ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/BASICV/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, BASICV a Dabhand Guide Part 4
BASICV a Dabhand Guide Part 4
Alligata Media
About this book
We have largely left this book unaltered: the original edition was written by Mike Williams and included a section relating to the DABS Press books and software which has, of course, been deleted and we refer you to
At present we are considering an update to this book to cover the use of more modern BASIC in the shape of that supplied with the Risc PC, but offer no promises beyond this re-print. This book was produced using Ovation Pro on my StrongARM Risc PC; with the whole mainly typed from an original which was produced using VIEW on a Master Compact before being laid out for press in MacAuthor.
This book will be serialised in the next few issues of RISCWorld.
As usual we have a packed range of new software for your pleasure. We have pulled out all the stops and have decided that this issue we will give away a free ProArtisan2 to every subscriber. In addition we have an updated DrawWorks XE and a Q BASIC to BBC Basic translator. As always we have the latest PD/Freeware nd shareware releases and the latest RISC OS games. Still lets kick off with ProArtisan2.
ProArtisan2
ProArtisan 2 is a multi mode art and image processing application for the range of Acorn RISC OS machines. A great deal of effort has gone into creating a user interface that gives access to the power of ProArtisan 2 without making it complex to use.
Using ProArtisan 2 you can create and manipulate stunning images with ease. The user interface has been designed to be as intuitive as possible so that even inexperienced users can access its features without constant reference to this manual.
Menu options which lead to sub-menus have an arrow after them, eg. Subset ->
ProArtisan uses the standard Acorn conventions for the mouse buttons:
SELECT is the left button, and the most commonly used.
MENU is the middle button and is used primarily for opening menus.
ADJUST is the right mouse button.
Unless otherwise stated Choose means move over something and click on it with SELECT or ADJUST.
Inserting a disc into the floppy disc drive and clicking on the disc drive icon is known as Mounting the disc. The disc's Directory display appears after you perform this operation.
Error or message dialogue boxes may appear from time to time. Read them before clicking on a button as you may lose data otherwise.
It is assumed that you have read the Welcome Guide supplied with your computer and are familiar with the RISC OS Desktop environment.
!Help
ProArtisan 2 has extensive support for the interactive !Help application supplied with your computer. When you first start using ProArtisan 2 we suggest that you have !Help loaded.
Technical Information
ProArtisan 2 is a 256 colour painting package. These colours are held as 24 bit values and can be selected from a palette of 16.7 million colours - even on RISC OS 2. With older computers such as the A5000 unless you have additional hardware such as the Computer Concepts/Wild Vision Colour Card or one of the State Machine cards you will be unable to see these additional colours on your computer.
Images created in ProArtisan 2 can be any size or resolution provided that your machine has enough memory and it supports the resolution that you want to work. Internally your images are always held at high resolution and in 24 bit colour, even when you work in a low resolution or low colour mode. When you return to a higher resolution mode the image is restored to the correct resolution. In other words, changing mode does NOT convert the image to that mode and potentially lose information. The image is only converted to another mode at save time and only then if you instruct ProArtisan 2 to save in another mode.
Upgrading to ProArtisan24
The latest version, ProArtisan24, is a full 24 bit art package and is therefore much more powerful and is ideal for editing modern 32,000 or 16M colour images and is also 32 bit neutral and runs natively on the Iyonix.
The normal price for ProArtisan24 is £39, but as a very special offer to RISC World subscribers we are offering the complete ProArtisan24 package for just £34. This price includes UK post, but please add £1.50 for carriage outside the UK.
No part of this product may be reproduced in whole or part by any means without written permission of the publisher. Unauthorised hiring, renting, lending, public performance or broadcasting of this product or its parts is prohibited.
ProArtisan is supplied under licence for use on one computer at a time. The user is forbidden to make any copies of the source media where the program is supplied on CD. Please contact APDL for details of site licences.
While every care is taken the publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors in this product, or for the loss of any data or consequential effects from the use of this package.
Published by
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road
Sydenham
London SE26 5RN
Phone -020 8778 2659
Fax -020 8488 0487
ProArtisan was written by Frank Dart and J.Warminster.
All trademarks are acknowledged.
The complete DiscWorld line up
Demos
Demos of various commercial products supplied by APDL/ProAction.
DrawWorksXE
An updated version of DrawWorksXE with a few minor bug fixes including a proper icon bar icon for the on-line manual.
Files
Brian Pickards sample PDF document from his article.
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
Q_BBC
Q BASIC to BBC BASIC converter.
SouthWest
My tatty video from RISC OS SouthWest and a copy of KinoAmp to play it on.
Turbo
A drawfile showing the modifications required to turbo charge a StrongARM along with some test programs.
ToolBox
This contains two sets of Toolbox Modules. The Castle archive contains the latest 26/32 bit neutral system components, required if you want to run a lot of new software releases on 26bit machines (ie. anything that isn't an Iyonix). The RISCOS Ltd archive contains later and improved versions of a number of modules and is suitable for all versions of RISC OS from 3.1 onwards.
I am writing this in the aftermath of the RISC OS SouthWest show. Actually I wrote that sentence in the aftermath of the show, then the phone rang and it's now a week later (it was a long phone call,but not that long, then I realised I should be doing the other articles first!) and I am coming back to write my editorial bit. Since it's the end of another volume of RISCWorld I ought to do my proper editor bit, but I can spin that out into a complete article in it's own right, so why fit it in here when I can do it as a separate article and go into more detail. Anyway normally I finish writing my editorial when an issue is pretty much complete, which is around the 18th of the month. Today is the 9th of March and this issue is 95% complete. The reason for this is that for some unknown reason a lot of the articles I commissioned have come in early, which is rather handy and a complete shock to my system.
However despite the articles flowing in nice and quickly I could still do with more authors. So if you have an idea for a RISCWorld article drop me a line, even better if you have an idea and can write it, drop me several lines. Don't forget that we pay £50 for submissions, and give each author a free copy of the issue that contains their article, if they are a subscriber then we extend their subscription by one. So if you would like to see your name in an issue of RISCWorld and get paid into the bargain get in touch.
Editors Rant of the month
My rant this month is about car insurance, well actually vehicle insurance. For a few years I have been with Insure.co.uk. You may remember their adverts, a suitably smug looking Quentin Wilson waffling on about "...car insurance re-invented, and about time too". I went with them because they were cheap, the next year they were not quite so cheap, but still competitive, last year they just kept my business. This year they haven't.
The reason is that I am just changing vehicle. The Rover 820, much as I liked it for about 5 minutes after buying it but before driving it home, has reached the end of the road. Well not actually the end of the road as my house number is 86, and in Bracknell the house numbers start one one side going up the road to the dead end, and then come back the other side, and 86 is near the main road as there are only 90 houses, but that isn't what I meant. Although the car still drives quite well it needs lots doing to it, probably including an exorcism to remove the demon the inhabits the electrics. We have a merry game every time we go to a car park, will the driver's window wind down? If it does will it go up again afterwards? If it does then will the central locking work, or will it lock and then 20 seconds later unlock itself again? Ahh, what fun.
Anyway, I have been hunting for a replacement for some time; it must be big enough to take all the things it needs to carry, including long lengths of wood, dogs, computers, 6 panel pine doors, kitchen worktops etc, although I hasten to add it doesn't have to carry all of these at the same time. I don't like estates, big hatchbacks are getting difficult to find, so how about a big four wheel drive? Hmm, aren't they expensive? Yes, well hang the expense, I'll buy a cheap one. So what's worth having? Everyone I spoke to said the same, Range Rovers are a nightmare, besides which I have just had one Rover and don't need another ones, older Nissan Patrols are noisy, the only Discoveries I could afford were early 3 door versions and I need 5 doors. Land Rovers are great fun but older ones are hopeless on motorways. Old Land Cruisers are like hens teeth, so I kept getting the same advice, buy a Mitsuibishi Shogun.
So that's what I did, I bought a long wheel base 1989 Shogun V6, at night, on a garage forcourt, from a bloke I didn't know from Adam (although he was better dressed). I did look at a few before hand, but they all seemed to consist of rust in a vaguely vehicular shape. The one I bought looks good for the age, it has walnut trim, electric windows, cruise control and lots of other goodies, oh yes and a new MOT. Having got it home I discovered that it was a GLS model, which was top of the range at the time, I also discovered that I paid roughly half of what they normally sell for. Have I got a bargain or have I bought a dog? Only time will tell. Still it's now had a full service and a pile of little jobs done before being put on the road. However before it can go on the road it needs to be insured, see this is getting somewhere.
So I spoke to insure.co.uk, ah yes, sorry how much? "hat will be £520 a year third party fire and theft" oh no it won't thank you very much. I tried another well known insurer, but they only managed to quote me bloody miserable. I then tried lots of other insurers, all of whom decided that I needed to pay them around £500 a year, although some offered fully comprehensive cover. So I went a grabbed a specialist 4x4 magazine, and found a company that said they would insure older 4 wheel drive vehicles, indeed their advert specifically mentioned Land Rovers and Shoguns. Yes, they can insure it, yes unlimited miles, oh and their excess was £100 lower than anyone else, Yes the bull bars and side steps are fine. "ight then, that works out at £183.00 a year including protected no claims bonus" Wow, that's considerably less than the Rover 820 costs me, have my card details.
So the Shogun is insured, will it break down, if it does you will be among the first to find out. Anyway what I wondered is why one company can do it for sub £200, when another wants over £500 for inferior cover, you tell me. I can only conclude one thing, insurance is a rip off in many cases. Before you renew your insurance try a specialist, currently I can recommend Adrian Flux, but I can't recommend insure.co.uk.
Printing RISC World
The new look of RISC World means that you will no longer get the yellow background when printing articles from RISCWorld. However you will still get the blue border on the left unless you turn off the printing of background images. 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 RISCWorld pages and don't want to waste ink on a blue border then make sure you have clicked a similar option in your browser.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/FILES/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, PC File Conversion
PC File Conversion
Part 5 Desktop Publishing - Brian Pickard
One of the most popular areas of computer use is desktop publishing. As a result many different desktop publishing applications have been produced on all the computer platforms over the years. Notable applications include Quark for the Macintosh, Microsoft Publisher for the PC and Impression Publisher and OvationPro for RISC OS machines. This has resulted in many differing file codings all which are readable only by their parent applications. The main problems in trying to port DTP between platforms can be broadly spilt into the following areas:
Font Definitions
Every platform holds the shapes of its fonts in font files and each use a different system! However for the RISC OS user wishing to supply fonts with a document you do have two options, both DrFonty and FontFiend (both from APDL) can export a font in PostScript format. The resulting font can be used directly on a PC with Adobe Type Manager. It can also be loaded into Fontographer on the Mac and converted into a Macintosh format font.
BitMap and Vector Diagrams
As we have already seen PC's have a multitude of differing bitmap and vector drawing formats. These would all have to be changed into the native bitmap and vector file codings for the destination platform (although some bitmaps can be ported over directly e.g. JPEGs).
Actual DTP document file coding
Each DTP application uses its own way of coding the layout of the its document in its file so no other DTP package would be able to read a non native DTP file.
Ways round the problems
The easiest way of sending a DTP document between the different platforms is to try and use a format that every platform can read. Luckily there is one, Adobes Portable Document Format (PDF). In this way the entire format of the document can be retained (even the font shapes even if the fonts do not exist on the destination platform).
RISC OS to PC's and Macs
Lets say you have produced your publication on either Impression Publisher Ovation Pro etc. on the your RISC OS machine and you want to send it to a publisher and/or friend who has a PC or Mac. Here is how to do it.
Produce a PDF version of your document. I do this as follows
Make sure any Sprites are 24 bit
Print to file using the PostScript 2 printer driver (with the colour switched on)
Using RISCScript (from Cerilica) drag the PostScript file onto the RISCScript icon
The whole document should look just the same as in your DTP package
Now save the document from RISCScript as a PDF file. (Using a /pdf extension to the filename)
This file will be quite small compared to the PostScript and your original DTP document file due to PDF's built in compression. This makes the file idea for sending via the net as an email attachment. All the font shapes can be saved within the PDF document so the PC should display a completely accurate version.
From PC to RISC OS
Get the PC owner to produce a PDF version of their DTP document, with the font shapes saved within the document. Set the filetype of the PDF file to PDF (&ADF). Load the PDF file into a PDF viewer. Printout a copy if required.
There is one drawback to this method. The file sent and received will probably be uneditable. (Unless the PC owner has the full Adobe PDF application.) The recently release Serif PagePlus 9 will save it in PDF format, so this can be used without the need to convert PostScript and then PDF.
Serif PagePlus9
This is a very good DTP package rivaling Microsoft Publisher. The addition of PDF format support for saving is very useful. It will also save the publication pages as bitmap images (JPEG etc.) or as vector files (WMF most useful) one page/file. These can then be, in theory turned into a draw file using the utility !WMF-Draw. In fact this software lends itself better than any other PC only DTP package I have seen for exporting/importing images etc. between RISC OS and PCs. So I have produced a two page document to show the possibilities (it's in the software directory - ED).
RISC OS to PC
I imported, into PagePlus 9, the mini car Artworks file using two methods:
Exporting the file using Artworks as a Drawfile. Then using the !Draw-WMF utility to change it to the Windows Metafile format (WMF)
Exporting the file using Artworks as an Artworks EPS file. This can be read by the PC program Xara X (this is actually the PC equivalent of Artworks and will load Acorn Drawfiles). Then exporting it out of Xara X as a WMF file
Both WMF files can then be loaded into PagePlus 9. The second method gives the better quality and if using Microsoft Publisher only the second version will load!
For other bitmap requirements just change them from RISC OS sprites to any convenient PC format (BMP, PNG, GIF etc for line/cartoon style images and JPEG for photos).
PagePlus 9 will decode Microsoft Word text so you could send any text as raw or Word format.
PC to RISC OS
Using PagePlus 9 publishing as a PDF document option produces the entire document in PDF format in various Adobe formats, I chose Adobe5 compatibility to make sure my RISC OS RISCScript app would be able to decode it. One hint is to tick the option in PagePlus9 to convert all fonts to paths to ensure their shapes are retained. To retain editability you could export each page from PagePlus9 as an WMF file and load it via !Draw-WMF RISC OS utility into Draw. Fonts shapes aren't retained and sometimes the whole process gets in a tangle!
Common Formats
The neatest way round the problem would be to find applications that have RISC OS and PC versions, here are some examples:
Textease from Softease is one such application with a PC version. It is really a multimedia application allowing full blown presentations with sound to be produced, but can be used as a good basic DTP package
David Pillings OvationPro also has (at the moment) a Easywriter Pro from Icon Technology can read Microsoft word format documents
PC Formats to avoid
Microsoft Publisher format. I have not come across any RISC OS apps that can deal with MS Publisher files. I have also had no luck with older versions of Serif PagePlus.
Of course if you know of any RISC OS utilities that can read the above formats please let us know!
Well thats it for this part, and this short series. If there are any other areas you have come across that you have successfully transferred from PC to RISC OS please let us know. I trust the hints and tips have been helpful.
Brian Pickard
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
I left last issue's column with a small teaser; would I be able to tell you about what might well be the most important gaming release for RISC OS for some time? Well, somewhat regretfully I still can't, the information is still under NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement - ED) and until this NDA is lifted I am forbidden from saying anything. Let's instead move on to what I can tell you about in the world of RISC OS gaming.
Tom Cooper classics
On the 26th of February
So a number of these games will ba available from AcornArcade in the coming weeks, the first one to get a release is the ground breaking 3D adventure game Ixion.
Ixion
Ixion was written by Tom Cooper and Barry Clarkson, and was release commercially by Software 42 in 1992. Double-click !Ixion, and then click on the icon bar icon to start a game. The controls are:
Select - Select items and perform action
Adjust - Fir
< and > - Adjust scanner rang
F11 - Display these control
F12 - Return to desktop (The game will be paused and can be resumed at will
Escape - Quit/restart gam
P - Paus
Ixion in action
Clicking the mouse on the direction arrows at the bottom of the screen will move your character around. Choosing 'map' will display a map, 'inv' will list your inventory, etc. Some vehicles can be entered and thus driven round, likewise doors can be opened and lifts can be used to travel between floors of buildings. Apart from that, you're on your own!
DosBox
You may well have heard of the Microsoft XBox, an all singing all dancing super powerful games console. Well DosBox is the same, only the complete opposite. It allows you to run old DOS games on a RISC OS computer. DOSBox requires RISC OS 3.6 or later, and needs to live in a filing system that supports long file names and unlimited files per directory, so users with RISC OS 3.7 need to keep it in an X-Files archive. Anyone with RISC OS 4 or higher can just install DOSBox to their hard drive. DOSBox requires the !UnixHome application and version 0.51 of the DigitalRenderer module which I have included.
Mario VGA
Alan Buckley can be thanked for porting this to RISC OS as part of the
You may be wondering what the point of DOSBox is. Well many of the DOS games of their time were as good as the console games from Nintendo and Sega. However unlike downloading "dodgy" console ROM images that are copyright, you can download lots of DOSgames with the copyright holders blessing.
If you do download some games you will need to set them up so that they work properly. This is quite easy to do:
Firstly make an application directory for the game to be installed to, e.g. !ActionGam
Now unzip the game to this directory using !ZipEE (!Sparkplug can sometimes corrupt files)
Create a new Obey file in your text editor and enter the following (where !ActionGame is the name of your game)
| Run file for ActionGam
Set ActionGame$Dir <Obey$Dir>
Set ActionGame$Path <ActionGame$Dir>
<DosBox$Dir>.!Run "ActionGame:/ActionGame.exe
Note that in the final line you should link to the file that you would run to load the game under DOS.
Now save this obey file as !Run inside your game application directory
If you now double click on the game DOSBox will be loaded with the game directory mounted and the game will run
DOSBox does require a fast machine (preferably an Iyonix), you can also get more speed by increasing the frame skip with CTRL F8, and the CPU cycles with CTRL F12. Although I have provided a couple of VGA games, older EGA games will run much faster. For more details see the !Help file supplied with DOSBox.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/GEN/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, Research your family history online
Research your family history online
Dave Bradforth goes on-line looking for more Bradforths...
Before you begin to produce your family tree, you'll need to research your family history, as I explain in this, the first of a new series on genealogy, it's easier than you think.
As illustrated by the recent launch of various magazines on the subject, researching your family history (and producing your family tree) on a home computer is a subject of interest to many. With the expansion of the Internet, many resources that would previously have taken months to acquire are available in seconds, and with the software now available it's never been easier to store family data in an appropriate format.
There are three stages to producing a family tree on your computer. The first, research, is discussed in this article, where we've given four essential websites that offer a clear methodical layout and should be quite easy to navigate in finding any family information.
The second, organise, forms the subject of our next article. The organisation process is where you enter the data you've collected into your computer, linking it to individuals and families in the process. It can take some time, but will ultimately make your family tree that little bit better.
The final stage, presentation, will be discussed in our final article. This covers the factors behind making your family tree look good on paper, from getting more out of your paper size to the advantages offered by using a computer over the more traditional calligraphy pen and ink.
What is GEDCOM?
GEDCOM, standing for Genealogical Data Communications, is the International file standard used behind most genealogical applications. There are numerous versions and variations of it, which unfortunately means that many applications are compatible in many ways but not entirely.
The standard defines how data is stored within a database, and the factors beyond which affect it. From how families are linked together, to any further resources available, virtually anything can be stored within a GEDCOM file. A technical description of the format is available at www.gedx.com.
Websites that will help you trace your relatives
There are literally thousands of websites dedicated to genealogy; and below we've covered just four more general sites as a starting point to your own genealogical research. Over the course of the next two issues, we're looking for input as to your own favourites for inclusion. Do please email me, and if appropriate, I'll include a roundup in the next issue.
Ask Jeeves to trace your relatives
If you Ask Jeeves a question about your name, it will search the Internet for an answer. If it doesn't have an answer, it will often return a suggested alternate search that may or may not be more successful. This is a more general search engine, offering something beyond genealogy.
Could Friends Reunited be Families Reunited?
The world-famous Friends Reunited website, and its new relative GenesConnected, contain many thousands of records on individuals around the country. It's possible that there may be an entry from a long-lost family member; someone with whom you can combine work on your tree.
Cyndi knows all about genealogy
Cyndi's List is the Internet's single most comprehensive guide to family tree research while online. Administered by Cyndi Howells, the site contains quite literally thousands of direct links to Internet sites containing information about families and family names all over the world.
Become all google-eyed
Since its proper introduction as a mainstream internet portal (helped considerably by the acquisition of dejanews), Google has evolved to become something like a one-stop-shop for all information on various types. Here we've searched for photographs of an individual, returning just one entry. (Yes, it's very egocentric but searching for photographs of other people and including them in magazine articles can prove to be a little litigious if we forget to ask th
people involved.
Software for genealogy under RISC OS
We're not going to explore this in detail until the next issue, but there are a number of options for looking after your family tree through RISC OS.
The first, and most obvious given that it's distributed by RISC World's publishers, APDL, is Ancestor+. Released as a development of Graham Crow's own Ancestry package, but renamed after Minerva Software decided that they own all rights to the word Ancestry when connected to a genealogy package, it has been favourably reviewed through most parts of the RISC OS press.
As I write David Holden is working on an update to the package, so we're optimistic it will be ready for a detailed review in the next issue. In the meantime, further details are available from APDL on 020 8778 2659 and a copy of the current trial version can be found on this issue of RISCWorld. Play with it, as next time we'll be using it with a vengeance.
Other options available include:
!Family, originally written by Dennis Howe and currently available from http://www.pennine.demon.co.uk/family/downloads.html
Rosemary Miskin has written a number of essential utilities for checking the validity of GEDCOM files (which could be essential to save time when exporting the files to friends with PCs and Macs). Visit her website at http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/miskin for details
Another useful utility that's highlighted itself is GedcomWeb from Hilary Phillips. This will convert a GEDCOM file into two HTML files, one containing an index to all the names in your GEDCOM file in alphabetical order by surname and the other in an interactive layout of a type of family tree.
We'll be looking in detail at as much software as we can in the next issue, and everything that's freeware will be included as you'd expect on the disc. Do please let us know of anything we've missed, or indeed your preferred way of creating family trees within RISC OS.
Dave Bradforth continues the roundup of new RISC OS compatible hardware.
When I first considered this column, it was as a way of bringing to light hardware that has the potential to become available to RISC OS users. As it turns out, this month we've got a number of relevant items to cover, the initial two of which are RISC OS products from RISC OS suppliers. Cant be bad, eh.
Windfall Engineering to close
Realistically, it's a sign of the times. John Kortink, author of Creator and Translator; and designer of the Viewfinder card for Risc PC users, has announced that Windfall Engineering (responsible for the distribution of the Viewfinder card) is to close. As a result, the Viewfinder has been reduced in price as a final clearance.
A Viewfinder card
What the Viewfinder hardware essentially does is to sidestep some of the restrictions of the Risc PC video system by building an AGP graphics card into a standard RISC OS podule.
This allows RISC OS users to overcome the VRAM limits of RISC OS, and hence gain access to desktops of up to 4096 x 1536 pixels. across two monitors, at a 16 million colour screen depth. A Radeon-based card will allow you to plug your computer into a TV as well as your monitor too. The advantage of using such a system to implement improved graphics performance is that it essentially sidesteps processor limitations, but the more memory you have in your computer the better use you can make of the increased screen resolution. And it's unlikely that you'll pay much for a lot of memory anyway.
As a part of their closing down deal, Windfall have knocked 50 Euro off the price of each Viewfinder; so realistically you can get the top end kit at 250 Euro instead of 300 Euro. For further details, or to order, visit
Thermal Dye Printing from Stuart Tyrell Developments
Just before the RISC OS Southwest Show, Stuart Tyrell Developments announced the release of drivers for the Kodak Printer Dock 6000. The Kodak Printer Dock 6000 employs a continuous tone thermal dye transfer technique to produce extremely high quality edge-to-edge prints on specialised card, beyond those available from traditional inkjet technology. It may be used with any Kodak 6000 series camera, or can be directly attached to the USB port of a RISC OS machine.
The printer is supplied complete with a starter pack of media (card and dye), mains adaptor, and drivers for Windows and RISC OS computers. The RISC OS drivers (which coincidentally include a Pdumper module written by Castle Technology Technical Director John Balance) are suitable for both the Castle Iyonix USB and Simtec USB interfaces.
Stuart Tyrell Developments are selling the printer, including RISC OS drivers, for £199 fully inclusive; or the RISC OS drivers by themselves for £19 inclusive. For further information, visit the website at
Castle launch the X100 – an Iyonix PC in a flat box
We'll quote this straight from the announcement – we hope to have a little more detail about this computer in the next issue of RISCWorld.
"The IYONIX X100 features an nVidia GeForce video card, a choice of CD reader/writer, hard drives with capacities up to 120GB, and a range of memory options using 200MHz DDR memory. The IYONIX X100 also features a 3.5" FDD and built in 7 in 1 memory card reader (option), together with two front mounted USB ports, headphone and microphone sockets. Other features include a Gigabit network port, screen modes up to 2048 x 1536, a 250W power supply, front mounted reset and front mounted 'on' switch. Performance of the X100 is the same as the IYONIX pc and runs the same version of RISC OS, but the X100 does not feature the legacy Podule bus. However future expansion is catered for by two low-profile PCI expansion slots accessed from the rear of the computer.
"The size of the X100 is ideal for installation on desktops and is strong enough to allow a wide range of monitors to be placed on the X100. The X100 dimensions are just 105mm high, 325mm wide and 430mm deep. Prices for the IYONIX X100 start at just GBP £1249 including vat. The X100 also features a rich bundle of ready to use software including a Web Browser, a Word compatible word processor, a spreadsheet and a host of other applications and utilities."
Essentially, it sounds like if you have a requirement for a desktop case version of the Iyonix PC; and can live without the legacy podule bus, the X100 should be your port of call. For information, visit
Trust 962z Digital Camera
Elsewhere in this issue, we've reviewed a mighty powerful set of speakers from Trust. Here we've got a digital camera, I've moved this into this roundup because we'll be going into more detail in the next issue of RISCWorld, as part of a largescale feature on USB.
When I last took a serious look at the cameras offered by Trust Computer Products, it has to be said they were more on the cheap and cheerful side and less on the quality side. In fact, the first cameras from Trust were billed as webcams with the ability to take still photographs; and even thinking of connecting them to RISC OS would have brought howls of laughter. However with Simtec's USB card now on the market, you can plug in cameras such as the 962Z reviewed here and treat the camera as an external hard disc; allowing for images to be copied off of the camera straight into your favourite graphics application with ease... although you should copy the files to your hard disc first.
The Trust 962z
As far as specifications go, this offering from Trust fares pretty well. It's the first digicam I've seen from Trust that doesn't aim to double as a webcam, and it has to be said that the initial look and feel of the camera is very much like that of a Kodak or Olympus offering. A cheap Kodak or Olympus offering, but you see my point. Key features of the camera are:
Digital camera with 3.1 Megapixel Sony CCD sensor and 4.0 Megapixel camera resolution
Auto focus lens with 12x zoom function (3x optical zoom and extra 4x digital zoom)
4cm colour TFT LCD display for live viewfinder, zoom preview, review pictures and menu functions
16MB memory built-in and expandable with optional SD memory card
Video recording option (including sound) and video output to review pictures/videos on TV
Technical Specifications:
Digital camera with high 3.1 (2048 x 1536) Megapixel sensor resolution
Camera resolution 4.0 Megapixel (2272 x 1704)
Highly sensitive Sony CCD optical sensor
Auto focus lens with 3x optical zoom and extra 4x digital zoom function
4cm colour TFT LCD display for live viewfinder, zoom preview, review pictures and menu functions
Up to 80 pictures (1280 x 960) or 77 seconds of video with audio if using built-in 16MB memory
Memory expandable up to 512MB with optional SD memory card
Make sharp macro pictures at 20c
White balance settings for daylight, indoor and automatic setting
Built-in flash with options: on/off, automatic, slow sync, fill-in and red-eye reduction
4x digital zoom to capture pictures and review pictures
Microphone included to capture video with audio
Add audio recording/messages to pictures after they are photographed
DPOF supported to print pictures on your printer without computer
Video output to review pictures on TV
10 seconds self-timer with acoustic and visual notification
Product size (HxWxD in mm): 72 x 104 x 53
Package contents:
Camer
USB cabl
Video output cabl
Batteries (2x AA Duracell Ultra
Protective carry ba
Hand stra
Tripod stan
CD-ROM with Windows drivers, software for Windows and Mac OS
Multi language user's manua
Incorporating an LCD viewfinder, allowing you to frame your shot before taking it, this 4 megapixel offering produced very good quality shots (samples of which are provided below) but suffered in that the lighting in the environment very much affected what you could see through the viewfinder. I realise that this was much to be expected, but it did have a noticeable effect on the final image – it seemed like the flash and viewfinder were out of proportion to each other.
Jasper investigates the new camera
Look at my nose...
The fact I was able to access the images on this camera immediately through Mac OS X without installing software allows us to say for definite RISC OS owners of a Simtec USB card should already fare quite well, but wait till next issue for a definitive answer to this. Further details are available at
Coming up next time
In the next issue, we're going to go for a big USB feature; illustrating how well off the shelf USB accessories will integrate with the average RISC OS users desktop. In the same issue, we'll feature more of the latest kit from Trust Computer Supplies, a printer review and an explanation of the conflicting standards for USB offered by RISC OS suppliers.
Dave Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
It's the man who's unencumbered by talant......Huuuuugh Jampton.
Yet again I find myself writing a column for the last issue of a volume of RISCWorld, which, let's face it, is better than finding yourself at the bottom of a ditch with a traffic cone, a shopping trolley and a hangover. So without further ado why don't we kill the brain cells that other magazines can't reach and have a look at last issue's caption competition...
Last issues caption competition
Those of you who are still awake may remember this from last issue:
Well I can count the number of entries on the knees (surely McNee's - ED) of one le
"Please no...I don't want to go over to the dark side...Heeeeeeeelp!"/I>
William McNee
Which is a good caption, in fact it's the best caption from a field of one. So I therefore have no hesitation in naming William as this issue's winner. So in the vain hope that we might get some more entries this issue lets move along.
This issues photo
So what can devious RISC OS minds come up with for this?
Send your entries to HughJ@riscworld.co.uk and you too could get a chance to have your name appear on your own monitor in glorious monochrome.
Hugh's picture gallery
Lets start of with a quick set of photos that was sent to me by Aaron, and includes a number of excellent ways to lose your job...
Firstly by trying to wing it.
By having a nice rest.
Of course when you know it's gone wrong you do get that sinking feeling.
By playing Jenga on too large a scale.
And finally popping out to the canteen for a squash.
Well that only leaves me a little of bit of space for out usual collection of Windoze based humour...
If you do see the chap above, then I recommend this...
But I certainly don't recommend this.
And as is becoming a tradition in this column lets finish with the cute furry animal.....
When you first get a shiny new computer, do you take the time out to read the manual? David Bradforth breaks the habit of a lifetime, and does just that.
As many of you know, I divide my time between writing for a variety of PC and Mac magazines and taking an active interest in all things RISC OS. This does of course mean that there are times when reading the manual is the last thing on my mind. Until I run out of ideas, and start screaming at the press representative who promptly responds with RTFM. Usually in not quite such a polite fashion, either.
With the recent announcement from Castle Technology of the availability of a Welcome Guide for the Iyonix PC, I waited for it to fall through my door. Not with any huge intention of reading it, but more out of curiosity to see how they'd presented the information Acorn used to have in 200+ page spiralbound guides.
The Iyonix Welcome Guide
The answer is, in a word, exactly the same... except it's in a binder (an oversize A5 affair) and printed entirely in colour on 100gm paper.
It opens with a welcome from Jack Lillingston, Castle MD, thanking you for buying the Iyonix PC, then continues with the guidelines for safe operation (in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish). While this may be to ensure that those whose first language is not English can understand the important stuff, surely the rest of the guide being in English would be something of a hindrance.
In terms of what follows, Castle have provided a concise guide to many aspects of setting up the Iyonix PC and particularly the RISC OS operating system. It's clear, and straightforward, although there are times where it's a little too quick in its explanations leaving plenty of room for readers to get confused along the way.
The appendices at the end, introducing USB (ideal as this is one of the first mainstream RISC OS computers to incorporate USB as a part of its design), Iyonix PC software information (where to gain information on compatibility), the use of alternative file systems (such as CDFS and ShareFS), RISC OS online help (through the use of !Help) and the Command Line skip anything that will take the user beyond that initial learning stage, so I would recommend following up your use of the welcome guide with a read through of the RISC OS user guide.
If there is demand for us to do so, RISC World will bring back the Absolute Beginners series but with a focus on RISC OS 5 – let the editor know if this is of appeal.
So what do I think of the Iyonix PC Welcome Guide? Well it's a well presented, concise, guide to introduce new users to the Iyonix PC but there are ways in which it could have been extended to take users past that initial stage. I cant criticise it too much though, it does what it sets out to do and it's free.
Aaron emailed me not so long ago pointing out two rather profound facts:
RISCWorld doesn't have a column about the Iyoni
I have an Iyonix of my own which is in daily use
In a moment of inspiration we put two and two together and so here I am, introducing RiscWorld's new column: Iyonix Issues.
With the formal out of the way, I'd like to say from the very start that I want this to be an interactive column - if you have something you want me to cover in a future issue then please email me at iyonix@tamias.co.uk and I'll do my best to write about it... even if it's just to suggest a better name for the column!
This column is going to be more than just another review of the Iyonix. It is primarily aimed at current users of Castle's new machine and aims to bring you news and opinions on current developments, as well as other issues such as compatibility, expansion, and usability. Of course, this does not exclude potential users, or even 'outsiders' who are interested in following the progress of the new flagship RISC OS machine as it develops and matures. There's some interesting times ahead for Iyonix, and I for one am excited to be a part of them.
OS updates
Towards the end of February, John Ballance of Castle announced that a new version of the operating system had been released. RISC OS 5.05 would bring users' Iyonixes up to the latest standard, incorporating bug fixes, a new video driver to cope with a greater range of the nVidia graphics cards used in the machines, and a much improved USB stack.
However all did not appear to be plain sailing for users who upgraded. In true computing style, problems that had not shown up during hours of testing by Castle manifested themselves in many different forms on their users' varied machines. Reports of USB devices refusing to work and programs crashing flooded the support SmartGroup for many days.
My own initial reaction was to hold fire until all the issues had been sorted out - a piece of wisdom imparted many a time in computing circles. However I was very tempted by some of the new features of RISC OS 5.05, particularly the built-in ability to scroll windows using the scroll wheel of a compatible mouse, and the fact that Paul Reuvers' new HID program (which requires 5.05) would allow me to configure any number of keyboard shortcuts and actions using the 'special' keys now prolific on many modern keyboards.
After a few days upgrades were issued to those few apps which crashed on loading (DialUp, Bookmaker, and PCITV featured most prominently). It turns out that a minor upgrade to one of the internal components of RISC OS had highlighted some bugs which a couple of these apps silently contained, until the new version of RISC OS brought them to light. Iyonix Linux also required a new kernel image to cope with the new video card drivers, which was promptly supplied by Peter Naulls.
With the news of these updated apps I decided to take the plunge and install the 5.05 update. The operation was painless - I downloaded a 2MB file from Castle's website using the supplied IyoUpWtch update program, which contained a readme file and a single application. Under Castle's advice I also downloaded an equivalent archive for RISC OS 5.03 in case I had to revert to the previous version. It was then simply a case of running the application, which reflashed the ROM chips on the Iyonix motherboard in a couple of minutes. One quick reboot later and I was up and running RISC OS 5.05.
So far I haven't noticed any problems, and I've updated the apps I mentioned earlier. The wheel on my mouse, previously just a handy worry bead, now works wonderfully in all the apps I could get my hands on. The computer does appear to be faster in some operations, particularly when opening the root directory of my digital camera's flash memory card. This operation used to take 4 or 5 seconds; it's now around a second until all my photo files are displayed. Other users have also reported decreased boot-up times and more responsive desktops in general usage.
For those still wondering whether to take the plunge, I would suggest you have nothing to lose by trying, as long as you have a copy of RISC OS 5.03 from the Castle website to fall back on. Reports on the SmartGroup suggest it was only the vocal minority who had problems with their Iyonixes anyway; the majority of upgrades worked fine, and those with problems either didn't follow the instructions correctly, or they're running some pretty exotic kit.
New Iyonix machine
Just before the recent and very successful RISC OS Southwest show, Castle announced a new product. No, it wasn't the fabled Iyonix Mk II or the Iyonix Laptop which are often speculated about, but instead it's a new case for the current machine. Exciting.
However there is actually a lot of careful thought behind the new case, and it means much more for the Iyonix as a whole than first meets the eye. The case, sold containing the usual Iyonix bits under the name "Iyonix X100", was reportedly developed in response to requirements made by Castle's corporate customers. Who these customers are, no-one knows but Castle, but they must be buying an awful lot of Iyonixes to warrant the development of a completely new case design. This can only be good news for RISC OS as it shows that there is a very valuable market beyond the enthusiast circle.
The 2 Iyonix cases now available
The case is a desktop configuration and, from the initial photos posted on their website, looks a smart little affair with more styling than the standard tower Iyonix. Space for legacy podules has been removed, allowing a much smaller form factor (closer to a one-slice RiscPC at my own estimates). Most interestingly, the case is touted as being compliant with USA radiation standards. RISC OS has historically never enjoyed much success Across the Pond, but if Castle feel they can justify the costs of developing a case which specifically permits use in America, then that is surely a good indication of their faith in the Iyonix's success overseas.
One notable downside which the new case brings, at least to me, is that it's no longer reliant on convection cooling. One of the major selling points of the Iyonix tower-version for me is its near-silent operation, as I sleep with the computer at the foot of my bed at university. It's quiet enough for me to be able to leave it switched on overnight with barely the slightest whisper to lull me to sleep.
The Iyonix X100 is a desktop computer design, meaning that a more powerful fan must be used to extract hot air from its internals. Hence the X100 can no longer be touted as a 'silent' Iyonix. I'll bet it's still damn quiet though.
Saying goodbye to old friends
Sad though it is, when I bought my Iyonix I very quickly had to say goodbye to my family's trusty RiscPCs as I was moving to university. I had barely six weeks in which to transfer my entire computing setup from the RiscPCs to my Iyonix, and iron out any problems which may arise - not to mention getting used to new software and hardware, which in some places is vastly different to Acorn's legacy machines.
The question foremost in my mind at that time, which I'm sure a lot of you who either have bought or are considering buying an Iyonix have wondered, was "will the Iyonix be a suitable replacement for my RiscPC?"
This comes at a time when I've just purchased a PC laptop to run Linux and VirtualRPC-SE under Windows XP (which enjoys the novel status of being installed on my laptop simply so I can take pleasure in ignoring it). I am genuinely questioning whether my Iyonix will be able to cut the mustard, as they say, or if the new machine will render my Iyonix a waste of space and - more importantly - money. Well there's nothing wrong with honest questioning, and I hope to have some answers for you by the time I next write in this column.
Mark Rowan iyonix@tamias.co.uk http://www.tamias.co.uk
After the last issue, where to be honest we were a bit light on the letters front, it's nice to see a whole pile of your words come tumbling in.
Aaron,
Following your comments on the problem with X-files (vol4 issue5 letters
a possible alternative for archived files would be to use either zip o
arc archives which would not be a problem for Iyonix users as it come
pre-loaded with a read only version of SparkFS. You could include a cop
of the read only version of Sparkplug so that 26 bit users who don'
already have SparkFS could use it to gain access to the archives.
The problem with using SparkFS/SparkPlug is that it can corrupt stuf
with long file names, and then things don't work :-( Try de-compressin
some of Chockys games ports and you will see what I mean. It woul
be better to use Zipee, is a 32bit version of that available?
Richard Darby
Ah, the reason for using X-Files is that you an run things directly from the CD, you can also copy the entire X-Files folder off the CD and still use programs that require long file names on a machine that only supports 10 character file names. However we have now solved the problem by getting hold of the X-Files sources and have converted it to 32 bit ourselves. So from now on Iyonix owners can run X-Files archives directly without having to use a 26 bit machine. A copy of this new 32bit version is hidden inside the !RWWorld application. I don't know about a 32bit ZipEE, but one would be very useful.
Aaron,
I was interested by your article about speeding up StrongArm boards,
and might even try it, though I think both my processors ar
early ones and not capable of the highest speeds. I remembe
waiting for them - you paid and were sent a numbered card.
Messages passed around about how far down the list they ha
got. They certainly speeded things up, but I would questio
your 'several orders of magnitude' (= multiples of ten).
have probably forgotten, but were the ARM processors the
replaced not run at about 70 or 80 MHz? That would make th
speed-up about 3 times, though there were probably technica
differences with enhanced the improvement.
I enjoy RISC World - hope it continues to thrive.
Philip Draper
Thanks for the nice comments about RISCWorld, we hope it continues to thrive as well. As for the StrongARM upgrade, some tests were indeed 10 times faster then on older processors, the Arm610 was a 30Mhz part and the Arm710 was 40Mhz. The original Strongarm was a 202Mhz part, an overclocked version can go up to 287Mhz, which is almost 10 times the speed of the original Arm610. BASIC in particular benefited from the StrongARM as, by luck, more than design, the BASIC interpreter could sit in one of the StrongARM's caches, and so wasn't limited so much by the slow RiscPC bus speed. If you are going to try overclocking don't forget to read this issues article on cooling.
And now a complaint.
Aaron,
I must protest! You wrote: "... decided that the machines increasing unreliability, it's age ...". I presume you are talking about one machine? Therefore: machine's (possessive: belongs to the machine). Alternatively: machines' (possessive: pertaining to both machines). Also: its age (possessive its has no apostrophe). For more on this, I urge you to read Cheers
Andrew Harmsworth
Well there are two approaches to this, the first is to agree and to say that yes I will try and get this right in future. The other is to point out that English is a dynamic language and has changed over the years, the rules of punctuation should perhaps be seen in a modern context as simply guidelines that one might decide to adhere to in particular circumstances, however as guidelines they must remain flexible and allow the creative spirit of the author to shine through without being chained down by a totalitarian regime with it's roots buried firmly in the past. Actually I think I will try and just get it right in future, it will be easier.
Oh and what happened to your article for the last issue?
Now a letter about a piece of cover software we ran last year.
Hi,
I sent an email letter for RISCWorld , about the Recycler applicatio
that was on RISC World a couple of issues ago, asking if it can b
made to run on the Iyonix, did you get this letter? I just find i
strange about the lack of letters and mine wasn't there! I'm not to
worried I just wanted an answer if Recycler can or can be made to run o
the Iyonix, as despite being a much better machine than my Risc PC
RISC OS Select did have a number of features that i used that i mis
from the Iyonix - and Recycler is one of those.
Cheers
Matthew
Sorry I didn't get your first e-mail. A few e-mails have gone back and forward with regard to Recycler, since other users may well be interested Dave Bradforth had this to say..."Recycler is going to be rewritten at some point to work properly on the Iyonix, as well as to remove some annoyances with earlier versions of RISC OS. At the moment, it's a low priority because of the other work taking place, but it's certainly in the works.".
Which kind of solves that, sort of, however Matt also went on to say...
if possible can you put the "Iyonix OK" logo with a program, so that we know if it will work or not on the iyonix?
I will do my best to try and implimemt this from this issue onwards. Now a subscriptions foul up...
Hi!
It would appear that there has been a glitch in someone's system, as
received 2 copies of RW Vol 4 issue 5 today.
I don't mind, as the extra copy can be used as a table mat, but I hop
that someone somewhere else isn't short of their issue. I suppose it's al
Hugh J's fault again, though...
Do I need to return the disc? It's not been used as a table mat (yet), s
should still work, if the editor has done his job properly...;-)
William McNee
Sorry about you getting 2 copies (perhaps one for the week one for Sunday best?). I have forwarded your e-mail to Dave Holden as he sends out the CDs. I suggest using the spare as either a wildebeest scarer (since hanging some CDs in my parents garden none of their plants have been eaten by wildebeest), or with the addition of a bit of string, a nice medallion.
Finally an update on !Convolve from a previous issue.
Dear Aaron,
Would you let it be known that !Convolve (image matrix convolution) Version 2.00 and !BBC_C (BBC Basic to Acorn ANSI C Translator) Version 8.67 are both now available for free download from the The new version of !Convolve offers more choices concerning the manner of the image filtering, all from new facilities selectable from the ToolBar. The new version of !BBC_C deals with in-line (single line) BBC Basic Functions and Procedures correctly, handles string arguments returning values to calling routines better and corrects some reserved word tokens where the assumed coding was incorrect. The old version 8.66 is still available from my site.
Regards
Martin Carradus
Users would be well advised to have a poke around the software that Martin has written, indeed if you have a look at this months PD column you will find a copy of !Text2Draw, a very useful app written by Martin.
Well that's all we have this volume. If you have any comments on this issue don't forget to write in.
In the last issue of Volume 3 we included a selection of useful links, and as a number of people have said that the actually did find it useful, it seems like a good idea to do it again.
These are not just the usual links to RISC OS specific sites. If you want those the best place to go would be one of the main RISC OS portals such as The Iconbar or Drobe Launch Pad or the extremely comprehensive Nutshells, which has links to hundreds of dealers, developers, suppliers, FTP sites, and much more. These are links to sites you might find useful, but which are not RISC OS specific, so might not be quite so easy to find.
Printing
If you're using an inkjet printer and do a lot of printing then refilling the cartridges can drastically reduce your costs. The problem is getting decent ink to refill them with. The 60 ml bottles normally available from the likes of PC World, are not only quite expensive, but in my experience the ink is often of very poor quality. Not only does this mean that print quality isn't too good, some types seem to cause rapid degradation of the print heads. In fact, if I was a believer in conspiracy theories I'd be inclined to think that some brands were sold by the printer manufacturers to make you think that refilling is a bad idea.
One source of good quality ink that I can highly recommend is PhotoGlossy. I've mentioned this company before, but it's worth repeating. They don't just do ink, of course, but also original and 'pattern' cartridges as well as a variety of photo quality papers. For the average user the fact that they are in Guernsey is another big advantage. You pay just 95p postage per order and no VAT. You might be able to find slightly lower prices elsewhere, but probably not if you aren't VAT registered.
If you have a laser printer then you can probably refill that, too. Toner refills are available for most mono printers, and are now beginning to become available for colour lasers too. As with inkjets the cost savings can be considerable, especially if you do a lot of printing. U Refill Toner can supply bottles of toner or complete refill kits with instructions for a huge range of popular printers. They are not the cheapest (but not by a large margin) but they do have a very large range, and so are probably a good first stop if you haven't done this before.
Photography and more
If you're into digital photography, and particularly if you're on the lookout for a new camera, there's one site you really ought to have a look at. Digital Photography Review has reviews of all the latest digital cameras plus lots of related news. There are also discussion forums, samples galleries and a large database of digital camera specifications.
One thing that often comes up on the various newsgroups is someone asking "I've just been sent a file from a PC user with the extension .XXX (or whatever), does anyone know what it is ?" Well, here's the place to find out. Every File Format In The World might seem like a slight exaggeration, but probably not by much.
In these days of CD writers, networking and other means of transferring data between computers we can sometimes forget the older methods. I recently had a customer ask me how he could transfer around 40 Mb of data from an old A440 to a RiscPC. In the end I lent him an IDE interface and he used an old IDE drive to copy everything over, if you ever need to do something similar, especially as a 'one off', then the Serial Cable Networking Pages will probably be worth a visit.
Links for VirtualAcorn users
Having swum in our tiny backwater for so long, we have the advantage of such obscurity that we are deprived of the excitement of the regular virus attacks that the majority of computer users enjoy.People who are now using RISC OS under emulation often don't take the proper precautions before connecting a PC to the internet. This is absolutely essential if you are connecting via ADSL.
The first thing you need is a Firewall. If you don't have one and have already connected to the internet, even if only briefly, then your computer is probably already infected. So before you do anything else you'll need to disinfect it. The obvious problem is that you must not connect until you're protected, which creates a bit of a dilemma.
Luckily free software in the three categories you'll need is often available on magazine CDs, but most people will probably have access to the internet on another machine so you can download the software on that and transfer it to you new machine.
We'll try to cover this in more detail in a later issue, but you will need some anti-virus software to scan your hard disc. There are many options, but one that seems quite good is AVG Anti Virus which is free for home users.
You'll also need something to look for 'spy' software. Probably the most well known is Ad-Aware from Lavasoft. Alternatively you could have a look at Spy Stomper. Both of these are free, and the Spy Stomper site has various other useful items.
Last, but certainly not least, you absolutely must install a decent firewall. Without this your computer is simply wide open. The most well known is ZoneAlarm. This is a commercial package, but there's a free version available for download which is perfectly adequate for most people's needs.
When you've disinfected your machine and installed all your new protection you can visit Shields UP! This is a service offered by Gibson Research Corporation, who specialise in hard drive recovery software. They will 'probe' your defences and tell you if you are vulnerable. If you installed the necessary software you shouldn't have any worries - but it's reassuring to be told that you're protected.
Castle is pleased to announce the launch of the IYONIX X100. This new compact desktop computer features the same powerful 600MHz Intel XScale processor as the IYONIX pc. The X100 will be available alongside the IYONIX pc which remains in production.
The IYONIX X100 features an nVidia GeForce video card, a choice of CD reader/writer, hard drives with capacities up to 120GB, and a range of memory options using 200MHz DDR memory. The IYONIX X100 also features a 3.5" FDD and built in 7 in 1 memory card reader (option), together with two front mounted USB ports, headphone and microph sockets. Other features include a Gigabit network port, screen modes up to 2048 x 1536, a 250W power supply, front mounted reset and front mounted 'on' switch.
Performance of the X100 is the same as the IYONIX pc and runs the same version of RISC OS, but the X100 does not feature the legacy Podule bus. However future expansion is catered for by two low-profile PCI expansion slots accessed from the rear of the computer.
The size of the X100 is ideal for installation on desktops and is strong enough to allow a wide range of monitors to be placed on the X100. The X100 dimensions are just 105mm high, 325mm wide and 430mm deep. Prices for the IYONIX X100 start at just GBP £1249 including vat.
The X100 also features a rich bundle of ready to use software including a Web Browser, a Word compatible word processor, a spreadsheet and a host of other applications and utilities.
The X100 and IYONIX pc will both be on show and available to buy at the RISCOS SOUTHWEST SHOW on Saturday 28th February 2004. For more details on the X100 see
or contact:
Castle Technology Ltd
Ore Trading Estate
Woodbridge Road
Framlingham
Suffolk
IP13 9LL
Tel 01728 723200
Fax 01728 727427
New RISC OS 4.39 ROMS
RISCOS Ltd is pleased to announce that a new version of the RISC OS 4 ROM, version 4.39, will shortly be available to purchase. Orders are being taken now and initial shipments of ROMs will be available at the RISC OS South West Show on Saturday 28th February.
The Select scheme has enabled us to take RISC OS development forward and we have worked hard to fit the features of the 6 MB RISC OS Select softload ROM into a standard 4 MB physical ROM.
The Select scheme has added many new features to the RISC OS experience and we are now making the latest features from the Select scheme available in the new batch of ROMs. The ROMs will be available as an upgrade for Risc PC, Kinetic and A7000/+ computers.
If you want the features of the RISC OS Select scheme without the need to softload the new ROM image, or you want the advantage of inbuilt support of DHCP networking, or the ability to boot directly from CD-ROM then the new ROMs are ideal for you.
Full details of the features of RISC OS 4.39 will be available on the RISC OS Web site over the next week.
Pricing for RISC OS 4.39 ROM sets
RISC OS 4.39 ROM set for upgrade of Risc PC / A7000 running 3.x £140 inc VAT
RISC OS 4.39 ROM set for upgrade of Risc PC / A7000 running 4.x £125 inc VAT
RISC OS 4.39 ROM set for subscribers of the Select scheme £105 inc VA
Subscribers to the Select scheme may deduct a further £10 for each additional year they have been members of the scheme. e.g a Select subscriber for 3 years pays £105 - (2 x £10) (for two additional years) = £85 inc VAT
Subscribers to the Select scheme who joined within the last 9 months will be eligible for special discounts. Please contact us for further details.
Optionally you may part-exchange your existing RISC OS 4.02 ROM set for a further discount of £10 off the above prices, e.g a Select subscriber for 3 years pays £105 - (2 x £10) - £10 = £75 whilst a RISC OS 4 user who part exchanges their RISC OS 4 ROM set will pay just £115.
N.B This batch of ROMs is strictly limited to a production run of 150 ROM sets. Orders will be taken on a first come, first served basis. The production of further ROMs will be dependent on the take-up of the main batch.
(usual dealer discounts apply to items marked *)
Standard RISC OS 4.02 ROMs will continue to be available, but will be subject to new pricing from 1st March 2004.
An advance order form for the RISC OS 4.39 ROMs is available for download from the RISCOS Ltd web site. Follow the links at the bottom of the
Upgrade process
Users who wish to upgrade from RISC OS 4.02 to 4.39 will not be required to return their old ROM sets until they have installed the new 4.39 ROM.
If the old ROMs are not returned within 28 days then the additional £10 charge will be made.
The RISC OS 4.39 ROM set will be supplied on Flash ROM chips that can be upgraded to later versions as they become available. The same process will apply for future updates in that new ROMs will be despatched and the old Flash ROMs returned.
If demand for RISC OS 4.39 ROMs is sufficient then we may move over to supplying RISC OS 4.39 on OTP ROMs. This will however require a substantial commitment to advance orders.
RISC OS 4.39 FAQ
Q. Once I have upgraded to RISC OS 4.39 will I be able to revert to using RISC OS 4.02 as I currently do with RISC OS Select?
A. No. Once you have installed the RISC OS 4.39 ROM you will only be able to run RISC OS 4.39 or versions of RISC OS Select. RISC OS 4.02 will be not available as a Boot option.
Q. Will I still be able to use my RISC OS 4.02 !Boot sequence with RISC OS 4.39?
A. No. You will have to update to the new RISC OS Select style Boot sequence.
Q. Will I have to upgrade my hard disc to use the RISC OS 4 E+ disc format?
A. Yes. RISC OS 4.39 will require you to start using the new RISC OS 4 disc format, which provides long filename support and almost unlimited files in individual directories.
Q. How much memory do I need to run RISC OS 4.39?
A. 16 MB is the minimum advised, though with certain types of memory chips fitted 32 MB will need to be fitted. A bonus feature of the RISC OS 4.39 ROMs is that on many Kinetic StrongARM cards it will now be possible to use a 256 MB SO-DIMM chip on the Kinetic card along with 256 MB on the motherboard thus giving a 510MB machine.
Q. Will I still be able to install future RISC OS Select updates on top of a machine running RISC OS 4.39?
A. Yes. We still intend to develop the RISC OS Select Scheme. Future Select updates will be able to be loaded on a RISC OS 4.39 machine.
Q. I have a Virtual Acorn computer. Will I be able to use RISC OS 4.39?
A. Yes. There will be a new RISC OS 4.39 ROM image available solely for users who have registered their copy of OS 4 purchased with a Virtual Acorn based product with RISCOS Ltd.
Q. Will there be a software bundle provided with RISC OS 4.39?
A. Only the standard RISC OS applications will be provided. Third party applications such as !Writer and !Vector will not be provided.
Q. Will RISC OS 4.39 be available for use with Iyonix computers?
A. Not at the present time. RISC OS 4.39 has been developed to be capable of building 32 bit compatible versions, but many of the higher level features of Select (upon which 4.39 is based) rely on low level OSchanges to the kernel that are not currently present in the RISC OS 5 kernel and supporting modules. RISCOS Ltd is committed to making the new features of Select available to all RISC OS users but it also requires the co-operation and support of the hardware manufacturers.
New RISC OS 4.02 pricing from 1st March 2004
Due to recent Postage changes and the costs of the consumables used t
produce and ship RISCOS Ltd products, we have reviewed the prices of al
RISC OS products. The result is that there are price changes to som
products
RISC OS 4.02 Full User Pack increases from £85 to £9
RISC OS 4.02 ROM only pack increases from £75 to £8
Aaron with some details of what's coming along in the next volume of RISCWorld.
Well, there we have it, another action packed volume of RISCWorld disappears into back issue heaven. So what fun and games do we have planned for the next 12 months? Well I normally only work a couple of issues ahead (I thought it was a couple of issues behind - HJ) so as one issue is being edited, articles are being commissioned for the following issue, and the contents are being worked out for the issue in front of that. As the "listening magazine"* we have taken note of what our readers want and will be attempting to make a few changes over the next few issues. After suggestions from a number of readers the following represent the most common requests in no particular order.
More Iyonix coverage
Publish more full commercial software
Publish commercial software not owned by APDL
Mark which software is Iyonix compatible
Feature more reviews
So starting from the top:
1. More Iyonix coverage: I have commissioned a number of Iyonix articles over the last 18 months, and roughly bugger all of them have ever been delivered. Anyway I think we have now found the man to write a regular Iyonix column, and you will find his very first column in this issue!
2. More commercial software: RISCWorld publishes one or more items of full commercial software with each issue, plus we have software specially written for the magazine. We are going to try and include some "bigger" applications over the next year, readers will just have to wait to see what we have planned.
3. More software not owned by APDL: Ah, yes, as everyone knows RISCWorld is published by APDL, so we therefore have access to the massive APDL back catalogue. As far as I am aware APDL now own the rights to more RISC S software titles than anyone else, but there are a few little holes that aren't covered. We have therefore been wandering around the RISC OS community seeing what else we can give away. Some deals are still to be finalised, but I can say that readers can look forward to both WebFX3D and SiteWriter (both from DanSoft) appearing on RISCWorld CDs over the next 12 months.
4. Marking software that is Iyonix compatible: I think this might be slightly contentious. Firstly, an Iyonix armed with a copy of Aemulor can run just about anything. Secondly, new PD software releases are 99% Iyonix compatible. However I have taken the comment on board and we will see what we can do to make it a bit clearer for those that have an Iyonix but don't have Aemulor.
5. More reviews: I agree with our readers, I would like to see more reviews. However in order for this to happen we need two things; firstly things to review, and secondly someone to write the reviews. We hope to be recruiting more authors, indeed you may well notice a couple of new names in this issue. Finding things to review can also present a problem; if we don't review things connected with either myself or APDL that doesn't leave all that much. The original RISCWorld policy was that the magazine wouldn't review APDL products or products APDL was connected to. We simply can't maintain this position, so if we do want to review an APDL product we have to get an completely independent third party with no financial connection to the product concerned to write the review. Kicking off next issue will hopefully contain an extensive review of the new 32bit version of ProArtisan24.
What do our authors want?
I put the question "what do you want to see over the next 12 months?" to our authors to see what they wanted. What I should have asked was "what do you want to see in RISCWorld", so it's my own fault that I got back a big list of "must haves" that they think should be made available in the next 12 months. In order of popularity they were...
A version of Select for the Iyonix
The new ROM based version of Select for current machines
A web browser that supports more up to date features
RealAudio for RISC OS
Release of Impression X
An Iyonix II
GimpPrint made available to all
XScale powered Omega
...and lastly....pay the editor more. (this only got one vote
So will any of these happen? Who knows, but if they do you will be able to read about them first on
Finally.
One last thing before I go for a lie down, regrettably the subscription price for RISCWorld has had to rise slightly. This is due to circumstances beyond our control. I mean, have you seen what's happened to the price of cigars and caviar recently?
Actually there is something else that costs money, and that is making RISCWorld bigger. Over the last few issues we have tried to increase the size of the magazine. Our logic was something like this, we could increase the subscription cost on the promise of bigger issues, or we could increase the size of the issues first to demonstrate the commitment we all have to RISCWorld. As you can see we went for the second option. We want to ensure that RISCWorld carries on improving, and that we can continue to deliver good commercial software, not always from APDL, with each issue.
As we make the magazine bigger (and better) we pay more money for software and spend more money on writers. We think this is a good thing, and we are sure that our readers will agree. The vast majority of the money you pay for your subscription gets fed back to RISC OS enthusiasts and companies, (and this doesn't mean APDL).
However, it does mean we're spending more, and we want to continue to do so. Therefore to ensure that we can not only keep up the present standard but make RISCWorld even better we are going to have to put up the subscription rates from this issue to £21.90 for UK readers and £24.50 overseas.
We hope you will agree with us that this is quite a small amount to pay, only £3.65 per issue for UK readers, to ensure that RISCWorld can carry on getting bigger and better. So send you renewal form off now, were already spending your money on your magazine.
Aaron
* Note to readers, RISCWorld is the "listening magazine", we always listen to our readers, we might not take a blind bit of notice, but at least we listen.
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/PD/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
Once again I bring you all the latest freeware, PD and shareware applications for RISC OS, so without further delay lets kick off.
Text2Draw - Martin Carradus
This is a very useful little program. What it does is take a text file, produced in a text editor such as !Edit, or exported from a DTP program, and turns it into a drawfile. Now normally one I might expect the program to simply place the text inside a draw text area and leave it at that, however this program operates a little differently. What it actually does is produce a drawfile containing a number of text objects, one for each line of text in your original text file. This is very useful as you can produce the text in a DTP program, spell check it, and then convert it into draw text objects which can then be moved around to your hearts content.
Text2Draw
Reporter - Martin Avison
!Reporter provides commands to display information in the Reporter window which can be very useful when developing and debugging Wimp programs and Obey files. The main facilities are:
Basic programs can display text, values of variables, evaluated expressions, and storage, just with commands - NO additional Basic PROCs or FNs.
All OS Commands executed can be displayed, including any error messages, and optional Time and Source.
Any Error or WimpError messages and codes can be displayed.
ReportDump command for displaying storage.
ReportTrace command for displaying Basic TRACE output (on Iyonix indents and reports ENDPROC/ENDFN.)
ReportPoll command for easy displays of WimpPoll reason codes.
ReportWhere command for displaying information about the latest abort.
ReportBreak procedure to set up Breakpoints, where variables can be displayed and changed.
ReportRma commands to display arr RMA storage Claims, Frees and Extends.
ReportTask commands to display all Wimp Task Inits and Closes.
Anything written to file system Report will be displayed.
Anything output after VDU 4 from a task will be displayed.
The text and background can be coloured in many of the Wimp colours.
Reporting can be turned On or Off, from the program or externally.
The display can be saved to a file, with an automatic numeric suffix.
Basic memory usage summary can be displayed.
Basic Errors can be displayed, and Throwback invoked to display the line in error.
Obey files can display text, and values of OS Variables.
Assembled code can display text, and values of registers.
Ada95 code can display text, and values of OS variables.
Help information in StrongHelp format for ease of use.
All Reporter commands can be used during the whole RISC OS !Boot sequence.
Choices file to set initial startup customisation.
Reporter will run on RISC OS 3, RISC OS 4, and RISC OS 5 on the Iynonix
Reporter in action
!HID - Paul Reuvers/X-Ample Technology
!HID is a shareware front-end for a number of modules that provide low-level support for USB devices in the HID Class (HID - Human Interface Devices). The HID Class consists of many input devices, such as keyboards, mice, touch tablets, barcode scanners, joysticks, etc
At the core of this application is the USBHID module that services all HID Class devices directly. It takes away control from the standard USB driver and implements many new features. Some additional modules are provided which will greatly enhance the functionality of the USB sub system. The WimpKey module allows complex actions to be linked to the special keys found on most modern USB keyboards. As most wireless keyboards don't have status LEDs (they would exhaust the battery), a new module, called KeyLEDs is supplied which will add three LEDs to the iconbar. The module WimpScroll allows you to use a wheel mouse to scroll the window under the pointer. Additionally any extra mouse buttons and scroll wheels on some keyboards may be used as well.
All of these modules can be used directly and may be installed in the !Boot of your system. The !HID application provides high-level support for these modules and allows the various features and configurations to be organised in a user-friendly manner.
(As an aside one of the excellent bits bundled with !HID is a module called KeyLEDs, this shows the status of the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and Num Lock keys on the iconbar, if you have a wireless keyboard it's very handy, and works on 26bit machines as well - ED
Configuring !HID
Director - The RISC OS Director developers
I featured this a few issues ago, but this is a new version. Director is a general purpose desktop tool. It allows you to customise your desktop by creating menus of useful commands and icons to attach the menus to. Any number of menus or icons can be created and attached in any order to each other. Director also allows an alternative and faster view onto files in the form of directory menus and allows these menus to be attached to other menus as well.
Director has some other useful features such as remembering the most recently used files, the ability to add key strokes into the keyboard buffer and the ability to produce directory menus over drive icons. Director is fully customisable by the user, and can do many or all of the functions of Pinboard+, TreeMenu (AKA DirMenu), Filer-, QuickDir, DeskUtils, Memorizer, Menon and some of the functions of Filer+.
Diretor
Image - Matthew Price
Image is either an exceptionally useful piece of software, or will be of no interest to you at all. What it does is make disk images from floppies. This may seem pointless but it is a good way of backing up lots of floppies an also has the advantage that the floppy disc images are saved out in the same format as used by Acorn emulators, including Archie and Red Squirrel (and VirtualAcorn - Ed). So if you have an emulator that cannot read floppies you can make an image on a RISC OS machine and then copy the image over to a machine running an emulator and open it.
Image
NetSurf - NetSurf Developers
NetSurf is an open-source web browser for RISC OS. Its aim is to bring HTML 4 and CSS standards to the RISC OS platform. For more information about NetSurf see the documentation. NetSurf is currently incomplete and many features aren't yet implemented. If you experience any crashes or unexpected behaviour while using NetSurf please report the problem to the developers
To run NetSurf simply double click on the NetSurf application. This will cause the NetSurf icon to appear on the iconbar. Select clicking on this icon will open a browser window. It should be noted that as NetSurf is at a very early stage of development, much of the following information is subject to change without warning.
The section at the top of the window is called the toolbar. It allows quick access to various functions and information. The standard, or Default, toolbar is shown below. For more details consult the comprehensive documentation.
NetSurf
I have also included an archive containing the extended sets of Netsurf fonts which although not required are very useful.
Signing off
That is it for this issue, and indeed this volume of RISCWorld, I will be back at the start of volume 5 with more exciting software releases.
The version of ProArtisan described below and on this copy of RISCWorld is ProArtisan2. The latest version, ProArtisan24, is a full 24 bit art package and is therefore much more powerful and ideal for editing modern 32,000 or 16M colour images and is also 32 bit neutral and works on the Iyonix.
The normal price for ProArtisan24 is £39, but as a very special offer to RISC World subscribers we are offering the complete ProArtisan24 package for just £34. This price includes UK post, but please add £1.50 for carriage outside the UK.
No part of this product may be reproduced in whole or part by any means without written permission of the publisher. Unauthorised hiring, renting, lending, public performance or broadcasting of this product or its parts is prohibited.
ProArtisan is supplied under licence for use on one computer at a time. The user is forbidden to make any copies of the source media where the program is supplied on CD. Please contact APDL for details of site licences.
While every care is taken the publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors in this product, or for the loss of any data or consequential effects from the use of this package.
Published by
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road
Sydenham
London SE26 5RN
Phone -020 8778 2659
Fax -020 8488 0487
ProArtisan was written by Frank Dart and J.Warminster.
All trademarks are acknowledged.
1. Getting Started
Running ProArtisan 2
The ProArtisan 2 Philosophy
2. The Icon Bar Menu
The Create Window
3. The Canvas
Palette
Selecting Colours
Delete Picker
Opacity
Frisket
Zoom
Undo
4. The Paint menu
Painting mode
Brush Shape
Edit Brush
Paint
Crayon
Texture
Magic
Pattern
Special
Spray
Fill
Pencil
Inkpen
Blends
5. The Drawing menu
Draw mode
Rectangle
Ellipse
Polygon
Line
Curve
Text
Style
Grid
6. The Sprite menu
Sprite Mode
Cut
Magic Wand
Paint
Fill
Distort
Rotate
Scale
Sphere
Transparent
Show sprite pool
Auto Blend
Loading Sprites
7. Input/Output Menu
Input/Output mode
Details
Save Picture
Save Pool
Save as
Print
Palette
Colour editing
Palette editing
Importing files
Sprites
Draw
8. The Process Menu
Process mode
Clear Screen
Defining a Frisket
Remove Frisket
Invert Frisket
Frisket Colour
Make Last
Add Last
Filters & Effects
Filters
Effects
APDL
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/QBBC/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, Q BASIC to BBC BASIC
Q BASIC to BBC BASIC
Martin Carradus introduces his BASIC converter
What is it?
!Q_BBC is designed to convert programs written in Q BASIC, into BBC BASIC, which can then be run on RISC OS computers. !Q_BBC tries to convert as many Q BASIC constructs it can, although users are advised to read the Known Restrictions section below.
Installing !Q_BBC
Note that this application will only work on writable media, not on CD ROMs! Having unzipped the compressed file containing the !Q_BBC application, drag the whole application to the directory that you wish to keep it in. Double click on the !Q_BBC icon, an icon then appears on the icon bar, then drag a Q BASIC file to the bar icon, or left click on the bar icon and drag the Q BASIC file to the 'SetUp' panel that appears.
This enters the file name into the upper slot on the panel. Alternatively the file name may be typed manually into this slot.
Select the appropriate options on the 'SetUp' panel, then click on the 'Run' icon on this panel. After a while a BBC BASIC file is offered for saving in the same directory as the Q BASIC, but with its name prefixed with "BBC".
Selecting the 'Help' or 'Description' buttons on the 'SetUp' panel and clicking on the 'Run' button gives out extra information.
Additional Help is available by clicking the middle 'Menu' button over the bar icon and clicking over the 'Help' entry on the menu that appears, or by using the Acorn !Help application in the 'Apps' directory on the icon bar.
Known Restrictions
Q BASIC will not run a FOR loop when its index initially exceeds its final value, unlike BBC BASIC, which always executes a FOR loop at least once, so there is a problem there. Also Q BASIC initialises all variables to zero. BBC BASIC does not automatically initialise variables. The BBC BASIC interpreter message 'Unknown or missing variable' means that you have not initialised a variable before the point at which its value is required to be known. An output listing of all the identifiers used in the program can be produced that attempts to detect and mark those variables that are used before their point of initialisation.
There could be numerical analysis problems to do with the accuracy of the representation of numbers. Q BASIC has integer variables of both 16 bits and 32 bits and floating point of 32 bits and 64 bits, whereas BBC BASIC always uses 32 bits for integer variables and 40 bits for floating point variables.
Many Q BASIC constructs were found to be untranslatable to BBC BASIC.
A message appears either within a special PROC or FN call in the translated file when this occurs. In the case of some errors, the resulting actual BBC BASIC line length may not agree with the line length given in the file and BBC BASIC editors will not accept it, giving out the message: 'Bad BASIC program'. However if only simple constructs are being used e.g. DO, WHILE and FOR loops, GOTO, GOSUB, ON... GOTO, ON ... GOSUB, SELECT, IF ... THEN ... ELSE ... ,EVAL, numerical calculations, logical conditions and PRINT and INPUT, then the Q BASIC should perform exactly the same in BBC BASIC.
Unfortunately the commands DRAW, PLAY, PUT and GET have not been translated. Also other graphics commands suffer from the fact that BBC BASIC graphic co-ordinates are measured from the lower left hand corner of the screen, whereas Q BASIC graphics are measured from the upper left hand corner. The author has attempted to deal with this appropriately. Also the scaling is different. IBM Screen modes were also found to be difficult to match with equivalent Acorn Screen modes. The IBM colouring system is also not the same as the Acorn scheme.
In addition, PEEK, POKE and random access files could not be mimicked in BBC BASIC.
Extra PROCs and FNs, which were needed to mimic certain constructs in both GW-BASIC and Q BASIC, are present in the supplied 'BBCLib', which is called in via an injected LIBRARY command. 'BBCLib' should be in <Obey$Dir> when the BBC BASIC is running or an error is generated. It is also present within the !Q_BBC application. One function attempts to translate from IBM file names to equivalent Acorn file names.
Currently, will not handle multi-line DEF FN statements.
!Q_BBC attempts to detect non- Q BASIC programs and complains.
Every attempt has been made to test out the translator, but the author was unable to obtain live code and just had to devise test programs, so bugs could still exist undetected.
NB !Q_BBC will only handle those Q BASIC programs with line labels, not numbers. The author has produced an application, !QLine_Out, present with !Q_BBC, which strips out line numbers from a Q BASIC program and outputs an equivalent labelled Q BASIC program. This, in turn, can be offered to !Q_BBC for translation. !QLine_Out will detect and leave unchanged those programs already with labels. !Q_BBC will complain about line numbers in the supplied Q BASIC.
Other programmers' tools are available from my website, shown at the bottom of this article, in particular (shortly) a GW-BASIC to BBC BASIC Translator.
For good measure, I have included with this !Space_Out that removes trailing spaces and tabs in lines from text files.
Licence Agreement
Users of !Q_BBC must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "!Q_BBC is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of !Q_BBC."
!Q_BBC is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using !Q_BBC and continue to use !Q_BBC after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration donation of £5 (UK) or $8 (US) to Martin Carradus.
The £5 (UK) or $8 (US) registration donation will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time.
Commercial users of !Q_BBC must register and pay for their copies of !Q_BBC within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting Martin Carradus. Anyone distributing !Q_BBC for any kind of remuneration must first contact Martin Carradus at the address below for authorization.
You are encouraged to pass a copy of !Q_BBC along to your friends for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the !Q_BBC application.
To apply for your own copy of !Q_BBC, write to:-
Martin Carradus
Leaf Mindcraft
c/o 27 Wells Road
Ilkley
West Yorkshire
LS29 9JE
U.K
N.B. Do not send cash. Please make cheques made payable to "Mr. M.K.Davies" for the amount given above. Other applications are available for free download from
With the introduction of the application VirtualRPC-SE firms have been producing computers which in effect allow Windows and RISC OS to be used together. The speed of modern Intel Pentium and AMD AthlonXP processors allow emulators to run at acceptable speeds, giving the user the illusion of working at a RISC OS machine. Indeed using these processors actually produces a RISC OS emulation with an average speed greater than a standard StrongARM RiscPC.
So here I am running my old Impression Publisher program in a RISC OS 4 environment which does not 'feel' like an emulation. The machine on which VirtualRPC-SE is running is RComps RiscCube. I was asked to do this review and was glad to accept, as I had no previous experience of VirtualRPC-SE (being a die hard RISC OS user!).
The Hardware
For all you technical people the RiscCube I received from RComp is the one they use for demonstrating at shows. This means it has been put through a lot of not so careful handling and use. I was impressed by the sturdy aluminum case (no plastic anywhere!) and its small size (not much larger than a big shoe box).
The CPU is an AMD AthlonXP 2600
It has 512Mbyte RAM running at 333Mhz FSB
DVD/ CDR/WR combo drive and 80 Gbyte fast harddrive
All the usual sound inputs and outputs and includes Dolby and DVD decoding in hardware
Four USB 2 ports, 3 firewire ports, a LAN 10/100 port and a serial port
The graphics uses an on board Geforce4MX which can have assigned up to 128Mbytes
It can drive two monitors and has PAL TV out (composite)
I just plugged in my screen (old Acorn 17 inch) and transferred my network cable from the RiscPC, so the RiscCube would be connected to my PC (which I use mainly for Internet access). Then after connecting the keyboard and mouse (standard PC types) and finally the mains cable I switched on and everything worked! I mention this as I have many experiences with PCs out of boxes that don't quite do what they claim. My PC had been recognised, WindowsXP home booted up quickly (about 20 seconds).
In use
It is really like having two machines contained in one small box. At startup you are given the choice to either boot to WindowsXP or RISC OS 4. The time to the required desktop from this stage is about 8 seconds. If you choose WindowsXP you can still start VirtualRPC-SE up when required by selecting the program on the Windows program menu from the start icon on the desktop. If you choose RISC OS then you can get back to Windows by using the alt+return key combination which then shows RISC OS in a Windows window. In this desktop there is a shortcut to VirtualRPC-SE.
Program Compatibility
Most users will have built up a library of their favourite programs and would want to transfer them. I found this very easy since I keep a complete backup image of my RiscPC harddisc4 drive on my PC. So using the peer to peer network arrangement I just copied the program directories directly to the VirtualRPC-SE disc called harddisc4, hence I am using Impression Publisher.
Compatibility should not be too much of a problem since VRPC emulates the ARM710 processor, not the StrongARM, so cache problems do not arise, hence quite old programs worked straight away.
Needless to say RISC OS4 comes with Draw, Paint, Edit, ChangeFSI and VirtualRPC-SE adds to this list Drawworks, Ovation (not OvationPro) and some PD software. The RComp machine also had WebsterXL and a demo version of Oregano2 for web browsing together with !FTPc, some LAN software emulators (Netware, Sunfish and VNC). Also included on this machine were Website creation software.
I was browsing using Oregano2, after I had set up a proxy to use the network making my PC fetch the pages. This can be done using the RiscCubes Windows environment I could have plugged my USB broadband modem straight into the RiscCube but I didn't since my PC does not like having the modem missing.
Printing is no problem since RComp use their own Uniprint system, which sends the printer output to the PC side and uses the PC printer driver. So all modern USB printers can be used. You can of course resort to using Microsofts web and email software (complete with the usual virus threat) on the Windows desktop.
Some Software I tried
The following software worked without any modification:
Impression Publisher (copy the !CCShared directory into the !System.Modules.directory and the CMYKPal file into !System
Artworks version 1.7c(copy the !CCShared module directory into the !System.Modules
Pipedream 4.5
Animator 1.01 (old replay film/animation maker from 1994
David Pillings Scanning/Image edito
Ovation Pro
In fact most of my old software worked! If you know the software is RISC OS4 compatible then I see no reason why it should not work on VRPC. The only software I could not get to work were !6502em, !65Host and !Beebit (even the latest version off the web). All these are BBC emulators and are probably not RISC OS4 compatible but I was surprised !Beebit wouldn't run. (the problem was a lack of a suitable Mode7 screen definition in the MDF file, this has now been fixed - ED).
Speed
There is a lot of store given to speed/benchmarks in the PC world and sometimes they do not tell the whole story but here goes. Using the same set of tests Dave Holden used in his article on the A6 I got the following results (timings in centiseconds):
TEST 1
TEST 2 21
TEST 3 759
TEST 4 72
Artworks Transwarp loading 7 seconds.
SparkFS file making, using Daves files, 3 mins 46 seconds.
These are about the same as the A6, perhaps RISC Cube is a bit quicker. I then ran RISCOSMark 1.01 utility and got the following report back:
RISCOSmark 1.01 (14 May 2003
Comparison with RiscPC SA 202MHz running RISC OS 4.02 800x600,25
(HD benchmarks are in kilobytes/sec
OS/Machine/Processor: ?
Graphics Resolution: 1024x768, 16M colour
Test Benchmark %difference with RP
Processor - Looped instructions (cache) 73914 41
Memory - Multiple register transfer 1224 755
Rectangle Copy - Graphics acceleration test 293 121
Icon Plotting - 16 colour sprite with mask 128 64
Draw Path - Stroke narrow line 553 35
Draw Fill - Plot filled shape 612 41
HD Read - Block load 1MB file 170328 5711
HD Write - Block save 1MB file 150051 4934
FS Read - Byte stream file in 853 412
FS Write - Byte stream file out 636 331
So the emulator runs faster most of the time in the RiscCube than a StrongARM RiscPC. Also bear in mind the screen resolution I was using was 1024 by 768 at 16 million colours!
Then using !Sick, which is included with VirtualRPC-SE, gave the following: (I changed the VRPC screen mode back to 32k 1024 by 760 since this utility reports the screen reading/writing speed).
TEST StrongARM RiscCub
CPU clock speed (MHz) 236.25 567.37
Memory Size (Mbytes) 64(+2 VRAM) 128.0
Integer Calcs (Dhrystones/sec) 105534.1 405966.8
Floating Point (kWhetstones/sec) 1273.27 5723.76
Main Memory read (Mbytes/sec) 40.12 798.
Main Memory write (Mbytes/sec) 36.10 263.
Screen Memory read (Mbytes/sec) 12.96 854.
Screen Memory write (Mbytes/sec) 23.18 367.
The VRPC figures show between 4 and 5 times improvement on the RiscPC but the memory (both main and screen) read and write speed leaves the RiscPC standing probably due to the slow 16 Mhz RiscPC memory speed compared to the 333Mhz DDR memory in the RiscCube. This is bourne out in practise the above photos I took using my digital camera took just one second to change from their native JPEG to 16 million colour Sprite format using !ChangeFSI (the hourglass didnt show!) whereas it took my RiscPC nearly 20 seconds.
To the user the RiscCube running VRPC feels like a RiscPC running at least 5 times quicker.
Limitations
What are the drawbacks compared to a native RISC OS machine?
You are relying on the PC operating system so any crashes could cause havoc. I didn't find any such problems and WindowsXP is more stable than previous versions. You cannot (unless I missed something) use RISC OS CD burning software.
Any drawbacks to the RiscCube machine?
I must say it worked well and it is a good general purpose PC in its own right. Since the case is small upgrading is limited to one PCI board and a AGP 8 graphics board. There is no room for adding extra Harddrives or another CD drive/DVD writer. The way round this would be to use the firewire ports and use external drives.
Conclusions
If you want to go to the PC platform (due to your works software requirements?) but do not want to lose the great RISC OS platform/software then this computer will be for you. It is neat and will work straight out of the box in fact RComp will build it to your spec. If you want to just use RISC OS and update your machine then stay with a native RISC OS machine, which seems to be the Iyonix, at the moment.
Product details
Product:
RISCCube compute
Supplier:
RCom
Price:
From £699 (inc VAT and delivery
Address:
22 Robert Moffat, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6P
Matthew Thompson reviews the new Iyonix compatible StarFighter 3000
There is a bit of a shortage of games for the Iyonix, but all is not lost as we have a version of StarFighter 3000 which has been updated and improved and also now fully works on the Iyonix.
This is the 3rd release of Star Fighter each time being released by someone different (Fednet/iSV/APDL) as a game its pretty much the same as before but there are lots of new features added.
The game now comes in a DVD box on CDROM with manual, also included on the CD are Air Supremacy, Sunburst and Elite, but these don't work directly on the Iyonix, although Elite & Air Supremacy both work fine on !A310emu by Jan De Boer although I couldnt get Sunburst to work, although !A310emu is still work in progress this may change later on.
Upon loading we get the Starfighter intro, but now it installs itself onto the iconbar like so.
Its from here you can configure and set up the game exactly the way you want it, you can configure the look and detail level of the game, the sound, the control of the game - mouse,keyboard (fully redefinable) or Joystick.
There is also a comprehensive inbuilt HTML manual available in which goes into more detail about the game and can be displayed in any web browser.
Onto the game itself, and the main new feature in this version is the ability to run the game within the desktop, by default it runs in the desktop,but you can configure it not to and start in full screen mode if you prefer, if you play in the desktop mode you can bring up a different menu in the middle of the game which will pause the game and give you a number of different options, from here you can choose whether to play in or out of the desktop change the size of the playing window and you can also save out screenshots of the game which can be used in reviews - which is exactly what i did! You can also get to the configure options and the help manual as well, all of these configuration options are only available if you play the game in the desktop.
The next screen shows you the map of the playing area, from here you can look at the map in more depth, read through the mission objective and also visit the shop and improve your craft with more powerful lasers, more shields and better engine power, you can return to these screens during the game at any time by pressing "M" or "S", although you cannot buy anything from the shop during the game, perhaps its early closing?
When you've finished everything, it's then on to the game itself, and it is the same game as previous versions, the same landscapes and mission objectives, but seeing as I never got past the first couple of levels its almost like a new game!
You fly your spacecraft around the landscape destroying most of it on the way to completing the mission in which you have to complete a specific task to go to the next level.
Along the way there are many bonuses to be picked up extra lives, missiles and tokens which can be used in the shop to buy powerups, when the mission is completed which may involve destroying certain targets or simply docking with the mothership (which is by no means easy) you get a level analysis, plus bonuses, and the password for the next levels. The levels are set out in a pyramid structure, so from level 1 you can go to either level 2 or 3 and then 4,5 or 6 and so on, so you can have a different game every time.
Although this is not a new new game it keeps the game alive and has brought it right up to date and it now works on the new generation of machines, making it into a multi-tasking application works well and is an excellent improvement, my only real criticism is that the graphics do look a bit blocky and dated maybe they could be re-done to take advantage of the high resolution modes that the Iyonix offers?
Overall it is a welcome improvement on a very good game which started life as an Acorn game before being ported across to other machines, and not that hasn't happened that often over the years, definitely worth getting if you've not owned it before, and still worth it even if you have.
Product details
Product:
StarFighter 300
Supplier:
APD
Price:
£19.9
Address:
39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5R
Tel:
0208 778265
WWW:
E-mail:
The Starfighter homepage can be found at
Matthew Thompson
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/SOUTHWEST/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, RISC OS SouthWest 2004
RISC OS SouthWest 2004
Aaron's cheap and cheerful show report
Yes, its show time again. Every February the RISC OS world treks down to the Webbington Hotel in Somerset, just a few miles from Western Super Mare. As usual I travelled down to the hotel the day before, however this year I had a vehicular choice to make before I even left the house. Do I take the huge 7 seater 4 wheel drive Shogun (see my editorial), or do I take the electrically challenged Rover 820 with its new "uper-crumble"pre leaking radiator? Well the weather report says it will be snow, so I decide to take the Rover, brilliant.
Getting down to the Webbington is quite easy, down the M4, then down the M5 then off at Junction 22 and back up on the A38. This is a route I know quite well now although I always carry a little map just in case. As a quick aside I have read a couple of other show reports where people have been "uided"by their expensive in car SatNav (Satellite Navigation) systems and as a result arrived half an hour later then they meant to, I would just like to point out that by using almost 5p worth of paper I was able at arrive exactly on time (and the money I saved on the SatNav more than paid for the radweld I poured into the Rover half way down the M4).
I was also one of the first ones there. I did spy Dave Holden's van in the car park, but of him there was no sign. I quickly checked in and dumped my clothes in my room, I then drove round to the back of the hotel to unload, just as RComp turned up. Getting into the exhibition area revealed that the only other exhibitors present were Castle Technology. I dumped my stuff on my stand and then went round to put my car back in the carpark (actually in the car park under the fire escape next to the exhibition room for a quick getaway the next afternoon). As I was moving my car a cloud of gas appeared, yes its Dave Holden's van being moved round the back, "as it passed its mustard gas emissions this year Dave?" He doesn't look impressed.
Somehow, and I don't know how he does it, I end up once again unloading Dave's van. I think he works it like this, he does a couple of trips with some smaller boxes and then pretends to work out how to organise his stand, meanwhile muggins carries on emptying the van, by the time I have noticed that he hasn't actually carried anything for 10 minutes it's too late and there's just a couple of second hand RiscPCs left to move. I don't know how I keep falling for this but I am determined not to fall for it again at Wakefield.
So having set up it's time for the bar, then dinner, then a pint or five. Of course this is a hotel, the bar doesn't shut at 11:00, so there we are sitting there at 11:35 thinking "h the bar should shut soon..." luckily Dave checks his watch (I don't wear one, for basically the same reasons as I don't have SatNav). So I trundle off to my room and hit the pillow. Nothing much happens for about half an hour then I am woken up by the Arm Club, who seem to be in an advanced state of refreshment, and are "alking"back to their rooms by the cunning process of bouncing from wall to wall while gradually falling forwards. Funnily enough I am sure the same thing happened last year.
Deep and crisp and even
Arghhh, its 7:30 in the morning and my alarm is going off, I stumble into the shower and wake up, actually I wake up rather more quickly than I had intended as I forget which way to turn the shower control for hot. Anyway what's the weather like? Actually from my hotel room I can't tell, the view from my window is a panoramic vista encompassing north Somerset, well the part of north Somerset that consists of the weed strewn bank 3 feet outside my window. This blocks almost all natural light, and probably 99% of known snow. Once I finally get outside I find that it has snowed overnight, will this effect visitor numbers? Will the show still be a success. Where's breakfast? I decide that of the three questions only one requires my immediate intention. I bump into Dave Holden who is also dealing with the big question of the day and seems to have decided that the answer to it is fried bread.
I dump my laptop on my stand and check out of my room, oh, look they haven't charged me for dinner...no...it's no good I will have to tell them. What, my dinner was booked onto Dave Holden's room, and he has already paid and checked out. Oh dear. Heading back to the show I bump into lots of other exhibitors who have turned up and are frantically wandering around instead of setting up properly. Come 10' o'clock the show opens and the first customers start coming in. There is a steady stream all day, although you can certainly tell when someone is giving a talk as the hall empties into the lecture theatre. The three talks given during the day were by Jack Lillingston, Paul Middleton and John Cartmell. Of course I don't get to see any of them as I am stuck on my stand. However I am told that Jack showed the new slimline desktop Iyonix with a new photo printer developed in conjunction with Stuart Tyrell, Paul Middleton explained the myriad benefits of RISC OS 4.39 (coming soon to a ROM near you) and John Cartmell explained the ethos behind Qercus (a fusion of Acorn User and Acorn Publisher).
During one of the talks I did get time to have a quick wander around the show. Starting by the door we have RComp, showing the new MusicMan software, plus all their other titles, and a RISCCube and RISCBook. Next to RComp are CJE who seem to have everything, I ask if they have any sinks in stock and get a funny look.
RComp
CJE Micros hunt for a sink to sell me
Moving along I discover the AAUG (Association of Acorn User Groups) who, according to their sign are running a "real" copy of RISC OS. As opposed to what exactly? A clone called LISC OS? Who knows, and I can't quite be bothered to ask. I then have a quick chat with John Cartmell on the Finnybak/Qercus stand and manage to blag a free copy, oh look it's got an A6 review in, I will read it later. I then move on past an empty table which was supposed to be EFF's stand. Castle Technology and OreganoUK Ltd have a nice big stand in the middle of the room with plenty of Iyonix's to play with. I can't see the new desktop case, but am told that this is because it is currently being used in the theatre.
I then stop for a quick chat with Paul Beverley of Archive and Living with Technology fame. He seems very happy and I notice a large pile of subscription renewals, which is good. I take a quick note of a WebWonder demo on David Snell's stand and I then move round to the Arm Club, no not a hangover in site. They seem to be doing a brisk trade in PD CDs and subscriptions.
A WebWonder demo in progress
I then move past the VirtualAcorn stand, look no one's manning it, typical. Next stop is Dave Holden who doesn't want to be interviewed, why? Well he says something about "...being accused of bias." and then starts laughing, what can he mean? I then swoop past Peter Naulls who seems to be busy with a customer, no doubt putting some money into the Unix Porting Project. Next door is Neil Spellings who is showing Aemulor Pro on his transparent Iyonix. Final stop is ITC who are selling just about any spare part you could ever need for a RISC OS computer.
The Unix Porting Project
Aemulor Pro
I then notice an eager punter on the VirtualAcorn stand and have to leg it back and I don't really get another chance to go round the show again for the rest of the day, so I must apologise to anyone I missed out, which is actually quite a few, so sorry.
The show is supposed to finish around 4:30, but it gets very quiet after about quarter past four, so I decide to pack up. Parking the car by the fire escape the day before has paid dividends and I have packed up by half four, however remembering the APDL unloading experience I call Hayley for 15 minutes whilst lurking near Dave's van, hold on, look he's conned some other poor buggers into loading it, how does he do it? Dave and I then adjourn to the bar for a diet coke and a quick post show chat and then we head home. On the way home I get a bit bored and decide to reproduce the full SatNav experience and take the map for the webbington, screw it into a ball and jam in into one of the dash board air vents. It's no good though, I still arrive home on time without having taken any wrong turnings.
Show video
I have put together a little video from some of the footage I took at the show and have put a copy of this in the software directory in this issue, so even if you weren't there you can see how busy it got, and also see what some of the exhibitors thought of the show. I apologise for the low quality of some of the clips but the show venue wasn't very well lit and my poor little digital video camera needs a reasonable amount of light to work properly.
Dave Bradforth reviews a new set of computer speakers from Trust
With the explosion of the MP3 revolution, a decent set of speakers is fast becoming an essential add on to your computer. Whatever you use your computer for, there's the probability that you'll occasionally spend long periods of time on it doing some form of manual work. Without music, those long periods of time have a habit of dragging out into hours. With boredom setting in work has a habit of falling to one side in favour of that quick game of Desktop Repton.
Given that the speakers within every native RISC OS computer all have a common factor in that they're just... well... bad, investing in a decent set of speakers has to be on the wishlist for virtually anybody who ever plays music through their computer. Indeed, for PC users it's often the only way to get any sound out of the computer at all; and if you're running a Virtual Acorn-powered machine you may as well start with a set of the best.
By this do I mean a super-expensive set of concert-alike speakers? Nah, more the rather stylish Soundforce speakers from Trust. Boasting separate treble and bass controls, a 1600 Watt (PMPO and hence meaningless - ED) output and a superb deep bass provided by a separate woofer unit this roughly equates to some superb quality output from your CDs or MP3s, whether your taste is Britney Spears, Queen or a bit of Led Zeppelin.
The key features identified by Trust are:
Powerful subwoofer speaker set with 1600 Watt output, 15 + 2 x 2 Watt RM
For realistic sound effects and high quality musi
Separate control unit to place at any convenient locatio
Excellent deep bass provided by separate wooden subwoofe
Controls for power, bass, treble and master volume adjustmen
Attractive design with black and metal colour
Also suitable to connect to gaming consoles such as PlayStation 2, X-Box and GameCube (using leads supplied
Technically, the Soundforce speakers are magnetically shielded allowing for effective use near a monitor and have a separate control unit with a stereo amplifier and a wooden subwoofer for a powerful bass - the latter certainly shows when playing songs such as Secret Garden (Bruce Springsteen).
In the time I've had these speakers they've made their way around the house - one minute they're on the Risc PC; the next they're on the iMac allowing me to watch 24 (new series on Sky One, Thursdays at 9pm by the way) - and whatever task I put them to they've yet to disappoint.
RISC World doesn't, per se, have an Editor's Choice award but at the risk of getting shot I'm going to invent one. And if you hadn't gathered yet, these speakers have won it.
Product details
Product:
1600P 2.1 Soundforce Speaker
Supplier:
Trust Computer Supplie
Price:
£30.0
WWW:
Dave Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/TURBO/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, Turbo charge your StrongARM
Turbo charge your StrongARM
Aaron shows you how to get more speed for no money
Last time I left you with a StrongARM card that could have its clock speed set higher (overclocked) that Acorn had intended. However before we continue a couple of words of warning, firstly the StrongARM is quite static sensitive, you need to work on an anti-static bag and handle the chip with great care, it can't be stressed enough but before starting work read through the entire article, and the article in the previous issue. If you don't feel happy doing the modifications then don't do it. If anything goes wrong you could end up with a dead StrongARM processor card, which is not really ideal. Read the "rom the beginning"section from the previous article before starting any work on the StrongARM.
This time we need to look at the possible repercussions of making this change to the card, these can be split up into two easy to digest lumps, will it work? Will it overheat?
Will it work?
If you have made the modifications to your StrongARM as covered in the last issue then you should have tested it by now. The best thing to do is check the card at it's default speed setting which will be either 202Mhz or 233Mhz. If the card functions at this setting then you need to then switch the computer off, move the dip switches to the next highest setting and test the machine again to make sure it starts up properly. Now run one of the speed tests to check that the machine is indeed running faster, if there is no improvement then you have not cut the tracks properly, or have not changed the dip switches. Assuming the test runs OK and performance has increased slightly you can turn the machine off and leave it to cool down for a few minutes before trying the next speed setting. This should be done with the top removed from the machine. You should not leave the machine running for more than a couple of minutes whilst testing cards in this way. If you do need to use your computer for any length of time before adding cooling to your StrongARM then clock the chip back to its default speed.
Will it overheat?
Having run the above tests you may find that you can clock your card up to full speed and the machine will still start up with no problems. However if you left the machine for any long period you risk damaging the StrongARM. The only way to know if the card will overheat is to try it, I do not recommend this at all. If your card does overheat you may need to buy a new one and that can be expensive. As I said in the previous article I do know of overclocked StrongArms that have run for years with no cooling, however I know also now know of one that was overclocked, got left on "oak test"for a couple of hours and is now only suited to life as an ornament, so to prevent this happening to your card we need to look at cooling options.
Passive cooling
An option that works for many users to to simply fit a heat sink to the StrongARM chip itself. This has been covered in a previous issue of RISCWorld, when we showed you how to modify your VIDC chip. To recap you need to cut down a heat sink so that it is the same size as the top of the StrongARM chip itself, most heatsinks are made of aluminium and can be cut using a normal hacksaw. You will also need a tube of heat sink thermo compound, which is designed to carry the eat from the chip to the heatsink, and a tube of super glue. Spread some thermo compound over the centre of the chip leaving a small clear area at each corner. Having done this put a small blob of superglue in each corner and then attach the heatsink. Hold this in place for around 10 seconds to let the super glue take hold.
Attaching the heatsink to the StrongARM
In most cases passive cooling will be enough to stop the StrongARM from overheating, however for a real belt and braces approach you could also consider some active cooling.
Active cooling
Having fitted a heatsink to the StrongARM we can now also superglue a small fan to the top of the heatsink to provide continuous airflow to improve cooling. You will need a small fan for this, not the standard PC type processor fan, but a small harddrive fan (used to externally cool harddrives). These are getting a little difficult to get hold of now and so you may need to visit a local computer fair in order to find one. Just like the heatsink the fan can be attached using superglue and needs to be held in place for ten seconds or so.
Attaching a fan
All that now remains is to provide power to the fan. Most fans have connections that are designed to plug into a motherboard socket, however the easiest way to obtain power from a RiscPC is using one of the power leads designed to power a harddrive or CD-ROM. To do this you will need a power extension cable with the correct type of socket and a small scotch block (a plastic terminal block with screw contacts). My RiscPC has three power cables for drives, one for a hard drive in the bottom segment, one for a drive in the first slice and one for a drive in the next slice. Since I only have a hard drive and a CD-ROM I had one power cable free.
The first job is to cut the power extension cable in half and clean up the now bare ends. You will have four wires, cut four connections off the scotch block and attach each of the wires from the power extension to one terminal in the scotch block. Only the red and black wires need to be used but by putting all four wires into the scotch block we can prevent any coming lose and dangling around inside the computer with potentially drastic results. Now cut the connector off the fan and join the red wire from the fan to the red wire from the power extension using the scotch block. Now do the same for the black wire, you should have something that looks like this.
Wiring the fan
All the has to be done is to plug in the newly cooled StrongARM card, complete with fan and heat sink and ensure that it works OK. Firstly clock the processor back to its original speed before inserting it. Check all connections to make sure you have no lose wires, make sure that you haven't pulled off the harddisc IDE cable as this can be done accidentally. Now turn the power back on and see what happens, the machine should boot normally, if it doesn't turn the power back off, check for lose cables and make sure the StrongARM card is correctly inserted.
If the fan doesn't work then check your connections, especially make sure that you have not tightened down the scotch block screws onto the insulation and so don't have an electrical connection. Now you can try the machine at full speed. Turn the power off and clock the StrongARM up to full speed and try the machine again with the lid off. I recommend using the machine for a couple of hours on full speed to check the cooling and performance, if the machine shows any stability problems turn it off and let it cool down, now try it on the next clock speed down.
If all has gone well then congratulations, you have produced your own Turbo StrongARM for only a few pounds. Once you have used an overclocked machine for any period of time you won't want to go back to a standard one.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME4/ISSUE6/WEBSITE/INDEX.HTM Volume 4, Issue 6, Planning a Website
Planning a Website
Gaving Wraith starts planning a website...
Recently I was offered the job of making the website for an international congress planned for 2006. I took it, as I wanted to see if I could apply any lessons that I had learned earlier, from making the official website for the international congress of art historians in the year 2000. I hope that I am not biting off more than I can chew by publishing a diary of the business, warts and all, in RISCWorld. Perhaps readers may find something of use. As I have not yet had any concrete instructions from the congress organizers, all I can do at this stage is decide on the principles which I will want to stick to, and sharpen my tools in readiness. In case the organizers do not want these matters aired in RISCWorld, I will keep them anonymous for the time being. So, apart from styling myself.
I will say no more. If all goes well I hope to be able to talk not just about my plans for the website but about my interactions with those commissioning it, and about false starts, misunderstandings, problems overcome, and so on.
Generalities
Anyone who has ever made a website for somebody else has probably found themselves having to explain over and over again that the appearance of a web page depends on the computer, the browser and the browser settings of the person viewing the page, and that it is mostly outside the control of the author of the page. What is more, HTML was designed that way, specifically to separate content from appearance, the content to be put there by the author, the appearance by the reader. Thanks to Sir Tim Berners Lee, anyway that was the theory. Cue, at this point, a rant about the world wide web becoming a world wide war ground - browser wars trampling over Sir Tim's noble principles of universal access, each commercial faction intent on outdoing its rival in subversion by adding bells and whistles to their browsers. There is little point now in crying over spilled milk - after all, the wicked forces of commerce supplied the market far faster than the W3 Consortium ever could have - but even so HTML, which started out with such good intentions, is now a bloated mess. I am not talking about particular versions of HTML but the totality of all the versions, it is not practical to expect everybody to have the same browser, whatever Darth Vader may be planning. If the sponsor of your web site wants to fix the appearance of her message then she should be asking for PDF files and printing them on paper to be seen by human eyes, not HTML files to be interpreted on screens of varying graphical capability by browsers which cannot agree on any sort of standard for reasons of commercial rivalry.
These considerations have a particular force for me, because I am a fan of RISC OS. I like to use an Iyonix on which to make my pages. I generally use Oregano2 as my browser. Occasionally I use WebsterXL. I also have a RiscPC with RISC OS 4.02, on which I have Oregano, Fresco and Browse, and my wife has a laptop running Windows XP with Microsoft Explorer and Mozilla. It is important to view one's pages with as many different browsers as possible, and it can be quite hard to make them look acceptable in all of them without sacrifice.
I will return to the business of useful software later. Meanwhile I will state the principles which I think are appropriate, not for every website necessarily, but certainly for my provisional guess about the proposed web site for the congress.
Accessibility - The site should be browsable by as many people as possible. This means avoiding features that require a particular browser or a particular platform, as much as possible. In other words, keep it simple. See also the Orthogonality - Maintain orthogonality between content and furniture. By this, I mean that each page should have the same furniture (navigation bars, fixed headings, logos, etc) and that it should be possible to edit or extend both content and furniture independently
Accessibility is a principle that I am sure is well appreciated by RISC OS users. Should one use frames? Should one use Javascript?
Frames can make good sense when the furniture to content ratio is high, because the viewer does not have to keep reloading the furniture. On the other hand, sites with frames can be a nuisance when it comes to downloading or keeping links to individual pages. Of course, if one uses frames for a site one still has to have a frameless version for those whose browsers cannot cope, or those who prefer not to have frames.
Javascript? JScript? ECMAScript? Which version? The variations are dizzying. For accessibility's sake it is probably best to avoid Javascript in any of its forms. I am sorry about this because I have a soft spot for it as an educational tool, and it offers a lot of interesting effects. However, Javascript can be implemented in very stupid ways. I heard a story about a salesman demonstrating a laptop to some respectable customers at one of the BETT shows a few years ago, he clicked a link unintentionally and found his customers open-mouthed at a very rude picture. His hand flicked to the back button in a trice, but nothing happened. He tried to close the window. Nothing happened. The JScript interpreter in his browser was allowing the script on the porn site's web page to alter the functions of these buttons, so all he could do eventually was press CTRL-ALT-DELETE. That is a truly dumb way for a browser to be implemented.
Orthogonality is a piece of jargon that may be strange to some readers. This is a principle not so much for what sort of HTML the website should comprise but for how that HTML is generated. It says that the overall design, and the parts of the website that are not the content, should be editable entirely independently of the content, and vice-versa. There is an ancient recipe for writing a book: write chapter 1; then write chapter 2; then rewrite chapter 1 to fit with chapter 2; then rewrite chapter 2 to adjust to the new chapter 1; then write chapter 3; then rewrite chapter 1 again, and so on. This is the spiral method of composition which requires that every change in one part should be followed by a cascade of changes everywhere else. Modular it is not. I learned from my efforts at website creation for the art historians that if you do not give sufficient thought or flexibility to the overall structure then your efforts are liable to degenerate into the spiral method.
Cascading style sheets give a limited form of orthogonality, at least for those qualities that can be determined by attributes in HTML tags. The trouble is that not all browsers understand them and they are limited in effect. You may be able to change the background colour of all the navigation bars on the site by altering a single item in a CSS file, but you cannot change them all from vertical to horizontal, nor can you parametrize a style by some property that varies from page to page. So how can you get orthogonality? This leads us directly to the question of how the HTML is generated, and to what software we need for creating the website.
Software
Obviously, you need a browser to view your pages (several, ideally) and you need software to upload your pages from your hard disc to the web site where they are to reside. I use the excellent FTPc program for this. You also need a text editor, to look at the HTML source of your web pages. I use StrongED, though I am sure Zap, or even Edit would do just as well. But should you create your HTML by hand in a text editor? Well that is what I used to do. I did this for the Art History site. I would make blank template pages, copy them and insert content by dragging text in from elsewhere. That worked well enough until I found myself needing to go back and edit the template, which is almost impossible to do easily once the content has been added, unless you start all over again from the beginning - back to the spiral method, in fact. Of course StrongED has an HTML mode (several) that lets you enter tags at the press of a button, and there have been dedicated tools around for some time, such as !HTML , that perform the same function. Alternatively, there is TechWriter, which lets you design a document in a more or less WYSIWYG way and then lets you save it as HTML. Unfortunately none of these approaches gets us anywhere near the holy grail of orthogonality. HTML, indeed the very notion of markup language (text with tags in it) which underlies HTML, mixes up the content and the furniture inextricably. The shift to TechWriter is even a step in the wrong direction, because it is not the appearance of the document we want to specify but its abstract structure.
What we need is a magic ingredient that will let us specify a web page, or a website, in far more flexible high level terms than any markup language can. We need a simple but powerful specification language. For example, let us think about navigating round a site. If some uniform means of navigation is to be provided (an ansible, let us say, to borrow a word from science fiction), what data must it depend on? It depends first of all on a table of visible labels indexed by the pages that should be reachable from the current page, and it depends on the current page. So we would like to be able to describe an ansible as a function of at least these two variables, and possibly others that determine its appearance. That means that this hypothetical specification language must be flexible enough to talk about functions and indexed tables of things, at the very least. Then we will need a piece of software to create the website from its specification - a compiler whose input will be a high level description (possibly written in a modular fashion in many files) and whose low level output will be the HTML files that constitute the site.
In the next exciting issue of RISCWorld...My first meeting with the congress organizers and...does the the magic ingredient for orthogonality exist?
