include: advanced point
and click user interface with button chart, formulae produced by typing
= and then clicking and dragging cells as required, print-to-fit
allowing the sheet to be fitted automatically onto the appropriate page
size, display of data as pie, area, column, line and scatter charts.
Advantage costs ú49 +VAT for single user (ú55 through Archive) or ú120
and ú190 for primary and secondary site licences (ú132 and ú207 through
Archive).
7.7
Å  ArcFax 1.10 Ö A new version of ArcFax (original version reviewed in
Archive 6.5 p65) is now (just about) available. Extra features include:
two dimensional data compression (i.e. sends faxes faster); Twain
compliant which allows material to be scanned in directly; supports
class 8 voice modems which allows the computer to act as an answering
machine and a fax switch; it can merge faxes, hold and release, auto-
print, auto-forward faxes; it has log file window, direct send/receive
with call option, caller ID support, call-barring, debug display, auto-
send after time and one call multi-fax capability. ArcFax 1.10 costs ú35
from David Pilling or ú33 through Archive. (David admits that 1.10 is
still not 100% robust, so you may still wish to buy the 1.09 version
which costs on ú22 through Archive and upgrade later through David for
ú12 plus your original disc Ö this includes a new manual.)
7.7
We have at last got round to sorting out a suitable fax modem to sell
through Archive and are stocking (and using!) the World Port 14,400 (see
page 6) so you can now buy a complete system with modem, software and
cable, knowing that they will all work together! Ed.
7.7
Å  Augusta Course Ö A new course is now available for Virtual Golf. 4th
Dimension have released Augusta in which öball flight and performance
are accurately compensated to simulate local atmospheric conditions.ò
This costs ú16.95 from 4th Dimension or ú16 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Bitfolio Graphics Ö LOOKSystems have renegotiated their licence on
Bitfolio Graphics (see the review on page 7) and have reduced the price
from ú30 to ú20 inclusive through Archive. The conclusion to the review
is that they are övery good valueò and that was when the reviewer
thought that the price was ú30!
7.7
Å  BCPL compiler Ö The ARM Club have the source code of a BCPL compiler
that was released into the public domain about 6 months or so ago. This
disc costs ú1 from the ARM Club.
7.7
Å  Canon printer prices down Ö Canon have reduced the prices of their
three mono inkjets. The new Archive prices, with (and without)
TurboDriver, are: BJ10SX ú255 (ú215), BJ200 ú320 (ú280), BJ230 ú390
(ú350). The BJ10SX is the replacement for the BJ10EX. It is faster in
text mode but basically the same as the EX.
7.7
Å  CardShop Ö This is a design application produced by Clares Micro
Supplies and is aimed at younger children. It allows them to design
greetings cards for Christmas, birthday, Easter, Motheræs Day, etc. You
can create and manipulate your card containing both pictures and text,
print out and construct an envelope including a row of Éstampsæ.
CardShop doesnæt generate a single finished product but a series of
items that require cutting out / assembly and possibly colouring Ö this
is to give the children a wider range of associated activities. It comes
complete with a range of images, sprites and borders for you to use.
CardShop costs ú24.95 inclusive from Clares or ú23 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Coloured toner for LBP4/8 Ö We have had requests for colour toner
cartridges for laser printers. We looked into it and although Canon say
they donæt recommend the use of colour toners in mono printers (even
though they do in photocopiers Ö draw your own conclusions!) there is
one supplier in the States who does them. They are not cheap and the UK
importer admits that the colours are limited in range and not wonderful
in quality! All the coloured toner cartridges are ú120 each instead of
around ú80 for black. For the LBP4, the only colour is brown but it is
apparently a good strong colour but for the LBP8 there is Green, Blue,
Red and Brown (of these, the red is said to be the least effective).
Weæll put them on the Archive Membersæ Price List but if we get no
interest this month, we will take them off again. (If anybody does try
them, perhaps they would write and tell us how good they are. Thanks.
Ed.)
7.7
Å  David Pilling software Ö Several items produced by David Pilling are
no longer available and have been removed from the Archive price list.
Also, all the programs that were ú6 have gone up to ú10. Even so, we
still feel that they are very good value for money.
7.7
Å  Design Processor from Oak Solutions is an öintegrated design
environmentò aimed at Key Stages 3 and 4 for öIT Design & Makingò. It
has three distinct levels of entry. The first is a suite of CAD-type
packages and related applications, the second is a Design & Technology
database to inform pupils about components and processes and the third
is a database concept which includes not only components and design
elements but also complete projects. Design Processor currently covers
areas including Food, Electronics, Environments and Packaging but the
cost of a site licence for Design Processor, ú900 +VAT, includes three
yearsæ worth of updates to the system. Payments can be made by
instalments Ö details from Oak Solutions.
7.7
Å  EdScheme Ö Lambda Publications have had to end their offer of a free
copy of the EdScheme software with each copy of the Schemeræs Guide Ö it
was too much of a bargain! However, they are prepared to offer a free
book with each copy of the software. Send them a cheque for ú45 with the
order and your Archive subscription number. This represents a saving of
ú17.50.
7.7
Å  Eizo monitors Ö A new 17ö Eizo monitor, the F552, has appeared as a
replacement for the F550iW. Although it is virtually the same price
(ú1080 through Archive) and has the same display quality, it has several
advantages over the older monitor. On-screen display is used to simplify
the adjustments by providing a menu-driven display complete with help
function. In standby mode, it has a lower power consumption than the
F550. It has a MoirΘ pattern control to reduce the interaction between
the computeræs dot pattern and the monitoræs dot pattern. Finally, it
uses intelligent switching between inputs. This means that you can have
two computers connected to the monitor at the same time and whichever is
providing a signal gets displayed. Eizo also say that it has been
designed for even better reliability than the F550. (I would say thatæs
a bold claim as I have never known an F550 to go wrong! Ed.)
7.7
Å  Ergo Keyboards Ö The special offer we had last month of Ergo
keyboards at ú105 instead of ú120 is continuing for another month
because the volume of orders for them is so high. When the volume of
orders drops, they will have to go back to ú120. The feedback we have
had about them so far has echoed Brian Cowanæs comments last month (page
49). One point to note about these keyboards is that, unlike standard
Acorn keyboards, the Ergos work properly on the A4 portable computers.
7.7
Also, Castle have produced an A3000 adaptor (ú40 +VAT from Castle
Technology) which allows the standard Ergo keyboards to be connected to
the A3000 via the mouse connector. It includes a small circuit board
that has to be fitted inside the A3000 but it needs no soldering.
7.7
Finally, Castle are also now able to supply foreign keyboards for 13
different countries Ö details from Castle Technology.
7.7
Å  Fortran 77 Ö Intelligent Interfaces are now able to distribute
Acornæs !SrcEdit with the Fortran compiler. This means that the
throwback facility will now be available to all purchasers of the
compiler. The Fortran77 compiler costs ú99 +VAT from Intelligent
Interfaces or ú110 through Archive and the desktop front-end,
!Fortran77, costs ú25 +VAT or ú28 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Genesis Project + Genesis Professional Ö These new versions of
Genesis are now available (well they should be, by the time you get this
magazine) from Oak Solutions. Both have been developed to take full
advantage of the colour cards now available and the önewly announced
VIDC chipò. They are based on a 24-bit colour model and can represent
over 16 million colours. Both can deal with a range of data types
including Artworks files, Replay films and even .BMP files from the
Windows environment. There are various other new features which Paul
Hooper will deal with in his column but one of the most important is the
increase in loading speed Ö öup to ten times fasterò.
7.7
Genesis Project costs ú50 +VAT (ú55 through Archive) and Genesis
Professional costs ú120 +VAT (ú132 through Archive). There are upgrades
available through Oak Solutions: Genesis/Genesis Plus to Project ú35
+VAT, Genesis/Genesis Plus to Professional ú90 +VAT and Genesis II to
Professional ú60 +VAT.
7.7
Å  I/O card Ö Intelligent Interfaces have produced a 16-bit I/O card for
the Archimedes. It provides two separate 16-bit input/output ports, each
port being programmable as either input or output, and each with two
handshake lines. More details are given in the review on page 71. The
16-bit I/O card costs ú200 +p&p +VAT from Intelligent Interfaces or ú230
through Archive.
7.7
Å  KernPlus is PTW Softwareæs kerning data editor. It allows you to
generate RISCáOS 3 fonts by providing an automatic algorithm for quick
conversion of old RISCáOS 2 fonts as well as a manual facility for
editing the kerning data. The price is ú15 which includes VAT, site
licence and free upgrades to new versions of the software.
7.7
Å  Landscapes is a PhotoBase CD from Longman Logotron with more than
2000 high quality colour photographic images illustrating aspects of the
natural and man-made environment. The images cover topics including
architecture, economic activity, infrastructure, geography and nature.
Landscapes costs ú49 +VAT or ú54 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Larger Ö This is a pinboard program with lots of extra features
beyond the one supplied with RISCáOS 3. It has a virtual desktop (hence
the name, Larger, I presume) to give you more desktop space, backdrop
organisation and enhanced iconisation controls. It costs ú10 inclusive
from Warm Silence Software and comes with unlimited free upgrades (on
receipt of a disc and SAE each time). Larger will work on a floppy-disc
system but is really intended for use with a hard disc.
7.7
Å  PC card software upgrade Ö Acorn have released PC Card software with
enhancements that now make it easier to run DOS or Windows software
simultaneously with RISC OS. Existing owners of Acorn PC cards and
A4000/PC card systems can obtain the enhanced software free of charge by
returning the original Acorn PC card software disc, and Windows driver
where supplied, along with their name and address in an envelope clearly
marked ÉPC card upgradeæ to: Customer Services, Acorn Computers Ltd,
Acorn House, Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge CB4 4AE.
7.7
Å  PinPoint 2 Ö This new version of Longman Logotronæs well-established
database program now has two new question types, one for holding
pictures or sound data and a calculated field type which allows
questions to be defined which fill themselves in from other information
entered elsewhere on your form. The import of information is öfaster,
easier and more flexibleò. For example, it can import a CSV file and
create a form for you automatically. PinPoint 2 has dispensed with the
graphics analysis workbench Ö instead, all the statistical and graphing
options work directly from the table view. There are more chart types,
together with crosstab analysis and more powerful statistical analysis
tools. Pinpoint 2 costs ú99 +VAT from Longman or ú108 through Archive
for a single user or ú400 +VAT (ú435 through Archive) for a site
licence.
7.7
Å  PinPoint Datafiles Ö Longman Logotron have a series of datafiles for
use in education. They are: Solar System (KS 3/4), Food Glorious Food
(KS 2/3), Junior Olympics (KS 2/3), 1851 Census (KS 3/4), Dinosaurs (KS
2/3), Animal Kingdom (KS 2/3), Second World War (KS 3/4), Kartei
(German) (KS 3/4). Each is ú12 +VAT from Longman Logotron.
7.7
Å  Plot Ö Clares have released what they describe as öthe most flexible
data manipulation and presentation package yetò. It provides a range of
facilities from simple pie and bar charts to illuminated surface plots
and will plot functions as well. For the advanced user, it can do linear
regression, least squares and curve fitting plus calculus operations öat
the click of a mouseò. Features include: scatter graphs, spherical
graphs, cylindrical graphs, surface plots, ternary diagrams; Cartesian,
parametric, polar, Lissajous, 3D Cartesian, cylindrical, spherical and
surface functions; graphs can be merged and intercepts calculated to
solve simultaneous equations; SID file import. Plot costs ú79.95
inclusive from Clares or ú74 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Plotter is a graphic plotting application for the Pocket Book. It
plots mathematical functions such as Cartesian and polar functions,
inequality graphs and coordinate pairs. It can be used in conjunction
with Calc, providing a specialist graphical calculator. It comes on SSD
and costs ú29.95 +VAT or ú34 through Archive. A class pack of 11 copies
costs ú299.50 +VAT or ú335 through Archive.
7.7
Å  Removable drive prices cut (again) Ö The prices of the 105Mb 3╜ö and
the 45Mb 5╝ò removable drives have dropped quite substantially this
month. The A5000 105M SCSI is down to ú390, with the IDE version at
ú360. The external SCSI 105Mb drives are now ú470.
7.7
(I know this is tempting fate, but since I started using the 105Mb
removables in October Ö thatæs five months using them all day, every day
Ö I havenæt had a single data error! Ed)
7.7
The 45Mb (external) drives are down to ú370 and the cartridges to ú70.
7.7
(As a matter of interest, when we first sold the 45Mb removables in
October 1990, they were ú680 Ö and the previous month, one company was
selling them at ú749 +VAT = ú880! Ed.)
7.7
Å  Spooler Ö Clares Micros have produced a desktop print spooler which
allows you to print to disc so that you can continue working as the
printing is done in the background. It will even allow you to start
doing other work while the print-to-disc part of the operation is in
progress. You can queue documents ready for printing and change the
number of copies quite easily. Spooler costs ú15 inc VAT from Clares or
ú14 through Archive. There is a site licence available for ú30 inc VAT
(ú28 through Archive).
7.7
Å  SPOT image data Ö Spacetech are making data available from the SPOT
land-mapping satellite at very low prices Ö to educational
establishments only Ö in the form of a CD-ROM containing 50 images. Some
scenes are full-size (60km square) and down to 10 metre resolution while
others are sub-scenes selected for geographical interest and relevance
to the Geography syllabus. Because some of the images are very large
(50Mb+), SpaceTech have written an application called PDSmap to simplify
the extraction of full-resolution image data or to view the whole image
at reduced resolution. PDSmap costs ú19.50 +VAT and the CD-ROM is
ú139.50 +VAT to education only, i.e. only for non-commercial use. There
are various package prices available from SpaceTech for this and other
data on CD-ROM Ö write to them for full details.
7.7
We asked last month for a replacement for the now discontinued Morley
Teletext adaptor and here it is...
7.7
Å  Teletext expansion card Ö Design IT have just produced TeleView
Hardware, the first Teletext expansion card designed specifically for
the Archimedes. The software provided is a fully RISCáOS compliant
application called !TeleCFax which allows you to select channels, hold
pages or reveal hidden text, etc. Pages can be saved as sprites, BBC
mode 7 screens or as Écleanæ ASCII text where any graphics have been
filtered out. It is also possible to create script files to
automatically download pages and you can even set the computeræs time
via Teletext. !TeleCFax will also correctly display pages received in
foreign languages including German, French and Swedish.
7.7
There are two variants of the card. The first will receive teletext only
and costs ú145 +VAT (or ú165 inclusive through Archive). The second is
ú159 +VAT (or ú180 through Archive) and provides connections for
composite video and sound suitable for Éwalkmanæ headphones. This allows
you to listen to the TV, use a digitiser to grab live images or use the
computer to record TV programmes to a video recorder that will not
normally receive TV signals.
7.7
The TeleView hardware is a half-width card suitable for use in the A310,
A4xx and A5000 computers. A version for the A3000 is also available
although at the time of writing the versions for the A3010, A3020 and
A4000 series are not yet ready. The system is fully compatible with both
RISCáOSá2 and RISCáOSá3. A version of the TeleCFax software for use with
Morley Electronics adapters is also available for ú25 +VAT (ú28 through
Archive).
7.7
Teletext serving for Econet, AUN and Access networks will be available
öin a couple of monthsò.
7.7
Å  WordSquare Ö This program from David Pilling allows word squares to
be solved and generated at random or from a given list of words. It is
supplied with a 200,000 word dictionary. Multiple/user defined
dictionaries can be added and dictionaries can be edited or browsed and
words added. The dictionaries are compatible with Ovation. You can save
the word square as a drawfile and the words as text. WordSquare costs
ú10 inc VAT through Archive.
7.7
Å  World Port 14,400 fax/data modem Ö We are now stocking a fax/data
modem that can provide a öone-stop shopò way into getting fax facilities
on your Archimedes. The WorldPort 14,400 fax/data modem is actually a
pocket-sized modem so you could operate it from batteries and use it
with an A4 Portable but it comes with a mains power pack so you donæt
have to worry about batteries running out in the middle of a long fax!
The modem is compatible with V22 bis, V23, V32, V32 bis, V54, Bell 103,
Bell 212A, MNP and the fax facility is compatible with TIA/EIA-578
(Class 1 Asynchronous), V17, V29, V27 ter and V21. To the average end-
user (like Ed!) this just means that it sends and receives faxes (using
ArcFax ú22 or ArcFax 1.20 ú33 Ö see above) and you can log on to various
bulletin boards at up to 14,400 and down to 1200/75 (V23) with
appropriate software. (I use ArcComm but Hearsay or ArcTerm are equally
suitable.) The complete modem pack costs ú270 through Archive and this
includes two 9V alkaline batteries, fax software and modem software for
using it on an MS-DOS PC and an AT compatible cable. The AT cable is no
good for the Archimedes and the plugs are sealed so you would have
difficulty modifying it. An Archimedes lead costs ú13 through Archive.
7.7
(To be honest, the reason we got going on fax modems is that I have
moved my office upstairs at 96a and was getting very fed up with running
up and down stairs to send faxes so I picked this modem on the basis of
price and features and have been extremely pleased with it. The system
with ArcFax works beautifully in that I send a fax and if the number is
engaged, ArcFax tries again later while I get on with my work Ö it all
happens in the background. Ed.)
7.7