PD World
Paul Brett with the latest PD roundup.
This month we are going for a mixture of games (all of which were full commercial products in the dim and distant past) and some very useful utilities that no RISC OS user should be without.
Games
Labyrinth
A port of the old Acornsoft game of the same name by John Kortink. This was one of the great classics on the BBC B, and now you can play it on your modern RISC OS machine courtesy of the man who brought us Translater and much much more.
Super Methane Brothers
The classic Amiga game comes to RISC OS (and Windows as well if you want to go to the official Methane website). Another example of another title getting ported to RISC OS by enthusiasts, and a great game to boot!
Utilities
GIGO
GIGO stands for Garbage In Garbage Out, but lets let Rick Hudson tell you in his own words...
Oh no, not another trashcan application?! Well, yes. So Why'd I write it? I like the way the Fat German's Blackhole 2 works in general but I found it cause mysterious hangups on shutdown sometimes and it has all this other guff that I never use. The irony of the last point is that Gigo actually needs a bigger wimpslot than BlackHole despite having far fewer features. If that bothers you then by all means use BlackHole!
The main feature common to Gigo and Blackhole2 is the use of aging trash directories. ie when you bin things they are stored by date and automatically deleted when they've been in the bin for a configured number of days. The way many bins have a simple 'empty everything' method of operation seems a bit lame to me which is the main reason I like BlackHole2.
Gigo also keeps a record of bin operations which enable files to be 'unbinned' back to their original location. You can, of course, copy or move files directly from the bin directories using the filer but it's sometimes useful to know where the file came from originally.
Digital CD
The latest version of this popular music player for RISC OS. It can play almost any type of file you can throw at it including Sound Trackers and MP3 files. Digital CD requires RISC OS 3.1 or later. This new version works better with 8 bit sound (early RISC PC or older machines) and has a bug fixed in the main playlist saving option.
Float
Float is a floating interactive help application that is intended as a direct replacement for Help that comes with RISC OS. Instead of displaying the help messages in a fixed window, Float uses small panes that follow the mouse around. The application is Freeware meaning that you can freely use and copy it: please read the license contained in the Help file for more details. Float is RISC OS 4 compatible. All the display options are fully configurable, most from the Choices window and the rest by editing a text file. Full instructions are given in the Help file for doing this. It is possible to hide the help from window furniture as this can be irritating once the basics have been learnt. Float supports the full set of interactive help messages, including the expansions used by Help and window tool help.
Locate
Locate is a file search utility that allows objects to be found based on a flexible set of criteria. Filenames can include wildcards and matches can depend on file size, modification date or file type. The application is Freeware meaning that you can freely use and copy it: please read the license contained in the Help file for more details. Locate is RISC OS 4 compatible. Locate is currently under development and there are many features that the author wishes to add. He would welcome comments or suggestions from anyone who uses a copy, as this is the only way the application will get better.
Endpiece
Thats all we have time for this issue, if you have any PD, Freeware or Shareware applications you would like featured why not get in touch with the Editor. See you next issue.
Paul Brett