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- • Acorn Languages − Release 2 of Fortran 77, Iso-Pascal and ANSI-C are
- all available now from Acorn at the same price as before − £99 + VAT (or
- through Archive at £99 inclusive). If you already have release 1 and
- want an upgrade, send the original disc (just the disc and not all the
- documentation) with a cheque for £30 to Acorn Direct, Studland Road,
- Kingsthorpe, Northampton, NN2 6NA. (N.B. This offer is only open until
- April 1st 1989.) (N.B.2 The symbolic debugger, which forms part of the
- Software Developers Toolbox, will only work with release 2 languages.)
- 2.5
- • Arc P.C.B. from Silicon Vision Ltd. is now NOT going to be available
- in the cheaper non-auto-routing version. It is however still available
- as the full package at £195 (£170 inc. through Archive).
- 2.5
- • Arcade 3 Compilation from Clares Micros £14.95 (£14 through Archive).
- This consists of Mazey Man (a derivative of Snapper), Bounce-a-Ball (an
- Arcanoids game like breakout) and Zarcon Invasion. We have a review copy
- and it looks good value except that it does not, at the moment, work on
- computers that have a Computer Concepts ROM podule installed. (I’ve
- asked Dave Clare and Charles Moir to see if they can sort it out!)
- 2.5
- • Arcendium from Dabs Press £14.95 (£14 through Archive). Draughts,
- Reversi, 4 in a row and Backgammon. Play against the computer or some-
- one else. We’ve got a copy for review − looks good.
- 2.5
- • Archway from Simtron is a set of tools for handling the WIMP environ
- ment. For £79.95 inc VAT, you will get 4 x 800k unprotected discs and a
- 300 page ring bound User Guide, although it is not actually available
- yet. Version 1.1 for RISC-OS “will be available in May” and will be 5
- discs and will cost £99.95.
- 2.5
- • Bumper Pack 2 − £19.95 from HS Software − five entertaining English
- and Number games plus a complete package of programs for designing,
- solving and printing your own crosswords (includes 20 ready-made
- crosswords). The games are suitable for children 5 − 12 and the
- crosswords package is also suitable for adults. (RISC-OS compatible)
- 2.5
- • Digi-Sim − from Musbury Consultants will be available “mid-February”
- costing “round about £45”. (Archive will be stocking it, ring to confirm
- price and availability.) It consists of a program that simulates
- different logic circuit elements including an unlimited (really?!)
- number of gates. Circuits are made by dragging gates onto the screen and
- then wiring them up using the mouse and pointer. When the circuit is
- completed, the diagram is animated, wires change colour to indicate the
- logic level on them, LED’s glow red, 7-segment displays change to
- reflect their logic inputs. Also included is a logic tutorial program.
- 2.5
- • EpBAS − Extended Precision in BASIC (see Archive 2.3, page 2). Abacus
- Training have responded to suggestions for improving their software for
- extended precision within BASIC. Version 2.00, which is still £30, is
- available for existing users on a free disc-for-disc upgrade and gives
- extra functions such as factorial, binomial coefficient, hypotenuse
- (i.e. square root of the squares of two numbers − particularly useful
- for crunching complex numbers as in Mandelbrots), hyperbolic and inverse
- hyperbolic functions, degrees to radians and vice versa.
- 2.5
- • Extended Pipedream? Aarow Software have set up an impressive sounding
- system for the small business user (or big private user?) of Pipedream
- to keep track of letters, send mailshots etc at the press of just a few
- buttons. £23 inclusive. For more details, contact Graham Hobson, 0705
- 511056. (We are hoping to get someone to try it out.)
- 2.5
- • Fireball − Arcade game from Go-dax Entertain-ment £19.95 (£18 through
- Archive). Basically a “brickout” type game but with 100 screens to get
- through! Eight different colours of bricks with different points scores
- plus five special types of bricks that do different things. You can edit
- the screens and change the order in which they appear. The bricks also
- throw out different types of bonus objects which you can use if you can
- catch them without missing the ball.
- 2.5
- • First Word Plus Extended Dictionary − 80,000 words plus specialised
- supplementary dictionaries, only £6.95 inclusive from Science Frontiers.
- 2.5
- • Fish − Adventure game from Magnetic Scrolls, £24.95 (£23 through
- Archive). Review next month.
- 2.5
- • GreyDumps from Musbury Consultants, £15, (£13 through Archive) is a
- graphics tone dump for Epson FX80 or compatible printers.
- 2.5
- • Hearsay upgrade − version 1.06 of Hearsay includes, amongst other
- things, the possibility to edit the call bands (this is of particular
- use to those who are not BT subscribers, i.e. those outside the UK) and
- improved modem initialisation on start-up. Call Beebug for the cost of
- the upgrade − “Should be about £5”.
- 2.5
- • Hyperbook from Logotron (of Logo fame) is an on-screen book-
- researchers tool £49 + VAT. It allows you to read specially prepared
- books on screen (with prices varying from £10 to £25) and to create
- indexes, glossaries and cross-references.
- 2.5
- • Macro Assembler Version 2 from Wingpass Ltd (£49.95) takes ARM
- assembly language files and produces AOF files for linking with similar
- files from high level compilers.
- 2.5
- • Numerator, also from Logotron, is a maths teaching package, £69 + VAT,
- which aims to tackle pupils’ conceptual difficulties by the use of
- construction models on screen.
- 2.5
- • Oak Computers have various new goodies for Archimedes users − a 20“
- hi-res multi-sync monitor (£1495), a 47 Mbyte winchester upgrade for the
- 440, a range of external winchester drives (20, 40 or 47 Mb at £300,
- £499 and £599 respectively) and an interface for their PDT allowing the
- import and export of DXF and HPGL files and the export of IGES files
- (£149).
- 2.5
- • PipeDream under RISC-OS − contrary to reports from Bruce Smith in A &
- B Computing, Pipedream does work under RISC-OS. There is no need to up-
- grade beyond the current 2.0 version.
- 2.5
- • SolidCAD − 3D draughting system £49.95 (inc VAT & carriage) from
- Silicon Vision (£46 through Archive). Allows drawings to be done in 3
- elevations with a 3-D projection to aid visualis-ation. Realtime Solids
- modeller, which includes SolidCAD, allows animation of objects created
- by SolidCAD. £89.95 (£79 through Archive).
- 2.5
- • System Delta Plus Version II (System Delta Plus Plus?). This new
- version (£79.95 inc VAT or £69 through Archive) will now work on RISC-OS
- and has ‘many up-dated features’ and they have improved the manual.
- Minerva say, “Existing System Delta Plus users need not worry as a disc
- will be provided to enable them to run the current version of SDP with
- the new RISC-OS.”, but there is no mention of the cost. Version II will
- be released when existing stocks expire, anticipated date − end February
- 1989.
- 2.5
- • Thundermonk − the latest games offering from Minerva should be
- available by the end of February, £14.95 (£14 through Archive). Sounds
- from the press release like a maze game but one in which you can cheat
- by walking through walls!
- 2.5
- • Timetabler − the latest “serious” offering from Minerva should be
- available by the end of February. No price set as yet. It will “reduce
- the time spent on preparing school, college and university timetables
- from weeks to minutes. It is unbelievably fast and powerful, taking
- around 10 minutes to produce the timetable for the largest school in
- England!”
- 2.5
- Review Software Received...
- 2.5
- Apart from reviews already written, we have received copies of the
- following software: Bumper Pack 2, Arcade 3, Arcendium and Fish.
- 2.5
- The Order Form growsÉ
- 2.5
- There is more and more software and hardware available now for the
- Archimedes, and a lot of it is available through Archive at a discount.
- 2.5
- We are working on a deal to offer Computerware hard disks. The prices
- should be finalised by the time we print the order form (which goes to
- the printers a week after the magazine itself) so check the order form
- for prices and availability. Overseas Archivists should note that we
- have been told that the drives, having been imported from the States,
- must not be re-exported. However, you can buy the podule separately and
- it comes with all the metal-work for mounting the drive. All you then
- need to do is to buy a bare 3.5“ drive from your local suppliers.
- 2.5
-