PD World

Paul Brett with the latest PD and freeware roundup.

There are some very interesting PD and Freeware applications in the pipe line at the moment. Perhaps the most interesting project going on at the moment is Peter Naulls Unix Porting Project This aims to bring a number of Unix programs to RISC OS. You can download and play with the programs for free, if you want technical support, help and input into which programs are ported then you pay a fee of £25 per 6 months. However lets now move on to the latest releases from other authors.

AWSwitch - Martin W�rthner

Normally, ArtWorks files are rendered using 16 levels of anti-aliasing. For most applications, in particular for on-screen viewing, this is quite adequate. However, for high-quality bitmap output, this is not optimal. This little utility allows you to switch between 16, 64 and 128 levels of anti-aliasing. Please note that using 64 or 128 levels of anti-aliasing as opposed to 16 slows down the rendering of ArtWorks files by about 10% - this is the price for the higher quality and this is also the reason why the standard number of anti-aliasing levels is still 16. The difference between 16 and 64 is quite noticeable when you magnify the output, but at normal screen resolution, it is difficult to see. Users may like to know that this program not only improves anti-aliasing in ArtWorks, but also works with DrawWorks.

Google Toolbar - Andrew Poole

The Google Toolbar for RISC OS is an attempt at making the Google Toolbar, which is an add on to Internet Explorer which allows the user to search the Internet from any Internet Explorer window without going to the Google website, available for the RISC OS platform. The Google Toolbar should run on any RISC OS 3 machine, but to get the most out of it, you will need an Internet connection on the RISC OS machine, and a web browser. Google has been tested with as many RISC OS web browsers as possible, but there are currently problems with Fresco. You will also need a copy of !JFShared installed on your machine. You can get this from Justin Fletcher's website.

NewAlarm - Harriet Bazley

NewAlarm is a replacement for the existing RISC OS !Alarm program. Unlike !Alarm NewAlarm tells the time in a more vague way, so instead of a totally accurate, but hard to read, digital display, you get "its roughly twenty past three". Although not a new program I only found it recently by accident, which is why it's featured in this issue.

PassWord - Sensible Software

Password enables pupils to take responsibility for learning their own spelling. They use the LOOK COVER WRITE CHECK process to learn how to spell words and print out results for their immediate use. Their password file is also kept on disc. This tracks their progress as more words are added to their vocabulary, as well as repeating words from previous sessions randomly until they can spell them perfectly three times in a row.

TempTEd - Sensible Software

TempTEd, was created to allow the easy modification of text strings in a template file in bulk. It was inspired by the possibility in ResEdit to export and import texts in the form of a Messages file. This program was expressly developed to facilitate translation of template files in another language, but users are free to explore other useful applications.

VICE (Versatile Commodore 8-bit Emulator) - Various

VICE is a set of applications design to emulate a wide variety of early 8 bit Commodore computers including the Vic 20 (my first colour computer - ED), the PET, the C64 and the C128. Of course you will need programs to run on these emulators but a quick hunt on the internet should turn up a great deal of freely available games/demos and applications.

That's it from me for this issue, as usual if you have any PD, Freeware or Shareware applications you would like featured why not get in touch with the Paul Brett