ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/6502/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, Z80em and 6502em
Z80em and 6502em
Matt Thompson
The emulation of old computer platforms and the playing of old computer games is very much "in" at the moment, so to follow on nicely from last months look at Commodore emulation on RISC OS here we have new and improved versions of two more 8bit computer emulators. They are !Z80em which emulates the ZX Spectrum and !6502em which emulates the BBC Micro. These new versions include a number of updates, the most important being that they both run natively on the Iyonix.
Both emulators were originally published by Warm Silence Software but the author Michael Borcherds has released these new updated versions himself and are available from his website which can be found at
!Z80em (V4.00)
The ZX Spectrum start up screen
!Z80em is easy to run, simply install it on the hard-disc and then when it is run it will install itself onto the iconbar. Clicking on the icon will bring up the emulator window, and clicking the menu mouse button on the icon will bring up a menu. Selecting the choices option will bring up the !Z80em configuration options, as shown below.
The !Z80em Configuration window
Amongst the options you can select whether the emulator is in 48K mode or 128K mode, the speed of the emulator, sound on/off and whether the emulator will run in the desktop or in single task mode.
Playing Games on !Z80em
Loading games into !Z80em is very simple indeed. Several different filetypes are used to store Spectrum games, these include Z80, TAP and TZX. If a file has a Z80 filetype then simply double click on it and the game will run straight away. Don't forget that if the game is for a Spectrum 128K then you need to make sure the emulator isn't in 48K mode and vice versa. The icon on the icon bar will indicate what mode is currently set. The other filetypes TAP and TZX are a bit different but easy to load; simply double click on the file and then from the main emulator screen, where it says (C) 1982 Sinclair Research, in 128K mode press return when the light blue bar has highlighted Tape Loader. Type LOAD "" or press J and ALT/P twice, press RETURN and the game will 'load' and then can be played.
When you get a TAP file running it is worth returning to the program menu and selecting 'Save', then save the Z80 snapshot. You can then simply double-click the file to run the game instantly in future. You can also do this by clicking 'Menu' over the main emulator screen and from here you can also make a screengrab of the current screen and save it as a spritefile. The TZX filetypes are loaded into !Z80em in the same way as TAP files and should work OK, but TAP files seem to be the most common filetype from my experience.
!Z80em is a very good emulation of the ZX Spectrum and plays the games well. It is responsive and the sound and graphics behave in exactly the same way the they did all those years ago. I tried many games with !Z80em and every one has worked fine.
!6502em (V4.00)
The BBC Micro start up screen
The BBC ROMS are not supplied with !6502em for copyright reasons. To use !6502em you will need to use the supplied program !Rip65host to extract them from !65host. This will then let you emulate a BBC Model B. To emulate the BBC Master, Master Compact or the Acorn Electron you will the ROMS for these machines.
Once the ROM(s) are in place !6502em is loaded in the same way as !Z80em, and the icon will appear on the icon bar. Clicking the Menu button over the icon will bring up the menu. From here you can see which ROMS are currently installed and you can make screengrabs of BBC screens using the 'Sprite' option. There are other options as well, and by clicking on 'Config' the following panel will be displayed :
The !6502em Configuration window
From here you can select which machine you want to emulate (subject to ROMs) the speed, sound, keymaps and other options. By clicking the mouse on the icon a very familiar screen (and noise) from the past will appear. MODE 7 is very well emulated and displays as it used to on the BBC machines.
Running games on !6502em is different to !Z80em. It's not just a double click, you have to set them up to run, but it's not difficult to do.
When you download a BBC game from the internet (such as the Stairway to Hell site) it will be in an archive which will contain a single file in data format. To get it into a usable format you now need to load the application !BeebArc which is supplied with !6502em. Once this is installed on the iconbar simply drag the game data file to the icon. A box will now pop up, and simply drag this to the destination directory. Now click on this new directory and it will be full of files. Some will be datafiles and others will be BASIC files. If there is a file called !Boot then double clicking on that (with !6502em loaded) should run the game. You can also get the game to run by dragging a BASIC file to the !6502em icon. The appropriate BASIC file is normally called "Loader" or "Load" or something similar. When the game has been successfully loaded into !6502em it is worth creating a BBC snapshot from the 'Save' option so that next time you run the game you can just double click on this file and instantly load it.
!6502em plays the BBC games very well, both the sounds and graphics are emulated very well and act as they would have on the BBC. I have tried many games on !6502em and the vast majority work perfectly. There were some that didn't work but hopefully will in the future.
Game Galleries
Below is a selection of games running on both !Z80em and !6502em as the emulators display them.
ZX Spectrum
Chuckie Egg
Fred
Jet Set Willy 2
Mikie
Scuba Dive
Trap Door
BBC Micro
Citadel
Frak
Matchday
Thunderstruck
Vindaloo
MrEE
Where to get games.
Games are available to download from the internet. A good resource for ZX Spectrum games is the World of Spectrum at
You can get BBC games from The BBC Lives at
Lost BBC Games
I had a really good look on the Stairway to Hell website as I haven't seen it before and I was pleasantly surprised to find in the Lost and Found BBC games section some of the games I remember reading about but which never happened, such as Daxis (found demo) and Bolo (lost). Some are lost but some have been found and I was amazed to find all those years ago that Ultimate did actually write Cookie for the BBC but never released it, I used to play it on friend's ZX Spectrums and wished it was available for the BBC and all this time it was!
Cookie
Another surprise was to find that Bubble Bobble also existed for the BBC Micro but never got released. This is a brilliant game, and although since this version was written there have been better releases it's great to see such an arcade classic being run on the good old BBC.
Bubble Bobble
Check out the lost and found section for other forgotten BBC gaming delights at
Pricing Information
!6502 costs £15.00 for single user (ROMs not included).
!6502 costs £10 to upgrade to Version4 (ROMS not included).
For more details see
!Z80em costs £15.00 for single user.
!Z80em costs £10 to upgrade to version 4.
For more details see
Summing up then, these are two excellent emulators, which recreate the ZX Spectrum & BBC Micro very well indeed. These new versions have many improvements, the most important being Iyonix compatibility, and I would recommend them to anyone who is interested in emulation and the playing of classic games.
Matt Thompson
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/AALP/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, ARM Assembly language Programming
ARM Assembly language Programming
Alligata Media
Contents
Chapter 7 : Non-user modes
AppendixA : The Co-processor Instructions
Alligata Media
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/BUSNSS/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, In Business with RISC OS
In Business with RISC OS
David Bradforth continues our series of case studies, looking at how more companies makes use of RISC OS in a business sense.
Jeremy Brayshaw runs two businesses from home, each with their own computer requirements.
The first, a design and print business, doesn't involve creations of art as, by his own admission, Jeremy isn't an artist. What it does involve is the production of stationary designs, book covers and so on and the ability to output them to film. Key considerations for this business are invoicing, accountancy and the maintenance of customer details and records although as the business is largely service-based stock maintenance is not a requirement.
Jeremy's print business -
For the home-brew business -
The second is a home-brew business, operating more like a shop. With a requirement to maintain accurate stock levels, allowing for the re-ordering of stock when required and accountancy, invoicing is less important as most sales are of a 'shop' type rather than 'mail order' type. Being able to produce catalogues is important, as is the construction and maintenance of a website with shop facilities.
Meeting the software requirements
For accountancy purposes, Prophet 3+ is the mainstay of both businesses. With two different data files (one for each business), the different strengths of the package can be deployed. For the printing business, the invoicing; book keeping and VAT accountancy side of Prophet is perfect; whereas the shop sales, stock maintenance and automatic ordering side of the package is ideal for the home brew shop.
VAT returns are a piece of cake - whereas Windows users seem to struggle on for hours or days with their VAT return, for Jeremy it's two clicks, copy six figures from screen to form and it's done.
To cater for his design needs, Jeremy relies heavily on Ovation Pro, with some help from ArtWorks, for his limited graphic design needs. Frequently, photos are added to designs (especially for book covers, but also magazines and advertising leaflets), and for that he makes use of several items of software including Variations, CleanJPEG/JClean and JCut. Scanning and OCR'ing are very important too, and that involves DPSS and Sleuth 3.
Like many of us, Jeremy finds the need to occasionally print from Word documents; which can cause a problem.
There are many who find that Microsoft Word meets all their needs for desktop publishing; but it's not a desktop publishing program - and can cause problems for those of us using RISC OS when we try to read files from people who have tried to make use of it in a desktop publishing sense.
EasiWriter is able to read most Word documents, but is not 100% reliable and often formats differently to the original. Whether it's due to a lack of similar fonts on the RISC OS side of things; or graphics issues (although it's worth pointing out that EasiWriter will work with ImageFS when installed to help with displaying any graphic formats it doesn't properly understand - Ed) there can be problems. Often they are solved through discussion with the author, and asking for the pictures to be sent separately.
Jeremy then, like many of us, extracts the text using EasiWriter and re-designs the document in Ovation; dropping in the supplied graphics where appropriate and making use of external tools to convert them where necessary. One nice feature of EasiWriter, the 'save as HTML' option, saves the document with graphics as separate files; allowing access to any errant graphics.
It's not very often that customers want the finished product to look exactly as the Word version they've supplied, allowing Jeremy the versatility to put his own interpretation of design into it; also allowing less reliance on the precise layout and fonts from the PC-originated work. It does however cause serious problems when they insist upon it, although for Jeremy it's only happened once in ten years.
The thorny question of PDFs
In common with many designers, Jeremy often receives PDF files for printing. This is a well-documented problem for RISC OS, as both PDF and RiScript have issues with clipping of graphics and without accurate clipping of graphics the whole effectiveness of RiScript is compromised and could be considered rendered useless.
The authors of RiScript are shortly to release RiScript 4, through which they aim to address many long-standing issues for viewing PDF files on RISC OS. RiScript also allows you to view postscript files and convert them easily to other formats (such as Draw) which can then be dealt with in most RISC OS applications. We'll have a review in RISC World as and when it's released.
One problem Jeremy has come across causes issues for home designers using a PC or Mac as well - 'Even using a PC, I can't find any way to 'reflect' the PDF image when printing, using the Acrobat Reader software, which makes using a PC equally useless unless you buy the several-hundred-pounds full 'acrobat' software (a reflected image is essential in order to make the film required to create a printing plate). Even then, I'm not sure it would work!'
There are cheaper alternatives on the PC, including the JAWS PDF software which may help; or you can make use of the various bitmap graphics packages (such as Corel Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop) to open the PDF then reflect it yourself as necessary before resaving it as a PDF.
With all the work that's gone into professional publishing software for RISC OS over the years, Jeremy finds that he has no trouble producing the CMYK separations necessary for full colour work - anything that loads into Ovation can easily be separated into CMYK images using a few clicks of the mouse. As he observes, 'I think it is a bit of an illusion that the colours may not appear correct when converting an RGB image into CMYK - if the printer (person, not machine!) knows what he's doing, it is easily corrected on the press, provided an original copy is available to compare with!'
My own experience is very simple - when producing colour separations I end up producing PDF files through Acrobat on a Mac; and at that stage CMYK the PDF files graphic content as a whole. Although this works 90% of the time, there have still been some peculiar results in the final printed page.
Designs on the Web
For the production of web pages, Jeremy makes use of HTML3 by Richard Goodwin. While it takes a long time to create a complete website, it allows him to ensure it looks just as he expects without any delays to the end user in downloading the site content. ArtWorks is used to create the graphics, buttons and so on; with StrongEd assisting in the preparation of the HTML. Uploading the site is via FTPc via NetFetch from RComp; with emails received via Messenger Pro.
CallerID, from Octopus Systems, is invaluable to Jeremy, bringing onto screen the details of the person calling just as the phone begins to ring. In a practical sense, this allows Jeremy to answer any query that the caller may throw at him professionally as the details are all on the screen in front of him.
For short run colour work, Jeremy uses the PostScript drivers to print to the HP2500L laser printer; and to create film for printing Jeremy again uses the PostScript PDF to the HP2100M mono laser printer onto laser film.
Over the next few years, RISC OS users are likely to find themselves increasingly isolated unless we get a means of producing professional PDF files. An increasing number of printers are doing away with the traditional means of printing; preferring instead to opt for a digital pre-press solution. The reasons are simple - cost; but some native RISC OS software solutions allowing us to meet the digital pre-press needs would help.
To cater for his banking needs, Jeremy uses an early version of Oregano2; finding that the current version doesn't provide all the functionality for a Nationwide account that the previous version did. Unfortunately, Jeremy is forced to use FireFox in the PC to make any headway in managing his Bank of Scotland business account.
With Peter Naull's recent announcement that FireFox should be making an appearance on RISC OS, and Genesys Developments announcement that Oregano3 should be forthcoming, we've got two potential solutions for handling the Internet both of which have a strong heritage.
FireFox, with its open source community offerings, may be the better choice as it was designed from the outset to be used on a computer; whereas the heart of Oregano was designed for use as part of a set top box (or the PlayStation 2 where it is the TV interactor web browser).
The last application Jeremy makes regular use of is Organizer. It's easy to forget this program as it just sits on the iconbar popping up every now and again with details of appointments that have been forgotten, birthdays and all the other useful features it's got packed in.
Conclusions
In common with many we've featured in case studies, Jeremy finds that there are problems primarily with web access and the lack of cross-platform compatibility. But there are ways to get around these issues, which are really just minor inconveniences. Jeremy finds RISC OS the ideal system upon which to run his business - and, as you'll see next time, so do many others.
Dave Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/COMPO/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, Competition
Competition
Win copies of the latest books from Alligata media
Last issue we offered the latest versions of Alligata Media's Basic V: A Dabhand Guide and The ARM Assembly guide to one luck reader.
We had a surprisingly large number of entries. We asked one simple question. All our readers had to do was tell us the name the author of Basic V: A Dabhand Guide, who was formerly the editor of Acorn Publisher magazine.
The correct answer was of course Mike Williams, and the winner of the prize is Julian Benton from the sunny, rain soaked Vale of Glamorgan. Bad luck to all the other entrants but well done for getting the answer right, assuming you did of course!
Talking about getting the answer right one RISCWorld reader deserves a special mention, so congratulations to Grahame Polley for this slight senior moment..
"John Cartmell was formally the editor of the Acorn Publisher".
Just to correct this, John Cartmell is still the editor of Acorn Publisher, so not only did Grahame unfortunately get the question wrong, but he also got the answer to the question we didn't ask wrong. The correct answer would have also been the right answer, Mike Williams used to be the editor of Acorn Publisher and he also wrote Basic V A Dabhand Guide.
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/DISC/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, DiscWorld
DiscWorld
Aaron Timbrell rounds up the software directory
SiteWriter
All rights reserved. This program is licensed for use on a single computer by a single user.
This version is supplied for the use of RISCWorld subscribers only.
SiteWriter is a great way to create websites. It's easy, because it makes sense. SiteWriter breaks some rules - it's assumed that you want to create pages easily and quickly with a minimal of fuss, but at the same time that you care about how your pages look.
A modular approach
Most users would use the Site Manager and Page Editor, as these are the core components. However there are a number of additional components which advanced users may like to investigate. For example, the Style Manager, ColourManager, Master Border Manager, and Asset Manager. This approach means that new users can be introduced to site management and page design without being overwhelmed by the additional features of SiteWriter. New users can very quickly see how easy page design is with SiteWriter.
The following design ideals have contributed to the design ofSiteWriter:
People surfing the web are using capable browsers, and that they have images turned on
A web authoring tool should make sense, and as such will be easy to use
Designers require an authoring tool which allows for easy creation of graphical pages
SiteWriter is designed to allow a user to create a web page, then drop an image on that page and type some text and position those elements where they want. Then, to allow that user to create a web page which will look just like the page they have just designed in SiteWriter, and SiteWriter allows this. Users can create pages which look great. They can also create pages which are difficult to create by hand. Designers can easily keep a constant theme. SiteWriter does a complex job - making it very easy for users to achieve a great result with little effort.
Site Management
The site manager is a filing system for web sites; it contains all the pages of a site, which can be organised into folders. Just like a normal filing system, users can move, add, delete and rename objects too. The Site Manager is completely drag and drop. The contents of a folder can be shown/hidden by double-clicking the folder icon.
The SiteManager allows the creation of four kinds of objects:
Folders allow users to organise your site. Pages relating to one topic can be placed in a folder
Web pages contain the content of a site and are edited in the page editor, which is a complete visual page authoring tool
Framesets allow designers to display two web pages in a single browser window
HTML objects allow users to use your own hand written pages in SiteWriter
Page Editor
The Page Editor is very similar to any standard object based drawing or word processing program. Creating objects is straight forward; users simply select the element creation tool they require (from the toolbar), then drag a box on the page where they want to create the element. To select an element, users simply click on it. To move, simply drag the element. Users can select multiple elements, and nudge them in a direction using the arrow keys for precise positioning. An easy way to create images, is for users to simply drag a gif, jpeg or png file from a filer window, and drop it on the page they are editing.
Users can double click on a text element, and edit the text just like a word processor, even setting word and paragraph formatting options, and linking and anchoring. Text formatting features include: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript and subscript. Users can alter the font name, size and colour. Paragraphs can be aligned to the left, center and right. Users can also create bulleted lists. The text editor behaves very much like any text editor. Therefore users use the mouse to select text. In addition, a text file may be dropped onto an editor to insert that text into your page.
Because SiteWriter creates HTML code you can design the page any way you like. Provided elements do not overlap, SiteWriter will work out how to code pages to ensure they will look correct in a web browser. If there are any non standard characters, SiteWriter will take care of these too.
Publishing
Publishing is the process of converting a web site in SiteWriter to HTML. All users have to do is tell SiteWriter where they want to publish your site, and the site will be created in HTML - complete and ready for viewing in a web browser. All images, folders and pages are created in one place. When users are editing a web page in the Page Editor they can preview that page - SiteWriter will update the HTML for that page and open it in a web browser. Therefore anyone can quickly check the affect any changes have taken.
Publishing is relatively quick. To give you an idea, publishing an average site takes around 12 seconds, and previewing a page takes around 1-2 seconds on a StrongArm.
SiteWriter is the quick and simple way to design any sort of website, why not experiment yourself to see what you can achieve.
The complete DiscWorld line up
As per usual we have our collections of the latest RISC OS games and applications, as well as support files for this issues articles. So the full DiscWorld line up looks something like this:
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
SiteWriter
The full version of SiteWriter.
Wake2005
Al few photos from the Wakefield Show.
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.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/DWORKS/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, A Secret History of DrawWorks
A Secret History of DrawWorks Part 3
Aaron
DrawWorks Millennium
As I discussed last time around the first CD version of DrawWorks was DrawWorks Millennium. This bought together DrawWorks, Mr Clippy, Typography and a host of clip art and utilities all on one CD. This proved to be a very popular product and it was obvious that we would need to produce a new version after listening to the customer suggestions.
One of the main problems with older versions of DrawWorks was the lack of communication between DrawWorks and Draw. DrawWorks would issue a command and then simply hope that Draw would play ball. In a few instances (such as saving a file) DrawWorks could monitor what Draw was up to and take appropriate action, but in most cases all DrawWorks could do was send the commands and assume all was well. An example of this would be selecting a font size from the DrawWorks font menu. This would send the appropriate click to Draw, but DrawWorks couldn't then check back to make sure the command had been accepted. Not only that but DrawWorks had no way of knowing what font size was already selected and so couldn't tick it's own menus to match those shown by Draw, or to match what was even on screen! This was plainly unacceptable in a program that was continually growing in complexity and had to be resolved.
The problem is that RISC OS simply doesn't support proper inter-application co-operation. There is no method for us to ask Draw what it's doing. So we decided to invent one. After a good deal of experimentation we discovered that you could find out what Draw was doing by poking into it's workspace to find out what options were ticked on its menus and were being displayed in it's writable dialogue boxes. The problem was that as far as any application is concerned it's sitting at the same address space in memory. As the WIMP multi-tasks it pages applications into and out of this memory space, so each program might as well be running on a single tasking computer. To solve this we wrote a module that allowed us to intercept the Wimp_CreateMenu SWI and we could then read or modify the contents of Draws menus.
As an example this would allow us to read back the currently selected font size and then update DrawWorks so that it knew what size font Draw had selected. We could also read back the current line width and a host of other options. This allowed lots of new features to be incorporated into DrawWorks, including the facility to set the default Draw line width (by writing a value in just after Draw had started). Another new feature that could now be added were "nudge" buttons that could slowly increase or decrease a value, such as font size. DrawWorks could now read a value, increase it by a fixed amount (usually 0.25) and then write the value back. Assuming the user had an item selected in the Draw window, for example a piece of text, we could read the size, increase it slightly, write the value back, then fool Draw into thinking the user had just clicked menu and typed in a new font size. The result was a set of simple buttons that could alter the size of objects (not just text), change the line width and even rotate things on screen without the user ever being aware of how they worked.
Having got the special menu intercept module some other major changes were made to DrawWorks based on user feedback. Firstly we implemented an anti-aliased display by using a licensed version of Computer Concepts ArtWorks rendering modules. We were also able to add back ground font blending to a number of the DrawWorks utilities by creating a special version of the Draw rendering module. In the end a great many changes were made, all based on customer feedback, at last we had a version of DrawWorks that we were really happy with, DrawWorks New Millennium was a major step forward for DrawWorks and offered many more features.
As a final point of interest in digging around I found the original updates list that showed the changes between DrawWorks Millennium and New Millennium and thought it might be of interest.
New Features List
On screen anti-aliasing
Background font blendin
Set the default line width for Draw
User selectable Grade and Interpolate levels
Line width scalling nudge buttons
Preferences option for Draws default grade & interpolate levels
Writable options for grid spacing and divisions
Colour coded on screen manuals
New "Copper" or Standard RISCOS window templates
Toolbar features
Autoscrolling toolbars that follow the mouse pointer
Nudge buttons for font size, height and line width
Shows currently selected font size and line width ticked on menus
Writable pointsize & height options on font menus
Extended versions of Draws line width and point size menus
New Tools
24 bit TIFF export at up to 1200dpi
OLE editing of Sprite & JPEG images
OLE editing of text areas
Bolt-on toolbar, allows other apps to be integrated into DrawWorks
Metaliser tool to shade objects with metallic tones
Object spacing and positioning tool
Set the leading (line spacing) for text objects
FontFiend replaces Dr Fonty as font editor
Tracing of Bitmap images to convert them to vectors
Replace any colour with any other colour
Keep one colour intact while replacing other colours
Colour fitter - convert colours to their nearest named or Puretint equivalents
Object rotation dialogue box
Nudge buttons to rotate in 1 degree steps
Flip objects in both X and Y Axis
Object scaling dialogue box plus 5% nudge buttons
Scale an objects line widths without altering its size
iDesigner font suggestion tool now integrated into DrawWorks
Improvements to existing features
Soft edged shadows
Use PureTint and named colours for shadows
Use PureTint and named colours in the lining tool
Automatically produce darker shades of named colours
Control over grey component replacement when producing CMYK separations
Anti-aliasing of JPEG images
Export of sprites and GIFs at up to 1200dpi
Import bitmap images as either 8 or 24bpp
Import ArtWorks files as bitmaps
EPS (PostScript) improvements
Improved EPS importer
Adobe Illustrator 7 PostScript previews
Include sprites in Illustrator EPS files
Produce PostScript Type 1 fonts with full hinting
Integrated PostScript compatible font names database
Additional features (using supplied bolt-on applications)
Improved on screen rendering & dithering in 256 colour modes
Drawing of other shapes such as polygons, stars and crosses
Simple perspective drawing tool
Produce rotated and transformed patterns from objects
Gamma colour control for RISC PC monitors
Design on screen graph paper
Produce spirograph type patterns
Text based scripting langauge for producing Drawfiles
Export as WMF files
Mr Clippy
Now fully ImageFS2 compatible
Auto conversion of upper case clip names from a CD
Over 800 new high quality clip art examples
New ClippyCopy - transfer clip art groups from old versions of Mr Clippy
Background font blending in drawfile clips now supported
Typography 2500
Over 350 new fully hinted and kerned fonts
FontFiend
PostScript Type1 font export with hinting
Automatic character builder with EURO symbol support
You can see that DrawWorks New Millennium had a lot of changes when compared to the earlier DrawWorks Millennium and it took a long time to write and for the first time included custom versions of some modules to impliment some of the changes. Next time we will take a look at DrawWorks Third Millennium and DrawWorks Select.
So here we are at the start of yet another volume of RISCWorld. Who would have thought that it's five years since the first issue of RISCWorld appeared, and four and a half years since I started editing the magazine? Doesn't time fly? It's been an interesting five years, we have seen the release of a number of new RISC OS machines, including the Iyonix, Omega, Mico and A75. We have seen new versions of RISC OS, firstly RISC OS Select, then RISC OS 5 from Castle and of course RISC OS Adjust from RISCOS Ltd. We have also seen the ownership of RISC OS itself change.
In the same five years there are have been major developments in software, firstly of course we have the arrival of VirtualAcorn, allowing RISC OS to be used on PC hardware, there have been major updates to many of the best known RISC OS apps, including Techwriter and ArtWorks. There have also been lots of software titles changing hands, with APDL now the main publisher of RISC OS software. In fact so much has happened in the last five years that I simply can't cover it all.
Still that's the past, what about the future, well the next 12 months?
We will hopefully be seeing production versions of the A9 computer from Advantage 6, there have been more and more rumours that the new version of Impression, Impression X will be released shortly, hopefully the Cino DVD player for the Iyonix will be making an appearance, and what about an Iyonix2? Castle's recent aggressive promotion of the current model has got a lot of people wondering what else they might have in store. With a bit of luck we are going to see lost of new software including Cineroma by David McEwen (which has at last been publicly shown) and a port of the Firefox browser by Peter Naulls.
So we have the potential for a very exciting 12 months ahead, I'm looking forward to it, I hope you are as well.
Editors Rant of the month
The following is about the vehicular faith, not specifically about computing.
As you may well know by now we have recently moved home. Although we have only moved 140 miles, South Derbyshire is a world away from Bracknell. Anyway, one of the problems that I had before the move related to getting the VW Beetle finished so it could be driven to the new house. I had already finished all the welding (note to self : rust free means the rust comes free with the car) which just left some mechanical jobs to do. Anyway after finishing all the undersealing and giving the car a quick mechanical once over it all seemed fine. An annoying tendency not to start was traced to a corroded fuse which was quickly cleaned up. I replaced the broken front number plate and at the same time fitted a new rear number plate, cunningly screwed into the outer skin of the double skinned panel under the decklid.
So it was time for a test drive. The car immediately felt better, perhaps because all the new metal in the front was preventing the suspension from moving in ways it wasn't designed to. I did notice that the speedo wasn't working as I pulled out of Turnberry but wasn't overly concerned. Accelerating up the road did however cause a great deal of concern as suddenly an awful noise started coming from the front of the car, help! I turned round and crawled back home. I know a fair bit about Beetles and do know that the speedo cable can be a cause of many problems. It has to be fitted in a specific position, otherwise on full lock the rotating end of the cable can get pushed into the inside if the speedo a bit too far and ruin it. Leaping to a sensible conclusion I had a look and indeed the speedo cable was in the wrong place. I moved it slightly and tried again, but the noise continued.
The VW beetle speedo cable is a weird contraption, it runs down to the nearside front wheel where it is held in place with a circlip, the end of the cable pokes through and goes through a square hole in the center cap of the wheel, as the wheel and center cap rotate the inside of the cable goes with it, this is important so memorise this bit.
In the end I gave up and decided that since time was running out and I had a flat bed trailer booked to move the VW camper I would simply ask the guy moving the camper to move both vehicles. A quick e-mail later and it was all sorted out. Good, lets get back to packing. Anyway on the day before we were due t move Hayley took a phone call. The chap moving the VWs couldn't do it! Arghhh! Actually I think some wires got crossed as in fact he could still move the camper, but not the Beetle. So I had another go at fixing it, and failed. In the end I disconnected the speedo cable and the noise seemed to go away.
On the day of the move my brother in law, Frank, "volunteered" to drive the beetle and guess what, yes the horrible noise came back. Oh well, nuts to it; if the beetle breaks down then the AA will have to rescue it. So after a morning's panic cleaning the house and loading up the final stuff we set off. The Beetle was making an awful noise and I could hear it behind us as we left. As we got onto the motorway the noise from the beetle seemed to stop - weird. Looking in my rear view mirror I could finally see what the noise was. The front number plate was rattling between about 30 and 50 miles per hour. Some idiot had forgotten to tighten the screws properly. With this solved we drove up to Derbsyhire.
So after all this why didn't the speedo work? Simple, I forgot to put the center caps back on the wheels.
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
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/FRU/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, Foundation RISC User DVD
Foundation RISC User DVD
Matt Thompson
This release is something a bit different as it's the first DVD release for RISC OS machines, this release brings together all 16 Foundation RISC User (or FRU for short) CD-ROMs onto one DVD, it is also the first time a Foundation release is available to anyone, not just the FRU members.
FRU is a subscription based CD-ROM magazine which took over from Clan Acorn, and is produced by RISC OS Ltd. The DVD comes in a standard DVD box and is easy to run, simply put it in the drive and click on the CD icon and up will pop the filer window, then click on !RunMe and it will now load, FRU is displayed using a web browser and will work fine with any of the RISC OS browsers, it looks and behaves exactly like a website would but is much quicker bringing up the pages.
Now here comes the problem, only certain RISC OS machines can actually use this DVD because many machines can't read DVD's. To use this DVD you will need a machine with a DVD-ROM drive running either RISC OS Select or RISC OS Adjust, as these versions can actually read data DVD's, note that standard RISC OS 4 cannot read DVD's (a good reason to upgrade to Select or Adjust).
RISC OS 5 on the Iyonix cannot read DVDs either, despite being the top end RISC OS machine, the DVD was even created using an Iyonix, but you can't use it on it. I can only hope that somehow RISC OS 5 will be able to use DVD's as it will look pretty silly if it can't - RISC OS 5 needs to be able to use DVDs and hopefully Cino and/or Select on the Iyonix will solve this. Windows machines with DVD drives and Virtual Acorn can also run the without any problem as well - I successfully ran it on Virtual Acorn with RISC OS Select 3i4.
Once you have a machine which can read DVDs, you can then begin to view 5 years worth of FRU material and there is a lot of it, which is divided into a number of sections.
The first section is the Welcome section which includes the Editorial and 'From the Cutting Edge' which is a column from written by RISC OS Ltd, all the 16 editorials and 'from the cutting edges' are included here along with an introduction to the DVD.
The News section speaks for itself, it contains items of news from RISC OS Ltd, hardware partners (Castle Technology, MicroDigital, Millipede and RiscStation) and also hardware and software developments from third party developers and also information about forthcoming events.
Next up is the features section which shows all the features available about various subjects.
Clicking on a subject will take you into an article on that subject, from here you will see a bar with the numbers 1-16 on, by clicking on a number you will then see listed all the features available from that particular issue.
The Database section has information on RISC OS products available and where to get them from, the developers, who they are, and how to contact them, plus RISC OS user groups and information on RISC OS 4 authorised installers.
The forum section is a collection of all the hints & tips, help and reader feedback.
The A-Z section gives an A-Z listing of all the articles, to make finding them easier, if you are having difficulty locating one, which may be the case as there are a lot of them!
There is the Help section which gives help and information about the DVD, then there is the credits section which lists the people who were involved in bringing the 16 issues together. The final section is a software archive which contains lots of programs of all types, it's a bit like a public domain library but on a disc! The latest version of the programs are supplied, which is good if you have an older version. Of course if a new version gets released then these versions will then be out of date, but then the next issue of FRU will have the latest one version if you've missed it, anyway it serves as a useful backup for software. A useful feature of the software archive is that you can click on the program and bring it up straight away in a filer window, and then drag it straight onto your hard disc and run it.
There is no standard price for this DVD, the price you pay for it depends on how long you have been a member of the RISC OS Foundation, and whether you are a member or not of the Select scheme.
The price for non Foundation Members and Select members is £43.30, however if you are a subscriber to RISC OS Select then the cost becomes £25.00, for Foundation members the cost decreases the longer you have been a member, so for me it was 5 years at £8.05 which is a pretty good deal I think.
There are also various bundle options available for buying the FRU DVD, some with DVD drives, some with subscriptions to RISC OS Select or Adjust and/or the RISC OS Foundation, check out
The RISC OS Foundation DVD is definitely worth getting for a number of reasons, it contains a massive collection of useful, informative and interesting articles, plus loads of software, it covers all aspects of RISC OS computing so there will be something for everyone, and also 1 DVD takes up less shelf space than 16 CDs!
Overall this is well worth buying, especially if you've been in the RISC OS Foundation since it started, as it can be very inexpensive. If you're not in the Foundation then it is a bit more expensive but you definitely are getting a lot for your money and is a good chance to see what you've been missing by getting the whole lot (so far) in one go.
Perhaps we'll be seeing a RISCWorld DVD as well in the future?
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/FSIM/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, Flight Simulators CD
Flight Simulators CD
Matt Thompson
FLIGHT SIMULATOR COLLECTION
Note that we have a special offer on this collection exclusively for RISC World subscribers. See the Index page for details.
This is the latest release from The 4th Dimension and it brings together a collection of nine flight themed games. Some of them were released commercially and will be familiar to many, others were freeware games and not as well known. The games which appear on this collection are:
Air Supremac
Chopper Forc
Chocks Awa
Mosquito Fir
Birds Of Wa
Spitfire Fur
Interdictor I
F18 Horne
Sunburs
Installation
The games are supplied on a single CD-ROM in a DVD box and need to be installed onto the hard disc before the games can be played. Installing the games is easy, simply click on the !Install application in the filer window and the following window will appear.
Installation
From here select which games you want to install to your hard disc then drag the joystick icon to the destination window, click 'OK', and the games of choice will then be installed onto the hard disc and will look something like this when finished.
Installation completed
Air Supremacy
This was originally released by Superior Software and is a sort of cross between Zarch and Conqueror being that can fly in the air and move around on the ground as well. The object of each mission is to destroy all the enemy craft on each level.
You start the game being the surface unit, however you can switch to the aircraft when you are on an airfield, and you can now start blowing up everything in your path. It's quite good fun whizzing about in a tank blowing up the enemy tanks. Then you can switch to the aircraft and fly the skies doing much the same thing! The aircraft is more difficult to control, mainly due to the crash landings! However there is a flight practice option available from the main menu to test your flying skills, and there is also an air combat demo to show you how it's really done.
For every enemy destroyed your score will increase, however for every shot fired by your vehicle your score is reduced by 1 point each time.
Air Supremacy reminds me a lot of Conqueror and Zarch, except for the fact that the landscapes are flat and there are no hills or anything (unless they appear in later levels - but I never got that far!) but because of the feel of the game and the way it plays and also the fact I couldn't really get anywhere with it either! The graphics are quite similar as well but work well, the sound effects are minimal after the title screen music, but the aircraft noise and surface unit noise sound really good and realistic.
I would say that Air Supremacy is a decent enough game, and is quite entertaining zooming about in the various craft shooting things. Controlling the plane is a bit fiddly but not impossible, I didn't really manage to get anywhere with this game, but it may just be me not being very good at it, but it's certainly worth having a go, especially if you were a fan or either Conqueror or Zarch.
Birds of War
This was one of those games that was released on about 6 discs, and was a real pain if you didn't have a hard disc, so a CD-ROM version is most welcome!
Birds of War is a flight simulator which allows you to control a number of different planes, during different periods in time, through a large number of missions. This game is definitely more strategic than arcade, which isn't really my sort of thing, but no doubt it will appeal to many other game players out there.
Before you can start your flying you have to select your plane, then you can select game options setup various preferences for the game, check the intelligence for the missions and your mission briefing itself, then you can take off. Once in the air you can carry out the mission objective.
The game's graphics still look good now and I don't think they appear that dated. There is a lot of detail in the landscapes, but I didn't see much of it as I didn't really get into this game but then I didn't expect to, sound is minimal but functional, with engine noises, and shooting noises and so on, the title sequence and options screen mention music but I didn't hear any.
Birds of War is definitely worth a look if you like flight simulators, there's a lot to it. It is certainly not a couple of hours of gameplay and then its completed, and it definitely has a long lifespan as there's a lot of depth to it.
Chocks Away
Taking control of a bi-plane, you have 20 missions to complete. This involves destroying the targets shown on the map and then you have to land back at base. Before you tackle the missions you can go into the practice mode and practice your flying skills. There is also the dogfight option where, using a split screen, you can have a two player duel, or play in full screen with two machines via a link up.
Chocks Away is more of an arcade game than a flight simulator and it is for that reason that I like this game, plus the fact you have set targets to do rather than just flying about for ages with nothing happening. The bi-plane is easy to control, as only a few keys (or mouse) are used.
The graphics of the game are still good even now, and the whilst the sounds are minimal with just engine noises and firing noises, they do the job.
You can view the game from inside the bi-plane cockpit or from outside, and can also look at the various views from each side of the plane. These are no good for flying but you can use them to see if there's an enemy plane right on your tail.
When you have mastered the 20 missions then you can try Chocks Away Extra Missions. This was originally sold separately so it's a bonus to get them both together. Essentially this is more of the same as there's no need to change anything in the game, so you can carry on from where you left off.
When you have finished a game you can save the action and watch an action replay of the game as it happened to see where you went wrong or when you finally destroyed that enemy craft. This is where the different angle viewing is useful.
Chocks Away is my favourite of the compilation. It was an excellent game back in the early 1990s and it still is now. It's easy to play and get into and the missions are varied and not too difficult, and the inclusion of the two player mode and extra missions gives it a long life span. Highly recommended. Worth buying just for this game alone.
Chopper Force
Chopper Force gives you the chance to pilot a futuristic helicopter throughout a number of missions, completing the tasks before moving onto the next one. There are around 20 different missions, which all take place on the same landscape, but as the playing area is massive it doesn't matter. The game itself isn't a true simulator - meaning you don't need to use every key on the keyboard to play it, although quite a few keys are used, it still has an arcade feel about it.
The game is not difficult to play, you can easily fly about using the mouse for ages, but not actually achieve anything. To complete missions requires a bit more skill as there are different objectives in each mission. You will have to find targets and destroy them, deal with enemy craft, pick up items and move them around and also avoid crashing!
As for the game itself the graphics look a bit blocky but this doesn't really spoil the game. There is a lot of detail in the landscape with roads with cars moving, and they actually stop at the traffic lights and wait for them to change to green, and also the railway line with moving trains, plus bridges, sheep and many other things as well. You can view the action from inside the helicopter and outside of it, and you can also view the action from different angles, although these aren't much use for playing the game properly, more just to see where things are. There are some good effects with the sounds as when you fly over roads you can hear the cars and you can hear your pilot breathing in cockpit (inside view only) and the helicopter noise itself sounds realistic.
Chopper force is definitely worth checking out. Not too difficult to play as you can fly the chopper around very easily, and with a bit of practice you'll be completing missions easily. Definitely recommended.
F18 Hornet
I remember this game from the days when public domain games were quite popular. This one was released by demo group Quantum, I'm not sure if it was public domain or shareware. (Neither, actually. It was a budget commercial game sold exclusively through APDL. DH). The intro to this game is very typical of the public domain demos, with music and introductory graphics before the game starts. This game was created with the flight simulator toolkit, and should appeal to flight simulator fans.
Interdictor II
This was originally available commercially by Clares Micro Supplies, and was the follow up to the game Interdictor (funnily enough!) unfortunately this has a really annoying protection system still in place and no matter how many times I clicked on the correct code the program still insisted I had entered it wrong, despite the fact I knew full well it was correct. Then for some reason it would suddenly decide that it was right this time and let me in, I found this system very annoying and was surprised that such a system is still in place as most copy protection systems tend to be removed these days. I'm sure there was a good reason for it still being there.
From what I could tell from the game, when it did actually run, it is another flight simulator, with the usual features you would expect from one. However I thought that the graphics in this looked quite good and it seemed really smooth with scrolling, I managed to take off with the plane but do very little else but try and keep the plane in the air and keep it steady (I didn't crash though). I didn't really like this at all, and to be honest didn't expect to, but I think that flight simulator fans probably will like this one, if they can get past the copy protection that is!
Mosquito Fire
This is another title created using the flight simulator toolkit, similar in style to F18 hornet but with different planes and game objectives. More of the same flight simulator stuff. If F19 Hornet appealed then this will as well.
Spitfire Fury
When I first saw this game listed on the collection I thought it was the game that 4th Dimension originally advertised back in 1991 and someone had finished it off. Unfortunately it isn't, it is another flight simulator toolkit created game, and is similar to the Mosquito and Hornet games, although this contains music (which runs a bit too fast) and sampled speech from that famous Winston Churchill speech from 1939 declaring war on Germany.
Sunburst
Sunburst is a bit different from the other games in this compilation. Originally released by Visions Of The Impossible (VOTI) this game reminds me a bit of the Acornsoft classic Starship Command (but with updated graphics) in which you control a spaceship across four different galaxies. This is space trading game rather than the usual "destroy the aliens", the object of the game involves trading to buy extra equipment to upgrade your ship and make yourself more powerful and progress through the game. Personally I didn't find this game particularly exciting but I'm sure some will enjoy playing it.
The games in this collection will run on any RISC OS 4 machine without problem. I have tried them on my real RISC PC with Strong ARM and RISC OS Select 3i4 and without any problems and also tried them on Virtual RISC PC SE edition, again without any problems. Unfortunately but not really surprising, is that they aren't Iyonix compatible, and Aemulor Pro didn't seem to help in getting them running, so RISC OS 4 it is for this game collection.
The Flight Simulator collection represents very good value for money as at least four of the games on it would have cost £25.00 or more on their original release so to get them all plus other titles for less than £15.00 is a bargain, especially if you don't have them already, or if you had the old RISC OS 3.1 versions as these are new updated versions which now work on RISC OS 4 machines and are now fully hard disc compliant.
I would definitely recommend this collection of games to anyone who enjoys flying games. I'm not a fan of flight simulators, but do like some of the games. My favourite of the collection is easily Chocks Away because of the simplicity of it to get into and its not long winded and is enjoyable to play. Chopper Force is very good as well, as are Birds of War and Air Supremacy, Interdictor is the best of the rest, which are are pretty similar, and are not as good as the other ones mentioned but are at least worth checking out to see if they appeal or not. I look forward to next collection of games from 4th Dimension, my guess is it will be a collection of driving/racing games - we shall see.
Product details
Product:
Flight Simulators Collection C
Supplier:
The 4th Dimension (APDL
Price:
£14.9
Address:
39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5R
Tel:
0208 778265
WWW:
E-mail:
Matt Thompson
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/FSTEPS/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, First Steps with RISC OS 4
Contains material taken from !Help by David Eccles. We are grateful to David Eccles for his help.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the prior written permission of Alligata Media.
All information given in this guide was been obtained, and is offered, in good faith. However, Alligata Media cannot accept any liability, consequential or otherwise, for any loss or damage arising from the use of any information in this guide.
All trademarks are acknowledged. We have referred to a variety of products in this guide. The mention of these products does not necessarily imply endorsement by the author or publisher.
This guide was produced using Ovation Pro on a StrongARM Risc PC running RISC OS 4.02; with a little help from Photoshop CS and Illustrator CS on a G4 iMac.
Published by Alligata Media.
Project Editor
David Bradforth
Tel:07946 405555
Email:david.bradforth@alligatagroup.co.uk
Distributed by:
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road,
Sydenham
London SE26 5RN
Email: info@apdl.co.uk
Web: www.apdl.co.uk
First Steps with RISC OS 4
Introduction
Assumptions
1. Getting Started
Switching On
The Mouse
The Keyboard
Numeric Keypad
Main Keyboard
Special keys
2. The WIMP
Directories and Folders
3. Menus and Windows
Using menus
Moving menus
Menus and ADJUST
Ticked items on menus
Menu shortcuts
Selecting objects in windows
Selecting multiple objects
Types of icons and buttons
Making things happen
Making choices
Writable icons
Alligata Media
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
We have another interesting collection of new RISC OS games for all our readers this month, so lets see what' been arriving in my e-mail over the last few weeks.
LBreakout2 - Really Small Software Company
This is a port of LBreakout2 (Linux Breakout 2) and uses the SDL (Simple Direct media Layer) graphics libraries, it also needs to be installed to a filing system with full long file name support. It includes over 50 new levels with a host of bonuses. Also included is support for play over a network and a full level editor. There is a full HTML manual included in the Docs directory which covers all the features in detail.
LBreakout2
Almost everything can be controlled directly with the mouse and the comprehensive set up screens allow you to tweak the game to suit your abilities.
A10 - Phil
This includes the compiled 'Flight Sim Toolkit' Fly engine, with the !a10 simulation demo to test it. Loads of resources for FST are available at
Dave Daniels has maintained and provided the Fly source code, including the files needed for compiling the software under RISC OS. Unfortunately, the RISC OS version of FST Fly does not provides support for joystick or multiplayer game support (rs232 link) neither does it have sound support. The compiled version of Fly provided inside the !A10 demo can be used with other simulations (visit the website), and is 26/32 bit safe (linked with stubG).
A10 contains a number of options, whilst sitting on the run way at the start press ESCAPE to bring up the menus in the top left corner of the screen.
A10
The full list of control keys is as follows:
Engine controls:
Engine on/off
Increase throttle
Decrease throttle
Throttle min-max 1-9,
Zero throttle underscor
Max throttle shift
Hydraulic systems:
Wheel brakes on/off
Landing gear
Air brakes on/off
Flaps
Primary flight controls:
Center stick
Rudder Left
Rudder Right
Weapon controls:
Fire weapon spac
Select weapon backspac
Drop flare
Drop chaff
Jettison stores
View controls:
Look forward F
Look left F
Look right F
Look up/down F
Look back/right F
Look back/right F
Look back shift F
Rotate right F
Rotate left F
Rotate down F
Rotate up F1
Padlock
Zoom in page_up (keypad
Zoom out page_down (keypad
Missile view alt
Outside view
Track view
Cockpit view alt
Map ctrl
Simulation controls:
Pause alt
Simulation menu es
Fast time alt
Quit alt
That's all from me for this issue, I hope to have more games for you next time!
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
He's still standing...after all this time...
Yes it's time for the best bit of RISCWorld, the end, but before that let me present the great and unloved caption competition.
The caption competition
Last issue we published this bit of old tat and asked our tatty old readers to come up with a suitable caption...
So we have a choice of...
"No 'walkies' today I'm busy"
Harry Smith
or
"On-line shopping is so exhausting"
Harry Smith
This was a really tough decision for the judges as they just couldn't separate our one competitor. In the end Harry Smith managed to clinch it for also adding that he would like to win Hugh's caption competition...
"For the joy of not having to watch for the postman not bringing my prize"
Well may your wish be fulfilled! Especially as it was harry's idea to have a "Why I would like to win Hugh's caption competition" competition in the first place.
Why didn't someone send in the obvious caption? "I'm a lap dog!", who knows!
Moving on, and in the vain hope that anyone is still reading, can anyone, that's anyone at all, come up with a caption for this...please?
Send your entries to HughJ@riscworld.co.uk and you too could live in your own house.
Hugh's picture gallery
So lets see what was mixed in with the Viagra adverts in my e-mail this month...
Firstly lets start off with the sort of sign the EEC would like to see more of...
Mind you this is the sort of thing the big multi-nationals would like to see...
Here's the sort of direct advertising we need more of...
A lot of signs now need to be bi-lingual...
Or just stating the obvious...
Finally here's a special advert for all of you...
That's all from me for this issue, see you again in July.
It's the page that you write, but it gives us a fright.
lets start off with a question that many RISC OS users ask...
Dear Sirs,
I am running OS 4.02 on a Risc PC with 42MB RAM with Oregano and
Webster and having difficulty accessing a number of websites, for example
the Consumer magazine 'Which' website and the mobile phone operator O2.
They throw up the statement that the browser is out of date and needs updating
I had a long argument with the Information Typist at 'Which' who said I
should down load all sorts of browsers for windows and Apples but had not
heard about RISC based computers - she knew nothing about them - and that
I should upgrade.
Can you suggest how I can access these sites that do not follow the
protocols of the WWW? Additionally I find Ebay is incredibly slow to load
and operate; suggestions please on how to improve the load up speed
Regards
Nigel Price,
Lets start with the second question first, the problem of speed. As the Internet has become more complex over the years the complexity of websites has increased greatly. As sites get more complex they get bigger and hence take longer to download. I assume you are still using a dial-up connection. This was fine eight years ago when most websites were small and compact, sites had to be small because they were being accessed by dial-up modems often running much slower than the more modern 56K dial up units. However as faster and faster ways of connecting to the internet have been invented more and more sites are taking advantage of the extra bandwidth to make themselves more flashy, and hence bigger. So the problem is that as sites get bigger they get slower unless you up your connection speed.
The best idea is simply to get a Broadband connection. I have spent the last four weeks working over dial-up (as Broadband hadn't been installed at the new house) and gave up with eBay as it was so slow as to be almost unusable. I am afraid that these days Broadband is seen as the "default" connection for most users and those with dial up modems have been left behind. Just get Broadband, once you have it you won't be able to live without it.
Now lets look at the website problems. RISC OS browsers can have major difficulties with some websites. First make sure the versions of the browsers you have are up to date. Any browser will have trouble handling any new "standards" that are introduced after the browser is written. So make sure both Oregano (is it Oregano2?) and Webster are up to date. If they are then have you told the browser developers about the problem sites?
Finally have you tried any of the other browsers? Netsurf is regularly updated and is free, you can get it from
Now moving on some of my comments from the last issue about !Dict prompted this reply from Paul Beverley...
Hi Aaron,
If you look back, you will find that the discussion on Archive
on-Line started because I have a friend who saw !Dict and aske
"Can I do this on a Windows PC?", so I asked that as a genuin
question on Archive-on-Line.
It certainly didn't start with any kind of assertion that "thi
is something that Windows PCs simply couldn't do."
The answer I got was that Magic Jellybean Company do somethin
which has a subset of !Dict's facilities and, eventually, w
got round to the fact that Firefox has a function that come
pretty close to achieving what Dict does. Indeed, Firefox ha
one facility that !Dict *doesn't* have - it can pronounce th
words (albeit presumably in an American accent).
However, even Firefox can only access one dictionary server at
time, and it certainly can't access Chinese and Arabic characte
set dictionaries which !Dict running on an Iyonix can.
So that definitely is something that a Windows PC cannot (yet) do.
Also the screen display on !Dict is much more readable than o
Firefox - but Windows users are accustomed to a poorer scree
display, so there's nothing new there.
On the other side of the equation, you gave us your list of RISC O
"killer applications". I agree that ArtWorks and TechWriter ar
superb programs, but I don't know how RiscCAD compares wit
equivalent PC applications.
However, I think you'll have to strike Ovation Pro out of you
killer apps list because isn't that now available as a Window
program?
Finally, if you want to extend your killer apps list, you can ad
ExpLAN's HolyBible because, even after all these years, there'
no Bible software under Windows that is as good. Try getting a Wels
language Bible on PC, for example, and the Greek and Hebrew version
are better than the PC equivalent.
So my list of "Apps that are better than you can get on
Windows PC" is:
!Dict
ArtWorks
TechWriter (and Citation)
(RiscCAD?)
Holy Bible
Not a lot, but better than nothing. :-)
All the best,
Paul.
I appreciate that the !Dict discussion started as a genuine "I can do this on RISC OS, but can I do the same on Windows" question. However as is often the case it turned into a "RISC OS is better than Windows" thread. My view is increasingly that RISC OS isn't better than Windows, nor is it worse, it's simply different. Each OS has it's own strengths and weaknesses. I don't agree that "Windows users are accustomed to a poorer screen display", Windows can display things just as well as RISC OS when set up correctly.
Moving on to the killer apps I think that RiscCAD deserves to be on the list because it's a fully featured package for a very low price. You can get even more feature rich packages for Windows, but you will have to pay through the nose for them. With regard to Ovation Pro, yes it's available for Windows, but wouldn't you rather use the original RISC OS version? I don't know how I managed to miss Holy Bible off my list, that was my mistake, it should certainly be included as it has features that no other program on any other OS has.
Just for balance, I will include my personal killer apps for Windows, ones that you simply can't get on RISC OS and which I wouldn't want to be without:
eJay
Ulead Cool3D
Ulead Video Studio
Celestia
Dragon Naturally Speaking
Mind you I couldn't live without Draw, Edit, DrawWorks and Impression Publisher either!
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/NEWS/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, News
News
The latest news from the RISC OS world
Advantage Six Confirm the A9home will be at Wakefield 2005
As has been suggested by recent rumours, the A9home will be one of the
distinct machines in the A9 series that Advantage Six will have at this
year's Wakefield Show.
We are also pleased to confirm that the A9home qualifies as a potential
grand prize in the show draw.
The retailer who is involved with the A9home will also be attending the show
and will be making an announcement.
Come along to be one of the first to experience the new machine.
Wear your lucky pants/socks/baseball cap and you could be walking away with
a new machine.
Hope to see you at the show - The Advantage Six Team
Advantage Six Ltd
email: info@advantagesix.com
tel: 01706 848 600 fax: 0870 164 1604
MW Software at the Wakefield Show
As previously announced, MW Software will be exhibiting at this weekend's
Wakefield Show, and as usual, I will take the opportunity to release a
brand new version of ArtWorks at the Show.
With more than 40 improvements made since the previous version, the new
version 2.4 of ArtWorks is yet another major step forward for RISC OS
vector graphics. The official feature list can be found a
At 2pm on Saturday, I will be giving a talk on "Graphical effects using
ArtWorks 2", which will show off some of the new features while working
through a real-world graphics design example.
In addition to ArtWorks, I will be happy to advise on high-quality
photo-realistic printing using Gimp-Print for RISC OS.
hubersn Software at the Wakefield Show
hubersn Software is pleased to announce that the long-awaited DVD writing
software solution for RISC OS is finally "ready to burn".
Based on the successful CDBurn CD writing software, the new package called
"CDVDBurn" adds writing capability of DVD+RW, DVD+R and DVD-RW media (DVD-R
and double layer media will follow shortly), while continuing to include all
the CD-related features that made CDBurn the most popular CD writing
software on RISC OS.
The resulting DVDs are readable on RISC OS, PCs and Macs. And if you put
your whole MP3 collection onto one DVD, you might even be able to play them
back on your DVD video player!
Please visit us at stand 30 to find out what CDVDBurn can do for you. If you
want to upgrade from CDBurn to CDVDBurn, please bring your CDBurn floppy
disc with you.
Icon Technology will be launching version 8.40 of EasiWriter and TechWriter
at Wakefield:
It has Keyboard macros - keystrokes can be assigned to a menu item and
abbreviation and replayed. i.e. 'itl' can be expanded to 'Icon Technology
Limited'. Macros can be saved with the application or the document.
Improvements to the Word import means you can optionally view hidden text
and revisions. USA language property can be automatically converted to UK.
Thanks to various bug-fixes many Word documents that caused problems with
earlier versions of the application now import successfully
Improvements have been made to the automatic document repair mechanism,
unused Picture blocks can be removed and a sequential document naming system
has been introduced for auto-generated emergency backups.
HTML improvements include support for importing Hexadecimal and Unicode
character entities and exporting optional lower case tags.
General improvements include a revised Button bar, much easier control over
Choices using !Confix, speedier and 32 bit compatible OLE, more Footnote
choices (Letter and Roman),
User upgrading from version 7.11 and earlier will also benefit from
Auto-save, Artworks compatibility, 26/32 bit compatibility and a free copy
of !Citation.
Icon Technology Limited
Church House, Church Street, Carlby, Lincs, UK, PE9 4NB
Authors of EasiWriter & TechWriter
News from R-Comp
We are pleased to announce that the Wakefield show marks the release
of various upgrades and products that we have been working on over the
winter.
The most significant releases are new DialUp3 and NetFetch 2 versions
- 3.1 and 2.1 respectively. The .1 versions contain significant
enhancements to both the programs, and particularly the Hermes mail
transfer software that powers them.
The new version of Hermes has a number of major new features:
Handling RSS news headlines
Have you ever visited news websites, such as
,
or more mainstream sites such as the Financial Times or BBC news?
Wouldn't it be great if the news headlines were delivered to you,
rather than requiring you to visit each site each day? That's now
possible.
Most news websites offer their headlines in a format called
RSS. The new version of Hermes will download as many of
these feeds as you wish, and keep track of which headlines
you've seen. It turns them into emails, which are then
delivered straight to your email program (eg. Messenger Pro
3), along with your other email.
Once set up, you'll be able to check for new headlines
whenever you like, and they will be delivered to your
"inbox". More experienced users may wish to make folders in
their email programs to store the headlines from each news
website.
As you've come to expect from an R-Comp product, Hermes
makes this all simple, fast and straight foward.
View your email online without the need to download it all.
Sometimes you don't want to download all your email, but you
want to see if particular messages are waiting, or you want
to manage your mail without downloading (eg. delete spam).
Hermes will now do this, listing the mail, allowing you to
process it, fetch/delete messages and so on. How difficult
is it? You just click the "View messages on server" menu
option!
Choose what to do with large messages
Imagine you're on a modem DialUp connection, and you have 30
large emails appear in your mailbox. Do you want to
download them at peak rate (especially as they may be spam)?
Hermes now allows you to set a maximum size for messages,
and if a message (or multiple messages) exceeds this size,
you'll see it listed (just like viewing the mail on the
server, above). Once such messages have been listed, you
can choose to ignore them, fetch them, or delete them.
You can also choose to download large emails at certain
times only.
When this facility is first enabled, we set the maximum size
to quite a low value, which is designed to help you combat
spam. Since many of the most troublesome spam messages are
a little larger than average, you'll see messages listed
before you have to download them, and you can choose what to
do with them.
Of course, there are other enhancements too, such as much improved
problem/error reporting, alternate ways to deal with deleting messages
(some mail servers can be more finickity than others) and a new look
to the setup windows, for a less cluttered display.
Existing DialUp3 and NetFetch2 users will be pleased to hear that they
will receive all this extra functionality for free! Upgrades will be
sent out after the show.
If you're not already running DialUp3 or NetFetch2, what are you
waiting for?
New UniPrint upgrade
We have released a small upgrade to the various editions of UniPrint
(version 1.53). The changes to this are primarily to do with handling
of shared network printers (improving UniPrint's ability to deal with
such devices). We have also tweaked and improved the Virtual Acorn
mode. Existing 1.50 users will receive the upgrade shortly. Users of
1.40 or earlier will need to make the chargable 1.5x upgrade which was
released this time last year.
Grapevine 2
Grapevine 2, our program allowing internet users to communicate with
each other when online, receives constant tweaks and enhancements, and
the Wakefield show marks yet another upgrade adding features/fixes to
all the different modes (as requested by various users).
RISCBooks at the show
OK, this announcement isn't software news, but we'll have a wide
assortment of RISCBook models at the show, all at very special prices.
There will be machines appropriate to all levels of user, from
affordable entry level units, to ultra high resolution systems. If
you're interested in RISC OS on the move, or just a second machine, be
sure to come and check the RISCBooks out - you'll be amazed at the
speed and value.
R-Comp
22 Robert Moffat, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6PS
Tel: (+44) 01925 755043 Fax: (+44) 01925 757377
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/PD/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
Welcome to the first PD World column for the latest volume of RISCWorld. There have been some interesting releases since I wrote my last column, and a couple of rather informative public demonstrations of Cineroma and Firefox (ported by Peter Naulls). We hope to have more details on these in a future issue one they get a full public release. In the meantime let's see what software delights I can tempt you with...
MiniBarAW (Wibli for ArtWorks) - Stewart Brookes
I covered the Techwriter and Easiwriter versions of Wibli last issue, now Stewart has released an Artworks version. MiniBarAW is an add-on buttonbar, designed to enhance your experience of using ArtWorks. The idea is to offer time-saving shortcuts for frequently-used features, avoiding the need to traverse menus or memorise keystroke combinations.
Double-click on !ButtonBar and then double-click on MiniBarAW. It is very important that you follow that sequence (if you don't, then things will go horribly wrong...). Once you've done that, try opening an ArtWorks document. There should be a new buttonbar on show in the bottom left of the document window (on the horizontal scroll bar):
The buttons shown have the following functions:
Sav
Copy to Clipboar
Paste from Clipboar
Select: Cut to Clipboard
Adjust: Delete (leaving contents of Clipboard intact
Alig
Line Widt
Select: Edit Colour
Adjust: New Colou
Select: Print
Adjust: Show print border on/of
Info..
Once you've experimented with MiniBarAW, you may find that you would like to have it available every time that you use ArtWorks. To arrange this, you should: double-click on !Boot on your hard disc; click on Boot in the 'Configuration' window; click on Run in the 'Boot Sequence' window; and then drag !ButtonBar and MiniBarAW into the 'Run at Startup' window. It is very important that you make sure that !ButtonBar appears before MiniBarAW in the list. Next, click Set (and Set). When you next restart your computer, MiniBarAW will be ready and waiting for ArtWorks.
NB: If you are using a 'classic', pre-RISC OS 4 version of RISC OS, then you can manually place !Buttonbar and MiniBarAW in the Tasks folder in !Boot (!Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks).
Alternatively, you might only want to load MiniBarAW when you are using ArtWorks. To do this you could add the following lines to the beginning of the ArtWorks !Run file:
Filer_Run <path>.!ButtonBa
Filer_Run <path>.MiniBarA
where <path> is the full pathname of the folder containing the !ButtonBar application and the folder containing MiniBarAW
NB: The disadvantage with this method is that you will need to re-enter this information into the ArtWorks !Run file each time an updated version of the application is released.
MiniBarAW and the WIBLI toolbars for Easi/TechWriter live at:http://stewy.drobe.co.uk.
AppBASIC - Joe Taylor
This is the latest version of AppBASIC, the free DDE (Desktop Development Environment) for RISC OS. AppBasic is a development tool for creating RISC OS applications. Along with its helper applications, AppBasic is essentially the BASIC equivalent of the C/C++ development package. Programs use no special techniques other than the standard methods of the RISC OS Toolbox.
AppBasic simplifies the complex task of desktop programming, allowing the user, even a beginner, to quickly create high-quality applications which strictly conform to the standard specified in the RISC OS Style Guide.
Applications are written in ordinary BASIC and work on every OS version from 3.10 onwards
The applications produced are very efficient with virtually zero 'overheads'
Other than the Toolbox modules (installed on every RISC OS computer) they require no special aids or libraries to run
Programming is reduced to a minimum; applications only specify what they should do in response to desktop events
The programming environment is ultra user-friendly with similar features to C/C+
Included with AppBASIC are a full StrongHelp manual as well as HTML tutorial guides a lots of sample programs so you can easily and quickly see how to write your own software.
AppBASIC
MiniLogo - Jon Ripley
This is a very impressive one line BASIC version of Logo, complete with lots of commands including:
F Move turtle forwards (distance
B Move turtle backwards (distance
L Turn turtle left (angle) degree
R Turn turtle right (angle) degree
H Home turtle (move to centre of screen
P Toggle Pen Up / Pen Dow
C Clear screen and home turtle; rest of line is ignore
X Exit MiniLOG
* Do *(command
: Short comment; can be included in compound statement
| Long comment; rest of line is ignore
; Command separato
Repeat command, must be first command in a lin
Commands can be upper or lower case. No spaces are required in commands but can be used anywhere except immediately before a command. Invalid commands have no effect. Numbers must be in decimal.
Multiple commands on one line can be separated with ';', eg. f100;r90;f100;r90;f100;r90;f100; The terminating ';' is not required. Repeat is enabled by prefixing a line with the number of repeats followed by';', eg. 4;f100;r90;
MiniLogo
MyTunes - Jaffa Software
In an rather unusual twist two separate developers have started work on two different "iTunes clones" for RISC OS, the first is MyTunes from Jaffa Software.
To use MyTunes simply run it in the normal way, the "Update library" window will open. Now drag directories (a handful at the time currently due to a bug/limitation) containing MP3 files to this window. Wait for "Progress" to show "Finished" before dragging in the next lot.
When the indexing is finished, click the "OK" button to save the library. Click "Cancel" at any time to abort and keep any existing library. Tick "Use ID3 tags" to read ID3 information for each file; this could take a very long time, but may be necessary if your music is strangely named or the heuristics to derive the information from the filename fails.
Currently it is not possible to add to the library without rebuilding it in its entirety.
The main window contains information on the currently playing track, "Stop", "Pause" and "Next" buttons and a toggle as to whether or not the tracks will be played in a random order. To play a song, simply click on it in the displayed list. To rebuild the library, select the "Update library..." option from the iconbar menu. Standalone MP3 files can be played by either double clicking them in the Filer or dragging them to the main window.
MyTunes
ROTunes - Paul Vigay
The other iTunes clone is RoTunes by Paul Vigay. Just like MyTunes you load ROTunes in the normal way. If it's the first time you've run it, and no library database exists, a window will open asking you to import some MP3s. Drag the directory containing your MP3s into this window and click 'Add to Library' to being the import and building of the main library.
This may take a few minutes depending on the number of MP3 files in your directory. It takes approximately 1 minute to index 7500 files on an Iyonix. A small count indicator increments with every 100 files detected. To be recognised by ROTunes, MP3 files must be filetyped AMPEG (&1AD) or they will be ignored.
The main window is divided into two sections. The left contains the playlists available, in addition to the main library. This is not fully implemented yet. The right side shows the main music database and comprises a number of columns including track name, artist and album name. A small speaker icon indicates the currently playing track. Double-click on a track to jump to and start playing it.
The bottom toolbar contains two icons and an information indicator showing the number of tracks and disc space occupied.
If you have the mini control window enabled, it reproduces the main controls such as previous/next track and play/pause. It also displays the current track playing and time remaining. If you click SELECT on the name playing icon, it will toggle between track name, album and artist. A small 'x' in the top left corner closes the window.
ROTunes
SuDoku - Mark Hutchinson
SuDoku is a solver for the Su Doku problems which appear in various newspapers and seem to be a current craze. Mark has yet to find a solvable problem which it can't do. It warns when a puzzle has multiple solutions, and contains a 'hint mode' allowing you to check your own attempts without peeking, too. also available to download is a (slightly larger) un-mangled BASIC version, so you can look at the source-code if you want (the solving routine is horribly messy, however, as mark says he has added quite a lot of features higgeldy-piggedly - sorry!).
ThumbCat - Malcom Ripley
Finally there has been another update to Thumbcat, and I have included the latest version in the software directory on this issue.
I will see all the RISCWorld readers again next issue.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/SWRITER/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, SiteWriter
SiteWriter
The SiteWriter manual
No part of this document may be reproduced by any means. Copyright Daniel M Johnson, Dansoft Developments (c) 2000
SiteWriter Manual
Contents
Topic Map
Copyright and Disclaimer
Credits
Resources for you
Introduction
Introduction to SiteWriter
What you should know
About this Manual
Getting Help
The User Interface
Common icons - what do they do?
Site Management
Introduction to Site Management
Site Manager Details
Site Object Properties
Creating New Site Objects
Moving Site Objects
Linking to Site Objects
Site Object: Web Page
Site Object: HTML
Site Object: Frameset
Site Object: Folder
Assets
Introduction to Assets
The Asset Manager
Creating Assets
Editing Assets
The Web Directory
Page Editing
Introduction to Page Editing
Page Editor Toolbar
Page Editor Properties Window
Page Scripting
Page Editor Menu
Creating Elements
Moving Elements
Image Elements
Image Elements
Textbox Elements
Textbox elements
Table Elements
Table Elements
Table Properties
Table Menu
Table Cell: Image
Table Cell: Text
Form Elements
Form Elements
Linking
Anchors
Element Scripting
Layout details
Grid
Aligning Elements
Preview
Text editing
Colour Management
Colour Management
Colour Manager
RGB Adjuster
Colour Square
Styles
Introduction to Styles
The Style Manager
Master Borders
Master Borders
Publishing
Introduction to Publishing
Publishing your Site
Publishing Options
Publishing More Options
Publishing Preview
Publishing Tips
Loading and Saving
Loading and Saving
Preferences
Preferences
Contents
Introduction
Topic Map
Site Management
Assets
Page Editing
Styles
Master Borders
Publishing
Loading and Saving
Preferences
email: dan@dansoft.co.nz
internet: www.dansoft.co.nz
Copyright Daniel M Johnson (c) 2000
Topic Map
The main components of SiteWriter, and their interactions, are illustrated below:
Topics:
Site Management
Assets
Page Editing
Styles
Master Borders
Publishing
Copyright and Disclaimer
Information in this manual is subject to change without notice. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. No part of this document may be reproduced by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of Dansoft Developments.
Copyright Dansoft Developments (c) 2000. All rights reserved.
Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
By using this product, you agree that Dansoft are in no way liable for any damages caused to you or your machine by our software.
Credits
SiteWriter was developed by Dansoft Developments NZ. The following people/entities are credited as contributing in some way to this product:
Richard Goodwin
Author of HTML edit 3.
John Kortink
Author of Translaror. SiteWriter is based in part on his png2clr for loading png images. Acknowledgements for that utility:
- Compiled with GCC for RISC OS release 1.0.7, (c) 1996 Nick Burrett.
- Linked with UnixLib 3.7b, maintained by Simon Callan.
- Uses libpng 1.0 beta 3 0.89, (c) 1995-1996 Guy Eric Schalnat.
- Uses zlib 1.0.4, (c) 1995-1996 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.
This work is based in part on the work of the Independent Jpeg Group.
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE1/VA/INDEX.HTM Issue 1, VirtualAcorn Tech Support
VirtualAcorn Tech Support
More from Aaron's tech support notebook
There is one major subject to look at firstly this issue and it's one that had me stumped for a short while.
A few weeks ago we suddenly started having a spate of PCs all with the same problem. VirtualAcorn would install OK, then it would unlock correctly and display the licence panel. However as soon as the user accepted the licence agreement VirtualAcorn would crash with a silly error message. Any subsequent attempt to load VirtualAcorn would cause the same error. What on earth was going on?
To compound my confusion this happened to a number of machines, in different parts of the world, used by different people and all from different manufacturers. Yet all displayed the same problem. To make things even more confusing the same problem didn't effect any machines sold by RISC OS dealers, only already existing machines owned by customers, or brand new machines supplied by PC box shifters. So what on earth was going on?
I tried all the usual things, are the display drivers up to date? Is DirectX completing its diagnostics correctly? But to no avail. As an aside for those of you who are wondering how you can check DirectX it's very easy. Simply go to the Start menu and click on it. Now click on the Run option. Type DxDiag (short for DirectXDiagnostics) into the writable icon and press return. This will launch the DirectX diagnostics tool which will tell you the version of DirectX installed on the PC and will perform a number of checks to try and find any problems.
Anyway I got users to re-install their display drivers, but it didn't help at all. I carefully studied the specs of the machines but couldn't find any linking factor that would explain the problem. In the end I asked ne of the customers who had a problem to install VirtualAcorn on a different machine, where it performed faultlessly. So I could rule out the problem being caused by a set of faulty CDs.
Reluctantly I had to say to the customers that the fault wasn't with VirtualAcorn, but was with their machines. This got the response I would expect "Well it runs everything else". Yes, but it doesn't run our software, so something must be wrong with your computer. "Well it runs everything else!" OK, but it doesn't run VirtualAcorn and we know VirtualAcorn works on thousands of machines so your machine must have a fault. I don't know what the fault is but I will keep digging and see if I can find the problem.
At this point I ought to say that diagnosing a fault remotely can be very difficult. With a machine in front of you it's quite easy as you can see exactly what isn't, or is, happening. Doing it via a user who may not be fully computer literate can cause problems. It sounds cynical but after years of doing tech support I never take anything a customer says at face value when it comes to a problem, I simply can't. I have to double check everything that is said at least twice just to make sure. To illustrate the point here is a real world example from a few weeks ago:
"Hello, my VirtualAcorn has stopped working."
OK, what happens when you double click on VirtualAcorn?
"Nothing".
When you say nothing what actually happens on screen?
"Nothing.....I just get a black screen."
Right, so something does happen, Windows is running then you double click on VA and the screen goes black.
"Yes."
OK, what's your CD serial number?
"Where's that?"
Printed on the CD (thinks - that's why it's called a CD serial number)
"I'll go and find it....(long pause). It's blah blah blah."
OK, now is the screen just black?
"Yes. It's been fine before and now it's suddenly gone wrong. I haven't done anything to..."
OK, now is there any writing on the black screen?
"Yes"
Right so it isn't just a black screen, what does the writing say?
"Loads of things, it says RISC OS 4.02..."
OK, what's the final thing it says?
""File &.!Boot not found!"
OK, so it's not finding your boot sequence, have you changed anything?
"No, well actually...er...I was making some changes to !Boot"
Right, so you changed !Boot and now it isn't booting.
"Well it's been fine up to now and I haven't changed anything."
Well you said you had changed !Boot, so can you type DESKTOP and press return.
"That's fixed it, the banners come up and...oh...it says...oh...the screen's too big and my programs aren't..."
Yes that's because it hasn't booted. Click on HardDisc4.
"Where's that?"
On the iconbar somewhere bottom left.
"It says that machine startup hasn't..."
Ok, cancel the error message and find !Boot in the Window.
"It's not there!"
OK read me the contents of the window starting top left.
"!Boot2...."
So you renamed !Boot?
"Yes, I was going to copy over the !Boot from my RiscPC the my wife called me for dinner..."
OK, rename !Boot2 as !Boot and then quit VirtualAcorn.
"(long pause) how do I quit VirtualAcorn?"
Go to the RISC OS cube bottom right, click MENU and click on Shutdown.
"OK, it's gone."
Right now re-load VirtualAcorn.
"What from the CD?"
No, re-load VirtualAcorn, not re-install VirtualAcorn. Double click on the VirtualAcorn icon on your Windows backdrop.
"(pause) it's working again!"
Right, the problem was caused because you renamed !Boot so that RISC OS couldn't find it. Also you shouldn't copy !Boot from a real machine to a VirtualAcorn as they are slightly different.
"Oh right, I didn't see that in the manual"
It's not in the manual, but if you rename a file the computer won't be able to find it again.
"Perhaps you should add it?"
Certainly sir, we will look at this next time we change the manual (thinks - and when we add the section reminding users to breathe in and out whilst sitting in front of the computer).
So there you have it. The above is pretty much verbatim from a real phone call, so you can see why I can't take things at face value. Still back to the problem with the PC's that gave silly error messages. I did a reasonable amount of digging but still got no further, I did, however, become more and more convinced the fault was with the PC's owned by the customers, and not with VirtualAcorn.
Anyway a couple of days later the problem reared it's ugly head on a RISCCube from R-Comp. The machine was a brand new one, still at R-Comp's premises and it had exactly the same problem, Ah! So can we diagnose the fault from this machine? The answer was yes. Since Andrew at R-Comp had assembled the machine himself from scratch and had installed Windows we could quickly tell what had, and hadn't, been done from the build sheet. In this instance some of the drivers had yet to be installed, Andrew spotted that one of the missing drivers was for the sound card, could this be the problem? Indeed it was, once the sound drivers were installed the problem was solved!
So back to the customers. One had started a thread on the newsgroups asking for help with the problem and it was a simple matter to post explaining the problem and the solution. In the end all the machine were fixed. In one case the PC didn't even have a sound card, and as soon as one was added VirtualAcorn started working. As for the other PC's installing the sound drivers, which were missing, solved the problem.
This whole saga does leave me with one worrying question, how can PC manufacturers can ship machines with some of the drivers missing? I can't help wondering what other Windows components could be missing from new PC's supplied by some companies.
So that was Wakefield 2005, I'm writing this on the Monday afternoon after the show while it's still all fairly fresh in my memory, so if you went to the show then you will know what new developments were waved in front of eager customers, if you didn't go then shame on you, as you missed the most exciting RISC OS show in years.
As usual the show was held at Thornes Park Athletics Stadium. Unusually I didn't stay in a hotel this time. The move to Derbyshire means that we now live just over an hour away by car, so I decided to drive up each day and set up on the Saturday morning. This did however mean getting up at the ungodly hour of five in the morning. Why so early? Well the dogs need walking, the car needs loading up and I wanted to leave by half six so I was on site by eight when the hall opened. Setting up was uneventful, apart from the usual loading door into the hall being locked due to damage. After setting up I had a quick wander around but not many exhibitors were present at such an early hour. Graeme turned up with the Mini Mac about half nine and before we know it it was ten o'clock and the show was open.
The queue that had been forming for some time was now let in and given the opportunity to roam around, so what would they have been able to see? Coming in through the door APDL and RISCOS Ltd were the first stands on view, with Castle being on the left. APDL had a couple of new games collections from the 4th Dimension range, including a sports CD and a driving games CD. The RISC OS Ltd section of the stand had a new softloadable version of RISC OS Adjust on sale as well as a Iyonix which the keen eyed might have noticed spent some of it's time running a beta version of Select32.
Castle were demonstrating the range of Iyonix computers as well as a 27" LCD display (called a Television). They were also sharing some details about an Arm9 powered box called IPSign. This apparently delivers HTML pages over a network and displays them on a TV screen. The new version of Oregano 3 was also on display and much to my amusement was shown running on VirtualRPC. Customers asking for a release date were told that the software was being beta tested at present.
Moving along Advantage Six and VirtualAcorn were opposite each other. At VirtualAcorn we were selling and showing the PC version of VirtualRPC as well as giving the first public showing of VirtualRPC for Mac OS X, which generated a lot of interest.
VirtualAcorn on a Macintosh
Only one thing generating more interest was on the Advantage Six stand. A number of 400Mhz Arm 9 powered A9 computers were on display. These tiny machines (which make a Mini Mac look oversized) were all running a preview version of Adjust32. A number of lucky customers who signed up for the Advantage Six developer scheme will be getting their A9 machines delivered this week, we were assured. Another surprise for customers was the low price of the A9, under 500 pounds (plus VAT) this makes it a very inexpensive high performance RISC OS machine. By the end of Saturday one A9 machine was even shown running 26bit software courtesy of Adrian Lees and a hastily compiled version of Aemulor. "I compiled this up based on what I think it's like" he said, before launching Aemulor for the first time and running Impression on the first attempt. This got a spontaneous round of well deserved applause. How long will it take him to get Cino to work on the A9? Place your bets now.
That small blue box is an A9!
Further along Icon Technology were showing the latest version of TechWriter and Spellings Computer Services were showing Geminus and had the new DeskDebug software running across two screens, nice. Martin Wuerthner was selling the latest version 2.4 of ArtWorks and next to him Stefen Huber was showing off the features of DVD Burn. Which can even make DVD's that can be read on an Iyonix (which currently doesn't support the DVD format).
Geminus
Opposite the Drobe and Netsurf stands CJE micros were doing the usual "which size sink would sir like?" brisk business with a massive collection of goodies to tempt RISC OS users. Next door R-Comp were showing off the new Centrino powered RISC Cube computers, which run RISC OS under VirtualRPC exceptionally quickly. Also on display was a 32" Television running RISC OS (for the same price as Castle's 27" offering). Software wise there were new versions of UniPrint and Grapevine as well as a new RSS feeder giving live news from the Drobe website.
RISCCube
The charity stand was packed with lost of interesting bits and pieces and seemed to be continually busy, I didn't find any interesting retro hardware this year though. Moving even further along Pater Naulls was showing off his port of the Firefox web browser for RISC OS to many appreciative noises, as well as selling some very cheap Risc PCs.
FireFox
The latest issue of Qercus magazine was on show, although I'm not convinced that the website is really www.qercus.cob as one article in the magazine claimed.
Qercus
Liquid Silicon were showing off an Omega with a rather tasty touch screen which allowed the user to get all three mouse button clicks depending on how long the screen was touched, watching ArtWorks being used with this touch screen was quite an experience.
Omega touchscreen
So that covers the main new releases of the show. I apologise to anyone I have missed out but I did have to spend most of my time on the VirtualAcorn stand so I am bound to have missed somebody (Like the BBC B Computer with an IDE Interface from JGH BBC Software? - DB). So what was the show like? Well it had the most exciting new releases I can think of for years, the number of customers on the Saturday was well up on last year, although Sunday was quiet. Was it worth going to as a customer, definitely. was it worth going as an exhibitor, well everyone I asked certainly said so!
I'll leave the final words to one of our customers on Saturday, a Doctor who was interested in VirtualRPC, "I recommend RISC OS to all my patients" he informed us.
David Bradforth takes a look at the history, technology and future for the Internet
ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet, was created by the United States Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) to be a testbed for new networking technologies; providing a link between many universities and research centres. The first two sites forming the network were UCLA and the Standford Research Institute, but it rapidly grew across the country.
Fast forward 35 years, and we're at a stage where the Internet has not only taken over the majority of America but with evolution being such as it is over 60% of the world has access to a high-speed Internet connection. Broadband is available now for the price of a dial-up connection. As an example, on my main Internet computer I have an AOL account (for continuity) which I pay £15.99 a month for; and a broadband account for which I also pay £17.99.
The reason for my need is simple - I cannot use the AOL broadband service on a Mac; and the NTL World service is suitably useful to allow me to access multiple POP accounts (for alligatagroup, movieinsider and so on).
Having two accounts complicates issues somewhat as to make use of the service I have to be in my office. What I have a clear need for is a broadband speed Internet service that I can make use of no matter where I am - in the town centre, on a train or wherever. The answer, according to Intel lies in their Rosedale chip aimed at powering the WiMAX revolution.
Introducing Broadband Wireless
At the press launch in April, Intel described a three-stage vision for Wireless Internet access at broadband speeds.
The first stage introduces WiMAX as a means of offering Wireless Broadband to subscribers within a fixed location. For home users this would involve the installation of a booster within the residence; and an additional piece of hardware attached to the computer but the computer still would not work without being fixed to the connection.
Stage two involves the role out of hardware that allows users to roam around their residence with their computer hardware. At this stage, you'll be able to buy at retail packs for self-installation of a wireless broadband connection; much in the way you can for current broadband connections on Wanadoo. Timescales on this were estimated at around 18 months, but in practise it's probably closer to two years.
Stage three extends the specification to cover the wide-area uses for Wireless Broadband. At this stage you should be able to buy portable computers with Wireless Broadband enabled - this will allow you to use a Broadband connection whenever you wish, wherever you wish.
Quite how this will translate to support for RISC OS has yet to be determined, but we can only hope that as the rest of the industry moves forward to a wireless standard we can join in with them.
