In the early 1990’s, William Tunstall-Pedoe released the first version of his anagram package, SuperGram which; quite simply; created anagrams out of textual phrases input into it. The anagrams which can be created are only useful so far - for instance, if an anagrams package doesn’t have a built-in thesaurus then the words created will mean nothing!
The latest version of SuperGram, Anagram Genius, has a 30,000 word thesaurus meaning that all sorts of words and word sequences can be created. Even better it runs perfectly on the StrongARM and on RISC OS 4. By putting my name in, for instance, 333 sequences were created; each with a score as to how appropriate they are to the situation. Anagram Genius will also use swear words; but there’s now an additional application (!Features) which allows you to turn off the Satire/Flattery/Normal, and Vulgar words options.
This makes Anagram Genius suitable for use in any given situation, given the flexibility, and as such I’d recommend Anagram Genius for use in any situation where you have to come up with Anagrams. Be it for creating a competition for a school newspaper ... through to answering the quizzes given in the Sunday Times!
Product details
Product:
Anagram Geniu
Supplier:
4th Dimension/ CJE Micro
Price:
£20 (add £2 for overseas postage
Address:
78 Brighton Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2E
Tel:
01903 21336
Fax:
01903 52367
WWW:
E-mail:
sales@cje.co.u
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/ARMCODE/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, ARM code for Beginners
ARM code for Beginners
Part 1: The ARM Processor
Brain Pickard explains how anyone can program in ARM code.
Introduction
In these articles I hope to unravel the mystery of machine code programming on ARM RISC Computer
which run RISC OS. The examples I will give will run on all versions of RISC OS and on ALL ARM chips. The ARM code assembler built into BASIC will be used since this is available to all users. I am assuming the reader has no prior knowledge and therefore I apologise to anyone if I seem to state the obvious from time to time. By the end of the series I hope you will be able to produce useful routines which can compliment your BASIC programming.
The Structure of a Computer
At its simplest the structure of a computer can be represented as shown below.
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) obtains data from the input, then modifies the data and sends it to the output. The memory is used for storing the program and any data required for later. The CPU uses two sets of wires to do the above. These are know as the address bus and the data bus. The CPU uses the address bus to send addresses of locations to allow data to be sent to or retrieved from that location. The location could be a part of RAM or input/output devices mapped to that location. Hence the CPU can get data from keyboards, or send data to the video chips etc as well as read or write to RAM
The data bus is used to transfer the actual data to and/or from the required address. In the ARM the data bus is 32 bits wide hence there are 32 wires so the ARM chip is said to be a 32 bit chip.
ARM better than Pentium?
It still seems amazing to me that all a computer does is add numbers. Even when running Desktop Publishers or Computer Aided Design Programs in a WIMP environment the CPU is only adding numbers, storing numbers or comparing numbers. So how does it seem to be so powerful?
The answer is in the speed it does these simple operations. In the first Archimedes A310 the ARM
chip worked at about 4 million instructions per second (mips). Then came the ARM3, ARM610, ARM710 and StrongARM chips which all work at greater speeds. The StrongArm currently runs at approximately 233 mips . I say approximately because the CPU has to have a clock and this ‘ticks’ at 233 million ticks per second (Mhz). In the PC world chips run with clock speeds much greater than this in fact the latest ar
approaching 1 million million (giga) ticks per second!
So why is the ARM chip more efficient than other designs?
One reason is they have relatively few instructions hence they are a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) design. Most of the instructions can be executed in one clock cycle. Other Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) designs have many instructions most requiring many clock cycles. Another effect of the RISC design is low power consumption (hence no heat sinks or fans required!). We therefore have a powerful yet simple CPU which is relatively easy to program.
How a CPU works: Fetch Decode and Execute
A CPU understands its own machine code, made up of commands. These commands are not in English or any other easily recognisable language, but are in binary. If you tried to read a pure machine code language all you would see is a continuous string of Binary numbers! Our ARM CPUs run a machine code language called ARM code
Any CPU runs code using three stages:- Fetch, Decode and Execute.
1) Fetc
The instruction is located in memory by placing its memory address on the address bus, then reading the instructions binary code on the data bus, and therefore loading the instruction
2) Decod
The CPU matches the instruction code to one in its internal ‘dictionary’ and hence recognises which instruction has been loaded
3) Execut
The final stage executes the instruction, so the operation required by the instruction is carried out
Pipelining
At first sight this should take 3 clock cycles, one for each stage, but the ARM chip has a pipeline (fig 2).
Consider a set of instructions. At the start the first instruction is fetched (one clock cycle)
Then in the next cycle this instruction is decoded while the next instruction is fetched. In the thir
cycle the first instruction is executed while the second instruction is decoded and a third instruction i
fetched. The whole process then repeats until the end of the set of instructions. After the first fe
instructions the fetch, decode and execute stages for each instruction only effectively takes one clock cycle
hence speeding up the CPUs running of programs.
Barrel Shifting.
Another section in the ARM chip is called a Barrel Shifter. This enables data to be altered BEFORE the execution of a instruction. The data bits can be shifted to the left or right which in effect is multiplying or dividing the value of the data by a power of two.
Consider a data value of 7 which in binary is %00000111. (I will only show 8 bits but remember the ARM uses 32 bits) Shifting these bits three places to the left we get %00111000 which is the value 56 (7*2*2*2
For the following 5+7*8 to be calculated some CPUs would have to do the 7*8 first and store the result then add the 5 and store the result this could take 5 clock cycles or more. The ARM with the barrel shifter can shift the bit pattern of the 7 three places to the left in one clock cycle and then do the addition in then next cycle
So the ARM chip is well designed (but then you knew that already!!).
Registers
All CPU’s require registers, these are like pigeon holes where data can be stored before any operation is carried out on it. Early CPU’s like the BBC computers 6502 only had 3 registers only one of which could be used in arithmetic instructions
The ARM has 16 registers usually known as R0 to R15. Most of these are free for the programmer to use in any instructions. Just three are best left for special uses. These are
R13 for stack operations (details in a much later part
R14 is the link register (it is used for storing return addresses in the construction of sub routines
R15 is the program counter (PC) and status register
The program counter always contains the address of the next instruction to be fetched. The status register is a set of bit values which reflect/set the current state the CPU. The only bits we will use are the Negative, Zero, Carry and oVerflow (known as NZCV status flags).From now on I will always call R15 by its other recognised name PC.
ARM Instructions
But that’s enough theory for now lets get programming! Even though machine code is not easily read directly we can make use of a language that will make programming easier. This language is called Assembler Language. Most of the instructions in assembler language are simple and straight forward
ADD R0,R1,R2 this adds R1 and R2 and places the answer in R
MOV R4,R5 this would copy the value in R5 into R
CMP R0,R2 this would compare the value in R2 with the value in R
As you can see in each instruction has a three letter name followed by register names which are separated by commas. The answer in arithmetic commands is placed in the register directly following the name of the command. To produce the pure machine code we need to assemble it by running a program called an Assembler. Do not worry you won't have to buy one, it is built into BASIC. Just look at the first example program below.
The First Program
In all the examples no line numbers will be shown so in !Edit select Basic options->Strip line numbers on its iconbar men
This program is very simple and probably trivial, adding two numbers held in registers 1 and 2, giving the answer to register 0. The instruction would be ADD R0,R1,R2 but how do we write assembler code and produce machine code in BASIC?
Consider the following.
MODE 28 :REM If you have an A310 etc. try MODE 1
DIM mcode% 1024:REM This line reserves 1024 bytes of memor
REM which start at position mcode
P%=mcode% :REM P% is a reserved variable which acts as a pointe
REM while assembling the cod
REM we wish the code to start at mcode
[ :REM Note this is the square bracket (to the righ
REM of the P key)
REM This tells BASIC to enter the ARM assembler, al
REM commands from now are in ARM assembler
ADD R0,R1,R2 :REM Our ARM code instructio
MOV PC,R14 :REM This instruction copies the value in R14 (lin
REM register contains the return address to return t
REM BASIC) into the program counter henc
REM jumping to the next BASIC line after runnin
REM our ARM code program
] :REM Leave the ARM code assembler and return to BASIC
I have found that it easy for beginners to confuse the two processes of assembling a machine code program and running one. The above lines only assemble the code i.e. produce the 32 bit binary code the ARM chip understands.
To run the code we need to use the BASIC instructions CALL or USR. The difference between these two commands is similar to the difference between a Procedure and a Function in a High level language. CALL is used when data needs to be given to the ARM code routine. USR is used when a single integer answer is required from the ARM code routine. In this example we need an integer answer so USR is used.
To test our program we need to get some data into R1 and R2. This is made easy in BASIC since the integer variables values A% to H% are copied into R0 to R7.
INPUT"Enter an integer value "B
INPUT"Enter another integer value"C
REM These two lines therefore will give their values to R1 and R2
A%=USR(mcode%) :REM This line runs the ARM code starting at mcode
REM (our assembled code) returning the value in R0 to BASIC
PRINT"The answer is ";A% :REM Print the answer
EN
So the whole program listing is
MODE2
DIM mcode% 102
P%=mcode
ADD R0,R1,R
MOV PC,R1
INPUT"Enter an integer value "B
INPUT"Enter another integer value"C
A%=USR(mcode%
PRINT"The answer is ";A
EN
When running the above program you find at the top of the screen something like this
00008FD
00008FD8 E0810002 ADD R0,R1,R
00008FDC 1A0F00E MOV PC,R1
This is a listing generated by the assembler part of the program showing in the first column the actual memory address of the instruction. The middle column is the 32 bit ARM code for the instruction and the third column the instruction in Assembler code as typed in. All the values are in hexadecimal (base 16). This listing will become of more use as the programs become more involved.
Well that’s it for this time, I hope you have not been put off by all the preamble but I feel some background knowledge at the start is valuable.
Problems to Solve.
Modify the above to subtract the values R2 from R1 placing the answer in R
Modify the above to do the following R0=R1+R2+R
Modify the above to do the following R0=R1+R2-R
Modify the above to do the following R0=R1-R2-R
Answers next time. Good luck.
Brain Pickard
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/BEGINPRG/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, Programming for non programmers
Programming for non programmers
Part 4 - Structured Programming
David Holden continues his series.
As programs become larger and more complex it is necessary to break them up into 'chunks'. If this is done sensibly and each part or sub-routine is made self contained this makes it a lot easier to write and debug the code.
Earlier versions of Basic made it almost impossible to write a properly structured program. The only means of altering program execution from simple line-by-line was the instruction GOTO which would jump directly to the line number which followed and GOSUB. Like GOTO this jumped to the line number which followed but when the program encountered the instruction RETURN it would return to the line after the one where the GOSUB occurred. This made it possible to control program execution but it was very difficult to work out what was actually happening as the program jumped from one line to another.
The GOTO, GOSUB and RETURN keywords still exist in BBC Basic, but now you know, forget about them. They belong to the dark ages of programming, and no sensible programmer would ever use them.
Procedures and Functions
These are a group of Basic statements, ideally but not necessarily self contained, which can be thought of as a modular piece of the program. They can be called by name from any other part of the program and, when the Procedure or Function is exited, program execution continues after the statement which called them.
If you take the code which performs a particular job and make it into a Procedure then, once you are sure it works properly, you can regard it as a 'black box' which simply does a job. It can be called from many different parts of your program and will always perform properly. If you write another program which needs code to do the same job you can simply paste your Procedure into it. Experienced programmers, whatever programming language they use, build up their own libraries of routines which they can incorporate into their programs.
The main difference between procedures and Functions is that Functions return a result or value. Procedures will not usually return values, although it is possible to make them do so.
Procedures and Functions can have data, more properly called parameters, passed to them. Because Functions are normally used to manipulate data and return a result they will almost always require parameters.
The easiest way to see how Procedures and Functions are used is to look at some examples. Let's go back to the VAT calculator from Part 2 which looked like this:
REM Program to add or subtract VAT from a pric
ON ERROR PRINT REPORT$ + " at line " + STR$(ERL) : EN
REPEA
PRIN
PRINT "Do you want to -
PRINT " 1. Add VAT to the net price
PRINT " 2. Calculate net price from VAT inclusive price
PRINT " 3. Exit the program
INPUT "Please choose " choice
CASE choice% O
WHEN 1 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
result = price * 1.17
PRINT "Price with VAT is " resul
WHEN 2 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
result = price / 1.17
PRINT "Price without VAT is " resul
WHEN 3 : EN
OTHERWISE : PRINT "You must enter 1, 2 or 3
ENDCAS
UNTIL choice% =
EN
This is a fairly simple program and doesn't really need to be sub-divided, but it will serve to illustrate how this could be done. We could make the section which prints the menu into a procedure:
REM Program to add or subtract VAT from a pric
ON ERROR PRINT REPORT$ + " at line " + STR$(ERL) : EN
REPEA
PROCmen
INPUT "Please choose " choice
CASE choice% O
WHEN 1 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
result = price * 1.17
PRINT "Price with VAT is " resul
WHEN 2 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
result = price / 1.17
PRINT "Price without VAT is " resul
WHEN 3 : EN
OTHERWISE : PRINT "You must enter 1, 2 or 3
ENDCAS
UNTIL choice% =
EN
DEFPROCmen
PRIN
PRINT "Do you want to -
PRINT " 1. Add VAT to the net price
PRINT " 2. Calculate net price from VAT inclusive price
PRINT " 3. Exit the program
ENDPRO
Note that PROCmenu is defined after the END statement. All Procedures and Functions must always be defined after the main body of the program.
The first line of the definition is DEFPROCmenu. DEFPROC is actually two keywords, DEF (for Define) and PROC (for Procedure). You could write this as DEF PROC with a space between them if you wish, although it is more usual to join them together. After this is the name that is assigned to the Procedure, in this case 'menu'.
There must not be a space between DEFPROC and the name given to the Procedure or Function. Names given to Procedures and Functions must conform to roughly the same rules as those given to variables, except that the name may begin with a number.
The procedure ends with the keyword ENDPROC. When this is reached the program will 'jump back' to the point after it was called in the body of the program. The Procedure is called by the keyword PROC followed by the name of the Procedure. Once again there must not be a space between PROC and the name. Now let's introduce some Functions to perform the calculations.
REM Program to add or subtract VAT from a pric
ON ERROR PRINT REPORT$ + " at line " + STR$(ERL) : EN
REPEA
PROCmen
INPUT "Please choose " choice
CASE choice% O
WHEN 1 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
result = FNadd_vat(price
PRINT "Price with VAT is " resul
WHEN 2 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
result = FNsubtract_vat(price
PRINT "Price without VAT is " resul
WHEN 3 : EN
OTHERWISE : PRINT "You must enter 1, 2 or 3
ENDCAS
UNTIL choice% =
EN
DEFPROCmen
PRIN
PRINT "Do you want to -
PRINT " 1. Add VAT to the net price
PRINT " 2. Calculate net price from VAT inclusive price
PRINT " 3. Exit the program
ENDPRO
DEFFNadd_vat(amount
= amount * 1.17
DEFFNsubtract_vat(amount
= amount / 1.17
The variable 'price' is passed to the functions. When the function is called the value of 'price' is assigned to the variable 'amount'. It is important to understand that 'amount' is not the same variable as 'price'. It is a completely new variable, which is local to the Function, and has the same value as 'price'. Whatever is done to 'amount' within the Function, 'price' will not be changed.
All the variables we have used until now have been global. That is, they have ben created in the main body of the program and can be accessed and manipulated by any part of it. Local variables are a very powerful feature of Procedures and Functions. They are created when the Procedure is called, and destroyed when it exits. They cannot be accessed from the main body of the program because they only exist when the Procedure is executing. They can even have the same name as a global variable, but they will remain completely separate. For example, I could have written FNadd_vat as:
DEFFNadd_vat(price
= price * 1.17
The variable 'price' inside the Function would have been a completely different variable from the global variable of the same name. Any changes made to 'price' inside the Function would be made to the local variable, and changes to 'price' made outside the Function would apply to the global variable.
The end of a Function definition is the '=' sign followed by the data which will be passed back to the program. This can, as in the example, be an expression. FNadd_vat could have been written as:
DEFFNadd_vat(amount
amount = amount * 1.17
= amoun
But the original was simpler. Because a Function can be used as a 'value' and hence be included in an expression we could simplify the program by PRINTing the value returned by the Function directly.
REM Program to add or subtract VAT from a pric
ON ERROR PRINT REPORT$ + " at line " + STR$(ERL) : EN
REPEA
PROCmen
INPUT "Please choose " choice
CASE choice% O
WHEN 1 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
PRINT "Price with VAT is " FNadd_vat(price
WHEN 2 : INPUT "Enter price " pric
PRINT "Price without VAT is " FNsubtract_vat(price
WHEN 3 : EN
OTHERWISE : PRINT "You must enter 1, 2 or 3
ENDCAS
UNTIL choice% =
EN
DEFPROCmen
PRIN
PRINT "Do you want to -
PRINT " 1. Add VAT to the net price
PRINT " 2. Calculate net price from VAT inclusive price
PRINT " 3. Exit the program
ENDPRO
DEFFNadd_vat(amount
= amount * 1.17
DEFFNsubtract_vat(amount
= amount / 1.17
This time I have deleted the lines which assigned the value returned by the Functions to the variable 'result' and included the Functions directly in the PRINT statement.
This is a very complex subject, and so far we've only scratched the surface. As the series continues you will learn a lot more about these extremely useful and powerful objects.
The WHILE...ENDWHILE loop
I'll finish this month by describing the last of the looping structures supported by BBC Basic
The WHILE ... ENDWHILE structure is very similar to REPEAT ... UNTIL except that the comparison which decides whether the code inside the structure will be executed is at te start whereas with REPEAT ... UNTIL it's at the end. This means that whatever the circumstances a REPEAT ... UNTIL structure will always execute at least once, whereas if the conditions are not met a WHILE ... ENDWHILE structure will not execute at all. Lets look at two similar loops.
number% =
count % =
REPEA
number% = number% +
PRINT number
UNTIL number% >= count
This loop is obviously only meant to continue until number% is greater than or equal to counts%. However, you will see that the code between REPEAT and UNTIL will always be executed, even though number% is greater than count% at the start of the loop, because the comparison isn't made until the end.
An equivalent WHILE ... ENDWHILE loop would be:
number% =
count% =
WHILE count% < number
number% = number% +
PRINT number
ENDWHIL
This time the comparison is made at the start, so if count% is greater than or equal to number% the code in the loop will never be executed.
In both cases if count% was greater than number% at the start of the loop then the program would go around the loop, incrementing number% each time, until number% was equal to count%, so the exit conditions would be the same in either case
Note that the logic of the comparison has to be reversed. In the REPEAT ... UNTIL loop we want to carry on until the condition is true. In the WHILE ... ENDWHILE loop we want to carry on while the condition is true.
As an exercise try changing the REPEAT ... UNTIL loop in the VAT calculator program into a WHILE ... ENDWHILE loop. Because we always want the program to execute at least once this wouldn't be the best choice, but it could be done.
As a hint, the comparator '<>' means 'is less than or greater than' or 'is not equal to'. One solution is in the program ANSWER.
In theory if you want to use a CD writer under RISC OS you have a choice of three pieces of software; CDBlaze from Cumana, CDScribe from Eesox and CD-Burn from Warm Silence. It's unusual for RISC OS users to have three different programs to chose from in any field, but in reality the first two seem to have undergone little development for some time and continued improvements to CD-Burn appear to have left it as the market leader.
Introduction
I first started writing CDs on a RiscPC 600 with a drive size limit of 512 Mb. Not only did this effectively set the maximum size of the CDs I could create, it also meant that I needed at least two empty drives or partitions, one for the data and another for the ISO image. Luckily RISC OS 3.6 arrived before too long so I could use large hard drives and no longer needed to take the lid off the computer and plug in extra drives every time I wanted to make a CD.
In the early days CD writing effectively meant SCSI. The whole setup was inclined to be very temperamental, and dud CDs and inexplicable errors were commonplace. It was also slow, nearly an hour to write half a gigabyte.
The increased popularity of CD writers on PCs has meant not only a drop in prices of hardware and media but a huge boost in both performance and reliability. My failure rate this year is around 0.2%, about 1 CD in 500. In the early days it was closer to 1 in 20.
There is now also the option of CD R/W (Read/Write). As media prices are now so low this is a viable, although rather slow, means of making a backup of critical data on your hard drive. Unlike most other backup media, as long as you make ISO format CDs you will have an easily portable item that can be read on any computer with a CD drive. Unlike ordinary read-only CDs CD R/W can be blanked and re-written. The disadvantage is that some older CD drives have trouble with CD R/W discs, so the CD may not be fully portable even if the format is standard.
The latest version of CD-Burn will work with SCSI or ATAPI (IDE) drives, but there are limitations with drives connected to the motherboard IDE interface and I would not recommend this unless you are happy with low speed. The most interesting development is the inclusion of support for Simtec and APDL IDE cards. These allow faster CD drives to be used. As the Risc Station and Micro Digital machines use the same IDE and ATAPI drivers as the Simtec and APDL interfaces respectively and as the IDE interfaces on these machines are much faster than the standard Acorn version on a RiscPC either of them would be ideal for CD writing.
The ability of this new version of CD-Burn to operate via third party IDE interfaces is extremely important. It means that the new 8x and 10x low cost ATAPI CD writers can now be used at full speed on a RiscPC, Risc Station or Micro Digital computer. In fact, to anyone contemplating making large numbers of CDs it would almost be worth buying one of these two latter types of machine to use for that purpose alone. It wouldn't cost much more than a stand-alone CD duplicator and would be a lot more versatile.
Almost all of my CD writing is presently done on RiscPCs. I have one machine using SCSI, and the others all use IDE. Naturally, I'm using APDL IDE interfaces, and either the standard ARCIN interface or the much faster Blitz enables reliable fast CD writing. One thing that I have learned from many years of battles with SCSI CD writers is that the more complex and sophisticated the CD interface the more likely it is to give trouble with CD writing. The only SCSI interface I have that has always been 100% reliable when used for this purpose is an old Acorn model.
First impressions
I've used many different types of computer software. There are some programs that I've liked from the first, some that I've hated, and some that I've been obliged to use but which have slowly grown on me. Somehow, despite all it's features and advantages, CD-Burn is a program that I find it very difficult to like. This is a purely subjective judgement, and I don't know why it is so. Perhaps it's just that so many of the small things I personally dislike seem to appear in CD-Burn. Don't let this put you off - it certainly doesn't stop me using or recommending it.
CD-Burn arrives on a single floppy disc. The Manual is a text file on the disc. For a program costing fifty pounds I would have thought that in these days of cheap laser printing it would not be unreasonable to expect a printed manual, especially as it would take less than a dozen pages. This might also improve the quality, as it's a bit cryptic in places. Possibly this is because CD-Burn is written by Steffen Huber, and the original of the Manual is in German, so it might have lost something in translation.
However, for someone who has created CDs before and understands the process the manual is almost superfluous. Once you have configured CD-Burn to your hardware (easily done, and covered at the start of the Manual) operation is fairly self-evident.
Using CD-Burn
If you click SELECT on the CD-Burn icon on the iconbar the window shown below appears. I don't know why this 'PC stysle' system was used instead of the more common RISC OS method of simply selecting the required operation from the iconbar menu. It just means you have to make more mouse clicks and it's something else to clear out of the way before you can start work.
The content of this window gives some idea of the features of CD-Burn. It can directly copy a CD from one drive to another or 'grab' a track off a data or audio CD. It can, of course, also create an ISO image from which a CD can be made. CDs can be single session or multi session, audio or data or mixed audio and data. There are also tools to blank CD R/W media.
In theory it is possible to create a CD 'on the fly' by dragging the data you wish to write to a window and then writing the CD. In practice this is a very unreliable method, even if you do have fast hard drives. It is only likely to be successful if you are writing a few big files to the CD, for example, archives or other large data files.
By far the best method of creating a CD is to first make an ISO image. This is a large file on your hard disc which is the same as the finished CD, similar to the way that a PC Image File (or 'partition') on a hard drive equates to a PC hard disc. This is then copied directly onto the CD which ensures that the data is written in a single stream at constant speed without interruption. This is essential for reliable CD writing. You can build the ISO image from the complete contents of a single directory on a hard drive, or CD-Burn can open a window into which you can drag all the files, applications and directories you want to put onto the CD. It will then build the ISO image from the contents of this window.
Supplied with CD-Burn is a tool called !FakeCD. This lets you view an ISO image file just as if it was a 'real' CD. You can therefore test it before you commit to writing the real thing, which can reveal mistakes and save time (and blank CDs)
You can also do a 'dummy write' to the CD drive. This does everything except actually write data to the CD and is a good way of testing that your hardware is correctly set up. This is particularly valuable with SCSI installations.
One feature present in Eesox's CDScribe but missing from CD-Burn is the ability to 'verify' a CD by directly comparing it with an ISO image. This is an extremely useful feature as it lets you be certain that a CD is perfect. Without it a minor surface blemish on the media can result in a CD that appears to have been written correctly but which may have a defect. I have raised this point with warm Silence and I hope that it will be incorporated into a later version.
One of the things I find most annoying things about CD-Burn is the design of the windows. They are all absolutely huge. It's as if whoever designed them was being paid by the square centimetre. The Configure window uses a pane, invariably a sign of bad planning on a RISC OS application, when with a little more thought given to layout this would have been unnecessary. The 'Layout data CD' window shown below is big and clumsy on a 1280 x 1024 desktop. On 800 x 600 it takes up more than half the available screen area, which makes it almost unmanageable. A more compact design could reduce it to a fraction of its current size and make it much easier to use.
When the CD is completed the drive drawer opens. This might seem like a good idea, but on one of my machines a (fragile) drive drawer sticking out is a considerable hazard to navigation and in danger of being damaged. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way of disabling this, other than locking the drawer, which would mean even more mouse clicks.
Despite all of the 'niggles' CD-Burn does a first class job. Unlike the alternatives it is being continually updated to cope with new drives. Warm Silence now charge a fee for upgrades. This is £5 or £2.50 if you are ordering other software at the same time. Upgrades for a bug fix are free. This seems a reasonable charge, especially if you want the upgrade to get a feature that's been added to the newer version. Support, of course, is free.
Now writing this review has made me have a fresh look at CD-Burn I may take the time to load all those windows into TemplEd and redesign them. Perhaps then I'll fell a bit happier with it.
Originally released at £49.95, but now available for the much more reasonable £35.00, Cyber Chess is a RISC OS 4 and StrongARM compliant chess program which includes enough features to support the masters. The game can be played against the computer, at varying levels, or between two players and it follows all of the rules exactly. Supplied in the pack is a guide to playing chess - useful for beginners - and quite a beefy manual detailing everything possible about Cyber Chess.
When you reach a state of play you’re happy with, you can save the current board setup as a native Cyber Chess file for returning to later; and additionally you can save the board layout as a Draw file. Very useful, I dare say, if you’re in an inter-school chess competition and you want to print the results.
As far as playing the game goes, I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. To be able to waste a few hours, in peace and quiet, and to have achieved something at the end of it all agrees with me thoroughly. If only I could actually beat the game ...
Product details
Product:
Cyber Ches
Supplier:
4th Dimension/ CJE Micro
Price:
£35 (add £2 for overseas postage
Address:
78 Brighton Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2E
Tel:
01903 21336
Fax:
01903 52367
WWW:
E-mail:
sales@cje.co.u
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/CVS/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, CVS (Concurrent Version System Tool)
Working in Sync
Paul Webb looks at the Concurrent Version System tool.
Introduction
In a situation where the management of large and collaborative development projects is becoming the norm, RISC OS users will have increasing need of an effective project management tool.
Fortunately, help is at hand in the shape of the Concurrent Version System (CVS) tool which is available as a port by John Tygat.
Background
CVS is generally thought of as a tool which is only of use to software developers whereas the program may also be used to manage projects involving website creation or some form of technical writing.
CVS is also very useful for developers who wish to keep a record and repository of a project at various stages in its inception. This facility is invaluable both for debugging purposes and for reverting to a version which, on reflection, is considered to be superior to the current version. In a similar vein, CVS allows project participants to make changes to the same part of a document or program concurrently. Indeed, CVS's ability to deal with concurrent edits is one one of its more powerful features which sets it apart from alternative management tools like the Revision Control System (RCS) or the Source Code Control System (SCCS). Finally, CVS may be used on a stand alone machine as well as over a network and is available for a range of platforms including Windows, Mac and the various flavours of UNIX. There is even a JAVA client which can be obtained from www.ice.com/java/jcvs/.
The CVS Process in a Nutshell
The RISC OS port of CVS can be obtained from http://gallery.uunet.be/John.Tygat/cvs/ . The program can either be run as a command line utility or via the more customary GUI. Figure one shows CVS running from a TaskWindow whilst Figures Two and Three provide some indication of the facilities which are available in GUI mode.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
In common with any complex tool, mastering all of the program's features can seem daunting but an understanding of a restricted range of its capabilities is sufficient to the task of getting started with the program. Assuming that a repository which holds the master copy of the project has already been created by the project maintainer, a hypothetical CVS session involving two writers might proceed as follows:
Writer A withdraws or checks out a working copy of the project from the repository or library.
Writer A can then begin work on the project. This may involve adding new material, deleting some of the existing material or re-organising the document's structure. Whatever writer A does, CVS is up to the task of monitoring any changes.
Writer A then decides to terminate the session and consequently 'commits' or 'checks in' the working copy into the repository together with a 'log' of what has been done during that session.
In a situation where writer B is working on similar parts of the document, committal of B's copy may result in what is known as a 'conflict'. If this occurs, the onus will be on B to resolve any conflicts before the process can be resumed. Thus CVS actually encourages co-workers to talk to each other about the project before further progress can be made!
The changes are then applied to both A and B's working copies.
So you should now have some appreciation of the basic CVS process in action together with an awareness of key CVS terms like checking out, committal and so forth. Indeed, it is important to realise just how much more versatile CVS is in comparison with the Revision Control System or the Source Code Control System. RCS users have for example to unlock a file before releasing it to other users. This approach is problematic where a team of developers wish to work on the same parts of a project simultaneously. CVS is therefore aptly named as it allows for true concurrent working.
A Step by Step Guide
If you intend to work with the command line version of CVS, the procedure is described below. Irrespective of your intentions, CVS usage essentially involves employing the same syntax which is as follows:
*cvs <cvs command>
In common with most UNIX-derived tools, each command can take a combination of switches which may be global or command specific. The phrase 'cvs' will therefore be followed by range of keywords like import, update, diff or commit. You may not have encountered the import command before but it is basically used to import a project into a repository. So working with CVS as a project participant is not that difficult but there are a few features of this port which may puzzle seasoned RISC OS users. Because of CVS's UNIX pedigree, files and directories are identified by unixified file and directory naming conventions. Thus a repository on a SCSI HardDisc would be created - as John Tygat suggests - with the first of the two commands which are listed below.
cvs -d :local:/SCSI::MyHardDisc/$/cvs/cvsroot ini
cvs -d :local:SCSI::MyHardDisc.$.cvs.cvsroot ini
A Simple Example
So that's the whirlwind tour of CVS completed but what about an example which illustrates some of CVS's power? Suppose that we have created the following piece of C code which, for the sake of argument, we have called HiRisc:
voi
main(
printf("Hello RISC World Readers!\n")
If we adapt the file slightly by adding a line to the program then the program listing would read as follows:
voi
main(
printf("Hello RISC World Readers!\n")
printf("And hello to all RISC OS users\n")
And if we apply CVS's 'context diff' facility to both files then the program generates the following output. Note that '-' or '+' respectively denote deletions or additions.
main(
printf("Hello RISC World Readers!\n")
+ printf ("And hello to all RISC OS users\n")
Clearly therefore, CVS users have at their disposal a truly marvellous facility which is a Godsend when managing large projects. Of course, for the sake of readability, the output from this example has been ruthlessly edited but interested readers should find out about 'hunks' - a technique which CVS uses to identify diffs across a range of text.
Of course, CVS can be used just as effectively from the GUI interface althoug
there will be an inevitable loss in functionality. If working with CVS in thi
way the user must first set up a New Project which can be done from the 'Ne
Project' window (Figure Two). The various CVS actions can then be activate
from the 'CVS Action' Window (Figure Three). As if this were not enough, th
interface also allows the user to set a range of options like communication compressio
which makes zip compression available when in pserver transport mode.
Obviously, this article has only scratched the surface of what is possible with CVS but RISC OS users are also able, if they so desire, to access repositories over networks using the :server and :pserver transports although Acorn's internet stack v5 will be required.
Resources
The URL for CVS has already been alluded to in this article but you will also need a few other utilities in order to get started with CVS including RISC OS 3.1 or above. The program also makes use of filenames in excess of ten characters which means that you will require Richard Atterer's raFS from http://informatik.tu-muenchen.de/~atterer/riscos.html or Jason Tribbeck's LongFiles from www.tribbeck.com in the absence of RISC OS 4. CVS similarly requires a current version of the Acorn Toolbox Modules which are available from RISCOS Limited's website at www.riscos.com/devsupport/public.
Insofar as instructional material is concerned, there is little need to lay out hard cash in order to achieve CVS mastery. An on-line manual which is known to CVS aficionados as the 'Cedarqvist' is for example available in TeXinfo format from www.loria.fr/~molli/cvs/ and may be processed with armTeX and the TeXinfo macros. Moreover, the book Open Source Development with CVS is largely available for free from www.cvsbook.red-bean.com/ with the exception of a few chapters in HTML, Info, PostScript and TeXinfo formats. Indeed, this book is supplied with the RISC OS port as is a very informative document by the port author which describes how CVS on our platform differs from its UNIX predecessor.
There are also a variety of news groups which are pertinent to this program including gnu.cvs.help, gnu.cvs.bug and comp.software.contg-mgmt. In addition, the official CVS website at www.cyclic.com/cvs/ also contains a wealth of information. Finally, PC Card users can also make use of the CVS Windows port whilst both Windows and ARMLinux users can use Emacs and the special emacs interface pcl-cvs. Emacs for Windows 95 and NT is available from www.tardis.ed.ac.uk.
Signing Off
So just how useful is CVS? In a word, it's indispensable regardless of whether it's used for record-keeping or for project collaboration. There is little doubt that writing software, web pages and technical documents in a collaborative context is an intensive and error-prone process unless each co-worker is exceptionally well organised. CVS provides one possible solution to this situation so why not check it out
Paul Webb
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/DISC/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, Disc World
Disc World
This CD-ROM contains a number of utilities and pieces of software to accompany the articles in the magazines.
Utilities
There are three utilities to help you read this disc (RISC OS users only). These can be found in the UTILITIES directory:
A file-only copy of Fresco, to display the HTML. This will only run if you don't already have a copy of Fresco installed, so that it won't overwrite your cache
ArcFS, which can be used to read some of the archived software on the disc
SparkPlug, an alternative de-archiver which can also read Zip files
Other software
Several of the articles in the magazine have accompanying software. For your convenience this is placed in archives in the SOFTWARE directory and includes
ARMCODE - The ArmCode program form this months article
BEGPROG - The examples from David Holdens BASIC programming articles
DESTINY - Low res demo version of Destiny, it doesn't go the game justice but have a try
DWORK - Example graphics from the DrawWorks article
DWorksSE - Want to see what DrawWorks is like? Then try the entry level version FREE
Overload - The latest game from Paradise, here is the complete demo version
PUZZLE - The drawfile version of the puzzle from REX
StarPROG - All the programs from this issues StarPROG article
Usenet archive
Also included on the disc in the USENET directory is an archive of the comp.sys.acorn.* newsgroups since early July 2000. These are stored in a special read-only version of Messenger Pro which will allow you to view the messages, but nothing more complicated. The archive is presented 'as is', and RISC World doesn't make any guarantee about the usefulness, relevance or acceptability of any information contained in it.
DrawWorks is a suite of graphics applications from iSV Products, and is available in a number of versions. The basic copy of DrawWorks (DrawWorksSE) is supplied in the software directory of this copy of RISC World. The standard version of DrawWorks is DrawWorks Millennium (DWM) and is supplied on a CD with fonts, clip art and many other resources. The latest version launched at Wakefield 2000 is called DrawWorks New Millennium (DWNM) and offers even more features, as well as weighing in at almost 600MB in size!
Any version of DrawWorks is a very powerful package that can produce amazing effects, but only if you know how to use it! The key to any version of DrawWorks is to experiment and see what happens. This article will give you some “tricks” that can be used to produce effects simply and quickly. All of these “tricks” and effects are designed for use with the latest version of DrawWorks, (DWNM), although they may well work on earlier versions.
Colour Balance
DrawWorks can alter the colour of both vector and bitmap objects in a great many ways. For example the RGB Balance Tool can increase or decrease the red, green or blue parts of an image.
Suppose we wanted to alter the left hand photograph so that the sky was blue. This can easily be done using on of the two DrawWorks Colour balance tools.
As you can see the result of adding extra blue to the image alters the colour of the sky.
Altering Soft Shadows
DrawWorks New Millennium has a soft edged shadow tool that produces realistic shadows without hard edges. The softness of the shadows edge is fixed by the program, or is it?
Once you have an object with a shadow you can now make the shadow softer. Simply select the parts of the object that make up the shadow. The easiest way to do this is to select then entire object then click ADJUST on the text part to de-select it. Now click on the linescale tool. Setting the scale to 200% and then clicking on the “OK” button will soften the shadow.
Making an “Oil” Painting
Using DrawWorks it is possible to make a painting from an image. In the example shown below the original photograph has been turned into a 256 colour version (using the DrawWorks Sprite exporter) and reloaded.
The new 256 colour version has then been Traced using the !Trace tool on the DWNM special toolbar. The resulting drawfile has then been loaded back into !Draw and had the line widths set to 4mm and the line joins set to round.
I would recommend a StrongARM or Kinetic processor for this sort of effect!
Around we go
DrawWorks offers almost unrivalled abilities when it comes to manipulating text as can be sen from the logo below. This includes a number of effects including wrapping text around a sphere, bending text around a circle as well as two different types of shading.
So how was this logo produced? You may be surprised to find out that even the most basic version of DrawWorks (DrawWorks SE on this issues CD) can produce some of these effects. The basic shading principle involves the use of the DrawWorks “Merge paths” tool to produce stencils which can be applied over graded objects to produce complex shading. Both the 3D text in the centre and the shaded text around the edge was produced in this way.
Sphere we go again
The design below is actually quite easy to construct and we will start with the sphere in the center. Firstly the line of text was typed in the !Draw window. A number of copies of this were then produced using the step and repeat tool.
This results in a block of text which can then be selected and then manipulated using the DrawTrix tool. To convert the text to a sphere the option “3D.Sphere” can be chosen from the “Effects” menu. Clicking on the “Transform” button will then convert the original block of text into a sphere shape. This new object can then be dragged from DrawTrix back into the original !Draw window.
Having produced the sphere it now needs to be turned into a stencil. Drawing a circle around the sphere and then selecting both circle and sphere and clicking on the “Merge Paths” tool results in this.
It may look like white text on a black background, but it is not. The white text is actually transparent. So a shaded object can be placed behind and the white parts will then become shaded. So now a shaded sphere is required. To produce this a large black circle is drawn, then a small white one. Both are selected and have their line colours set to none. Then they can be graded using at least 64 steps.
Placing the graded object behind the sphere with the text results in a black object with grey shaded text. However in the original design only the text shows. This is easy to achieve. Simply select the object containing the text (its currently black) and change its fill colour to white. You can see the result of doing this in the illustration below. Altering the colours of the shading using a DrawWorks tool will then alter the colour of the text.
Having produced the shaded text for the center of the design we can now make the text that goes around the outside. This is produced using the path curving tool.
Having produced two sections of text, one for the bottom and one for the top two circles are then drawn around the text objects and the entire set of objects are merged to make a stencil.
Now shading is needed for this text. This is produced using two circles with a different line width. The black circle has a line width of 24mm, and the white one of 1mm.
When they are graded they produce a shaded circle which can be placed behind the stencil made earlier.
As can be seen from the picture above we now have the text that goes around the outside. However in the original version this text has a black border and now this needs to be added. This is done using a copy of the bits of text that go round the circle and simply setting the fill colour to none and the line colour to black. The line width is then set to 1mm. Then both this object and the shaded text can be selected then grouped to “Centre” and “Middle” using the DrawWorks Justify tool.
This now only leave us with the text that wraps around the sphere in the other direction. This is produced using the DrawTrix tool and the “3D.Cylinder” effect.
Having made this next piece of text it now needs to be filled white and have a black outline applied. This is best done using the DrawWorks Lining Tool. Using the “BigBorder” effect with the middle line width set to 2mm produces the right sort of result.
The final thing to do is add a drop shadow behind the final piece of text. All the objects can then be assembled to produce the final image.
Colour me good
Having got a finished image the DrawWorks colour processing tools can be used to alter it. For example the “Tinting tool” can be used to produce a washed out watermark effect by tinting the object towards white.
The complete object can be colour processed in a number of other ways, for example the “Object Tinting Tool” can be used to tint the entire object a particular colour. Any of the built in PureTint or Named colours can be used.
You could even use an overtint of a colour such as Cyan (e.g. Cyan + 50%) to produce a duotone using just Cyan and Black. This could then be colour separated. Alternatively any named spot colour could be used instead.
Of course if you had the inclination you could go quite mad with the design and experiment with the DrawWorks colour handling for hours.
The end bit
That’s it for this article. Would you like more on how to use DrawWorks? If so then why not contact RISC World
As I am sure you have noticed RISC World has undergone a few changes this issue. Firstly I am the new editor, David Matthewman has been forced by pressure of work to pass the editors chair, table, desklight etc. on to me. Secondly as you will have seen by now the magazine has has a bit of a re-design. Well I am afraid its my fault, I couldn't resist stamping my own mark. The re-design was a bit more difficult that it looks, I could assume that all readers have super powerful RISC PC machines with oodles of RAM and high colour displays, but that isn't the truth.
We know that quite a few of our readers are using A5000 and similar machines. So I had to ensure the new look worked just as well on a new Kinetic RISC PC as it did on an ARM3 machine. I like the new look of the magazine, and I hope you do to. After all I only do the editing, its not my magazine, its yours. Tell us what you want to see and we will do our best to do it
As you may have noticed we have a few new features this month. Brian Pickard starts a tutorial on ARM code programming for beginners, Lawrence Granville tries to re-open an old favourite from Acorn User and Hugh Jampton goes surfing through cyberspace. As I get my feet under the table I hope more new features will come along.
Editors Rant of the month
As you will be able to see we have the complete archive of the Acorn newsgroups on this months issue. Newgroups are great, they allow users to help each other out with problems, recommend products and have a good chat about issues everyone is interested in.
However one thing really annoys me about some people on Newsgroups, they have a problem with a piece of software, but instead of going to the authors website, sending an e-mail asking about the problem, or, heavens forbid, using the telephone in order to get a simple answer, they ask others on a newsgroup. Why? Why not ask the person or company that wrote the software in the first place?
As you may know in addition to editing RISC World I also run iSV Products, and wrote the DrawWorks graphics packages. Our website has a comprehensive FAQ section designed to answer most common questions. Recently a user had a problem with one of our products running on RISC OS 4. We have been aware of the problem for ages and a patch has been available on our website since before RISC OS 4 was actually released! Yet instead of checking the site, or asking, the user in question posted a "This product doesn't work with RISC OS 4" type message on comp.sys.acorn.apps. I am afraid this was rather disheartening, as we pride ourselves on the level of customer support we offer. However users will only get support if they look for it, or ask. Don't assume that an author will magically know about your particular problem unless you tell them.
So, next time you have problems with a program, your first port of call should be the author. Tell them what is wrong, tell them what machine you have, which operating system, how much memory and what other programs you are running. If they can't solve the fault then try using the NewsGroups.
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
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, Games World
Games World
David Bradforth on games.
News
Since we last had a Games World within the magazine, the Wakefield Show has come and gone; the normally quiet summer season has remained pretty much so and there are still very few signs of life in the RISC OS gaming market. Despite this, there have been a small number of news items; what follows are summaries of only items we have had confirmed as true: RISC World will no longer be publishing any gaming reviews/features unless we believe the product(s) will be released.
Eternal Destiny for under a tenner!
Rob Templeman began work on Eternal Destiny, the first-person shoot-em-up, over five years ago. When the title was finally released on CD-ROM, in early 1999, it's publishers Tau Press Ltd clearly thought they'd be onto a sure-fire winner. However although it is a very good game it isn't quite Quake and at it's price tag of £35 it was just a bit too expensive.
All of that has now changed. Advertised in recent issues of Acorn User, Destiny is now available for £10 to non-subscribers, or £8 to subscribers. At this price, it's certainly a bargain and well worth buying at once.
For further information, please contact Tau Press Ltd on +44(0)161 429 8902.
New game from Paradise
As Andy announced in his last column, Paradise - the creators of the superb Burn 'Out amongst other titles - were at Wakefield, but he was unsure as of what they'd be doing.
The answer is releasing a new games title: Overload. Overload is a fast, frantic arcade shoot-em-up! Powerful, varied weapons must be used to complete a series of missions over the action packed scrolling levels.
Whilst travelling through a small planetary cluster, you receive an urgent distress message. Intelligent life does exist in this system! You quickly despatch your explorer craft and set down on the first of the planets. Gameplay takes place over a number of areas over the different planets of the system. Your task - to rescue the beings of the worlds and destroy the invading alien craft! Along the way, you will encounter more fearsome invaders - only by learning how to use your varied weapons will you stand a chance!
Available is a free demonstration, which we've placed onto this month's disc to save you some download time. We at RISC World like demos: try before you buy works for me every time!
In addition to the demonstration's features, the game contains:
Over 20 frantic action packed level
5 graphically varied planets, increasing in difficult
much larger and more intense level
more varied enemy invaders, planetary beings, and scener
full access to all of the weapon systems - Lazers, rockets, and bombs
password access to all planet
hidden bonus features, cheats, and level
a stunning end of game surprise
If after playing the demo you're hooked and wish to buy it, send a cheque/postal order for £12·99 (made payable to 'Paradise Group' at Paradise, 38 Marlborough Drive, Sydenham, Leamington Spa, Warks CV31 1GD.
R-Comp Summer Specials
R-Comp Interactive is pleased to announce two Summer 2000 special offers!
For the month of August, we are offering two very special deals for anyone in the mood for fun! That's right - great game bargains for the holidays! And its never too early to stock up for Christmas either!
Buy one game, get a second half price
Buy two games, get a third FREE
Please note that in each case you pay for the higher priced item(s), and get the cheapest one half price/free. There will be no extra for carriage in UK, but there will of course need to be extra for carriage overseas according to weight, as always.
You can find details of all the games including those by Artex and ProAction from our website. If you have any doubts about suitability for use on your machine please either email or ring us before ordering.
If you'd like to order over the phone, give us a call on 01925 755043. Otherwise, you can fax/email your order, or order online at http://www.rcomp.co.uk/
This offer ends strictly on August 31st, so make sure you don't miss out! Yes, I'm aware that we've passed August 31st: I have, however, convinced R-Comp Interactive to extend this offer to RISC World subscribers for exactly two weeks following the publication of this issue!
New Games Editor for RISC World
Oh yes - that's one thing I haven't done yet - introduce myself! My experience is indeed cross-format PC, Macintosh and Acorn which gives me the ability to see the good bits and bad bits between each market. Over the coming issues of RISC World, you may on occasion notice some things which have grabbed my attention during the writing period for this column
If it's relevant it may appear; if it's not it may appear - it depends largely upon my feelings at the time. Should some of this material seem familiar to former Archimedes World readers: Dafyd McFlanders was a pen name I chose to write that column. It is no longer appropriate in the current climate, and I'd rather put my full name against articles anyway.
If you have any queries relating to the games market, any news, hints and tips or review submissions you can contact me by post c/o the RISC World office, or by email to gaming@riscworld.com. I shall use your suggestions to shape this column into that requested by most.
Previews and Reviews
My brief for the preview section is very much the same as for everything else: unless I'm convinced as to the imminent availability of a product, I'm not likely to include it in the column under any circumstances. Over the past few years, the RISC OS market has suffered a number of major knockbacks in terms of titles announced, but later cancelled.
One such example was The Chaos Engine, pretty much finished in 1994 but cancelled by its publishers Renegade due to poor returns on previous games titles. This was, however, picked up later in the day by R-Comp Interactive and has recently been released.
We will be bringing you a full review of Chaos Engine next issue, but this month we are looking at the TBA Games CD.
Budget Reviews
A new regular section to cover the popular trend of cheap software, this month we dig into the archives of The Fourth Dimension, with a selection of reviews originally published in Archimedes World. You are most welcome to submit your own nostalgia reviews for inclusion in this section: postal submissions will be the most useful, and we'll contact anybody we wish to use.
Company Contacts
A compiled list of addresses, phone numbers, e-mail and URLs for
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/PD/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest PD roundup.
Introduction
I suppose calling this column PD World is a bit odd. Why? Well because PD is not a legally defined term under British law, so the name is meaningless. Perhaps I ought to explain what this column is for. Simply it covers software that is copyrighted by the author but that you can obtain for nothing. Some items are given away free because the authors don't want to sell them, some are full commercial products that are available from websites and some others are covered by specific licences (such as the GNU Public licence). This means we can provide the software listed here on the RISC World CD. It doesn't mean you can do what you like with the software, you can certainly use it, and often distribute it to others, but you can't take it apart and swipe bits for your own projects. In fact I may well ask the editor to rename this column, how does Free World sound?
StrongHelp
Although StrongHelp has been around for some time now we thought it would be worth including the latest version on this months CD. StrongHelp is an interactive manual system, a number of PD applications supply their manuals in StrongHelp format. However the real reason for including it is simple, it comes with small manuals on assembly langauge and on BASIC. If you are following either David Holdens BASIC series, or the new ARM code series from Brian Pickard StrongHelp could prove invaluable.
StrongED
StrongHelp has a companion program, StrongED. This is a fully featured editong package, ideal for programmers. Originally written by Guttorm Vik, but now maintained by John Whitington, we have included the latest version (4.61) on the RISC World CD. You can always get the latest version of StrongED from
You can now iconise views with a single keypress (cs-s)
Some of the redraw bugs have been fixed (hopefully)
The 'This entry does nothing' error message has been removed
Lots of modefiles updated slightly
Added help on using StrongED with ViewFinder in Questions and Answers page
Added Mode Help - A page for each mode (eventually)
Updated some out of date sections of the docs
Changed the Contact Page
Fixed some spelling
Various Templates have had their pane bit set to allow for the RISC OS 4 3D window borders
Some templates made more style guide complaint (e.g global choices window now does not have close button)
Got rid of 'Lower 32k' option in Dump mode because it crashes on RISC OS
Added python and Ovation Pro Script files to ModeWhen File
Python is now a standard mode, rather than being in the extras directory
John also has some other long term plans for StrongED, so why not check out the link above to find out more. After all if you are going to be programming, you will need a good editor to write your code!
STRing
STRing is an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) package, this means that it can take an image containing text from a sccanner and convert this into real text that can be edited on screen. STRing stands for Scanned Text Recognition. The latest version of STRing can be found at
STRing does not have any configuration of options windows, simply drop a 2 colour sprite (preferably 300dpi) onto the STRing icon on the icon bar then drag out the resolting text file. Although it may not be as accurate as commercial offerings it is Freeware and can prove very very useful.
AMPlayer
A Freeware MP3 player from Thomas Olsson. This allows you to play MP3 files on your RISCOS machine easily.
The frontend is very simple, and behaves more or less like a normal tape deck. Dragging an AMPEG file to the window (or double-clicking on one) will ask the module to play it. The buttons below the display behave like one would expect
"Stop" will stop the playback
"Play" is used to continue after pausing
"Pause" stops playback, with the option of continuing from that point
"Rewind" and "Fast forward" skip back and forth in the track. The soun
quality while doing this may vary a lot, especially if the file is comin
from a slow medium (e.g. a CD). Using these buttons while paused is preferabl
in these cases
"Counter mode" toggles between display of elapsed, total, and remaining time
With some rare mpeg files, this may be inaccurate (see note about File Inf
Block below)
"Volume +/-" changes the overall volume. Some files will clip of this is se
higher than -2 dB. If you suffer from clipping noise, lower it
Another control function of !AMPlayer is, that if you hold shift while dragging in a file, it will be put on hold (and "QUEUE" will show). When the current file finished, playback continues with the one dragged in. There can be only one file on queue at any time, so dragging in more files like this will just end up with the last one on hold. Some day this might change, who knows. Similarily, holding shift while clicking Stop, will only stop the current file, and continue with a queued one if any.
And in case anyone is wondering that really is a copy of episode 1 from the 2nd series of the Goon Show playing in the window, just don't ask how our editor got hold of it! (The Goon Show Depository - Ed)
Font Designers Toolkit
FDTK (Font Designers Toolkit) used to sell for over £30. However since last year it has been available free from the iSV Products web site, and a copy is on the RISC World CD. This allows you to make new weights of existing fonts as well as make your own new fonts using the supplied copy of FontED. Also included are applications to make mono-spaced fonts as well as print out font catalogues.
XStitch 1
Also on this CD is a full copy of XStitch (Cross Stitch) 1, this allows you to make a cross stitch chart from a sprite. I would strongly suggest users read the supplied on-line manual before making any charts. The laster versions of XStitch offer many many more features, but XStitch 1 can still produce a very reasonable chart in a fraction of the time it would take to do it by hand.
I have checked with our editor about the odd error message that occurs when you run XStitch 1 on a RiscPC or equivalent computer. He assures me that the error can be ignored and that the program will work as intended, he added that the orutines that do colour conversion are very conservative and will report the funny error even if things are in fact fine!
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/PORTABLE/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, Portable World
RISC Station Portable
Chris Revenski previews the new RISC Station Portable.
The new RISC Station portable is coming, and hopefully it will be coming soon. RISC World have been told that a prototype will hopefully be on display at the Epsom show later this year. If plans stay on track then machines could be delivered to customers before Christmas. So it would seem that now would be the time to start dropping hints to any rich relatives, after all what could possible make a better present than one of these.
The motherboard will be based on a tweaked version of that found in the R7500 desktop computer. Sources close to the project hint that the machine may actually be faster than the desktop machine it is based on, which would be very different to the usual PC portables. In addition the lower power consumption of the ARM processor means battery life could be much longer, up to 4 times the PC average. Although we haven't seem the final spec we believe it will be as follows:
56MHz ARM 750
Plenty of RAM (we think it may be as much as 64MB
12.1 colour displa
Built in 24 x CD-RO
Internal 3.2GB Hard Dis
Integral Floppy drive, capable of reading RISC OS and PC disks
2 x PCMCIA slots, perhaps with a network adapter in one of them.
Normal Serial, Parallel and Monitor port
A trackpad, including, tap, double tap and drag actions
RISC OS 4.0
Similar audio to desktop computer including a sound sample
A midi synthesizer chip on mother board
Built in stereo speakers
And the price, well how does £1249+VAT sound? If you think that's expensive, and it isn't, pop into your local PC World and see how much a good quality 64MB portable computer costs. You will find the new RISC Station machine is excellent value, and it runs a decent operating system.
Once this new machine is released the market for second hand Acorn A4 machines (based on the A5000) will dry up overnight. If you have an Acorn A4 then you will want to upgrade. If you have ever wanted a portable machine, with the power of a desktop computer, your dreams are about to come true.
For more than 3 years now, the StrongArm RiscPC has been the fastest, smoothest and most productive way of running RISC OS, and the applications which you know and love. In the last few months, this has changed, with two new products offering upgrade-starved StrongArm owners something to spend their hard-earned money on. This is in addition to the appearance of RISC OS 4 last year, which again boosted performance, and we’ll speak more of that later.
The two products - Castle’s Kinetic StrongArm board and APDL’s Turbo StrongArm upgrade - are priced very differently, and are ultimately designed to attract different customers. Given RISC World’s connection with APDL, it is possibly worth clarifying the "neutrality" of this article. The review was written at the behest of the Editor and both the Turbo and the Kinetic have been bought at standard prices. As such, the only input that APDL have had is to take the order for the upgrade!
We’ll look at the two cards individually (prices of nearly £400 and around £40 don’t really bear direct head-to-head comparison!) and then draw conclusions on them both at the end.
Castle’s Kinetic StrongArm board
When Acorn designed the RiscPC, it was built around a 33Mhz Arm610 processor, with the possibility of upgrading to a 40Mhz Arm710 in the future. As such, the rest of the computer was designed to work well within those parameters. Memory was chosen to be the then-industry-standard SIMM memory, which at the time had an access time of around 80+ ns, and to be accessed through a relatively slow memory bus. In order to improve screen performance, dedicated VRAM was used.
Several years down the line, we are using processors up to 8 or 9 times faster than those originally intended, yet the memory system is limited to exactly the same performance it was back in the early 1990s. This leads to a number of bottlenecks, and the aim of the Kinetic card is to alleviate these. It does so by utilising modern (8ns compared with 80+!) SDRAM memory, in the form used by many portable PCs these days, and a 64Mhz processor to memory bus. Don’t worry if that doesn’t mean much to you, but suffice to say that it significantly more up to date than what you have already!
Quite clearly, the best way to achieve this would be to design a new computer from scratch, but that would add to the expense, and also rely on major updates to RISC OS. Instead, the Kinetic card is a half way house, coupling this advanced memory system with a 233 rev T StrongArm on a single (large!) processor card for existing RiscPC owners.
The board fits tightly inside the machine left-to-right, so you’ll need to strip it down to its base to plug it in properly. The card includes 64Mb of RAM on a standard connector, but as there is only one such connector, any future upgrades will make this 64Mb redundant. A new version of RISC OS 4 is also included (confusingly the version number is 4.03 as with the RiscStation and Mico, but the core of the OS is very different) and you will need to install this at the same time in order to use the Kinetic card. The whole process is much the same as installing the original StrongArm card, although the larger size makes the logistics a bit more complex. I would anticipate that most people would find fitting it straightforward, but using a dealer or Authorised Installer would seem prudent if you aren’t completely happy with the idea.
So, how does it perform? Castle claim around 3 times performance increase, although admit that this doesn’t always apply. In my experience that figure is a little hopeful, but there is certainly no question that this is the fastest upgrade you can currently buy for your RiscPC. Personally, I don’t hold a lot of stock in benchmark figures, as statistics can be used to prove anything. I’m writing this review now on the Kinetic machine (it also has the largest screen connected to it!) and it is certainly a smooth ride; but so was a standard 233Mhz StrongArm. You see, 90% of RISC OS software is written to perform well on 610/710 class machines, so the benefits are less tangible the faster you go.
The most demanding tasks such as graphically-intensive printing, work in Photodesk, complex web page rendering and the like are noticeably faster, but not hugely so. In many respects, the performance increase from an existing 233 RO4 machine is like that of going from RISC OS 3.x to RISC OS 4 - about 50%. It is important to realise that this is coming exclusively from the faster memory, as the StrongArm on the card is still clocked at 233Mhz (and there appeared to be no obvious way of overclocking).
The biggest sustained performance increase I observed was in Quake, which ran up to 60% faster, and critically reached the "sweet spot" where playing felt smooth rather than slightly jerky. As for other tasks, I have generally found myself gravitating to web browsing on the Kinetic machine, but the larger screen helps there too.
However, comparing a Kinetic card with a standard StrongArm is doing it a disservice. Whilst I suspect most people who can afford the Kinetic will probably have a StrongArm card already, the real appeal of the board is for those without. The Kinetic pack includes everything you could want for rejuvenating an aging machine - RISC OS 4, plenty (64Mb) of memory, and a fast StrongArm to boot. If you are still using a largely unexpanded RiscPC 600 or 700, then this must be a very attractive proposition.
There are inevitably a couple of downsides to the Kinetic - nothing is ever quite perfect. The single biggest fault of the Kinetic is that podules using DMA will revert to slow, non-DMA mode when the Kinetic card is installed, as the version of RISC OS 4 lacks appropriate changes to allow DMA to work with the Kinetic’s SDRAM. In most cases, the performance hit is not huge - it is usually hard disc interfaces using DMA, and RISC OS is not as hard drive intensive as some other operating systems we could mention - but it is there. I would imagine that those involved with video-editing tasks where disc performance is critical, would not be happy to learn that their interfaces were running at half speed. Note that a tiny minority of cards may fail altogether if DMA isn’t available. If you are using a SCSI or IDE card, you should check with your supplier for advice.
The second slight marring is that any existing RAM you have becomes largely redundant. Whilst the system will make use of it (indeed, it is necessary for the PC card) it is only used when the 64Mb on the Kinetic is used up. This is, of course, a "good thing" in that you don’t want your system reverting t
slower memory unless absolutely necessary, but most users will never need more than 64Mb to run RISC OS software, making the extra RAM feeling like a spare part.
Castle’s MD once said to me "charge a premium price for a premium product", and that really does apply to the Kinetic card. At around £400 inc, it is not a cheap upgrade, especially for existing StrongArm owners who qualify for just a £50 reduction. Similarly, RISC OS 4 owners receive a mere £50 off, compared with the £120 spent recently! There is no question that the Kinetic is the fastest current upgrade, but I wonder if it is priced at just a little too much of a premium for most users. It seems to me that there is a checklist of questions which you should ask yourself:
1. Do I already own a StrongArm
2. Do I already own RISC OS 4
3. Do I already have plenty of memory
If the answer to two or more of these is "yes", then I would suggest that the Kinetic should be considered something of a luxury, and you may be better to wait for price reductions, new machines or a lottery windfall before purchasing. If you have one "yes", (esp StrongArm) then you may well still want to hold off, but you will find the performance increase worthwhile. If you answered "no" to all of the questions, then the Kinetic becomes almost the "perfect" upgrade, but you may have to dig deep to afford it.
APDL Turbo StrongArm
As many readers may be aware already, the StrongArm cards sold by Acorn, and subsequently Castle, could be overclocked to make them perform faster than specified. Doing this involved careful work including cutting tracks on the PCB, a fan, a bit of knowledge and a very steady hand. Like most people, I shied away from risking this on my StrongArm card - damaging it would be a very expensive mistake!
The APDL upgrade offers a cost-effective and, above all, safe way of boosting the performance of your existing card. This is how the price can be kept so low - the costs to APDL being relatively small. For your money, you will receive a card running at either 275Mhz or 287Mhz (confusingly, the old 200Mhz cards can be clocked higher than the newer 233Mhz cards!) which has been safely upgraded and, crucially, soak-tested for 24 hours before being sent back to you.
The card you receive is, naturally, almost identical to your old one (APDL offer a swap out service, where they send you a new card, and you send them your old one back by return). The APDL card will have grown a small cooling fan, which hooks into one of the computer’s power cables, and includes a pass-through so you won’t lose a power lead.
Installation is trivial - just pull out your existing card and insert the new one. The Turbo card works with RISC OS 3.7 or 4, so there is no need to upgrade the operating system at the same time. Once installed, simply power up your machine, and away you go.
The performance of the card reflects the lower price, and APDL make no wild claims, but it is nonetheless well worth having. Again, the computer feels a little smoother, and boots a little faster. In numerical terms, the card broadly lives up to its 25-30% clock speed increase, with the usual web browsing and Quake tests bearing that out.
There is little more to say - there were no noticeable side effects with the card installed, although perhaps I should comment that floppy disc handling on both machines (Turbo and Kinetic) has been a little flaky recently. I think it is unfair to put this down to either processor, and I’ve been checking some discs on the Turbo earlier today.
If I were living state-side, I’d be tempted to describe the APDL upgrade as a "no-brainer" - that is to say that the decision is very simple. Whilst you’ll need to own a StrongArm already, for a very small outlay you get a noticeable speed increase. After several years of owning a 200 or 233Mhz processor, this is a simple and effective method of rejuvenating your system without resorting to feeding it viagra!
RISC OS 4
It would not be right to produce an article about improving your computer’s performance without a brief section on RISC OS 4. Whilst other articles have done the "review" angle to death, RO4 is nevertheless an extremely effective way of boosting your machine’s performance, and getting rather more besides! Installing the operating system will give an immediate cross-the-board increase of between 30 and 50% and whilst its £120 price tag may be rather more than a Turbo StrongArm, you do get a lot more functionality as well.
The Kinetic board includes RISC OS 4 as part of the pack, making it a comprehensive performance boost, whereas with the APDL Turbo upgrade, you will need to buy both. For most people, it will come down to a decision based on what you currently own as to the most cost-effective upgrade.
Conclusions
The two upgrades appeal to different segments of the marketplace, and as such it is unfair to compare them directly. To take advantage of the APDL Turbo upgrade, you will need to own a StrongArm already, and RISC OS 4 has to be purchased separately. However, if the RiscWorld subscriber base matches my own experiences, if you are spending money upgrading your computer, you will probably own one or both of those items already. In this case, justifying the Kinetic becomes quite difficult. If money is no object, then you will probably have bought a Kinetic already. If you are seriously comparing the two upgrades, then the chances are that the £300 to £400 cost of the Kinetic is not realistic. As such, the APDL offering becomes almost mandatory. Sure, it isn’t as speedy as the Kinetic, but it gives a real boost at a price which is very fair.
There are, however, many people still running Arm 610/710 machines, and for them the Kinetic is much more attractive. We all wish it wasn’t £400, but you do get a fair bit for your money. It is a side effect of the size of the market that such prices are necessary to cover the costs of development. If you’re using an older or less expanded machine, then you certainly won’t be disappointed with the Kinetic. Equally, if you are considering a new machine, a Kinetic RiscPC makes an excellent purchase. But if you’ve already been upgrading your machine as the other upgrades came along, APDL’s product perks your system up noticeably, and at the price, you can’t go wrong!
Do you remember a long running series in Acorn User. It was called StarInfo and featured home grown graphical ditties from readers. Well I used to buy Acorn User just for StarInfo, and every time I got my hands on a cover disk the first place I went was StarInfo. So with the Editors permission (and some trepidation - ED) I propose that RISC World should start up a similar series.
What we want
Simply put we want to publish any interesting small pieces of software written by our readers. We will pay £10 for each one we use. You would still keep the copyright, but we would have non exclusive distribution rights. That means we could use it again on a future compilation CD, but by the same token you could still place the program on your website and give it to others.
If you have anything you think we might like then e-mail us at
Kicking off
Since we have no reader submissions this month we will kick of with some little programs written by the RISC World editorial staff.
SloBARC
SloBARC stands for Slow BAsic RayCaster. SloBarc is a 1 line BASIC maze generator and depth shaded ray caster, there that didn't hurt did it? If you want to know what a ray caster is then try playing any of the modern 3D games such as DOOM, Destiny or Quake. A simple 2D maze is constructed, this is then projected up to produce a 3D image using the Ray Caster. This works in a similar way to a ray tracer, light rays are sent out from the users viewpoint until they hit an object, a ray tracer sends light into the users viewpoint from objects. The further the light ray travels before hitting the object the further the object is away and the darker its colour (this is the depth shading). Light is only sent out in two dimensions, SloBARC has no concept of height, the apparent height of objects is calculated from their distance away from the viewer.
SloBarc comes in several different flavours.
SloBRCarm3 - will run on pre RiscPC computers but needs an Arm3 to go at speed
SloBRCsa - requires a StrongARM Risc PC in order to wor
SloBRCdeep - also needs a StrongARM - looks further into maze at lower accurac
SloBRC2100 - runs on a StrongARM slowly as it is at much higher quality
Stars
Here is the old favourite the multi parallax star field. This simply draws a load of dots and moves them so they look like stars. The program is really very simple, a piece of memory is claimed with a DIM command, and filled with sets of X and Y co-ordinates. A little loop then draws a pixel at each co-ordinate then decreases the X co-ordinate a bit. Next time the star is drawn it moves slightly to the left. Two screen banks are used to prevent flicker.
Stars comes in two versions.
ARM3 - will move 135 stars every frame
StrongARM - moves a massive 1500 stars every frame
WarpSpeed
And finally something our editor started a few years ago and didn't finish properly, !WarpSpeed. This needs a StrongARM and at least 1024K of screen memory in order to work correctly.
WarpSpeed is quite interesting as it is written as a library that can be re-used, so you could quite easily take WarpSpeed apart and make your own demo put of the routines (provided you know a little bit about BASIC programming of course). For once Aaron has even managed to put comments explaining what each routine does (I always do - ED). In fact it might be interesting to see what readers could make of the WarpSpeed library, fancy having a go?
That is it for this issue, if you want StarPROG to continue then send in your contributions!
David Bradforth gets all nostalgic with this new collection from R-Comp Interactive
Early in March this year, Martin Piper announced to all on comp.sys.acorn.announce the end of TBA Software. There was a fear that this would result in yet more games becoming unavailable to all and sundry, but this wasn't to be the case: very soon after TBA Software announced its closure, R-Comp Interactive completed negotiations to release a very special compilation CD-ROM.
The result is this: the TBA Software Classics Collection, a superb collection supplied on gold disc. Contained within are:
BHP - Brutal Horse Power
Brutal Horse Power has the honour of being perhaps one of the best racing games ever released for RISC OS computers. I do say honour lightly due to the fact that under ten have been released in total since 1987, but despite what the critics thought of it first time around it's actually a pretty good game. If you enter this expecting the depth and breadth of classic Sega games, you'll be sorely disappointed. If however you're just looking for a moments madness you'll love it.
If you don't love it, then you now have the opportunity to change it for the better: this CD-ROM contains the full source code, plus the Holograph system required to edit the graphics aspects of it. Sure you need to be a bit of a programmer, and know loads of BASIC, ARM (and a little C too) but if you're prepared to put the work in perhaps a BHP 2 is not out of the question!
Command Ship
Here's a cute little blaster if ever I saw one...
Cobalt Seed
This one places you in control of a spaceship being guided through a seemingly endless mass of hoops, loops and enemy ships. With a load of groovy powerups, things to shoot and a pretty good tune, too. This is another one for which the source code has been supplied: playing would definitely seem to be in order as although the game is pretty good, it's not the most addictive affair due to its linear nature.
Dragonball
Remember the likes of Fireball (CIS)? Dragonball is just yet another take on Arkanoid, a classic game from the days of the Amiga. It's also pretty good, although at its original release it would've probably done considerably better had the price been about a tenner instead of £25. I'd love nothing more than to see a sequel for Dragonball: unless, however, you're hacker of the year this won't be possible - the source code has been lost in the depths of time.
Formula Two Thousand
A space age race game! The race starts, as most do, with a count down; then you zoom off along a space based very windey path. There's a real knack to getting everything running in the right place, at the right time without it all coming back to bite you. When I discover what this is, I'll pass it onto you: I have to admit that I had real troubles playing just the demo of this game. Still, over the years to come I'm sure I'll give it a few more goes!
Merp
Seems to be a very strange little puzzle game...didn't particularly please me visually, and the sound was just awful. The most annoying thing, however, was that the game was not supplied with any instructions; and I had very real difficulty trying to work out how to control my 'blob'.
Conclusions
For a price of just under £25, R-Comp Interactive have yet another stunning games offering for RISC OS users. I would personally question the logic in offering the titles without at least a guide to playing through the keyboard/mouse: with Merp, particularly, this caused all manner of headaches! Final word: good collection, better if I'd known what I was doing properly!
Product details
Product:
TBA Software Classic
Supplier:
R-Comp Interactiv
Price:
£25 (add £2 for overseas postage
Address:
22 Robert Moffat, High Legh, Knutsford WA16 6P
Tel:
01925 75504
Fax:
01925 75737
WWW:
E-mail:
rci@rcomp.co.u
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/WHATSON/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, What's On
What's on
Forthcoming shows and events in the RISC OS calendar.
A few weeks after you get thei issue of RISC World it will be time for the RISC OS 2000 show. As with last years show this will once again be held in the Queen's Stand at Epsom Downs Racecourse. It's a two day event, on Saturday 21st and Sunday the 22nd of October
No need to give any more details here as full information can be found in the
Midlands RISC OS Show
Another annual ARM Club event, like previous Midlands shows this is again being held at the national Motorcycle Museum near Birmingham. It's on Saturday 2nd December and more details can be found on the ARM Club web site.
RISCOS Southwest
The regular most westerly event of the RISC OS year, this is at the normal venue of the Webbington Hotel in Loxton in North Somerset. The date is Saturday 10th February, and more information can be found on the show web site.
Yes, I knpw it's a long time yet, but the show date has just been announced and you don't want to do anything stupid like book your holidays at the same time, so the sooner you know the better.
Wakefield Acorn Computer Group are pleased to announce that they will be promoting the 6th Wakefield Acorn/RISC OS Show on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th May 2001
Once again the show will be held at the Thornes Park Athletics Stadium, Horbury Road, Wakefield, West Yorkshire. All the popular features of our previous shows will be repeated, including a show theatre with a full programme on both days
At this stage there are 14 preliminary bookings from exhibitors
For latest information see the show website.
RISC OS in Eindhoven
The RISC OS User Group Meeting is an event for people who want to know more about the Acorn and RISC OS platform and third party products. Here they can meet users and see the advantages of RISC OS. There will also be much of interest for people who have used RISC OS for many years
Date: 14 octobe
Location: de Nieuwe Kettin
Address: Tinelstraat 3
Place: Eindhove
Time: from 11.00 till 21.00 ou
There will be presentations From
Ton Mandos with RiscTV and Cineworks. Ton explains exactly how to work wit
images, pictures etc. to make good films. He is extremely skilled in this process and an expert in the use of the necessary applications
Ike Busser with OHP2 and his Mavica. He will demonstrate how to make a superb presentation by using !OHP2
Ab Steeman is a specialist in Majordomo and will tell you all the secrets. He will also explain how to set up a mailing list with the ANT suite
Ferdinand Veldmans will demonstrate his new database and show you how easy it is to generate Help files if you keep them in mind at the time of setting up an application
Eli-Jean Leyssens with codecraft programming
Paul Reuvers with Ovation Pro and Tracer Pro
Jeroen Medema with Riscript
Henk Huinen with Artworks.
Feike v d Zee with Sibelius.
Atom Club Limburg with a mouse attached to an Atom and several hardware projects
The following dealers will be present
Uffemkamp Computer Sytem
XA
DES
For more information visit our web site
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME1/ISSUE4/WWW/INDEX.HTM Volume 1, Issue 4, Weird World Web
Weird World Web
Hugh Jampton goes surfing for rubbish.
I must confess I rather like the Internet and the World Wide Web. it manages to collect together all that's best, and all that's worst. That's where I am going right now, a one way ticket to Worse-ville! I must say I have a fascination with pointless tat, our house is full of amusing electronic oddities, and so are my bookmarks! So for your delight I thought I might point you towards some of the web sites that make me laugh.
In order to access any of the links below you will of course need to be connected to your ISP (Internet Service Provider), then stand by for a few minutes of pointless amusement, after all thats what the Internet is for, isn't it?
Arghh! Its Pokeman overload time
Well this one had me, I even tried it several times to make sure. A great trick.
Can a web page read your mind? Probably not, but then you never know!
Want to know if that particular person is the ideal match, well this can help.
Finally web cam software that works on RISCOS, I thought the picture was remarkably good.
The famous cartoonists home on the web. If you like The Far Side you will love this, if not then perhaps you shouldn't click here. Contains some great animated GIF cartoons.
Some excellent spoof advertisements from a mainly american based anti-corporation site.
Well that's it for this months collection of World Wide Weirdness. If you have any great links then why not send them in and we will publish them for the amusement of all. See you next time!
