ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/ADJUST/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, Configuring RISC OS Adjust
Configuring RISC OS Adjust
David Bradforth concludes his look at the RISC OS Adjust Configuration system.
Over the last few issues we've taken you through the different elements of the RISC OS Adjust configuration system. The operating system has never been so customisable, and what this means in practise is that RISC OS allows the user to set up their computer pretty much just how they want it.
While Windows XP and Mac OS X have similar functionality, it's not so easily available or supported by plugins from users to expand what it does. RISC OS has an open standard for its configuration interface, and you can add to it - if you wish - with a BASIC program. Can you say that of Windows XP or Mac OS X?
We've got two sections left - Logging and Network. We'll start with the former.
Logging
The Logging section provides control over a number of different aspects of the systems logging behaviour. This is most useful for tracking the boot sequence and system errors; and the resulting a text file can be sent via email to anybody offering help or assistance with a problem.
Clicking the Logging icon opens this window.
The Logging window is one of the few within RISC OS Adjust that is relatively self-contained, in that each aspect of the feature is controllable from within the one window. We'll deal with this by working our way from the top of the window down.
Clicking in the menu field next to Log opens a drop-down menu allowing you to view the logs currently available on the system. You can switch between log files by selecting the one you wish to use from the menu.
If the Enabled field is ticked it means that that particular log is active. Deactivating a log will disable logging to that log, but will not affect any other system settings.
The Delete field, when selected, will delete the configuration from the system (and hence disable future logging to that file) but will leave the file in tact on your hard disc.
The New Log button allows you to create a new log based upon the default settings. Clicking the New Log button opens this window.
Enter a name into the space provided then click Create to close the window. If you change your mind click Cancel and the window closes without any further action.
The Rename Log button opens this window.
To rename the current log change the name within the Log window and click Rename. If you change your mind click Cancel and the window closes without any further action.
Show displays the log entries for the current log in a new window; if nothing happens when the button is clicked this means that there is nothing to display.
The Status button opens an Edit window displaying status information about the current log. If you click with Adjust, details are provided on all currently active logs. If no window appears, the log has not yet been defined and you should first click Set or Save.
The Logging Destination section determines whether logging information should be stored locally or sent to another machine, whether on a local network or an FTP site. Select Log to local machine to store the log locally. If you're sharing the file with a UNIX-based server, select Log to remote machinethen the appropriate facility from the drop-down menu. The facility setting tells the server where to place the file.
The Reports section determines the amount of information provided in a log, and whether duplicate files should be counted or listed individually.
The Maximum Size of Log setting determines whether logs should be allowed to grow to any size, or whether an upper memory limit should be put into place.
Finally, the Log storage options determine whether logs should be held in memory or saved to disc, and whether a disc cache should be used in the latter case. With a disc cache enabled the disc write process is that little bit quicker, which can make all the difference on a busy machine.
At the bottom of the window are four buttons.
Show Files opens a directory display showing the log files stored on disc. These can be deleted if you do not require them. Note that if you delete a log from the settings window you can also remove the files from the disc, as they will no longer be updated by the configuration utility
Set allows you to apply the current selection. With Select you can apply it to the log file displayed in the window, while Adjust applies appropriate settings to all log files known to the SysLog setup
Cancel performs two functions. If you click it with Select you can close the window without configuring the selections. With Adjust you can reset the selections to the displayed log to their previous settings
Save allows you to accept the settings for all log files and save them to disc. If you click on it with Select the window is then closed; with Adjust the window stays open
If you click with Menu above the System Logging Configuration a menu opens with a sub-menu Re-Scan Logs. The window looks like this:
Whichever option you select the log files are re-scanned into memory. Any changes you make but have not saved may be lost in the process.
Network
If you wish to use your computer as a part of any network, the Network section of RISC OS Adjust will prove to be one of the most important within RISC OS. Whether it's to use your computer on the Internet or as a part of a local network (via a network interface card (NIC)) everything you need to configure is located within here.
What follows are very brief, simple, explanations for each window. If you are not familiar with computer networking there are various publications and web sites that can guide you through the process properly or your dealer/software supplier should be in a position to help.
If you click on the Network icon the following window appears:
Whereas RISC OS 4 had three sections to configure AUN, Access and Internet, RISC OS Adjust has ten different sections corresponding to different aspects of your systems setup. Working from left to right, then top to bottom they are:
AUN if your computer is part of an Acorn server-based network, using the AUN protocol allows you to login to, and download files from, the server. AUN stands for Acorn Universal Networking, and essentially handles Ethernet connections driven by Acorns Level 4 Fileserver software
Firewall if RISC OS computers had taken over the world, it wouldn't be PCs being hacked for personal data, it'd be our Risc PC 4: Monicas. As such RISC OS Adjust includes a firewall; for the moment to enable it you have to read through and edit the contents of a script. Given the chance of your RISC OS computer being hacked by somebody who'd actually be able to anything with it is slim you can probably forget this element of Adjust
Hosts provides control over the hosts RISC OS recognises
Interfaces allows you to configure any hardware network interfaces built into the computer
MimeMap opens a window allowing you to configure the different types of mime encoded files that may come into your system and to set suitable RISC OS aliases for them. Examples include Word documents, that could load into TechWriter. Do not change this file if you are unsure as of the result. It is used by applications such as Messenger Pro and FTP and could stop them working correctly.
NetFS allows you to control the NetFS filing system. Can mostly be ignored
OmniClient if you have OmniClient installed, RISC OS can connect to a PC network; and given recent additions to Mac OS X it can also connect to Mac computers on the same network. If such facilities had existed a few years ago, producing Acorn magazines would have been somewhat easier
Resolver provides control over the domain name system on your network
Routing allows you to specify the routing of the Internet connection
ShareFS provides control over the Access+ ShareFS system
One of the few confinements of Virtual Acorn is that the whole of the Network section is pretty much irrelevant. As such, I'm limited in the explanation that can be provided as to how to configure it accurately. I would however say that if you're looking to connect your RISC OS computer to other RISC OS computers, buy two network cards on eBay and plug them into each other, then enter
*SHARE ADFS::HardDisc4.$ MyDisc
*SHARE ADFS::HardDisc4.$.MyOtherDisc
Once on each machine. You'll then find each hard disc available to the other computer through the Discs icon.
So far as configuring an Internet connection, use an all in one connection kit such as that provided by R-Comp or contact a dedicated RISC OS-aware ISP (such as Orpheus) and you' ll have all the help and assistance required to connect your computer to the Internet.
R-Comp are at www.rcomp.co.uk, and Orpheus are at www.orpheusinternet.co.uk.
Welcome to another DiscWorld column. One again we are giving away a full copy of a commercial program. Regular readers may remember that some time ago we gave away a copy of XStitch2, well this time we have gone one better and are giving everyone a full version of XStitch Sovereign.
XStitch Sovereign - worth £29
The latest version in APDLs range of XStitch design products. Includes all the features of XStitch 2 and lots lots more including:
Support for Anchor & DMC thread colours
Quicker chart generation
Scale sprites to fit the canvas size
Importation of JPEG, GIFF, TIFF files
Make canvasses from scratch
Save out designs in XSCanvas format so they can be edited later
Full canvas editing and drawing tools, including boxes, lines, circles etc
Undo option to recover from mistakes
Copy sections of the canvas around
Flip both vertically and horizontally
New on screen colour manual
New minimise colour option so that only the colours used in the design are shown
All features are available from easy to use button/tool bars
OLE sprite editing using !Paint
Print out designs and reference charts
Scale printed design size in units of 5% to save wasting paper
WYSIWYG preview mode, shows what your design will look like when stitched including backstitch
Improved canvas display with anti-aliasing
User selectable grid colour, backstitch colour and symbol colour which can be changed on the fly
New skein count routine, no need to guess the amount of thread needed
Motif tool, use the built in motifs, select the one you want and just add it to your design using any colour
Create your own motifs easily and quickly and save them for later use
Add text to your canvas using any available outline font
Two undo types - either undo a whole operation in one go, or undo 1 stitch at a time (up to 3800 stitches)
Faster canvas editing (up to twice the speed of XStitch2)
Much easier to resize a source image up or down without losing aspect ratio
Supports paper sizes up to A3 (in both portrait and Landscape)
Full time on-line help available on the tool bar
Customise the user experience, this alters both estimated stitching time & skein count
Set the brightness of 256 colour images when imported
Directly import Drawfiles (as well as Sprites, JPEG, Windows bitmap, GIFF e.t.c)
Faster screen redraw and faster printing too
Requires Risc Os 3.1 or later, a hard disk and 2Mb of RAM. !ChangeFSI is used for some image processing
"..amazing...a class product...highly recommended!" Acorn User Sept 9
"...very impressive..." Mr W. Mora
"...clever piece of software - mother in law very happy!" Mr W. Nottingha
"...does a very good job..." Mr S. Readin
"Brilliant!" Mrs W. Hert
"Having used other stitching formats on a PC there is no comparison...brilliant" Mr C. Susse
"Brilliant! works with an A5000 like a dream." Mr S. Stockport
The complete DiscWorld line up
As per usual we have our collections of the latest RISC OS games and applications, as well as support files for this issues articles. So the full DiscWorld line up looks something like this:
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
SWShow
Photos from the recent South West 2006 show.
ToolBox
This contains two sets of Toolbox Modules. The Castle archive contains the latest 26/32 bit neutral system components, required if you want to run a lot of new software releases on 26bit machines. 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. We have also included copies of SharedUnixLib and UnixHome as these are needed by some programs.
VA
new version of the VirtualAcorn Windows Controller.
Wake
PDF document with directions and other useful info.
XSSOV
Full version of XStitch Sovereign.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/EBAY1/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, eBay: Know your Buyer
Know your buyer
The value of finding out about the people you sell to
Buying and selling on eBay is an extremely popular way to shop for many Internet users, but still has a certain stigma attached to it that may concern new users.
This is perfectly normal, considering you don't actually know the person you're selling to or buying from. You may be concerned that either they won't pay up, or they won't send you the product you've bought. eBay has addressed these problems and put certain systems in place in order to help you should this occur, but in the meantime there are some things you can do to help reduce the chances of problems cropping up.
Like large chain stores that build reputations by establishing a name and basing much of their marketing on customer satisfaction and word of mouth, eBay has a similar process to help you judge the buyer or seller.
Based on other user experiences and comments, you and all other eBay users have the opportunity to rate the people that buy from you and sell to you based on how they behave, whether they have accurately described the product and how quickly the sale or purchase was made.
Over time, these reputations can be built up and eBay users are allocated a star rating based on the quality of their service. You receive (or lose) points for positive and negative comments, and eventually are allocated a coloured star to reflect the quality of service you offer. There's also a 'Feedback Forum', where you can read comments written on different eBayers by those that have taken part in a transaction with them.
This will not only help you judge other people, but also provide you with feedback on your own activities, so you know what you've done right or wrong. Experienced eBay users take these ratings very seriously, and you'll find you are far more likely to get additional bids for items you put up for sale if you are rated well by others.
Once you've established yourself on the site, you can also create a list of pre-approved buyers, people you've dealt with before, people with good reputations or those you know and trust. Those not on the list must email you for permission to bid, which allows you to find out a bit about them first and may help reduce the chances of problems later.
Here, we're going to give you an overview of how the feedback service works on eBay. Over the next few issues, we'll be looking more in-depth at how auction sites in general use the feedback system, and how you can get it working to your advantage when it comes to selling your wares online.
The Importance of Feedback
01: Feedback Forum - Users logging into eBay commonly check the 'Feedback Forum' to find out what people have said about them and how their reputation is holding up. This is available at the bottom of any page ' scroll down and click on the link.
02: Feedback information - This page gives you some more information about the 'Feedback Forum', and you'll see links for either replying to current feedback or leaving new feedback. You can also view your member profile from here, to see how you're getting on.
03: User Information - If you're viewing the forum or replying to feedback you've received, you'll see that each username is highlighted as a link. You can click on a name to find out more information about the user, including feedback and star ratings.
04: User feedback - You'll now see a list of feedback for this user, which you can scroll through to see what their service has been like. As we're looking to get to know our buyer, click the 'From Sellers' link to see how other people rate their service.
05: Profile information - The 'Member Profile' at the top of the page has summary information on the member's feedback from other users, summarising the positive and negative feedback and splitting the comments into recent and long-term responses.
06: Favourite sellers - If this information has convinced you that this person is someone you'd be happy selling to, you can add them to your 'Favourites' list by clicking the link on the right, or contact the member for more information by clicking on the button provided.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/EBAY2/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, eBay: Keep your eBay Listings legal
Keep your eBay listings legal
We take a closer look at what's not allowed and why.
When you first discover eBay, it can feel as though there's nothing you can't buy on this enormous site.
But, as with everything else, there are rules to be obeyed and so there are some things that simply can't be put up for sale. The rules and regulations tell us selling 'stolen items' is right out, as is making cash from 'drugs and drug paraphernalia' and 'counterfeit currency and stamps'. No surprises there then, and it's not as if you really need to be told.
However, the list of banned items is lengthy, and some of what you can't sell is a little less obvious. For instance, try to flog an unwanted airline ticket and you'll see your auction pulled. The reason being that you can't sell plane flights unless you have an ATOL number. Reselling football tickets is also a legal minefield, and one that eBay has decided to avoid by banning the sale of any tickets for matches in England and Wales.
But considering there are thousands of items being sold on eBay every day, you might think it pretty unlikely that the powers that be will ever spot banned items being sold. You'd be wrong. The site's staff is on the ball when it comes to picking off members posting up items that are against the rules. On top of that, there are also the massed ranks of eBay regulars, who don't take kindly to rogue traders trying to ruin things for everyone. Every eBayer has access to an item-reporting screen, where anything that goes against policy can be flagged up for the staff to deal with. If you see anything you think qualifies, go to http://pages.ebay.co.uk//help/contact_inline/index.html to report it.
Don't worry though. We all make mistakes; if you put something up for sale without realising it contravenes the rules, eBay will simply take the item down and give you a warning. Persistent offenders, however, will quickly find themselves booted off the site for good. To acquaint yourself with what's okay and what's not, take a look at http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/item_allowed.html.
Check your item
01: What can you sell - The quickest way to check whether your item can be sold on eBay is to go to http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/item_allowed.html. This page has a long list of the items you can't sell, as well as those that can only be sold if they meet certain conditions.
02: Tell me more - Click on any of the banned categories and you'll get more details on the reasons why eBay prohibits these items from being sold. You'll also be able to find out whether your item is actually subject to these rules; as there are some that will not be.
03: 'ere we go - eBay is a ticket tout's dream, with thousands of tickets for gigs and events going under the hammer every week. But auctions for football tickets, like this one, are not allowed. Due to the regulations around football matches, this auction will be pulled.
04: Plane wrong - Are you a registered travel agent? If not, and you don't have a valid ATOL number, then you can't sell airplane tickets on eBay. It doesn't matter whether you're looking to make a profit or not; your auction will be taken offline quicker than you can say '747'.
05: Get rich quick - The bane of email Inboxes across the world, get-rich-quick schemes are (thankfully) also banned from eBay. That doesn't stop people trying though and you'll often see these 'deals' pop up briefly. Do everyone a favour and report one if you see it.
06: Up in smoke - Unsurprisingly, the sale of cigarettes is also banned on eBay. Tobacco is one of those grey areas though; and if the item you're selling is collectable packaging that happens to have baccy in it, then you'll be okay.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/EBAY3/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, eBay: Selling tips to take you to the top!
Selling tips to take you to the top!
eBay's Community section has all the answers...
The temptation when you log onto eBay is to go mad and buy up every bargain you can find. However, there’s often more fun, not to mention more cash, to be had from setting yourself up as an online seller.
Because, while there’s certainly quite a buzz to be had from gazumping an auction at the last minute with an audacious bid, that feeling is even better when it’s your own item that’s price is being hiked into the stratosphere.
Many people are put off from selling on eBay because they think it’s too complicated or risky. Not so. Get yourself signed up with a PayPal account (so buyers can easily pay for items), then get your eBay account up and running and you’re all set to make a packet. Of course, you’ll have plenty of questions when you do start flogging stuff on eBay – which is where the Selling Forum comes in.
Part of the eBay ‘Community’ section, this message board is designed especially for newcomers to online auction selling. You can post up any questions you have and whatever you ask will be answered by those in the know. The boards are populated by plenty of helpful, experienced eBayers – there are also eBay staff members on hand to see that your query gets a quick response.
Anyone can post on the forum straight away, so long as they have an active eBay account. You’ll find the ‘New to Selling’ Help Board at this address: http://forums.ebay.co.uk/forum.jsp?forum=3002.
The Forum in Action
Things to look out for...
New Discussions - When the ‘n’ icon shows next to a topic, it means you’ve not read the thread since it started. If the ‘u’ icon is present it means that people have added replies.Replies column - Look here to see how many replies a topic has had. When you’ve posted your own message, this lets you quickly see if there have been any responses
eBay Icon - Means that one of the eBay staff members have posted on the threa
Go to log in - Before you can contribute to the discussion you’ll need to log in. Click this icon to do so, with your usual eBay user name and password
Discussion Boards - We’re viewing the ‘new sellers’ forum, but there are stacks more discussions available. Click ‘Discussion Boards’ to browse the forums available
Time for a chat?
01: Get Inside - Open the ‘Selling’ message board and you’ll see a link at the top-right which says ‘Board Log-In’. Make sure you click there first so you can log into the forums. This means you’ll be able to post replies and new topics. Your login is your eBay account details.
02: Cost vs profit - The boards are hugely popular, so you’ll find lots of different threads on each one. The blue links show the topic titles. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see page number links, which you can click on to move to a different set of threads.
03: Sound off - When you click on a topic, you’ll see the first message at the top. Scroll down the page to read all the replies. To add your own response, scroll to the bottom of the last page, type your message in the box and then click on the ‘Post Message’ button.
04: Starting up - If you’ve got a question that’s not been covered on the boards, you can start your own thread. Scroll to the bottom of the main list of threads and you’ll see the ‘Add Discussion’ button. Click here, then type your message in as with the previous step.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/EBAY4/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, eBay: Alternative payment methods
Alternative payment methods
We take a look at some of the alternatives to PayPal
For most transactions on eBay, PayPal is the perfect way to pay. It’s safe, trustworthy, secure and traceable.
However, there are alternatives to PayPal. Some sellers will accept cheques for items. If this is not stated in the “payment options” section of their listing, check with them to ensure this payment method is acceptable to them. Whether you are a buyer or a seller, you will have to wait for the cheque to clear before shipping the item.
Another method of payment is Escrow. An Escrow service is a third-party company, which holds an auction-buyer’s money until the buyer has received and approved the product. The escrow service then sends the seller the money. Escrow services usually charge a percentage of the purchase or a minimum fee for their services. Examples of escrow services are i-Escrow and TradeSafe. Don’t use any old escrow service that turns up in a Google search. eBay recommends the services of www.escrow.com; if a seller suggests using another service, be wary. If you do use another service, be sure that the company is well established, fully licensed and accredited. A list of firms suspected of being fraudulent is at www.escrowfraud.com/services.asp.
Another method of online payment is BidPay. Once you sign up with BidPay.com, you can send money orders at the press of a button. We’ll take a further look at these methods below.
01: PayPal - Simple to set up, the ‘PayPal’ personal account includes everything you need to transfer money between you and someone else. The basic services provided within the ‘Personal Account’ are free, although PayPal do charge you for receiving money regardless of whether it’s through an eBay transaction or on a personal basis.
02: Escrow - eBay recommends the services of www.escrow.com. This third-party company holds funds until the buyer is satisfied with the item. It will then release the funds to the seller. The Escrow fee is a percentage of the transaction value.
03: BidPay - BidPay is useful when purchasing from sellers located outside of the UK, as it allows buyers to send international money orders. You have to open an account first; this is free, but you’ll be charged a percentage for each transaction.
04: Cheque - You could send a cheque, via old-fashioned snailmail. The downside is you have to wait for the cheque to arrive, then wait some more for it to clear. Note that it’s nearly impossible to recover funds from cheques in the event of fraud.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/EBAY5/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, eBay: Basics of bidding on eBay
Basics of bidding on eBay
Make sure that must-have item is yours
Okay, so you’ve registered and opened an eBay account, complete with a witty and original username, nipped across to PayPal and done the same, then logged onto eBay and started your searching.
Next thing you know, it’s there before you on the monitor. Be it a rare and obscure item of nostalgia or the latest in high-tech gadgetry at a knock-down price, the object of your desire is there for the taking, so let the bidding commence. However, before jumping feet first into the bidding process, it’s well worth gaining an insight into what is involved. Very often a little knowledge and know-how can go a long way towards getting your hands on the item of your dreams, and this tutorial aims to educate you in sensible eBay bidding practice.
First, remember to read the item description extremely carefully, so you know it’s what you want. Now for a little about how eBay bidding works. eBay uses an automatic bidding system to make the process as simple and convenient as can be. When placing a bid, potential buyers enter the maximum amount they are willing to pay. This amount is strictly confidential and is not actually disclosed to other bidders.
The eBay bidding system then places bids on the user’s behalf, using only the amount necessary to keep them in the position of highest bidder. This continues until another bidder enters a higher maximum bid. If this doesn’t happen, the item is won – sometimes at an amount much lower than the maximum bid entered! Basically, this system means that users don’t have to enter lots of individual bids to take part in an auction.
A useful feature of eBay is that it keeps you informed of all the events in an auction via regular emails, which are sent confirming bids and in the event of you being outbid. Sometimes users are informed that they have been outbid immediately after a bid has been placed. This can seem confusing, especially if the amount is higher that that displayed as the highest bid. This happens if the current highest bidder has entered a maximum bid higher than that being offered. eBay itself will then prompt auction users to enter a higher maximum bid.
It’s very important to bid responsibly when using eBay, as any bid is considered to be a contract and the buyer is “legally obligated to complete the purchase”. While it’s very unlikely that you’ll end up in court, it is extremely likely that you’ll get your account suspended if you fail to make good on any winning bids.
The following step-by-step tutorial will take you through the process of bidding on an item and show you everything you need to know before trying it out for yourself.
Logging into eBay
01: Before you bid - To save time, it’s a good idea to log in before you start searching. After you’ve searched and located your item, click on the listing to open it. Take a note of the time left on the auction and the current high bid.
02: Finer Details - Check all the details carefully. Take note of any extra costs such as postage and delivery. Then check the seller’s Feedback Score by clicking the link in the ‘Seller Information’ box. If it looks okay, then proceed with the bid. The Feedback Score is an indication as to how reliable they've been, whether as a buyer or seller, during their time on eBay. This stays with them regardless of whether they change their name on eBay.
03: Ask seller a question - It’s also a good idea to ask the seller some questions before bidding. If you have any queries at all on the item you wish to bid for, click on the ‘Ask Seller a Question’ link to send him/her an email.
04: Your first bid - Scroll down to the bottom of the page. In the example here, the highest bid is £6.50 and the increment is 50p, so we’ll have to bid at least £7. Enter your maximum bid and click the ‘Place Bid’ button.
05: Confirm bid - The ‘Confirm Bid’ screen appears after you have clicked the ‘Place Bid’ button. Check all the details carefully, including the postage costs and payment methods. Once you’ve checked carefully, click ‘Confirm Bid’ to do just that.
06: It’s a success! - We now see a screen informing us that our bid was successful and that we have achieved the position of highest bidder. If this was not the case then our maximum bid would have to be increased.
07: Confirmation - Check your Inbox for an email from eBay confirming that your bid is successful and informing you that you’re the current highest bidder. Should someone outbid you, then you’ll receive email confirmation of this also.
08: Rebidding - If you do get outbid then you can bid again, raising your maximum bid. However, avoid getting drawn into a bidding war – remember the ‘winner’ in an auction is the one who gets a bargain. If you win you’ll receive an email confirmation.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/EBAY6/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, eBay: Basics of searching on eBay
Basics of searching on eBay
Save time and hassle with our handy hunting hints!
With thousands upon thousands of sales occurring at any one time on eBay, it obviously helps to be aware of, and know how to use, the extensive search options on offer.
For most purposes, the standard search will probably suffice. Just enter the name of the item you’re after in the ‘Search’ box and hit the button, after which you’ll be presented with a list of matches.
Alongside the matches is the current bid, the number of bids placed on an item and the time remaining on the auction. If the item you searched for was rare, or you entered an exact match for the name, then you’ll likely get a successful hit in the first few results. However, if you weren’t sure of the name, or wanted to see a variety of results, you can be faced with quite an extensive listing. To narrow down your matches, you should choose the ‘Advanced Search’ option, underneath the normal ‘Search’ box. This takes you to a separate ‘Search’ page, with a greater range of options to help you find exactly what it is you’re after.
The ‘Categories’ option can be extremely helpful in most circumstances, as it will allow you to search for items within a specific bracket. If you’re looking for a chair, for example, you can set it to ‘Home and Garden’, eliminating the possible matches you might get from antiques, or dolls house furniture in ‘Toys and Collectables’.
Underneath the ‘Search’ box is a ‘Search Title and Description’ tick box. By default, searches only look for matching text in the title of an auction. Always enter the most detailed description possible in your title, using as many words as you can think of that are likely to be entered when someone is looking for that particular item, or even when they’re not.
Don’t leave all the important details in your description, as the majority of eBayers will use a title search only. This way, you’ll increase the number of people who see your listing, and increase your chances of getting money!
You also have the option to sort the search results based upon ‘Time’, ‘Price’, ‘Distance’, ‘Condition’ and ‘Payment’. Use these to narrow the search even more. This is helpful if you are after something that is potentially bulky for example, because finding someone local who is selling will reduce shipping costs. Alongside these filters is a drop-down box for changing the view of the search, with settings for displaying images and item numbers.
eBay Shops have their own search options, which are accessed via the link on the left-hand menu. This will allow you to restrict searches to ‘eBay Shops’ only, which can yield results you wouldn’t otherwise get through the standard auctions.
Detailed searching methods
01: Searching - Kick off with the basic search from the main page. Type your search term into the box in the top right-hand corner and click ‘Search’. Matching items appear with all the relevant details, with up to 50 per page.
02: Categories - Time to narrow down these results. We’re not interested in high chairs, antique chairs or dolls house furniture, so selecting ‘Home and Garden’ as the search category will cut out those unnecessary matches.
03: Cost vs profit - ‘Search Completed Listings’ is a handy option that narrows down your results to auctions that have ended. Why do this? Well, it’s useful to research the potential cost or profit of an item you’re buying or selling, based on previous auctions.
04: Sort By - The ‘Sort By’ box is handy for running other specific searches. The default option is to sort by auctions which are ending soon. ‘Price: lowest first’ is great if you don’t want to spend tons of cash.
05: The distance - Since we’re looking at heavier items, the ‘Distance: nearest first’ option in ‘Sort By’ is invaluable. eBay helpfully tells you how far away each item is. Also, if you look on the left-hand menu, you’re given the option to set a distance limit.
06: Gallery results - We’re looking for posh Italian furniture, so choosing ‘Picture Gallery’ from the ‘View Results’ box displays all the matches with accompanying images, if available – saving you from having to click on each one to see what it looks like.
07: Shops search - On the left-hand menu in the ‘Search’ view, you can search for shops with a particular name. Many people make a living running their eBay shop and so they tend to be more reliable than standard auctions. A recent change to eBay has meant that many shop listings appear at the end of auction listings anyway; allowing you to choose from a huge number of additional items.
08: Shop Items - Clicking ‘Items’ in ‘Shops’ will allow you to make a detailed search of eBay Shops only, using the same tools as before. Choosing ‘Shop Inventory’ lets you find items that otherwise wouldn’t appear in a normal search.
So here I am again, writing another end of volume editorial. Did I think I was still going to be here when I took over editing RISCWorld half way through Volume 1? No. Mind you I didn't think anyone was still going to be here seven and a half years after Acorn got asset striped by a bunch of faceless suits who were after the ARM shares Acorn held. That just goes to show what I know. So is it worth me making any predictions for the next 12 months? To be honest probably not. Well, I could make predictions, but I somehow doubt that anyone would want to read them. Unless they were reading them in 2007, which, given my usual level of accuracy, could be quite embarrassing.
Instead I'm going to write a load of old twaddle thinly disguised as an editorial. I could write a "re-subscribe now" bit of text, but since it's the end of a volume we will have an article on re-subscribing anyway. I could write something about the recent newsgroup nonsense about RISC OS Select 4, but it looks like a few people simply got their wires crossed and the whole newsgroup thread was plainly a nonsense. One of those who got their information wrong has already apologised so that doesn't make much of an editorial either.
I could sing the praises of the A9 from Advantage Six, but it hasn't been fully released yet. I'd like to review Impression X, but that hasn't been released at all and I'm starting to wonder if it ever will. I'm still hoping that someone will take over Vantage, formerly published by Cerilica, but there haven't been any public announcements so far.
So I'm back trying to avoid making predictions for the coming year. I'll make a quick comment about the prices of secondhand machines. If, like me, you spend some time on eBay you will find that the prices for machines are still slowly falling. It's now possible to get a perfectly serviceable secondhand StrongARM RiscPC for under £100. I still recommend that anyone using a RiscPC gets another machine for spares, you never know if a component might fail. After all the earliest RiscPCs are now coming up for 12 years old, and even the newest ones are well outside their guarantee period. If you are lucky you might even pick up an Iyonix (they do turn up), or for the brave a Microdigital Omega.
A well known software developer and magazine publisher recently purchased a working Omega with RISC OS 4.39 and an 18" LCD monitor for just over £100 on eBay. OK, there might not be any support of the hardware fails, but in the meantime it works fine and despite having a lowly 300Mhz StrongARM it's still turns in very respectable benchmarks, it's certainly far faster than RiscPC. If £100 seems too much then I also heard of one lucky RISC OS user picking up a machine at a club auction for under £40. Now that's cheap!
Editors Rant of the month
The following is about the vehicular faith, not specifically about computing.
In the last issue I left the Beetle with the driver's seat fixed, but with the passenger seat left to do. I don't quite know why I left the story at that point, because there isn't that much more to say. Well, there is one important thing to say. For some reason the muppet who fitted the seats decided, against conventional wisdom, that one bolt would hold the passenger seat in the case of an accident. Call me old fashioned, but I would disagree. The seats were built to be fitted with three bolts, the car has space for three bolts, so the seat needs three bolts. So, just like the driver's seat, I welded up the bodged seat runners that had been cut and bent and then fitted the seat with a full compliment of bolts. See, it wasn't much of a story was it?
Anyway since then the Beetle hasn't moved, due to weather, time constraints and lazyness. When I did try and start it the other day I found that the battery was flat (I thought they were square - HJ). Charging it up revealed that it wasn't just flat, but knackered. Oh well never mind.
So let's move on to the Citroen. We have had a little spate of vehicular damage down our road in the last few weeks with a number of cars having their door mirrors snapped off. Unsurprisingly the Citroen was targeted and the driver's side mirror was snapped. Annoying, but not the end of the world. With the assistance of several yards of duct tape and a tube of epoxy glue I was able to re-attached the mirror. The result wasn't pretty but it worked.
Having fixed the mirror I decided that I really should give the car a proper clean, both inside and out. The car's inside was decorated in a light colour of traditional dog mud and fur, which needed to be removed. It only took three quarters if an hour with the hoover to get rid of most of it. Then a quick polish with Armourall had the inside gleaming and fit for human inhabitation. The outside was another matter; all the wheel arches were caked with mud. Since I still can't find our pressure washer I decided to take it to the Sainsbury pressure washer. It was shut. Never mind, Tesco is only three miles. I drove there. The pressure washer was shut. Eventually I ended up at Morrisons, this time the pressure washer was open. I had to queue for a few minutes behind a couple of chavs who were wondering why the pressure washer was removing the respray on their "lovely" kitted up Vauxhall Nova (1.0 with added GTi badges). Having had a good laugh at their expense I started cleaning the Citroen.
The pressure washer was great, it removed all the mud from the wheel arches, from the sills and everywhere else. It was so efficient it also removed the door mirror I had re-glued. Brilliant. Since I was due to drive down the the South West show the next day I simply slopped a load of glue all over the thing then taped it up. As of today (the 14th of March) it's still holding -just. I did investigate getting a new mirror, but I object to spending £140 on one. especially when the car has so many other faults. If I can find a cheap one on eBay I will get one, if not I will just have to stop washing the car. Won't that be a shame!
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
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/FSTEPS/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, 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
13. Configuring the computer
Configuration problems
Boot
Discs
The Filer
Fonts
Help
Keyboard
Lock
Mouse
Network
AUN
Access
Internet
Pinboard
Screen
Sound
Windows
Solid dragging
Allow windows off screen
Icon bar scrolling
Visual flags
Miscellaneous flags
14. Printing
Choosing a printer
Installing !Printers
Setting your choices
Multiple printers
Direct Printing
15. Resetting the computer
Alligata Media
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
It's been an interesting couple of months on the RISC OS gaming front. APDL have continued their policy of releasing the 4th Dimension back catalogue on themed CDs. With the latest release almost the entire back catalogue is now available in a form that runs correctly on modern 26bit machines. It would be very good to see some of the best games converted to 32bit, however I do understand the commercial realities of the situation, but we can live in hope. In the meantime most of the 4th Dimension games can be played on the Iyonix with Aemulor. It will be interesting to see how they fare on the A9 once it gets a full release with a working sound system.
So, having looked at commercial games, lets see what freeware and shareware games have been released recently.
Bubble Train - Alan Buckley
This is a fun arcade puzzle game, different to Puzzle Bubble, yet similar in some ways. In the game you control a cannon at the bottom of the screen and have to fire bubbles at a "train" of bubbles going along a track above you. The aim is to clear all the bubbles. You do this by firing your bubbles up the screen to make a chain of three bubbles, or more, of the same colour.
BubbleTrain
You can see from the screen shot above that I am firing the blue bubble from my cannon, aimed to hit the two existing blue bubbles on the track. The game comes with a large number of different levels and you can also set the difficulty level.
The game To run requires The Shared Unix Library. This is provided in an archive in the Toolbox directory in the Software directory of this issue. Also required is Digital Renderer module 0.51, this is available in the PD directory.
The game runs on the Iyonix and on RISC OS 4.xx machines with a StrongArm processor. It also runs on VirtualRPC.
SuperDoku - Hillary Phillips
For puzzle fanatics, Sine Nomine Software are pleased to announce the release of yet another Sudoku program for RISC OS - SuperDoku. The demo version is in the games directory. SuperDoku is a comprehensive Sudoku program, generating and solving puzzles of four different sizes, three different difficulty levels, and two different arrangements depending on whether or not you prefer your puzzles to have rotational symmetry. You can type in your own puzzles or just let SuperDoku create them for you. SuperDoku will give hints on what values are possible for an empty square, and what squares you need to look at in order to find a square to fill. If you get stuck you can save a puzzle to try again another day. Or you can export puzzles as Draw files to print out and do on paper.
SuperDoku
If you've no brainpower left at all, then let SuperDoku's solve tool finish the puzzle in an instant.
The demo version has all the above features but will create only ten different puzzles of each size. You can solve these as many times as you like, and you can try them at different difficulty settings too - giving you effectively 220 different puzzles for free. You may type in as many puzzles as you like into blank grids, but the demo version will only allow you to use SuperDoku's solve tool ten times on this type of puzzle.
It costs just 5 pounds to register for the full version of SuperDoku, which allows you to create and solve unlimited numbers of puzzles.
Rounding off
As well as producing Bubble Train, Alan Buckley has ported Primate Plunge to RISC OS. I haven't included it this time as try as I might I simply can't get the .zip file to open. If anyone has a copy that's working could they email it to
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
It's the man who thinks ebay (gum) is what they say "up north"...Hugh...Jampton!
Ah, it's the end of another year of the Hugh Jampton column. The column that makes others look well written. Anyway that's enough of that, and this is probably enough if this, so lets get on with the great unloved caption competition...
The caption competition
Last issue I gave you this to work with, and what have our readers come up with?
Answer, nothing, not a bean, not a sausage, bugger all in fact. This isn't on. I mean I go to all the trouble of spending 20 seconds finding a vaguely amusing photo from the ones that get e-mailed to me and you lot can't even be bothered to send me an e-mail. Just a little e-mail with a funny caption, is that too much to ask for?
Anyway perhaps you need something a bit more topical to get the creative juices, or indeed the prune juices, flowing, so can anyone (please) come up with a suitable caption for this?
Send your entries to hughj@riscworld.co.uk. Lets face it based on this issues response you have a 100% chance of winning if you send something in...
Right, now lets get the funny pictures over with and then I can go down the pub...
Hugh's picture gallery
So let's start with some good advice...
Although it's not funny it is clever...
It's just so true...
And here is something else for every other BMW owner...
And here is an interesting auction from eBay recently..
..and finally here is something that should amuse...
Another RISCWorld and another Iyonix column, The main news this month is the release of the RISC OS 5.11 ROM from Castle, there were a few initial problems with this release mainly to do with scanners not working but the problems were quickly fixed, and the RISC OS 5.11 ROM image is now in it's third version (at the time of writing) so make sure you have this updated version installed. The ROM image should be announced automatically by the !Iyowtch program when you go online, however if you've already upgraded with release 1 of the ROM image, you will need to go to the
Changes in this new ROM release include a fix to EtherK that caused network problems, and some updates to the USB stack to support devices such as a USB Radio (see below for more on this) for me the ROM installation ran smoothly with no problems and I have noticed that the strange white bars that appeared with I did a CTRL/Break restart are no longer there and the boot up time is a bit quicker. It's good to see further improvements on RISC OS 5, and long may they continue.
It is being hinted that Castle may charge for some future updates but this will be for updates which add new functionality to RISC OS 5. The USB2 upgrade is a prime example of this sort of thing, if you want it you pay for it, if you don't have the need for it then you don't have to buy it. I think this is a good idea and will help to improve RISC OS 5 even more, let's hope this happens.
USB Radio
As mentioned above with the release of the new RISC OS 5.11 ROM you can now use a USB radio with your Iyonix. A USB radio is a device similar to the USB memory sticks or MP3 players you can get which you simply plug into one of the USB ports on the Iyonix and using a special program you can control the radio's output and listen to the radio through the computers speakers.
In order to do this you will need to be running RISC OS 5.11 , then you will need to download the software !Avermedia from
The game Dinosaw which was mentioned last month, will actually run natively on the Iyonix without the need for using Aemulor Pro which is good news - download your copy of Dinosaw from
Software updates
In keeping with tradition of this column, we have yet another update to Vice, this is the third update in as many Iyonix columns, good to see continued development on this program, and again this is a bug fixing exercise, so if you use Vice then visit
Chris Johnson has been busy updating his excellent MP3 ID tag program !ID3TagEd, a very useful program and one which I use a lot and would recommend to anyone who needs to add ID tags to their MP3s, the latest version is V0.13, and can be downloaded from
Those of you who have upgraded your copies of Easiwriter to V8.50 should download an upgrade to take you to V8.54, this update fixes a few bugs and problems, so head over to
RISC OS MPEG player Kinoamp has had an update, with development being taken over from Peter Everett by Andre Timmermans. This new version includes a number of changes of which are all detailed on the website
BBC Micro emulator, !Beebit has been updated to version 0.59 this version includes a number of improvements. These include fixes for some problems with running Level 9 adventures in Master and BBC B+ emulation modes - the new version can be downloaded from
After joining the 2006 MessengerPRO subscription scheme, I received the first upgrade within a couple of weeks and another update today, now up to V4.08. It is good to see continued development of this excellent piece of software, and if you are already a MessengerPRO user then do not hesitate to subscribe to this update scheme, if you have yet to try MessengerPRO it is definitely worth considering - contact R Comp at
I think this the way of paying for updates is the only way of getting quality up to date RISC OS software, as it is such a small market we cannot really expect to get such software for free, unless people are feeling really generous.
I personally do not mind paying up front for updates to programs such as MessengerPro. Other programs seem to be enjoying similar success notably Easiwriter and Artworks, both are being continually upgraded and improved with every release. Perhaps this method could be used to bring much needed programs to RISC OS such as up to date web browsers with the latest features, this doesn't need to be started anew as there are plenty of browsers already available which could be added to. A good media player would also be useful to play all the various audio and visual file types that exist.
Finally a driver for using PCI based serial port cards on the Iyonix was recently released, this module and more information on this can be found at www.tankstage.co.uk/software.html.
That's about it for this month, I thought there would be a shortage of stuff to write about this month but turned out all right in the end plenty of software updates and a new ROM image.
As ever if you have anything Iyonix related you want mentioned in Risc World or want to plug your software then the Iyonix column can be contacted at Iyonix@riscos.org.
Back into the ITU, it's the RISCWorld letters page...
After a surprise recovery last issue the letters page has taken a turn for the worse and has had to to go back onto an intravenous drip. So lets see what letters we have actually received...
Hi RISCWorldlings,
Greetings from planet Earth (or Mud World as we don't call it)
Got an upgrade for UniPrint recently, installed it carefully as per
the instructs and hey wow, I do like the application launcher! Now I
can choose if I look at a PDF or Word file using windows or EasiWriter
etc. With the previous version I'd disabled that facility as it wasn't
very convenient to have every word doc automatically passed over to
Windows. So what? Well, since I've been using Virtual RiscPC on my
Windows laptop, I've had the "MY Documents" folder appear as a disk
drive so I can easily swap between Windows and VRPC, for example I can
download pages using Firefox,then edit them etc from VRPC. Silly me,
after installing UniPrint 2.02 I tried out the application launcher,
and found it to be 'intermittent'. So I re-installed it, same
problem, it wasn't until the next day that I realised that, IT ONLY
LAUNCHES STUFF THAT'S ON THE 'REAL' HARD DISK! Should be obvious
really, except that it gives the message "The file has been launched
and should be opened shortly on your PC desktop" even when it hasn't!
It works OK for the CD but not for the USB floppy. Fair enough, so if
anyone else out there is as daft as me, now you know
I haven't told R-Comp about this because I don't want to look like an
idiot . . . maybe I shouldn't be telling you either. On the subject
of R-Comp, isn't it nice to be recognised and have your enquiry dealt
with by the boss? You don't get that with Microsoft! "Hey Bill, this
software's crap." "Oh hello Lol, yes, I'm sorry, but I've been a bit
busy recently working as a Kermit the Frog impersonator . . .
Bye bye from Mud World
Laurence Simmonds
UniPrint is a very useful program and one I often recommend to VirtualAcorn users as it allows the use of any Windows printer. I'm not sure what you mean about an application launcher, UniPrint comes with a file launcher that allows you to load a file under Windows. You might find that the file launcher only works when the file you are trying to launch is on the same drive as your scrap folder. You may be interested to know that HostFS also supports a command for opening files under Windows from inside RISC OS. You can find more details on this in the VirtualAcorn article in this issue.
As for having your enquiry dealt with by the boss, you are right, it's great and you are right, you don't get that from Microsoft, because Microsoft has enough money to employ people to answer the phones! If you think about the average RISC OS company might consist of 4 people, so you have a 1 in 4 chance of speaking to the boss on your first attempt. Microsoft employs tens of thousands of people, so even assuming Bill Gates answered his own phone the chance of getting him on the line is very very small.
Ane now it's cock up corner once again...
Dear Aaron
It would appear some gremlins have got into this months Iyonix column
! After the bit about Geminus, the Spelling website URL should be
there, instead it starts with my Z80 request which is all in
underlined red text!
What happened and how did it get missed? As it looks terrible! I have
checked my original article and it is all the as it should be.
Also the www.pledgebank.com doesn't appear as a highlighted URL when
it should have done.
Another thing that's gone wrong is in the bit about new Castle phone
numbers the word 'Target' is there , where did that come from?
Also in the 4D adventure games review bit instead of the APDL website
URL there is the last sentence of the article in red highlight!
Something has gone a bit wrong this month - any ideas what ? the
articles looked fine when I sent them!
Matt Thompson
I can only apologise, a closing quote got missed out from a link and caused chaos. The problem only shows in some browsers, if you try looking at the article in Browse, for example, then it all comes out fine. Normally we check each article in a range of browsers to make sure that they are OK. Somehow this one got missed out hence the problem. It has been corrected for the end of year compilation in this issue.
The article was sent in plain text format and got converted to HTML by adding the mark up codes, so the fault only occurred when the HTML was added. I must have missed the www.pledgebank.com URL when I went through and HTMLed the file. So the articles were fine when they were sent in because they didn't have any of the HTML added at that point!
Look on the bright side we have discussed it on the letters page, and re-published it, all at no extra charge, now that's what I call service!
Well that's it for this letter(s) page. I would like to thank our letter writers, but we need more, to mis-quote a well known individual..."send us your F***ing letters!" So please do write to us using the following e-mail address savetheletterspage@riscworld.co.uk.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/MOUSE/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, Overhauling an Acorn mouse
Overhauling an Acorn mouse
Dave Holden shows us how...
If you have a RiscPC, or one of the older Acorn computers such as an A5000, then the mouse used on these machines is is not the more modern PS2 or USB device but an "Acorn quadrature mouse". Since these mice are mechanical devices it follows that they are subject to wear, which means that they will inevitably suffer a deterioration and, in the case of the switches, eventual failure.
If your mouse is reaching this state, and even if it's not, it is possible (and probably desirable) to fit an adaptor to enable you to use a PS2 mouse, which opens up the possibility of using a cordless or optical mouse. However this almost inevitably means using a PC type scroll mouse where the MENU button is under the scrollwheel. On a PC, where this button is rarely used, this is not a problem, but with RISC OS the middle button gets a great deal of use and some people prefer the have three "proper" buttons. There is also, of course, the question of cost. A PS2 adaptor and a basic mouse can be purchased for less than about £25, and although this isn't a great deal of money to prolong the life of a well loved RiscPC, if the ailing mouse is attached to an aging A3010 or A5000 then even this modest sum could temp you to dump the computer as it could be more than the machine is worth.
Common problems
There are two faults which arise with all types of mice supplied with Acorn computers and which can be easily fixed by most people.
The first is that the mouse pointer doesn't move smoothly, or moves a bit and then "stalls". You've cleaned the assorted hairs, biscuit crumbs and other accumulated dross off the mouse ball but it doesn't make much difference. This could be a serious fault, but the most likely cause is that dirt has collected on the two little rollers that are in contact with the mouse ball so the rollers don't move smoothly.
The second fault is that one or more of the switches has either failed or is acting erratically. A common symptom is unwanted double-clicking where you try to select an object but the computer behaves as if you had double-clicked on it. This is normally caused by switch bounce where the switch contact "bounces" instead of closing firmly and so makes more than one contact, simulating multiple clicks in rapid succession. The only real cure for this is to replace the switch.
Cleaning a mouse
To clean your mouse you need to disassemble it, which is why many users never do it. It's actually a very simple job, although with some models access is rather limited even with the mouse disassembled.
Shown below are the two main types of mouse you are likely to have with a RiscPC, A3010/20 or A5000.
On the left is the earlier model, supplied with late A5000s amongst others, which is why in this case it's cream coloured rather than grey, although it can be either colour. As you can see they are almost identical in appearance from the top, but if you look at the pictures below, showing the bottom of the mice, you'll see that they are very different.
Both are held together by two screws. With the earlier version these are at the front, the later mouse has them at the back. To take the mouse apart just remove the screws and the top will "hinge" upwards, pivoting on two lugs which secure it at the opposite end to the screws. You can then remove the top.
The internals of the two mice are shown next. Once again you can see that they are very different.
In both cases the printed circuit board just lifts out, and you will need to do this before proceeding further. However, when it comes to cleaning the mouse you will soon discover the advantage of the later type.
With the earlier mouse the black plastic "cage" which restrains the mouse ball is fixed to the PCB. This means that access to the rollers (which can be clearly seen in the picture of the other type on the right) is rather restricted.
As well as miscellaneous fluff and other debris you may well see a band of compressed crud around the centre of the roller, and this obviously needs to be removed. Do not use any sort of sharp tool to do this. The best way is to hold a fingernail against the roller and rotate it using the "wheel" at the end. This will gently remove the worst of the dirt and you can then clean off the rest using some sort of spirit on a cloth.
As well as the two rollers there is also a spring loaded pinch wheel (at the bottom right in both the pictures) which presses the mouse ball into contact with the rollers. This will also probably need to be cleaned. It is a bit more awkward than the rollers as it is inside a cage. You should also be careful when cleaning it as if you are too rough the tiny spring has a habit of deciding it would rather be elsewhere and may make a break for freedom by flinging itself across the room, almost certainly never to be seen again.
Under no circumstances use any sort of abrasive or sharp edged tool on the rollers. They have a hard, shiny surface, and although you might think that a rough surface would be less likely to slip against the ball any abrasions allow dirt to adhere far more easily to the surface and so you will find that your mouse needs far more frequent cleaning.
Once you've cleaned the mouse you can re-assemble it, taking care to replace the cable correctly into its grip at the front. Make sure you've positioned the wiring correctly so that it won't be trapped when you replace the lid and so that the wires don't either foul the mechanism or drape over the top of the switches. If you have trouble getting the "lugs" to engage then something probably isn't right so don't try to force it.
Replacing the switches.
You really need a solder sucker to do this, although de-soldering braid would serve.
There are three small microswitches at the front of the PCB, corresponding to the SELECT. MENU and ADJUST mouse buttons. If one of these has failed or become unreliable in some way I would advise that you replace all three. If one has failed then the others, which are just as old, probably won't be far behind.
Use the solder sucker to remove the solder from around the three pins on each switch on the underside of the PCB. Make sure you have removed as much as possible so the the switch is loose. The switch can then be removed, and the easiest way to do this is to insert the tip of a very small screwdriver in the recess between the switch body and the PCB and lever gently. If the switch doesn't come away without using force you haven't removed all the solder.
Once you have removed all the switches you can fit the new ones, making sure you fit them the right way round. There is normally a diagram on the PCB to illustrate this, but as it's under the switches you can't check after you've fitted them. It is absolutely essential to make sure that the body of the switch is pressed tightly against the PCB. There must not be any gap. If you leave a gap, no matter how small, then when the switch is pressed the force is transferred thought the switch's mounting pins to the pad on the bottom of the board. Very soon the pad will pull away from the board and then the track will break and the mouse will become faulty again.
This isn't as simple as it sounds. You need to have the PCB "upside down" to solder the switches and this isn't conducive to keeping the switch in tight contact with the PCB. I use a spring clip cunningly fashioned from an outsize paper clip, and it would take you very little time to make something similar from a normal paper clip. The illustration below shows this state-of-the-art hi-tech answer to the problem
The early A5000 mouse
This is actually a very well built mouse, and therefore many of them have survived after the computers with which they were supplied have met their end, and they are often used with RiscPCs. This type of mouse is illustrated below.
Do not confuse this with the older mice supplied with the A300 and A400 series computers. These older mice do not use microswitches and are awful to use.
The next picture illustrates an early A5000 mouse with its top removed. Unlike the other models the top is held by four screws, two at the back near the corners and two close together at the front.
As with the later A5000 mouse the ball mechanism is attached to the PCB to make cleaning awkward.
Replacing the switches
Changing the microswitches is far more difficult than with other models, and unless you are experienced with a soldering iron you are advised not to attempt it. The problem is that the PCB is double-sided, and some of the switch terminal pins are soldered to both sides of the board. This makes removal difficult, as some of the pads on the upper side of the board are concealed under the switch body. The only sensible way to remove the switch without damaging the PCB is to crush the switch with a pair of pliers to break the plastic, remove the fragments of the switch body piece by piece and then, with clear access to both sides of the PCB, you can remove each pin in turn.
The switches all have a small lever attached, and this is different from the lever fitted to standard replacement switches. Fortunately the lever can normally be removed from the original switch and fitted to the replacement, but if this isn't possible you will probably have to bend the levers on the new switches to approximate the shape of the originals.
When refitting the top of the mouse note that there is a "flat" on one side of the cable sleeve which fits into a slot in the bottom of the casing. If you don't get this properly aligned and seated the top won't fit properly.
Other common types of mouse
The mouse supplied with the A7000 and A7000+ is of a different type and shape to those described above but as far as cleaning and replacing switches is concerned it is very similar to the later RiscPC mouse.
There is another "family" of mice you may encounter. These were primarily sold by Combined Precision Components (CPC) as low cost replacement mice for Acorn computers and therefore many thousands of them were purchased by schools and dealers. The most commonly seen version of this mouse is shown below.
The top of this mouse is held in place by a single screw, and with it removed you will see that it has a large PCB and that the ball cage is held by two screws which pass through the PCB. Undoing these screws allows removal of the mouse cage, complete with rollers, and the PCB.
Cleaning and switch replacement are similar to the other mice described. However, there is one peculiarity of these mice which can cause unwanted apparent double-clicking even after the switches have been replaced. Their circuitry is simpler than the Logitec mice with no "damping" of the switch contacts, but fortunately this was allowed for in the design of the PCB, the components simply weren't fitted to save a couple of pence.
Just in front of each microswitch you will see two holes drilled in the PCB about 5mm apart. These are normally blocked by solder so you will first need to remove this. Then solder a miniature ceramic disc capacitor into each of these pairs of holes, any value around 50 to 100n should suffice. This bridges the switch contacts and helps damp out any switch bounce.
A variation on this design was sold as a high quality replacement mouse for the A400 and similar machines by Clares. Internally it is very similar to the illustration above but the casing is much better quality.
Another variation is shown below. Several thousand of these were manufactured especially for CTA after CPC had discontinued their own mouse. and many of them ended up in schools. Although they look very different they are actually similar in internal construction to the CPC mouse, the main difference being the orientation of the microswitches. However, the method for cleaning and switch replacement is identical.
Getting the parts.
Replacement microscitches are available from component suppliers like Maplin, but there is one other item that you should consider updating. If you have one of the old lightweight black mouse balls then I would strongly suggest that you replace it with a modern heavy ball. This completely transforms the operation of the standard Acorn mouse and makes it much nicer to use.
For many years now APDL has offered a "mouse overhaul" service which involves a thorough cleaning and fitting three new switches and a heavy mouse ball. This costs just £6 plus £1 return post.
If you prefer to do the work yourself then to make this easier we have now decided to offer a "DIY mouse overhaul kit" consisting of three new switches and a heavy mouse ball for just £3 including UK carriage.
Other problems.
This article has just dealt with cleaning and overhauling your mouse. However, there are a few common faults which can arise which may stop it working properly but which are fairly easily fixed. These are outside the scope of this article but I intend to cover them in the future, so if you do have an old mouse which isn't working properly don't bin it just yet.
Aaron with some details of what's coming along in the next volume of RISCWorld.
Yet again we have reached another end of volume compilation issue, so it's time for our once yearly appeal for your money. Despite increased postage costs we have managed, for the third year running, to keep subscription prices the same. Not only that but we are making some special offers for all existing and new subscribers.
Offer 1 - CD subscription £21.90 UK (£24.50 overseas) - save £14.00!
A years collection of six RISCWorld CDs for £21.90 in the UK and £24.50 overseas. In addition we will give you a free copy of RISCWorld "Just The Words", a CD containing all the articles from volumes 1 to 6.
Just The Words CD
The CD includes a helpful search facility that allows you to search by topic to find the articles you are looking for.
Offer 2 - DVD subscription £35.90 UK (£38.50 overseas) - save £14.00!
A years collection of six RISCWorld CDs for £36.80 in the UK and £39.90 overseas. You will also get the complete set of RISCWorld volumes from 1 to 6 on one DVD.
The Complete RISCWorld DVD
The RISCWorld DVD includes all the articles from volumes 1 to 6 and also includes all the full commercial software that we have given away, making a DVD with software that would have cost £1000's at normal rrp. In order to use the DVD you will need with RISC OS 4.39 (or later) or an Iyonix with a DVD ROM drive. All the articles can also be read on any computer with a web browser and a DVD drive, this includes PCs and Macs.
More about the RISCWorld DVD
We have often been asked if we could produce a RISCWorld compilation, but as Issue 6 of each volume nearly fills an entire CD it wouldn't really have been possible. However, now that many more RISC OS users are fitting DVD drives we have decided to produce a RISCWorld DVD. This contains all the articles and all the software from RISCWorld. This new version contains the complete contents of Volume 1 to Volume 6.
Since that's a lot of magazines, to make it easy to find that elusive article you remember reading but can't recall when we've included a special HTML search program that will let you scan the entire magazine for keywords.
Our plans for the next 12 months
We are still firming up some of the details but we can give you some idea on what we have planned for the next year:
An exclusive serialisation of ArtWorks Made Easy, updated for the 21st century
An exclusive very well known full commercial puzzle game for the next issue
Continuing the VirtualAcorn tech support series
Part two of our small series on building a RiscPC in a PC case
Continuing our serialisation of Budget DTP by Roger Amos
More coverage of the latest PD and freeware software
and lots lots more..
It's going to be an exciting year for RISCWorld, and we would like you (and your money - HJ) to come with us!
Subscriber discounts
Finally don't forget that all RISCWorld subscribers can claim a 10% discount off all APDL, APDL-ProAction and iSV Products software titles when ordering directly from APDL. Remember to ask for your discount at the time of ordering.
Renewing your Subscription
To renew your subscription by cheque credit card or debit card contact APDL. Don;t forget to say which of the subscription offers you would like.
By Post
RISC World Subscriptions, c/o APDL, 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RN, United Kingdom.
By phone
You can ring APDL on 0208 778 2659 (+44 208 778 2659 outside the UK).
By fax
0208 488 0487 (+44 208 488 0487 outside the UK).
By e-mail
By e-mail to subscriptions@riscworld.co.uk.
At a Show
APDL will be exhibiting at all the major UK shows this year, including Wakefield 2006 in May.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/PCCASE/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, Fitting a RiscPC into a PC case
Fitting a RiscPC into a PC case
Dave Holden takes out his toolkit...
Acorn's RiscPC case
When the RiscPC first appeared it's case was acclaimed by Acorn as an innovative design. The main benefit that they promoted was that it was extremely easy to get access to the processor card since it didn't require the use of any tools to take the top off the case. It was also "expandable" by adding additional "slices" and had a sliding flap to cover the drives on the front. As well as all this it was made of plastic instead of metal and, more importantly for a lot of people at the time, it looked completely different from PC cases.
The ability to change processors quickly and easily was obviously something that Acorn were very keen to promote. At the time of the launch of the RiscPC they had already announced that the first card would be available shortly, so purchasers needed to be assured that it would be easy to fit this. Acorn were also anticipating other ARM processor upgrades and wanted these to be easily "user fitted" without the use of tools.
Unfortunately processors were the only thing it was easy to upgrade on a RiscPC. Almost every other item that you might want to change involves the almost complete disassembly of the computer. Even fitting a CD ROM drive involves completely disassembling the machine as the retaining screws have to be fitted from underneath so you have to remove the part of the case it's being fitted in.
The only things you can replace without stripping the entire machine are RAM or VRAM, and even then you have to remove any expansion cards. The things that most users needed to replace in the years following the launch of the RiscPC were hard drives, as prices dropped and capacity increased, and CD ROMs (and later on, CD writers) as these became almost universal. However, because of the RiscPC case design upgrading was much more difficult than with the average PC. Not only that, but the standard RiscPC "single slice" case had room for only one hard drive, one CD ROM (or a second hard drive) and one floppy drive. If you wanted to fit additional drives you had to fit a "second slice" (if you didn't already have one) at a cost of around £70, about twice the cost of a standard PC case complete with power supply.
Yes, you could add an extra "slice" to expand the case but even if you did so you still had only about the same room for extra drives as even a small PC. It still only gave you room for one additional drive, although many people squeezed a hard drive into the spare floppy drive slot. This was acceptable with the hard drives available at the time, but is certainly not a good idea with modern drives which generate a lot more heat. There was also the additional cost of a replacement power supply if your computer was fitted with one of the original 65 watt units. This pushed the cost of the upgrade to over £100.
Advantages of a PC case.
At the time I obtained my first RiscPC I had a PC in a desktop case. This was quite an expensive case, I think it cost me £49. The reasons for purchasing it was that it was a bit narrower than many desktop cases at the time (about the same width and height as a two slice RiscPC) with room for plenty of drives, but the thing I particularly liked was that the lid was hinged. To open it you just pressed a release catch and lifted. It even had a "prop" to hold it open. In fact, it was even quicker and easier to get access to the internals than the RiscPC, especially as everything was accessible, not just the processor.
Today there is an enormous choice of cases available, both desktop and tower. Almost all except the very cheapest tower cases have removable sides, and in many cases you don't even need a screwdriver to gain access. They also usually have a lot more space for expansion, and this is important as people add additional hard drives and CD ROMs. To go with this they will have a larger power supply.
You can, of course, spend a lot of money on a case. My own RiscPC is fitted into a Lian Li all aluminium case (shown below) which cost around £70 (and that was without a power supply). However, you don't need to spend anything like that amount to get a something suitable, and the ones illustrated later both cost around a third of this including a power supply.
With each of the following illustration click on the picture for a larger version of the image.
You need to exercise some care when choosing a case. The main things to watch for are that there needs to be sufficient width (or height in the case of a tower case) to accommodate the RiscPC motherboard. This required at least 28 cm. If you want to use a 4 slot backplane then you will almost certainly need a tower case as desktop cases aren't normally high enough. You also need to make sure that the case is wide enough as some are too narrow. In practical terms this means at least 37 cm high for a tower case and 18.5 cm. wide to accommodate a 4 slot backplane and around 44 cm. wide for a desktop case if you want to use a standard PC power supply although this can be reduced as shown later.
There are a couple of things to be careful of with tower cases. Even if the case dimensions appear large enough the height I've described assumes that the power supply is fitted horizontally at the top of the case, where it takes up around 9 cm. of the height available. Some cases have the power supply mounted several cm. below the top, which may not leave enough space below it for the motherboard. Another problem, although very unusual, is if the power supply is mounted vertically instead of horizontally. This is extremely rare, and the only case I know of like this is, in fact, the Lian Li case that I used for my own machine. This meant that I had to do a lot of extra work, but as I particularly liked this case and it was otherwise exactly what I wanted I decided it was worth the effort.
Power supplies
Ideally it's best to use an AT type power supply rather than an ATX. All modern power supplies are ATX, and if your case comes with a power supply that is what it will be. The problem with the ATX type is that they do not have a remote mains switch, although they may sometimes have a mains switch on the rear of the case. They are intended to be turned on or off by software, and there is a special connection on the PC motherboard for this. It is possible to connect an on/off switch to an ATX power supply, but it won't switch off the monitor power connector even if it does have one.
So, a much simpler solution is to obtain an AT power supply. These are now regarded as obsolete, but they are still available, and normally quite cheaply. They are physically the same size, but are intended to have a "proper" mains switch which will also switch off the monitor power connector. You will still need to fit the switch itself to the front of the case as ATX units only have a low voltage push button, but this is normally not too difficult.
Some examples.
In the next issue of RISCWorld I'll take you through the process of fitting a RiscPC into a tower PC case step by step. For the moment, in best television cookery program tradition, here are a couple I made earlier.
The first two pictures show a desktop case. With the original power supply there wasn't sufficient room to accommodate the RiscPC motherboard so a "mini ATX" unit was fitted instead. By installing this vertically there was then plenty of room for the motherboard. Although this is only 140 watt, small by PC standards, it's still much bigger than a standard RiscPC power supply and can easily cope with any expansion anyone could wish to fit into this case, whether podules or additional drives.
The hard drive is mounted on the base of the case using a pair of brackets made from plastic angle (you can see its front left hand corner below the ribbon cables).
The picture below shows the rear of the case. In both this picture and the one above you can see how the main part of the rear of the case was cut out and replaced with sheet aluminium with cutouts and blanking plates to enable podules to be fitted. The aluminium does not go right to the bottom of the case to give access to the connectors on the motherboard.
The picture below shows the side view of a tower case. As you can see there are lots of spare slots for both 3.5" and 5" drives, far more than anyone could need. The hard and floppy drive ribbon cables have been removed to give a better view for the photo.
As there is more space in this case it is fitted with a standard size 250 watt power supply.
As this machine has a 4 slot backplane there is a strut (made from aluminium angle) which braces the backplane. Ideally this should be done with the 2 slot backplane in the desktop case but it's not really necessary with this as long as you support the backplane when inserting or removing podules.
Below is a rear view of the same case. This is constructed in a similar way to the desktop case except that there are four blanking plates to allow for the four podules that this case can accommodate.
Although it isn't obvious from the pictures both of these cases have good ventilation. The desktop case has a fan which blows air directly over the motherboard with ventilation holes cut in the left hand side of the case and, although it isn't used, there is provision for an extractor fan to be fitted to th front of the case. The mounting bracket for this is actually used to hold the speaker, as you can see in the picture, but as the holes in the case aren't obstructed this ensures airflow over the hard drive and out of the front of the case.
The tower case has provision for four extractor fans, and this can be seen in front of the hard drive if you look at the rear view picture. No fans are fitted (though it would be easy to do so if required) but the holes ensure good airflow over any hard drives. Although there is no direct airflow over the motherboard with this case unlike the standard RiscPC case there is plenty of room for air to circulate without restriction. It would be very simple to fit a small fan on the rear of the case to blow air over the motherboard if this was felt to be necessary.
It would also be simple to make some ventilation holes in the aluminium plate on the rear if there were no suitable holes in the case elsewhere. PC cases often have some provision for ventilation in this area and both of the cases illustrated did actually have this but it was, of course, eliminated by fitting the new back.
If you're fed up with struggling with the standard RiscPC case then I hope this will have shown that it's not terribly difficult to fit your RiscPC into a modern PC case without too much difficulty. In the next issue of RISC World I shall go through the entire process step by step. You'll obviously need to do some basic metalwork, but nothing too complicated, and when it's done you'll have a machine that can accommodate all the extra drives and expansion cards you're likely to need.
Dave Holden
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/PD/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
It's once again time for me to explore the wonderful world of RISC OS software development. As always every program featured in this column will also be available in the software directory of this issue. So let us see what new developments have been going on...
CleanBar - Peter Scheele
!CleanBar is such a simple idea that I'm amazed that nobody has invented it before. CleanBar simply cleans the icon bar. If you start CleanBar an
then several other programs you will see that the icons for the new programs appear between the two clean bar icons on the iconbar. You can then quit a batch of programs (all those between the !CleanBar icons) simply by clicking on !CleanBar and then clicking on OK when prompted. If a program has unsaved data, a warning dialog box will appear, asking you if you want to Discard the file or Cancel. If you click on Discard the program will exit, if you click on Cancel then the program is left running.
DrawToSprite - Matthew Philips
As you might expect from its name, DrawToSprite can be used to produce Sprite files from Draw files, but it can also output Windows BMP files, including compressed 4-bit and 8-bit BMPs. DrawToSprite can produce output which is too large to fit in memory, so can be used for exporting high-definition bitmaps to transfer to other operating systems for inclusion in documents for printing. Full control over the rendered size and quality is easily achieved, including those enhancements provided by SpecialFX.
DrawToSprite
FireFox Beta 5 - ported by Peter Naulls
With work on FireFox at a seeming standstill I thought it would be worth including the last beta version that was released. This is a "work in progress" version, intended to show progress and diagnose potential problems. It may not be suitable for general browsing use.
Firefox was ported to RISC OS to fill the requirement for a comprehensive browsing solution. Based upon the original Mozilla and Netscape work,Firefox is potentially able to access almost any website, and is one of the most widely used browsers in use. Its open source nature means that anyone inside or outside RISC OS development can update it. These features made it an ideal choice for porting to RISC OS. Firefox was ported to RISC OS by Peter Naulls under the
FireFox
FireFox should be unzipped using a "proper" unzipping program such as !Zipee, and not using !SparkPlug, which can truncate some file names.
PDF - Colin Granville
!PDF is a PDF (Portable Document Format) viewer for RISC OS. You may be familiar with PDF files under their other name, Adobe Acrobat files. These days lots of documentation is supplied in PDF format. You can load PDF either by double clicking on it, or by double clicking on A PDF file, assuming that !PDF has been "seen" by the RISC OS filer. This new version of PDF includes a number of bug fixes, you should consult the "History" file inside the archive for more details. !PDF also has an HTML manual which is available by clicking MENU over the !PDF icon in a filer window, going to "App !PDF" and clicking on "Help" in the submenu.
PDF
Reporter - Martin Avison
The !Reporter application enables the easy display of text and variable values in a debugging window from Wimp programs (especially BASIC), Obey files, Assembler programs, and much more. Anyone who does any WIMP programming in RISC OS will find this application invaluable as it allows the sort of debugging that simply isn't normally possible. This version has a number of improvements over older versions, full details can be found in the help file documentation.
Reporter
ROTunes - Paul Vigay
This new version of RoTunes comes packaged with an installer. You will need to copy the installer to your hard disc before running it as it needs to write out some files inside itself.
ROTunes is based on the famous/infamous iTunes program by Apple. It's basically an MP3 player, but with lots of extra features including control over track listings etc. You can set up playlists and do almost anything you could want with your collection of MP3s.
ROTunes
ROTunes comes with a very comprehensive HTML manual which I recommend you read as it explains everything in plain English.
Signing off
That's all I have for you this issue (and this volume! - ED), I will have more new RISC OS software for you in the May issue.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/SHOOT/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, 4TH Dimension Shoot-em-up Games CD
4th Dimension Shoot-em-up Games CD
Matthew Thompson
This is the next instalment in the range of 4th Dimension game collections, and this time we have a number of shoot-em-up games. There are some classic alien blasters here, plus a few not so classic ones as well!
The line up for this compilation is :
Apocalyps
Drop Shi
Euro Blaste
Galactic Da
Nevryo
Quaze
Shoot-u
Technodrea
X-Fir
Installation of the CD-ROM is straightforward, and is the same as all the previous 4D games collections. Upon loading the CD run the installation program and then follow the on screen instructions and the installation should now begin. Once it's done it's time to get zapping those aliens!
Apocalypse
Apocalypse is a game set in the future, as most of these shoot-em-up games seem to be. This time you are the pilot in a spacecraft known as the Llanerk, a very high tech craft which is the only way of destroying a race known as the Rakonans. They have taken over a number of planets and it is your job to destroy the Rakonan colonies on these planets to an extent that they cannot survive and the planet is then 'sterlised'. It can then be re-colonised by the original inhabitants.
Upon starting the game your craft descends to the planet surface and the battle begins. There are plenty of things to destroy, mainly on the ground, but from time to time you will come under attack from flying saucers and other things in the sky. You are initially based on the ground, but it is possible take off and fly your craft around in the air. However your craft's energy is drained much quicker when flying so to recharge the energy levels you need to return to ground level and stay still for a while.
Your craft is protected by shields and they can take a number of hits before they are finally destroyed. Shields can be recharged by moving your craft away from enemy fire. Once the shields have been destroyed one single enemy shot will finish you off.
As you progress around the landscape you will encounter buildings and objects, all of which can be destroyed. However some don't need to be, for example there are small houses which can be flattened but these are harmless so you don't really need to worry about them too much. You should pay more attention to the other objects that fire back at you - these need to disposed of as soon as you see them.
When you have destroyed enough objects on the planet to sterilise it the mission will end. You will then be presented before the Royal Guild of Spacing who will assess your performance. You will also end up here when your game ends. There are nine planets to sterilise and at the start of the game only one is available so you have to complete each of the planets in order to gain access to the next one.
Apocalypse is not a difficult game to get into, just move your ship around the planets and shoot and destroy everything that you come into contact with. Control of your spacecraft is with the mouse, with the keyboard used to perform specific functions such as the viewing of planet map and the firing of bombs.
The levels get progressively more difficult with a higher percentage of objects which need to be destroyed before the planet is sterilised. The amount of enemies increases to make the task more difficult. There is a large variation in the number of different types of objects on the ground to destroy which adds to the interest of the game.
Graphically I think Apocalypse looks good. It doesn't seem to have dated too much and the graphics still look OK now with colourful landscapes, well drawn ships and objects. It has a lot of attention to detail with things like rivers with a boat that moves along it, plus there are great big explosions when objects are destroyed.
This is quite a noisy game, with plenty of in game shooting noises, explosions, and when your energy levels are getting low a continuous alarm noise rings out. When your game is over and you visit the Royal Guild of Spacing, a sampled voice states "We are the superior beings" stating that the Rakonans are a better race than the humans. This sampled voice is actually a dalek and comes straight from the record "Doctorin' The Tardis" by the Timelords.
Overall I quite liked Apocalypse. There's not a high amount of variety to it really, just nine levels of destroying everything in sight, but despite that I found it a quite entertaining game and it certainly had the "one more go" appeal to try to complete the level. Overall not the greatest game ever but certainly it's one worth playing.
Drop Ship
The year is 2030 and planet Earth receives a transmission from a colony on Mars stating that there has been an outbreak of radiation and that their defence systems have gone haywire and are on the brink of meltdown. The only way to stop this is by shutting down all the reactors on the Mars colony - so guess what your mission is in this game?
Dropship places you in control of a small ship and you must shut down the reactor on each of the 15 levels. However there is a bit more to this task than simply shutting them down, you have to collect all of the power crystals on each level. Once this is achieved then head to the exit and the level is complete and the reactor can be closed down. To obtain the crystals you need to destroy the crystal bases. When a base is destroyed the crystal will appear and float around the screen until it is collected.
You will encounter numerous hazards on your mission to obtain the crystals. Most notably the defence systems which will shoot at you should you get near them, so blast them away before they do the same to you. On later levels you have to shoot pressure points to make doors open to let you into other parts of the level.
Dropship is a tricky game to play, most notably due to the added factor of gravity. Take your finger off the the thrust key and your craft will plummet towards the bottom of the screen, and if it hits anything then you will lose a life. Anyone who played Thrust on the BBC will have a good idea of what this is like. You can control your craft via the mouse, but this is not particularly easy at all so keyboard control is the best option.
There is a password system available to jump the earlier levels which will no doubt come as a relief as this is no easy game and once you've cracked a level you won't want to keep replaying it to get further into the game.
During the game when you destroy aliens and defence systems, bonus credits will appear. Collect these and in between levels you can spend them in the shop to buy upgrades for your ship.
Graphically Dropship looks good and hasn't aged that much at all. Sprites are well drawn and detailed and suit the game well. As for the sounds, not much really apart from the usual in game sounds of shooting, explosions and for the collection of pickups. There is a rather good title page tune which is very typical of the 4th Dimension releases of this time.
There is a slight problem with running Dropship on these later RISC OS 4 machines, and that is the speed, it runs way too fast and makes the game impossible to play. Due to the fact you need a bit of skill and concentration to complete this levels, one wrong movement and you can be in the wall without realising, so you have to slow this game down. The best option is to use a RISC OS 3 machine if you have the option to, failing that I found running !Vsync before you run Dropship seemed to solve this problem and make it more playable.
Overall Dropship is a pretty decent game. It is quite challenging and not the easiest of games to play. You'll need a lot of skill and patience to complete it, but having said that it's entertaining to play and is definitely worth a go.
(There seems to be a bug in this version of Dropship which causes the game to crash, if you collect any credits it will crash the game when you complete that level, however if you do not collect any credits during the game then it will not crash. The chances of you not collecting credits at some point is highly unlikely so be aware of this. Dropship was tested on VirtualRPC so may be OK on a real Risc PC, hopefully this issue can be resolved at some point as it spoils the game).
Euro Blaster
In short this game is basically Space Invaders, but it's a very good version of the old classic arcade game. It was written by the demo coding team Gek Programs, and was originally released by legendary Public Domain library 'The Datafile'. Euroblaster now finds itself preserved on this Shoot-em-up games collection.
Upon loading you will see the title page. From here you can select music and sound options and also redefine the keys. When you are ready press the Space bar to start the game.
Euroblaster consists of endless levels of fast and furious arcade action. The object of the game is to destroy every alien which appears on the screen. These appear in various shapes and sizes and in formation patterns, and it's your job to wipe them out. When all the aliens have been destroyed the next level will begin. That is all there really is to the game - destroy aliens, but then if it wasn't it wouldn't be Space Invaders would it?
The early levels are very straightforward but the further you get into the game the harder it gets. More aliens appear, the game gets much faster and the aliens have different formation patterns and will start shooting back at you. Try not to lose too many lives in the earlier levels and build up a good stock of backup lives.
Euroblaster sounds a lot better when played through external speakers turned up loud with plenty of in game explosions and shooting noises, plus a really good in game tune which sounds even better when played loudly. On the visual side of things the graphics are quite basic but they are effective and it all looks good and suits the game well.
Overall this is a great little game. It doesn't look much but I found it to be really good fun to play, very easy to get into and rack up some really high scores. I also found it addictive and certainly made me want to have another game. Simple but effective sums this game up nicely I think!
Galactic Dan
Galactic Dan is a futuristic 3D maze game in which you take on the role of special agent 'Galactic' Dan Quicksmart and your objective is to rescue hostages from the planet Lygon. The natives there are Poloids, and they have been taken prisoner by an evil race known as the Vorians.
Or to put it another way you have to move round a maze environment and collect a number of items then get to the exit to complete the level and then move onto the next one.
The game is controlled by a combination of the mouse and the keyboard and this seems to work quite well. Once into the game, you move round the corridors and must locate and rescue the Poloid hostages. These are funny looking things which look something like a green space hopper wearing a comic relief nose!
These things bounce around the levels and when you rescue a hostage it will thank you for rescuing it by saying "Thank You" in a very high pitched voice. Where this is sampled from I'm not totally sure, but it does sound very much like it could come from an episode of "A Bit Of Fry & Laurie" where Hugh Laurie sings "Hey Jude" on helium, and afterwards says "Thank You" at the end and it sounds very much like this!
Poloids are not the only things in the mazes. There are a number of enemies out there who are guarding the hostages and will shoot at you if they spot you. Luckily you can return the favour and shoot at them as well. There are pickups dotted around the maze which give you extra energy and different weapons. Sometimes the enemies will drop pickups when you destroy them so keep a lookout for them.
Each level has a required number of Poloids to rescue. This has to be achieved within a time limit otherwise it's game over. Once you have rescued the required amount of hostages, make your way to the exit to complete the level.
The graphics of Galactic Dan are a bit hit and miss. The actual mazes themselves are pretty much just plain walls, but the characters within the games are very well drawn. They were created using the ray tracing program Render Bender II from Clares Micro Supplies from many years ago. The whole game is really bright and colourful, but it does look a little bit dated now. On the audio side nothing particularly impressive just in game noises of footsteps, gunfire and a few sampled voices and that's about it.
One thing about the game, on a RISC OS 4 machine (virtual and real) it runs at a ridiculously fast pace and makes it a bit too difficult to play. There are public domain utilities which will slow it down. I find !Vsync does a pretty good job that, so best to run the game first before loading it.
Overall this isn't a bad game. It's quite easy to get into, but I didn't really find that interesting or exciting. There is one thing that could have been included which I think would have made it a lot better, and that is the inclusion of a map. Many times, especially on the later levels, I had rescued all the hostages but could not find the exit and kept going round and round in circles and then the time ran out. A little on screen map, showing the exit and perhaps flashing dots for each hostage on the level would have made the game a lot better. Galactic Dan is an OK game to include on a compilation and certainly worth giving a try - it's good but could have been a better.
Nevryon
Nevryon is definitely one of the stars of this compilation. It's clearly inspired from the classic shoot-em-up game R-Type. This is one game that RISC OS gamers should definitely have in their collections and if they haven't yet then now is the time to do so.
The game involves controlling a spacecraft through a number of sideways scrolling levels. On each of these levels you will encounter hoards of aliens which you need to destroy. Should you reach the end of the level you will then meet with the 'End Of Level Boss' as they are affectionately known. Defeat the boss and the level is complete.
During the course of each level various collectables will float towards your ship. You need to acquire these to increase the power of your ship. These collectables include faster firepower, mines, protector droids and shields to name but a few. After a while you can make yourself a really strong and powerful ship.
Playing Nevryon is quite challenging. The first couple of levels are fairly easy to complete but the further you get into the game the more difficult the levels become with more alien craft, more parts of the landscape which can damage your craft, so the more collectables you get to power up your ship the better.
There is one very annoying thing in Nevryon and that is when you lose a life you have to start that particular level again. This is very irritating for two reasons. The first is that you lose your extra weapons you have obtained from collecting all the collectables. Even more annoying is the fact you get transported back to the start of that level. This does kind of spoil the game and is the only real criticism of it. Thankfully in the sequel game, Technodream, this has been changed.
On the graphics side of things Nevyron looks excellent. It did back then when it was released in the early 1990s and still does now. The graphics don't look dated at all, and the levels are very well drawn, with a great attention to detail on the various alien crafts, the landscapes and the big explosions when you destroy things or get destroyed yourself. The whole game looks really good.
The sound effects of Nevryon are just as good as the graphics with a good quality introductory tune and plenty of in-game noises including explosions, shooting things, pick up noises, plus also a number of different in-game tunes which are of a good quality as well.
Overall this is a quality classic RISC OS game and is highly recommended. This is a game which no RISC OS gamer should really be without. Also worth checking out is the BBC Micro version, not quite in the same league as this version, but it was still a very good game for the BBC.
Quazer
This was one of the first commercial games released for RISC OS computers, in fact we might have even been still on Arthur when this game first appeared although I think RISC OS 2 had just arrived (you were right the first time, it was Arthur - ED). Anyway this game is an upwards scrolling shoot everything that moves type game. It reminds me a bit of the BBC Micro classic game, Firetrack, but doesn't come anywhere near close.
Quazer is simple to control. You move your spaceship left, right up and down and then fire at whatever is moving about on the screen. Simple to play and it's easy to get into and progress through quite a number of levels quite quickly.
The graphics of Quazer are bright and colourful and there are a number of different alien types to deal with over the levels. They are a bit basic, as is the game in general, but it's a bit unfair to criticise considering that the Archimedes machines were in their infancy when this game was released.
On the audio side of things there are plenty of in-game explosions and shooting noises, plus a not particularly brilliant title tune. The game has a password system so that you can return to your highest level each time rather than having to wade through all the early levels again to get back to the point where you got killed last time.
Not really much else to say about this game, overall nothing spectacular, but as part of this compilation can't really complain. Plus it gives a retro look back at early RISC OS gaming if nothing else!
(As an aside I challenge anyone to complete Quazer, cos it can't be done - ED)
Shootup
This game makes Quazer look like the best shoot-em-up game ever! To be fair Shootup is a public domain game so if you aren't paying for it can't really complain, and it's basically a bonus on this CD collection.
Shootup is very simple to play and very basic. In short you shoot everything on the screen before it gets you. There is any energy bar and when that runs out it's game over.
The graphics are pretty basic and stay the same for all of the levels I saw, although the colour will change for each level. The only variant seemed to be adding more and more aliens on each subsequent level. Overall nothing special, but it is a freebie.
Technodream
This is the sequel to Nevryon, and was originally advertised as a 4th Dimension release, but the project was binned. It was later revived and released by Superior Software, so although not a 4D release it does warrant a place on this compilation.
Being the sequel to Nevryon, this is pretty much more of the same. It's a sideways scrolling game in which you fly your spacecraft through a number of different levels of varying difficulty, shooting anything that moves, and in some cases shooting things that don't move as well.
When you shoot aliens random collectables will appear. The more of these you collect the more powerful your spacecraft will become. These collectables include shields, mines, bigger guns, faster firepower and protective droids which you can fire in front of your craft to clear the way ahead for you. Very useful indeed!
There are 18 different levels, each divided up into zones, and they are passworded so you can skip early levels and get straight back into the action where you lost your last life. At the end of each level you have to defeat the 'end of level boss', in order to move onto the next level.
One of the most annoying features of Nevryon was that when you lost a life you would have to start that level again right from the beginning. Thankfully this has been changed in Technodream so that when you lose a life you just carry on, minus that life, but you do still lose the power ups you collected.
Another new feature is the introduction of a two player mode. This is a proper two player mode where both players are on screen at the same time, not waiting for your turn whilst the other person plays. You can team up together to complete the levels or play against each other.
Technodream is definitely an easier game to play than Nevryon. The first couple of levels are relatively straightforward to get through, but the difficulty level does increase on the later zones. This is where the password system comes in so you can go straight back to the game and try again should you fail, but the overall aim is to complete them all in one go without using any passwords.
The sounds in Technodream are reasonably good. There are the usual in game noises of explosions and shooting noises, plus an in game tunes which definitely sound better with the volume turned up. Plus there is introductory sequence music. Graphically Technodream looks good, the spacecraft is the same from the first game and there are plenty of aliens of each of the levels to destroy, plus of course the end of level bosses. The levels have different backdrops and landscapes to help to keep the game varied.
Overall then it's a decent enough sequel to Nevryon. Not the greatest ever shoot-em-up and pales a bit in comparison to Nevryon, but is still well worth playing, I liked it and definitely enjoyed playing it.
X-Fire
You would be forgiven for looking at this game and thinking that doesn't look particularly exciting, and to be fair it doesn't look like much of a game, but you would be very wrong indeed. Despite the look of this game it is a very addictive (and annoying at times) arcade shoot em up.
The game takes place in a maze. This screen layout stays the same for every level, although the colours and the graphics do change on each level to add a bit of variety. The object of the game sounds simple, just guide your craft around the maze and blast everything that moves. When all the aliens have been destroyed the level ends and it's on to the next one.
Sounds easy doesn't it? It's not as each level contains a number of different nasties who each have their own strengths. The bug looking creature which is known as "Henry" is easy to dispose of but the "JCB" is indestructible from the front so you have to have to shoot at it from behind. On later levels mines get laid around the screen to add to your problems.
These are just a few of the alien enemies who are out to get you but luckily there a number of power ups to collect to assist you in the destruction of aliens. The best one is the "Immediate Zap" which does exactly what it says on the tin! Collect this and all aliens on the screen are destroyed instantly, so best to wait until the screen is quite busy then go and get it. Other pick ups include bombs, shields and small zaps which you can collect and use them as and when you need them.
X-Fire is pretty straightforward to play. Guide your craft round the screen and shoot at things and avoid getting killed, that's basically it! It doesn't sound much but I found that the game is very addictive and you certainly has the 'one more go' appeal, as you have another go straight away to try and get a bit further. It can be very easy to get killed if you aren't careful, but with a bit of practice and a good collection of weapons you should be able to progress quite far into the game.
As you can see from the screenshots it's not the most spectacular of games to look at but it makes up for that with good gameplay. Each level has it's own colour scheme and graphics to keep the game varied, the aliens are colourful and well drawn and I think it looks very good, and doesn't appear dated at all. The sounds are noisy and effective though there is a looped backing track which can become annoying. In addition to that there are plenty of explosions and shooting noises, but the sampled voice of "You're Dead" each time you lose a life can get irritating, but maybe this is because it's reminding you that you've just lost another life!
Overall this is a great game, and the old saying "don't judge a book by it's cover" is very appropriate here. One other thing, this copy of X-Fire on the 4D CD was my official 4th Dimension patched version which I supplied to APDL, so when you see the high score table you may notice some rather strange names appearing there. To the best of my knowledge John Craven hasn't played X-Fire, well not on my machine anyway!
All the games on this compilation, except for Dropship, will run on any RISC OS machine without any problems. They have all been updated to run on the later RISC OS 4 Strong ARM machines and are now hard disc compliant so no need to insert the key disc to run them anymore. So if you had these games on their original 4th Dimension release and you can't get them to work on later hardware you will find that these new versions will work fine.
The Iyonix compatibility of this compilation is suprisingly good, using Aemulor Pro quite a few of the games work perfectly, the ones that work fine are :
Apocalyps
Galactic Dan (it's fast on a Risc PC, it's ridiculous on the Iyonix!
X-Fir
Shootu
Nevryon (seems to work but after the main title page I seem to get a page of rubbish displayed, this may be my LCD monitor being awkward but if you can get past this screen by clicking the mouse and pressing keys then the game itself works fine
The following games didn't run on the Iyonix under Aemulor Pro.
Technodrea
Euro Blaste
Drop Shi
Quaze
Overall this compilation follows suite of the previous 4D games collections in that you get a very good collection of quality RISC OS games at a fraction of the original price that they all would have cost individually.
For me the best games are Nevryon and X-Fire, closely followed by Technodream, Apocalypse and Dropship. The only game which really isn't up to much is Shootup but this was a public domain game anyway so it can be excused. With eight decent games for the bargain price of £15.00 this compilation is definitely worth checking out.
Product details
Product:
Shoot-em-up Games C
Supplier:
APD
Price:
£14.9
Address:
39 Knighton Park Road Sydenham London SE26 5R
Tel:
0208 778265
WWW:
Matthew Thompson
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/SW2006/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, RISC OS SouthWest 2006
RISC OS SouthWest 2006
Aaron's show report...
Last issue we previewed the RISC OS South West show, which took place on Saturday the 18th of February at the Webbington Hotel in Somerset. So what was the show actually like?
As an exhibitor I usually stay at the hotel the night before the show, mainly because trying to drive to the west country down the M4 early on a Saturday morning can be murder. Of course we have moved since the last show, but old habits die hard and I still decided to drive down on Friday afternoon. I won't bore you with the latest motoring mishaps, besides which I would only be repeating my editorial, so lets just say that I loaded the car up and left just before 1pm.
As soon as I got on the M42 heading down to Birmingham I encountered the latest in the governments new "dig up the roads plan for congesting traffic" scheme. Then I had to crawl round the outside of Birmingham in the famous M42 variable speed limits. As an aside, how variable can stationary be? Then joined up with the M5 and headed towards Bristol. The aim was to make sure that I was past the great Bristol bottleneck before 5, when the roads grind to a full stop. But the road was already at full stop, caused by a cracking set of roadworks. Having crawled through them I finally arrived at the Webbington just after 5pm. Not bad, four hours to do a two and a half hour drive.
I checked in and went into the exhibition hall. A hotel employee was busy not arranging the tables. So did I recognise any cars in the car park? Yes. I could see Dave Holden's four wheel drive, what I couldn't see was Dave Holden. In the end I discovered that he was just grabbing four hundred winks in his room. By this time the tables had been set up, so we drove the vehicles round to the back of the hotel and unloaded. As usual I had forgotten my floor plan so I did exactly what I did last year and set up next to Dave. The fact that he wasn't sure which tables were his either didn't concern us. The trick is to set up before John Stonier (the show organiser) arrives, then make sure you are absent. That way the rest of the show gets arranged around you.
By six thirty we were set up, but very few other exhibitors had turned up. Later in the evening as the others slowly arrived we discovered why. There had been a very nasty accident on the M5 just before the roadworks. This caused very long delays. Of course in the case of Advantage6 the delay was increased by attempting to find the hotel using a GPS system. Every year someone tries this, and every year, without fail, GPS units send keen RISC OS developers down a tiny country lane ending in a closed gate. Oh well, at least they arrived in the end, even it was nearly 10pm in the evening.
In the meantime Dave and I had carefully sampled the contents of the bar. Then sampled the contents of our plates in the restaurant. I ordered what was described as a Beef Worcestershire. This proved to be a tin of Fry Bentos steak lumps in gravy with some horseradish dolloped on top. Hmmm...lovely. "My compliments to the Chef", he deserves them if he gets away with serving this rubbish.
Next morning dawned bright and clear, so it was two up on me before I had even started. By a combination of careful planning and hunger I arrived at the restaurant dead on 8am, just as it opened. "Would I like tea?", yes please, a pot of Lady Grey if you would be so kind. "What's that?" Ah, it's actually a type of arboreal badger. That didn't work, I settled for a pot of Earl Grey, although it tasted more like Earl Brown. Having carefully loaded my plate with bacon, beans, mushrooms and bacon I sat down to eat. Mike Glover advises me that sausages and eggs have now appeared. "The eggs are in short supply though." Well they are going to be in even shorter supply in a minute.
Having eaten 20 breakfasts I waddle back to my room, grab my stuff, then check out. I then position my car for a quick getaway after the show and enter the exhibition room. It's a lot busier than last night. I do my usual "wander round and annoy people who are trying to set up" routine and before I know it 10 o'clock has come and the show is open. So what was on show?
First stand inside the door was Advantage6. They were demonstrating a number of A9home machines as well as having stocks of various items, including fully populated UniPods. By the end of the show I was informed by Stuart that they had sold all the machines they had bought with them for their developer scheme. This allows people who develop RISC OS software to get hold of an A9, with a beta version of RISC SO Adjust32, for a discount.
An A9Home
Next along was John Norris with a large bell ringing apparatus. I think he might have got a bit tired of people asking if it was a gallows while he was assembling it. Anyway the bell was connected up to a RiscPC so that someone could learn bell ringing strokes. Although it's certainly a niche market it was a very interesting demonstration of what could be done with RISC OS.
The bells...
Next door were Fortran Friends showing off their own bell ringing software as well as their various Polyhedra programs. Along from them was Dave Holden, from APDL, with his usual large range of RISC OS software. He also has some new Fourth Dimension games CD releases. You can read a review of one of these in this very issue. Next door to APDL was the VirtualAcorn stand. We had VRPC-Adjust on display and I spent quite a lot of the day pointing people over to the RISCOS Ltd stand so they could see the latest build of the Mac version of VRPC.
Across the gangway was Castle Technology's Jack Lillingston with a couple of Iyonix machines. He didn't seem to have any stock but was apparently taking orders for machines and for the DIY Iyonix kit which has been re-launched, at least that's what I was told. This allows customers to build up a machine with their own specification by buying all the standard parts, such as power supplies, drives, memory etc from PC box shifters. According to RISC OS news site Drobe Jack was also saying that the two versions of RISC OS now won't be merged. Hmm, you can spot the 180 degree skid marks from the u-turn a mile away. Jack also gave a talk in the lecture theatre which was similar to the one he gave last year. Surprisingly I didn't see any sign of Castle's technical supremo John Ballance, although I understand he was finishing off a new version of RISC OS 5 for release.
Next to Castle were OreganoUK who were showing off the latest beta version of Oregano3, but were tight lipped about a release date. Across from them R-Comp were doing a steady stream of Messenger upgrades as well as showing a number of new RiscCube computers, which apparently out perform an Iyonix by a considerable margin. Next to them was Chris Evans of CJE Micros. Chris doesn't seem to be having much luck with shows, he damaged his knee just before the Christmas Roadshow and this time his hired van kept breaking down. Luckily he had managed to arrive OK and had a vast range of RISC OS related kit on hand.
A RiscCube
Further along Mike Glover was showing the latest versions of TechWriter and EasiWriter to those keen for an upgrade. These new versions ad been built using RISCOS Ltd's StubsG and works across all machines. He also told me the development plans for TechWriter. Although I am sworn to secrecy I'm really looking forward to seeing the applications new features later this year. Next door was Martin Wuerthner showing off ArtWorks2. He was looking very pleased with the interest being generated. He even did a talk in the lecture theatre on how to use Artworks properly. Some of those viewing the talk came out looking a bit gob smacked.
Martin Wuerthner
Across the walkway The Arm Club had copies of Eureka, the club magazine, for people to have a look at. Spellings Computer Services were showing the latest versions of the Geminus graphics acceleration package for the Iyonix. Apparently a new version can display large JPEG files at up to 3 times the speed of a standard machine. Next door Finnybank had back issues of Qercus available as well as a wide range of board games all created on RISC OS. RISCOS Ltd had a large stand with a number of machines, including a RiscPC, A9, PC and Iyonix and an iMac all running the same versions of RISC OS 4.4x. Also available were RISC OS Adjust ROMS for the RiscPC/A7000 at a tempting £69 for customers to take away.
The Arm Club and others
Along the aisle Archive publications were selling subscriptions to Archive magazine and Living with Technology. Further along were Mathmagical software, StrongARM systems (who had to leave early) and David Snell selling copies of ProCAD+ and also WebWonder.
So what was the show like? Well it was a bit quieter than I would have liked, especially when any of the talks were going on in the show theatre. Apparently the number of customers who attended was around the 150 mark, which is on a par with last year. Having said that I enjoyed myself and it was well worth attending. The worst bit? Driving all the way back up the M5 in the fog. Mind you, at least it only took just over 3 hours to get home.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/VA/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, VirtualAcorn Tech Support
VirtualAcorn Tech Support
More from Aaron's tech support notebook
At the moment we are beavering away on a set of further upgrades for both versions of VirtualRPC. I will release full details once we have made a final decision about what we are going to include. Anyway, lets have a look at some of the issues that have come up in the last few weeks.
Launching files into Windows
If you've read the letters page in this issue then you will know that UniPrint2 comes with a file launcher. This allows you to "load" a file under VirtualAcorn, but to have the file actually load under Windows. This can be quite a useful feature as it allows you, for example, check an HTML file in a RISC OS browser and then check it in a Windows browser without having to navigate through all the possible complexities of Windows Explorer.
Users who have the final release of VirtualA5000 may be thinking..."Hmmm, can't I already do this?" Well, yes you can, you can also do this using any version of VirtualRPC, using the undocumented HostOpen command. As an example, lets suppose we have a textfile called "Hello/txt" in the root of the VirtualAcorn harddisc. From inside RISC OS you can launch this file into NotePad by pressing F12 and typing:
HostOpen HostFS::Harddisc4.$.Hello/txt
The last VirtualA5000 builds shipped with an added "bonus" hidden inside !Boot, the "VirtualAcorn Windows Controller". This allowed users to launch a file under Windows by holding down the right ALT key (also called Alt Gr) when double clicking on a file. When VRPC-SE was launched it was always intended that this functionality would be included. However the "Windows Controller" program didn't work and it all got forgotten about.
However, seeing the letter that was sent in about UniPrint made me think about it some more. I went back to the source code and had a look, sure enough the problem was staring me in the face. So I have fixed the initial problem and made a couple of other small changes. The new version of the "Windows Controller" is in the software directory on this issue. To use it simply double click to load it. Nothing will happen until you hold down the "Alt Gr" key (the one to he right of space, whilst double clicking on a file or directory. When you hold down the "Alt Gr" key the file/directory will be passed to Windows to be opened.
There are two restrictions, firstly, in order for a file to be opened under Windows it has to have a valid file extension. For example a text file called "Fred" will not be loaded under Windows, one called "fred/txt" will. Secondly if VirtualAcorn is running full screen then it will be forced to flip into windowing mode. This may result in the RISC OS desktop not getting redrawn correctly. If this happens then don't worry, a press of ALT and ENTER should clear things up.
The "Windows Controller" is supplied as is with no warranty as to fitness for purpose, if you do, however, find any problems I will try and have a look.
More on Faxing from VirtualAcorn
Last issue I covered sending a Fax from inside VirtualRPC using UniPrint. Andrew from R-Comp has been in touch and has suggested a much neater way of setting things up. In order to do this you will need a copy of UniPrint, an installed Fax printer on the Windows side and, of course, a copy of VirtualRPC.
The method suggested by Andrew is far better then the one I suggested as once it's been done it doesn't involve any configuration changes. Assuming you have a copy of UniPrint installed a working you need to install a 2nd UniPrint PDF (Printer Definition file) into !Printers. You do this by clicking MENU over the printer icon on the iconbar and clicking on "Printer Control". The Printer Control window will now open. Drag a copy of the UniPrint PDF into this window. Now go down to the Printers icon on the iconbar and click Menu and then click on "Save Choices".
Now run the UniSetup program, you will see two copies of UniPrint in the window.
Find the 2nd UniPrint in the list and double click on it, the "Edit Connection" window will now open.
Click on the "Advanced" button and the "Advanced" window will open. Assuming you are using the default Windows XP Fax printer driver you can just type in the name "Fax". If you are using a third party fax printer you will need to type in the correct name. Press F12 and type "*Printers". Make a note of the name of your fax printer and press Return to go back to the desktop. Now type in the name.
Now click "OK", then "OK" again and finally click on "Save". Assuming all has gone correctly you will now have a full time Fax printer installed on the RISC OS icon bar. Anytime you want to send a fax just click on the UniPrint fax printer icon on the iconbar (to select it and turn it yellow) and then you can print directly to the fax.
That's all for this time, no doubt I will have some more useful tips for the next issue.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/WAKE/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, Wakefield 2006
Wakefield 2006
We preview the show of the year...
Once again the Wakefield RISC OS Computer club have organised a show at the Thornes park Athletics Stadium in Wakefield. The show will be taking place on Saturday the 13th of May from 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening. Ticket prices are £5 in advance, or £6 at the door. Children under 5 can enter free when accompanied by an adult.
The Thornes Park Athletics Stadium is very easy to find, by foot and by car, and has ample parking.
This years show has been sponsored by APDL, Advantage Six, Richard Hallas, MW Software, Spellings Computer Services and VirtualAcorn.
The show website (
Organisers
The show is once again being coordinated by Chris Hughes, who has organised all the previous Wakefield shows. The show is organised on behalf of the Wakefield RISCOS Computer Club one of the longest running Acorn/RISCOS computer clubs in the UK.
Exhibitors
The full list of exhibitors isn't available yet, however the following companies have already confirmed that they will be attending:
Please see the
Click here for the
floor plan
Exhibitor
Stand
Information
APDL
-
APDL has the biggest ever collection of
software for RISC OS, plus hard drives, CD ROM drives and RAM. Three
new 4th Dimension games compilation CDs will be released at the
show, and don't forget the trade-in offer if you have an APDL
DataSafe.
Advantage 6 Ltd
-
Tel: 01706 848 600
Fax: 01706 848
679
Email: info@advantage6.com
web: http://www.advantage6.com
Advantage Six Ltd produce a range of RISC OS solutions for
industrial, OEM and embedded use such as the A6, A75 and A9
machines, industrial interface controllers, monitoring equipment and
data encoders. They work to bring consumer products to RISC OS users
through their retail partners.
Archive
-
The subscription magazine for RISC OS
users (£39 for 12 issues). Huge amounts of information, articles,
news, views, etc. Also on sale, Archive CD (£19) with all 17 years’
back issues in HTML format, plus search programs to help you find
the information you want.
ARM Club
-
The ARM Club team will be available to
help members and non members alike on the Club stand. We'll also be
extolling the virtues of membership of the largest RISC OS User
Group and providing copies of the club's software titles, including
the popular Eureka back-issues CD and the vital DiscKnight.
EFF
-
Professional advice and help in all font
related matters. Quality typefaces for over 60 languages. You can
find a large range of educational, symbolic and scientific fonts.
Icon
Technology
-
Icon Technology will be releasing a major
upgrade to EasiWriter and TechWriter - the result of 15 months
development by Martin Wuerthner of ArtWorks fame.
M W Software
-
MW Software will demonstrate and sell the
latest release of ArtWorks 2, the most popular advanced vector
graphics illustration package for RISC OS and the Gimp-Print
high-quality photoreal printer drivers.
R-Comp/R-Comp
Interactive
-
R-Comp will be showing exciting new
versions of our Messenger Pro 3 email software, and major
enhancements to our Hermes-powered DialUp3 and NetFetch2
applications. These programs together will open up whole new avenues
of mail and news handling, beyond what is possible on RISC OS today.
We'll also be showing the latest versions of our Web Authoring and
other Internet products as well as Datapower2/Home and more.
R-Comp Interactive will be showing some of the fastest machines
to run RISC OS software with a number of new machines available in
our popular RISCube and RISCbook range. If you're after
top-of-the-line performance AND compatibility, look no further. We
will also have a whole new range of systems with some eye-opening
demonstrations..! You'll also be able to see our MusicMan MP3/CD
software, updates to UniPrint and more.
RISCOS Ltd
-
-
RISCOS
Packaging Project
-
The RISC OS Packaging Project aims to
build RISC OS software packages that can automatically be
downloaded, installed, removed and updated using the package manager
RiscPkg. Come to the stand to learn more.
RiscCAD
-
RiscCAD Professional by David Buck
RiscCAD Professional is a comprehensive 2D CAD system for RISC
OS. Fully menu and toolbox driven it allows users to create complex
2D designs with ease. Version 9 will be available at the show, with
enhancements such as on-the-fly snap, multiple views, extended fill
features, isometric and oblique grids and improved dimensioning.
RiscCAD Professional is available from David Buck, Dobella
Cottage, Station Road, Rawcliffe DN14 8QT
Spelling Computer
Services
-
Spellings Computer Services will be
showing their ever expanding portfolio of high quality RISC OS
software including: Aemulor, Aemulor Pro, Cino, Geminus and
DeskDebug. We will also have details of our wide range of LCD
monitors and IYONIX PCI graphics cards for use with Geminus.
Aemulor is a 26-bit emulator for IYONIX pc allowing legacy
software to be run seamlessly on the desktop. Aemulor Pro expands
the range of software supported to include many full screen
applications (such as Sibelious), filing systems, and many RISC OS
games.
Cino is an ambitious project to bring DVD playing to RISC OS for
the first time. Visitors will be able to see the current development
progress and see DVDs playing under RISC OS on the IYONIX pc.
Geminus brings multi-monitor support to RISC OS for the first
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RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE6/XSSOV/INDEX.HTM Issue 6, XStitch Sovereign
All rights reserved. This program is licensed for use on a single computer by a single user.
This version is supplied for the use of RISC World subscribers only.
Published by -
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road
Sydenham
London SE26 5RN
Phone : 020 8778 2659
Fax : 020 8488 0487
E-mail : info@apdl.co.uk
Contents
Introduction
Loading Sovereign
Your first canvas
The Sovereign window
Loading a sprite
The sprite preview
Canvas size/hpi
Canvas options window
Making a canvas from a sprite
Making a Blank Canvas
Canvas Drawing Window
Drawing toolbox
The button bar
Printing the canvas
The colour window
The colour button bar
Picking Colours
Copy/flip buttons
The Motif tool
The preview tool
Undo tools
Button bar colours pickers
Sovereign Preferences
Supported file types
Problem Solving
Glossary of terms
Copyright message
Introduction
Sovereign is a cross stitch design generator for RISC OS. It allows cross stitch designs (canvases) to be produced from sprites and other types of bitmap files such as JPEGs. Sovereign also allows canvases to be generated entirely using the computer. You can start with a blank canvas and then use drawing tools to produce your design.
The canvas designs are all produced on a grid with bold lines every 10 stitches (if you want them). Sovereign works by converting colours to symbols. These symbols represent colours from either the Anchor or DMC stranded cotton ranges.
An example design with a grid and symbol for each colour. Each symbol represents a different colour. No symbol means the canvas colour.
Sovereign requires RISC OS 3.1 or later & 2Mb of RAM in order to work correctly. Sovereign uses !ChangeFSI for some sprite processing effects. Please ensure that !ChangeFSI is "seen" by the filer before running Sovereign.
Sovereign uses a special font and this also needs to be "seen" by the computer before the application can be used. This font is stored inside a special !Fonts folder which is alongside Sovereign. When you first open the directory window that contains Sovereign double click on this !Fonts folder to install the special font.
Loading Sovereign
To load Sovereign simply double click on its icon in the directory window. A loading banner will appear and then Sovereign will load.
If Sovereign has a problem loading then a message will be displayed on screen. The most likely cause of this is because the special font required is not available.
The Font iSVXStitch could not be found. Please install the font and run !Sovereign again.
If this message appears then the !Fonts folder next to Sovereign has not been "seen" by the filer. Open the window containing this !Fonts folder and then re-run Sovereign.
Once the font has been installed Sovereign will load and will appear on the right hand side of the icon bar.
You are now ready to make your first canvas.
Your first canvas
Making a canvas design in a matter of seconds.
Load Sovereign onto the icon bar of your compute
Click SELECT on the Sovereign icon
A window will open on screen. Only 2 parts of this window are important at the moment. The first is an icon which says Drop a sprite here. The second is a button called Make Canvas
Open the examples directory next to Sovereign
Drag the Sprite file called QuickStart into the Sovereign window and drop it onto the Drop a sprite here icon
Click on the Make Canvas button in the Sovereign window. An hourglass will appear
A window will open with your canvas design
That is all there is to producing a simple canvas. Other features will be covered in the rest of the manual. If you would like to "play" with the canvas you have just produced then Sovereign can provide on-line help on its tool bar. Just move the mouse around and read the messages. Sovereign also supports Interactive Help.
The Sovereign window
This is the window that you first see when you click on the Sovereign icon on the icon bar.
This window is used to make a canvas. From here you can produce a canvas either from a sprite, or from scratch. The next few pages will cover all of the features available from this window.
Loading a sprite
In order to produce a canvas from a sprite the sprite must first be loaded in Sovereign. Drag the sprite file onto the Drop a sprite here icon of the main window. Sovereign will then show the name of the sprite and its size in pixels. The lower half of the window will also be updated to show the size of the canvas generated from this sprite.
Note that Sovereign can also import Drawfiles, these will be automatically converted to sprites when loaded.
The sprite preview
When a sprite is loaded a small sprite preview window will also open.
This window shows the sprite that you have just loaded. You can use the zoom tool to get a closer look at the sprite. To get more information about the sprite click on the information tool when the window below will open.
If you need to edit the sprite then click on the OLE tool. The sprite will then be loaded automatically into !Paint. Once you have finished editing the sprite simply click on SAVE from the !Paint MAIN menu and the sprite will update.
Canvas size/hpi
When a sprite is loaded the size of the canvas generated is shown in the main window. You can change this size easily if the resulting canvas is too big. To change to size click on one of the up/down arrows next to the width or height (these will double/halve) the canvas size. You can also click SELECT in one of the icons showing the width or height and type in a new size.
Next to the canvas hpi icon is a menu button. You can click on this to open a menu of hpi sizes. Select a size from this menu and the canvas hpi size will change. If the size you want is not available then you can type it in to the icon which shows the current size.
Sometimes when a sprite is loaded into Sovereign a short message will flash on screen. Sovereign can only handle sprites of certain types. For example only sprites with square pixels can be loaded (Modes 27,28 etc). If you drop in a sprite created in mode 12 (rectangular pixels) then it will be converted to square pixels automatically by Sovereign.
Sovereign also works on a special 64 colour sprite format. If you drop in a 256 colour or deep (32,000 colour) sprite then this will automatically be converted to 64 colours. These conversions will only take a few seconds at most. The information windows shown above are also used by XStitch to tell you what it is doing if the hourglass is on.
Canvas options window
This window is opened by clicking on the "Canvas options" button in the main XStitch window.
This window allows you to change aspects of the canvas before you make it.
Grid and Colour options
The grid options section of the window allows you to alter some aspects of the Sovereign grid. You can turn the background grid on or off. Add bold lines every 10 units, and set the grid colour to 16 possible colours.
Colour options
This allows you to alter the way that colours are handled.
You can choose to make a canvas using either Anchor or DMC thread colours. You can also see the current background colour here. This is the colour in that will be ignored when a canvas is created. For example if a sprite has a white background then a symbol is not required for white. To change the background colour open the sprite preview and double click on the colour that will be ignored.
You can also set the backstitch colour, this alters the colour that will be used to draw the backstitch on the canvas.
Symbol options
This section of the window allows you to set up the way the canvas will be generated.
You can chose to produce a canvas with just symbols and no colours, or one with coloured blocks but no symbols, or even both. You cannot have a canvas with no symbols and no colours as this would just be a grid! If you do want to make this then please see the Blank Canvas section.
You can also save these options from this window. So if for example you always use DMC threads you could select DMC as the thread type and then click on the "Save as Default" button and from then on Sovereign would always use DMC colours.
To set the options in this window click on the "Set options" button. The options will be set and the window will close.
Making a canvas from a sprite
Once you have set all the options up the way that you would like then you can now make the canvas. Click on the Make Canvas button in the main window. If you have resized the canvas from the main window you will see a message appear on screen telling you that XStitch is re-sizing the sprite to the new size you have chosen.
A message will then appear saying Generating Canvas. The hourglass will turn on and a percentage indicator will appear showing you how far XStitch has got.
Once Sovereign has completed the canvas the canvas design window will open. You can now edit this canvas, or just print it out.
Making a Blank Canvas
Sovereign does not need to have a sprite loaded in order to make a canvas. You can create a blank canvas and then produce your design from scratch using the drawing tools provided.
Making a blank canvas is done in exactly the same way as making a canvas for a sprite, except that you perform all the operation without a sprite being loaded into Sovereign.
If you already have a sprite loaded into Sovereign but would still like to make a blank canvas then simply close the sprite preview window. A message will appear on screen asking if you are sure you want to discard the sprite. Click on the Continue button.
Once you have no sprite loaded set the options up for the canvas, then set the size that the canvas will be in the main window and click on the Make Canvas button.
If you have the Produce design with colours button set then XStitch will generate a blank sprite of the correct size before producing the canvas for you.
Canvas Drawing Window
This is the canvas drawing window. This window will open once you have clicked on the make canvas button. From here you can edit your canvas or print it out.
Drawing toolbox
Along the left side of the canvas window is the drawing toolbox. This contains a series of tools that can be used to alter or edit the canvas. Only one tool can be selected at any time. To select a tool simply click on it with SELECT . The currently selected tool will turn off.
For example if you click SELECT on the Stitch tool and then move the mouse pointer onto the canvas a click with SELECT will draw a stitch of the current colour. If you want to clear a stitch on the canvas then you can click with ADJUST.
The circle, box and line tools all work by dragging with SELECT (to draw in the current colour) or ADJUST (to clear the canvas).
Clicking SELECT on the zoom tool will zoom in, ADJUST zooms out.
A Click on Text opens the text dialogue.
Single stitch tools
Sovereign has two single stitch tools, the normal stitch tool will draw one stitch in the current colour when you click with SELECT over the canvas. You can delete a stitch by clicking with ADJUST . You can also select a colour by moving the mouse pointer over a stitch of the colour you want and clicking on MENU.
The backstitch tool
This tool allows you to add backstitch along the edge of any stitches. To add backstitch simply click (or drag) with SELECT over the relevant edge of the stitch that you wish to have backstitch on. The backstitch (which is usually drawn in black) will appear on the canvas. To delete a bit of backstitch drag using ADJUST over the stitch you want to remove.
When adding backstitch it is very helpful to check the WYSIWYG preview window every few minutes to see what your backstitch will look like on your finished design.
The text dialogue
Clicking on the text button on the toolbar will open the text dialogue box.
From here you can add text to your canvas. You can use any outline font installed on your system, fonts can be chosen using the menu button next to the font name. You can also set the height of the text in stitches (please note that this is an approximate figure due to variations in font designs). Once you have typed in the text you want to add to your canvas click on the OK button. A text caret will appear over the canvas, when you have positioned this correctly click SELECT to add the text. If you do not want to add the text click ADJUST .
The button bar
The button bar along the top of the drawing window also has some tools on it.
Save buttons
Clicking on either of the first two buttons will open a save dialogue box. The first button allows you to save the current canvas as a Drawfile (for importing into other packages). The seconds button allows you to save the canvas file for later editing/use.
Canvas information
The canvas information window can be opened by clicking on the Canvas information button on the button bar.
This window will provide information on the canvas that you are currently working on. You can work on the canvas with this window open if you like. If you use the drawing tools to edit the canvas then you will see the number of stitches shown in this window increase or decrease as you work.
The stitching time shown in this window is only an estimate and is based upon the time it takes an experienced stitcher to produce a canvas of the size you are working on.
Printing the canvas
The canvas print dialogue box can be opened by clicking on the Print button. The print dialogue box will then open.
From here you can set the scale of the printed canvas (200% is twice real size). You can also set the paper size you want to use (only choose A3 if your printer has A3 paper). You can also set the paper to be either Portrait or Landscape.
If your canvas is taller than it is wide choose Portrait, if it is wider than it is tall choose Landscape.
If you are using a printer that can only take 1 page at a time then turn on the Pause between sheets option. Sovereign will then print out 1 sheet at a time.
Printing overlap
If your design is bigger than one sheet of paper XStitch will automatically tile the design so that it fits across several sheets of paper. The overlap option allows you to set the amount of the design that is repeated on the next sheet. An overlap of 100 is roughly 1/20th of the width of the page and should be fine for most printers.
Changing the overlap may also change the number of sheets of paper required to print the design. Often changing from Portrait to Landscape printing can reduce the number of sheets of paper needed.
The colour window
The colour window is opened by clicking on the colour button on the button bar.
This window allows you to pick a colour and then draw with that colour in your canvas. In the example above colour 1 is selected (as you can see it is highlighted). To select a colour simply click SELECT on the particular symbol as shown in the window. Clicking on the boxes showing the examples of the colours will not select a colour.
Depending on the number of colours in your sprite this window may show either 2,4,16 or 64 colours. If you have created a blank canvas then this window will always show a full range of 64 colours in either DMC or Anchor threads.
The colour button bar
Along the top of the colour window is a button bar
Printing button
Clicking on this button will open a print dialogue box from where you can print out a colour reference chart showing all the symbols and their associated colours.
Save text file
Clicking on this button will open a save dialogue box that will allow you to save the current colours. This text file can then be imported into another package.
Text - saves a normal text file
Text Area - saves a Draw text area
Impression - saves an Impression script
Picking Colours
If you want to choose a colour that is not currently used in your canvas you will need to open the colour window and then click on the colour of your choice.
If however you want to pick a colour that is already used in the canvas you can click MENU over a stitch of that colour and it will then be selected as the current colour.
What ever way you pick a new colour the old colour (the one that you were using) will de de-selected from the colour window and the new one will be highlighted.
Picking the canvas colour
Quite often it is useful to be able to choose a colour that is the same as the canvas colour that you are working on. This would result in a blank symbol( ie. no symbol) being placed on the canvas. As you may have seen the colour window does not have a blank symbol option. To draw in the same colour as the canvas (ie. clear symbols) simply draw using the ADJUST button rather than the SELECT button.
Remove unused colours
This button will remove all the colours from the colour window that are not actually used in your design. If you click on this button a confirmation window will open asking if you are sure that you want to continue.
For example if you have produced a design from scratch you may have used only 10 of the available 64 colours. Clicking on this button will remove the unused 54 colours from the colour list. You can then print out a reference chart with only the colours actually used in your design.
We recommend that you only use this button once a canvas has been completed and before printing out the colour chart. Once this button has been clicked on you will not be able to use any other colours apart from those that already exist in your canvas.
Remove colours from symbols
If you have produced a design with both colours and symbols then the canvas will show each square with a block of colour and a symbol on top.
This is fine when editing the canvas but when it comes to printing the design out on a monochrome printer there will be grey blocks behind each symbol. To prevent this happening simply click on the "Remove colours from behind symbols" button on the colour button bar.
This will remove all the colours from behind the symbols and leave you with a black and white chart with grid lines, symbols but no colours.
This can also be useful when you are producing a canvas that will be incorporated into another document such as an Impression file or an Ovation PRO file.
Save colours as default
Clicking on this button will save the current colours as the default set for a blank canvas using the particular type of thread.
When you click on this button a confirmation window will open asking if you are sure you want to save the default colours.
This can be useful if you want to produce designs from scratch but do not want all the 64 colours available.
If at a later stage you decide that you do want all the colours available when you make a blank canvas then make a canvas from any 256 colour sprite and then click on this button again.
Skein count
Sovereign can count the number of skeins required to stitch a design. If you click on the skein count button the number of skeins of each colour required will be shown in the colour picker window.
This will only count the number of skeins currently needed. If you change the design on the canvas you may need to click on the skein count again to remake the list.
Copy/flip buttons
The copy block button will allow you to select a piece of the canvas and then copy it to another location.
Click on the tool and then drag a rectangle on the canvas using SELECT . This will be the area that will be copied. Once you have released the mouse button you can then click on SELECT to position the bottom left corner of the copy. This will then be pasted into your canvas. This tool can be used to produce repeating patterns easily.
Flip tools
Both of these tools operate in a similar way to the copy button. You drag over an area of the canvas with SELECT and then let go of the mouse button. The selected area will then be flipped over. These tools are also useful when you need to produce repeating patterns.
The Motif tool
This allows pre-designed motifs to be be pasted into you canvas easily and quickly. Sovereign comes with some motifs built in and you can add you own as well.
When you click on the motif button the motif window will open. You can choose one of the pre-defined motifs from the menu button at the top of the window. When you have chosen the motif you want click on "OK". The window will close and a rectangle the size of your motif will appear over the canvas. Position this in the right place with the mouse,click SELECT to paste the motif using the currently selected colour. If you click with ADJUST the motif will not be pasted.
New Motifs
You can create your own motifs by clicking on the New button. This will open the new motif window.
You need to give your new motif a name and also tell Sovereign how wide and how high it will be.
Once the name and sizes have been entered click on the Make new motif button. A new blank motif will now appear in the !Paint application. Motifs are stored as 2 colour Mode 25 sprites. Design the new motif using !Paint and then save it. Sovereign will detect that the motif has been saved by Paint and will now automatically load it. You can now select it in the same way that you would select any other motif. Sovereign can store over 70 motifs at one time.
Motif Edit/Delete
As we have seen previously when you make a new motif it is automatically sent to !Paint for editing. The Edit button works in the same way. Select the motif that you want to edit and then click on the Edit tool. The motif will appear in a !Paint window, you can then edit it and once you have completed the editing simply save it back.
Delete motif
Sometimes it may be useful to delete a motif that is no longer needed. To do this select the motif that you don't want and then click on the Delete button. Sovereign will confirm that you are sure as once a motif is deleted it is gone for ever, if you are sure click on Continue.
The preview tool
This tool allows you to see what your design will look like when it has been stitched. Click on this button and a preview window will be generated. You will need to be in a 256+ colour mode to see the preview properly.
The preview window offers a similar WYSIWYG display to that provided by FairIsle, our knitting pattern designer. You can zoom in and out of the preview as well as saving it as a 256 colour sprite.
Undo tools
These tools allow you to undo operations on the canvas. For example suppose you had placed a motif on the canvas and had not selected the correct colour before pasting. You could click on the main Undo tool (with the larger red arrow) on the button bar and the motif would be removed.
The main undo tool (large arrow) will undo all operations in one go that have occurred since you last selected a tool from the toolbar.
The other undo tool (small arrow) will undo operations one stitch at a time. You can hold down SELECT on this tool and watch as Sovereign performs the undo. Releasing SELECT will stop the undo process.
The undo tool may not always be able to undo some operations even though the undo buffer can store over 3800 stitches. For example if you had drawn a big rectangle over the entire canvas Undo might not be able to recover the old design underneath. We therefore recommend that you save your canvas periodically while working on it.
Button bar colours pickers
On the top of the button bar are three colour pickers, these allow you to alter the colours used by Sovereign when drawing the canvas.
As you can see the grid colour, the backstitch colour and the symbol colour can be changed. Altering any of these will no effect on your design. They will however alter the colours used by Sovereign to draw your design on screen, or on paper.
For example, suppose you had imported a very dark sprite, normally it would be very difficult to see the symbols because they are drawn in black. You could change the symbol colour to white and the design would be much much clearer.
You can change these colours at any time, however please note that if you are using a TurboDriver from computer concepts you will need to turn on the "halftone text" button in the TurboDriver when printing otherwise symbols and backstitch will always be black when printed.
Sovereign Preferences
If you click MENU over the Sovereign icon on the icon bar the icon bar menu will appear. Clicking on the Prefs... option will open the preferences window.
Stitching experience
This allows you to set up the experience of the user. This alters both the stitching time calculated by Sovereign and the skein count. Sovereign allows more time to stitch and assumes a greater wastage of thread for a Beginner.
Image conversion
This option relates to the importing of bitmap images. Sovereign needs to convert 256+ colour images into its own 64 colour format before making a canvas. This option controls the brightness of the converted image
As you can see there are four options. You need to set the one that is appropriate to the image you are going to import before importing it. The examples below show the differences. This option can affect both the screen display and the Anchor/DMC colours chosen by Sovereign.
On-line help
Sovereign can provide you with on-line help as you move the mouse around its windows. The constantly changing text messages on the button bar can become annoying for experienced users and so you can turn them off with this option.
Note that turning off on-line help has no effect on the Interactive/Bubble help support provided by Sovereign.
Saving options
Once you have set your options you can save them using the Save prefs button. If you change your mind the old settings can be restored by clicking on the Cancel button.
Supported file types
Sovereign can generate patterns from a wide variety of bitmap file types. These include:
Sprites - Both old format and RiscPC deep sprites
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group files
GIF - As designed by Compuserve
TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
BMP - Microsoft Windows bitmaps
You can import these file types simply by dropping them onto Sovereign. Sovereign uses !ChangeFSI to import these images so please ensure that a copy of !ChangeFSI has been "seen" by the filer before trying to load any of these filetypes.
In addition Sovereign can also import Drawfiles. These are automatically converted to 64 colour sprites when they are dropped onto Sovereign. Drop the drawfile onto Sovereign in the same way you would a sprite, it will be converted and a sprite will appear in the preview window.
Problem Solving
Slow screen redraw
If the main Sovereign window (containing the canvas) is redrawing slowly then you need to increase the size of your font cache, we recommend that you allocate at least 100K for the font cache. Click on the Acorn icon on the right of the icon bar. Scroll down the window that opens until you find the font cache setting, now drag the red bar out to at least 100K.
Sovereign complains when you drag in Drawfiles or JPEGS directly from an application
Sovereign needs to convert the drawfile to a sprite, first drag the file from the application to an open filer window. Now drag the file from this filer window and drop it onto the main Sovereign window, the file will now load.
Glossary of terms
Here is a quick explanation of some of the terms used in this manual.
Aida - The canvas material used to stitch a design
Anchor - The name of a thread manufacturer
Canvas -The name of the file type that designs are saved as
DMC - The name of a thread manufacturer
hpi - Holes Per Inch, the number of stitches that can fit into 1 inch of canvas (Aida) material.
Skein - Cotton thread used for stitching designs. Thread is normally sold in skeins (8 to 10 metres).
Text area - A text file that can be dropped directly in Draw and that has font information included in it.
