ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/4DGAME/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, 4th Dimension Puzzle Games CD
4th Dimension Puzzle Games CD
Matthew Thompson
So we finally reach the final current 4D games collection. This is not the last one ever, as there are plans for a few more later. I'm sure most of you will have have noticed that a few of the 4th Dimension back catalogue are still to come (The Dungeon is one example) anyway this time we turn the attention to games of the puzzle variety, and this collection includes :
Boogie Bugg
Blindfol
Sokoba
Shovy 3
Leming
Atomi
Mr Mat
Bomb
Push
Gloo
Stacke
Til
The back of the gamebox also lists Bloodlust as being included on this compilation, this is a misprint as it appears on the 4D Platform games collection. The game that should be listed is Stacker.
Installation of this CD is the same as the previous CDs, a user friendly easy to use procedure, and after a while you will end up with a directory on your hard disc containing the 11 games.
Atomix
The aim of this game is to create complex molecules out of individual atoms, which have no free electrons when they are joined.
The game will install on the icon bar, click on the program icon to start and you will see the title page, which will alternate with a demo mode and the high score table. From here you just press the Space Bar to get the game menu, from here you play the levels, play timer, enter a level password, or read the help files. This is highly recommended as it goes through a demonstration tutorial to show you how to play the game, even after watching it I still don't really know what I'm doing.
The board which is used to create the molecules allows for 7x8, or 56, atoms. At the top left of the screen the score is displayed, beneath this is a status field which tells you the minimum size of the molecule you need to construct. It also tells you the number of molecules left to assemble, plus the current number of atoms on the board.
To the right of the board is a pit in which the atoms fall, initially quite slowly but they pick up speed as you progress through the levels. The pit can hold up to 6 atoms, if a seventh atom enters the pit then the game is over.
There is a 'Joker Atom' which is like a wild card which has no electrons attached to it and this can be placed anywhere on the board, but it must be able to bond with at least one other atom.
Controlling Atomix is with the keyboard using the usual left, right, up and down keys, Return to place an atom, and the Space bar to rotate one. The instructions say the game also supports joysticks.
A level editor is also included as a separate program, so that you can design and create new graphics and levels should you wish to do so. The manual goes into detail about creating new levels, as there is a fair bit of stuff you need to know.
The graphics of Atomix are decent enough and suit the game well. The atoms and molecules are well drawn and look like what they are supposed to be, on the audio side of things there are a number of tunes which play and some in game sound effects as well.
The problem with this game is I couldn't really figure out what to do with it, so I hope all of this makes sense!
The game might be really easy to play, it might not be, but the game didn't really appeal to me, so I didn't really try to figure it out. However if you fancy creating some molecules then this might be the game for you, not a particularly bad game, just one that didn't interest me.
Blindfold
This seems to be quite a good little game, but unfortunately due to the lack of any instructions I am not totally sure what the game objective is exactly. So there was a lot of trial and error involved. As an aside if anyone does have a copy of this game with any form of instructions then APDL would like to hear from you.
This game reminds me of the one we used to play at Cubs many years ago, when you were shown a tray of objects for a couple of minutes, then they would take them away and you had to remember what items there were, and where they all were. This is kind of what Blindfold is like, a game of memory testing.
Upon loading Blindfold the main menu is displayed, not much in the way of options here, just quit, audio on/off, enter password and start game. Upon starting the game you will see the following screen :
This is the game screen, the green pathways are where you can move about on, and the $ signs are to be collected, and there are some hearts there also which give you extra lives. There are also some bombs, as you would expect if you try and collect one of them it's explosion time and a life is lost. You cannot move onto the blue pathways, only the green ones.
Whilst this screen is displayed the egg timer at the side of the screen is counting down. Once all the sand has run out this screen will no longer be displayed, and is replaced by the following screen :
As you can now see the previous screen has gone, it is now hidden beneath this new one, and this is where the memory test comes in, remembering what the previous screen was like, and where everything was as you have to collect up all the items shown before.
You are in control of a small grey ball object, which is on the left hand side on the screen, the first thing you have to find is the way onto the main playing area there will be a point where you can move right onto the playing area, it is about halfway down.
Once onto this area you can then move about the screen. The box at the bottom will create a map to show where you have been on the level, the green areas are parts you have been to and if it is still purple coloured, then they are either undiscovered areas or the blue areas which are inaccessible. You will know when you have collected hearts, dollars as they will flash up as you collect them.
When you have collected all the items head to the right of the screen and you need to touch the "Home" logo moving up and down the screen and the level will end and you will be given the password for the next level. Each level is against the clock and the time goes down very quickly, and there seems to be no way of increasing the time, so don't hang about!
Blindfold is controlled from the keyboard, and I found the usual keys of Z,X,' and / seemed to work fine for left, right, up and down. The game reminds me a bit of an old public domain demo with the VU Bars moving up and down at the bottom and with music playing. The backdrop picture seems to be random as I've seem quite a few different ones now. Both the audio and visuals of Blindfold look and sound good and suit the game well.
Overall I quite liked this game, it's a good idea and is well implemented, if a bit short on the time to complete a level in my view. It's certainly well worth giving it a try, and hopefully this review will have shed a bit more light onto how to play the game.
Bombz
The objective of Bombz is to dispose of all of the bombs on each of the levels, then escape off the edge of the screen. The exit at the edge of the screen is not present to start with you must create it as you go through the level disposing of the bombs. If all the bombs have been disposed of and there is no gap at the side of the screen then you will have to start again.
Upon loading Bombz will install itself on the icon bar, and from here you can select a number of game options, clicking on the program icon will bring up the main screen. The program does not run in the desktop but you can press F12 from the main screen to return to the desktop.
Onto the game itself and, as mentioned previously, the objective is to clear all the bombs from the levels. This is done by collecting a detonator then move next to the bomb you want to blow up and then touching it. You will know that you have touched the bomb as the green panel on it will turn red and it will start beeping.
After a few seconds the bomb will explode destroying everything surrounding it, except for the metallic walls. If another bomb is within the surrounding area then that bomb will explode as well. This can trigger a bit of a chain reaction of explosions, so make sure you are not in the surrounding area of any bombs otherwise you will be part of that explosion!
You can push bombs around the level so that they can be placed in more useful places to blow up walls and access other parts of the level. You cannot push a bomb if you have detonator this will just blow it up, and don't collect more than one detonator at a time as you will lose the other one in the explosion.
In order to get to to the next level you need to complete the task before the time bar, which is at the bottom of the screen runs out. Upon completion of a level you will be given the password to the next one, which can be entered from the main screen. There are 30 levels of the game to complete, I've got to Level 3 so far!
The graphics of Bombz are not the greatest, but are ideal for this game and it all looks OK. On the audio side of things, there is not much in the way of sound, just some explosion noises and a noise when you move the main character around the screen.
Bombz also comes with a level editor, this is a separate program and works within the desktop. It installs on the icon bar and clicking on the program icon will bring up the editor window, there are lots of options and choices to use to create your own levels.
Overall Bombz is an OK game, it is not brilliant, but it's not a bad game either. However to be fair though the instructions do say that it is nowhere near finished but is good enough for a preliminary freeware release, and I would certainly agree with that statement, maybe there were later updated versions? Give it a try and if you find you like this type of game then I would certainly recommend giving !Marsquake a try as well.
Boogie Buggy
This is without doubt the star of the compilation, this is a game I have always liked. However it has to be said it is not the easiest game in the world to play, and can get very annoying and frustrating at times.
One of the problems in the original release was the swapping of discs - the original version was on three discs, and was not hard disc compliant. Thankfully this irritant has now been removed.
Boogie Buggy was written by development team Coin-Age and released through The 4th Dimension. Coin-Age also released a few more games for RISC OS machines, Pesky Muskrats, Gribbly's Day Out and Paradroid 2000. These games are rare now and certainly worth grabbing a copy if you see one on eBay or the like.
The storyline for Boogie Buggy is that you (Boogie) has arrived at Dodge City only to find that the Evil Monster Lord has taken control and has set about converting power-ore into evil-ore. He is using this to turn all the good in Dodge City into evil.
As his power increases he starts to turn Dodge City into a stronghold for creatures of the darkness and other evil monsters and is plotting to take control of Bumper World.
So it is up to Boogie to put a stop to these evil plans. To do this you must travel across Dodge City counteracting the effect of evil-ore in each zone, you must also destroy each of the evil Ore Conversion Plants before finally coming face to face with the Evil Monster Lord himself.
On starting the game you will see a map of dodge city displayed. The city is divided up into zones, so choose a zone and the game will now start. There are two types of level in the game, The Ore Conversion Plants - viewed from the side, and the City locations - viewed from above.
In the City locations, the object is to collect all the pieces of evil-ore (of which there are 10) and then drop them down a manhole, then move around the level and collect the next piece of evil-ore and then drop that down a manhole. The process is repeated until the level is cleared of evil and is then good again. This is represented by the Evilometer at the bottom of the screen ,it starts at totally evil and the more evil-ore you collect and dispose of the nearer it gets to being completely good again.
The key to success on these levels is to follow the arrow at the top of the screen. When it is red this is the direction to go, keep going in that direction until you find the piece of evil-ore or manhole to drop the evil-ore in, then it may change to a different direction or stay the same.
There are many bonuses to collect throughout the levels. In addition to the evil-ore there are plasters which will reduce your damage percentage, make sure you collect these at every opportunity as it is very easy to get Boogie damaged, possibly too easy. Other pick ups include extra lives, turbo boosts, and bonus points.
Also make sure you collect the chainsaw which will become attached to the front of Boogie and is very useful for disposing of evil monsters! Watch out for the banana skins which will send Boogie sliding about for a few seconds!
The Ore Conversion Plant levels are a bit more straight forward, you start at the bottom of the screen and you must guide Boogie to the top of the screen to destroy the Ore Converter. This is achieved by reaching the polarity switch, and reversing it (an idea from Doctor Who perhaps?) and then make your escape before everything blows up! When all the zones have been completed you will then enter the mine in the heart of the city and face the Evil Monster Lord and must defeat him to complete the game.
As good a game as Boogie Buggy is, it is the playability that is it's downfall, let's face it playing the game is rather difficult. Boogie easily hits things and this increases the damage percentage and it your not careful it soon goes up - so collect those plasters!
The controls are not particularly responsive and controlling Boogie seems a bit of a hassle at times. This is a pity as this really spoils the game, maybe it was supposed to be difficult, after all there is nothing wrong with a good challenge but this is something else entirely! If you can get to grips with the playability issues then this is a very good game to play, if you can't then it becomes really annoying and irritating!
Originally Boogie Buggy ran in a full screen mode (Overscan I think they were called) this mode filled the entire screen and looked really good, unfortunately newer monitors are unable to display this mode, so instead we get a squashed display which is a shame but better than nothing.
As with all of Coin-Age's games, there is a great deal of attention to the graphics. The game characters are well drawn and detailed, even Boogie, despite being a red dodgem car does look rather like a toilet when viewed from above on the City level. Still it all adds to the entertainment of the game, as with the graphics, the sounds are of good quality as well, plenty of decent tunes accompany the game along with in game sound effects.
While it is great to see Boogie Buggy available again and revived for the newer machines, it is a pity the full screen mode is lost but this a small price to pay to have it up and running again. The big bonus is the removal of disc swapping, and overall Boogie Buggy is a great game, with very good sound and graphics, but it is spoilt by the rather difficult and irritating gameplay, apart from that excellent stuff and well worth playing.
* Apologies for the poor quality screen-shots but for some reason the usual programs I used wouldn't work with Boogie Buggy for pictures, so I had to improvise instead, but you get the idea of what it looks like *
Gloop
This game is one of the clones of the game Pipemania, there are plenty of them out there, some good, some not so good, this one seems to be in the "OK" category.
The storyline for this game is that when 'MegaBigNDodgyCorp" offered little Willy (surely not Ethel's dog from Eastenders??) a work placement scheme for his gap year, it looked like a chance worth following up. A company car, expense account and the complete control of their new chemical plant.
The plant pretty much took care of itself, and there was very little to do, however one day a message on one of the terminal screens appeared saying "Warning! Main spike has corrupted cheap fail-safe software and highly corrosive gloop is spreading throughout the factory".
In order to prevent a disaster Willy must lay out sections of pipe for the gloop to run along so it does not damage the terminal or any other important equipment, if it does then it's game over for both the game and your job at "MegaBigNDodgyCorp"!
Playing Gloop is straight forward enough, you guide the cursor around the screen and when you press Return you place a piece of pipe. The panel on the left hand side of the screen shows which piece is next. This can become annoying when you are waiting for a particular piece to appear and it takes ages. The first piece should be placed in front the square with all the green stuff in it, so move the cursor up one place and then position the first piece of pipe, and then continue around the grid making a large pipe network for all the gloop to flow along, the flow of gloop will begin when the time panel on the right hand side of the screen has run out.
When the gloop starts flowing a timer on the left hand side of the screen appears and starts counting down to zero. You need to keep the gloop flowing along the pipes until it runs out. If you do then it is the next level, if you don't then it's game over. There are four groups of ten levels. After every five levels there is a bonus game to play and which will give you a password - which can be entered from the main menu to skip the earlier levels.
There a different types of pipes which are used to create the network to allow the gloop to flow. These includes standard pipe sections, curves, crossovers, a reservoir - which slows down the flow of gloop and one way pipes. Some levels have an end block which you must make the gloop flow into, for a fill list of pipe-types and illustrations of each one, see the accompanying manual on the CD.
The graphics of this game are reasonable, they do the job and are bright and colourful. Being a Pipemania type of game there is only so much you can do with the graphics, different pipe designs, and backgrounds, but they all end up looking quite similar.
The title page plays a reworking of what I think is "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - however the style of this tune sounds like it is straight out of Pigeon Street - if you can imagine such a thing!! A different tune accompanies you during the game, but there are no sound effects.
After the title page you get the game menu, this is well presented and features a number of options including, music volume level, high scores, control of the game by mouse, keyboard or if, you are using an A3010, joystick control.
I've seen quite a few versions of this type of game over the years, this one is OK, but for me Pipemania is still the definitive version. If you enjoyed playing Gloop then Pipemania is an absolute must - if you can still get it - last seen on the Krisalis Collection!
Lemings
I can't guess what the inspiration could have been for this game. Lemmings perhaps? If not then it is a remarkable coincidence! Despite the obvious similarities it is still different enough to be a whole new game. Lemings is yet another masterpiece from the legendary RISC OS games programmer Tom Cooper, and you can certainly tell it is one of his creations.
For those of you who don't know, the object of the game is to guide the lemmings from the start point on the level to the way out. This is achieved by creating a safe route through the level that they can follow to get to the exit.
To create this route through the level you have to get the lemmings to perform different tasks along the way. There are seven tasks that they can perform and they are Parachutist, Basher, Stopper, Digger, Exploder, Climber, Bridger - these are all self explanatory, so I won't go into detail here, but if you want further information on these tasks then the manual goes into a bit more depth.
As the lemmings wander aimlessly around the levels you need to make them perform a task. So, using the mouse, select a task from the panel at the bottom of the screen then click on the lemming you want to carry out that particular task. A purple arrow will appear above it's head to indicate that it is the chosen one!
The number of times you can use this task is indicated by the number next to it on the panel so don't waste them as you may find that you will be unable to complete the level.
The first level is reasonably straight forward to complete, all you need to do is make one of the lemmings dig a hole through to the the level below the platform they start on, they will all fall through and find their way to the exit, as shown in the picture below.
The second level is also easy to complete, but I'll leave that one for you to figure out. When you have created the path to safety you may want to speed up the the release rate of the lemmings so they all appear at once. This is a very useful feature as it can be annoying having to sit there and wait for them to get to the exit. You only have to save a certain percentage of lemmings on each level, some will have to die to complete the level, but as long as you reach the required percentage it does not matter how many die.
There are many things that will can kill the lemmings on their journey to the exit, they include firepits, falling from high ledges. You can also destroy all the lemmings yourself by hitting the nuke button on the icon panel as this will kill all the lemmings and end the level. If the required percentage has been reached then you will have completed the level, if not you can start the level again, each level is passworded so you can go back to where you got to last time, without having to trawl through all the earlier levels again.
Playing Lemings is very easy, the game is controlled by the mouse and the early levels are very simple and shouldn't take too long to complete, but the difficultly level increases throughout the game, I haven't completed it yet. If the later levels in the other Lemmings game are anything to go by there could be some very difficult ones indeed!
Each level is actually bigger than the screen display, so if you move the pointer to the edge of the screen it will scroll along to reveal more of the playing area.
Graphically Lemings looks good, the levels are well drawn and the levels have different backdrops and themes to keep the game interesting, there are nice little effects like the flickering flames, and explosions if a Lemming gets nuked.
Unfortunately Lemings is another game which suffers from the music running way too fast. But as ever the very useful utility !Vsync will return it to the correct speed. There are plenty of tunes to accompany the game, on the title page and throughout the game, the tunes are typical public domain demo tunes from the early 1990s, and are decent lively tunes and suit the game well. For sounds there are a number of in game noises and effects, and a sampled "Oh No!" when a Lemming is about to die, these go well with the accompanying tunes.
Overall then this is another decent game as you would except from Tom Cooper. Whilst it is a blatant copy of Lemmings, it is different enough to be a new game. If you liked Lemmings then this is definitely worth a look, if Lemmings was never your thing before then this is not really likely to appeal either.
* Please note if your version of Lemings does not have any in-game tunes playing then contact APDL for a patch which will then make them play
Mr Matt
This game could be described as a cross between Repton and Mr Ee!, as you control a character around a maze collecting fruit (Mr Ee!) and have to avoid boulders falling down and squashing you (Repton). I theory such a game could be quite entertaining, but this however isn't.
Mr Matt is a game which runs in the desktop and was inspired by a PC game of the same name apparently. The object of the game is to guide Mr Matt around the maze eating all of the apples, and avoid the boulders which will fall and crush him if they are not supported from below.
The game is fully desktop compatible and runs in a desktop window. On loading it installs itself on the icon bar, from here is a menu which offers nothing other than info and quit, so clicking on the icon brings up the main game screen as shown below.
By clicking the middle mouse button over this game screen you will get some options which include the same info and quit options, plus the speed of the game (fast, slow, or normal) and then the level selection. There are two parts to this section, firstly which game you are going to try and then you choose which of the four levels within the game you want to play - the levels start of relatively easy and get progressively difficult.
Controlling the game is very easy, just use the cursor keys to guide Mr Matt around the maze, and if you hold down shift whilst moving in a direction he will move much quicker until he can move no further in that direction. If you get stuck press Escape to end the game, and then press Return to start a new game.
Graphically Mr Matt is nothing special at all, very simple and uninteresting, and not anything to get excited about, as for the sound well there isn't any! So you can either play in silence or listen to music of your choice instead.
Overall Mr Matt is a very basic game and is not very exciting to play either. The concept of the game is a good one, but in reality this is a dull game and there are much better variations of this sort of game about (Mr Ee! for one) it might appeal to some games players but I'll pass on this one.
Pushy
The storyline for this game is that Pushy's job is to clean up all the building sites in the land. The builders on these sites are monsters, no really they are! As Pushy is a bit on the keen side he often turns up in the middle of a job and start cleaning up building sites before they have finished. Hardly surprising the builders object to this and will chase Pushy around the building sites trying to stop him from cleaning up.
You take control of Pushy and must guide him round the building sites, of which there are 50 of increasing difficulty. I managed to complete the first level after a number of attempts but I think it was more down to luck than skill. Each level is passworded so you can return to your highest level when all your lives have been used up.
The objective of the game is to remove all of the blocks on each level, on the first level which is shown below, there are 3 purple blocks, and 3 green blocks. To remove these blocks you have to push them together into a row of 3 and then they will disappear, when all blocks have disappeared the level is complete. The blocks have to be removed in blocks of 3 which are all the same colour, 2 purple and 1 green won't do anything, they all have to be the same.
You can push the blocks around the screen, however there are 6 different types of blocks, and when you push them them they will act as follows : the grey ones will only move one space at a time, the purple and red ones will move until they hit a wall or another block and the green, blue and orange ones will bounce off any walls and blocks just once before they stop. If you are in the firing line when they are moving you will get squashed and a life is lost.
The monsters (or builders) wander around the screen and any touch with them is fatal, however you can easily dispose of them by pushing any block over them and they will be flattened, but beware as after a while they will come back to life.
Bonus tokens appear randomly throughout the level these include extra lives, points and invincibility. The levels are against the clock and when the time expires a monster will appear, he goes by the name of Dougie the foreman and he will hunt you down, the only way to dispose of him is to squash him with a moving block.
Controlling Pushy is from the keyboard using the standard Z,X,',? controls. Return is used to push a block and you also have a ball which you can throw at the monsters to dispose of them, this ball does not work on Dougie the foreman.
When you throw your ball it will stay in the place it landed so you will have to go and retrieve it so you can use it again. If you push a block which is directly next to another block it will be automatically moved to another place on the building site, this can be very useful to get the blocks together if you have got stuck. Unfortunately the block will end up in a random place so you could get lucky or be even worse off than you were before!
Graphically Pushy is nothing spectacular, but I wasn't expecting it to be. The graphics are fine as they are and suit the game perfectly, I'm sure the tune that plays during the game is the same one from the Morph game as it does sound rather familiar. There is a different title page tune and some in game sound effects.
Overall Pushy is OK, I played it a few times, and wasn't hugely impressed with it, didn't really find it that exciting, but it may well appeal to other games players out there.
There were a few problems with this game on a few CDs, if Pushy fails to load, then contact APDL for a patch to get it running
Shovy3D
This game is a sort of follow on from the game Pushy. The storyline for this game goes as follows - Pushy has made enemies in the yards, so when his brother Shovy returns from his holidays he agrees to help Pushy cleaning up these new yards. He couldn't understand why these people - who had become Pushy's enemies - were trying to stop his from doing his job, and so the game begins.
As with Pushy, the object of the game is to clear the levels of all the blocks, but this time the game is in 3D rather than an overhead view. There are a number of different coloured blocks which each have different characteristics - the grey ones when pushed will only move one space. The green ones when pushed will continue to move until the touch a wall, the blue blocks will rebound off walls, as do the red blocks but they move faster. Finally there is the purple block this rebounds off walls as well, but it moves even faster than the other rebounding blocks.
On the first level there are only purple and grey blocks to deal with, and this level is fairly easy to complete, as with Pushy to remove the blocks you need get three the same colour in a line touching each other and then they will disappear, when all the blocks have disappeared the level is complete.
You can push blocks around the level by when you are stood next to them and facing the right direction, make sure you move out of the way if it is a rebounding block otherwise you'll get squashed and will lose a life.
There are number of level features which you need to be aware of. These include door blocks, pressure pads, barriers, stone blocks and stoney ground, the accompanying manual goes into more detail as to what these features are and what they do.
There are plenty of enemies wandering around the levels. These can be disposed of by a number of methods, the first one is by pushing a block (any colour) at them and they will be squashed by it, however this is only temporary as they will re-appear again, but you can always push another block over them again to keep them out of the way.
You also have a power ball which you can throw at the enemies. However you have to wait for it to recharge after every use. There is also a re-appearance from Pushy of the building site foreman Dougie who will appear when the level time limit has run out.
There are lot of bonus tokens which will randomly appear throughout the levels, these are worth collecting when you see them. There are ten different types and they include level jump, score bonus, enemy freeze, extra times, time stop and extra life - see the game manual for full details of all the bonus tokens.
Playing the game is very easy, Shovy is controlled from the keyboard using the usual setup Z, X, ', / and Return to push a block, and the Space Bar is used to throw the ball.
As with a lot of the games on this CD, a level designer is included to create your own levels. This one is not a separate program and can be accessed from the main game menu.
The graphics of Shovy3D aren't that great, and are not of a particularly good quality either. I seem to be saying the same thing here, but these puzzle games aren't really about superb graphics it is about whether the puzzle element is interesting and worth playing, as for the sounds theres a few tunes and in-game noises.
Overall I didn't really go a lot on this game. I didn't find it that exciting to play and also found it a bit too similar to Pushy even if it is played in 3D, with a few extra bits thrown in, personally I preferred the overhead version to the 3D one, but that might just be me. If you liked Pushy you may well like this as well, if you didn't then you probably won't like this either.
* As with Pushy there were a some problems with this game running, if Shovy3D doesn't work , then contact APDL for a patch.
SokoBas
The objective of this game is to drive the bulldozer around the maze, and push all the yellow boxes onto the blue crosses.
Sokobas runs in the desktop, and will install itself on the icon bar, there is no options menu or anything in this game, so clicking on the game icon will bring up the following screen :
This is the main game screen, and you can see the bulldozer, which is situated in the middle of the screen. There are 6 yellow boxes and 6 blue crosses, so now you have to work out the correct route to push all 6 boxes onto the crosses. That is all there really is to this game that one objective, however as you progress through the game, the challenges get harder as you would expect them to.
Sokobas runs entirely in the desktop mode, and the bulldozer is controlled using the cursor keys, there is no sound and the graphics are very basic and quite dull, although these games aren't about graphics, these still could have been a bit better.
The only other control option is if you manage to mess the level up and need to start again. when this happens click the mouse middle button over the game window and a menu will pop up with two options 'Undo' to start again, and level, or you can press "R" on the keyboard instead. From this menu you can manually change the number of the level of which there are 90.
Overall I didn't find this game particularly exciting to play, the concept of it is fine, but this is just a rather dull interpretation of it, the next game Stacker seems to be based on the same idea, and is far more interesting to play as well.
Stacker
In Stacker the objective of the game is that you have to push objects around the screen, and put each one in it's proper place.
Upon loading Stacker you are greeted by a title page which looks rather like an old public domain demo, with a scrolling starfield, vu-bars and a soundtracker tune playing. I remember this tune well, I think it was called "Aces-Hi" and still sounds good now. Also displayed here is the high score table, press Space to start or enter a password for a higher level if you have one.
The first level of Stacker looks like this :
You control the red blob, and the objective is put all the items (the ones that look a bit like ring pulls off of drink cans) onto the crosses, you move the red blob about and he will push them as he moves, once all the ring pulls are on the crosses the level is complete and you can move onto the next one.
Beware as it is all too easy too mess up a level and have to start again, there is a solution to each level which might take a while to figure out or you might work it out really quickly. Level 1 is pretty straight forward and shouldn't take too long to complete, if you do get stuck, then press Tab to start again.
Each level is against the clock, and there are some levels which you need to find the exit after you have pushed all the items into their places.
At the top of the game screen is the status bar, the red blobs indicate the number of lives remaining, your score is also shown along with the number of items which need to pushed into their place and the sound status.
Controlling Stacker is by the keyboard, and you can move the red blob left, right, up, down and can press the suicide key to start the level again should you get stuck, doing this will lose you one of your lives.
There are 6 different to explore in Stacker, these are Blockland, Dreamland, Egypt, Jungle, TimeWarp and Hell. Each of the worlds contain the same items, but the graphics change, so although things look different, it is only on the surface as they all act in the same way as before.
These worlds have 30 levels in total, so plenty of levels to keep you busy. There is also screen editor provided so you can design and create you own levels, once you've finished the supplied levels should you have the urge to do so.
Graphically Stacker is quite basic, but it does the job well. These sort of games don't really need flash and fancy graphics as that's not what the game is about, on the audio side there is music played throughout the game,but there don't appear to be any sound effects just music.
Overall Stacker is quite a good little game. The puzzle objective of the game is not too difficult to solve, the game is a cross between arcade and strategy and it works well, definitely one of the better games in the collection, and certainly worth a look.
Tilt
This game is a bit like playing Tetris on a see-saw, the main objective is to create lines of three or more of blocks with the same colour and pattern to make them disappear, and also prevent the see-saw from tilting too much - if it does then it is game over.
Playing Tilt is very easy. On loading you will see them main menu which gives a number of options which include level selection, audio options, game control options, you can play Tilt with the keyboard, mouse or a joystick, view the high scores, save game status, and begin game.
When you start a game you will see the seesaw, and a a block will start falling down towards it. Now you place the block on the seesaw where you think is the best place, the block can be moved left or right, on it's way downwards and can also rotated both clockwise and anticlockwise. This allows you to line it up to match the other blocks when they are on the seesaw to make the line of three the same, when you get three the same (or more) in a line then those blocks will disappear.
There are two objectives in the game the first one is to make a certain number of blocks disappear, this is displayed in the top left hand corner of the screen, next to your score and level number. The first level requires 30 blocks, and the amount achieved is next to the total required, it starts at 0/30 and increases as you make the blocks disappear, so you can see how far you have to go to complete the level, once the number of blocks required is reached the level is complete.
The other objective in the game is to stop the see-saw from tipping to much, if it tips too far to one side then the game is over, so make sure you distribute the block stacking evenly across the see-saw. The game will also end if you stack the blocks up too high and they reach the top of the screen.
The graphics of Tilt don't offer a great deal, but they don't need to - the different coloured blocks are all that are needed. The levels have different background images to create a bit of variety, as for the sound it is pretty non existent apart from a few noises now and then. There is a nice effect when you quit the game, as the screen splits in two with a ripping noise.
That is pretty much all there is to this game. You make the required number of blocks disappear and don't let the see-saw tilt too much! There are plenty of levels to this game, each level has a different background image. You can choose which level to start from, but after level 10 you can only begin on the highest level reached. Later levels throw in a few new challenges, with bigger blocks, a narrower balance and a randomly moving pivot to name but a few things.
The first couple of levels are quite straight forward but the difficulty level increases after that. It's all too easy to mess up a level and have to start again, it can happen so quickly, one minute your doing fine, next minute you have tilted too far and game over.
Tilt is quite a basic game, but as with Tetris it is that simplicity that makes it entertaining to play. If you liked Tetris or enjoy a good addictive strategic challenge which is not too in-depth then this is certainly well worth playing.
Compatibility
All the games should run fine on any RISC OS 4 machine, virtual or real - with or without RISC OS Select, although there were a few problems with Lemings, Pushy and Shovy3D as detailed in the article.
I'm not sure how many of the games have been updated to run on newer hardware, but Boogie Buggy definitely has and it is good to see it finally working on RISC OS 4 machines. If you have any problems with the running of the games then give APDL a call.
As for RISC OS 5 compatibility, well this is not particularly good natively as only Sokobas worked fine.
However the introduction of Aemulor Pro improves things, and the results are displayed below :
Atomix - The game works, but doesn't exit back to the desktop correctly, seems to lock up the machine and also there seems to be no sound.
Blindfold - Seems to work OK, but there is no sound
Bombz - Runs perfectly with Aemulor Pro
Boogie Buggy - As expected this didn't work
Gloop - Seems to run OK, however there seems to be no sound
Lemings - Works OK - no problems, music and sounds fine.
Mr Matt - This works fine under Aemulor Pro
Pushy - Didn't work - got blank screen, crashed machine
Shovy3D - Didn't work, got error message
Sokobas - No problems, works fine
Stacker - Works fine, music and sounds work fine as well
Tilt - Doesn't work , gives error message
Not a massive success really, a few worked fine, but not really worth buying for a RISC OS 5 machine - I assume the A9 Home would give similar results.
Summary
This compilation is a bit of a mixed bag really. There are some games which are entertaining and worth playing, and some which I found to be the complete opposite. The standout title is Boogie Buggy, but then this was the only one that was previously available for £25-00 and it shows it is a class above the rest, a great game shame it's a bit on the tricky side to play.
As for the other games, Lemings, Tilt & Stacker are certainly worth checking out, Atomix, Pushy, Shovy3D, Bombz, Gloop and Blindfold are OK games, and the others Sokobas & Mr Matt are rather dull and nothing more than fillers.
Not the greatest collection of games ever, but enough decent ones to make it worth a look, and the others can be regarded as fillers.
Product details
Product:
Puzzle Games C
Supplier:
APD
Price:
£14.9
Address:
39 Knighton Park Road Sydenham London SE26 5R
Tel:
0208 778265
WWW:
Matthew Thompson
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/A7KCASE/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, Fitting a RiscPC into an A7000 case
Fitting a RiscPC into an A7000 case
Dave Holden takes out his toolkit yet again...
In the previous articles in this series I've described fitting a RiscPC motherboard into a variety of standard PC cases. The reasons for wanting to do this are obvious; there's a huge choice of cases to fit all tastes, pockets and size requirements and you can have as much space as you need to fit expansion cards, extra drives etc. So why would anyone want to forego all these advantages and go to the trouble of fitting a RiscPC motherboard into a cramped A7000 case?
The answer is that it's just about the smallest case into which it's possible to fit one, and so if space is at a premium or, since it's also fairly light, if you want an easily luggable machine (I won't call it 'portable') then it's an obvious choice. It's also very cheap and easy to do. The A7000 motherboard is the same size as a RiscPC motherboard and the external sockets (video, mouse, keyboard, printer etc.) are in exactly the same positions. This makes the actual motherboards more or less physically interchangeable.
For many people now a RiscPC is their 'second' RISC OS computer. They may have an Iyonix, an A9 or a VirtualAcorn on a desktop PC or laptop as their 'main' computer but still want to keep a RiscPC, perhaps for running older software (particularly games) or because they need more than one computer. Since in these cases the RiscPC is unlikely to need all the expansion capability required when it was their primary machine fitting it into a smaller case may be a big advantage where available space is limited.
Luckily the process requires very little modification of the A7000 case so it should be within almost anyone's capabilities.
I should point out that there's no difference between the A7000 and A7000+ other than the motherboard itself, but as the A7000+ is significantly faster it still has a market value much greater than an A7000, one of which can often be purchase on ebay for as little as around ten pounds.
Fitting an A7000+ into a RiscPC case
Before getting to the main subject of this article I'll deal briefly with the opposite operation. As it's often possible to pick up either an empty RiscPC case with power supply or a complete RiscPC 600 for very little this is worth considering if you have an A7000+ and want to expand it beyond the limitations of the A7000 case and power supply.
There are no real problems (other than the different power connector) with fitting an A7000+ motherboard into a RiscPC case. Even the much maligned 65 watt power supply used in the early RiscPC 600's is still twice as powerful as the 32 watt unit fitted to the A7000 machines and quite capable of coping with a hard drive and CD writer. You also have the option of fitting a CD ROM and expansion cards, which is not possible with the standard A7000.
You can easily graft the A7000 power connector onto the cables from the RiscPC power supply (they have the same number of wires and colour coding) and the connector for the hard drive and power LEDs is the same.
There is however one thing that you must be very careful about. The small 2 pin connector in front of the LED connector block on the A7000 is not the speaker connector as it is on the RiscPC, it's a 12 volt supply for the fan. If you plug the speaker into this you'll send 12 volts DC through it and get a nasty smell of burning and a fried speaker. The speaker connector on the A7000 motherboard is near to the back of the board, in front of the reset button and close to the CD ROM audio connector. The lead from the RiscPC speaker is too short to reach this so you'll need to extend it. The easiest way to do this is to unsolder the leads from the speaker and extend it at that end.
Installing the RiscPC motherboard
First you will need to remove the backplate from the RiscPC motherboard. To do this unscrew all the hex studs from the video, serial and printer ports and the ring nut around the headphone socket. You will then find that the motherboard will fit perfectly into the A7000 case and that the securing screw hole near the LED connector block lines up exactly with the threaded pillar.
There is one other mounting point and this does present a problem. Just to the left of the main power supply connector on the motherboard you will see another pillar. This provides the second motherboard mount on the A7000 but there is no corresponding hole on a RiscPC motherboard. You must not simply ignore this pillar as it will cause a short circuit with a track on the RiscPC motherboard at this point.
There are two simple solutions. Firstly you can leave the pillar in place and ensure that it is insulated. The easiest way to do this is to screw a short plastic screw into it to give it an insulated top. These screws are often used in electronic equipment. An alternative, if you don't have a suitable plastic screw, is to use a length of plastic tubing which is a tight fit around the pillar and cut about 3 mm. longer than the height of the pillar. Either of these options leave the A7000 case unaltered and ensure that the RiscPC motherboard can't contact the metal pillar.
The second method is to remove the pillar, and this will probably mean drilling it out. You will then need to fit some sort of insulated support in this area to support the motherboard, and one of the stick-on plastic feet used for instrument cases is ideal for this.
You will note from the above that I'm not advocating the type of support for the motherboard described in the previous articles. You could, of course, do this if you wish but it isn't really necessary with this conversion. The motherboard is securely located along its rear edge by the fastenings for the various sockets and the single pillar on the right hand side (the one that does line up). Provided you follow one of the previous suggestions the motherboard will be supported on its left hand side and although it has no resistance to upward pressure in this area this would normally only occur when unplugging the hard and floppy drive data cables. That's likely to be a very infrequent operation (once it's set up) and you will just have to ensure that you press downwards on the motherboard when doing this.
Fitting the processor
If you place the motherboard in the case and lay the metal frame that supports the drives in place you will see that the flange around the top of the case and part of the metalwork of the frame prevent you from plugging in the processor card. You will therefore need to cut away some of the metalwork here.
You can now remove the motherboard and put it to one side while you deal with the metalwork.
You will need to remove part of the flange on the left hand side of the mounting frame. Make two short sawcuts through the flange, one as close as possible to the rear and another about 6 mm. behind the hard drive mounting point and bend the section of flange between the two cuts downward. The photo illustrates this. Note that this photo is actually upside down for clarity so the section of the flange is bent 'up' rather than 'down'.
Note that clicking on this picture, as with many of the others, will display a larger more detailed image.
With the case make a cut through the flange about 4 cm. in front of the section that is cut away for the drive mounting frame support. You can then either cut away the flange or bend it down out of the way. I prefer the latter as although it doesn't look quite so neat as removing it completely it helps to stiffen the case at this point.
The photo below shows this operation completed. Although the metal is quite thick it can be bent easily with pliers and then 'squashed' with Mole grips to finally flatten it.
The following photo shows the various parts assembled. You will notice that the processor card is plugged into the rear socket as it is assumed that you would not be fitting a PC card into a machine like this. It certainly wouldn't be recommended. Using the rear socket gives more clearance between the processor card and the floppy drive for air circulation and there's no electrical difference between the two sockets.. Note that it's quite a tight fit but, as long as you ensure that the metalwork is cut and folded properly you can see that there's enough clearance to easily remove and replace the processor.
An alternative approach.
Instead of modifying the metalwork to allow the processor to be fitted vertically (which brings other problems with the hard drive, as will be described later) it is possible to make a right angled connector to enable the processor to be fitted horizontally. This can be done by soldering two 96 way connectors together, one straight and one right angled. This is not a simple operation, and you will need good soldering skills to do it. The following picture shows such a connector with the processor fitted.
The disadvantage with this is that to clear the drive mounting frame the processor has to be kept low, so low that there isn't then sufficient clearance to install a NIC. A similar problem arises if you lay the processor towards the front of the computer rather than towards the rear. If it is high enough to clear the power and drive cable sockets it will foul the hard drive, which rather defeats the object.
The hard drive problem.
In its normal position the hard drive would project over the processor socket. If you don't intend to fit a CD ROM then you could move it to the CD drive bay, but I would expect that this is not a viable option for almost all users. The best solution is to use a 2.5" 'notebook' drive. This has the additional advantage that they take less power than a 3.5" drive, especially as they use only 5 volts and not 12 volts which minimises the load on the A7000 power supply. 2.5" drives used to be expensive, but prices have now dropped and it may be possible to acquire a 'surplus' drive at a very reasonable price, especially if you are happy with a drive around 20 GB which would be considered too small for use on a PC.
I'll return to the options for 2.5" drives later, but it is just possible to use a 3.5" drive by relocating it.
You will need a couple of strips of metal about 1 cm. wide and 13 cm. long. Using the mounting holes in the drive brackets as a template mark out and drill two holes in each of these. Now fasten the two metal strips to the drive and hold the drive in place but pushed as far towards the front of the mounting frame as possible. Once again use the brackets in the mounting frame to mark out holes in the metal strips. Remove the strips from the drive and drill the four new holes. You can now bolt the metal strips to the drive mounting frame using small countersunk bolts and then mount the drive.
This operation effectively 'moves' the four drive mounting points further forward. It sounds complicated but it's really very simple and reference to the picture below should make it clear.
Even with this modification and the processor in the rear socket it's still all a very tight fit as the picture below shows, but provided you are careful with your cables it is just possible.
Some further suggestions. The picture shows a standard 3.5" hard drive and power connector. Some drives are slightly shorter, particularly certain Seagate drives made a few years ago. The current 40 GB Maxtor drives are only about 17 mm. thick, and if you use one of these it is possible to mount it slightly lower and so move it slightly further forward under the front of the drive mounting frame. Alternatively you could cut away part of the mounting frame at the front so that the drive could be moved further forward. You might also be able to obtain a shorter power connector as this is the most protruding part. The picture below shows a standard connector and a 'crimp' type found on some power supplies, although I have no idea where they can be purchased separately. As you can see it's not only significantly shorter but the leads emerge at right angles to the plug.
Fitting a 2.5" drive.
You will obviously need a suitable 2.5" IDE drive and an adaptor to enable this to be connected to a standard 3.5" 40 way cable and power connector. An adaptor is necessary because the 2.5" drive uses a 44 way connector and the power is delivered via the data cable instead of through a separate power lead.
These adapters are often supplied complete with brackets to allow a 2.5" drive to be fitted into a 3.5" drive bay. Even if you don't have these it is relatively simple to make some brackets so that the drive can be fitted in the usual place, and because it is so much smaller than the normal 3.5" drive it will not interfere with the processor.
An alternative, and perhaps preferable, is to mount the drive 'sideways' in the bottom of the case, rather like the drive in a 'normal' RiscPC. The drive is fitted by drilling four holes in the bottom of the case and then securing it with four M3 screws. It is best to lift the drive a few millimetres from the bottom of the case with spacers on the mounting screws so that there is room for air to circulate. The pictures below shows a drive installed in this way, both with the data cables fitted and without for clarity. The first picture also shows the 40 way to 44 way adaptor fitted to the drive with its flying lead power connector.
You can see that the data cable is folded to connect with the motherboard socket and then folded again so that it can be plugged into the CD ROM.
Fitting a fan
A fan was optional on the A7000 and A7000+ and was normally only fitted if a CD ROM was installed. However it is certainly best to fit one and essential if you are using a Strong ARM processor as although this doesn't produce a lot of heat in comparison with many others it still runs a lot hotter than the 7500 processor used on the A7000 and will require some cooling.
The fan is fitted to the right hand side of the case just in front of the power supply and should blow air into the case. If one isn't already fitted you can use almost any 80 mm. fan and these are sold very cheaply as PC case cooling fans.
Normally, as has been mentioned previously, the fan draws the 12 volt power it requires from a special socket on the A7000 motherboard but this obviously isn't present on the RiscPC motherboard. You will therefore need to make other arrangements. If you don't mind a permanent connection then you could just solder the fan leads to the yellow (+12) and black leads on one of the drive power connectors. If you are fitting a 2.5" drive as previously described then this can be done quite easily. If you don't want the fan connection to be fixed then you could use a 'through connector' consisting of a pair of male and female drive power connectors joined with a short length of cable, the fan power leads being fitted to one of these connectors. Case fans for PCs are often available with these connectors already fitted.
Fitting a bigger power supply.
The tiny power supply used in the A7000 is only just big enough for the job, but luckily the RiscPC draws very little more power, even when fitted with a Strong ARM, so it can cope as long as you don't have any expansion cards or additional drives fitted, which would be unlikely in a machine like this.
However, although it is just about adequate for a normal CD ROM drive CD writers may require more power when writing and this may be rather more than the power supply can cope with leading to problems writing CDs. Luckily if you've fitted a 2.5" notebook drive this takes a lot less power than a normal 3.5" drive and, more importantly, does not require a 12 volt connection at all and it's the 12 volt supply that's most likely to be pushed close to its limits by a CD writer.
You can reduce power requirements even more by using 'spin down' on a 2.5" drive. This is also possible with some 3.5" drives but, unlike notebook drives, 3.5" drives are not not really designed for this and so it is not recommended. Of course, spindown won't help when writing CDs as the hard drive would then be in use.
It is certainly possible to fit a bigger power supply but this is likely to be expensive. Space inside the A7000 case is very cramped, and this does rather limit your choice. Luckily the new miniature PCs like those made by Shuttle mean that appropriate power supplies are now available at realistic prices, and this type of power supply is just the right size and shape to fit into an A7000 case. By PC power supply standards they're not cheap, but the smallest size, 160 watts, can be obtained for not much more than £40.
These are, of course, ATX power supplies and have no mains switch. Unless you intend to do a lot of extra work this will probably mean that your computer will have to manage without and be switched off at the wall socket. You will also have to modify the power connections and disable the 'soft' power switching by connecting the lead on pin 19 of the power connector (normally colour coded green) to earth so that the power supply is switched permanently 'on'. I'm not going to describe this or physically mounting the power supply in detail as it should really only be done by someone with some electronics expertise, but the photo below illustrates how neatly a 200 watt shuttle power supply fits into the A7000 case. As these power supplies are fitted with a fan (often noisy!) there is no need, and indeed no room to fit the usual fan.
Dave Holden
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/ARTWORKS/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, ArtWorks Made Easy
This book was originally published in 1993 and so is based on Computer Concepts' ArtWorks, that is, versions of ArtWorks up to 1.7. Later versions of ArtWorks produced by Martin Wuerthner (ArtWorks 2) have many extra tools and some dialogue boxes may have additional buttons and icons. These are described in the documentation supplied with these versions. However, ArtWorks' main drawing tools are the same and so this book still provides a very good basic guide for anyone new to ArtWorks.
Some minor changes have been made to the book to bring it slightly more up to date, but some sections, particularly Chapter 2 Installing ArtWorks, which refers to the "dongle" used in early versions, do not apply to later versions but have been retained for completeness.
This program was written primarily in response to a series of requests on c.s.a.apps from people who were looking for something that would let them print a series of cheques from data in the form of a CSV file produced by a spreadsheet.
In fact, the program doesn't actually print cheques. Instead it produces output in the form of Drawfiles (which can, of course, be dragged directly to the printer icon on the iconbar) or as data which can be loaded directly into a suitably formatted file in Impression or Ovation Pro, from where the cheque or cheques can be printed in the usual way.
Using the program.
At it's simplest it can be used to print a single cheque.
Run the program in the usual way by double-clicking on it. Now either click SELECT on the icon bar icon or select Direct input from the iconbar menu. The window shown below will open.
Enter the amount in the field at the top left. If it's more than £1000 don't try to include a comma separator, the program will do this automatically. Use a full stop to separate pounds from pence (if any).
The only other data you need to enter is the payee's name. This is entered in the large icon labelled Payee (long). At the bottom left of the window are three radio buttons which set the type of output. By default this is a Drawfile, so now click on the OK button and a small SaveAs window will open. Drag the Drawfile icon in this window either to a filer window or to !Draw.
If you examine this file in !Draw you will see that it comprises an A4 portrait file with a series of vertical lines of text. These will be today's date, the payee, the amount to be paid in text, and the amount to be paid in figures. These should all be in the correct locations so that when you place a cheque in the printer the various items are printed in the correct place on the cheque. Since all cheques are different you will inevitably need to 'tweak' the layout to suit yours, and this will be described later.
You will probably be wondering what the other two fields, marked Number and Payee (short) are for.
Number is for you to enter the number of the cheque you are going to print. Obviously this won't be printed, but the program can keep a logfile of every cheque printed, and this number will appear there.
The 'Up' and 'Down' bump icons increase and decrease the cheque number by one. This saves retyping the number if you are printing two or more cheques with sequential numbers.
Payee (short) is used if you are printing the counterfoil as well as the actual cheque (more about this later). Since space on the counterfoil is rather limited you may wish to abbreviate the name printed there and so if you enter a shortened version of the name here that will appear on the counterfoil. If you don't then only the first ten characters of the payee's name will be printed.
If you press Return with the caret in any of the fields the caret will move to the next field. Pressing Return with the caret in the last, Payee (short), field is equivalent to clicking on OK and will open the Save window.
The two other buttons on the bottom left of the window select output suitable for Ovation Pro or Impression Publisher. These files must be dragged into a specially formatted document window in their respective programs and this method is really more suitable for printing multiple cheques.
Multiple cheques
If you click ADJUST on the icon bar icon or select From file from the icon bar menu the following window will open.
This window is similar to the one previously described but as it takes its input from a file the only writable icon is the one where you can enter the number of the first cheque. If you do enter a number here it will be incremented automatically with each cheque.
To use this window you should drag a correctly formatted Text or CSV file to it. The file will be loaded and it's filename will appear in the top icon. Once this has been done, and when you have selected the type of output file you want, click on OK and, as before, a SaveAs window will open. The number of records found in the file and hence the number of cheques to be printed will be shown.
Note that with this window the DrawFile output will not be a single file but a series of DrawFiles inside a directory, sequentially numbered, one for each cheque. If you have entered a cheque number then these filenames will be the numbers of the cheques, if not they will start at '001'.
Input file format
The CSV file can have either two or three fields per line. The first field in the payee's name, the second is the amount to be paid. the third field, if present, is a 'short' version of the payee's name to be used on the cheque stub.
The file should look something like this -
John Smith,123.4
Consolidated Rhubarb,1046.27,Con.Rh.
The Text file should have each entry separated by at least one blank line. Each entry should consist of either two or three lines. The first line is the payee's name, the second line the amount to be paid, and the third line, if present, a 'short' version of the payee's name.
The following shows the same data as the example above in text file form.
John Smit
123.4
Consolidated Rhubar
1046.2
Con.Rh.
You will see that the examples don't have a leading £ or a comma after the thousands in the cash field. Don't worry if you are exporting data from a spreadsheet or other program that normally includes these, they will be dealt with properly.
You will see from the examples that with either type of file it doesn't matter if two and three field entries are mixed within the same file.
The Choices window.
This is opened by selecting Choices... from the iconbar menu.
It is actually rather important because from here you set most of the parameters that define how the program operates.
The top three lines of icons set which type of file is selected by default and the exact layout of each type of file. The 'template' file that will be used for each type is shown and clicking on the menu icon to the right of the name will open a menu showing which templates are available. For example, if you click on the menu icon of the top item, the Drawfile template, you'll see this menu.
The 'Large' and 'Small' refer to the two sizes of cheque in most common use, Small being the standard personal account cheques and Large being the larger cheques for business accounts. '+CF' in each case means 'with counterfoil'.
If you select an item from this menu its name will appear in the window. The menus for Ovation Pro and Impression have only two items, 'Cheque+CF' and 'ChequeNoCF'. There is no 'Large' and 'Small' as the size and layout is set in the actual Ovation Pro and Impression documents, as will be described later, so these files are merely 'script' files and not actual templates.
We will return to these files later as you will inevitably need to edit them to ensure that the data is printed in the correct place to suit your particular cheques.
The item Split cash string at is used primarily for Drawfiles. Cheques have two lines for you to write the amount to be paid, and with Ovation Pro or Impression, as long as the text frame in which this is placed is the correct size, the text will 'wordwrap' onto the second line if necessary. Draw can't do this, so the text must be split between two separate text objects. The value in this icon therefore sets the maximum number of characters permitted in the top line, the remainder being printed in the second.
Keep logfile will make the program keep a log of each cheque in a text file called LogFile. This enables you to keep track of your cheques. By default this is saved inside the !Cheque application directory, however its location is defined by the OS variable ChequeLogfileLocation$ which is set in the program's !Run file. If you'd rather have it appearing in the same directory as the !Cheque application, that is, outside the application directory, then load the !Run file into a text editor and follow the instructions you will see there for altering it. Of course, it can be located anywhere, just set the variable to wherever you want it to be.
Each line in the LogFile is in the form -
<cheque number> <date> <amount> <payee>
When you have set the various options clicking on OK will set them temporarily. Clicking on Save will set them and also save them as a your default choices next time you run the program. Clicking on Cancel will close the window without setting any of the options.
Dates
At present the date printed on the cheque and in the logfile is in a fixed format, namely -
dd.Mon.yyyyy
where 'dd' is the day of the month, 'Mon' is the month abbreviated to three letters and 'yyyy' is the year. This date is taken from the computer's clock, so make sure this has its date set correctly or the date on your cheques will be wrong.
This format was chosen because it is unambiguous so that there can be no confusion between day and month as can happen if it is written all in figures.
Use with Ovation Pro and Impression
The output from the program when you select Ovation Pro or Impression format is in the form of a text file with control codes for Impression and a skeleton DDL file for Ovation Pro. These files cannot be used on their own but must be introduced into a suitable document in their respective programs.
Three files are included with the program. The Impression file has two different Master Pages, one for small cheques and one for large. Use the Alter Chapter dialogue to select the one you want to use. If you need to use both then it might be more convenient to save two separate files, one with Large as the standard master Page and one with Small.
In either case drag the output file from the !Cheque program to the top left hand frame on the first page of the document, the frame with the large arrow pointing to it in the illustration below.
You will see that the various frames on the page correspond to the fields that need to be filled in on the cheque. The three on the left hand side are the counterfoil, if you have selected the script file without counterfoil these will be left blank. The rest of the data will flow automatically into the correct frames and, if there is more than one cheque, will continue onto the following pages so that you have one cheque per page.
You can then just load your printer with blank cheques and print the document in the usual way.
Printing the cheques
The cheques are printed in 'landscape' mode as this method is suitable for most laser and inkjet printers. The layout used requires the cheque to be 'centered'. Most modern laser printers have a pair of paper guides which keep the paper centred no matter what the width. Inkjet printers frequently have only one movable guide, so the paper can't easily be centered. If you have a printer of this type you will need to alter the template files to suit.
A problem with many inkjet and a few laser printers is that they can't print close to the bottom of a page. Sometimes no closer than 20 mm. This is obviously a problem when printing cheques as the 'bottom' of the cheque as it is printed is the left hand side of the cheque as you look at it normally.
If you have a printer that can't print close to the bottom of the page then, when printing cheques, you will need to ensure that the payee and amount to be paid fields are positioned a suitable distance from the left hand side of the cheque. If the printer you are using is unable to print close to the bottom of the page then it may not be possible for you to move the fields on the counterfoil sufficiently far to enable them to be printed.
The photo below shows a cheque in the input tray of a Hewlett Packard laser printer ready to be printed. You can see from this the orientation required. For an inkjet printer it's the same, that is, the cheque is placed in the paper feed tray with its actual right hand end towards the printer, which will be down with the vertical paper try used on most inkjets.
Altering the layout
The various fields on the cheque templates will, quite probably, not be in the correct place for your cheques. I have looked at a variety of cheques from several banks and they all seem to be slightly different. It's very easy to make the necessary adjustments. With Ovation Pro and Impression you simply load the document and move the required frames on the Master Page. With Impression this is done by selecting View -> Master pages from the document menu. With Ovation Pro select Page -> Edit master page.
The templates for the various Draw options are ordinary Drawfiles and these can be modified in !Draw in the usual way. If you open the !Cheque application directory (hold down Shift and double-click on the application icon) you will see a sub directory Templates. This is where these files, and the script files for Ovation Pro and Impression, can be found. However, you don't actually need to delve into the application's innards to modify the file. In the Choices window there is a button to the right of each of the menu buttons. If you click on the one for the Draw option it will load the currently selected Drawfile template into Draw. When you've finished altering it just select Save from !Draw's menu and it will be saved back into its original location.
You can add extra files into these directories if you wish. This may be necessary if you have other cheques with different layouts. Any files placed in these directories will appear on the appropriate menu in the Choices window and can be selected in the usual way.
The script files
Unless you understand how Impression RTF files and Ovation Pro DDL files operate it is probably best not to alter these files. However, you will see that the Drawfiles have certain 'tags' in the fields and it is these which are interpreted by the program to tell it where to place the data in the file. These tags are all upper case and all begin with the '\' (backslash) character followed by three letters. They are -
\PAL - PAyee Long, the full name of the payee
\PAS - PAyee Short - the abbreviated version of the payee's name
\DAT - Date
\CAF - CAsh in Figures
\CAT - CAsh in Text, the full text string
\CT1 - Cash in Text, the first half of a split string or the whole string it's not split
\CT2 - Cash in Text, the second half of a split string or nothing if it's not split.
Dave Holden
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/DISC/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, DiscWorld
DiscWorld
Aaron Timbrell rounds up the software directory
APDL Cheque Printer
This exclusive RISCWorld application came about after a discussion on the RISC OS newsgroups. The question related to programs for RISC OS that could print cheques, were there any? The answer seemed to be no. It looked like a reasonably easy task to write one, so that's exactly what Dave Holden started doing. The resulting application has been going back and forwards between myself and Dave for the last week or so as I suggest improvements without having the obligation of writing the new code myself.
The Cheque program allows you to import data in CSV format and to print cheques on a wide range of printers. It has templates in Impression, Ovation and Draw formats and also comes with a comprehensive HTML manual which you can find in this issue. If you do find the program useful then don't forget to send us a percentage from each cheque you produce, Millionaires are always welcome!
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:
Cheque
The APDL cheque printing application.
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
Iyonix
Iyonix software from this issues Iyonix column.
Letters
Tar archiving software as mentioned on the letters page.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
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.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/EBAY/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, eBay Listings that Suck
eBay Listings that Suck
When you're putting a listing together for eBay, it helps to put some thought into the presentation of what you're listing. After all, it is an advert and you're looking for people to spend their money. David Bradforth, with help from Roland Waddilove, highlights some things you should never do in an eBay listing if you wish to successfully sell them.
How do you rate your web design skills? Do you spend many an hour fiddling with HTMLEdit to get the perfect result, only to be disappointed with what appears on the screen and throw it all away? Are you up to date with the latest HTML code that will allow you to add extreme special effects to your listings? Do you know the secrets behind image editing that will ensure that everything always looks at its best? Will I stop talking and just got on with the article?
Whether you consider yourself a web designer or not, if you're using eBay you're designing a web page with each listing you place. Granted you don't own the site, and you're only designing the little bit between the eBay header and footer; but your aim is simple each time. To make sure that your listings stick out to potential purchasers for the right reasons; not because of the vastly irrelevant content but because of the qualities the product you're offering has.
In this article we'll take a look at some of the most basic design do's and don'ts with the aim of improving your auction listings. We make recommendations on RISC OS applications to use to get everything looking perfect, and provide some examples of poorly designed eBay listings. If our advice helps you out, do please remember to send the commission cheque to RISC World for the attention of 'eBay Advisor'.
Size Matters
Whereas many users in the big wide world have now upgraded to a broadband connection there are some, particularly in the RISC OS world, still using dial up connections (some seem to use a tin can and a bit of string - ED). This is for various reasons - perhaps the Internet is used infrequently, not justifying a monthly subscription or due to location of their computer geographically not supporting an ADSL line. If you create an auction page that is only suitable for use by broadband users, perhaps due to the number of images, you are turning away a number of potential customers who could otherwise be bidding on your items.
There are many examples on eBay at any one time. An antique clock contained a rather impressive 3Mb of pictures and other data. Look at this from the perspective of a dial up user. With a good connection you can download a Megabyte in five minutes meaning that it could take around a quarter of an hour for the page to display. If a bidder has logged on to attempt to make a bid in the final minutes of the auction that really isn't going to help - even with an automated software solution doing the bidding.
Keep the size of all page elements under 1Mb (or less - the smaller the better). You can resize images using PhotoDesk or ProArtisan 24 easily enough, while still retaining the format necessary for uploading. We'd suggest using JPEG photographs when adding illustrations to an eBay auction. The JPEG format is universal and unlikely to cause any problems on any computer.
Check your image
Digital cameras are great for taking photos of items to sell online, and it takes minutes to shoot and download photography to the computer. Although an image may look perfect when viewed on the computer screen, you'll need to ask whether they're suitable for use on an auction page. Always use a JPEG file format - as we mentioned earlier this is universal but also highly compressed to ensure a quick download.
Using a huge picture is unlikely to help your sales - with people having to wait for the image to download, they'll most likely give up and look elsewhere.
We discovered an auction selling a cream leather sofa and on the page was a large picture of the item itself. The image however was 987x1065 pixels in size and hence would not fit within the browser window of most computer users. Dialup users will hence wait about four minutes for the file to download, ending up rather irritated. If you resize an image (typically halving the height and width) you'll save a considerable amount of space and hence the file will load quicker.
If you take a look at the photos on auction sites, it's clear that some people have problems with them. Some are fuzzy, with distracting backgrounds whereas others are not actual photos of the items for sale. The quality of your photography will affect the confidence a buyer has in doing business with you. Take the time to take multiple shots of your products, and choose the best - this is an advertisement so you do want the best result to feature rather than just the first one to appear on your computer.
Bad HTML
It's not just images that cause problems. Modern web design software can position elements on a page using absolute values rather than just relative values. If you want to include a heading, for example, you can simply enter <H1> to define it. The Web browser then places it on the page following the previous text or image.
Changing styles with HTML can cause display issues... or just make the text rather difficult to read.
If you copy this code from a Web page designer like HTMLEdit and insert it into your auction page, all sorts of problems occur. The reason is that eBay inserts a lot of other information, such as its logo, menu, back button, heading, auction details, and so on. You can't be sure how much space these will take, so if you position something absolutely, it may end up on top of something else. The result is a mess.
You'll not run into too many difficulties if you keep the HTML simple. Some top design packages allow you to position elements on layers, make use of JavaScript and so on but these won't go down well with the auction site. In fact, eBay will kick it if you attempt to include JavaScript (or what it suspects is JavaScript) within a listing. Use tables to position text and images, and ultimately keep everything simple. The easier your listing is to read, the more people who will - and ultimately the audience is what you're looking for.
Issue two of eBay Advisor has further practical tips, and I will offer support to any RISC OS user who would like help producing the perfect eBay listing.
Have you finished reading the previous issue of RISCWorld yet? If not then may I suggest that you go back and finish it now, otherwise the rest of this editorial might not make a huge amount of sense.
In my last editorial I mentioned that I didn't consider the RISC OS newsite Drobe to be an especially good advert for RISC OS. The main crux of my argument was that Drobe doesn't publish all the RISC OS news, instead it publishes a "carefully" selected sample. I still think my argument holds true, Drobe doesn't reflect the entirety of RISC OS as it declines to publish some news stories because "they are not interesting". The arbiter of what is and isn't interesting apparently being Chris Williams, the head journalist. Anyway it seems that Chris read the editorial in the last issue of RISCWorld (perhaps he would like to take out a subscription instead of reading someone else's copy? - DH) and got the hump. His comments were quite amusing, and in some cases simply incorrect.
In his response to my editorial Chris commented that "(Drobe) doesn't do special offers, certainly not since 2004 or 2005." Oh dear, as Dave Holden pointed out
Another of the articles in the last issue of RISCWorld gave details about the new ROHS regulations and their effect on future production of the Iyonix. For those that still haven't read the article the bottom line was that the Iyonix isn't ROHS compliant and manufacture cannot continue without a re-design of the machine motherboard. Anyway, let's return to Drobe. Having satisfied himself with replying to my last editorial Chris obviously continued reading someone else's copy of RISCWorld and bumped into the article about the Iyonix. Argggh. Here is a story that's been broken by RISCWorld, what can Chris do?
The answer was to e-mail me.
"If you reveal to me the more interesting and as-yet unreported parts of this, then I will give RW a big plug on drobe" Chris said. The problem is I don't want a plug, all I wanted was to have some mention of my press release, in particular our offer of a free issue to anyone who asked. In the meantime Chris had put together an article that appeared to be based on what was in RISCWorld and uploaded it to the Drobe website. I took a quick look at it before replying.
"But will RISCWorld get the credit for the work? I think I'll pass thanks. Of course should you edit the above article to show that it was RISCWorld that sprung the story I will be delighted to re-consider". That seemed fair enough to me. Give us credit and we will share the information, which Chris so obviously wanted. I found his reply really rather funny.
"I've known about it since before the weekend but hadn't got around to writing it up. There's no need for any credit to RW because I didn't need you in the end, anyway." Gosh. Whilst I don't dispute that Chris knew about it before the weekend, I also couldn't dispute that copies of RISCWorld were with subscribers before the weekend. I also couldn't dispute that we had been working on the story for several months. Nor could I dispute that Chris had only published the story after having seen it in RISCWorld. A more detailed article appeared on Drobe in a couple of days, you can see it
Well that would seem to be the end of it. Drobe won't publish RISCWorld press releases unless that have a "stunt" attached. Similarly Drobe won't credit RISCWorld with breaking stories. Oh well, that's journalism for you. But wait, there's more...
As a response to the ROHS regulation article in RISCWorld Castle apparently spoke to Paul Beverley, who edits
So once again I express my concerns over Drobe. Not only is it self selecting in terms of articles but an increasing number of articles don't relate to RISC OS. Who cares if the Finn brothers sell Sibelius to a bunch of yanks, after all there hasn't been an update to the RISC OS version of Sibelius for years. One of my other concerns over Drobe is that it also often has glaring factual errors of the sort that could simply be avoided with the bare minimum of research. I hope you enjoy this issue of RISCWorld, perhaps you may even be able to read some of it again on Drobe in a few days, just don't expect Chris to acknowledge where the articles originally came from:-).
Editors Rant of the month
The following is about the vehicular faith, not specifically about computing.
I haven't been buying any cars recently (quick the smelling salts... - DH), instead I have been selling one. My Beetle. I finally decided that since I wasn't using it and I needed the money to put towards building a new garage it had to go. So I gave it a clean, did all the stupid jobs I had been meaning to do since I purchased it, for example, fitting the carpets. Yes, the carpets. Every since I have owned the Beetle it has had an annoying water leak into the footwells. Over the last couple of years I have replaced the window seals and the door seals. This helped but sometimes there would still be water on the floor. Last year I removed the interior and wire brushed and Hammerited the floor. So there wasn't any rust, just a puddle in the driver's footwell. To make things even more difficult the water leak would be intermittent. Sometimes a heavy rain storm would cause no water ingress, sometimes after a light shower there would be a puddle. This was most annoying.
Anyway before I get too far ahead of myself, before selling the car I needed a new MOT on it. I did my usual checks and the only problem I could find was that the washers didn't work. I cleaned the jets out, but although the pump was running no water came through. I checked the pump on the kitchen table and it worked, although not brilliantly, so the fault must, at least partially, lie elsewhere. The hoses from the washer jet tank to the pump were a funny black/green colour, which didn't look right. Closer investigation revealed that they should be clear, and the colour was caused by mold growing throughout the system. Yuk. I flushed out the washer jet bottle and soaked it on Oxy Clean (brilliant stuff) and that cleared the crap. Then I bought a new roll of pipe and made all new hoses, so that should be that. But it wasn't. The pump still wouldn't pull the water through. I then decided the pump must be weak and went out to buy a new one. "What sort is it sir?" asked the chap in the local auto factors. I don't know, it's just an aftermarket electric pump that sits on the bulkhead. "Ah, we don't stock those any more, I might be able to order you one, but it will take a couple of days." Damn. OK, I will have one. In the meantime someone wanted to come and see the car as I had somewhat prematurely stuck it on eBay. The potential owner arrived at 7:30 on a very wet evening, we went for a test drive and she liked the car. She also liked the comprehensive paperwork (everything from the day the car was delivered to the dealer in 1973). Something else she liked was me lying in puddles jacking the car up so she could check for rust. She didn't find any, hardly surprising as I had welded up and de-rusted the underside and coated it with Waxoil. She made an offer which I was tempted to accept, but I thought it worth trying for a few hundred quid more expecting for a bartering session. It didn't happen, she left to look at another Beetle.
Next day I decided I had to fix the washers, so I collected the new pump. This was cunningly designed so that the water inlet and outlet pipes were directly in front of the bolt holes so it was very difficult to fit. With the skill and dedication of a true enthusiast I broke the water inlet pipe. Cue lots of naughty works. Anyway I took it back to the auto factors who looked at it and agreed with me that the design was "poor" (posh word for crap). They very kindly gave me another pump as they had ordered two. Whoooh, brilliant. I went home and promptly broke the 2nd one. I then decided to fit the old pump and see if I could prime it to get it working long enough for the MOT. Eventually I managed to do this by blowing in the top of the water bottle whilst wedging the pump switch down on the dashboard. Lovely, now does anyone want to but two broken, but new, washer jet pumps?
I now feel that I ought to backtrack to the water leak. Whilst messing with the washer jets I had removed the cover panel over the wiper motor mechanism box, to get to the washer jet pump. I noticed that the box had water in the bottom and it also had two pipes about a half inch from the bottom running behind the dashboard on the drivers side, hmmmm. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Could water be getting into this box around the wiper arm spindles. A quick test with a jug revealed not only could water get in, it was getting in around the passenger side spindle. I had previously checked the drivers side one, as the water leak was on that side, but hadn't checked the passenger one. A quick session with black silicone had it sealed up properly. But how did this explain the intermittent water leak? Remember the pipes? Well what was happening was that water was pooling in the box, but was only able to leak into the cabin once it got to a high enough level to run through the pipes. So a few days of light showers might be enough to fill it up, but a quick hard rain storm might not. I checked by filling up the box with a jug and yes, the water appeared in the car in exactly the place it always had. So having used silicon on the wiper spindle I then also blocked the two pipes and drilled a small hole in the bottom of the box to prevent any further water pooling. The design of the area under the bonnet on the Beetle means that any water would now drain out of the box, down the side of the fuel tank and out through the drain holes. Brilliant. I arranged for an MOT for the next day.
I was up early the next morning, fitted a fully charged battery, checked the lights and drove round to the MOT centre, which is only a couple of minutes on foot. I left the car and was told that they would give me a ring when it was done. They didn't. So I rung them early in the afternoon, "It'll be done next mate". OK. They still hadn't run by 4:30 so I rung again. "Yeh, he hasn't done it as he couldn't find the chassis number." Well, he might be right, the number might be missing, but it might not. I walked up to see them. The chassis number was indeed present on the floor pan just under where the rear seats would be, if the car had rear seats. Interestingly this the same place you would find the chassis number on any VW Beetle built between 1939 and 2002, only just over 60 years worth of production accounting for 25 million vehicles. So, will they do it tomorrow? "Well we are booked up...". OK, but it's your fault, if you couldn't find the chassis number you should have rung me. "er...we couldn't find your phone number." Well that's funny because I can see it written on the list of jobs stuck on the wall over there. They agreed to re-test it if I bought the car up at 1pm tomorrow, that's Friday. I took the Beetle back home.
That evening the potential purchaser from the other day rung me and offered me the price I had asked for. She had seen the other Beetle and it was rusty underneath. Can she pick it up on Friday evening? Errr....can I ring her tomorrow as it still doesn't have a new MOT. Next day I took the car up to the MOT centre promptly for 1 o'clock. They still hadn't rung me promptly by four in the afternoon. I rung them again, "Yes it's done, we couldn't find your phone number..." Yes, yes, well never mind. I picked the Beetle back up and went home. I then rung the purchaser. Could she meet me in Burton to do the deal? No, she couldn't she could come the extra 3 miles to Newhall. In the end she agreed. In the meantime our guests for the weekend had arrived and by the time she came to pick the car up we were all rather well lubricated. I managed to pull myself together, took the money, counted it, counted it again and came up with a different figure then got Hayley to count it as she had been at work and was an hour or so behind on the wine. We then did the paperwork and the car was sold.
The new owner jumped in and turned the key, will it start? Luckily just, had I forgotten to mention the slightly tired battery? Whoops. Never mind she revered the Beetle out of the drive. "How do you adjust the seats?" Ah, yes, well the thing is you have to...er...well...er...oh yes, you need to loosen all the bolts underneath as the seats are bolted onto the runners. Do you want me to get a 13mm spanner? "That's OK my boyfriend will drive it home." Thank heavens for that. I grabbed a camera and took a couple of pictures as they drove away. As they got halfway down the road one of the rear brake lights stopped working. Still, thanks heavens, it's not my problem any more.
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
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
Welcome to this issues gaming column. This will be a shorter column than usual, that isn't because no gaming development work has been happening, but rather because a lot of projects have yet to reach the stage where they are ready for a proper release. One of these is a new MegaDrive emulator for the RISC OS platform.
PicoDrive
Adrian Lees, he of Aemulor fame (takes of shoes and kneels down - ED) has been working on a RISC OS port of the PicroDrive emulator for RISC OS. PicoDrive emulates the Sega MegaDrive, also known as the Genesis in America. A test release was made earlier this month but a proper release will be due shortly. The RISC OS version of PicoDrive has it's own website at
At present all that is shown is a place holder graphic. I suggest you go and check the site out every few days in anticipation of what could easily be one of the most exciting gaming releases of recent times. Can you imagine playing Sonic the Hedgehog on your Iyonix? Well it's going to come true very soon.
More Magnetic Scrolls
Last issue I included a copy of the Magnetic Scrolls interpreter and the games Myth, Pawn and Jinxster. So you will have had a couple of months to try and complete at least one of these. This time I am including copies of two more of these great games, Fish and Corruption. If you only ever play one Magnetic Scrolls game then it just has to be Fish (I totally agree - Ed). I will include two more games next issue, enjoy.
More 32bit games
Michael Foot recently announced that Alan Buckley had updated his ports of Cybertron Mission, Dare Devil Denis and Guardian to also work on the A9. At the same time the games were also updated to use higher screen modes and to support the use of outline fonts for the on screen text. All of these games are converted from original BBC B titles:"These games was converted to RISC OS directly from the BBC games of the same name. The conversion process takes the original BBC game code and converts each processor instruction to a comparable routine under RISC OS. This means that instead of having to rewrite the game from scratch and trying to get everything the same, I now have an exact conversion that looks, plays and feels the same as the original." Michael explained on the newsgroups.
the new versions can be download from
BugHunter
Following on from the release of BugHunterII by Ian Richardson the original BugHunter has now been released as freeware. This was originally available as part of a two game pack by Minerva. Tho other game being a moon buggy type side scrolling event. BugHunter is great little puzzle platformer and is very easy to play. The aim is to squash the bugs and get to the exit on each level.
The controls are the normal Z and X keys for left and right. In order to squash a bug you need to pick up an item and drop it on the bug in question, this can be done with the Shift key. Pressing this once will pick up an item, pressing it a second time will drop the item you are carrying. If you are not carrying an item then you can also use the Shift key to jump from one place to another/
That's all from me for this issue. I have already lined up a range of gaming treats for next time, you will just have to wait and see what they are.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
Complete with an open source RISC OS licence (eh?)...it's...Hugh...Jampton!
Welcome to the new improved Hugh Jampton column, and now it comes in a larger box! Mind you it's still the same tatty (my spelling checker tried to replace this with tasty! - Ed) old contents, but what can you expect for the money? Anyway lets all try to get this over with as quickly as possible.
The caption competition
I'm quite sure that your home help, or meals on wheels lady, will be able to remind you that last issue we asked for your contributions for this:
Well I'm delighted to say that we have had a massive improvement on last issue and the entry literally flooded in:
"Are you sure you know how to fly this thing Druck?"
Doug Webb
However we do have a clear winner, strangely also from Doug...
"I think some fine tuning on the car's Dog Protector is called for"
Doug Webb
So congratulations to Doug for his sterling effort he wins a complete years worth of Qercus issues (Oct 2005 to Sept 2006). They will be dispatched via an empty envelope anytime never.
Hugh's time travel competition
Before we leave the wonder world of captions I feel that I also ought to mention this interesting entry...
"New Fundraiser for the Parish Council"
Erik
This had me very confused until I realised it was an entry for our competition on issue 1 of this volume! For those that can't remember what the photo was (me included - ED) here it is again.
No, it doesn't make any sense to me either. OK and keeping with the animal theme are you all ready for this issues picture?
As usual send your spam to hughj@riscworld.co.uk and help keep the Hugh Jampton retirement fund empty.
Hugh's picture gallery
To kick off here is the proposed new EEC female parking space...
And here is something else just for the ladies...
And whilst I can't get off the subject here'e the ultimate female private licence plate...
Matt Thompson with the latest news for Iyonix owners.
There hasn't been a huge amount happening this month, but there have been mutterings of things on the Iyonix horizon, so hopefully some of these pre-release announcements will become a reality.
RISC OS 5.12 on the way
In mid August John Ballance posted on the Iyonix support list about some forthcoming developments for RISC OS 5. The next release will be 5.12, this is currently shipping with brand new Iyonix's from June onwards.
RISC OS 5.12 will be a payable upgrade, and it would appear the days of free updates to RISC OS 5 are long gone. I don't mind that we have to pay for updates now, and I have my cheque book ready and waiting. That's assuming that I can pay by cheque. It seems likely that future upgrades will be available on line from a digital "shop" where you pay, then download the upgrade.
Some of the new features that have been mentioned include support for newer nVidia graphics cards and inclusion of the USB2 driver in the main ROM. This should remove a delay on boot up, and the desktop should now hopefully appear quicker than it did before.
Since this announcement it has gone quiet, this is due to the relevant people being on holiday, more information on everything will be announcement during September. So we will have to wait and see what happens. It is good to see that RISC OS 5 development is not at a complete stand still and hopefully with pay for updates we may see even more enhancements added to RISC OS 5, let's hope so.
The announcement in full can be found at
Cino? No.
Unfortunately it would appear that Cino, the RISC OS 5 DVD player application, has been put on hold for the time being, if not forever, due to the fact that it isn't seen as financially viable anymore.
Being able to play DVDs is seen as a standard thing a computer can do these days, if you say my computer cannot do it then you get funny looks, and that doesn't really help attract new users to RISC OS.
Whilst it would be useful to be able to have them working on RISC OS 5, I certainly wouldn't be using my Iyonix to watch films and TV programs, that is what a big telly with surround sound and the sofa are for! So I can see their point in a way, but I would have certainly have bought Cino had it ever happened.
New Graphics Cards
As mentioned with the forthcoming RISC OS 5.12 release, new graphics cards are now compatible with the Iyonix. The standard card is now the Nvidia FX 5200, new machines have this fitted along with RISC OS 5.12 and these new cards feature dual-head and also DVI output capabilities.
These new cards should also see the end to the 'pyjamas' problem that many users were experiencing, these cards should also speed up graphics processing.
Iyonix Ltd
Iyonix machines are now sold through Iyonix Ltd, this is to do with the Iyonix motherboards not confirming to the ROHS regulations which came into effect after 1st July.
Any motherboards manufactured after this date have to conform to certain standards and the current Iyonix motherboard does not. Castle are attempting to get round the new regulations by selling all existing motherboards to Iyonix Ltd, who then build the complete computers and sell them. It's not clear for how ling this ruse might work, especially as both companies have the same directors and run from the same address. The proper solution would be to re-design the Iyonix motherboard, given that everyone has known about the new regulations for several years it's surprising that Castle haven't already done this.
Open Source
The other big topic of discussion at the moment is the possibility of the open sourcing of RISC OS - as revealed in Archive (Volume 19 Number 12) it would appear that Castle are seriously considering open sourcing parts of RISC OS so that it can be developed further.
Whether this actually happens remains to be seen, a company called RISC OS Open have been mentioned and they have a website at
I don't know enough about open sourcing projects to know whether they are good thing or not, but if it benefits us and further enhances RISC OS then I'm all for it.
Software updates
A couple of new updates have come my way this month and they are:
Easiwriter & Techwriter V8.63
A free update to Easiwriter & Techwriter was released recently, you need to be using V8.60 or V8.61 to qualify for this update.
The update is obtainable from a link in an email which registered users should have received, if you think you should have had this email then contact Mike at Icon Technology
Some of the changes in V8.63 include :
Major changes in Word style sheet impor
Password protection for PD
For a complete listing of all the new features see the accompanying ReadMe file with V8.63 To obtain version V8.60 (which will be shipped as V8.63) see
Vice
Yes it is the return of the Vice update! Vice, the Commodore emulator for RISC OS, has had a few months without any updates however we have a new version, which is currently up to V1.20.
This is, I believe, another bug fixing exercise, although I'm not totally sure what is new. Apart from one problem with the Commodore 16 plus 4 emulator, I've never encountered any bugs with it. The new version can be downloaded from
BBC Games
Following on from the 32bitting of Chuckie Egg, Alan Buckley has now 32bitted the BBC games -Guardian, Dare Devil Denis and Cyberton Mission.
Dare Devis Denis - take control of a stuntman on a bike, and jump over and avoid obstacles to earn your wages. Originally released by Visions Software.
Guardian - a conversion of the arcade classic Defender - a decent enough version, this was originally released by Alligata Software.
Cyberton Mission - Originally released by Micro Power - you are in Fort Cyberton and you have to collect all the treasure on the level, when you have, touch the safe to transport you to the next level.
The screenshots are from the original BBC versions running in !6502em as I couldn't get any screen grabs that looked normal from the 32bit versions,but there is very little difference anyway.
These 3 games play as they would do on the BBC Micro, apart from a few sound problems. Dare Devil Denis is fine, but with Guardian the sound is not quite right, so if it sounds a weird to you - it's supposed to be like that. Cybertron Mission has no sound at all, which is a shame, but never mind.
Download a bit of BBC Micro nostalgia from
And that is it for this issue, hopefully next time we will be talking about RISC OS 5 updates and the open source issue may have happened, but it certainly looks like there is more to come for RISC OS 5 - we await with interest.
As ever if you want to get in touch with any Iyonix related stuff, announcements, comments, corrections or hints & tips, then the email address to send it to is
It's not looking very well, it's the letters page, that used to be so...swell...
It's hasn't half been a quiet couple of months on the letters front. Indeed I was on the point of dumping the page for this issue, or, even worse having to make up a few letters to fill the space. This is a much more common tactic in the magazine world than you might think. How many times have you seen Issue 1 of a magazine with a letters page. If it's the first issue how can anyone have written in? Well, either the writers have made the letters up, or if the magazine is part of a group, then the editor has nicked a few letters from another publication that covers a similar topic. I don't have that luxury, so my choice will be to either make the letters up, which seems a bit silly, or to kill off the letters page unless we have some communication from our loyal reader.
Anyway lets deal with the few scraps of post we do have this issue...
Dear Aaron,
Sorry to bother a busy person like you.
I half remember a PD Bison grammar report checker that told you what was causing shift/reduce conflicts, that was somewhere on the Risc World CDs. I have trawled through Volumes 3 - 6 with no joy. Where on earth is it?
Failing that, I have some PD code for a checker, but it is .tar compressed. Do you know of a PD .tar decompressor - !SparkFS doesn't seem to recognise this format, or do I need to alter the file type?
Hoping you know of something along these lines,
Regards,
Martin Carradus.
I've had a brief flick through the RISCWorld index and I can't find anything about a PD Bison grammar report checker so far. Does anyone else remember it? If not then perhaps it might be worth looking on the Unix Porting Project cli pages. Although I'm not familiar with Bison myself this might help.
Dealing with the .tar (Tape ARchive) file, this is caused me some problems in the past when I was sent a .tar file which needed to be de-compressed on RISC OS. In theory SparkFS should be able to read a .tar file, provided it's filetyped as &C46. If you look at the !Run file for !SparkFs you should see the line that sets up the filetype for tar files. If you still have difficulty then I have put a couple of copies of Frank Lancasters tar compression program for RISC OS in the Software.Letters directory on this CD, these might help but they are quite old and I don't know which modern machines they might run on.
Moving on we have been increasing our subscription base quite nicely in the last few months. This is mainly due to our offer of a free copy of RISCWorld to anyone who asks for it. We even pay the postage costs wether it's in the UK or the other side of the world. Anyway one of the recent new subscribers (Hello - HJ) put in a lovely ego massaging comment in with his subscription request..
"please make the contents of RW less interesting as I will never get any work done."
It's always nice to be appreciated and to know that we are getting some things right. It's actually quite difficult as an editor to balance each issue to try to ensure that there is something that everyone will find interesting. The first problem is working out what to write about. I have this mainly solved these days in that I am always working on two issues at a time. Whilst I've been writing and editing this issue I have also been making notes and jotting down article ideas for the next issue. Being bi-monthly RISCWorld only gets worked on every other month. I always start writing for an issue on the first working Monday of the month of publication. I don't have to work from scratch because I already know what needs to be written, as I will have decided on the majority of the contents a month and a half before, when I was working on the previous issue. So today I am working on the letters page, and on the VirtualAcorn tech support column, but I've also made a load of notes on the next tech support column, as well as working out what free commercial software title will be mounted on the next issue, which isn't due until the end of November.
So, given the fact that the only complaints we ever get about RISCWorld relates to the fact that you need a computer to read it I have to assume that we are all doing a reasonable job, but what do you, the readers think?
If you would like to write to us then please use the following e-mail address forgodssakepleasewritetous@riscworld.co.uk.
P.S. I've just been told by Hugh that this is the best space filling waffle he's seen in ages.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/MUSINGS/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, Comment
Comment
David Bradforth has a few views about RISC OS...
When preparing to write this article, I invited input and musings about the RISC OS market in general and peoples own experiences. John Evans (of Midas Software) was the first to reply.
I have just started this year's pantomime program for our village - and each year include thumbnail photos of the cast. As I had a dodgy back, someone else took the digital photos. Unfortunately, DPingScan wouldn't read the JPEGs so I read them into Ventura on a PC ready to export them in a standard file format.
So I thought why not do the whole job on the PC? I set up the picture page and added the photos. Then I though one or two are a bit light and a bit low in contrast. It became quickly clear that Ventura lacks any basic form of picture processing. (I experienced this myself a number of years ago, the recommended solution was to use Corel’s complimentary bitmap editor that quite frankly was bloody awful - Ed).
It was much easier to go back to RISC OS instead of having to fiddle with separate programs for every function. Thank goodness for Ovation Pro / Impression; which offer such processing features and can make editing easy with the minimum of keystrokes. It’s a shame that printing is somewhat slower. (It’s worth remembering that Ovation Pro is available directly from David Pilling for the PC www.davidpilling.net.)
There is one plug for Ventura though - it does provide an excellent bridge between various file formats and JPEGs.
Alan Calder followed up the posting with:
A cheaper (free) PC solution for conversion would be the excellent Irfanview. It converts nearly everything to nearly everything, and for a Windows program is tiny being just under 1Mb.
It’s worth remembering that there are a number of RISC OS programs capable of file conversion Studio 24 Pro, ProArtisan 24 and Photodesk being just three examples. It’s usually fairly easy to convince each of these programs to load variants of file formats they understand anyway. Be persistent, and if you run into difficulties ask for help from the companies supplying the products that’s after all what they’re on hand for.
Doctor J. Frink observed that:
The RISC OS way (and UNIX way) is to have a lot of small programs, that are very good at their task, and interoperate well. As such perhaps Ventura lacking photo-editing capabilities is a plus. With non-RISC OS software frequently getting bashed for being bloated it’s nice to see software that for a change isn’t.
Bringing the conversation back into the RISC OS sphere, John Williams recommended a visit to JClean www.dacha.freeuk.com/free/0-app-0.htm. JClean is a RISC OS front end for the official utility JTrans allowing you to convert between various JPEG formats with ease. While the last version was in 2002, it’s still fairly successful with JPEGs from a variety of PC and Mac sources.
As the conversation progressed, Alan Calder reminded us that Impression Publisher has always had the ability to mess about with graphics. Click ‘Frame’, ‘Alter Graphic’ then ‘Colour Map’ to open the relevant option window.
Harriet Bazley pointed out:
You can alter the contrast/map colour to greyscale (or to any other 'scale' - you get to pick the colour to use, although it defaults to black) without altering the original image. You can even have the same image linked to two different frames with different scales and contrast levels, using only memory for the one copy.
It doesn't process the actual picture - it tweaks the way that the data is displayed by Impression itself, in the same way that you can choose to 'hide' one or more of the images in a document to save memory or to speed up printing without actually deleting the image.
Which does raise an interesting point about Impression; and also another point to muse about before I bring this article to a conclusion. Will we see the much-discussed Impression X in the near future? While I understand that the conversion process has taken considerably longer than intended, it would be nice to know that copies of Impression were still available for those who want them.
Hmmm. More musings, no doubt, in the next RISCWorld - feel free to email them to us at editor@riscworld.co.uk.
David Bradforth
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/OPEN/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, Open sourcing RISC OS
Open sourcing RISC OS
Aaron's take on a proposal from Castle Technology Ltd...
Recently Castle Technology Ltd (Castle) made an interesting announcement. The announcement came as part of an interview between Paul Beverley, the editor of Archive magazine, and Jack Lillingston, the Managing Director of Castle. To cut to the chase the announcement was that Castle were "very seriously considering making RISC OS open source", the principle being that a "a small royalty" would be charged for each copy used in order to fund handling of the main CVS tree.
In brief...
This is very interesting news and sounds exceptionally positive, but, as they say, the devil's in the details. So lets take a slightly closer look at what Castle seem to have proposed. Firstly the proposal, so keenly seized on by a number of regular commentators on the RISC OS news sites, doesn't relate to RISC OS in it's entirety, just to elements of RISC OS. Peter Wild, one of Castle's directors added that "there are some commercially sensitive/valuable components that probably wouldn't be released". So, here's the first problem, what's being talked about isn't open sourcing RISC OS itself, but some parts of it.
That isn't in itself a problem, some components could be provided in binary only form, but lets dig a bit further. Peter also added that any licence for an open source RISC OS "would almost certainly be under a bespoke licence with appropriate terms for use, charges and feedback of sources." Well it certainly makes sense to have any changes made by a licence fed back to Castle, but what's a bespoke licence? What could the appropriate "terms for use" actually be? One of the interesting proposals that was made was to look at porting RISC OS to non ARM hardware, Peter's comment on that was," I really don't think this is practical, or will be legally allowed." This sounds rather odd, lets sum up where have go to so far...
Not all of the sources to RISC OS would be available
Only some elements of RISC OS would be available, these would be supplied under a bespoke licence
The use these sources can be put to will be restricted
The user will pay a fee to Castle
So far this doesn't really sound like a normal type of open source to me. Still lets take a closer look at the possible charges...
Payments
Peter also went into some detail about charges, suggesting that there would be "a minimal royalty for personal use". On the surface this may sound reasonable, but again lets look a little deeper. A user would pay Castle for the sources, then be obliged to return any changes back to Castle and also be restricted on what products that could use RISC OS with for their own purposes. If they then wanted to produce a commercial product they would need to pay a "per unit royalty" based on a "structure for commercial use". I'm sorry, but this simply isn't how "open source" software licencing works.Unless the costs were very low, in the pence per item category, then Castle simply aren't going to get any takers, especially of the uses for RISC OS are restricted using some arbitrary rules. Any developer would need to ensure that not only were the price points reasonable but that their product fell into the definition of "Legal" as used by Castle.
So, having covered the money side of things lets look at what happens if a user makes changes to the sources.
Changing the sources...
As one would probably expect any changes to RISC OS made by an individual/company would need to be fed back into the main source tree. However there is a major potential problem here. There would be a requirement that sources be fed back, but sources would have to be fed back in such a way that any work done "can be re-licenced by Castle". So, if a commercial customer made changes to RISC OS for their own products they would be forced to hand these new sources back to Castle and then allow Castle to sell the new sources on to any third party. Can you imagine any commercial RISC OS developer working under these terms, when any sensitive commercial developments would have to be returned to Castle?
This is especially ironic given that a few years ago Castle's insisted that work done to support their RISC OS 4 machines shouldn't be re-licenced by RISCOS Ltd to other third parties. This was one of the sticking points that helped kill off any hope for the RiscStation Evolution.
So to sum this up, Castle would own rights to any changes made to the RISC OS sources.
Restrictions...
As we have seen Peter has already said that there would be restrictions on what a licencee could do with RISC OS. Firstly any form of non ARM hardware wouldn't be allowed, so you can forget anyone attempting to port RISC OS to another processor/platform. So what would be allowed? Well presumably a potential licensee would have to tell Castle exactly what they are up to before starting work. So not only could any commercially sensitive code be re-sold by Castle, but they would know exactly what was being worked on, so they could line up a new customer for the same product before the sources were even passed back.
In a wider commercial context it would be potential suicide for any commercial company to take on RISC OS under these terms. That of course assumes that commercial licencing is what Castle's "open source" plans are about. However I don't think that commercial licencing has got anything to do with it...
So what's really going on...
I think that there are two issues involved here, the first is PR.
Castle's announcement was met with a lot of positive comments, at least until Peter Wild starting spilling the beans. This does raise an interesting point. Were Peters' comments deliberately designed to cause the spin to backfire? Given what I have been told about the relationship between Peter and the other Castle directors I have a sneaking suspicion (although no direct evidence) that this might be the case. So, my view is that the first issue was to get some positive PR easily and quickly. This could well be very important given that Castle could do with some good news at present. Of course it's mainly backfired with only a few Castle fans, who can't see the commercial realities, remaining positive.
The second, and I think possibly more important issue relates to the continuing development of RISC OS. As RISCWorld readers will know Castle no longer have any full time development staff. John Ballance from Castle is continuing work on RISC OS, but releases are slow in coming out. Suppose Castle could get some members of the RISC OS community to continue development of RISC OS and also get the community to pay for the privilege into the bargain? So Castle would get the work done for "free", would charge each developer "a minimal royalty for personal use", presumably including getting access to the sources in the first place, and would also have all the rights to the work that's being done. Now that does sound like a sensible plan, doesn't it?
If one assumes that what Peter Wild has said is correct, and after all he is a director of Castle, then the above does sound very likely, as the terms apparently being offered would seem to be not greatly attractive in a commercial environment. Anyway, lets sum up what's being proposed so far one again:
Not all of the sources to RISC OS would be available
Only some elements of RISC OS would be available, these would be supplied under a bespoke licence
The use these sources can be put to will be restricted
The licencee will pay a fee to Castle
The licencee will pay a fee for each use of RISC OS
The licencee will hand back to Castle any commercially sensitive changes to RISC OS for re-licencing to third partie
As you can see this doesn't look attractive, but there are two more absolute dead stops in the way...
So who really owns RISC OS?
This isn't a straightforward question. Peter Wild has in the past claimed that Castle own RISC OS "lock,stock and barrel." Complete rubbish. We have covered this in the past in RISCWorld, but it's worth going over it again quickly. Believe it or not Acorn never "owned" all of RISC OS in the first place. Although Acorn owned some components of RISC OS, since they were developed in house, a large number of other components were actually licenced from third parties. In some cases this was from Acorn employees, in some cases from third party companies. Although Acorn had rights to use these in binary form, they were never owned by Acorn. This didn't present a problem when Acorn licenced RISC OS to third parties, such as RISCOS Ltd, because Acorn had the rights to make such licences. What Acorn never owned was clear title to RISC OS.
When RISC OS was passed to Pace it was done so on the understanding that although binary use was covered the actual ownership of much of RISC OS was a grey area. Before Pace "sold" the "RISC OS technology" to Castle they attempted to sort through it to see what they actually owned. The list of items for which Pace had a clear title was surprisingly small. Most items ended up in either the "we probably own it", or the "err...don't know" box. Castle "purchased" RISC OS based on this understanding. Here we find the other dead stop, Castle's purchase agreement with Pace.
After some hard detective work RISCWorld has tracked down official Pace documentation relating to the Pace sale of RISC OS and Castle's "purchase" of RISC OS. The paperwork makes very interesting reading, but has one clear point to make. Castle have no rights to open source RISC OS, indeed the purchase actually forbids Castle making RISC OS open source. This may well explain why Castle become so agitated when RISCOS Ltd made some parts of !Printers open source on SourceForge. If you are interested it's still available
So why can't RISC OS be open sourced? Because Castle don't have the right to do so. They don't have the right because Pace never had the right to do so. Pace never had the right because Acorn never did. Admittedly Castle have recognised this problem and Pete Wild spent some time trying to track down the actual ownership of the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) with, what I have been told was, limited success.
The only items that could, perhaps, be made open source are those that Castle have 100% title to, even then there is the little matter of the sale/purchase agreement with Pace to deal with.
Conclusion
As it stands RISC OS can't be made open source. But then, if you read what has been said by Castle directors this isn't the plan anyway. The plan was to make the sources available under licence for a fee per use. Then get hold of the full rights to any changes made by the licencee so they can be licenced on by Castle. The plan is simple, get RISC OS developed further without spending any money. This may be a very good proposal, but I'm sorry, it isn't open source.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/PD/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
It's time to take our usual gander around the latest software releases for RISC OS. I feel that I ought to remind everyone that all the software mentioned in my column is available in the software directory on this very CD. So lets us peruse the latest developments from the keen band of RISC OS freeware and shareware developers.
WebWorkz - Paul Vigay
This application is designed with one aim in mind, to convert FireWorkz files to HTML. To load the program simply double-click on it to load it. You will then be presented with the main control window. Closing this window, or clicking on 'Quit' will quit the application.
To activate the HTML conversions simply drag the FireWorkz file you wish to convert into this window. The relevant output directory will be filled in automatically, assuming you wish to create the output files in the same directory as the original. If not, simply drag the relevant icons to a suitable filer window somewhere else, in the usual RISC OS fashion.
WebWorkz and the registration window
WebWorkz comes with a comprehensive text file manual, as it's shareware the non registered copy has limits on the size of files it can convert.
BgrndCtrl - Steve Potts
BgrndCtrl allows the user to configure a pool of picture files to be used as Pinboard Backdrops and will randomly select one of these at a configurable interval. Backdrops can be configured to be Centred, Scaled or Tiled, utilising the features of the Pinboard itself and !BgrndCtrl can even be run just once to change a backdrop and then automatically quit if required (for use at Boot, for example).
This is a significant new version of the program. Except for a select few users, version 2.XX has not been seen in public and there are several refinements since the last publicly available version.
BgrndCtrl configuration window
New features include:
Support for dynamically reading directories with pictures
Configuration of appropriate text colour for a given backdrop so that you can still read the icon text of pinned icons.
Improved user interface
Several bug fixes and stability improvements
Updated documentation.
eSpeak - Johnathan Duddington
Many RISC OS users may well remember the !Speak application produced by Johnathan Duddington. This speech synthesis engine was used in a number of commercial products, including TextEase and Pluto to name but two. Now an updated cross platform version has been released under a GNU public licence. I have included the RISC OS version, but the full versions for other platforms can also be obtained from http://espeak.sourceforge.net.
The eSpeak logo
eSpeak also comes with a large HTML manual which can be found in the Docs directory. eSpeak is well worth experimenting with and could easily be used to add speach to any RISC OS application you are working on. Among its many features are:
Includes different Voices, whose characteristics can be altered
Can produce speech output as a WAV file
SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) is supported (not complete), and also HTML
Compact size. The program and its data, including several languages, totals about 450 kbytes
Can translate text to phoneme codes, so it could be adapted as a front end for another speech synthesis engine
Potential for other languages. Several are included in varying stages of progress. Help from native speakers for these or other languages is welcomed
Development tools available for producing and tuning phoneme data
Written in C++
Blinds - Quantum Software
There has been some sad news recently, Quantum software have regretfully closed due to a long term illness. I personally wish Stuart all the best as he has developed some really great applications for RISC OS over the years. The sad news has been slightly tempered as all the previously commercial Quantum titles have been released as freeware. So I am pleased to include Blinds in this issue.
Blinds is a professional icon and application manager. With Blinds on your computer you can make up to 32 individually tailored blinds-like windows which open and shut at the click of a mouse. These windows when closed take up virtually no valuable desktop room, yet are easily accessible. Files or applications placed on a blind can be very easily altered to show either text only, sprite & text or just the icon picture.
Blinds
Among Blinds many features are:
Teachers can easily set up multi-user versions of Blinds so that each pupil sees only their current work or their own directories or applications on screen
Directory icons by default allow files to be dropped on them and the files automatically saved to that directory
You can set up a blind to only appear when a certain application or program is loaded
A blind can also be set so that it is attached to the side of an application window. For example you could very easily attach a blind next to an Impression document containing relevant files or directories then you will always have them to hand. This is VERY useful aid as you no longer have to keep searching for that directory or file
The text of an icon can be made very long if you wish, no more 10 character limit here
Blinds is now 32bit aware and should run on both the A9 and the Iyonix.
I look forward to seeing you all again in the next issue.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/SDL/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, SDL for RISC OS
SDL for RISC OS
Neil White
Disclaimer:
Please refer to the article in the last issue for the disclaimer and basic information about using GCC and SDL. Under the disclaimer I now disclaim that there may or may not be any working examples with this article at time of going to press. This is because Alan Buckley and I are currently in the process of building a full working suite of SDL related libraries, and right now I am in London and the only fully working copies I have of SDL image and mixer are on a machine in the Isle of Wight with only my father to have to slog through my endless supply of broken files until we find a working one. I now have to kick myself into setting up the SDL SVN service to auto build the latest versions of the libraries, if you would like to donate to our efforts please contact via email, I will try to have some nice fresh libraries and a complete, fresh website ready for the next article. I promise to get my own RiscPC to my flat before the next article. I have tried to find the stuff you need for this article on the web, but it seems that it is me who has to maintain it.
Well, I've been hacking away trying to produce a !sdlimage and a !sdlmixer using the cross compiler system, but alas, I have failed. You will therefore have to wait for the next issues for some working examples. Sorry.
If you would like to be informed when the latest libraries are available or make a donation please email me.
This Article
In this article I will be introducing using image formats other than windows bitmap with the SDL Image library, adding some WAV file sound effects using the SDL Mixer library and using the keyboard as an input device.
SDL Image ( #include <SDL/SDL_image.h> )
First let's look at some other image formats we can use with SDL Image. As with most of SDL and related libraries they are constantly being improved and bug fixed, which can leave us in RISC OS land behind a bit, so we will be using an early version of SDL Image that is a little more complex to use than the latest version, but I know it works.
Last time we used two BMP images, one for the background and one for the RISC World logo. Now we shall use an XPM for the background. XPM is the X-Windows equivalent to Windows BMP. Images are stored as an array in a text file with a palette and lines of characters representing the pixels in the image, so perhaps a two colour image might have colour 1 as A and colour 2 as B, then there would be lines consisting of A's and B's representing the image. These can then be stored in a header file and compiled into the final binary rather than having separate image files that could then be altered by the end user.
We shall use the PNG format for the logo. PNGs are my image format of choice. They have a good compression ratio and most converters now handle them. I do on occasion have issues with palettes, but this is all part of the fun of building SDL stuff on RISC OS.
Note: to convert images to these formats can be a bit of a slog, I use a combination of !Translator and ImageMagick, for XPMs, first converting a sprite to a format suitable for ImageMagick, then use ImageMagick to convert to an XPM, though you will have to be careful that ImageMagick doesn't replace the hex value for the colour with a colour name, like ›Green“ or ›Black“ as the SDL Image we are using only accepts hex values for colours. PNG's can be converted using just Translator, or there are a few other freeware sprite to PNG converters available.
XPM's
The XPM looks something like this :
static char * background_xpm[] =
"320 320 5 1"
" c #737373"
". c #9C9C9C"
"+ c #BDBDBD"
"@ c #DEDEDE"
"# c #525252"
" ..+... ....++. ... (** large snip **)..++.....++++++@+....++++..++"};
Which can now be included in our headers directory, h, as gfx and at the top of the code we include it:
can be loaded into a previously defined SDL surface (background) with this line
background=loadxpm(background_xpm);
PNG's
The latest SDL Image (not the one we are using) will allow most image formats to be loaded with one simple function, but we have to go a bit old school with this version and the function looks like this:
SDL_Surface *loadpng(char *name
// define a couple of surfaces for use in this functio
SDL_Surface *surface
SDL_Surface *image
// define an SDL_Rwop, an area of memory used for storing data file
SDL_RWops *rwop
// A character string for holing or file nam
char path[256]
// copy the base directory ( <obey$dir>/ ) to the start of the pat
strcpy(path, DATA_PREFIX)
// add /gfx ( path in RISC OS is now <obey$dir>.gfx. )
strcat(path, "gfx/")
// add the name of the image ( <obey$dir>.gfx.name
strcat(path, name)
// add the png suffix ( <obey$dir>.gfx.name.png
strcat(path, ".png")
// load the data file into the rwo
rwop = SDL_RWFromFile(path,"rb")
// convert the rwop from png into a SDL surfac
surface = IMG_LoadPNG_RW( rwop )
// tell the surface to use white ( 255,255,255 ) as transparent or the mask
// return our new SDL surface to the one defined and used with name=loadpng(›name“)
return image
}
and loading the image into a pre defined SDL surface looks like this:
rwlogo=loadpng(›rwlogo“);
Note we don't need to add the .PNG suffix, or the full directory listing as the .PNG is added in the function and the DATA_PREFIX definition in the makefile points to where our working directory is (-DDATA_PREFIX=“<obey$dir>“) and we also add the gfx/ part in the code, so all our PNG images can be stored in the gfx directory and simply loaded using their file name without the PNG suffix, but the actual files do have the PNG suffix.
SDL Mixer ( #include <SDL/SDL_mixer.h> )
SDL Mixer now supports lots of sound file formats, including MIDI music, Microsoft WAV, OGG and MP3, but decoding MP3's or OGG's while running an SDL application is a little processor intensive, so generally on RISC OS it's best to use MIDI for any music and WAVs can be used for sound effects.
This is the function I use to initialise SDL_mixer and load sound files ready for use. As with images, SDL Mixer needs to refer and store the sound file so similar SDL_Surface for images, a Mix_Chunk is used for sound, we will be using one sound called boing.wav. The Mix_Chunk defined at the top of the code like this:
Note: When our code is shutting down it is best to call MixCloseAudio();
Mix_Chunk *boing_sound;
then this will initialise SDL Mixer and load the wav file into our mix chunk:
int Mix_OpenAudio(int frequency, Uint16 format, int channels, int chunksize)
frequency = Output sampling frequency in samples per second (Hz).
You might use MIX_DEFAULT_FREQUENCY(22050) since that is a good value for most games
format = Output sample format
channels = Number of sound channels in output
Set to 2 for stereo, 1 for mono. This has nothing to do with mixing channels.
chunksize = Bytes used per output sample.
4.3.3 Mix_PlayChannel
int Mix_PlayChannel(int channel, Mix_Chunk *chunk, int loops)
channel = Channel to play on, or -1 for the first free unreserved channel.
chunk = Sample to play.
loops = Number of loops. -1 is infinite loops.
Passing '1' here plays the sample twice (1 loop).
This is SDL Mixer at its most basic functionality. You may want to refer to the official SDL Mixer documentation for more functionality.
Using The Keyboard.
In the example in the last issue we simply waited for the mouse to be clicked then ran a little bit of code that made the logo bounce up and down, this function looks for key presses, not the mouse click.
Key presses are detected using an event loop, each key on the keyboard having it's own definition, key W for example is referred to as SDLK_W, using our own predefined integers we can set a variable for when the key is pressed down - case SDL_KEYDOWN:, and for when the key has been released - case SDL_KEYUP:. So after defining four integers up_pressed, down_pressed, left_pressed and right_pressed, we can use this function in combination with the state of our variables to use the keyboard to do things in the SDL program. This example uses the arrow keys.
static void checkevents(void
SDL_Event event
while (SDL_PollEvent(&event) != 0
{
switch(event.type
case SDL_KEYDOWN
switch(event.key.keysym.sym
case SDLK_ESCAPE: quit = 1; break
case SDLK_UP: up_pressed = 1; break
case SDLK_DOWN: down_pressed = 1; break
case SDLK_LEFT: left_pressed = 1; break
case SDLK_RIGHT: right_pressed = 1; break
default: break
break
case SDL_KEYUP
switch(event.key.keysym.sym
case SDLK_UP: up_pressed = 0; break
case SDLK_DOWN: down_pressed = 0; break
case SDLK_LEFT: left_pressed = 0; break
case SDLK_RIGHT: right_pressed = 0; break
default: break
break
case SDL_QUIT
quit = 1
break
}
So here we can use the values of left_pressed to determine if the left arrow key is pressed or depressed for use with moving things around the screen using the arrow keys.
Animation The Slack Way
The slackers way to animate bitmaps is to simply have a number of single file bitmaps in a directory, load them into SDL then use a simple loop to change the image every so often.
Main Game Loop ( args
int boolean_game=1,anim_dude=1
d
draw_background()
if ( anim_dude=1 ) { imageplot(dude1,dudex,dudey);
if ( anim_dude=2 ) { imageplot(dude2,dudex,dudey);
if ( anim_dude=3 ) { imageplot(dude3,dudex,dudey);
if ( anim_dude=4 ) { imageplot(dude4,dudex,dudey);
anim_dude+=1
if ( anim_dude=5 ) { anim_dude=1;
SDLFlip(screen)
while ( boolean_game=1;
}
Next time... Some working examples for image and mixer (cough), some collision detection methods, and hopefully a look at SDL_gfx or SDL_ttf. I will be collecting my own RiscPC in a couple of weeks, which unlike my brothers has just about every version of sdl_image and sdl_mixer you would ever want. Why havn't I been developing on RISC OS? Well basically I have been playing with alpha blending in SDL, and my trusty Risc PC just ain't powerful enough for a lot of alpha blending. Buy me one of those new blue risc boxes ;-)
Neil White
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/SHOWS/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, RISC OS Shows
RISC OS Shows
There's no business, like show business...
With autumn coming on it's coming up to the RISC OS show season. I hope you are ready for this as there are quite a few events coming up in the next few months.
RISC OS RoadShow - Glasgow, Wednesday 18th October
The show season kicks off with the first RISCOS Ltd RoadShow event in Glasgow. The show will be held at:
Arran Suite
Holiday Inn Glasgow - East Kilbride
Stewartfield Way
East Kilbride
G74 5LA
The show will open at 4:00pm and finish at 8:00pm and entry is free. This is a great chance for RISC OS users from Scotland and the North West of England to get together and look at the latest developments from RISCOS Ltd and Castle Technology, to name but two. For more details contact RISCOS Ltd, who are organising the event on 02920 492324.
RISC OS RoadShow - Newcastle, Thursday 19th October
The second RoadShow event moves to the North East and takes place at:
Village Hotel Newcastle
Cobalt Business Park
West Allotment
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE27 0BY
Once again entry is free and the show will be open from 4:00pm to 8:00pm.
RISCOS South East - Guildford, Saturday 21st October
The RISC OS South East show, organised by the Surrey and Sussex Acorn User Group (SASAUG) will be once again taking place at the end of October in it's usual venue:
Guilford Technical College
Stoke Road
Guildford
Surrey
As usual the show organisers have provided directions, maps and full show information
ARM Club Midlands Show - Wolverhampton, Saturday 25th November
The long running ARM Club Midlands show has no moved from it's old venue at the National Motorcycle Museum and instead will now be taking place at a new venue:
Featherstone and Hilton Community Center
Baneberry Drive
Featherstone
Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV10 7TR
Like most other RISC OS events the show will be open from 10:00am until 4:00pm. Entry costs £3, with a concession price of £2 for Arm Club members. Children under 12 can get in for free. You can find more details from
RISC OS South West - Loxton, Saturday 24th February 2007
For the umpteenth year running the RISC OS South West show will be taking place at it's traditional venue:
The Webbington Hotel
Loxton, Nr Axbridge
North Somerset
Doors will open at 10:00am and the show will close at 4:30pm. Tickets cost £3.50, with a reduced rate of £2.50 for Arm Club or RISC OS Foundation members. Children under 16 get in free and tickets need to be purchased at the door. More details will be available from the show website one more details have been finalised.
That's all for our quick show round up. RISCWorld will be attending all the above shows and we hope to see you there.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/VA/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, VirtualAcorn Tech Support
VirtualAcorn Tech Support
More from Aaron's tech support notebook
We occasionally bump into a particularly awkward tech support problem and recently one raised it's ugly head. A customer had purchased a VirtualRPC and had it installed and working on their PC. They then needed to copy the files from their real RiscPC over to the VirtualAcorn. Here is where the problems started. The PC that had VirtualAcorn on was a laptop and didn't have a floppy disc drive. VirtualAcorn can read DOS formatted floppies from an external USB drive, but can't read Acorn format floppies from such a device. This wasn't a major problem as the customer was quite close to a PC World and simply went out and purchased an external floppy drive and connected it to the laptop. Since they were running a StrongARM VirtualAcorn it was a matter of a couple of mouse clicks to configure a drive icon for the floppy drive inside RISC OS.
Having got a drive icon they then set about the process of copying files over from the real RiscPC. Following my advice they used a compression program (in this instance !Zippe) to compress the data they wanted into 1.4Mb chunks for copying over onto DOS floppies. Then a real problem showed up, VirtualAcorn couldn't read the floppy discs! Further checking revealed that Windows couldn't read the discs either. This needed some major head scratching and left us with this situation:
The laptop could read shop bought 1.44Mb formatted floppies
VirtualAcorn could read shop bought 1.44Mb formatted floppies
The real RiscPC couldn't read shop bought floppies
If the disc was formatted on the RiscPC then the RiscPC could read it
Neither Windows of VirtualAcorn could read a disc formatted on the RiscPC
This pretty much left me with only one diagnosis. The floppy drive on the RiscPC was knackered. This caused the user a problem. They needed their data on the laptop as they were going abroad in a couple of days, which is why they had purchased a VirtualAcorn in the first place (this happened before the current changes to luggage etc on flights). The Risc PC didn't have a network card, so it couldn't be networked with the laptop. Now did the RiscPC have a CD-Writer. The customer wasn't happy to go any purchase and fit another floppy drive to the Risc PC so things seemed to be stuck. Then I remembered an old trick...
I asked the customer if they has e-mail on the RiscPC, the answer was yes. Did they have e-mail on the laptop? Yes as well. Can you see where this is going yet? The simplest answer was for the customer to e-mail themselves the compressed files from the Risc PC and open the e-mails on the laptop. Then download the attached files into the VirtualAcorn Harddisc4 folder, where they could be opened by RISC OS. Luckily all the customer needed urgently was about 5 Mb of data so it could be e-mailed over reasonably easily, especially as it has already been put into 1.4Mb zip files.
This is a useful trick if you ever need to get information of a machine that has no working swapable mass storage device. However there are a couple of traps for the unwary. Firstly if the Risc PC doesn't have a file compression application already on the harddisc then things could look tricky. In reality this can easily be got round. Since the RiscPC already had e-mail and internet access it was easy to just go and download Zipee to the harddisc. Secondly, and more importantly, the size of an attachment to an e-mail is limited. In this example it didn't matter as it was a relatively small amount of data. Suppose there was lots of data, splitting it all into small chunks could be a pain. Well then don't. Simply upload it to your FTP space, then download it again. Ok, this could cost a few pounds on the phone bill, but it you need the data urgently it could be a life saver.
Anyway the customer was happy that the problem had been solved and has promised to get the RiscPC fixed on his return.
Unlock codes by e-mail
Although I have a sneaking suspicion that I have mentioned this before it's worth briefly covering it again. I recently had an "Urgent" e-mail from a customer who had asked for an unlock code. He had sent an e-mail a couple of weeks before and hadn't had an answer. Contrary to what any people seem to believe, e-mail is not 100% reliable. Just because you have sent an e-mail doesn't mean that the recipient has actually received it. In this instance we hadn't had the original e-mail. Not only that but the user was luckily to get a response to their second e-mail. Why? Because of their use of the word "Urgent", in capital letters. Firstly all unlock code requests are treated as equally urgent, and they are dealt with in the order they arrive in my e-mail. Secondly using the word "Urgent" is pretty much guaranteed to cause the e-mail to end up in the spam bin, alongside all the other "Urgent" e-mails from the sons/daughters of rich and usually deceased, Nigerian dictators. So, quite from having the intended effect, putting in the word "Urgent" is likely to delay a response as I only check the spam bin every couple of days. Consider yourselves warned.
The CMOS game...
One of the most regular problems we get is related to the RISC OS CMOS RAM. For reasons best known to the people who suggested the silly idea in the first place (yes I know who you are) RISC OS keeps its CMOS file open all the time it's running and closes it when it's closed down. This can mean that the CMOS can get corrupted. On VirtualAcorn this causes a failure to boot, as RISC OS defaults to it's normal behaviour of booting from ADFS, rather than HostFS, which is what VirtualAcorn uses. So depending on the version of RISC OS you either get a silly command prompt error message:
File &.!Boot Not found
Or, if you have RISC OS Adjust and depending on the wind direction, you get the RISC OS Boot menu.
This often causes a modicum of panic from the user, and quite rightly too. However there is a simply solution. Shut down VirtualAcorn, pop the original VirtualAcorn CD in the drive, wait for the menu to start, go to the utilities section and run the CMOS restore program. This puts a "good" copy of the CMOS file in place that will get VirtualAcorn working again.
A boot in the brain
Finally let me finish with a little story. We recently had a customer who needed to install Sibelius on VirtualRPC-SE. To do this you need to set VRPC up so that it boots from ADFS, this is quick and easy so we won't cover it again here. However they ran into a problem, the !BootADFS program copies their boot sequence over to ADFS without any problems, but VRPC wouldn't boot from ADFS! It kept giving silly "line too long" messages. I confirmed that VRPC booted fine from HostFS, so what could be the problem. "I don't understand it", said the customer, "I copied all my stuff off my RiscPC and it's been fine, why's it gone wrong...etc". Of course my highly tuned problem detector went off. Had he copied "everything" from his RiscPC? "Yes". Are you sure it was everything? "Yes". even the boot sequence? "Err...yes...probably...er...why?" Because you melon head you've copied over a boot sequence designed for a different type of machine and god knows what you've knackered up in the process.
I would usually get the customer to do a complete re-install at this point and it would serve them right. However I had a quick brain wave. I got them to delete !Boot from ADFS, then to rename !Boot as !Boot2 on the HostFS drive. Then just re-install the main VirtualAcorn application and !Boot sequence from the original CD. All went well, they re-installed, then configured an ADFS disc, ran !BootADFS and re-booted. All then went as it should. "Sibelius is working now" then rung back and told me. Jolly good, mind you if you had read the VirtualAcorn manual, that tells you not to copy a boot sequence off another machine, in the first place it would have worked two days ago and saved quite a bit of my time.
Stroppy tech support, don't you just love it.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE3/WEB/INDEX.HTM Issue 3, Establish an online presence for your business
Establish an online presence for your business
David Bradforth takes a look at the options available for those looking to build a business website on RISC OS. He also speaks to Steve Holford of FastHosts to get his views on the essential requirements of a business website.
When you’re looking to grow your business, it makes sense to build a website. Above and beyond anything else, particularly in a market the size of RISC OS, a website provides a cost-effective means of publicising and ultimately selling your product. This is particularly useful if you can’t afford the hundreds of pounds that it can take to advertise within the print media.
To develop a website on RISC OS there are a number of options available. In the commercial sense, perhaps the longest-developed product is RComp’s HTMLEdit Suite. First introduced in 1995, HTMLEdit is a suite of applications aimed to compliment each aspect of the web design process.
HTMLEdit 6 is at the centre of this suite. With over ten years of development behind it, it’s now a comprehensive development suite that has won an education award for its structured approach and ease of use. With support for JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets, Syntax Checking, Web Site Management Features and Dynamic Content it’s a strong competitor to the likes of Dreamweaver on the PC and Mac.
The Web Designers Toolkit adds to this providing seven utilities that compliment the main suite. WebTable allows you to create visual tables of your information, in a form that will appear properly within all web browsers. Framer allows you to visually produced frame-based pages. ImageConv allows you to create animated GIFs and to use Drawfiles within web pages; even with batch conversion. WebMapper helps you to create image maps meeting industry standards. StripIt allows you to batch-process HTML and text files for use in DTP documents. HTMLink creates custom macros and tags for use with any application and finally DOSext converts filetypes to and from PC/UNIX file extensions to guarantee web page compatibility.
WebSpell is a spelling checker for HTML editors. Using the dictionaries from Ovation Pro it comes in two forms; one as a plug-in for HTMLEdit allowing in-page checking and the other as a stand-alone solution with the ability to check multiple pages at once. It also supports foreign languages, which will be essential for those producing a business website.
Perhaps at the core of HTMLEdit is WebsterXL. Now falling somewhat behind in terms of standards, it’s a capable web browser which includes support for many aspects of web life. It also supports standard RISC OS plugins for Java and Flash usage. I have to admit I do not have recent experience of WebsterXL so am unable to comment on its capabilities.
SiteMaster 3 provides a set of site management tools to aid the armoury of any webmaster. The main SiteMaster application provides the management and maintenance tools. You can rename files without breaking links, add file extensions to files and alter the case of filenames. Tree breakdowns can be displayed of your site, marking unused files, broken links, images without alternative text or files of a particular type, etc. WebUpload v2 handles the uploading via FTP to your webspace. Publish v2 adds a scripting function to the already capable publishing process of HTMLEdit, capable enough to automate the publishing process across the whole site.
The final component of HTMLEdit, Textures, provides a number of backdrops for use with any graphics package or on a webpage. Also included are a selection of textures for Studio 24 Pro owners; Studio 24 Pro is of course available at a discount to subscribers of RISC World directly through APDL.
One of the advantages Dreamweaver has above HTMLEdit is the ability to design a page as you would a word processed document. Being able to structure your web page as you would a DTP document can allow more focus on the content of the site and less on the technical background to it. For RISC OS users there are two current products that allow you to do this.
David Snell’s WebWonder (www.dsnell.zynet.co.uk) has been developed to help enthusiasts quickly and cheaply create and publish a website. With a visual representation of your site that grows as you develop it, it allows you to create a working website quickly. The interface is similar to RISC OS; the program automatically verifies links and manages tables/forms/images in a fashion you’ll quickly appreciate. In fact it’s a very nicely put together program. We particularly like the ease with which you can create contact sheets for photographs.
Produce contact sheets in seconds
Dansoft Developments’ SiteWriter is a similarly-featured alternative. Included in RISC World Volume 6 Issue 1 (available on the RISC World DVD) and a standard part of the VirtualRPC installations.
In the freeware sense, HTML3 by Richard Goodwin (www.houseofmabel.com) is one of the most capable web design packages around. Full stop. Like HTML Edit it requires a certain amount of basic HTML knowledge, but what it has as its advantage is its price. The author used to work for ArgoNet and developed a number of well-known RISC OS sites including acornarcade.com and iconbar.com. (He also provided the guestbook for The Cybervillage).
HTML3 is described as a RISC OS only macro inserter; allowing you to use your favourite text editor and use HTML3’s macros to develop your own website. There’s no question that it’s capable - after all, his website was developed using it - but it is rather technical in use.
Graphic Development
Developing graphics for the Internet is something of a different story. If you’re developing a commercial website for the RISC OS world, you need to remember that the majority of users will not have an overly capable browser. Hence including Flash animation is of little use as your audience will not be able to use it.
With the likes of Photodesk and ProArtisan 24 you can edit and manipulate photographs; then save the result in JPEG format for uploading into tables (generated with the likes of HTMLEdit) for use on the Internet. The process does lack automation, but it works very well.
For something a little more vector based, take a look at either DrawWorks or ArtWorks 2. The latter has had extensive work placed into the development of its export capabilities; particularly with a view to bitmap graphic output. It’s also retained the look and feel of the original Computer Concepts development (1992) to such an extent that using ArtWorks is an immense pleasure. While it’s unlikely you’d be able to locate a graphics tablet for RISC OS these days, when used in conjunction with a stylus the freehand mode in ArtWorks is nothing short of impressive.
It’s worth remembering that if you’re developing a website for business use, a focus should be placed on developing an informative site that sticks out for the right reasons. Certainly use imagery effectively, but ensure that you also tell your reader why they should purchase your products above those of others.
Hosting & Email Options
So you’ve decided to build a commercial website. The first thing you’ll need to do is register a domain name. A domain name is your brand - it’s the way in which people will identify you and mostly will track you down when they want to buy your products. CJE, APDL and RISCOS are all instantly recognisable for being short, snappy and straight to the point. Many UK businesses use .co.uk as the extension, US businesses use .com although the distinction has become somewhat slimmer over the last five years.
The number of domain extensions has multiplied considerably over the years. There are new extensions such as .eu (for a European wide company) and .mobi (if you’re developing primarily for web use). Providers such as www.ukreg.com and www.fasthosts.co.uk provide everything from the domain names through to the hosting space for your site itself. They can also configure advanced options, such as forums and messageboards, to ensure you can immediately upload your data.
There are a number of companies offering hosting services; others such as UKreg have a focus on providing the best domain registration service they can.
For a hosting package in the business sense, expect to pay between £9.99 and £39.99 per month (depending upon your supplier). Remember to go for a service that offers a POP mailbox; this will allow your customers to get a reply from a professional email address rather than joebloggs@hotmail.com when dealing with their queries.
As RISC OS users, we’re very lucky to have the likes of Paul Vigay within this market. He has extensive experience with both the platform and the Internet, and is hence will placed to provide practical advice to those needing a kick-start in developing their own commercial interests. Visit www.orpheusinternet.co.uk to contact Paul; do remember though that he’s running a business and hence may wish to charge for extensive support issues.
