Editors Corner
Aaron Timbrells own bit of the magazine.
Well here I am again, with another action packed edition of RISC World. This issue sees the last regular competition page, we simply aren't getting enough entries to justify it continuing. I have a fixed budget for RISC World, and I would rather spend the money on something else that has a wider appeal, so anyone have any suggestions? If there is something you want to see in RISC World then tell us and we will do our best to include it. For example we received a number of letters asking where the PowerBase series had gone, well as a result it's back, because you the readers want it.
We are also trying a new idea from this issue. APDL now have the rights to a number of book titles that have been unavailable for quite a few years. So we are going to serialise them in RISC World. This issue we are starting with "The Archimedes Game Writers Manual" by Terry Blunt. This will run for the next three issues. Let us know what you think of the idea.
At the time of writing the RISCOS Ltd. AGM is only two weeks away. What's going to happen? Well I don't know, but by the time you read this everyone will know, as the meeting is open to members of the public. Since it will be a public meeting I will try and write up a report for this issue. Let's just hope that not too much dirty linen gets washed in public.
One of the issues that has been raised by RISCOS Ltd. shareholders is that of the annual report. This has been available as a free download from the RISCOS Ltd. website. However the report has yet to be approved by shareholders, and a number of them, including myself, are not too happy with it. It should make for an interesting AGM.
Editors Rant of the month
There is only one thing worth ranting about this issue, whingers. MicroDigital have started doing their round the country roadshow, taking Omega prototypes out so potential customers can see the machine in the flesh. I attended the talk given by MicroDigital on the 11th of September to the London user groups. The last time I saw the machine was at the press day, and I have to say that I was very impressed. It was quite obvious that a lot more work had been done between the press day and the talk on the 11th. So what am I ranting about?
Well MicroDigital seem to be pulling out all the stops, both on the development and the public relations. So why have people been complaining on the newsgroups? Well it seems that when MicroDigital did a talk on the 7th of September in Scotland the floppy disc drive didn't work, tragedy! Why some people seem to think that MicroDigital can produce a new computer design that runs RISC OS but not write a simple floppy driver heaven knows. Worse still some others have been complaining that the PCI bus doesn't work. Well its been working fine on the machines I have seen. If the PCI bus didn't work then the machine wouldn't work at all as so much hangs off it, not least the hard disc drive. So why have people been complaining? Well most of those slagging the machine off haven't seen one, so they most be getting their information second hand. Is someone wandering around telling porkies about the Omega? Who on earth would do such a thing?
The RISC OS market has waited years for a new machine design, now on is on the horizon, and lots of us have seen it working. The Omega is coming and everyone ought to be delighted. It's the first completely new machine since Acorn days and will help revive a flagging market. It's faster than any previous RISC OS machine, around three times faster according to my tests. It has a graphics card with hardware acceleration and supports massive screen modes in full 24bit colour. This new computer must be good news for users. A sudden increase in the number of RISC OS machines should result in more software sales, and that would be good news for software developers. So why does there seem to be a concerted effort to rubbish the Omega? Someone must be worried, do you know who it is? I can guess, can you?
As a final note last issue I said the engine in my Lotus 7 replica had gone bang. Well its now fitted with a re-built 2nd hand 2 litre engine from a Ford Transit (no not a diesel). It only took 2 weeks to strip and re-build the engine, then a further week to fit it, along with a new radiator and steering rack. I figured I might as well change these as it's almost impossible to do with the engine in place. The result is that the car now reaches 60mph in a shade over six seconds and is excellent for scaring the hell out of passengers. The down side? Well with the extra power the body has started coming apart at the seams, so the body tub will need re-building before I can drive it, damn!
Printing RISC World
The new look of RISC World means that when you want to print an article on your printer it will have the light yellow background. However most web browsers allow you to turn off the background images when printing. The example below shows the print dialogue box from Fresco.
As you can see the option "No Background" is ticked. If you want to print out any of the RISC World pages then make sure you have clicked a similar option in your browser.
Aaron Timbrell