ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/ADJUST/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, Configuring RISC OS Adjust
Configuring RISC OS Adjust
David Bradforth continues his exploration of the RISC OS Adjust configuration system.
Input
The Input section gives you control over the two main input devices to your computer, the keyboard and the mouse. Click the Input icon to open this window.
Let's start with the Keyboard section. The Keyboard section allows you to modify the way in which the keyboard works. Click the Keyboard icon to open this window.
At the top you can set the country. This can be important because some countries arrange the keys differently or have different keys. For example only a UK keyboard would have a '£' key.
Auto repeat is the time you have to hold down a key before it begins to repeat and then how fast it repeats. If you set the delay too short then you may find you ttyyypppeee llllliiiikkkeeee tttthhhiiiissss.
When Enabled is not ticketed, the keyboard will not auto-repeat.
The Caps Lock section has three options - labelled On, Off and Transpose Cases. If the Caps Lock key on the keyboard is pressed the indicator light in the top right hand corner will come on and when you press the alphabet keys they will appear in upper case. This option sets the Caps Lock key on by default.
Transpose Cases is similar, but some keyboard actions are slightly different. In either case to produce a lower case letter you need to use the Shift key, that is, the action is the opposite of normal for an alphabet key.
The Num Lock enabled option activates the number lock on the numeric keypad. This ensures that you can use it just as you would a calculator. Without the Num Lock key enabled the numeric keypad acts as a series of arrow keys. On a RISC OS keyboard these are not shown as arrows but for those using a non-RISC OS alternative it's possible that arrows are printed alongside the numbers.
Finally, the PC delete option alters the action of the Delete key. Normally both the Delete and Backspace keys will delete the character before the cursor. With PC delete ticked the Delete key will delete the character under the cursor, that is, it deletes forwards as is the usual method for the PC.
Now let's move onto the Mouse section.
The top item in this window is Mouse speed. This is the relationship between the distance you move the mouse and the distance the pointer moves on screen. The more you drag the slider to the right the more the pointer will move relative to the mouse.
The next item lets you set the type of mouse. For most users this will be Standard mouse. The other options, which can be selected from the menu, are PS2 mouse and two different types of Serial Mouse.
Do not select PS2 mouse if you are using a PS2 mouse with an adaptor, these alter the output from a PS2 mouse to make it look like a Standard mouse. This option is for models like the RiscStation, A7000, Omega and Mico which use a PS2 mouse directly. If you are using a PS2 mouse through an STD interface, make sure you select the option from the menu - this will ensure that your mouse runs correctly.
The next two items set the amount of time you have to hold down the mouse button and the distance you have to drag an object before it is interpreted as a drag rather than just being selected.
Double-click delay is the time you have to make the second click when double-clicking on an object. More experienced users may wish to shorten this time from the default of one second to avoid two rapid single clicks being interpreted as a double-click. Double-click cancel distance is the distance you have to move the pointer between clicks for the second click to be interpreted as a new click and not a double click.
Some software, such as drawing or DTP programs, will allow you to drag an object within a window and if you pause at the edge the window scrolls so you can reach the part of the window you wish to drag to. Autoscroll delay is the length of the pause before the window scrolls.
Open submenus automatically makes submenus of a menu open when you move the pointer over that item and close again when you move off it, like the way sub-menus open in Windows. This is not normal RISC OS practice, but you may prefer it. The two items below it only become active if Open submenus automatically is ticked and let you set the delay before the submenu opens when you move onto the menu item and closes again when you move off it.
Bring icon bar forward automatically is extremely useful. If this is ticked then, if the icon bar is covered by a window, when you move the mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen the icon bar will automatically move on top of the window so that you can get access to it without moving the window.
Finally, let's move to the Mouse Scroll section. Click the Mouse Scroll icon and this window opens:
This window allows you to set RISC OS to respond when a wheel-enabled mouse is plugged into the computer. Wheel mice are increasingly becoming the standard for Windows XP machines; and the new Mighty Mouse from Apple provides the same functionality on the Mac OS X platform.
With the Allow scroll wheel to control windows option ticked, RISC OS will respond when you use the scroll button on a mouse.
The Scroll Speed tells the computer how fast windows should scroll in comparison to everything else on the system. We'd recommend leaving this at the default, unless you have any major issue with the speed of response.
Underneath the Scroll menu there are four options.
Window with Focus applies your scroll action to the currently selected window
The Window under Pointer option will apply the scroll action to the window immediately underneath the pointer
The latter options operate on a similar basis.
Lock
The Lock window opens as shown.
The main use for this was when Acorn computers were widely used in schools. If the hard drive is locked then you cannot access most parts of it or modify or delete data on it except in two places. The first is within the !Scrap directory, used by programs for temporary storage of transient data and is hidden within !Boot. The second is the content of the Public directory. This should be in the root directory of your hard drive, but it may not be present if your machine is not new. This prevented pupils from deleting or modifying any programs or settings as these parts of the drive are locked, but they could access all their own work and files in the Public folder.
If you do want to lock your hard drive then to set the password you will need to enter it twice to check that you don't mistype it. Then click on Set. This will not take effect until you next start the computer. To unlock the drive again select Unlock and enter the password.
If you forget your password the only way to get access to the hard drive again is to completely reset the computer by switching on with the Delete or R key held down.
Time constraints with this piece prohibit us from going further at the moment, but next time we'll run through the System Logging tool plus more of the RISC OS Adjust configuration system.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/DISC/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, DiscWorld
DiscWorld
Aaron Timbrell rounds up the software directory
It's back to normality for DiscWorld this issue, as we are once again including a full commercial product...
Speech2 - worth £28.00
Speech2 is a software voice synthesiser for RISC OS computers. The original version of Speech was developed for the BBC and featured on television, even appearing on Saturday Superstore. Speech even got immortalised in vinyl. Did you know that Roger Water's LP Radio Chaos features vocals created on Speech? There is even a credit on the album for someone operating a Master128!
Speech2 gives your computer a voice. Your computer can read out documents to you simply by dragging them to the Speech icon on the iconbar. You can even use the Speech module in your own programs. Speech requires no extra hardware and is compatible with RISC OS 3.1 or later, although Iyonix users will have to run it via Aemulor. This is the full final release version of Speech2 and includes programs for editing and adding to the main dictionary. You can even make Speech sing, an impressive feat that few modern voice synthesisers can manage on other operating systems.
Speech is copyright Superior Software and must not be reproduced without their written permission. The main manual for Speech is reproduced in this issue of RISCWorld and can be found from the main index page.
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:
Dworks
A copy of DrawWorksXE and upgrade patches for older copies of DrawWorksXL.
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
Speech
A full version of Speech from Superior Software.
VirtualAcorn
Support files for floppy disc sharing.
Windows
Programs for use under Windows.
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
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/DWORKS/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, A Secret History of DrawWorks
A Secret History of DrawWorks Part 6
Aaron
At the end of the last issue work on DrawWorks Select had just been completed, then along came the Iyonix and RISC OS 5.
It quite quickly became clear that none of the existing versions of DrawWorks would function correctly on the Iyonix. It was possible, with a bit of hacking, to get some features to work, but this wasn't a task for the average user. Initially we had concerns about doing a 32bit version of DrawWorks. Firstly RISC OS 5 was undergoing rapid development and wasn't what we considered fixed enough. Secondly there was some initial concern over the status of RISC OS 5, although Castle's subsequent purchase of some parts of RISC OS from Pace did clear this up.
With the number of Iyonix machines slowly increasing, demand for a DrawWorks started building up. This may in part have been fuelled by one RISC OS magazine saying that DrawWorks Millennium did run on the Iyonix. This was, unfortunately, printed without being checked. The result was customers ringing up APDL asking why it didn't work! Answer, because DrawWorks Millennium wasn't 32 bit and didn't work on the Iyonix!
In the end it became clear that a 32 bit DrawWorks would have to be produced. One of the first problems was finding all the source code to the modules. Dave Holden thought I had it. I was sure I had given it all to him. In the end we discovered we were both right and we both had the code.
Who's doing what?
It was decided that the first job was to 32 bit the existing DrawWorks Select, since this didn't involve any changes to the main code, only to the modules or absolute code chunks. Luckily not all the modules or code chunks needed changing as not all of them would be needed on a modern version of RISC OS. In the end Dave Holden bravely undertook the task. This proved a relatively painless job with some of the third party modules already having 32 bit versions, such as the Artworks renderer. So after only a week or so a complete 32 bit DrawWorks Select was available for testing.
At this point we had to make a decision. Did we simply leave DrawWorks as it was, or did we add some more new features? In the end it was decided to go back through the suggestions list and see what could be sensibly added to what was already a very feature rich package. In the end the sensible suggestions boiled down to these:
A tool to divide a Drawfile into A4/A5 sections
A custom toolbar feature so users could define their own toolbar
A library feature
PNG (Portable Network Graphic) export and import
Several new sets of style guide breaking coloured skins (my personal favourite
The page dividing tool was relatively simply to add. Internally DrawWorks has a structure to add new routines without having to do any re-writing so it was simply a matter of placing a tool on the toolbar and linking it up to the new code, this would then use the existing OLE and editing code.
The custom toolbar proved more of a problem and involved a fair amount of hair pulling before it actually worked. The principle was simple, a new configuration window would be created that held copies if all the buttons, these could then be dragged to and from a new custom toolbar. This fell foul of the same problem as DrawWorks2, button overload. So it had to be split up into a series of "panes", one for each main DrawWorks Toolbar. In the end this worked out quite well and fitted the design ethos of the program. Well it was certainly better than a window with over 100 buttons in it!
The library feature was a bit more contentious. DrawWorks has in fact had a library system for ages - it's called MrClippy. Indeed this was how MrClippy started, as a clip art library tool, rather than a full application. The argument was made that MrClippy was simply overkill for many tasks and all users wanted was a little window they could drag files from, rather than the large MrClippy display window. In the end I had to agree, although MrClippy had started small it had grown into a fully featured clip art manager and was a bit unwieldy when all a user wanted to do was drag in a set of clips.
Dave Holden undertook the writing of the new tools, which was an odd experience for me. Previously I had coordinated all the development and added code myself, now I was reduced to the role of a beta tester. Ok a highly qualified beta tester, but a tester none the less.
Whilst this was happening work was also undertaken to convert the DrawWorks support applications, including Mr Clippy (who hadn't been totally replaced by the Library tool), Dr Fonty and Typography 2500 to full 32bit compatibility.
XE and XL
In parallel with the development of DrawWorksXL a new free demo version of DrawWorks was produced, this was called DrawWorksXE. It had a similar feature set to the old DrawWorksSE demo version, but was again fully 32bit compatible. In case you are wondering the X in the new DrawWorks names came from the letter x in the name Iyonix. The second letters stood for Large (L) and Entry (E), the entry coming from the idea that the free DrawWorks was an entry level package that people could use to experiment to see if they liked DrawWorks or not.
Over the years most new versions of DrawWorks had been released for the Wakefield show, and this was to be no exception. DrawWorksXL and DrawWorksXE underwent a lot of testing to prepare them for release at Wakefield 2004. A new printed manual was also produced covering the new features. In the end we decided the programs were ready, announcements went out and CDs were duplicated.
Whoops
As well as having a tradition of releasing new products at Wakefield we also had a tradition of finding silly bugs about an hour into the show. This year was no disappointment as within an hour a silly fault had shown up on the Distort tool, saving custom toolbars would occasionally give a silly error and some of the colour buttons wouldn't work properly if placed on a custom toolbar.
Luckily Dave Holden was easily able to trace the problems and fixes were issued on the APDL/iSV website quite quickly.
Another problem also showed up, it wasn't possible to load directories full of draw files into the library tool properly. Again an upgrade was put on the website to address the problem. I have put copies of all these updates in the software directory of this issue of RISCWorld. I have also included a copy of DrawWorksXE for those that haven't used DrawWorks, to have a play with.
The end...?
So that's it for the history of DrawWorks so far. I don't know what work will be undertaken in the future on the package, as far as we can tell it's now 99.9% bug free and users seem delighted with it. When we start work on the next version, once we have worked out what to add, I will keep RISCWorld readers updated.
There has been an interesting debate rumbling away for the last few months, simply put the question was "How many Iyonixs have been sold?". Have a guess, a thousand, two thousand, more? Some people have guessed as high as four thousand, some as low as a thousand. The Iyonix has now been available for three years so you would certainly expect a number in the thousands, wouldn't you? Castle Technology Ltd (CTL) have been quite understandably shy of releasing any sales figures, but then why should they, it isn't really anyone's business. However one well known RISC OS developer has spilled the beans on
That's right, 600 machines, over a three year period. That's 200 machines a year on average. So how do R-Comp know the sales figures? Well some of their software is bundled with the Iyonix, so they must logically get a royalty payment for each machine sold. I do know that some of the new Iyonixs are sold without a software bundle so these presumably aren't included, but how many? Based on the previous sales it isn't going to be many. So the top spec machine that runs RISC OS hasn't exactly been a runaway success. I remember a comment made by CTL around the time of the launch of the Iyonix that they were hoping to sell 500 machines, by Christmas, it's a good job they didn't specify which Christmas.
This low number of machines helps explain a number of things. Firstly it explains why RISCOS Ltd want a firm commitment from 100 (16%) of Iyonix owners before continuing with Select32 for the Iyonix. Would you as a business, commit to writing an OS for 600 people without some guaranteed revenue? The low number of Iyonix sales may also help explain CTLs current situation.
As announced on
So a couple of months ago CTL has a team of programmers working in Cambridge and a unit in Framlingham with support staff handling the Iyonix. Now the company seems to have shrunk to the three directors, Jack Lillingston, John Ballance and Peter Wild. Only Jack and John came along to the South East show with no sign of Peter Wild anywhere.
I'm concerned for CTL, the situation doesn't look good from where I sit. It also seems that CTL themselves have acknowledged that there is some kind of problem. On the 24th of September a new company, Iyonix Ltd was set up, with Jack Lillingston and John Ballance as directors. There is no sign on the report I have from companies house of Peter Wild in this new company. My assumption is that this new company has been wisely set up to ring fence the Iyonix against any unfortunate events.
Lets hope that CTL are able to weather the storm. History indicates that they will as the company has an excellent track record of surviving periods of instability. I just wonder what impact all of the changes might have on any planned future projects, such as an Iyonix II?
Editors Rant of the month
The following is about the vehicular faith, not specifically about computing.
So here we are once again after another two months motoring mayhem. What's gone wrong this time? Actually, for once, not too much, well not too much by my standards anyway.
The Citroen
Last issue I was waiting to fit two new hydraulic pipes to the front suspension. This job had the potential to be very nasty. The two pipes concerned are attached round the suspension struts with two modern style (i.e. unreusable) jubilee type clips. These had to be cut away to remove the pipes. One I had done this I discovered that the big end of the rubber pipes clamped over a small hole in the suspension strut. Hydraulic fluid is recovered from the hole up the pipes and returned to the reservoir. So far so good you might be thinking, except the holes on the struts are facing inwards so you can't see them, only feel them with your finger. I then had a brain wave and definitely didn't borrow the bathroom mirror, crack one side of the glass or get it covered in oil/mud etc. "Have you seen the bathroom mirror?" Hayley asked, with my best lying voice I said that I hadn't.
So I was now able to position the pipes in place and taking a couple of old jubilee clips from my pile of spares thread them round the suspension struts and tighten them up enough to hold the pipes but not enough to damage them. For those that ever need to do this job I find that the jubilee clips designed to hold a Rover 100 radiator hose are the ideal size, so even though the Rover concerned was scrapped 10 years ago bits of it live on. In the end the entire job took under an hour and a quick check showed the system was fluid tight. A quick drive revealed that the car worked but there was a banging from the front suspension for the first few miles. Sod it I don't care.
I then quickly cleaned the bathroom mirror and put it back with the magnifying glass side facing outwards. I got away with this for about an hour.
Stunned by having completed the job for well under 20 quid I then decided to deal with some of the rust spots. Citroens from this period are fully galvanised so as you can imagine the car had rust patches on the lips both rear wheel arches. I cleaned the rust up, which showed that it was on the surface only and easy to deal with. I carefully mixed up an inexact shade of dark green (two blobs of green Hammerite to one of black) and painted over the rust patches.
So that was that for a month or so, but the imminent MOT was looming. I did my usual pre MOT inspection, lights, tyres, exhaust etc and fearing the worst booked it in at our local garage. It failed. Was it the brakes? The suspension? The smokey engine? Nope. it was too things. Firstly a worn antiroll bar link and secondly the indicators were faulty. How could they be when I checked them an hour before? I walked back up to the garage and the indicator fault was revealed. Xantia's have an alarm system that flashes the indicators when the alarm is set with the remote button on the key fob. After a lot of use, or ten minutes after driving out of the showroom, depending on who you believe, the system goes wrong and leaves the indicators on one side of the car on all the time. This isn't much of a problem as you simply disarm and rearm the car a couple of times and it will eventually get it right. With that solved that just left the suspension. The new part was £26 and fitting would be £30. I asked the garage to just get on with it. So in the end I have a car with a full twelve months MOT with a bill of a shade over £100 including the cost of the MOT.
So far nothing else has gone wrong on the Citroen since, lets hope it stays that way for a while. (A quick just before press update, the lights for the instruments have now packed up - damn).
The "Roller"
The little Talbot Samba Roller was treated to a full service and a quick clutch adjustment and then started work. A couple of weeks later we were on a day trip and a banging noise started coming up from the front passenger footwell. My "what's wrong with this cheap crap car" mental alarm came up with the CV joints failing, especially as the noise was worse turning one way than the other. We parked up and had a look. Grabbing the front wheel showed it had a lot of play, however it quickly became apparent that the play wasn't in the hub, but in the wheel itself. Yes you've guessed it the wheel nuts were lose. I tightened them up and checked all the others which were all slightly lose. So far that seems to have cured the problem.
One morning we came to start the Roller and it wouldn't. Oh no, not another Shogun saga. I left the car on the drive for a few days and then came back to it. It still wouldn't start, hardly surprising as it had no spark. I cleaned off the top of the coil but that didn't help. I then had a look at the distributor. The rotor arm contact on the top was filthy and corroded. I cleaned this and applied large amounts of WD40 inside the distributor cap. The little beauty then started first time and touch wood has been faultless.
And the rest
So what off the rest of the "fleet"? Well the Shogun has finally gone to the breakers in the sky, I got bugger all for it, but at least it's out of the way. The Camper is still rusty and the Beetle, yes the Beetle, actually when I said not much had gone wrong at the start of this I might have been stretching the truth slightly. Come back next time and I'll tell you why.
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
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/FSTEPS/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, 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
8. Using Filetypes
9. The Task Manager
The Task Display
Killing tasks
The RAM disc
Alligata Media
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
Last issue I said that I hoped to have some more blockbuster games releases for RISCWorld readers. Well I am delighted to say that I do indeed have two great games for you. Recent hard work by Acorn Arcade has seen the freeware release of two classic RISC OS games, BigBang and Revolver. Both of these were originally published by Psycore in the mid 1990's. They will run on any machine with RISC OS 3.1 or later, although Iyonix users will need a copy of Aemulor to run BigBang, Revolver is fully 32bit compatible. Lets start with BigBang.
BigBang
In the core of deep space is a Y-class planet known as Trisula Ultra. A world populated with industrious inhabitants enjoying a comfortable and free lifestyle. A breakaway faction has developed, set on disrupting the peace and stability. They have evolved a new kind of science, enabling them to build a super defence shield which will make them invincible. In order to construct this, they need to find a curious array of objects located across this strange planet. Jellyhead, a special volunteer from the group, takes on this hazardous mission. Unfortunately there is a little problem...
The existing powers know of this cunning plan and have dispatched their own formidable agent: Dr. Subtech Plus. This most positive agent needs to reach the objects first to thwart the schemes of the negative faction. Confident of success, they will then be rid of this irritating breakaway group and can restore the planet to normal. These two sides have opposite ways of looking at the world and everything appears back to front to the other. Who is going to win? Which side are you on?
Controls
You can choose whose side you are on to complete the mission, but once you start your opposite number will be after you. It is up to you to find the objects and avoid being captured by the opposition. To choose a side, use the keys to move the bar left or right from the info icon and then press the return key. You then select which level to try by moving the bar and pressing return. Expect many treats and surprises while travelling through some very strange and beautiful places.
Z,z = Lef
X,x = Righ
",' = Jum
Return = Throws a tedd
",' = Up in Bonus Stag
?,/ = Down in Bonus Stag
P,p = Pause & Unpaus
M,m = Mini Mode Toggl
Escape = Exit gam
Teddies
Pick up the bouncing teddies by moving across them. Throwing teddies at the big teddy heads will reward you with bonuses Some bricks can be removed by chucking teddies at them. Above all having teddies means you lose teddies instead of losing lives when hit by baddies.
Play Back
Big Bang records every move you make as you play. You can watch completed levels by selecting a level and pressing return Big Bang then plays back your journey. If you finish the game or run out of lives your last go will be played back at the end of the intro. Press return to stop the play back.
General Info
For hints and tips watch the demos which play automatically after the intro. To install BigBang on a hard drive simply copy !BigBang from the archive to the desired location on your hard drive.
Revolver
Revolver is a maze game with a difference. A two dimensional maze is projected into the surface of a sphere, you then need to roll around the edges of the maze collecting the stars. Once you have collected all the stars you need to find the exit to leave the level.
The game is played against the clock and to make matters even more frantic only a small part of the maze can be seen at any one time. In total there are 30 levels, after completing a level you are given a password so you can skip past any completed levels in future.
Controls
Revolver is controlled with the mouse. The left button spins the maze anti-clockwise, the middle button spins clockwise and the right button shows a map of the maze with your position and the position of any remaining stars marked. As the levels progress you will also find a number of pickups and some nasties that need to be avoided at all costs. You can get more information on these from the main title screen.
Revolver starts out quite easily but soon builds to a frantic pace very quickly. I'm very pleased to see an old game resurrected, especially when it runs on the Iyonix "out of the box", I think all Iyonix owners should get a copy.
That's all from me for this issue, see you in the new year.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
It's the man with the high risk credit report...Hugh Jampton
Thank you and welcome to another star studied Hugh Jampton column. So as per usual, and because I don't get paid enough to come up with many new ideas, why don't we kick off with the RISCWorld caption competition...
The caption competition
Last issue we published this and asked our readers to pick up their crayons and send in (getting an adult to help) their suggestions...
So what wondrous literary creations arrive in my e-mail box?
" Gordon Kaye finds long last twin brother Dave and discovers they have a common interest..."
Says Gordon. 'The years have definitely been kinder to Dave'.
Dave says. 'That Fat so and so's my twin you could've fooled me.'
John Crane
"Library set to re-design new computer suite..... "
Director says. 'We designed our suite around an 'average' person. Looking at our first customers, clearly some are a bit more average than others..."
John Crane
"So this is what they meant, when they said I was entitled to a new slimline Desktop"
John Crane
(I have to add my caption here, "Fat32 against NTFS, the debate continues" - ED)
Can you spot a common theme here? Yes, that's right all the entries came from John Crane. Which means that for the second issue in a row John is our lucky winner. All he needs to do to claim his luxury £2.50 all exclusive holiday is sign a cheque and mail it to the RISCWorld offices. Don't worry about the amount John, we will fill that in later.
Still, so much for that, now lets move on to this issues photo...
Send your entries to hughj@riscworld.co.uk, one lucky winner will be whisked off to the cash till. And now a quick new feature, Hugh's press room...
Hugh's Press Room
This is a new feature for RISCWorld where I give space to some of the press releases that you won't have seen...
Castle re-brands RISC OS
In a bold and striking move Castle Technology have decided to rebrand RISC OS. A spokesman said "We have been undertaking an exhaustive program of customer research. This has revealed that the name RISC OS isn't known to a wide enough demographic". The spokesman then went on to add, "However the number 5 was recognised by nearly 72.6% of those questioned. So after a long consultancy process we have decided to keep the number 5 and rename the rest. Henceforth RISC OS 5 will be known as Windows 95. That way although it will still be 10 years out of date at least people will have heard of it."
Hugh's picture gallery
Well you'll have to wait till you are a bit older...
Then you will be able to get a job with these people...
But probably not a job here...
Moving on we find a sign writer with a sense of humour..
And he seems to have lots of work...
Finally here's a message for all RISC OS users...
That's it, will the last one out please turn off the lights.
The Iyonix column returns, now hosted by Matt Thompson.
The new RISC OS 5 ROM
RISC OS 5 is now up to version 5.10, this latest update deals mainly with bug fixing and also updates to the USB and Nvidia graphics card drivers. The update to the USB drivers is an important fix as many USB devices (including my MP3 player) now work fine on the Iyonix.
There were a few initial problems with this ROM release which created some clashes with the programs !HID and Quickfiler, but these problems have since been sorted out, and a new updated version of !HID has been released which will work fine with RISC OS 5.10. This updated version can be downloaded from http://www.xat.nl/en/riscos/sw/usb/hid.
The current release of RISC OS 5.10 is at number 9. Whilst this may seem to be a lot of updates it does show how quickly any problems which occurred were corrected. Whilst all these bug fixes are welcome and it is good to see continued updates and development, it would be nice to perhaps see some new features in RISC OS 5 at some point.
With this update to RISC OS 5, the big improvement for me is the updated USB drivers, as I can now use my MP3 player with my Iyonix. It is very easy to use, just plug it in, drag the MP3s to the players filer window, and that's all there is to it really, and the USB2 upgrade makes the data transfer even quicker.
DVD on Iyonix
It came to light recently that some people may not be aware that the Iyonix can now fully read and write DVDs (including me - ED). So to clear up this once and for all since the RISC OS 5.09 ROM release the Iyonix can read DVDs without any problem. I assume it can also write to DVDs without problem at all. I say assume as I haven't actually got around to creating a DVD myself but have seen evidence to say that it does work. The screenshot below shows the RISC OS Foundation DVD filer window on the Iyonix desktop.
New Iyonix Machines
Since the launch of the original Iyonix machine, there have been a number of other models added to the range. There was the Panther design and then the standard desktop machine instead of the tower case design. Now there are some more additions and a welcome reduction in price.
Aria Cube
This is the new reduced price Iyonix machine, the specifications for these machines are:
The £799 Aria Cube is the lowest non-offer priced Iyonix yet. However you do not get the bundled software, such as Oregano2, Writer+ and FireWkz32 which normally come with new machines. These are available for an additional £100 should you want them. The Aria cube series only includes support via email. For those that would like an Iyonix but have been put off by the price then this machine may be worth considering especially if you already have, or do not require the software bundle.
In addition to the Aria cube machines, there is also a new tower/desktop machine available, which has a different case design to the original Iyonix, and comes with 80GB hard disc and 256 of RAM. The prices for this machine start at £999, see the
Select for the Iyonix
The never ending debate of Select on the Iyonix continues to go on. Recent developments show quite a number of unhappy Select subscribers due to receiving nothing for their money for 26 bit machines. Some Iyonix owners who have continued their support in the hope of the Iyonix Select appearing at some point have also been complaining. ROL said recently that they had no more than about 15 interested people for Iyonix Select and that they need 100 users to sign up before they can start development. In light of this an online pledge system has been set up at
A beta version of Select for the Iyonix was on show on the RISC OS Ltd stand at the recent RISC OS show in Guildford, which was showing a number of the Select features. It is not ready for release yet, but clearly is showing that it can be done.
Anybody who is interested in Select on the Iyonix should contact RISC OS Ltd at
Software updates
A couple of recent updates to some Iyonix compatible programs. A particular favourite of mine is !Vice, the collection of Commodore computer emulators. Now at V1.17, this release seems to be a bug fixing exercise, and the new version can be found at
A new upgrade for Star Fighter 3000 is available. Now up to V3.05, this new update includes a number of improvements and some bug fixes. This upgrade is available to anyone with a copy of the game, which will then upgrade it to the latest version, Star Fighter 3000 is fully Iyonix compatible and the upgrade is available from
Also of note is Desktop Repton Plus, which has had it's price reduced to £6.99 including postage. This is easily the best RISC OS version of Repton so far, the only problem is that the brand new graphics do not work on the Iyonix for some reason, and nearly a year since the release of Desktop Repton Plus it looks like no solution has been found. This is a shame as it looks good with these new graphics. If you fancy a copy anyway with the old graphics, then contact David Bradforth at
The RISC OS version of Firefox goes from strength to strength, with Peter Naulls releasing Beta version 5 recently. This is a 'Work In Progress' release, so do not be surprised if you get odd goings on with it in use. This release is to show the progress that has been made, and the most obvious change is that the program now installs on the icon bar. It's also much faster and the RISC OS menu system is implemented. See
A new version of !ViewXLS has just been released, a useful program to read Excel documents on RISC OS. The latest version, number 0.10, can be downloaded from
!Musicman from RComp Interactive, has also been updated taking it to V1.50. This version features a number of enhancements including the ability to 'Save Track Listings', playback facilities have been enhanced as well. There are also number of other new features and fixes to this very useful program, see
Oregano 3 was demonstrated at the recent Guildford RISC OS show, but still no release date available. Hopefully it won't be too far off as Oregano 2 is now starting to show it's age and still has a number of bugs in it which are rather annoying.
Aemulor and Aemulor Pro are due an update to V2.32 (these should be available by the time you are reading this). This update include bug fixes and emulation enhancements in order to get the Sherston and Anglia multimedia CDs to run without problem, which is good news. I wonder if Wizards Apprentice will work properly now? I bet it doesn't.
Finally a new updated version of Geminus is due for release shortly (and again should be available by the time you are reading this). This version will include a number of new features which include - Accelerated sprite plotting, hardware acceleration of horizontal and vertical line drawing, rectangle inversions - these are now hardware accelerated, and the caching of screen redraws.
These new Geminus features should be available shortly after the recent Guilford show.
And so ends my first Iyonix column. If you have any comments, news, suggestions, hints & tips, or anything to do with the Iyonix, then drop me an email at
Now on critical life support, it's the RISCWorld letters page...
This issue we will kick off with the only letters anyone could be bothered to send us...(sniff)...
Hi Aaron
Very informative issue, especially Virtual Aaron oops Virtual Acorn and Dave's spring cleaning. Where I live (south Italy) the so called computer technicians (PC) usually tell you, "it's totally f**kt, buy a new one." Usually after reformatting your hard disk. (Letting an Italian computer technician near your PC - RISC or otherwise - is like asking an Italian car park attendant to park your car for you.)
Apropos cooling on laptops. I've got a 'Tiny' laptop (I know what you're thinking Hugh Jampton, so keep your comments to yourself) to run VRPC and the problem I had was that the fan would go from low revs to high revs every couple of minutes, like this "uuuuuuweeeeeeeuuuuuuuuweeeeee" etc, ie from the slowest speed to the fastest, but then I heard about a program called 'speedfan' (thank you Andrew at RComp). I've used it to permanently speed up the fans, not to maximum revs but higher than they were originally set at, so now it goes "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaweeeeeaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", ie from the next fastest speed to the highest, and is a lot less irritating. Of course if I had the money I'd have bought a better laptop. After fixing the hole in the roof, decorating the living room and sorting out the Fiat uno.
One day.
Keep up the good work
Laurence Simmonds
Thanks for the kind words. Regarding computer technicians I don't think it's just Italian ones that have problems diagnosing problems. I've been aware of a number of cases of ct (computer technician/complete twit) overload recently. One example that stuck on my mind was a customer who was told that the network interface on his laptop had died and so he needed a new laptop. He obviously rung me having got the machine back from the shop he had taken it to over a week before. It took me about 5 minutes on the phone to discover that the reason the interface didn't work was because no drivers had been installed for it!
This brings me neatly to someone even worse than a real computer technician, the "friend". In many cases I see examples of the "friend" re-installing Windows on a machine, but neglecting to install any of the motherboard drivers, brilliant.
Anyway thanks for the tip about SpeedFan, I have put a copy in this issues software directory in the Windows section. For anyone that's thinking of buying a new laptop I can thoroughly recommend SterlingXS. I recently purchased a new laptop with a 15.1" screen, Athlon 2400+ processor, 30GB harddrive, integral CD writer/DVD reader and a host of ports, including 4 USB ports and a firewire one for the princely sum of £399 (including VAT). This wasn't a second hand machine but a brand new one. Sterling were even kind enough to unbox a machine to find out what motherboard chipset it used and then ring me back with the answer. Even better the machine came without an OS, so I wouldn't be paying for yet another copy of Windows when I had a spare WinXP sitting in the office. I ordered it at half past four on Wednesday and it arrived before ten on Friday morning.
So far I am very pleased with it. Despite the low price it's well made, although it's from a brand I had never heard of (iFriend). It runs VRPC well and even runs some older 3D games very well, including Serious Sam. Anyway enough of that and lets please leave the subject of fixing roofs, decorating the living room (now 90% done after 2 months) and especially fixing cars.
Anyway that's enough waffle from me, lets move on to out second letter...
Dear Aaron,
Perhaps this might swell the letters page.
In his review of the APDL Car Racing Games CD (Risc World 6/2), Mat
Thompson wrote enthusiastically about Stunt Racer 2000 but doubte
whether the Series two tracks were included. For anyone interested
let me confirm that not only are the Series two tracks on the CD bu
there are also a half dozen tracks from Series three! There is also
directory which purports to contain the Series four tracks - sadl
this is not so, what it actually contains is a copy of the Series
tracks in uncompressed format.
Matt also mentioned the !SRDesign track design program and offere
to send a copy to anyone interested. To avoid troubling him, this i
available from:
Note that it is classed as a Beta release and has not been update
since August 1998.
I also know of two other facilities for use with SR2000:
!StuntEd
To edit a driver file giving increased ability rating
equipment and so on. It was published on an Acorn Computin
Subscription disc in June, 1994.
!SRKeys
To redefine the keyboard control keys used by SR2000. Thi
also was on an Acorn Computing Cover disc from Feb, 1994.
If anyone has the original Acorn User Collector's CD-Rom No.1, the
can be found at $.ACORNUSER.DISCS.ACORNCOMP.SUBS.9406S.Databay.StuntEd.!StuntE
and $.ACORNUSER.DISCS.ACORNCOMP.COVER.9402.Databay.!SRKeys
All three utilities are freeware and OS4 compatible but !SRKeys is NO
compatible with Select or Adjust! I cannot speak for Iyonix.
If the rush is not too great, I could offer to e-mail copies or, dar
I suggest it, they might be published in RISCWorld or even posted o
the update section of the APDL web site!
Best wishes
Alan Minns
Not so much swell the letters page as double it! Thanks for confirming that the series 2 tracks are on the CD as well as the series 3 tracks. Perhaps it might be worth passing on the problem with the series 4 tracks directly to APDL. It's interesting to see that third party hacks for StuntRacer were produced and I wasn't aware of these. As for hosting them on the APDL or RISCWorld websites this isn't something we would want to do. Mind you what I would like to see is a general RISC OS software repository, a one-stop shop for freeware, along the lines of TuCows.
So that's it for this letter(s) page As before why not help save the RISCWorld letters page from wasting away to nothing by e-mailing us to the following address savetheletterspage@riscworld.co.uk.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/PD/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
Welcome to the PD World column. There have been a number of interesting developments software wise over the last few weeks, including the release of the PC card software for the RiscPC under the GPL (Gnu Public Licence). So lets see what RISC OS developers have released in the last month or so...
LaBella V 6.00 - Ray Favre
LaBella is a RISCWorld favourite and Ray has been hard at work adding new features to this very useful label designing/printing application. This new major upgrade also comes with a completely new manual
Labella
Although LaBella is an application for printing text and/or graphics onto labels - but it is a lot more than that, you can...
Create label definitions on screen and save them for subsequent
loading - including font choices/colours/line indents/justifications
etc. (and some popular definitions are included as a starter
Display a single label or display a whole label sheet, at user-chosen
scales (including a display of the current printer driver print
margins
Print onto labels from records held in CSV files - choosing the
number of copies of each record, the starting and finishing records,
the starting label position and the range and number of copies of
label sheet
Preview the printing, including showing the actual text from a CSV
file and showing which record will appear on which labe
Add a drawfile graphic to each label
In addition LaBella includes some very powerful functions:
Switch the label shape between rounded corners (normal), squared
corners, envelopes and circular (for CD labels
Choose a different font/size for each individual line of tex
Choose a different colour for each individual line of tex
Choose the text indent for each individual line of tex
Choose the justification (Left, Right or Centre) for each individual line of tex
Set the line spacing individually for each line of tex
Add sequential numbering to each label, on any lin
Word-wrap any long text onto more than one lin
Print drawfile graphics onto labels (without text, if required
Scale and/or shift the graphic to the size/position you wan
Switch between normal (portrait) and sideways (landscape) display
printin
Print a label outlin
See how many empty (blank) records are in the loaded CSV file, and
where they will appear when printing (and choose whether or not to print
any loaded graphics on them
Step through a loaded CSV file to see how any particular record will
actually appear in prin
Strip quotes from CSV file field
Add an extra space to the bottom line of text; or set the bottom line of
text at a specified offset above the bottom edge of the label
Include or skip blank lines (i.e. blank fields
Lock the font/colour/indent values of a line to its corresponding record
field (so that a field’s appearance is not affected by skipped blank lines
Select individual label sheets for printin
Store your drawfile graphics and CSV files convenientl
Save your favourite label/csv file pairings for subsequent quick reloading
See how many label sheets are needed to print a complete fil
Organise your CSV files into sub-directories which are automatically translated into a menu/sub-menu structure for easy loading
Edit individual records of a loaded CSV file
Insert current date/time/day into CSV file text
Add/delete records to/from a loaded CSV file
Customise the start-up settings
Installing LaBella
If this is the first time you have used !LaBella, simply copy the whole application to the place of your choice on a hard disc. It is, as usual, best to keep also a master copy somewhere safe. The application comes with a some label definition files for popular self-adhesive label sheets, example CSV files and drawfile graphics, so it needs nothing else to get going. A plain-text version of the full Manual is available from the "Help" option on the iconbar/main menu. Also included are fully formatted illustrated manual in both Impression and OvationPRO formats. You should consult a manual if you are upgrading from an earlier version.
PCPro3 - Aleph 1
Aleph1 have decided to release the entire PCPro software, along with the source code under the GPL. So if you have a PC Card in your RiscPC and haven't used it for ages now could be the time to dust it off. PCPro 3 is the latest generation of the Aleph One PC support software for RiscPC machines. It achieves considerable speed by working with real PC hardware attached to your RiscPC. While older versions were also designed to support podule cards in pre-RISC PC machines, this software only works with the RiscPC second-processor cards.
PCpro running Windows95
PCPro will let you run DOS, Windows 3.x and even Windows 95 and Windows 98 on a RiscPC with a suitable 486 PC card. If you are using an older version of PCPro then you may well be amazed at the speed improvements. You will need the supplied !DivaCode application to generate an unlock code for PCPro. There is also a very comprehensive illustrated HTML manual in the archive called UserGuide. I strongly recommend that you consult this before using the software.
PrivateEye - David Thomas
PrivateEye is a viewer for Sprites, DrawFiles, JPEGs, ArtWorks, GIF and PNG images. PrivateEye can also show ArtWorks files but needs a copy of AWViewer to add this feature.
PrivateEye
PrivateEye requires two modules which are only present on RISC OS 3.6 or later. So it can't be used on RISC OS 3.5 or earlier. PrivateEye can display lots of information about files as well as interface with the universal clipboard.
Sudoku - Mijas Software
This is an recursive solution to Sodoku written in 'C' for RISCOS. The program searches each empty square of the puzzle for the number of possible entries and remembers the first square which has the lowest number of possible entries and enters the first (untried) entry in the list into that square. (There may be other squares with the same number of possibilities - but they are ignored). After the new square has been filled the 'updated' puzzle and the list of possibilities are remembered.
Sudoku
The process is then repeated for the 'updated' puzzle and the whole process continues until either the whole puzzle is solved or no square has any possible entries. If the puzzle is not solved, the program goes back to try the next possible entry for the previously remembered puzzle and starts again. If no possible entries remain it goes back to puzzle before that - and so on until a new possible entry is found.
If the program finds itself right back where it started and no possible entries can be found it declares 'no solution'.
Webalizer - David Llewellyn-Jones
Welalizer is a web server log analysis program. It produces highly detailed, easily configurable usage reports in HTML format, for viewing with a standard web browser. It was written to solve several problems with currently available analysis packages. A vast majority of them were written in Perl or some other scripting language, and took forever to run. Some were not free. Some even produced wrong results, or results that were not in a very useful format.
This version of Webalizer has been set up for use on RISC OS. In order to use it, you'll first need to set up the file !Webalizer.webalizer/conf . Instructions can be found inside this file, and more information can be found on the Webalizer website at
It's possible that some bugs may have arisen during the recompilation of the program for RISC OS. However, all credit for the program goes to the author, Bradford L. Barrett, and the developers of the RISC OS libraries that make the use of programs like this on RISC OS possible.
That's all I have for you this time, I will be back in early 2006!.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/RPC/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, Cooling a RiscPC
Cooling a RiscPC
Dave Holden has his fans...
The RiscPC is now over a decade old and when its case and power supply was first designed the cooling was more than adequate. It had a 30 Mhz processor, and a slow Conner hard drive that produced very little heat. The addition of a PC card added some extra heat, but the original 33 Mhz 486 didn't run anywhere near as hot as the later, faster cards. In addition its location was such that there was plenty of clear air around it to ensure adequate cooling. Adding a CD ROM drive didn't produce much extra heat, other than that generated by the additional loading on the power supply, since it would normally only be run intermittently.
The later 710 processsor running at 40 Mhz produced a similar insignificant amount of heat as the 610, and when it is running if you lay your finger in the processor you will find that it is only a few degrees above ambient temperature. Faster PC cards running at 66 Mhz and then 100 Mhz did start to introduce more heat, and the 100 Mhz cards required a heatsink. However, as previously mentioned, this was in a an area that was unobstructed with plenty of clear air (about the only area of which this could be said) and in the "exit path" of the airflow so it didn't have any detrimental effect on other parts of the computer.
Adding expansion cards sometimes had some effect, depending upon their type. However to add more than two you needed a two slice machine, which would have more room for air to circulate and twice as many slots for the air to exit, so cooling was still adequate.
Had things stayed like this, well within the original design parameters, there would be no problem, but unfortunately they didn't, and the RiscPC case is often now required to cope with more and hotter components than was originally allowed for.
More about RiscPC ventilation
Air flow on the RiscPC operates in the opposite direction to most other PCs. A standard PC AT or ATX power supply has its fan on the external side. It draws air from inside the computer case and exhausts it to the outside. This allows the air inlets in the case to be positioned so that cool air is drawn into the places where it is most needed. The RiscPC power supply's fan draws air through the power supply and blows it into the case. This has the advantage of ensuring a flow of air across the motherboard and any expansion cards, but makes it far more difficult to add extra ventilation.
Before suggesting some improvements let's take a look at the standard system in greater detail.
Air is drawn into the power supply from the right hand side of the case. There are a series of slots cut in the case and careful measurement and calculation shows that the total area of these slots is approximately 27 sq. cm. Only the slots in the bottom slice are relevant. The air enters the power supply casing via a number of holes, ninety in all, and these have a total area of approximately 9 sq. cm. The "active" part of the fan aperture through which the air exits the power supply is approximately 29 sq. cm., suggesting that the fan is "throttled" by the holes in the power supply casing. Airflow through the fan is further restricted by a wide piece of plastic moulding cunningly placed right in front of it as shown below.
In this picture a strip of paper has been taped to the power supply to represent this section of the case. As you can see it passes right in front of the fan, reducing the aperture size to around 21 sq. cm. This has some effect on airflow, though not as much as would be the case were the flow not already being restricted by the inlet holes. As well as restricting the flow of air this also causes air turbulence and so adds to the fan noise, which is already higher that it should be because of the restriction due to the reduced air inlet which causes "slippage" in the airflow through the fan.
If you want to increase airflow it is therefore fairly obvious that the simplest way to do this is to improve flow into the power supply by enlarging the air inlet holes. Opening these out to 6 mm. from their current size of 4 mm. will nearly treble the area of the air inlet from 9 sq. cm. to around 25 sq. cm.
This is a fairly simple DIY job in itself, but before you can drill out the holes you will need to disassemble the power supply and remove the PCB to avoid damaging it. However, in view of the much improved airflow and zero cost you may feel it's worthwhile.
There's an even simpler improvement that you can make. Ideally all the air drawn into the power supply should come from outside the computer. However, there's a gap between the power supply itself and the computer case and this allows air to "leak" in at the top and front from inside the case. The total area of this gap is around 21 sq. cm., and so on a two slice machine quite a lot of air will simply go round and round, being blown out by the fan on one side, passing over the top of the power supply, and drawn in again. This is not good because not only will the air be warmer than fresh air from outside, but also air circulating in this way is not being circulated around the rest of the computer.
The solution is very simple. There are two alternatives. If you can obtain some of the foam strip which has adhesive on one side and is sold as draught sealer for doors and windows then you can stick this along the side of the power supply casing close to the top and close to the front and this will seal the aperture. Alternatively just stick a narrow strip of card to the top of the power supply with tape so that it projects over the side and seals the gap between the top of the power supply and the casing. Either of these two methods will prevent (or drastically reduce) air recirculation.
Adding extra fans
It's fairly easy to add extra fans to a RiscPC case but it does require careful consideration if you aren't to make matters worse. If you have a single slice machine then the apertures for the air to escape on the left hand side have the same area as the inlet on the right, so if you try to introduce too much extra air it will have little effect. Similarly poorly positioned extract fans can reduce airflow from some areas which need it.
With a two slice machine the situation is much better. There is now an extra exit path on each side, trebling the area available, so there is scope for adding additional fans blowing air into the case.
Cooling hard drives
The first place often in need of additional cooling is the hard drive in the base of the machine. This was not a problem with the Conner 210 and 420 drives originally fitted. Even after some hours running both the casing and the components on the PCB of these remained cool, so there was no question of overheating. However, most modern drives rotate at at least 7,200 rpm. and these can generate quite a bit of heat.
If you look at the previous picture you will see a thick black line drawn vertically across the paper strip towards the front of the fan. This represents the location of the RiscPC backplane. As you can see part of the fan is in front of this and this means that some of the airflow from the fan passes in front of the backplane, under the floppy disc drive mounting, in the general direction of the hard drive. However, you can see that only a small part of the fan's output is directed into this area and that is right at the back. Because the only exit for this air from this area is back over the motherboard the flow path is such that it passes over and cools the rear right hand corner of the drive but doesn't penetrate into the dark corner at the left front.
An ideal solution would be an extract fan at the front right hand corner, ensuring that the air passed over the hard drive. A small 40 mm. fan will just fit. To make room you will need to move the hard drive towards the right. This is easily done and doesn't actually require any modifications with most drives as the retaining strap will still fit and the data cable is just long enough. You will need to cut a hole for the fan. The neatest way is to use a hole saw but an alternative is to remove some of the "bars" to enlarge the air slots. You will also have to snap off the front two downward projecting lugs on the next slice as these will foul the fan.
The photo below shows the layout of this system.
Even if you don't fit a fan, moving the hard drive as shown, and opening up the air slots at the front of the bottom slice by removing every other "bar" from the front three sets of air slots will encourage airflow over the drive. Airflow will also be improved if you tape a piece of card to the rear of the CD ROM bay on the first slice so that it projects downwards between the hard drive and motherboard. This closes the shortest path for the air and forces it to take the longer route over the drive.
For most users hard drive temperature won't be a serious problem. However, I've noticed a distinct increase in the failure rate of 7,200 rpm. drives mounted in this position during hot weather, so even if you don't fancy cutting holes in your casing or fitting an extra fan just moving the drive slightly and fitting the card screen as described can make a significant difference and is easy to do and costs nothing.
Drives in 5" bays
Where a drive is fitted in one of the main drive bays it's much easier to cool. You can purchase a combined drive mounting bracket complete with cooling fan(s) for less than £10 like the one shown in the photo below. The problem with almost all of these is that they are designed to fit in PC drive bays and so require the mounting screws to be inserted from the side, which isn't possible in a RiscPC. The other problem is that the fans tend to seem rather noisy, possibly because they're very much "in your face" right at the front of the computer. If you don't want to do the necessary modifications yourself APDL can supply these altered to fit a RiscPC and with the fan slowed so that it still gives sufficient airflow to keep a hard drive cool but with much reduced noise.
You will notice that I make no mention of fitting a second hard drive in the spare floppy drive bay of a two slice machine. this is because this is something which should never be done. A hard drive fitted here is closely restricted on every side and there is no easy way that you can get even a minimal airflow into this area. A hard drive fitted here will always tend to overheat and so have a much shortened life expectancy.
Better processor cooling
Whereas the original 610 and 710 processors produced almost no heat the StrongARM processors do. Not so much that they overheat on their own, but when mounted close to a fast PC card things can get rather warm. None of the "official" Acorn PC cards had fans fitted, although the 100Mhz processors did have a heatsink, however third party 133 Mhz cards do have a fan. If the PC card gets hot then its close proximity to the Strong ARM card means that will also get warmer than it ideally should, so some form of additional cooling is a good idea.
Instead of fitting a fan directly to the processor (or in addition to it) a worthwhile addition is to fit a fan to the side of the case behind the PC card. With a single slice machine this should extract air but with a multi slice machine it should blow air into the machine as the single slice has a much smaller number of slots for the air to escape, so its effect will be diminished. In either case the effect is to improve overall ventilation and also to direct a stream of cooling air over the PC card.
The picture above shows the location for this type of fan. A 45mm fan as fitted to older Intel processors is ideal here. Once again you can simply remove some of the "bars" between the ventilation slots in the case to make an exit (or entry) path for the air. If you intend the fan to blow air into the computer rather than acting as an extractor then you may prefer to mount it on the rear of the case as the incoming air will still be directed straight at the processor card.
Fitting a PC extractor fan
These are available from PC dealers for a few pounds and are designed to fit in a spare PCI slot. A fan of this type is illustrated below. Some can be quite noisy. Their dimensions are such that they can normally be made to fit (with a little bit of modification) in a spare podule slot in a RiscPC.
This might seem like a quick and easy way to add extra ventilation and it has been advocated by some people, but I do not like this method as it may do more harm than good. By placing an extractor fan adjacent to the power supply you are, in effect, taking the airflow from the power supply fan and sending most of it straight out the back of the computer before it has a chance to cool any other components and this can diminish airflow in some areas, such as around the processor(s). However, if this was used in conjunction with additional small fans as described above which were set to blow air into the computer then this could result in a greater overall airflow which could be beneficial, especially where the ambient temperature is high.
Finally the picture below shows a product which will soon be available from APDL. This is a higher output power supply for the RiscPC, available in either 140 or 200 watt. As well as having a higher power output to cope with any additional items you may have fitted, you will see that instead of the normal single fan it has two. There is a 60 mm fan at the rear and a smaller 40 mm. fan at the front. This smaller fan blows a stream of cool air into the hard drive bay to ensure that modern 7.200 rpm. drives don't overheat. The main fan is temperature controlled so that it is normally much quieter than the normal RiscPC fan. It is also positioned so that the airflow passes over the VIDC chip. This helps keep this cool which can be very beneficial, especially if you are driving the VIDC rather hard or "overclocking" as described in an earlier article in RISCWorld Volume 4 Issue 2.
Dave Holden
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/RSHOW/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, The RISC OS Roadshow 2005
The RISC OS Roadshow 2005
There's a new initiative from RISCOS Ltd, RISCWorld has the facts...
I'm sure everyone knows by now that the ARM Club Midlands show, which was normally held at the National Motor Cycle Museum, is not going ahead this year. This is a great pity as it was a well attended show and was the ideal opportunity from those of us north of Watford to meet up. However all isn't lost as RISCOS Ltd have stepped in with a new initiative.
The RISC OS Roadshow
RISCOS Ltd have organised a series of one day roadshow events, designed to bring RISC OS to a wider audience. There are three venues, Stockport, Birmingham and London.
Thursday 15th December - Birmingham
The Bassett Suite
West Bromwich Albion Football Club
The Hawthorns
West Bromwich
West Midlands
B71 4LF
The opening times will be from 4.00 p.m - 8.00 p.m
Friday 16th December - Stockport
Brittania Hotel Stockport
Dialstone Lane
Offerton
Stockport
Cheshire
SK2 6AG
Opening times will again be from 4.00 p.m - 8.00 p.m
Saturday 17th December - London
The Garden Suite
Best Western Cumberland Hotel
St Johns Road
Harrow
Middx
HA1 2EF
The opening times will be 11.00 a.m - 3.00 p.m
Unlike most RISC OS events admission for visitors is free!
As we went to press a full list of exhibitors hadn't become available. However it seems that most RISC OS companies will be attending. So visitors should be able to see APDL, Archive Publications, Advantage 6, Castle Technology, CJE Micros, Icon Technology, MathMagical Software, Martin Wuerthner, R-Comp, RISCOS Ltd, RONWUG, Spellings Computer Services, The ARM Club, Qercus and VirtualAcorn.
So if you are a RISC OS user and you want a Christmas present you know where to go!
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/SE2005/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, RISC OS South East Show 2005
RISC OS South East Show 2005
Aaron's view on the recent South East Show
Once again the South East show was held at the end of October at Guildford College. In previous years this has been my local show but since we have now moved to Derbyshire my local show would be the Arm Club Midlands Show, if it was going ahead, which it isn't. Anyway since the show is on a Saturday and involved a drive along the UK's congested Motorway system I decided to travel down on Friday afternoon and stay in a hotel. A quick surf revealed that the cheapest room rate was the on-line special of £26 for the Travelodge in Guildford. I tried a couple of local guest houses but got put off by the distinct lack of customer service. "What time will you be arriving?". I don't know. "Well you'll need to tell us so there will be someone to let you in." Thanks but no thanks, it's the corporate clone hotel for me!
In the end I drove from Derbyshire down to Bracknell in two hours dead. I took the opportunity to pop in and see a few old friends and to take a quick walk around Peacock Farm, my old dog walking haunt. This is shortly to be covered in concrete and brick in order to extend Bracknell out to the size of Birmingham. Having nabbed a free dinner at my sister in laws in Reading I headed to the hotel and decamped for the evening.
Next morning I was up bright and early, grabbed a quick breakfast and checked out. I arrived at the venue just after a quarter past eight and quickly unpacked the car and set up the stand. I had decided to bring the new laptop (see my editorial) instead of one of the desktop machines and hit a problem when it came to set it up. The mouse I had bought with me was a PS2 scroll mouse, the laptop only had USB sockets. Since the other exhibitors weren't really set up properly I decided to drive round to PC World and buy one. I arrived just as the doors were opening and ended up paying the exorbitant price of £14.99 for a quite basic mouse. OK it proved to be smooth and responsive and very comfortable, but £14.99? Perhaps I should have moved to Yorkshire.
On my return to the show I discovered a red Mazda RX-8 parked in a disabled bay out the front of the college. Since it wasn't showing a disabled badge I took the opportunity to block it in. After a few minutes I discovered it belonged to David Ruck, who certainly doesn't have a blue disabled parking badge. Anyway I went out to let him move and got an excuse about just unloading. Let me make this clear to anyone else who thinks disabled bays are free for anyone to use, they aren't. If you don't have a blue badge, don't park in a disabled bay.
Anyway back to the show. The new mouse worked fine and I still had twenty minutes before the show opened. At this point Paul Middleton from RISCOS Ltd (Not RISC OS Developments Ltd as some people seem to call the company) came over as the new Mac demo version of VirtualAcorn wasn't working. I was still fiddling with it when the show opened and I had to shoot back to my stand and grab the tin mug and the monkey. In the end the show as so busy, apart from one brief lull, that I never managed to get VA working on the Mac, so apologies to anyone who hoped to have a look at the progress.
Back on the stand I had sold three VirtualAcorns in the first fifteen minutes and was well chuffed. There was a continual stream of customers all day but that's enough about me, what about everyone else?
On entering the show the first two stands were Martin Wuerthner, selling the latest Artworks upgrade, and Paul Beverly selling subscriptions to Archive and Living With Technology. I noticed that both of them were wearing bow ties. Was this a sartorial battle of some form? Martin was doing a roaring trade in ArtWorks 2 upgrades including the new facility to export PDFs and Paul Beverley looked quite happy with the number of subscribers renewing their subscriptions.
Across the aisle was the new slimline Castle Technology Ltd along with OreganoUK Ltd. Castle had their usual range of Iyonix PCs on display for customers to test drive. OreganoUK had the latest beta version of Oregano3 running on a laptop. I only had a quick fiddle but it did look quite impressive, I'm just starting to wonder what effect Firefox might have on potential sales, although Castle reportedly weren't bothered. Moving round I discovered CJE micros who really did seem to have everything in stock. I was going to ask for a 5/8ths widget just to see what happened, but I rather think I would have been asked what colour I preferred. CJE also had the latest version of the Impact database on display, this version now works on VirtualRPC, previous versions wouldn't. So any Impact owning VA users would be best advised to contact CJE for an upgrade.
Moving across the aisle Neil Spellings was showing Geminus running multiple monitors on an Iyonix. Also new was a demonstration of bitmap caching on the Iyonix using the Nvidia graphics card. This allows the computer to cache the contents of a window once it's been drawn. The result is that dragging lots of windows around, even ones with complex ArtWorks graphics in them is instantaneous, not quicker, just instant. This looked very impressive and made the desktop massively smoother. A release date isn't known, but a price of £40 was being mentioned. My only question would be why haven't Castle added these sort of features to RISC OS 5? Still hats off to the Geminus team for a superb looking concept.
Next, and appropriately just round the bend, was APDL with their wide range of RISC OS software. The Fourth Dimension games compilation CDs were heading off the shelves at a rate of knots as well as a number of copies of DrawWorks. The VirtualAcorn stand was next. Whilst interviewing myself I discovered that I was well pleased with the show and had apparently sold a surprising number of both versions of VirtualRPC.
However let us continue our wander past the charity stall, which due to damn stupid recycling regulations had little hardware on offer. I did nearly pick up a cheap Psion, but was beaten by a few seconds by an eagle eyed browser.
Moving further round, R-Comp was several customers deep for most of the day with a lot of interest in the new UniPrint2 and in their wide range of computers. Next door Mike Glover of Icon Technology was furiously copying upgrade discs as fast as he could to keep up with demand. Apparently all the EasiWriter and TechWriter upgrades he bought with him had sold out by late morning. Across the isle RISCOS Ltd had the same problem. The special show price of just £69 for a set of Adjust ROMS was proving just too tempting for most users. The large stocks of ROMs lasted till just before lunch, after that customers would have to wait a few days for their ROMS to be posted to them.
Rounding off the show were the ARM Club and David Buck with yet another update to RiscCAD, this new update apparently wowing customers with it's improved responsiveness (not that it was slow before). Finally Martin Hansen was selling a new Soduku game, reportedly with 150 levels.
I'm sure I've missed out a couple of exhibitors, for which I apologise. Anyway that was RISC OS South East 2005, by all accounts a great show and enjoyed by everyone. For those that are wondering why there are no pictures, well I forgot my camera. To add to my stupidity I only realised that I could have used the Camera on my phone just as everyone was packing up, idiot!
At the end of the show on my way out I noticed another car without a permit parked in a disabled bay. Who could it belong to? The answer Paul Vigay. Next time I see his car in a disabled bay it will also be blocked in...
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/SE20052/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, RISC OS South East Show 2005 - The talks
RISC OS South East Show 2005 - The talks
A quick round up of the lectures given at South East Show
I've already covered the exhibitors at the SouthEast show, but for once I though it would be worth writing a few words about the various talks that went on in the lecture theatre.
Castle Technology Ltd
The first talk of the day came from Jack Lillingston of Castle Technology Ltd. Instead of the hoped for information on CTL's plans for the future the theatre got a slightly odd talk. Jack came in with a number of PC cases and unpacked them. He then showed how you could fit an Iyonix motherboard. This section of the talk was covered by a close up camera which had the unfortunate effect of making his presentation look like a bad program on a cheap home shopping channel. I could imagine the voice over..."As you can see the motherboard is decorated with real cubic zirconia with gold contacts making an heirloom you'll want to pass on...".
Jack then went on to talk about USB2 support and to extol the virtues of the Iyonix, which seemed quite fair. Although trying to pretend the Iyonix was compact when the A9Home was being demonstrated later was pushing it a bit. In the end a number of those watching seemed a bit nonplussed with the talk especially as it was similar to ones given at user groups earlier in the year. In the end I got the impression that a demo of the new Geminus features would have attracted greater interest.
Quercus
John Cartmell gave a talk about Qercus magazine. He gave away free copies of the current issue (would that be May? - HJ) and covered some of the topics that had been featured recently. He also explained that some of the delays in getting copies to subscribers was due to the move to a new office but that things would be back to normal as soon as possible. He also announced an initiative to offer free advertising space to small developers and a service to allow people to test their software on an A9 and an Iyonix at the Qercus premises.
RISCOS Ltd
The main talk of the day was from RISCOS Ltd. Paul Middleton decided to bring along an Iyonix running Select, much to the suprise of a few vocal critics, one of whom seemed disapointed to see that Select for the Iyonix had been worked on and was demonstratable. After running few a number of features that did work Paul then showed some that didn't. It was clear that if Iyonix users wanted Select for their machines that they would have to stump up money at some point. Paul also explained how RISC OS development was funded, explaining that Advantage6 had paid their own development costs and that the Select subscribers had contributed towards producing a general 32bit RISC OS not tailored to any particular hardware.
Paul then went on to explain some of the history behind RISC OS and pointed out that RISCOS Ltd has been in charge of RISC OS for nearly as long as Acorn were. As part of the talk Paul handed out leaflets listing some of the features of Select4. You can find a copy of this from the main index page in this issue. To conclude Paul went on to add that in a small market the users need to contribute towards the development of the OS. This seemed to be understood by the vast majority and a number of them renewed their Select subscriptions.
A9Home
The A9Home presentation got off to an amusing start as Chris Evans of CJE micros couldn't be found. In the end an announcement came over the PA system asking if someone could get him out of the toilet, why? Was he stuck round the u-bend? Apparently not. Anyway Matt from Advantage6 turned up with a small bag, containing a complete A9 setup, including a tiny LCD monitor, roll up keyboard and a tiny mouse. Matt then went on to demonstrate the machine and connected a USB camera. The machine seemed to perform very well and certainly attracted a lot of interest. What wasn't forthcoming was a full release date but Chris Evans seemed exceptionally positive about the machines potential.
So that's a very brief rundown of what happened in the lecture theatre. The next show is in February in the South West, it will be interesting to see what's shown in the lecture theatre there.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/SELECT/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, SELECT 4
SELECT 4
RISCWorld
RISCOS Ltd are beavering away on producing Select4. With no releases of Select in the last year what can subscribers loook forward to? Well we asked RISCOS Ltd and they provided us with the following provisional information.
Select forthcoming new features
All Select development since the release of Select3i4 has been towards the goal of total conversion of the RISC OS 4 sources to be 32 bit neutral.
The first milestone in that project was the production of a 26 bit RISC OS ROM image from the 32 bit neutral sources last Christmas. With the goal of using just one RISC OS source this has meant a lot of extra work ensuring that the two versions of RISC OS produced from this new source are stable for both 26 bit processors and 32 bit processors. As may be expected this has not proved as simple as just producing a new version of RISC OS solely to suit a particular processor, but is essential work to be done now to avoid problems in supporting both types of processors in the future. In the past the Select scheme has deliberately not touched certain areas of the OS, but the conversion to 32 bit has meant that every part has been examined, with the inevitable discovery of old and new bugs as well as old, but previously unknown features.
Just a few of the new features already developed for Select 4 include ongoing development work on Paint and Draw as well as a considerable number of new graphics renderers. The Filer has been updated to support some more advanced facilities than it has ever had before. This includes features such as keyboard command shortcuts and "search as you type" shown above.
Kernel
All the source (near enough) is now updated to be 32 bit safe. Support for 32 bit only processor modes is included. Assembler based components are now built using ObjAsm and a modern makefile.
Kernel now has lots of abstraction of its graphics APIs. It also now correctly supports LD/ST 'T' and SWP in abort trap mode. Kernel now has no pointer support (OSPointer module now has this). .
FPEmulator no longer explicitly colludes with the kernel for errors flattening the SVC stack.
FileSwitch no longer explicitly colludes with the kernel for file execution flattening the SVC stack.
Kernel has been updated substantially; video hardware is now driven by an external module. The only significant change that has yet to be completed is banking of modes.
RedrawManager has been added, and includes numerous fixes over the extremely poor 0.08 version previously delivered.
Basic
>BASIC now assembles LD/ST 'T' properly.
Stubs G
New version of StubsG release (which will allow the development of applications that can run on RISC OS 3 -> 5).
Fonts
In order to better integrate with Postscript printers a full set of Standard Postscript compatible Fonts is to be included. The new fonts are:-.
Clare (AvantGarde
Robinson (Bookman
NewHall (NewCenturySchoolbook
Pembroke (Palatino
Churchill (ZapfChancery
A collection of extra Fonts will also be included.
ATA Hard Drives
Select 4 will include Enhanced ATA Hard disc drivers. These will only support ATA-4 and above compliant drives. This means drives there were manufactured some time after 1996/7.
The reason is that the ATA committee currently only support these. Drives as small as 1GB will fall into this spec and of course, if your drive is 8 years old, you probably shouldn't be using it for data!!! Filecore and HForm have been totally overhauled to support the latest ATA standards and SMART features.
Graphics
Video Hardware abstraction now provided to remove dependency on VIDC and IOMD architectures.
VideoHWVIDC provides the entire hardware driver for video. VideoSW provides the software implementation of certain graphical operations. .
To work along side this suitable graphics cards can now provide EDID monitor support.
SpriteExtend has is now capable of rendering CMYK and YCbCrK JPEGs.
GIF Image File renderer now included as Unisys patent has expired.
Further enhancement to Paint and Draw packages.
e.g Paint - can now re-order sprite files.
ConvertBMP can now take CMYK sprites and convert to BMPs. .
ConvertICO can now create ICOs from multi-sprite files and CMYK sprites; sprites created from 16 colour icos are now 16 colour. .
ConvertPNG can now convert CMYK sprites to PNGs. .
Image Viewer now has support for exporting the viewed file in whatever types are known to the converter.
Internet
The Internet stack, and related components, have undergone a number of changes in order to address problems and provide new features to developers and, ultimately, users. The primary improvements have been the addition of new modules for particular Internet facilities - RouterDiscovery, InternetTime and ResolverMDNS.
Resolver has been updated to address significant issues with its implementation of expiry (i.e. it now has expiry), now provides DCI4 statistics and actually bothers to check that memory allocations succeed. .
Internet now supports multicast filtering for drivers. .
ResolverMDNS is present. Current thinking is that 'multicast DNS' is the name to use in literature - the Apple name "Rendezvous" is being phased out. .
Appearance
The WindowManager has been updated significantly. From this work, it is now possible for button icons to be 'highlighted' when the mouse is over them. This is not used by the built in borders. However, a number of new borders will be supplied which will use this feature.
The FilerSpeedBar application provides an additional topbar on filer windows using the Pane interface. It's really just a test and isn't finished. It needs a bit of a redesign as it's only used to demo the functions which work.
The FilerImageBar application provides an additional sidebar on filer windows using the Pane interface. It's not amazingly good, but it appears to work for many images. It'd need a lot more work to be functional.
Filer
Easy system recognition of registered file types.
Filer can embed panes in its windows.
Filer uses Filer$Types to set the types that can be used (use hex values, comma separated, eg 'fff,faf'). .
Toolbox
All toolbox modules should now work correctly if ResourceFS is restarted. Window toolbox module now allows an expanded range of gadget operations in order to provide greater flexibility for the range of gadgets which can be provided - in particular gadget timers, gadget redraw events and the ability to add and remove icons from a gadget during its lifetime.
New ColourSwatch gadget.
Toolbox includes support for timers.
Window provides vertical labels.
Window has much improved support for Fonts in gadgets.
ScrollList can now decode click and DataLoad positions.
TextGadget has new features to support new text area background sprite handling.
Keyboard
International Keyboard now generates different codes for left and right Meta keys. These are in order to fall in line with CTLs change to the design. Support for Multimedia Keyboards is also being developed.
Developers Tools
ResEd has been updated to support plugins for its gadgets, allowing it to be extended to use other gadgets as they become available. This is very incomplete, but works well enough to replace earlier versions. This also includes the full support for the ColourSwatch gadget.
Useful links
For information about subscribing to the Select scheme please see:
The following pages will give you some idea of the changes involved with RISC OS 4.39.
Further programmers details are available at:-.
A comparison of features between Select and RISC OS 5 can be found at.
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/SPEECH/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, Speech
Speech
RISCWorld
!Speech is a program designed to allow your computer to speak to you. !Speech can either read out text files that are dragged to the !Speech icon on the icon bar or can be used in your own programs to add speech. For example to read out the results of a calculation, or even to read out RISCWorld. !Speech is copyright Superior Microcomputing Ltd, 1991 and 1994 ,all rights reserved. This copy is supplied exclusively for the use of RISCWorld subscribers.
This is the last full version of !Speech and includes a number of improvements over earlier versions:
A new word editor which allows you to add or delete words
The exception dictionary now includes over 4000 "words" giving much improved speech.
Supports interactive help via the !Help application. .
Accented characters are now accepted. (In the Dictionary file, accented characters are included in the "other" section.) .
Four new phonemes have been added for use with foreign languages. These are "NQ, OO, UI and UR". See the !Help file in the !Speech! application for further details on these phonemes
!Using Speech with PenDown
In order to over-ride the speech module in either "Talking Pendown" or "Full Phases", first load in that program, then double-click on a Speech! module on your working disc, either the Speech! module provided in the !Speech! application directory (double-click on the !Speech! application with the Shift key held down in order to open that directory), or your own modified Speech! module.
Word Editing
Speech! Version 2 contains a new user-friendly word editor, which allows you to add (or delete) "separate words". By "separate word" is meant a word which is preceded and followed by a space. (Such words appear in the dictionary as "word< > ".) .
The phoneme definition for a "separate word" only applies to that word and no derivatives (e.g. the plural) with the exception of 's. Punctuation (including ') is taken by the program as being equivalent to a space.
To illustrate the above, take as an example a word such as "cat". Using the new editor one can include a definition for cat as a "separate word". The definition will then always apply if the word "cat" appears, provided there is a space or punctuation before and after. It would not apply to words such as "cats" or "tomcat", which would have to be entered separately using the editor. .
To edit a dictionary file, drop it on the Icon Bar or into any Speech! window. Enter the word into the Word input box, using lower case letters.
When RETURN is pressed, the Editor searches the dictionary file in memory. If a match is found as a "separate word", then the phoneme definition will appear in the Previous box, and also in the Phonemes box ready for editing.
The caret will be placed at the end of the phoneme string. If the word could not be found as a "separate word", then the phoneme definition will be presented in the Phonemes box. In both cases the word will be spoken.
Pressing RETURN from the Phonemes box will also speak the phonemes.
Alternatively, click on the little "speaker" icons to hear either the current phonemes for the word, or, if present, the Previous phonemes. This is useful for comparison purposes when editing the phonemes in the Phonemes box. Phonemes must be entered in upper case letters. The up/down cursor keys can be used to move between the Word and Phoneme boxes.
The grid in the lower part of the Editor window lists all 52 phonemes. Use SELECT to enter the phoneme into the Phonemes string or ADJUST to hear the phoneme.
(You can drop text files on to the icon bar as normal and also on to the Editor window. This will take you back to control mode and open the Control window. If the dictionary file in memory has been modified, then an error box will give you the opportunity to cancel the text load and hence save the modified module/dictionary.).
The option buttons have the following functions:
Add - used to add a word/phoneme combination to the dictionary file in memory. If the word already existed as a "separate word", then this will display Change instead of Add, because you would be changing the phonemes used for this word.
Delete - used to delete a "separate word" from the dictionary file in memory.
Quit - used to exit the dictionary editor. If the dictionary file in memory has been modified, you will be warned via an error dialogue box. Save - pops up the Save dialogue box, which operates as normal. The Save box can also be accessed via the menu system as with most other applications. .
The dictionary file is automatically updated when you save the new Speech! module, so some care has to be taken in determining where files are kept in order to avoid disc errors (e.g. removing the disc the dictionary file was loaded from). The Speech! module in the !Speech! application is not updated. Remember, you can use !Help to assist you.
Changing the Dictionary
If you wish simply to add words to the dictionary as "separate words" then use the editing feature described in the Edit_Help file in the root directory. The procedure described here is used to make more fundamental changes and should be used with care. To produce a new Speech! module from a modified dictionary, simply drop the dictionary file on to the icon bar or any Speech! window, and then use the Editor Save option. However, please note that the Speech! module in the !Speech! application is not automatically updated by this procedure. If you wish the default Speech! module in the !Speech! application to be changed to the new modified Speech! module, then simply copy the new Speech! module to that directory by the usual procedure. This should only be done on your working disc and not on the original program disc.
All the words are put in alphabetical order. The group called "other" is used by anything that doesn't start with "a" to "z" i.e. "0-9, =, +" etc., and also accented characters.
All entries are in the following format:
"(user input)_(Speech! phoneme output)|"
The input always has to be in lower case. The "_" divides the input and the output of the translation, and the "|" divides each entry.
To translate the word "ARE" you might use the entry:
"are_AA4AX|" in the ".aa" group.
Whenever "Speech!" finds the text "are/ARE" in you *SAY command then it will be translated into "AA4AX" and sent to the *SPEAK command.
To build up a more complicated rule set, you can include checking for before and after characters.
To check for a space either side of the "ARE" use the entry:
"are _AA4AX|" in the ".aa" group.
The "<" means before and ">" means after. The "<" must always be before the ">" if both are to be included.
The characters for "<" must be read from right to left, for example, to make the "S" in the the word "RIVERS" sound like a "Z" use the entry:
"s _Z|" in the ".ss" group.
This will first find the "S", then back-track finding the "R" then the "E".
If the parser then finds a space to the right of the "S" then a match has been found. If no longer fitting entry can be matched, then this one is used.
You can use wildcard characters, but only in the "<" & ">" checking stage.
".>*_POY7NT|" in the ".other" group will check for any number to the right of the "." If there is one, then say "POINT"
"a>#e_AY|" will check for a consonant after the "A" followed by an "E".
If correct then speech will say the "A" as in "TAME"
"i>#ing_IY4|" will check for a consonant after the "I" followed by "ING".
This is for words like "WRITING".
"the> @_DHEE|" will check for a word starting with a vowel after the word "THE"
The "\" means check for the same character again, for example:
"ed<#\_D|" will check for two consonants that are the same before the "ED". For instance, this entry will be true for "slaMMED" .
If a word (either a letter or a group of letters) is satisfied by more than one input definition, then the longer input definition (ignoring the < and > symbols, but including spaces) will take precedence. If two or more input definitions which satisfy the word are the same length, then the first that appears will take precedence.
Try to put wildcarded entries near the end of each group so that all the exceptions will be found first.
For convenience when using the word editing facility, all the "separate words" in a group are placed at the start of that group.
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/USB/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, USB on the Iyonix
USB on the Iyonix
Matt Thompson
Universal Serial Bus - or USB for short, is an interface standard which allows the communication between a computer and external devices over a cable using bi-serial transmission. USB was designed in an attempt to standardise the connection of devices to computers, replacing the serial port, parallel port and any other interfaces with just the one type of connection - the USB connection.
This article is about using USB devices purely on the Iyonix. How well USB devices work on other RISC OS machines I don't know as I don't have access to any other RISC OS machines with USB, maybe someone else would like to take up that challenge?
The recent updates to the USB drivers from Castle have improved USB a great deal. Many devices which previously failed now work, and if you have a device that does not work then let Castle know about it. As in the case of my MP3 player. I lent it to them to test it with an Iyonix and they got it working, a very good way of getting it to work.
Using USB devices with the Iyonix is very easy. Simply plug it in to one of the USB ports on the Iyonix and an icon will now appear on the icon bar, as shown in the screenshot below :
Now double click on this new icon and its filer window will open, just like a normal RISC OS filer window. The devices are like portable hard discs, plug them in, save files onto them then unplug them and store them elsewhere, very good for hard disc back-up and for keeping important files secure.
There is a known bug in the SCSI drivers/SCSI-FS which with some pen drives, when you click on the drive icon you will see the error message "The disc drive is empty" - if your pen drive gives this error just click 'OK' and ignore it, click on your drive icon again and the filer window will now appear. Castle are aware of this problem, and it is on the 'to do' list, so will hopefully be fixed at some point in the future.
I currently have two USB devices, an MP3 player and a Pen drive, both operate in the same way. Plug them in and then move the files to and from the hard disc and the USB device, simply by dragging them and dropping them into the relevant filer window.
The Iyonix has 4 USB ports as standard, two at the front and two at the back. This is OK to start with but the more devices you obtain, the more ports you will need. Two of them are used by the Keyboard and Mouse , so that is two gone already, and if you add a printer that leaves jus one spare USB port, not a lot of use really, so this is where you will need a USB hub.
A USB hub is a device which plugs into any USB port and contains a number of additional USB ports. The one I have has 4 additional ports, so with this plugged in I have 7 available USB ports. Make sure that if you have USB2 that you have a USB2 hub and a USB1 hub if you are still using USB1. This might sound obvious, but it never occurred to me to that I was using a USB1 hub. So when I upgraded from USB1 to USB2 the speed increase was lost, so make sure you have the right one!
One of the programs supplied with the Iyonix is !USBinfo. This application does exactly what it says in the filename! It gives information on USB! It will look at the USB system in your Iyonix, and can give information on the USB devices currently installed, and can display them in a graphical diagram. When new devices are plugged in !USBinfo will notice this and add them to the diagram. The screenshot below shows the USB devices currently connected to my Iyonix.
From this diagram you can see that in USB port 1 is my KVM switch, this has the mouse and keyboard connected to it. In USB port 2 there is my USB hub which has attached to it my printer, and MP3 player. Finally in USB port 3 there is my pen drive, USB port 4 is empty and is not shown.
If you will be transferring a lot of files to and from USB devices, it is worth considering the USB 2 upgrade if your Iyonix does not have it already. It is standard now but early machines did not have it. The upgrade is available from Castle for £29.95 and is the first chargeable upgrade they have made.
The average data transfer rate of USB2 is usually about 480Mb/s whereas before with USB1 it was about 12Mb/s - so it is a significant increase. The upgrade to USB 2 is highly recommended and the speed of file transfer is instantly noticeable. (It's very rare for any USB device to reach the maximum rate of 480Mb/s - ED).
Making MP3s For Your MP3 Player
So now we have an MP3 player to use with RISC OS, but how do you get make these MP3s in the first place ? I use two programs !Musicman from RComp Interactive and !ID3TagEd to give the MP3 an identity.
Making an MP3 using !Musicman is a straight forward procedure, place the CD in the drive, then click on 'Scan CD' the contents of the CD will now be displayed as shown below :
This is the contents of CD2 of the New Order singles collection, a very good album indeed!
The next stage is to select which tracks you want to make into MP3s. So using the mouse click on the required track number using Select, if you want to make MP3s of multiple tracks then use the Adjust button, this is shown in the screenshot below, in which I have chosen 5 tracks to make into MP3s.
Now click on "Make MP3s" and sit back and wait for the machine to make the MP3s. This can take some time but is not a long job, Musicman can be set to do the MP3 encoding in either multitasking mode or single tasking mode, either works fine, but the single task mode gets the job done quicker. When the MP3s have been created they will be in a directory, which will look something like this :
Next thing to do is to move them into the directory you want to keep them in and it is also recommended (although not vital) to give them their proper name to avoid confusion, but you must make sure that the MP3 always has /mp3 in the filename otherwise the MP3 player will not be able to recognise what the file is - I'm speaking from experience here!! The next stage is to give the MP3s an ID tag as otherwise when you play them in MP3 players they will be called something like 'Track8', and this is where the program !ID3TagED comes in.
!ID3TagED is a newly released program which allows ID3 tags for MP3 files to be created, these ID tags contain information about the MP3 - you can download the latest version from
On loading up the program you will see the main program screen, now drag into it one of the newly created MP3s. You can now enter the relevant details for that particular MP3, when you have entered all the required details, click on the 'Write Tag' option and the job is done, the screen display below shows one that I made earlier !
There are two different types of MP3 ID tags, V1 tags are what we have looked at here, the simple basic ID tags. With V2 tags you can fit in much more information including longer song titles, all the ID tags both V1 and V2 that I have created using !ID3TagED displayed correctly on my MP3 player.
Now with the finished MP3, load up a suitable MP3 player, such as !AMplayer, and you will see that when it plays the tune the MP3s ID tag will be displayed.
It also possible on the Iyonix to make MP3s from vinyl recordings, using the program !AudioIn, the track will be sampled and a WAV file will be created, then using !MusicMan you can convert it from a WAV file into an MP3 file.
This article was purely intended as quick guide to making an MP3 under RISC OS, and hopefully that aim has been achieved. If you get stuck or want some assistance with the subjects covered then drop me an email at iyonix@riscos.org and I will help out if I can.
Matt Thompson
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/VA/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, VirtualAcorn Tech Support
VirtualAcorn Tech Support
More from Aaron's tech support notebook
Once again we've had an interesting couple of months on the tech support calls. We have also had a customer provide a solution to a long term VirtualAcorn problem.
VA Displaying the wrong time
There has been a problem for as long as I can remember with overseas copies of VirtualAcorn, especially those in New Zealand and Australia. The problem is simple. The PC is configured to the correct time zone, Windows shows the correct time, but VirtualAcorn shows the wrong time. What made the problem more difficult was that different people seemed to have different times displayed. Sometimes things were 1 hour out, sometimes 2 and sometimes 12 hours out. To make matters more confusing some machines seemed to be OK and the problem couldn't be reproduced by any of us.
So I was stumped. In the end I decided it must be something "odd" with the PCs concerned. If I had engaged my brain I would have realised what the problem was, especially when I discovered that if the problem PCs were set to GMT, but with the correct local time selected, the problem went away. Can you see what's causing the problem? It's actually blindingly obvious when you realise, but let me give a little explanation of what we thought VirtualAcorn was doing.
The principle of what VirtualAcorn is doing is simple enough. It takes the time from Windows and passes it to RISC OS. RISC OS then uses this time and displays it as appropriate on whatever format is required, for example as a time shown on the icon bar by Alarm. So what could possibly go wrong?
Well if you think back to what I said earlier the answer is obvious. Windows is set to a correct local time zone and shows the correct time. RISC OS running on VirtualAcorn shows the wrong time. In actual fact the time in VirtualAcorn isn't wrong, it's correct. Correct for the UK anyway. What's actually happening is that Windows sends the unadjusted time, rather than the local time, to VirtualAcorn. So when RISC OS displays the time it is shown for the UK. This is why machines in countries with a different time zone would show the wrong time in RISC OS.
Why I didn't think of this I have no idea. The answer was provided by a customer at the recent South East show. The minute he started explaining how he had solved the problem I had to hit my head, it was so obvious. The solution is to set RISC OS up to the correct territory/timezone. This is easily done under VRPC-Adjust using the Date and Time configuration option from the main Configure window.
Configuring the timezone on RISC OS Adjust
Users of RISC OS 4 on VirtualRPC-SE will need to alter the timezone from the command line. To do this press F12 and type:
*Configure Timezone +/-<hours>:<minutes>
So for example if you are 1 hour ahead of the time in the UK the setting would be:
*Configure Timezone + 1:00
For 12 hours ahead it would be:
*Configure Timezone + 12:00
And for 8 hours behind:
*Configure Timezone - 8:00
This makes perfect sense and solves one of the longest running strange VirtualAcorn errors, all thanks to a logical and experienced RISC OS user.
ShareFS and floppy drives
Back in Volume 5 Issue 2 I covered some aspects of floppy drives under VirtualAcorn. I included details on how to use an external USB floppy drive to read and write DOS formatted floppies. Of course these drives can't read Acorn format discs, but there is a clever little workaround that can help in some circumstances.
For this little trick to work you will need a network and at least one machine that has a floppy disc drive that can be used by RISC OS. This doesn't have to be a "real" machine, it could be a desktop PC running VirtualRPC, or it could be an Iyonix, or a RiscPC, it really doesn't matter. What we are going to do is network the floppy drive from the machine that has it, so the drive can be used by the machine with no floppy drive, clever eh?
In my test rig in the office I used a desktop PC running VRPC-SE and a laptop, with no floppy drive, running VRPC-Adjust. The first thing to do is make sure that all the machines have ShareFS enabled on them, both any real machine and any virtual one. You can easily see if ShareFS is enabled by looking for the discs icon on the icon bar.
The ShareFS discs icon on the icon bar
Information on setting up ShareFS and on networking is in the VirtualAcorn manual, so I'm not going to reproduce it here. So I am going to assume that both machines have ShareFS running on them and that both machines can see each others harddiscs. If you find that the machines can't see each other then check that a Windows firewall hasn't blocked access from/to VirtualRPC.
So I have two machines, a desktop PC running VRPC-SE with an internal floppy drive, and a laptop running VirtualRPC-Adjust with no floppy drive. Both copies of RISC OS have ShareFS enabled and can see each others harddrives. So we now need to fiddle ShareFS so that the laptop can see the desktop machines drive and use it under RISC OS.
On the desktop PC (the one with the floppy drive) make sure a RISC OS floppy is inserted and simply press F12 and type:
Share ADFS::0.$ Floppy
And press return. If you get an error message then either you typed the command wrongly or you forgot to put a floppy in the disc drive, type the command again and press return. Press return one final time to go back to the desktop. If you now click on the discs icon on the desktop PC you will see the shared floppy disc icon:
The Shared floppy disc icon in the middle
If you now move over to the laptop and do the same you will also see a floppy disc icon in the list of shared discs. Double click on it and a new disc icon will appear on the laptops icon bar, this new disc will be called floppy. If you click on this disc drive you should hear the floppy drive in the desktop PC start up and after a few seconds a floppy drive window will open on the laptop. You can now read and write files from the floppy drive in the desktop machine on the laptop. See, I said it was clever.
As well as reading and writing files you will also be able to install some software from an original floppy disc onto the laptop. The reason I say "some" software is that some installers run across multiple discs, which won't work. Some other installers assume they are running on ADFS::0.$, which they aren't, these will also fail. However all isn't lost in these cases, all that's required is a little thought. Instead of accessing the floppy from the laptop, you can access the laptops RISC OS harddisc from the desktop. So from the desktop open the Laptops harddisc via ShareFS and simply install the software to that, instead of to the local harddisc.
The final thing to note is that the new floppy drive won't recognise the disc being swapped. In order to change discs you will need to remove the floppy share, to do this press F12 and type:
UnShare Floppy
And press return. Now change the floppy disc and then reshare the floppy drive with the new floppy disc inserted.
This technique can prove very useful, not just on VirtualAcorn but also with one of the new cheaper Iyonix machines that doesn't have a floppy drive.
I have put two obey files in the VirtualAcorn section of the software directory. One will turn on a shared floppy drive, the other will turn it off.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE4/VIDEO/INDEX.HTM Issue 4, Digital Video Books
Digital Video Books
David Bradforth rounds up some recent books guiding you into the realms of digital video
While it's fair to say that RISC OS users editing video these days are probably few and far between, there is software support out there if you're willing to look for it. Computer Concepts and EIDOS partnered up many years ago to release EIDOScope, an entry level editing system that made use of Optima within an enthusiast-priced hardware/software bundle.
Given that the software sold for under £200 when new, we'd recommend that you don't pay anymore than £80 second hand; especially given that there are more than a few issues when using it with current hardware and operating systems.
As RISC OS technology gets more powerful, we may start to see some of the open source solutions making there way across and given that flash-based digital camcorders are making their way onto market there is nothing to stop any RISC OS user getting in to digital video.
We'll start a new series on that next time, taking a look at what's needed - if you have any questions in the meantime please email me and we'll make sure they're answered. Now, to move onto the books...
Digital Video and DVD Authoring, Jeff Sengstack - SAMS Publishing - £24.99
There's no shortage of books aiming to introduce readers to different aspects of computing. The Teach Yourself series, published by SAMS, offers a very similar structure to magazines such as Windows XP Made Easy and DVEasy by blending simple jargon-free advice with detailed explanations of topics that are a little more complicated but necessary within the context of a market.
In Digital Video and DVD Authoring, the author takes you through everything from the choices to make when buying a new camcorder through to storyboarding and editing video. The focus is on PC applications, with Windows Movie Maker, Pinnacle Studio, Premiere Elements and Premiere Pro covered in depth, but the majority of the topics covered are easily portable to other editors and indeed other computers.
Once you've edited your videos, it's time to pass them to others so the explanation within the book moves on to DVDs and the Internet, showing easy ways with which you can share movies with your friends and family and the world at large.
The step-by-step approach taken by the author is used to good effect, providing an instant familiarity with the subject; and the buying advice given at the front of the book seems to come from the point of view of somebody who's actually carried it out in practice. You'll benefit from the experience of the author by adding this book to your collection, particularly if you've yet to buy a digital camcorder - the practical advice given should save you from buying a dud piece of kit.
Overall - A good book explaining principles as well as actions, equally useful for Mac and RISC OS users despite the PC focus
Digital Video with Windows XP, Greg Perry - SAMS Publishing - £17.99
Digital Video with Windows XP is a quickstart guide to the world of digital video editing. Walking the reader through everything they need to know, the author explains some of the most basic mistakes and how to resolve them with a Windows XP system.
Starting from making upgrades to your computer to get the best out of it, Perry makes some simple recommendations that generally improve the performance of your PC in any sense, not just Digital Video. From upgrading the memory, to increasing the storage space of your hard disk, once the introductions are over Perry moves squarely into the Digital Video field.
There's plenty of tips here on shooting quality video, getting all of the right shots and maximising your shooting time. Then once you get home, you've got the ability to edit video like a pro using Windows Movie Maker (part of Windows XP) and a variety of other applications.
The advice given here is often very simple, but it's the sort of stuff you wouldn't necessarily think about so it's useful to have it all in print. As with the other book, the simple step-by-step layout with all jargon explained makes the book instantly accessible to all; and the way it's presented to the reader makes it a joy to read.
At under £20, Digital Video with Windows XP is a cheap introduction to the subject that may provide more than a few helpful hints for seasoned professionals too.
Overall - Digital Video with Windows XP is a good book, clearly explaining some of the things beginners may do while setting up their digital video system. While it has a focus on Windows XP, a good number of our readers are using VirtualRPC, and they can benefit from the advice the book offers in practice using the native operating system and in theory using RISC OS. Some of you may have issues with the focus on the Windows XP operating system.
Real World Digital Video, Pete Shaner & Gerald Everett Jones - Peachpit Press - £37.99
With somewhat more of a professional focus, the Real World Digital Video offering from Peachpit looks at DV with the view of a professional publishing medium. With that stated on the cover, it was surprising to open the book and discover what is essentially a complete and comprehensive guide to the subject.
Working through all the phases of the digital production process, from renting/buying gear to making sure you buy the correct equipment for whatever the job is you have in hand. The book then continues with an exploration of the techniques you can use while filming and editing to produce business presentations, feature films and much more besides.
A DVD is provided with the book, containing a number of how-to videos, advice from experts, demo software and resources and while it adds to the value of the content of the book; like many resources of this type it will quickly be put to one side. Particularly for RISC OS users - the content is very heavily PC-focused and the vast majority of RISC OS users do not have a DVD drive installed in their system anyway.
The authors provide through this title a simple exploration of the commercial aspects of digital video. Both are professionals in the field, and it shows both through the clear explanations of the topics and the passion they share for it. While the pages are, at times, a little wordy everything is presented in a clear and concise fashion making it very difficult to lose track of the subject.
Overall - A good introduction to the professional side of digital video, exploring most things that will come up during the process. Given that the RISC OS platform has had perhaps one professional editing package, Optima, it will have relevance to very few people within the market. However it's a well-produced package that's also a very good read and hence could be a good way to explore professional principles. It is however a little expensive.
