Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 65KB | 76 lines
MPARTICLE
~fg>fg>
>fg>~g?
I-x#)&^x
p(8;#y
|(<Pa
DB`>>
Q_d_%B
Ymb.X
Du$?v
Du$?v
<p>>@%jB
INFO#Title : Inside Info Technical
Animations.
Author : Michael Warren-
Leighton.
Country : United Kingdom.
Source : See text.
Conditions : Freeware.
Category : Education.
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1.
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES.
A600 wb 2.05 : YES.$Multi-tasks : NO - Autoboots only.
Display : PAL.& This series of animations gives&some insight into various types of&engines. While the detail shown varies&from quite simple to moderately&complex the draftsmanship and&animation used can't be faulted. It's
just superb throughout.& The presentation of the animations&has developed quite a bit from the&rather simple Four-Stroke and Steam&Engine to the more detailed Jet&Engines and the Stirling Engine. The&Stirling animation uses numbers on the&engine parts with their descriptions&in a list on the screen which to my&mind is the most elegant method of&explanation. As this appears to be the&most up to date of the animations&reviewed it is hopefully the style&that will be adopted with any future
ones.& While the presentation and&attention to detail shown in these&disks is remarkable for PD software I&wish there was more information&describing what you were looking at.&As they stand they would be of some&help to a teacher explaining the&workings of the engines. For anyone&with only these animations to go on&and who knew nothing of how engines&worked they would need to do quite a&bit of reading to figure out what was&going on. While some may think that's&a good idea I feel a few pages of text&giving the principles behind the way&the engines work would have enhanced&the usefulness of the disks quite a
bit.& You can't help but admire the work&that's gone into these animations&though. I know there's a Two-Stroke&Animation also available so lets hope&there's some more to come as well.&Usefulness aside, they sure do look
pretty.& The address given for those wishing&to contact Michael Warren-Leighton is&7 Lea Vale, Crayford, Kent, DA1 4DL,
United Kingdom.
Turn page for the engines.
INFO Title : Four-stroke Petrol
Engine.
Released : 1992.
Opinion : ***& This, along with the steam engine&disk, must have been one of the first&ones made in the series. It's nicely&animated with the names of the&compression cycle described as it&runs. The speed can be controlled with&the function keys and it has a top&speed of about 100 rpm on a standard&Amiga. Doesn't look much like the&Corona's motor but at least the speed
seems about right.
INFO Title : Steam Engine V2.0.%Released : 1992, Sound added 1993.
Opinion : **
& This is the most simple of the&animations reviewed here. In fact it&seems a little too simple as there's&no fire, water or steam shown at all.&I assume the steam comes in the pipe&at the top but this should have been&better explained. It's the only one&reviewed here with sound though there&is an earlier version without it.&Speed once again is controlled by the
function keys.
INFO"Title : Gas Turbine Engines.
Released : 1992
Opinion : ***
& This disk describes two Gas Turbine&Engines or, to you and me, Jet&Engines. Each is presented twice with&labels shown in one of the animations&but not in the other. There's no speed&control over the animation but this&would serve no useful purpose anyway.&The ones described are the Rolls-Royce&Derwent V, which was apparently an&early turbojet engine and the Rolls-&Royce RB.211, a modern turbofan engine&which is the one I'm going to get for
the Corona.& The use of two animations is a&rather clumsy way just to show or not&to show the labels but this problem&has been solved nicely with the&Stirling Engine. The inclusion of the&labels however makes this a much&better disk than the petrol or steam
engine ones.
Title : Stirling Engine.
Released : 1993
Opinion : ****& This is the most well presented of&the four disks reviewed here. Two&animations are used to explain the&Stirling engine. One is a cross-§ion of it as with the other&engines and there's also a schematic&one describing the engine's four phase&cycle. While not particularly exciting&it does add to the understanding of
the machine.& The other animation however is&rather exciting and probably deserves&an R18 classification when running. If&viewed as a machine though instead of&as some engineer's mad fantasy it has&to be the most detailed of the&animations reviewed here. As mentioned&before, the use of numbers to describe&the parts is a much simpler way to do&it than by using two animations as%with the jet engines. Very nice work.
(.txt)