Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/magazine/volume_05/issue_11

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 213KB | 4,451 lines

5.11
Thereæs something in the air!
5.11
Ardent Acorn-watchers will be aware that there is something in the air
at the moment. We have just seen the launch of the A4 and Archimedes
World are trying to convince us that Acorn are poised to launch a couple
of other new machines. The bulletin boards are humming, too. Ian Burley
of Acorn User has been dropping very guarded hints on the Arcade BBS,
about the processors to be used in Acornæs new machines saying that
öwhat Acorn are using might be a bit surprisingò! He also says that we
might not have to wait until the B.A.U. Show to find out.
5.11
A new games-oriented machine seems a very good bet and Acorn will
presumably be doing their best to have it available in time for the
B.A.U. Show in mid-October. They must also be looking to produce
something new at the higher end in due course and they really ought to
rationalise the existing range Ö it takes ages to explain to customers
the pros and cons of the A5000 and A540!
5.11
Anyway, Archive was the first magazine to bring you the full technical
details of the A4 last month (as with the A5000 last year) and so we
will be doing our very best to maintain that reputation over the next
few issues of Archive. Watch this space...
5.11
öMy Archive is late!ò
5.11
I know that many of you look forward to receiving your copy of Archive
each month and start getting impatient if it is late. Unfortunately, at
holidays times, producing 12 issues a year means that it is difficult to
meet the deadlines, so I hope you will bear with us...
5.11
Have a good holiday!
5.11
5.11
Products Available
5.11
Å    Analogue simulation package Ö Mijas Software have produced a general
purpose Éanalogueæ simulation package called ArcSimp. It provides
integrators, summers, function generators, trig functions, etc and will
allow you to model all sorts of different systems. ArcSimp costs ú50
including VAT and p&p from Mijas and they also sell a demonstration
version for ú5 refundable against a purchase of the full system.
5.11
Å    Archimedes Basic Compiler (ABC) Ö Oak Solutions, who now distribute
the ABC compiler, have produced a version 3. This is a re-presented
version with extra facilities and sells at ú99.95 +VAT or ú105 through
Archive. We hope to have a review of it in due course.
5.11
Å    Castle Life Ö Oak Solutions have produced a package to allow children
to explore a mediµval castle, using plans and views to plan and execute
their own övisitò. The material relates to History Key Stage 3 and
Technology Attainment Target 5. Two discs, one manual and twelve
worksheets cost ú50 +VAT from Oak Solutions.
5.11
Å    Clipart by the volume Ö 23 volumes of clip art from Image Club
Graphics of Canada which were originally only available on Macs and PCs
are now available in Archimedes Draw format. Matt Black (thatæs the name
of the company) sells the 23 volumes for ú29.95 each. A full catalogue
is available from Matt Black for ú7.95 inc p&p.
5.11
Å    Clipart on CD-ROM Ö APA Multimedia have produced öThe Really Useful
CD-ROM Vol. 1ò at ú49 +VAT which contains ömegabytes of clipart in Draw
and sprite formatò plus some sound samples.
5.11
Å    DrawBook Ö A great help for those doing budget DTP is Emerald
Publishingæs DrawBook. It allows you to combine drawfiles, one for each
page, to create a book. The order and contents of the book can be edited
and it also enables headers and footers to be printed on each page. The
cost is ú15 +VAT or ú16 through Archive.
5.11
    Landmarks Ö Longman Logotron have just released another two in their
Landmarks series of educational information packages. They are öAztecsò
and öColumbusò and each costs ú24 +VAT or ú26 through Archive.
5.11
Å    My Town/Village is a resources pack (ú7.50 +VAT) for use with the My
World Package (ú15 +VAT) from NW SEMERC. It includes a range of
pictorial scenes depicting towns and villages through the centuries.
5.11
Å    Multiple CD-ROMs Ö Cumana have reduced the price of their ö6-packò CD-
ROM drives to ú1499 +VAT. These provide six drives that can be used on a
network, all 6 drives being accessible simultaneously.
5.11
Å    PenDown Plus Ö A new version of PenDown has been released (ú79 +VAT or
ú85 through Archive). Extra features include a new 65,000 word diction
ary with check-as-you-type, font find-and-replace, table editing,
mailmerge and address database.
5.11
Å    Portable trackerball Ö (Edæs wish in last monthæs öA4ò article has
come true!) PEP Associates have converted the Logitech Trackman Portable
Ö a serial trackerball Ö to work on the serial port of the new A4 (and
presumably also the A5000, though that is less relevant). You can buy
the full package including carrying case, various cables and adaptors
and the A4 software for ú95 inclusive or for ú45 you can get just the
software and the trackerball (with, presumably, a cable to connect to
the A4). If you already have a Trackman Portable, you can buy the
software on its own from PEP for ú19.
5.11
Å    Professional Tools Pack 1 Ö Electronic Solutions have produced a set
of RISC-OS utilities for ú14.95 +VAT. These include monitor protector
and data security program, colour enhancement software, animated generic
ARM3 control software, module protector utilities, key-activated
utilities and utility manager, multisync monitor emulator, system speed
controller and a fix for RISC-OS 2æs öFileCore in useò bug.
5.11
Å    Prolog is back! Ö Keylink Computers Ltd have produced a version of
Prolog for the Archimedes (2M or more). It costs ú69.95 +VAT and uses
the standard Edinburgh text. It comes with a 120+ page manual with a
large amount of background information.
5.11
Å    Risc Basic Compiler Ö Silicon Vision have produced a version 3 of
their Risc Basic Compiler which also links in with Acornæs DDE. It sells
at ú149.95 inc VAT or ú135 through Archive. We hope to have a review of
it in due course.
5.11
Å    Saloon Cars De-Luxe Ö Fourth Dimension have now produced a de-luxe
version of Saloon Cars. For ú34.95 (ú33 through Archive) you get a range
of new and improved features. They have taken into account the fact that
some people have hard discs (onto which it can be installed), more than
1M and ARM3. In other words, on more powerful machines you will be able
to get more detail and/or speed.
5.11
Å    SolidCAD release 5 is now available from Silicon Vision. It has a
bigger manual, a module for high speed animation, SuperPlot driver,
SuperDump driver, 24bit RGB output, high speed rendering (claiming to be
öthe fastest rendering packageò), drawfile output, etc. ú149.95 inc VAT
from Silicon Vision.
5.11
Å    The Last Ninja Ö In another series of battles against evil, you have
to use swords, nunchakus and shiraken stars to rescue the stolen scrolls
of Ninja. You also have to solve some devious puzzles in over 140
öaction-packed screensò. The Last Ninja costs ú24.95 from Superior or
ú23 through Archive.
5.11
Å    ThinkSheet Ö In the very early days of Archive, I asked for an ideas
processor for the Archimedes. Having got used to using one on the Mac, I
felt I was missing out. At last there is one available. Fisher Marriott
Software have had a Nimbus and PC version available for a while but have
now released a fully RISC-OS compatible version for the Archimedes.
ThinkSheet allows you to enter text, organise it, search through it and
reorganise it to your heartæs content Ö all in the RISC-OS environment.
Then you can export your text to a WP or DTP package. Facilities are
also provided for transferring information to and from ThinkSheets on
Nimbus and PC. The price is ú39 +VAT from Fisher-Marriott and ú89 +VAT
for a school site licence.
5.11
Å    Training galore! Ö Several companies are now offering training courses
for end-users. Broad Oak Computers in Bishops Stortford (0279Ö 718767)
do courses on Impression, Squirrel, Schema, FWPlus, Artisan, Pendown and
the PC Emulator. They charge ú50 +VAT per day. They also do a correspon
dence course on BBC Basic V. Acorn Computers in Cambridge (0223Ö214411)
do courses on Impression, Squirrel, Schema, PC Emulator, PinPoint,
Vector, PipeDream, Revelation and Magpie, plus more general ones on the
Learning Curve software and one on Graphics, Animation and Video. They
charge ú49 +VAT per day. Minerva software in Exeter (0392Ö 426160) do
courses on Archimedes Awareness, Draw/Edit, Atelier, MultiStore/
Flexifile, Desktop Office, Impression and TimeTabler. They charge ú60
+VAT per ╜ day, ú110 per full day or ú150 per full day depending on the
course.
5.11
Interestingly, they all say that the most popular courses are the
general introductory ones and the ones on Impression. Does anyone know
of other companies doing such courses? Do any of them cover other
applications such as Ovation?
5.11
Review software received...
5.11
We have received review copies of the following: ABC Compiler version 3,
ArcSimp, Castle Life, CSVtoText, Draw Print & Plot, KiddiCAD, !Killer,
PenDown Plus, Professional Tools Pack 1, Saloon Cars De-Luxe, Screen
Turtle, Shareware 46, ThinkSheet.ááA
5.11
5.11
Government Health Warning Ö Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health.
5.11
öChristianity is just a crutch for those people not strong enough to
cope by themselves.ò I wonder if you have heard that scornful criticism?
Well, itæs wrong in the sense that being a true Christian is NOT an easy
option Ö there are some ways in which it would be a lot less hassle just
being a önice agnosticò.
5.11
However, my main point this month is that it is actually true Ö
Christianity IS a crutch! Let me explain by analogy...
5.11
I am sure you can all think of an occasion when a friend or relative has
been ill but they wouldnæt accept it and have tried to lead a normal
life only to end up flat on their backs Ö perhaps worse than they would
have been. If someone has, say, a sprained ankle and they refuse to use
a crutch or walking stick, wouldnæt you (rightly) say, öHeæs daft! If
only he would do what the doctor told him... ò.
5.11
The bibleæs diagnosis is clear Ö every individual on earth is limping in
some way or other and needs support. At the very least, we need the
support of each other (I mentioned my particular appreciation of that
last month) but what we need above all is to listen to Godæs diagnosis
and accept His cure for our spiritual malaise.
5.11
If you have even an inkling that you might be in some kind of need,
spiritually, wouldnæt it be better to acknowledge it and let God show
you the cure? Why go around pretending that all is well? Would it do any
harm to seek out someone you know to be a committed Christian and ask
them for advice?
5.11
Sadly, twentieth century (European) man says, öI can manage by myself Ö
I donæt need any help, thank youò. He throws away his spiritual
crutch...    ... and falls flat on his face!
5.11
5.11

5.11
Norwich Computer Services 96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD.
0603Ö766592 (Ö764011)
5.11
5.11
4th Dimension     P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742Ö700661) (0742Ö781091)
5.11
4Mation    11 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon  EX32
8PA. (0271Ö25353) (0271Ö22974)
5.11
Abacus Training     29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts  SN2
6QA.
5.11
Acorn Computers Ltd     Fulbourn
Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge  CB1 4JN. (0223Ö245200) (0223Ö210685)
5.11
Acorn Training Centre    Unit 5,
Cambridge Technopark, 645 Newmarket Road, Cambridge CB5 8PB.
(0223Ö214411)
5.11
APA Multimedia     Unit 8, Henley Business Park, Trident Close, Medway
City Estate, Strood, Rochester, Kent  ME2 4ER. (0634Ö295222)
(0634Ö710193)
5.11
Arxe Systems Ltd (p16)    279B Romford
Road, Forest Gate, London E7 9HJ. (081Ö534Ö1198)
5.11
C.I.S.    Unit 2a, 436 Essex Road, London  N1 3QP. (071Ö226Ö3340)
(071Ö226Ö3408)
5.11
Chalksoft    P.O. Box 49, Spalding, Lincs  PE11 1NZ. (0775Ö769518)
5.11
Commotion     Redburn House, Stockingswater Lane, Enfield  EN3 7TD.
5.11
Colton Software (p12)    2 Signet
Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge  CB5 8LA. (0223Ö311881) (0223Ö312010)
5.11
Computer Concepts (p32/33)    Gaddesden
Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts  HP2 6EX. (0442Ö63933) (0442Ö231632)
5.11
Cumana Ltd     Pines Trading Estate, Broad Street, Guilford  GU3 3BH.
(0483Ö503121) (0483Ö503326)
5.11
David Pilling    P.O.Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool, FY5 1LR.
5.11
Electronic Solutions    Ceralyn,
Maindy Croft, Ton-Pentra, Mid Glamorgan. (0443Ö430355)
5.11
Emerald Publishing    P.O.Box 324,
Cambridge  CB1 3HB. (0223Ö355399)
5.11
EMR Ltd     14 Mount Close, Wickford, Essex  SS11 8HG. (0702Ö335747)
5.11
Fisher-Marriott Software    3 Grove
Road, Ansty, Warwickshire  CV7 9JD. (0203Ö616325 or 366748)
5.11
I.C.S. (p20)    1 Kington Road, West Kirby, Wirral  L48 5ET.
(051Ö625Ö1006) (051Ö625Ö1007)
5.11
ITV Software    6 Paul Street, London EC2A 4JH (071Ö247Ö5206)
5.11
Keylink Computers Ltd    2 Woodway
House, Common Lane, Kenilworth, Warwickshire  CV8 2ES. (0926Ö50909)
(0926Ö864128)
5.11
Longman-Logotron    124 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4
4ZS. (0223Ö425558) (0223Ö425349)
5.11
LOOKsystems (p11)    47 Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, Norwich  NR5 9AY.
(0603Ö764114) (764011)
5.11
Matt Black     P.O.Box 42, Peterborough  PE1 2TZ. (0733Ö315439)
5.11
Minerva Systems    Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter  EX1 1TL.
(0392Ö437756) (421762)
5.11
Northwest SEMERC    Fitton Hill CDC, Rosary Road, Oldham  OL8 2QE.
(061Ö627Ö4469)
5.11
Oak Solutions (p4)    Suite 25,
Robin Enterprise Centre, Leeds Road, Idle, Yorkshire BD10 9TE.
(0274Ö620423) (0274Ö620419)
5.11
Oregan Developments    36 Grosvenor
Avenue, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield  B74 3PE.
5.11
PEP Associates    34 Tiverton Way, Cambridge  CB1 3TU. (0223Ö212251)
5.11
Ray Maidstone     421 Sprowston Road, Norwich  NR3 4EH. (0603Ö400477)
(0603Ö417447)
5.11
Really Good Software Co.    P.O.Box 60,
Ashton-under-Lyme  OL5 9WW.
5.11
Silicon Vision Ltd    Signal
House, Lyon Road, Harrow, Middlesex  HA1 2AG. (081Ö422Ö2274)
(081Ö427Ö5169)
5.11
Spacetech (p22)    21 West Wools, Portland, Dorset  DT5 2EA.
(0305Ö822753)
5.11
Superior Software    P.O. Box 6, Brigg, S Humberside  DN20 9NH.
(0652Ö658585) (0652Ö657807)
5.11
Techsoft UK Ltd (p15/19)    Old School
Lane, Erryrs, Mold, Clwyd  CH7 4DA. (082Ö43318)
5.11

5.11
5.11
Computer Concepts
5.11
From 5.3 page 32
5.11
5.11
Computer Concepts
5.11
From 5.3 page 33
5.11
5.11
Paul Beverley
5.11
5.11
Oak Solutions
5.11
From 5.10 page 40
5.11
5.11
Hints and Tips
5.11
Å    A5000 hard disc replacement Ö One drawback with the A5000 is that the
40M hard disc quickly fills up. Being in this position, I decided to
replace mine with a larger one.
5.11
Researching prices, I found that IDE drives bought direct from suppliers
advertising in magazines such as Personal Computer World are much
cheaper than the same drives advertised in the specialist Acorn
magazines. Would any IDE drive work? A friend told me that Seagate IDE
drives did not work correctly on A5000s but Connor (as already fitted to
my A5000) and Maxtor (as fitted to another A5000 I know of) should be
OK, as well as Quantum. Another friend recently bought and fitted an NEC
drive to his A5000.
5.11
I bought a 120M cached Quantum drive (the GM120AT). The drive, from SMC
who advertise in PCW, arrived the day after I ordered it.
5.11
The fitting was extremely simple. After a backup and power off I removed
the cables, undid the four screws under the old drive (it is necessary
to remove all the drive cables and lift out the metal bracket to which
the drives are fastened) to release it and slotted in the new one Ö no
problems! The drive was already low-level formatted and, although the
hard disc formatter supplied with RISC-OS 3 didnæt recognise the disc
shape, I just selected ÉInitialiseæ and that was it. The drive worked a
few seconds after switching on.
5.11
In use, the drive feels very fast. I have measured a data transfer rate
of 1060k/sec, compared to 800k/sec for the original drive and an average
access time of 7ms(!) as compared to 18ms.
5.11
Similar drives advertised specifically for the A5000 in the Acorn press
are ú50¡ú100 more. Some of these include splitter cables, allowing the
old drive to remain (there are already mounting holes for a second drive
on the A5000, drilled in the case below the floppy disc drive). I intend
to make my own in the next few days Ö it will cost about ú10.
5.11
So I would recommend anyone wishing to upgrade their A5000æs internal
disc drive to do it themselves. Just obey the following rules:
5.11
ÖááShop around for the best deal in the general computer and PC press.
5.11
ÖááBuy a low profile 3╜ö AT IDE drive made by Quantum, Conner, Maxtor or
NEC.
5.11
ÖááMake a backup of your old hard disc before commencing the changeover.
5.11
ÖááUse the RISC-OS 3 hard disc formatter to initialise the new disc, no
need to format.
5.11
ÖááIf you want to use both drives, Maplin Electronics sell everything
you need to make the splitter cables.
5.11
Perhaps a list of known A5000-friendly IDE drives could be compiled?á
Seßn Kelly, Leighton Buzzard
5.11
Å    Acorn SCSI card Ö If you buy the CDFS/FSCSI upgrade for the Acorn SCSI
card, there is a link change to be made on the AKA31 version of the card
but if you have one of the older AKA30 cards, it is slightly more
complicated.
5.11
The upgrade consists of putting a 27512 EPROM in place of the existing
27256 EPROM. To enable the extra address lines, hardware modifications
are needed. Links 1, 3, 4 and 5 remain unchanged but link LK2 was open
and has to be closed and link LK12 was closed and has to be opened. On
the AKA31 boards, these changes can be made by moving a link but on the
AKA31, this will involve cutting a track on LK12 and soldering a link on
LK2. This should not be attempted unless you are competent to make such
a modification and it will, in any case, invalidate the warranty on the
board. Acorn dealers should do the modification for you although there
may be a charge unless you buy the upgrade from them. Tudor Jones,
Barnet.
5.11
Å    Automatic kerning and RISC-OS 3 Ö The font manager has this facility.
Currently it is only available with the standard ROM fonts (Trinity,
etc.). Presumably, EFF will update their fonts to include kerning pairs.
To use auto-kerning, simply set bit 9 of R2 in all calls to SYS
öFont_Paintò.
5.11
10 REM >KernDemo
5.11
20 REM Example of automatic kerning
5.11
30 REM For RISC-OS 3 ROM fonts only
5.11
40 MODE 15:OFF
5.11
50 SYS öColourTrans_SetFontColoursò,0,0,
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&F0F00000,14
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60 SYS öFont_FindFontò,,öTrinity. Mediumò,50*16,50*16 TO hdl%
5.11
70 SYS öFont_SetFontò,hdl%
5.11
80 REM Kerning off first
5.11
90 SYS öFont_Paintò,,öWAWA no
5.11
kerning here!ö,%0000010000,10,500
5.11
100 REM Kerning on now
5.11
110 REM Set bit 9 in R2
5.11
120 SYS öFont_Paintò,,öWAWA this is kerned.ò,%1000010000,10,300
5.11
130 SYSöFont_LoseFontò,hdl%
5.11
The ease with which this can be done leads me to wonder why CC havenæt
provided it as an option in Impression.
5.11
To rotate fonts, set bit seven of R2 in öFont_ Paintò and pass the (draw
style) transformation matrix in R7. Note that old style calls to
öFont_StringWidthò, etc donæt take account of kerning or transformation.
A new SWI öFont_ ScanStringò is used to do this. Rob Davison, New
Zealand
5.11
Å    Basic 1.05 Bug Ö A really annoying bug exists in all versions of Basic
except the floating point version supplied on the RISC-OS 3 application
discs.
5.11
Consider the following two statements (type them in if you feel like
it.)
5.11
a=210
5.11
b=2.10*100
5.11
These two variables should hold the same value. They seem to be the
same, as you can check with:
5.11
PRINT a,b
5.11
IF a=b PRINT öSAMEò
5.11
etc.
5.11
If you have RISC-OS 2 then both the above checks will say that they are
the same. RISC-OS 3 Basic 1.05 will not print ÉSAMEæ in the second test.
The reason for this can be revealed by trying the following:
5.11
PRINT INT(a),INT(b)
5.11
PRINT STR$(a),STR$(b)
5.11
These problems seem to occur because of the limited accuracy of floating
point numbers in Basic. My program stored times at centisecond resolu
tion internally and I wanted to scale these times to seconds for the
user. I did a usertime=centitime/100 but ran into problems when I tried
converting the usertime variable back into a string with STR$(usertime)
5.11
My solution (and Iæm not saying itæs a good one) is as follows:
5.11
A short ARM code routine intercepts the WRCHV vector and stores
characters printed in a buffer. The routine is linked in just before a
PRINT realvar statement and killed off just afterwards. You can then
extract the string from the buffer via normal means. An example program
follows:
5.11
10 REM >string
5.11
20 REM provides a STR$( function
5.11
25 REM that avoids some floating
5.11
30 REM point problems in Basic
5.11
40 REM By Rob Davison, May 1992
5.11
50 REM Public Domain
5.11
60 REM
5.11
70 PROCassy
5.11
80 PRINT öFirst the old way -ò
5.11
90 PRINT STR$(2.10*100)
5.11
100 PRINT öShould be ò;FNstr(2.10 *100)
5.11
110 PRINTæöAnother exampleò
5.11
120 PRINT STR$(0.6)
5.11
130 PRINT öShould be ò;FNstr(0.6)
5.11
140 PRINTæöBye now.ò
5.11
150 END
5.11
160 DEFPROCassy
5.11
170 DIM code% &100
5.11
180 REM æpossyæ is a buffer. Can be scratch space but MUST
5.11
 be big enough.
5.11
190 DIM possy &100
5.11
200 FOR opt=0 TO 2 STEP2
5.11
210 P%=code%
5.11
220 [OPT opt
5.11
230 .intercept
5.11
240 STMFD R13!,{r0-r3 }
5.11
250 LDR R1,posaddr
5.11
260 STRB R0,[R1]
5.11
270 ADD R1,R1,#1
5.11
280 STR R1,posaddr
5.11
290 LDMFD R13!,{r0-r3 ,PC}
5.11
300 .posaddr EQUD possy
5.11
310 ]
5.11
320 NEXT
5.11
330 ENDPROC
5.11
340 REM this is the string function
5.11
350 DEFFNstr(number)
5.11
360 LOCAL ERROR
5.11
370 ON ERROR LOCAL SYS öXOS_Releaseò ,3,intercept,0:REPORT:PRINT ERL:END
5.11
380 !posaddr=possy:REM reset pointer to start of buffer
5.11
390 SYS öXOS_Claimò,3,intercept,0 :REM claim the vector
5.11
400  PRINT number
5.11
410 SYS öXOS_Releaseò,3,intercept,0 :REM and release it immediately
5.11
420 REM Extract the string and get rid of leading/trailing rubbish
5.11
430 str$=$possy:WHILE LEFT$(str$,1)= CHR$32:str$=RIGHT$(str$,
5.11
LEN(str$)-1):ENDWHILE
5.11
440 WHILE ASC(RIGHT$(str$,1))<32: str$=LEFT$(str$,LEN(str$)-1)
5.11
:ENDWHILE
5.11
450 =str$
5.11
Rob Davison, New Zealand
5.11
Å    Basic V rounding errors Ö Last month, (Archive 5.10 p19) Mr E. Hollox
asked for help with the STR$ rounding. I hope that the following will
help solve his problem. No actual specifics were given on his problem,
so Iæve assumed that heæs working with monetary units (i.e. two decimal
places). This may not be correct in this instance, but will probably be
relevant to a large number of users and should provide Mr Hollox with a
starting point for the solution he wants.
5.11
In simple terms, the solution is to avoid decimals; to work only with
integer variables. At first glance this may sound like an odd solution
when a number of decimal places are required, but itæs not as strange as
you may think.
5.11
Firstly, the use of integer variables does not restrict you to the use
of integer numbers Ö not when you are making use of STR$, anyway.
5.11
Secondly, integers make for faster programs, as Iæm sure everyone
realises (unless they program an Atari ST in GFA or Atari Basic!)
5.11
Thirdly, and more importantly, integers are far more accurate than real
numbers due to the way in which they are stored. The method of storage
does have a negative effect, however, in that your range of numbers is
restricted Ö though the range available should be enough for most
peopleæs needs. Page 21 of the Archimedesæ BBC Basic Guide details this.
Remember that the more decimal places you require, the lower the range
becomes.
5.11
So, onto the solution to the problem...
5.11
Your Érealæ number must be stored as an integer 100 (for 2 dp users)
times as big. Whenever any output is required, a routine must be used to
convert it to a string and insert a decimal point at the correct place.
For inputting, the reverse is required; the decimal point must be
removed.
5.11
The function FN_Int_To_Str carries out the decimalisation of your
integer number:
5.11
DEF FN_Int_To_Str(Int%)
5.11
LOCAL Real$
5.11
Int%=ABS(Int%)
5.11
IF Int%<10 THEN Real$=
5.11
ö      00ò+STR$(Int%)
5.11
IF Int%>=10 AND Int%<100 THEN Real$=ö      0ò+STR$(Int%)
5.11
IF Int%>=100 THEN Real$=RIGHT$
5.11
(ö        ò+STR$(Int%),9)
5.11
Real$=LEFT$(Real$,7)+ö.ò+
5.11
RIGHT$(Real$,2)
5.11
=Real$
5.11
You must call the function with string$=FN_Int_ To_Str(number%) where
string$ is your variable to hold the decimalised string and number% is
your variable holding the stored number. The routine returns the number
as a string with two decimal places, and right justified (in a ten
character field).
5.11
The minus symbol ruins the simplicity of the routine, so an absolute
value is taken of the number. Minus numbers arenæt difficult to cope
with but, as they werenæt part of the problem....
5.11
The function works by converting the integer number to a string and then
adding spaces to the left in order to right align it. This is done by
the three IF statements and, possibly, is the more complex part of the
routine.
5.11
In the first case, the number is lower than ten (i.e. 0 to 9) so the
final figure will be of the form öáááááá0.0xò Ö hence six spaces and two
zeros are added.
5.11
In the second case, the number is in the range 10 to 99, so the figure
will be ö      0.xxò Ö six spaces and one zero are added.
5.11
In the third case, the number is over 100 (over 1.00). In this case,
rather than add the correct number of spaces for its size (6 for 100 to
999, 5 for 1000 to 9999, etc.) we add the maximum required and truncate
the resulting string to its rightmost nine characters.
5.11
The result, in all three cases, is a right aligned integer number in a
nine character string.
5.11
Then we have the easy bit. The first seven characters of the string are
taken, a decimal point added, then the last two digits Ö problem solved.
5.11
The reverse function is even simpler:
5.11
DEF FN_Str_To_Int(Real$)
5.11
LOCAL Int%
5.11
Real$=FN_FormatNumber(Real$)
5.11
Int%=VAL(LEFT$(Real$,7))*100+
5.11
VAL(RIGHT$(Real$,2))
5.11
=Int%
5.11
This function is called with number%=FN_Str_ To_Int(string$) where
string$ is your variable containing the string and number% is the
variable that will contain the integer number.
5.11
The first thing the function does is to pass the string to another
function in order to ensure it is of the correct format before convert
ing it to a number. This is dealt with below.
5.11
The function then calculates the integer part of the number (positions 1
to 7 within the string), multiplies this by 100, and adds the fractional
part of the number (positions 9 to 10 Ö after the decimal point.) The
result, an integer number 100 times the real number, is returned to the
calling routine.
5.11
I could have simply used Int%=VAL(Real$)*100, making the routine much
simpler. Then the inaccuracy of real numbers is risked once more. In
between Real$ and Int%, the number is stored as real until it is
multiplied by 100 and put in the integer variable. The method Iæve used
circumvents this risk, but introduces another factor. The format of the
number within the string must be correct. For the above conversion to
work, this must be a two decimal place number, with the decimal point as
the eighth character of the string. This is where the third formula
comes in:-
5.11
DEF FN_FormatNumber(Number$)
5.11
LOCAL Length%,Point%
5.11
Length%=LEN(Number$)
5.11
Point%=INSTR(Number$,ö.ò)
5.11
IF (Point%=Length%-1) AND
5.11
(Point%>0) THEN Number$=Number$+ö0ò
5.11
IF (Point%=Length%) AND (Point%>0) THEN Number$=Number$+ö00ò
5.11
IF Length%=0 THEN Number$=ö0ò
5.11
IF Point%=0 THEN Number$=Number$+ ö.00ò
5.11
IF Point%=1 THEN Number$=ö0ò+ Number$
5.11
Number$=RIGHT$(ö       ò+Number$ ,10)
5.11
=Number$
5.11
This routine looks far more complicated than it actually is. The second
routine, above, passes its Real$ to this function which formats it to
two decimal places and ensures that the final string is 10 characters
long.
5.11
In this sense, it is a routine that can be used independently of the
other two; by calling it with New$=FN_FormatNumber(Old$) where Old$ is
the unformatted number and New$ is the result.
5.11
It works by determining first the length of the string, then the
position of the decimal point within the string. With a two decimal
place number, the position of the point would be 2 less than the length
of the string.
5.11
The first IF statement adds a single zero if the position of the point
is 1 less than the stringæs length but only if the decimal pointæs
position is larger than zero Ö in which case the number is an integer
and would have been accidentally multiplied by ten.
5.11
The second IF adds a double zero if the point is at the end of the
string. This is not done if the position of the point is zero, in which
case the string is null and represents nothing.
5.11
The third makes the string equal to ö0ò if it is found to be null.
5.11
The fourth adds ö.00ò to the end of the string if there is no decimal
point Ö i.e. if the number is an integer.
5.11
The combination of the third and fourth IFæs result in the null string
(öò) becoming ö0.00ò
5.11
The fifth IF adds a zero to the string if the decimal point is at the
very beginning Ö if the number is lower than one and is lacking the
leading zero.
5.11
Finally, before returning the result, a number of spaces are added to
the left of the number which is then truncated to the rightmost ten
characters. Hey presto, a nicely formatted number.
5.11
The three routines are on the enclosed disk, in the form of a procedure
library Ö details of how to use such are on page 92 of the BBC Basic
Guide.
5.11
Though the routines, as given, are for numbers with two decimal places Ö
and with a field width of ten Ö it shouldnæt be too difficult to alter
them for other requirements. Unfortunately, the higher the number of
decimal places, the more (and more complicated) IFæs are required. It
shouldnæt be too difficult to write routines that accept the number for
conversion, together with the number of decimal places and the field
width but, as I said before, this was just intended to provide Mr Hollox
with a starting point for his solution. Vince Hudd, Soft Rock Software.
5.11
Å    Bible Master with RISC-OS 3 Ö Having found a list of verses or cross
references, it is possible to import the text into an Archimedes word
processing (or DTP) package.
5.11
(i) Load the PC text into !Edit and then
5.11
(ii) Use the wildcard search and replace option searching for %[ $x76-
xFF] (note that the square brackets start with a space) and replacing
with a space.
5.11
This will remove all the screen control characters and multiple spaces.
The resulting text can then be saved and/or loaded into most word
processors.  S Wright, Basingstoke
5.11
Å    Deskjet 500C and RISC-OS 3 Ö Recent contributors on the subject of the
HP Deskjet 500C have tended to concentrate on the best type of paper to
use. I will not attempt to further that debate, but rather recount my
efforts to produce envelopes to match the quality of their contents.
This turned out to be less straightforward than I had expected but I
eventually succeeded. Most of my printing is from Impression Junior, so
the following will apply to Impression II users and, although I am using
an A5000,  the RISC-OS 2  drivers are not crucially different.
5.11
Using the Alter Pages sub-menu in Junior, create a custom page the same
size as the envelope. A standard A4 envelope seems to be 218mm by 110mm.
Create a suitable frame for the name and address and save the file as
Éenvelopeæ. Load the !Printers application and create a custom page of
the same size, also called Éenvelopeæ. I have used margins of 10mm all
round which show up unambiguously in the Junior window. Click on <Save
Settings> in the page set-up menu and <Save Choices> from the main menu.
Go to the Éconfigureæ option from the printer control menu, select the
new Éenvelopeæ option and click on OK. The printer margins will now be
visible in the Junior window. Insert an envelope face down in the out-
tray of the printer, sliding it into the guide slots provided and
keeping the right hand edge against the edge of the tray. At this point,
the HP manual is misleading. Do NOT press the envelope button on the
printer. Simply press <Print> on the computer and then <Return>. The
envelope will now be properly printed. If the envelope button on the
printer has been pressed, the envelope will be passed disdainfully
through the printer and the address will appear on the next sheet of
paper from the in-tray.
5.11
In the prison where I work, I have recently been involved in running an
Anger Control Programme which required a couple of dozen overhead
projector transparencies. These can be produced to a high standard on
the 500C and, of course, in full colour. The transparencies used must be
designed for use with inkjet printers since they require a special
material to absorb the ink. There is, however, one major problem Ö the
appropriate material is rather expensive. Hewlett Packardæs own
transparencies cost about ú75 inc. VAT for a box of 100. For me, this is
too many and far too much money. Eventually, I found that NOBO produce a
box of 50 for a slightly lower price per transparency and these should
be available from a good office supplies firm. The inadequate black
produced by the colour cartridge on the 500C is particularly noticeable
on an OHP and I found that a more satisfactory result could be obtained
by printing each transparency twice; once for black and once for the
coloured areas. Registration seems not to be a problem for the bold text
and graphics which are the norm for this kind of presentation. This
technique also saved an awful lot of expensive, coloured ink.
5.11
Incidentally, the UNDO facility on RISC-OS3 !Draw(or in !DrawPlus) was a
considerable help in creating the colour Éseparationsæ for this process.
I could delete either the black or the coloured areas of the image
before printing and restore them by pressing <F8>.  A Trout, Lancs.
5.11
Å    Deskjet 500 DIP switches Ö For those just buying Deskjet 500 printers,
it may be worth knowing that the default setting of the DIP switches is
not too helpful. Try the following settings instead...
5.11
           Bank A                         Bank B
5.11
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8   1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5.11
»  »  ¡  ¡  »  ¡  »  ¡áá      »  ¡  »  »  »  »  »
5.11
This seems to work OK Ö it sets things like skip-over-perforation OFF
and A4 paper instead of some US size.á Steve Hutchinson, Gloucester.
5.11
Å    Dragging solid sprites Ö RISC-OS 3 has, built in, the ability to solid
drag sprites from save dialog boxes. The solid drag option is stored in
CMOS in a Éhiddenæ location on bit 1 of byte 28. The following commands
will set bit 1 without disturbing anything else in this byte.
5.11
*Basic
5.11
SYS öOS_Byteò,161,28 TO ,,v%
5.11
v%=v% OR %10
5.11
SYS öOS_Byteò,162,28,v%
5.11
Now try saving a file from Draw/Edit/Paint, etc.
5.11
(Comparing the A5000 to an A440/1+30Mhz ARM3, the 440 runs at about the
same speed as the A5000 in mode 12, but at about 1/3 of the speed in
mode 28.)  Rob Davison, New Zealand
5.11
Å    Personalised application templates Ö Many users may not have realised
that it is often possible to alter the windows and templates used by an
application. Most programmers use the FormEd application or one of its
derivatives to create a Template file which contains the window
definitions used by the program and this can often be seen in the
application directory normally called, not surprisingly, Templates.
5.11
If you have a copy of FormEd, which is supplied with all Acornæs
compilers but is also available from most PD libraries (Shareware Disc
20, Ed), you can load these templates and alter them to suit your own
ideas and preferences. What you must not do is change the number of any
of the icons or the program wonæt behave properly. You must also be
careful if you create any extra icons that they donæt overlay any
existing button icons since the Wimp doesnæt report clicks on icons
which are hidden behind others with a higher number.
5.11
As an illustration, I have included a set of modified windows for Edit.
Since some of these now use sprites there is also a sprite file and you
must insert a line to load these in the !Run file or the windows will
look rather bare. For simplicity, I have included a !Run file with the
extra line in it.
5.11
Rename your existing !Run and Templates files something else (in case
you donæt like mine) and copy the files !Run, Templates and sprites2
into the !Edit application directory. Now when you run Edit the new
windows will be used.
5.11
Note that the main text window is also changed. When Edit opens a new
file the main text window opens in whatever form the template was
created. Just load the Templates file into FormEd and drag the text
window around the screen and resize it until you are satisfied. Then
save the templates. Next time you open an Edit window, that is the size
and position it will assume.
5.11
I donæt claim that these examples are particularly brilliant but they
are certainly an improvement on the original and will help to show how
you can customise standard programs. David Holden, Sydenham.
5.11
Å    Pinboard problems Ö Several people (well, at least two anyway!) appear
to have had problems with Pinboard running under RISC-OS 3. It would
seem that the Pinboard module is automatically UNPLUGged following an
exit from the desktop. One solution involves using an alias to re-
initialise the Pinboard. If you have a desktop !Boot file then, before
the Pinboard command (if there is one), insert something like the
following:
5.11
Set Alias$NewDesktop %RMreinit Pinboard |m %Desktop |m
5.11
Obviously, in place of NewDesktop you can use any name that you like
(note that abbreviations still work so, in this case, you could use New.
to carry this out.)  If you wish to re-run the !Boot file on exiting
from command line mode, add -F !Boot after the %Desktop command.  If you
do not have a desktop !Boot file, use the Desktop Boot function from the
Acorn menu on the iconbar.
5.11
From now on, to get back from the command line (after using the Exit
option), type New.  (or your appropriate alias) rather than Desktop.
5.11
Simon Moy, Norwich Computer Services.
5.11
Å    Truncated filenames and RISC-OS 3 Ö It took me a long time to discover
that you type *Configure Truncate off  to stop the O.S. automatically
truncating filenames when saving and therefore (possibly) overwriting an
old version of a file which I wanted to keep!ááA
5.11
5.11
Colton
5.11
From 5.10 page 20
5.11
5.11
Comment Column
5.11
Å    A5000 startup time Ö The only real moan I have is the incredible
length of time it takes to get over a <ctrl-reset>. Surely Acorn could
make the memory check optional, couldnæt they? I thought the whole point
of having an OS in ROM was to eliminate delays imposed by the OS loading
off disc?   Rob Davison, New Zealand
5.11
Å    Laser Direct printers Ö We seem to have been spreading dis-information
about laser printers! In particular, in comparing CCæs Laser Directs
with Calligraphæs printers, we have got confused over the question of
öWhen is a 600 d.p.i. printer not a 600 d.p.i. printer?ò So here are
Calligraphæs comments...
5.11
How many dots per inch are you getting? Ö There are few features which
really separate one laser printer from another: page output per minute
and dots per inch resolution are the two main price-fixers. Nearly all
laser printer manufacturers are in the business of increasing the
resolution of the bare printer engines via several hardware and software
techniques, so that for not much greater cost to the manufacturer, they
can sell a higher specification printer.
5.11
Canonæs collection of techniques is called AIR (Advanced Image Refine
ment); we at Calligraph call a 300 d.p.i. engine that is being over-
driven to a pseudo 600 d.p.i., a ö600 d.p.i. effectò or sometimes we
just leave it as öpseudo-600ò.
5.11
In the June issue of Archive under öProducts Availableò, there is a
statement that Computer Conceptsæ direct drive Canon laser printers are
higher resolution than ours. In fact, they are both ö600 d.p.i. effectò.
There really is very little difference between the CC Canons and ours Ö
except of course that ours cost less! If you want true 600 dots per
inch, Calligraph have a genuine 600 d.p.i. A3 printer, as mentioned in
the July issue of Archive, which can be driven up to 1200 d.p.i. effect.
5.11
For more details, contact:  Calligraph, 53 Panton Street, Cambridge.
0223Ö461143.
5.11
Å    PC Board Ébundlingæ Ö There are two PC boards available for the
Archimedes using 386SX processors. (Are there? öAvailableò? I only know
of one Ö from Aleph One. Ed.) Compared to the PC Emulator these offer
vastly increased performance. Many people in this country buy PCs
because of the vast software base and I even know one or two people who
have reluctantly traded down from Archimedes to PC because of this. In
the education world, some establishments buy Archimedes computers,
others buy PCs because they believe that their students are more likely
to come across PCs in the Érealæ world.
5.11
Acorn should offer a ÉLearning Curve Plusæ package with a bundled PC
card instead of a bundled PC Emulator. Schools, businesses and home
users would be able to buy a single computer which gave them the
superior useability and superb applications and speed of RISC-OS
together with the ability to run any PC program at a decent speed. At a
stroke, Acorn would eliminate the competition of PCs in the education
market thereby ensuring that as many computer buyers of the future as
possible knew about the wonderful Archimedes computers. All users of
Archimedes computers would benefit from the increased amount of
investment in software production that would result from increased
sales. What say you, Acorn?
5.11
Seßn Kelly, Leighton Buzzard
5.11
(One point I think you have missed, when sweeping away the PC oppostion,
is the cost of such an A5000 LC Plus compared with PC clones. Ed.)
5.11
Å    !PickAPic update Ö Hugh Eagle has sent us an update of his !PickAPic
application on Shareware 45. This includes some improvements and a
Éseriousæ bug fix.  A copy has been put on this monthæs program disc.
5.11
Å    Video matters Ö The news that Computer Concepts have bought a majority
stake in Wild Vision is very good news for those of us interested in
video, as the expertise in hardware and software from the two existing
companies will compliment  each other very well. With Artworks on the
horizon, the previous experience of developing operating systems for
Impression and a successful range of genlocks and digitisers, the
combination might start to tackle ambitious projects towards home
versions of the non-linear video editors now starting to storm the
broadcasters editing rooms.
5.11
It is surprising that the Acorn range hasnæt yet been used because it
could do the job more cheaply in very much the same way that DTP with an
Acorn can be so much more affordable than DTP with a Mac. Mind you,
Millipede are using Acorns very successfully in their broadcast graphics
system. To give you an idea of the possibilities, the Avid öAir Playò
system, which was launched recently in America, allows news quality
pictures and sound to be played back into transmission at high quality
out of a digital store. You go out and shoot the story, run the takes
into the computer on the way back and edit. The system is low quality Ö
hence news gathering Ö but it will get better. Because it is digital,
you can re-cut as many times as you like, re-sequence, etc, all in
double quick time. The information stays where it is Ö all you do is
create instructions on how to get to the parts you want.
5.11
With conventional tape, you run to the bit you want, copy it, run on to
the next sequence, copy it onto the end of the first bit, run back to
the next bit... Cheaper systems with lower resolution are becoming
popular in, for example, advertising agencies as you copy the tape into
the machine, experiment as much as you like with sequences, fades, etc
and when you are happy, take a list of numbers out of the machine on
disc Ö the edit decision list Ö and feed that into a computer on a very
expensive video suite where the original tape is automatically edited
and mixed to your commands.
5.11
As systems improve over the next couple of years, it is quite feasible
that the home camcorder owner could feed the tape into an Acorn machine,
edit it and re-record it, with no loss of quality, back onto tape Ö or
we might even be recording onto compact discs.
5.11
CD-I Ö In London at the end of April, the 3rd Multimedia event was
staged and öInteractive CDò from Phillips was officially launched in the
UK. Basically CD-I is a disc similar to the compact disc but it brings
together pictures, sound and data controlled by your computer or a
keypad. We are used to Audio CD, we are getting used to CD-ROM for
looking up Encyclopaedias and are starting to appreciate packages such
as Acornæs Replay for turning Video into digits and back again. CD-I
will bring all these together into one package allowing you, for
example, to sit in front of the computer, slot in a disc and participate
in all sorts of activities like learning course work, languages, playing
games, doing quizzes, watching films and listening to music. The initial
CD-I machines wonæt support Full Motion Video but thatæs not too far
away. This is a tribute to Acorn who have managed it on a home
computer!!
5.11
CD-I will be big and it is dependent on the computer companies providing
authoring systems and, as home-recordable CD is now available, record
able CD-I might be soon... well it doesnæt take a genius to see that in
two to three years time, a CD-I add-on for the computer will be taken
for granted. Iæm sure that there is a lot of close co-operation already
going on behind the scenes to provide Acorn compatible products and to
set the software standards.
5.11
CD-I is all about standards, as the major manufacturers have accepted,
and already we are seeing it starting to overshadow Commodoreæs CDTV
machines which they will probably make CD-I compatible. CD-I will be a
world product as there is no television standards problem. Discs made in
Catford could also play in Kyoto on different players. Because Acorn
computer users are already used to emulating the other types of
computers in software, our machines could become ideal authoring
platforms. This move could distance Acorn from the education market
whilst paradoxically providing greater support for it and moving the
company sideways into a more mainstream position in computer circles.
5.11
Cable News Ö This presentation software was shown at last Octoberæs
Acorn User Show and it looked very good, too. My latest news is that the
program is due for imminent release and I will review it as soon as
possible. There is a review of !Titler a new presentation package from
Clares elsewhere in this issue. Ned Abell, Kidderminster.
5.11
Å    24 bit colour (yet again!) Ö On the whole, I agree with Mike Cookæs
comments in the May issue (Archive 5.8 p13). However, I would strongly
disagree with his definition of an 8 bit display. The Archimedes does
display 8 bit colour graphics in that writing a byte to the screen
memory updates one whole pixel and there are 256 individually address
able colours. Mike Cook is actually talking about 8 from 24 bit colour,
meaning that all 256 colours can be individually redefined from a
palette of sixteen-odd million. This is what the PCATæs enhancer
provides (though admittedly with less than perfect software compatibil
ity). As for the editoræs comments about Éshowing off how colourful...æ.
As anyone who has even glanced at Byte/CGW/PCW/MacWorld, etc lately
would know, there is a very big market for software and hardware that
can handle 24 bit colour graphics (or anything approaching it). Donæt
some of the Acorn magazines still produce their colour pages on Macs and
PCs? You can bet that ArtWorks would be a more effective package with
true 24 bit colour. (Mind you it should be pretty good anyway...)
5.11
RISC-OS 3 is a step in the right direction in terms of software support
for more colours. It has the colour vector to allow the PCATæs Enhancer
to work with ColourTrans, and it has support for colour calibration and
conversions to the CIE standard used in the Éreal worldæ. However, the
current hardware is not capable of driving a 24 bit board with reason
able resolution. Sixteen bit colour may be possible and this would
provide a reasonable halfway point but only if RISC-OS 3 supports it to
all levels. (It doesnæt seem to.)
5.11
It is interesting to note that Acorn Replay works in the PCATæs 16 bit
colour modes Ö VIDC 2 compatible perhaps?
5.11
Rob Davison, New ZealandááA
5.11
5.11
Techsoft
5.11
From 5.9 page 51
5.11
5.11
Arxe Systems
5.11
New artwork
5.11
5.11
Artworks Ö A Work of Art
5.11
Tord Eriksson
5.11
Those who have a keen interest in graphics and computer art will soon
(well, relatively soon! Ed.) have a new offering that promises to beat
them all Ö ArtWorks from Computer Concepts. This program looks like
being the equivalent of Vector, Chameleon, DrawBender and FontFX rolled
into one!
5.11
For this review, a pre-release copy (version 0.868) was supplied by
Computer Concepts, including a pre-release manual and dongle, with a
dangle, that also looked decidedly pre-release!
5.11
The manual
5.11
The manual, at the moment, is just a short summing up of some of the
features in ArtWorks, known bugs through the programæs development
history and some comments from the programmers about the problems
encountered. The laser-printed manual is already 32 pages long.
5.11
Compared to many manuals I have read and used this is a very good one
and a fascinating one at that! Hopefully the final manual will be even
more complete and in colour, as ArtWorksæ fortΘ is itæs colour handling.
5.11
Installing ArtWorks
5.11
Artworks comes compressed on one disc, plus a disc of sample files (this
might be different in the final release). Unpacking, using CFSreader, is
fairly simple and I guess it is possible to run it as is, if you use
CompressionFS.
5.11
I had problems with the dongle at first because it would not work when
fitted behind the Impression dongle. Then when I changed the order,
everything was all right for a day or so. Then, for a while, Impression
refused to work and then, finally, they both worked again. (I hate
dongles!!)
5.11
Iconbar behaviour
5.11
When sitting on the iconbar Artworks behaves very much like Impression
in that you can open multiple views in different sizes and resolution
(more about this later). Opened ödocumentsò stay open until you delete
them from the iconbar list, just as with Impression.
5.11
Fastest yet
5.11
The manual mentions that the redraw time is quicker than the opposition
can muster and that is certainly true. A complex picture which took a
minute or so with DrawPlus or Vector was done in a few seconds. That
this is quicker than redraw on a 486, as it is stated in the manual,
sounds plausible but I have no means of checking it. In short, it is
amazing!
5.11
Variable resolution
5.11
ArtWorks is the only program I have so far tested in which you can
change the screen resolution. If you want speed, use only wireframes; if
you want stupendous dithering effects, go to the maximum. This is
controlled, in eleven steps, by an icon on the öinfobarò. Five is comics
style illustrations, with good colouring but little or no dithering, One
is the barest wireframe and Eleven is the full works! The program is so
intelligent that it uses dithering to simulate a better palette than
normally available so that, if you want it, mode 12 looks like mode 15,
mode 15 looks like a VGA. Impressive!
5.11
This dithering effect is supported by Impression Ö by choosing enhanced
graphics and grey-scales. Newer versions of Impression will support
direct import of ArtWorks files. As yet, you have to use the excellent
import/export function to convert the file to draw format. (Read the
copy of this article on the monthly program disc to see the function Ö
sorry, only for Impression users!) (Only if we can fit it on Ö which I
cannot say at this stage. Ed.)
5.11
Freehand drawing made easy
5.11
No other program has made freehand drawing as easy as this. In most
programs, you have to click your way forward and decide if you want to
do lines or Bezier curves but with Artworks you just keep the button
down until you want to stop the line and the program decides where to
put the öpointsò. A child would master it in one minute, no problem! I
really liked this feature and at once wanted it in DrawPlus and Vector.
(Maybe it will be in next version, please, 4Mation?)
5.11
There are more drawing tools than in any other program. For example,
there is a tool for making Mac-like squares (those with rounded corners)
and you can make exact squares and circles by holding down <Ctrl> at the
same time as you use the ellipse or rectangle tool.
5.11
Blending
5.11
In Vector, you can interpolate between two lines or figures, as long as
they have the same number of Bezier points. With ArtWorks, the number of
points is of no importance, thus making the work much easier.
5.11
In both Vector and ArtWorks, these two objects can have any colour and
the program will interpolate, or blend, from one to the other. As far as
I have tested, you cannot yet separate the different intermediary stages
as separate objects. When exporting ArtWorks in draw-format, you only
get the two extremes, not the blends. So, at the current stage of
development, Vector has an upper hand there!
5.11
Radial fills and similar matters
5.11
Toned fills, such as radial fills, where one colour blends into another,
are fully functional in this version. To my dismay, the technique used
differs from Chameleon (from 4Mation), so there can be no swapping of
files! Otherwise, the effect is very similar and equally striking! Both
make the shine of a Snooker ball easy to reproduce and both makes a very
good job of it! This is used to good effect on the Rover Mini and the
bird Ö isnæt it a Great Tit?
5.11
Envelope Ö poor manæs moulding
5.11
There is no moulding tool as such, but an envelope tool. This works in a
somewhat different manner: It is a tool that makes it possible to twist
and deform the object(s) selected by pulling and moving the Bezier
points of a box containing the selected object(s). It works very well
for simple twisting and turning Ö not as powerfully as DrawBender but
lightning fast by comparison!
5.11
A similar tool, using straight lines instead of Bezier curves, called
the Perspective Tool, can be used to change the view of things. Neither
tool is very amazing or unique Ö both are outclassed by DrawBender,
except in speed!
5.11
Conclusion
5.11
Considering the effort put into ArtWorks, the amazing redraw speed, the
excellent export and import possibilities (even to and from Macs and
PCs) and the sheer quality of it all, one can only wish it good luck.
This program is easy to use and combines many features of other
programs, at a price.ááA
5.11
P.S. To dongle or not to dongle
5.11
(I took the liberty of reducing Tordæs three paragraph anti-dongle
diatribe to the following single paragraph but obviously the existence
of Impression + Artworks + etc (????) means that the debate will
continue.)
5.11
Dongles are a real pain, especially if you have more than one program
which uses them. However, if I have to choose between two dongles or no
ArtWorks, I would, with a sigh of regret, choose the latter.
5.11
(With the A5000 and the A4, there is going to be an alternative to the
dongle for Artworks and Impression. Computer Concepts are hoping to make
use of the serial number contained in each A5000 and A4 so that you can
have a customised version, which will then only work on the one
computer, created as a replacement for your dongle. That would give you
the advantage of not having a dongle but the disadvantage would be that
if your computer died on you, you could not transfer your dongle to
another computer.)
5.11
P.P.S. Example files on disc
5.11
(Tord has given us some example files to put on the monthly program disc
but I am not reproducing his explanation of them here in case there
isnæt space for them all on the monthly disc. When I am producing the
magazine, I donæt really know until the very last minute which articles
I am going to be able to fit in, so I donæt know which files will be
competing for space on the monthly disc. If you donæt have a regular
disc subscription, check the list on the back of the Price List to see
what I have managed to include.)
5.11

5.11
5.11
Techsoft
5.11
From 5.9 page 16
5.11
5.11
ICS
5.11
New artwork
5.11
5.11
Help!!!!
5.11
Å    Agenda link Ö Does anyone know of a multi-tasking link to an Agenda?
Peter Sutton, Derbyshire.
5.11
Å    Canon LBP-8 Ö A1 laser printer Ö Does anyone have a RISC-OS printer
driver for a Canon LBP-8 Model A1 laser printer? This printer does not
have the video interface so I cannot use the CC Laser Direct interface.
Bernard Veasey, 24 Drift Road, Nyetimber, Bognor Regis  PO21 3NS.
5.11
Å    Free space? Ö Does anyone know how (in RISC-OS 2) you can check, from
within a program, whether there is enough room on a disc for a file
before you save it?  It seems obvious that there should be a SWI call
for this, but I canæt find it!  Hugh Eagle, 48 Smithbarn, Horsham,
Sussex  RH13 6DX.
5.11
Å    GNU G++ compiler Ö Does anyone have the source code for the GNU G++
compiler (GNUæs version of C++, fully ANSI C++ compliant). I need this
as I am developing my own Inmos T414/800 Transputer Podule and want to
port this version of C++ to it Ö well at least have a go. Also, I would
like to get hold of any of the other GNU applications/utilities. Do they
do a C/Fortran/Pascal compiler as well? Basically, I would like to get
hold of all GNU software and port it to Archimedes.á Richard Ingram,
Horsham
5.11
Å    James Pond cheat Ö A few months ago, Acorn User published a poten
tially useful Écheatæ for James Pond: öIf you press <Tab> and type in
Éthe name of a well-known Swedish guitaristæ you can apparently go
direct to any level you choose.  Unfortunately, we donæt know the names
of any Swedish guitarists!  I wonder whether any Archive readers could
help? (Also, does anyone know any similar cheats for Chuck Rock?)  Hugh
Eagle, 48 Smithbarn, Horsham, Sussex  RH13 6DX.
5.11
Å    MIT X-Windows Ö Is anyone doing/interested in trying to port the
latest version of MIT X-Windows (X11R5) to the RISC-iX system? All the
source code can be downloaded from the MIT Internet file-server (address
on request)? It works on VAX 4.3bsd Unix.á Richard Ingram, Horsham
5.11
Å    More than 4 podules Ö  Does anyone know of a system for fitting more
than four podules to an Archimedes computer? Tim Edwards, Leek.
5.11
Å    Outline fonts Ö The !Help file in !FontEd says, öThe scaffolding
mechanism is described in greater detail in a paper which is available
separately from Acorn. Since it requires various diagrams, it cannot
adequately be reproduced here. If you are not familiar with Roger
Herschæs article, I would recommend that you read this paper before
continuing.ò Unfortunately, Acorn says that this paper is no longer
available from them as !FontEd is an unsupported utility. Does anyone
have access to this paper or any other detailed information about Acorn
outline font system? I would be glad to pay for any photocopying. David
Turner, 7 Felden Street, London  SW6 5AE.
5.11
Å    Scottish country dance programs? Ö There is apparently a PC-type
program to enable calling moves to be choreographed on screen. Is there
an Archimedes version? If not, does anyone know where the PC version
comes from? R. Eastland, Waterlooville.
5.11
Å    Sharp 9500-H laser printer Ö Does anyone have any experience of using
this printer with the Archimedes? Any help would be much appreciated. M.
W. G. Adams, 8 Inf Bde HQ, Sig Sqn, BFPO 807.ááA
5.11
Help offered
5.11
Å    Archway Ö We mentioned last month the difficulty of getting technical
backup from Simtron regarding Archway. Gwyneth Pettit of Academic
Software has offered to help out where she can. She is prepared to act
as a centre for information interchange about Archway, so if you can
offer help or if you need help, contact Gwyneth Pettit at Academic
Software, Sourby Old Farm, Timble, Otley, Yorks  LS21 2PW or ring her on
0943Ö880628. Remember, however, that Gwyn is doing it out of the
goodness of her heart, so send S.A.E.s, blank discs, etc, as appropri
ate, to ensure that she doesnæt incur any expenses on your behalf.ááA
5.11
5.11
Spacetech
5.11
New artwork
5.11
5.11
Adding Floppies to the A5000
5.11
Vic Budd
5.11
Having read the snippets by Bob Potter and Colin Thompson in Hints and
Tips, Archive 5.6 p11,12 & 14, I feel it is time for a more detailed
covering of points related to adding floppies, both internal and
external, to the A5000.
5.11
Drives galore!
5.11
Colinæs internal A5000 floppy drive was a Citizen OSDA20C and he was
able to purchase an equivalent drive, Citizen OSDA39C, from CD2000. I
telephoned CD2000 and, as with Colinæs drive, mine arrived the next day.
The delivery note showed an OSDA39C but the drive was labelled OSDA20C.
I removed the cover of my A5000, only to find that the drive fitted was
in fact an OSDA75C!
5.11
The invoice from CD2000 also stated that the drive was 1.44M for a PC
AT. The point is that a high density floppy drive intended for a PC,
will only work in high density if high density discs are used. (It can
sense the type of disc by whether it has a hole opposite the write-
protect hole.) Furthermore, it will not format or read high density
discs in double density, so you could not choose to format an HD disc in
either D or E format.
5.11
Since the drive appeared to be in every other way identical to that
fitted to my A5000, I thought it might be a Élinksæ job. I rang Citizen
(Europe) who confirmed that it was indeed a case of changing the links
and suggested that I should compare the setting with those on the drive
already installed in the computer.
5.11
The only problem with this is that the links are not easily accesible.
They are in the middle of the Ésandwichæ between the drive and the
p.c.b. because they are not really intended to be altered once the drive
has been assembled for a specific job. If therefore, the reader feels at
all dubious about performing delicate operations in inaccessible
locations, this is the point to Écontact your local dealeræ!
5.11
How to do it
5.11
Holding the drive at eye-level, look into it from the rear. To the left-
hand side is the power plug and if you look beyond that, it is just
possible to see two rows of three pins running from left to right. There
should be two links installed. If the links bridge the centre and left
pins of each set of three, the drive is set up for a PC and will need
changing for the A5000, so that they are on the centre and right pins.
It is a tricky undertaking but I managed it by using a jewelleræs
screwdriver and fine tweezers, working under a magnifying desk light.
(If the top cover of the drive is removed, access and visibility are
improved.) Of course, if the links are already in the right position,
you can breathe a sigh of relief and pass on.
5.11
How to install your second floppy
5.11
I will try to give a Éblow by blowæ account of how to install the second
floppy but it must be said that your warranty would be affected if you
managed to cause damage to your A5000. In reality, however, it is a
straightforward job if you know the procedure.
5.11
Procedure
5.11
Start by removing the top cover of the computer after extracting the six
securing screws beneath the case.
5.11
Remove the four screws holding the backplane to the drive mounting
plate, unplug the backplane and put it somewhere safe for the time
being.
5.11
Unplug the power supply and data ribbon cables from both the floppy
drive and the hard drive.
5.11
Remove the single holding screw in the centre of the drive mounting
plate and, by lifting this from the recesses at the sides of the case,
the whole unit, complete with drives, can be taken out.
5.11
Next, remove the plastic front escutcheon from the computer case. This
is secured by six lugs which have to be pressed down gently to enable it
to be withdrawn. The plastic blanking cover for the second drive should
be pressed out.
5.11
Behind the escutcheon is a single screw holding a metal blanking plate
which must be discarded to allow the second drive to be placed in
position.
5.11
The second floppy drive can then be fitted to the bottom of the case, as
Colin said, using the fixing holes provided, which line up with those on
the drive. (In my case I used 18mm spacers cut from a plastic rod bought
at a model shop, and drilled to take the screws Ö also obtained from the
shop.)
5.11
I presume from his remarks, that Colin used a separate ribbon cable
which he plugged into the spare Ö or external Ö connector in the A5000.
This is not satisfactory if, like me, you wish to add an external 5╝ö
drive.
5.11
A better way
5.11
Anyway, there is a simpler way. Since the ribbon cable connecting the
existing floppy drive passes the connector on the second drive, it is
only necessary to add a second 34 pin IDC header socket to that cable at
a suitable point to connect it to the extra drive. You can then do what
is intended, use the centre connector for internal drives and leave the
external connector free.
5.11
See that the micro-switches on the two floppy drives are set to 0 and 1,
as mentioned by Colin. (This is required when two drives are Édaisy-
chainedæ from one connector). You are now in business!
5.11
If everything is all right at this point, the A5000 can be re-assembled,
in reverse order, and configured to two floppies Ö the work is then
complete. If, however, you wish to add an external floppy drive, the top
cover should not be put back and you should read on.
5.11
Fitting a 5╝ö external floppy drive
5.11
I wanted to add a Mitsubishi 5╝ö drive with P.S.U. to use on just odd
occasions. Provided the Épull-upæ resistor pack (in some cases a row of
links, in others it looks like a socketted I.C.) is in place, no special
interface is required.
5.11
I had a spare disc drive ribbon connecting cable available. I cut off
the disc drive connector which is normally pushed onto a row of contacts
on the drive circuit board and, in its place, I clamped a 34 pin IDC
male connector, onto which the female connector on the ribbon cable from
my disc drive could be plugged.
5.11
I set the links on the A5000 circuit board as Bob detailed Ö LK18 and
19, links anchored on one pin only, and LK21 set across 2 Ö 3.
5.11
The adapted ribbon cable was plugged into the spare (external) connector
in the computer and secured to a point mid-way along the drive mounting
plate with double sided adhesive tabs. It was then routed to the rear of
the A5000 and out between the two podule blanking plates, which provide
plenty of space for this if they are loosened and re-positioned slightly
apart. I anchored the cable with sticky tabs again at the rear of the
computer. This was a very satisfactory and inexpensive way of adding the
extra drive Ö which can easily be unplugged and separated from the
A5000. (If anyone wishes to purchase a cable already made up, N.C.S. has
them at ú18.)
5.11
It is of course important that the ribbon cable does not become 180
degrees twisted in all this. A simple way to ensure this does not
happen, is to visualise the rear of the disc drive placed against the
right-hand side of the A5000 (viewed from the front). The ribbon cable
should have no twist when connected to both.
5.11
Finally, set the drive number link on the 5╝ö drive to 0 and it will
become floppy drive 2, or 1 if there is only a single internal floppy
drive. (Remember to re-configure the number of floppies.)
5.11
Problems?
5.11
Yes, there were a few problems but nothing too serious. Using
ÉApps.!Configure.Floppiesæ, configure the A5000 to three floppies. All
is well (provided the power supply to the 5╝ö drive is switched on
before the computer) and three icons appear on the iconbar. If the power
to the 5╝ò drive is off, only two icons appear. This is fine unless you
suddenly find you wish to use that drive. I have É!Configureæ from
ÉAppsæ on my iconbar so, with a click on !Configure, ÉFloppiesæ shows
that I have three floppies available. A click on OK produces a warning
about open files, a further click on OK and the third floppy icon
appears on the iconbar. This is a bit irritating but not a big problem.
In any event, even that can be eliminated if the power to the 5╝ö drive
is always switched on with the computer. Unfortunately, one gets used to
things, and my old A410 didnæt care whether the external drive was
switched on or not Ö it merely said öDrive Emptyò if I tried to access
it. The A5000 is not so accommodating in that way, although it has many
other advantages.
5.11
With the PC Emulator
5.11
Things are just a little more complicated with !PCEm. If three floppy
drive icons are on the iconbar, and !PCEm is configured to three
floppies, the HD partition is shown as ÉDæ but if only two icons are
present, it is shown as ÉCæ. (I understand that MS-DOS v5 has the
facility to enable the HD partition always to be shown as ÉCæ and any
additional floppies to be configured to ÉDæ, etc.) I am sure that the
DOS boffins will have some solution for this but I dealt with it as
follows:
5.11
My !PCEm is configured to two floppies since I only use the 5╝ö drive on
rare occasions.
5.11
I have made the first line of my CONFIG.SYS file:
5.11
CHAIN = D:\CONFIGA.SYS
5.11
This makes the computer jump to CONFIGA.SYS, which is identical to
CONFIG.SYS except that all references to ÉCæ are replaced by ÉDæ. If it
finds ÉDæ, it runs the file but if not it returns and runs CONFIG.SYS.
Thus whether my HD partition is ÉCæ or ÉDæ, I am up and running.
5.11
I can use my 5╝ö drive with !PCEm merely by temporarily re-configuring
it for three floppies (always making sure there are three icons on the
iconbar and the power switched on). Obviously, none of this would be
necessary if only one internal and one external floppy were installed.
5.11
Conclusion
5.11
Despite difficulties encountered on the way, I am very satisfied with
the outcome and hope these comments will be of use to other readers.ááA
5.11
5.11
PipeLine
5.11
Gerald Fitton
5.11
Following the open letters sent by Dave Clare and ourselves we have
received many letters which are most complementary about both Clares and
(from the same writers) Abacus Training. You are particularly complemen
tary about the way in which Archive publishes both letters in full when
there is a difference of opinion or a misunderstanding; many of you have
said how much you have benefited from the exchange of views.
5.11
Background printing
5.11
Oh dear! Last month I made a mistake and I have had so many letters
about it. They fall into two categories; those of you who complain that
you canæt get background printing to work in the manner I described and
those of you who have let me know how to do it. The mistake arose
because I was copying blocks of text from several partly written files
to my column for Archive and changed my mind about the sequence of
paragraphs many times. In the confusion, I produced what might be
described as Érubbishæ!
5.11
The mistake I made was to say öFrom within PipeDream, set your printer
dialogue boxes to RISC-OS print, not to the printer, but to a file.ò
What I should have said was öFrom within PipeDream set your printer
dialogue boxes to RISC-OS and Print to Printer. At the printer icon
(installed on the iconbar) choose to print, not to the (parallel)
printer but to a file.ò If you do this correctly then you will produce a
disc file (about 1M per A4 page) which can be printed in background by
dragging it to the printer icon on the iconbar.
5.11
Having replied to those who couldnæt get the original version to work,
some wrote back to me pleased with the result, others have found that
the time taken to RISC-OS Éprintæ the file to disc took as long as to
RISC-OS print it to the printer. I did find a substantial speed up but I
must admit that I had changed from my A440 (fitted with ARMá2) to an
A540 (fitted with ARMá3) at about the same time so maybe I didnæt make
completely comparable timings. However, from your letters, printing
times seem to vary much more than can be explained by differences
between the page contents. Since receiving your letters I have looked
again at notes sent to me by Robert Macmillan (Colton Software). From
them, I see that RISC-OS printing Étakes overæ most of the free memory
in the Archimedes as work space. If the amount of free memory is too
small then printing slows down. Exactly what is too small is rather
vague but the slowing down effect seems to start when the free memory is
smaller than about 0.5M.
5.11
A second cause of slow RISC-OS printing is the font cache being too
small for the range of font types and sizes needed by the document. All
writers agree that the optimum font cache size varies with the nature of
the document but, after studying the many recommendations, it seems that
32k is a minimum and that 128k is advisable for those which contain
fonts having many intricate lines. In some of my documents, I have a lot
of graphics, many of which contain fonts at various different point
sizes and some with non-standard heights for their widths. When I am
printing those documents, I find that the time taken to print the
document falls as I increase the size of the font cache until it has
been increased to 512k. Of course, if you increase the size of the font
cache then you are taking away memory from the printing operation so, if
you have only a couple of megabytes of RAM, you will have to compromise.
I have 8M in my A540 and when I look at the task manager, I often find
that I have exceeded 4M!
5.11
Virus protection
5.11
I have been asked by PipeLine subscribers what precautions we take to
ensure that no viruses are passed on via the quarterly PipeLine discs or
via the discs which we send every month to Archive. Of course, there is
no foolproof method but this is what we do.
5.11
Abacus Training subscribes to Pineapple Softwareæs virus protection
scheme. Pineapple charge us what we reckon is a fair price for this
service and they regularly send us copies of an application called
!Killer. !Killer is updated whenever a new virus is reported to
Pineapple. When you send us a disc first I move the write protect tab to
protect your disc then I run !Killer over your disc. If I come across a
virus then I let you know right away!
5.11
As an extra precaution, we load a module called VProtect (provided by
Pineapple) as part of our boot sequence. The module checks every
application and file before loading it to the desktop and this provides
some protection against viruses unknown to !Killer.
5.11
After compiling our quarterly PipeLine disc, we check the master (and
our hard disc) with !Killer before duplicating all the PipeLine discs.
5.11
In company with nearly all other software providers, we are unable to
check for new, unknown viruses so that there is always the possibility
that we receive a disc containing an unknown virus which is not detected
by VProtect. In that case, it could get onto the monthly disc we send to
Archive and on the quarterly discs we send to PipeLine subscribers. We
believe that the chances of this happening are small.
5.11
Direct fax Éprintingæ
5.11
My son is much more familiar with the PC market than I am. When he came
round last week he told me that there is a Énewæ combined PC-Fax machine
on the market which he has tried out. He typed his fax message into a
standard PC word processor (he said that almost any WP would do) and
then, instead of printing the document followed by feeding the printout
into the fax machine he sent the document direct to the fax output.
5.11
Normally I avoid buying obsolescent machinery because it is often
difficult or impossible to get support (letæs not go into life cycles
again!) but I made an exception when I saw an Amstrad FX9600AT going at
a fraction of its previous price. Why? One of the features of the
Amstrad FX9600AT is that it has a standard ÉCentronicsæ input port. You
can connect a parallel printer lead from any computer (including the
Archimedes) to the Amstrad FX9600AT and send faxes direct from almost
any word processor.
5.11
No sooner had I received, set up and tested the fax machine than I
received a Éphone call from a PipeLine subscriber wanting to know how to
use PipeDream to send a fax direct through her Amstrad FX9600T (not AT
because it has no answering machine). At the time I received the call I
didnæt know how to do it but I had read enough to know it was possible.
When I eventually got it working, I rang her back with my solution. I
know that it is unlikely that you will be able to buy an FX9600AT now
(though I saw a similar machine at Dixons a couple of weeks back) but
there may be other fax machines that have this facility or such fax
machines may soon become available. Anyway, because Iæm sure that direct
fax Éprintingæ will become the way to do it in future, Iæll explain how
Iæve set up the Amstrad FX9600AT to run from PipeDream.
5.11
The Amstrad can be set to emulate an IBM Proprinter or an Epson FX
series printer. I set it up as an Epson because I am more familiar with
the Éescape codesæ for that machine. I connected my Archimedes A440
parallel printer port to the fax machine with a standard Centronics
lead. I loaded a simple document into PipeDream and displayed it in the
System font. I loaded the PipeDream printer driver called DotMatrix
(provided by Colton Software with PipeDreamá4 but you could use the FX80
driver if you have PipeDreamá3) and, using the <Print> key, sent the
file to the Éprinteræ. Nothing happened because Iæd forgotten to tap the
ÉOn Lineæ key on the fax machine but, when I did, the fax machine
printed out my file locally as if I was receiving a fax. Iæm not sure of
the exact resolution of the Amstrad fax machine but the quality of the
(local) printout is similar to a ÉNear Letter Qualityæ, 24 pin, dot
matrix printer.
5.11
One Éproblemæ which took me quite a while to resolve was that, after
local printing using PipeDream printer drivers, the fax paper cutter
didnæt cut the paper! The solution, when I found it, was quite simple;
tap the On Line key to take the Éprinteræ off line and, after feeding
out an inch or so, the cutter cuts the paper.
5.11
Sending a fax direct from PipeDream differs from local printing in only
one respect. Naturally, you have to dial up the number of the BT
subscriber to whom you want to send the fax and you still tap the On
Line key so that the FX9600AT receives the PipeDream file. The extra
operation is to tap a key on the fax machine called Text which directs
the input from the ÉCentronicsæ input to the telephone (fax) output. The
quality has pleasantly surprised the receivers of the faxes I have sent
this way and (as I said earlier) I am sure that it wonæt be long (if not
available already) before other fax machines include a ÉCentronicsæ
input port. The reason why the received quality is so good is because
the characters generated by the Amstradæs Epson emulator are at a point
size which matches exactly the resolution used by the fax system; the
characters have no blurred edges and there is no need for any Éanti-
aliasingæ.
5.11
Direct RISC-OS fax Éprintingæ
5.11
The Amstrad FX9600AT (and Iæm sure other fax machines with a Centronics
input port and Epson emulation) will accept Égraphicsæ files. The method
of use is to create a [PrintFile] by setting PipeDream to Print to
printer but to redirect the output of your !PrinterDM RISC-OS driver to
a file (see above). I could get the Amstrad to work as a graphics
printer only at 240 by 216 dpi (i.e. not at lower resolutions). The
[PrintFile] can be printed locally (On Line ON and Text OFF) or sent out
as a fax (On Line ON and Text ON) by dragging it to the !PrinterDM icon.
N.B. Remember to redirect the output of !PrinterDM to the Printer.
5.11
Scanning
5.11
One more feature of this (unfortunately) obsolete machine. It has a data
output port. I know that scanners which are available now for the
Archimedes have resolutions of at least 400 dpi and boast as many as 256
grey scales; the Amstrad FX9600AT can be used as a 200 dpi monochrome (2
level Ö black and white) scanner or with 16 grey scales at 50 dpi.
Monochrome, 200 dpi resolution is an adequate resolution for (black and
white) line drawings. The sprites produced can be incorporated into
PipeDream files and printed at 200 or 300 dpi with scarcely any
noticeable loss of quality. The 50 dpi 16 grey scale resolution is more
suitable for copying photographs.
5.11
I was fortunate in being able to buy one of the last FaxScan interfaces
(made by Spacetech) from Norwich Computer Services. It worked first
time. I loaded Spacetechæs application called !Faxscan, fed a picture
(on paper) into the FX9600AT, tapped two keys (Fine and Copy) simultane
ously and, within 15 seconds, the scan was complete and the sprite
lodged safely in the Archimedes memory ready to be saved and loaded into
PipeDream!
5.11
I know that Iæve spent quite a lot of words on this, now unobtainable,
fax machine but my justification is that I believe similar machines
either are available or will become so. If you are thinking of getting
into the world of fax then, with suitable hardware and software,
PipeDream is an excellent way of creating your documents for direct fax
Éprintingæ.
5.11
One final point. At Abacus Training we do not have a phone line which is
dedicated to fax so, if the machine is on Automatic then you will get a
combined answering/fax machine. If it is on Manual then we have to tap a
Fax receive key to receive an incoming fax Ö thatæs fine unless weære on
an extension in another room!
5.11
Language training
5.11
In some future PipeLine columns, I shall be taking a look at custom
functions. This month, I am limiting myself to a short introduction.
5.11
Some years ago teaching programming in BBC Basic on BBC B or Master
computers was much more popular than it is now. At that time Basic
programming was considered to be part of any ÉUnderstanding ITæ course.
Nowadays, teaching programming has been replaced by training in the use
of packages such as a word processors, spreadsheets, databases, graphics
and the like. Indeed, many schools and colleges have bought site
licences for PipeDream for that purpose. In the world of the PC, many
spreadsheets include a feature similar, but I believe inferior, to the
custom functions of PipeDreamá4 (in some other spreadsheet packages
these are called Émacrosæ Ö not to be confused with PipeDream macros).
5.11
As the uses of spreadsheets become more widespread, varied and complex,
so it becomes necessary for pupils, students and users in general to be
able to write custom functions. Apart from having to learn the program
ming language used to write custom functions themselves, teachers and
lecturers are finding that, unlike earlier generations of students, the
present generation has not been taught programming in any formal way.
The result is that many of the custom functions written by their
students are Ébadly writtenæ.
5.11
Both Éwell writtenæ and Ébadly writtenæ programs usually work most of
the time; both types sometimes fail. The difference between the two is
often only apparent when you want to debug, modify, improve or extend
the program you (or maybe someone else) has written. Short Ébadæ
programs can usually be written much more quickly than Égoodæ ones, so
too many programmers with no formal training pick up bad habits when
they start programming. This is particularly true if they write short
Ébadæ programs which work. Early Ébadæ habits learnt by pupils and
students are often the most difficult to break.
5.11
Some languages encourage Égoodæ programming. Others permit Ébadæ or even
Évery badæ programming. Having spent some time studying it and having
had many discussions with Colton Software, I think I would put
PipeDreamá4æs custom function language in the Éfairly goodæ category!
However, in designing a language it is always necessary to compromise
between the desire to have enough flexibility to do something Écleveræ
and enough constraints to discourage Ébadæ programming. The compromise
is usually to recommend a set of Éconventionsæ which automatically lead
to Égoodæ programming, a set of conventions which you should break only
when you know that it is essential so to do. The conventions which I
shall pass on to you have been approved by Colton Software.
5.11
By the way, we need a name for this custom function programming
language. For now, I shall call it É4ProLæ (PipeDreamá4 Programming
Language) but, if you have a better name then write to me. I am sure
that, if you come up with a good one then I can persuade Robert
Macmillan to send you a totally useless prize (or even a PipeDream mug
and key ring)!
5.11
Within all but the simplest programming languages, the manner of
processing the data (best included as variables with meaningful names)
is based on four concepts. Not this month, but later, we shall study
these concepts under the headings: öSequenceò (the order in which the
commands are executed), öRepetitionò (such as öforáá-nextò loops),
öDecisionò (such as öifáá-thenò statements) and öInterruptò (which will
include the use of the É4ProLæ commands, Éinputæ and Éalertæ). However,
for now, you will have to content yourselves with just one example
(approved by Colton Software) on the Archive monthly disc. This example
generates prime numbers.
5.11
If you have the Archive monthly disc and look at the custom function
sheet [c_Prime] (note the convention, approved by Colton Software, to
prefix a custom function sheet with Éc_æ), you will see that, for each
named variable, the PipeDreamá4 function set_name(önameò,slotref) is
used only once and that is when the local variable is declared (declar
ing variables before assigning values to them has no equivalent in BBC
Basic) and that a slot in the custom function is reserved for the named
variable. Thereafter, the PipeDreamá4 function set_value(name,value) is
used to assign values to the local variable; these assigned values
Éappearæ in the named slot. The PipeDreamá4 function
set_value(name,value) can be compared with a Basic statement such as
xá=á6.
5.11
Finally
5.11
Thank you for all your letters and especially for your good wishes and
encouragement to continue to write about subjects which only peripher
ally link with PipeDream. The address to write to is that of Abacus
Training which you will find on the inside back cover of Archive.ááA
5.11
5.11
Small Ads
5.11
(Small ads for Archimedes and related products are free for subscribers
but we reserve the right to publish all, part or none of the material
you send, as we think fit. i.e. some people donæt know what ösmallò
means and there are certain things, as you can imagine, that we would
not be prepared to advertise as a matter of principle. Sending small ads
(especially long ones!) on disc is helpful but not essential. Ed)
5.11
Å    A3000 with 4M RAM, serial u/g, Acorn monitor, stand, WildVision
expansion case ú650. Phone 0302Ö722781 (after 6).
5.11
Å    A310, colour monitor, IFEL 2M board, PC emulator, Euclid, games & PD
ú600. Acorn ROM podule with RAM chips ú33. EFF printer driver for BJ
printers ú6. Details 051Ö606Ö0289.
5.11
Å    A410 with 4M RAM, 50M drive + multisync monitor, ú950. Phone
0372Ö740678.
5.11
Å    Acorn  monitor ú100, 40M ST506 NEC drive ú200, 20M ST506 Miniscribe
drive ú100, Atomwide ST506 hard drive controller ú100, GEC Datachat V21/
23 modem ú30, Prism 1000 V21/23 modem ú20, PC Emulator V1.33 ú55, Tactic
ú8, Stranded! (Adventure) ú12, Twinworld ú10, U.I.M. ú8, Zarch ú8, MiG
29 ú25. All prices o.n.o. Arthur PRM offers? Phone Gareth on
0247Ö457655.
5.11
Å    First Word Plus (not LC version) ú30. Pacmania ú10. Phone 0705Ö552067.
5.11
Å    PC emulator ú60, Compression ú35, Lemmings ú10, Pacmania ú5, WS3000
modem ú60. Phone 081Ö698Ö3372.
5.11
Å    ScanLight Junior 256 as new ú130. Phone 0923Ö820651.
5.11
Å    Teachers Alert! Three quality educational programs (Infant Maths,
ArcArt and Snap) for the Archimedes.  All for only ú2 including postage
and packing.  Write to NSoft, 160A Drum Road, Cookstown, BT80 9DW.
5.11
Å    Wanted Ö Laser Direct HiRes card. Phone Ian on 061Ö431Ö5985.
5.11
Charity Sales Ö If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes
computers you could donate for charity, please send it in to the Archive
office. We will sell them at the Acorn User Show in October which is a
more effective way of raising money than doing it by post.ááA
5.11
5.11
NovaPaint
5.11
Simon Anthony
5.11
NovaPaint comes from David Pillingæs ever growing collection of low
cost, high quality public domain programs. This massive offering has
been created by Jason Williams Ö it must have taken him years. You could
be forgiven for expecting very little for a price of only ú6.00 but you
would be wrong.
5.11
NovaPaint is a 16 colour, full function painting application which is
really a suite of inter-related programs nested in a complex menu
structure. The disc is filled to capacity with thirteen utilities,
folders and Basic programs. The folders contain many more files. These
include multiple demonstration pictures, palettes, fonts and text files.
The latter go a long way to explain what all the functions can achieve
and how to make them do it. The size of the index to the NovaPaint text
file manual gives another indication of the vast range of facilities
offered. I counted about 150 entries. (The other utilities include a
font editor and a RAMcram program which allows alteration of the size of
a RAMdisc without losing its contents.)
5.11
NovaPaint in use
5.11
So, it is big, very big, but what is it like to use? When I first loaded
the disc and double clicked on an Énæ shaped icon, I was rewarded with a
rather impressive title screen. This is a fine demonstration of the
power of NovaPaint. All agog, I waited for the obligatory menu page to
be displayed. It wasnæt. The screen went black and then the Desktop
reappeared, this time with the pretty Énæ sitting on the icon bar. The
next obvious thing to do was click on the Énæ, which I did. At this
point, my hopes fell.
5.11
The menu page was then displayed but it is very drab and uninviting with
lots of text and a large block of colours in a menu laid out in a
remarkably unartistic fashion. Anything more likely to put off a
tentative user is hard to imagine. From here, clicking <menu> changes
the screen to black with a small dot-outlined box in place of the
pointer. Holding down <select> paints a continuous trace in the current
colour. All very average Ö and at this point I gave up.
5.11
It was only later, when my conscience pricked me, that I once again
loaded NovaPaint. My negative impressions soon fell away as I began to
discover the true power, flexibility and mind numbing scope of this
package. NovaPaint requires more than one simple review to do it justice
Ö several pages a month would perhaps be enough. Unfortunately, it will
take the average user a very long time to plumb the depths of the
NovaPaint instructions Ö this is another drawback. Such an unapproa
chable program, even one with such power, cannot hope to gain a
widespread following. NovaPaint has been written as an artistic utility
for a programmer rather than as a tool for an artist and, as such, it is
best suited to the artistically dedicated, computer literate and budget-
restrained type of user.
5.11
All the same, I offered it to the acid test of my partially computer
literate students. Here, I was surprised. The previous month they had
tried out Tiny Draw, a childrenæs starter art program, which they didnæt
like as it left a string of dots rather than a painted line. NovaPaint
produces curves as smooth as the mouse will move. As changing colour is
easy Ö just click <menu>, select the colour and click <menu> again to
get back to the picture Ö my students quickly grasped the essentials of
quality computer doodling and were soon happily creating much the same
work as they normally manage when using Pro-Artisan.
5.11
The on-screen presentation may not be as good but the comparison between
a ú6 Public domain program and a full price product is a remarkably good
match. Every facility I have heard of is supported by NovaPaint. In
other more expensive packages, these facilities are selected via the
full power of the WIMP system, requiring the user to learn the meaning
of multiple icons. NovaPaint does everything in simple Basic and ignores
the WIMP completely. This is a case of a few on-screen words saving
hours with the manual because you canæt remember dozens of icons.
5.11
On balance, my reservations about the poor presentation on screen and
the daunting complexity are outweighed by the extreme care and attention
to detail which has been lavished on the program. The author has made it
easy to add more facilities to NovaPaint and even tells you how to do it
yourself. He only asks that he be sent a copy of any upgrades for
inclusion to the advertised package. Now that is real public domain.
5.11
I canæt imagine much more that could be added. If you want to smear a
picture, wrap it round a sphere, average the pixels, swap your pre-
defined colours around or perform any of the 150 other tricks, NovaPaint
is for you. (My top score on the Snake game is 37. I found it deep in
one of the menus. Snake is almost worth ú6 by itself.) Who needs Pro-
Artisan anyway?ááA
5.11
5.11
Split an Image
5.11
Alan Highet
5.11
Split an Image is a collection of 177 drawfile cartoons split into
groups of heads, bodies, shoulders, hats and backgrounds. The software
is supplied on four discs enclosed in a plastic wallet along with a 24-
page user guide, four activity cards and a quick reference card to all
the Draw menus (RISC-OS 2 only).
5.11
The original artwork was drawn by Paul Hutchinson, scanned using
Scanlight Professional and converted to drawfile format using Image
Outliner. The files are split across three discs under the headings of
Politics, Music, Sport, Royals, TV/Films and Bodies. Also included are
speech bubbles, shoulders and hats.
5.11
The fourth disc contains a copy of Draw, System with the latest version
of Clib, background scenes, a tutorial and an outline font called
Montclair.
5.11
I was pleased to see that although the drawfiles are copyright,
permission is given for any printing containing the files to be freely
distributed.
5.11
My first question on seeing this product was why I would want to spend
roughly ú20 on this product when there is a wealth of drawfiles
available in the public domain. Having used this package for a few weeks
now, I have answered my own question. The professional quality of the
software shines through. From the well written user guide through to the
activity cards, everything is well presented and finished to a profes
sional standard.
5.11
The drawfiles themselves are superb, although one or two of them arenæt
that good a likeness, the attention to detail makes them stand out above
anything Iæve seen in the public domain.
5.11
An example of the quality of the product is that each drawfile head is
comprised of two identical outlines, the one you see being overlaid on a
white outline thus making sure the head is not transparent. This is far
more sensible than trying to fill the outline as this sometimes causes
fill problems with complicated shapes.
5.11
The various parts of the face can be selected and altered as required
with some interesting results, some of which can be quite useful. For
instance, if you select a smiling mouth and flip it vertically you get a
sad mouth.
5.11
The four activity cards, along with the tutorial on disc, take you
through assembling a character, adding a speech bubble, adding text,
manipulation of the various parts of the drawfile and then assembling a
scene.
5.11
I have no hesitation in recommending this software and if, like me,
youære surrounded by talented artists but can never get a pen to do what
you want, this is your opportunity to compete, at least in the cartoon
stakes.ááA
5.11
5.11
MicroDrive World Edition
5.11
Jochen Konietzko
5.11
Various articles have covered 4th Dimensionæs Holed Out (for example,
Archive 5.8, pp. 60/1). I have therefore decided to use this well known
game as a reference and describe the ways in which MicroDrive is
different.
5.11
Classification
5.11
MicroDrive is a ö3-Dò golf simulator featuring real courses from various
parts of the world; there is no course editor.
5.11
The package
5.11
The MicroDrive World Edition comes in a thin book-like cardboard
package; the two disks are stuck behind the front and back covers, and,
inside it, there is one A4 sheet of instructions. This sheet should
urgently be rewritten, as it gives hardly any information about the many
unusual features of MicroDrive (more about this later).
5.11
Disk one is the program disk; it contains the game itself and two
courses: Lauren Hills (English parkland) and San Rivero (Spanish
Riviera); the Extra Courses disk offers five more locations: Mile Oak
Lakes (US lake side), Olympia National (US pine forest), Palm Sands
(Caribbean), St. Anns (Scottish links) and Val do Lago (Portuguese
Coast). Both disks are available singly, as MicroDrive and MicroDrive
Extra Courses.
5.11
Installation
5.11
To run the game from floppy disk, you just have to click on its icon in
the usual way.
5.11
Installation on a hard disk is simple Ö just drag the game into the
directory of your choice. This means that, unlike Holed Out, players of
this simulator wonæt get stiff wrists from endless disk swapping Ö in my
view, a major advantage! The game runs on both ADFS and SCSI hard disks
but I have no access to an IDE disk.
5.11
Installation of the five extra courses needs marginally more work: Drag
all files from the CBACK, CDATA and CLOAD directories on the courses
disk into the same directories inside the game itself.
5.11
The game, together with the extra courses, takes up 1.4M of disk space.
(Compression reduces this to 498k.)
5.11
It should run easily on a 1M machine, as it needs only about 480k of
free memory.
5.11
Warning: Make sure that you have enough free memory, because if you
donæt, you wonæt receive any error message; the title page is loaded,
then the machine freezes. Also, make sure that you donæt have any
unsaved files lying around on your desktop, because, as far as I can
tell, the only way to leave the game is through a reset, which is rather
annoying. This is MicroDriveæs only genuine weak point, as far as I am
concerned.
5.11
Playing the game
5.11
When you start the game, you are first given a choice of the available
courses; for each course, you can look at an overview by clicking
<Adjust>.
5.11
Then you can choose the kind of game you want to play. The options are:
one to four players, competing in the categories stroke, Stableford (not
explained in the öManualò) or match (one player against one or two
against two).
5.11
Each player can be right- or left-handed and play in one of three skill
levels, which differ only in the responsiveness of the ball to hooks and
slices, and in the ösizeò of the hole.
5.11
Each player can set his handicap, and play can start at any of the
eighteen holes of each course. Unlike Holed Out, there is no need to
click your way through a succession of screens to set up your game, as
all options are collected in one big table on one screen.
5.11
For each hole a map can be shown, with helpful hints, like these:
5.11
For the game, there are remarkably realistic views from the usual
position behind the player. Unlike Holed Out, trees are not all
identical, but (I suppose) modelled on those in the original courses;
the lawn is tinted in many shades of green and most of the items on
screen are anti-aliased. (It is interesting to note that, as in real
life, the holes are not always in the same place on the green.)
5.11
The ground structure of the original courses is reproduced so that you
may, for example, tee off from a hill top and play down towards a hole
beside a lake, where the flag actually shows the direction of the wind
or hangs limply down when the air is still.
5.11
All this gives a very dense atmosphere, but has one obvious (slight)
disadvantage, when compared to Holed Out. Computing each individual
scene puts much more strain on the computer, so that a view with many
differing elements can take up to six seconds to build up (with an ARM 2
this grows to a maximum of about fifteen seconds, with an average
somewhere around eight seconds.) In Holed Out, loading a scene is about
three times as fast.
5.11
However, I prefer the short wait because the reward is a series of
really individual, recognizable views. In Holed Out, all the courses
look much the same because of the uniformly flat terrain and the
restriction to just one tree shape, repeated endlessly.
5.11
The array of clubs available differs slightly from that in Holed Out:
Driver (only from the tee), just one wood (#3), irons #1 to #9, wedge,
sand wedge and putter. You choose a club by moving the mouse up and
down, which scrolls through the list of available clubs, and then
clicking on <select>.
5.11
The actual play is totally different from the other simulators I know,
as there are no ögadgetsò which help you fine tune your swing, like a
power meter and a slice meter.
5.11
With MicroDrive, the only help given is the wind vane and the distance
the ball can move through the air Ö over level ground, without wind.
5.11
You determine the flight path of the ball through a öreal timeò control
of the player on the screen Ö One click on <select> starts the leisurely
up-swing, the second click starts the down-swing. The really tricky part
comes now Ö you have to click for a third time! This third click
simulates the release position of the hands during the down-swing. Early
in the down-swing you will get a hook, halfway down the ball will fly
straight, late release will produce a slice. Without the third click the
flight path becomes almost totally unpredictable.
5.11
This method has two advantages Ö it feels far more natural and it is
more difficult to reproduce a given flight curve, so that the game will
remain a challenge much longer.This approach also means that the motion
of the player sprite really reflects the strength with which you hit the
ball; in other simulators you use the power meter to decide how hard to
hit, and only then does the little player move Ö always executing a full
swing, even if you just gently nudge the ball.
5.11
Once a ball has landed on the fairway or the light rough, it stays
visible as a tiny white dot Ö its size very nicely changing with the
distance to the viewer Ö while the other players do their thing (in
Holed Out only one ball at a time is visible.)
5.11
This applies even on the green (another feature not mentioned in the
manual). There is a ömarkerò for every ball on the green in the form of
a faint blueish smudge which, unless you know what it is, can easily be
mistaken for a speck of dust on the screen.
5.11
Youæll notice another point where MicroDrive takes a far more realistic
approach than Holed Out if you manage to land a ball beneath a tree.
5.11
In Holed Out, a ball can land right at the foot of a tree; if this
stands on the fairway, you can hit the ball with any club Ö even the
driver! Ö and it will climb almost vertically into the air and land on
the other side; in MicroDrive such an attempt would simply have the ball
smash into the trunk and bounce off or let you see it vanish into the
foliage and then, mostly, drop to the ground some feet away.
5.11
In this context, MicroDrive has another feature which I have not seen in
any other golf simulator. If your ball has landed far outside the
fairway, it is easy to get back. All you have to do is move the cross
hair sights all the way to the left or right edge of the screen. This
will cause the view to rotate by 45░ and so, by doing this eight times,
your player turns once around his axis (this isnæt mentioned in the
manual either).
5.11
The complete game takes place in the three dimensional view, including
putting. This makes some holes rather tricky because it is naturally
hard to judge the slope of the green on a flat screen; your best bet is
to watch closely while the scene is drawn (always from back to front);
if you miss this, you have to make do with such clues as the direction
to the nearest lake, the distortion of the rectangular ömowingò pattern
of the lawn on the green and, of course, the way the ball rolls (...and
rolls ... and rolls ... on some steeply slanted greens).
5.11
The only aspect where the realism of MicroDrive breaks down is the sound
which is definitely thin and unsatisfactory. (The sound has just one
thing in common with that of Holed Out. Both games have Ö unlike, for
example, International Golf Ö no bird song or other öenvironmentalò
noises.)
5.11
The atrocious instruction sheet fails to inform about so many features
that I keep discovering new things. There is no mention of the fact that
it is possible to save a position (one for each course) and continue
later where you stopped, nor of the fact that, during match play,
clicking <menu> will bring up a dialogue box asking you whether you want
to give up.
5.11
Maybe I will yet find a way to quit the game in an acceptable manner,
which is simply not mentioned anywhere in the instructions!
5.11
Price
5.11
MicroDrive is produced by Cambridge International Software, Suite 2A,
436 Essex Rd., London N1 3QP; the World Edition costs ú29.95 (ú27 from
Archive).
5.11
Conclusion
5.11
Except for the missing Quit option and the laughable instruction
leaflet, I like this simulation very much indeed! Actually, I find
MicroDrive so much superior that I have ömoth-balledò my Holed Out
Compendium disks and just dug them out for a quick spate of ödisk-
jockeyingò in the course of writing this article.ááA
5.11
5.11
Music Typesetting on the Archimedes (1)
5.11
Richard Hallas
5.11
This is the first article of a short series in which I shall be looking
at the music printing packages available for the Archimedes and
examining their suitability for publishing professional scores. Although
every Archimedes owner has access to Maestro, the free music program
supplied with their machine, this is a very limited piece of software
with no facilities for printing out whatsoever (at least, not in the
RISC-OS 2 version).
5.11
There are currently only three packages available which are capable of
printing music: Scorewriter/PMS, Rhapsody II with ScoreDraw and Notate.
This article will deal with PMS, the next with Rhapsody and the third
with Notate. Then I shall draw up some conclusions about all three. Many
Archimedes users will have heard of Rhapsody and Notate but Scorewriter/
PMS has been hiding in the background for quite some time attracting
little, if any, attention and, to the best of my knowledge, has never
before been reviewed in an Acorn magazine. I have been using it in my
own small business, KeyNote, for over a year now and propose to rectify
this undeserved lack of attention right away!
5.11
Scorewriter: Philipæs Music Scribe
5.11
This program has not only a long and interesting history, but also two
names! My unwieldy title combines the two; the program is called
Scorewriter if bought from ElectroMusic Research (EMR), but PMS if
bought directly from its author Philip Hazel. It actually started life
before the Archimedes itself Ö on Acornæs short-lived Cambridge
Workstation. As a consequence, it is written in BCPL, which is highly
unusual for an Archimedes application. Since it has been around so long,
it does not make use of the Archimedesæ Wimp system to any great extent;
rather, a windowed front-end is provided to send parameters to a
command-line-driven program. PMS can be bought in two forms, identical
except for the fact that one includes a program to produce PostScript
output in addition to the RISC-OS printer driver output provided by both
versions.
5.11
When I bought PMS as a newcomer to the Archimedes, one of the first
questions I asked about PMS was ÉDoes it work in a window?æ I had used a
Macintosh SE/30 for a year to publish a mediµval manuscript which I had
transcribed and edited, and I produced my edition using a typesetting
program called NoteWriter. Being a Macintosh product, of course, it
worked in a window and I wanted to have something similar on my new
Archimedes. In this respect, I was to be disappointed because the answer
to the question is a firm ÉNoæ. As a command-line program, PMS takes a
text file for input, processes it and then squirts out a second file
suitable for one of the output programs. If you are using a PostScript
printer, you send the file to the PostScript output program; otherwise
you send it to PMSæs printer driver output program which will either
print the music directly or create a drawfile or sprite for you.
5.11
This three-stage process may seem rather complicated. The situation is
alleviated somewhat by the provision of a Wimp front-end which lets you
drag in files, set parameters and launch the output programs. However,
there is no getting around the fact that PMS was simply not designed for
a WYSIWYG interface and, as such, is a little difficult to use. However,
I must say in its defence that once the effort has been made to learn to
make the best use of PMS, it can be considerably faster and easier to
produce music in the form of text input than having to fiddle around
positioning notes on screen with the mouse.
5.11
A comparison with NoteWriter is quite interesting. Actually, I should
perhaps say öcontrastò because NoteWriter is about as different as it
could be from PMS, considering both have the same end-product in mind.
NoteWriter is, in fact, a very specialised drawing package and is
musically ignorant. Whilst it is useful to be able to see the music on
the screen when entering it (and there is the handy option of hearing
the pitch of each note as it is placed), any mistakes you make in layout
or rhythm simply go unnoticed by the program. It has no facilities for
part extraction or automatic text underlay Ö you have to position every
syllable yourself. Worst of all, it is impossible to do any major
reformatting without redrawing the whole page manually. (NoteWriter
costs ú300.)
5.11
By contrast, PMS is the musical equivalent of a word-processor. It knows
quite a lot about musical notation and will generally make a very good
stab indeed at putting together a page for you. Admittedly it canæt be
right all the time and many things will need tweaking but the flexibil
ity of the system is enormous. Whereas NoteWriter will let you set a
page (with some difficulty), PMS will let you set a symphony. Funnily
enough, PMS isnæt very good at doing musical examples, which are
NoteWriteræs forte. They can be done but can take a disproportionate
amount of setting up. The setting up is half the battle; once you have
got the overall page layout ready in PMS, you can just type in the notes
by their names and let PMS do all the formatting for you.
5.11
It is revealing that, with NoteWriter, I could get through about 50 bars
of four-part vocal music (excluding text underlay) in eight hoursæ solid
work. In the same amount of time with PMS, and pushing myself, I can get
through 250 bars of equivalent music but including underlay text. Given
that underlay text is a significant task in itself, this means that PMS
is about six times faster to use than NoteWriter.
5.11
When you call PMS to process your file, it throws up a command window
and reports its progress as it goes along. Watching, you can tell which
bars are going on which lines on which pages and PMS will also indicate
if, for some reason, it was unable to justify a line to fill out the
width of the page. PMS also checks that all the bars are the right
length and, as I have said, performs all alignment and underlay text
positioning automatically. It also makes a very good attempt at
positioning and shaping slurs, as long as you tell it where they should
start and end. You can force new lines and pages at any point and
suspend temporarily unused staves from printing. If, when all the music
is entered, the last page is not filled, you can set the overall
magnification and/or note spacing to make it just right and the bars
will be redistributed as necessary.
5.11
Of course, checking is the drawback. You must output your music to check
it, probably as a drawfile. Processing large files can be a little time
consuming but generally PMS zips through pages with quite impressive
speed, especially using an ARM3. There is a direct screen-output mode
for checking purposes but this is really very crude and I never use it.
The only thing you can accurately check is the pitch and duration of
notes, not the articulation markings, etc.
5.11
The usefulness of drawfile output cannot be overstated. Apart from the
pure convenience of being able to check exactly the same output on the
screen as on the printer, drawfiles can be dropped into a desktop
publisher and combined with other text and graphics, thereby allowing
musical examples in essays, or even something as simple as the setting
up of a hymn-sheet. All PMS symbols are contained in an outline font,
which is very useful as you can put musical symbols into text and refer
to AÉ major, for example.
5.11
Input files
5.11
To give some idea of the kind of work involved in creating music with
PMS, take a look at the illustration of a fairly simple input file, used
to create the arrangement of the Londonderry Air. The first section sets
up the overall page layout, with all numbers specified in points.
Headers and footers can be set up to appear on every page with different
ones for the first and last pages. Various overall settings for the
piece are made here, such as the bar numbers (here specified to be at
the start of every line) and the magnification of the page and spacing
between notes. Many settings can be overridden in specific instances, if
necessary. Any number of staves can be printed on top of each other
(specified by the Staffspacing directive) by using a spacing of 0. In
this example, four staves are used to provide two lines of music, each
of which has chords with stems going up and down; staves 1 and 2 are
printed together, as are 3 and 4, with a spacing of 66 points between
the two.
5.11
The initial setup section in the input file is followed by the data for
each line of music in turn. A maximum of 32 lines is allowed. The system
of note specification is simple and logical Ö a lower-case letter is a
crotchet or shorter note and an upper-case letter a minim or longer
value. The letters can have added dots to create dotted notes and a É+æ
extends the value of a note, whilst a ÉÖæ acts as a flag, so that ÉÖæ
means quaver, É=æ semiquaver, É=Öæ demisemiquaver and É==æ hemidemisemi
quaver, which is the shortest available value. Jumps up and down octaves
can be made by using the ÉÉæ and É`æ characters. Signs and ornaments can
be added to notes by adding a short command between backslash characters
Ö for example, É\f\æ means fermata (pause sign). Interspersed with the
note data are various instructions to start and end slurs whose ends and
curvatures can be specified. Horizontal brackets behave in a similar way
and both can be drawn with dotted lines. Hairpins are specified by
putting É<æ and É>æ symbols where they start and finish and the ends can
be positioned independently. Of course, text markings can be put in very
simply. Only the Trinity font can be used in the standard version of PMS
but this is all that is generally needed and the four members of the
family can easily be specified within the text string by using, for
example, É\bi\æ for bold italic.
5.11
For complex scores, in which you want to use part extraction, for
example, variables can be set up and conditional statements used to
alter parts of the layout for special purposes.
5.11
Conclusion
5.11
PMS is a very capable program indeed and will do almost all standard
notation. I like it very much but it must be said that it is not an easy
program to get to grips with. If you want to do professional quality
music printing on the Archimedes, PMS is your only choice at present but
you must be prepared to spend a great deal of time learning the program.
It is definitely one of those pieces of software whose manual should
always be close at hand. There is a plethora of options available and
whilst the input language is not difficult to learn, it can be quite
confusing at first.
5.11
PMS costs ú150 for the standard version, or ú500 for the version with
the PostScript driver program. The latter version does have a small
number of facilities which are unavailable in the cheaper version (such
as the ability to use PostScript fonts), but unless you specifically
need PostScript output, the cheaper option is much better value, and
more likely to meet the needs of Archimedes owners who generally have
little need for PostScript anyway.
5.11
It is worth mentioning here that PMS2 is on the way. This will work in a
similar way to PMS1, taking a text file as input, and will probably be
file-compatible. Where it will differ is in checking and correcting the
music, which you will be able to do by dragging notes, etc around in a
window. In fact, it will be a proper desktop application rather than a
command-line driven one and will probably combine the best of both
worlds with the fast text-file entry and the convenience of correcting
in a window. However, nothing is final yet and PMS2 is many months away
from completion, so if you need PMS now, buy it! Not only do you have no
real alternative for professional quality work but you will also be
getting a flexible, comprehensive and generally excellent program Ö but
be prepared to spend time with it.
5.11
The author, Philip Hazel, can be contacted at 33 Metcalfe Road,
Cambridge CB4 2DB. Phone 0223Ö65518.ááA
5.11
Heading 20 ö|Londonderry Airò 60
5.11
Heading ö||\it\arr. Richard Hallasò 36
5.11
Heading öò
5.11
Heading öò
5.11
LastFooting öò 20
5.11
LastFooting 10 öTypesetting by \bi\KeyNote||\rm\31 Skelton Crescent,
Crosland Moor, Hudders₧eld, West Yorkshire, HD4 5PN ò
5.11
Key E$ Time 4/4
5.11
brace 1-4
5.11
bracket 0
5.11
barnumbers line 8
5.11
hairpinlinewidth 0.5
5.11
systemgap 77
5.11
startlinespacing 2 0 4
5.11
staffspacing 1/0 2/66 3/0
5.11
linelength 520
5.11
magnification 1.12
5.11

5.11
[Staff 1] [treble 1]
5.11
[nocheck] [nocount] [stems above] öAndanteò/a/u10 [slur] d- e-f- |
5.11
g. f- g-cÉ-b-\!>\g- |
5.11
f-e- c. [endslur] [slur/co2] e- g-a- |
5.11
b. cÉ- b-g-e-g- |
5.11
F_/a f- [endslur] [slur/slco2/ru2] d- e-f- |
5.11
g. f- g-cÉ-b-g- |
5.11
f-e- c. [endslur] [slur/co2] d- e-f- |
5.11
g. a- g-f-e-f- |
5.11
E_/a e- [endslur] [comma] [slur/srco4] b- cÉ-dæ- | @half-way
5.11
eÉ. dæ- dÉ-cæ-b-cÉ- |
5.11
b-g- e. [endslur] [slur] b- cÉ-dæ- |
5.11
eÉ. dæ- dÉ-cæ-b-g- |
5.11
F_/a f- [endslur] [slur/srco6] b-\!-\ b-\!-\b-\!-\ |
5.11
gÉ. fæ- fÉ-eæ-cÉ-eæ- | b-g- e. [endslur] [slur/co2] d- e-f- |
5.11
g-cÉ-b-g- f-e-c-d- |
5.11
E+\f\ [endslur] | @end
5.11
[endstaff]
5.11

5.11
[Staff 2] [treble 1]
5.11
[nocheck] [stems below] [hairpins below] ö\bi\mpò/b d- c-d- |
5.11
e-f-e-c- e $c\!>\ |
5.11
$b` a`-b`- a` (g-%b`-)(f-b`-) [reset] Q. < b`-_/b;b`- < |
5.11
(f-$b`-);>;(e-b`-) q > Q [reset] b`-_/b;b`- d e c-e- |
5.11
D Q [reset] q- > d- c-%b`- > $b`- < d- c-d- < |
5.11
e. d- e $d |
5.11
c a` %a` a` |
5.11
e. e- e-d-b`-d- |
5.11
[move 6] > e-;[move 3];d-c-a`- > b`- < (g-e-) (a-e-)(a-f-) < | @half-way
5.11
ö\bi\mfò/b (b.g.) b- b-a-(g-d-)(a-d-) |
5.11
e e-d- c- < e- e-f- < |
5.11
ö\bi\fò/b (g.e.) g- g-g-g-e- |
5.11
< [move 6] f-c-e-f=e= d- < d-\!-\ e-\!-\ [move 4] a-\!-\ |
5.11
ö\bi\ffò/b ($dÉ.g.) > (dæ-g-) (cÉ-a-)(cæ-a-)(a-e-)(a-e-) |
5.11
e e c- > %b`- c-;[move 4];e- |
5.11
ö\bi\p  \it\molto rit.ò/b e. e- c > a`-b`- > |
5.11
B`+ | @end
5.11
[endstaff]
5.11

5.11
[Staff 3] [bass]
5.11
[nocheck] [stems above] öcon \mf\úò/b/d8 b- a |
5.11
b. a- b-a- e |
5.11
e E e |
5.11
e (af) g-b- (%af) |
5.11
f a f- b- b-b- |
5.11
b. b- b-a- g |
5.11
e e e e |
5.11
b. cÉ- b-f-g-a- |
5.11
g a-f- g- b- a-b- | @half-way
5.11
b. q- Q [reset] q- e-eÉ- eæ- eÉ-eæ-b-f- |
5.11
g-b- g. b- a-a- |
5.11
g. q- Q [reset] q- c-cÉ- %b- b-cæ-$dÉ-dæ- |
5.11
CÉ b- b-\!-\ cæ-\!-\dÉ-\!-\ |
5.11
b. b- cÉ-cæ-a-cÉ- |
5.11
b %a $a- a- a-%a- |
5.11
b-$a-g-g- g f-a- |
5.11
G+ | @end
5.11
[endstaff]
5.11

5.11
[Staff 4] [bass]
5.11
[nocheck] [stems below] b- a-b`- |
5.11
E_/b e- a`. |
5.11
g` A` a` |
5.11
g` b` e f` |
5.11
B`_/b b`-;[move 4];a-g-f- |
5.11
e-d-c-b`- e e |
5.11
a` a`-g`- f` f` |
5.11
b`-c- b` b` b` |
5.11
E_/b e- e- a-b`- | @half-way
5.11
e. g- a-a- b` |
5.11
e c-b`- a`- g`- a`-b`- |
5.11
c. f- E |
5.11
a` %a` b`- [move 4] a-\!-\ g-\!-\f-\!-\ |
5.11
e. e- a-a-a-a- |
5.11
g #<f %<f- %e- $e-c- |
5.11
b`. %b`- c $b` |
5.11
E`+\f!\ | @end
5.11
[endstaff]
5.11
5.11
Multimedia Column
5.11
Ian Lynch
5.11
Last month, I indulged myself by writing two pieces for Archive and, in
the second, I mentioned that multimedia was a solution looking for a
problem. Paul reinforced this by saying that he doubted whether 16 bit
audio and better colour were needed. Giving more thought to this, I
think the problem is that the term multimedia is about as broad as the
term computer. In a sense, the BBC B was a multimedia platform with
sound, animations, text, etc. The big difference is quality. I think
Mike Hobart hit the nail on the head in the Comment Column last month
when he said that we shall öneedò it when we have it. I can remember PC
users decrying graphical user interfaces only a few years back. The way
they wax lyrical about Windows 3.1, now they have it, one would think
that they had invented the idea.
5.11
What is multimedia?
5.11
I do not believe that multimedia is a classification like wordprocess
ing. Even this has developed into DTP and The Wordperfect Corporation is
now incorporating QuickTime films in its Mac wordprocessing products.
The term ömultimediaò has been used by marketing people to help give a
fresh angle on selling product when it is really a term which covers
almost all software applications to one degree or another. It is much
more a natural evolution than a revolution on graphically orientated
computers and it subsumes older technology to produce enhanced products
in the television industry, for example. Multimedia is now becoming
synonymous with digital desktop video and it really is much more than
this.
5.11
Improved audio and video
5.11
I was probably wrong to say that Acorn needed 16-bit audio and more
extensive colour for multimedia since this is not much more than saying
Acorn will need better computers in future. I do stick by the fact that
for games, music and certain areas of instruction, 16 bit audio will be
expected by customers in the not too distant future. PCs do this by
adding on hardware boards and if Acorn can manage it on a standard
machine it will give them competitive advantage due to simplicity of use
and lower costs. Digital video (!Replay supports 15 bit colour) will
improve in quality simply by improving the video hardware and the
available palette. It should be possible to do this now at relatively
low cost (certainly compared to 1987). At the more advanced end,
developments such as the Apex board from Millipede which goes beyond 24
bit per pixel graphics by defining 256 levels of transparency in another
8 bits per pixel, point the way to what is possible. It is arguable
whether TV style video graphics capabilities are needed in general
purpose computers but the capability is certainly not too far off.
5.11
Multimedia Show
5.11
Shows are the place to find out what the rest of the world is doing. The
Multimedia Show at Olympia was smaller than I remember it being last
year. A similar situation to Which? and signs of the recession, I
suspect. So what was there to see? There was the usual hype with CD-I,
CD-TV and CD-XA all being pushed hard and I must say that some of the
computer based CD products were being sold simply on CD hype.
5.11
CD-XA
5.11
CD-XA (extended architecture) was an interesting one Ö itæs the new
industry standard for CDs which store moving pictures. The demonstration
was a 386 running an application for teaching business people how to use
the telephone (this seems a popular activity in business circles!). The
screen layouts and graphics were very professional and had a small
window probably about 4cm square demonstrating how to answer the æphone
using a small film. This is where I wasnæt impressed. The sound and
video did not appear well synchronised, so the presentation appeared
rather like a badly dubbed foreign film, probably the result of a low
frame rate.
5.11
The over-all operation, choosing a route through the screen options, was
slow and tedious. A lot of this is to do with slow CD access times and I
might have less patience than most, but I can see a lot of people
getting rather frustrated with this. I asked the demonstrator why XA was
needed and what it cost. He knew how much it cost, ú300 for an extra
board on top of the cost of the CD ROM drive and the application, but he
had no idea why it was needed except that öyou canæt get moving pictures
without it!ò I was tempted to tell him about Replay but decided I would
be wasting my breath.
5.11
CD-I and CD-TV
5.11
I moved on to CD-I and CD-TV. What will digital video look like on
these? I wondered. Unfortunately, I didnæt find out. All the demonstra
tions used carefully chosen material with full screen stills forming
backgrounds to small areas of overlaid moving graphics. When pressed
hard, one demonstrator said CD-I with full screen motion video would be
available later in the year. So whatæs new?
5.11
I was on holiday in France recently and visited EuroDisney. Philips have
sponsored a whole building there with a couple of rooms dedicated to CD-
I. CD-I is designed as a consumer product and is nowhere near as
flexible as a general purpose computer. It is rather like a games
console but with more serious applications such as a library of digital
photographs in mind. It is another example of how multimedia is not a
simple application but a wide variety of applications based on a variety
of hardware and software. (If you can put up with queueing and the
expense, there are some interesting technologies applied at EuroDisney.)
5.11
QuickTime
5.11
Back with the multimedia show, Apple were making quite a thing out of
QuickTime which is a similar product to Acorn Replay, and they had it
running on a variety of Macs. The centrepiece piece was a Quadra 900 (if
you think a 540 is expensive, look up the list price on one of these
beasties) Even on this machine, demonstrations were limited to tiny
images though 25 frames per second was possible as with Replay on ARM3.
What was impressive was a camera which grabbed films (me in this case)
and converted them to QuickTime format for immediate playback. The board
(not the camera) to enable this cost about ú500 and this seems an area
where a little catching up is required since making Replay films is not
at present straightforward. QuickTime films can be integrated with
HyperCard and some interesting effects were possible using masks. For
example, an outline shape of France was used as a display area for a
QuickTime film. Genesis, Magpie and Avanti all have potential for this
type of thing.
5.11
Lamb in sheepæs clothing
5.11
I was nearly impressed with QuickTime on a lesser 16 bit Mac which
seemed to be doing a good job of showing a QuickTime film of a hovering
bee. The picture was small, but the animation looked good and this was
only a 16-bit machine. On closer inspection, the film was actually
managing only a few frames per second but since the subject was a slow-
motion film anyway it masked the relatively poor animation. The moral is
that you canæt always believe what you see at shows!
5.11
Some comparisons
5.11
From what I have seen, PC compatible digital video is inferior to Replay
unless you pay for hardware add-ons which make the thing a lot more
expensive and somewhat more complicated. CD-I and CD-TV are interesting
but do not yet prove to me that they live up to the hype. They are, in
any case, aimed at consumers in a similar way to games consoles and are
not direct competitors with general purpose computers though they could
affect the available market in some areas. QuickTime has a lot of
potential but is limited on less powerful machines and I was not shown
any quarter screen films at 25 frames per second such as can be run on
an A5000 with Replay.
5.11
Replay seems to have the best motion fidelity. By this, I mean that
movement is natural and synchronises well with sound. This is because
frame rate is guaranteed whereas, with QuickTime, frames are dropped if
the processor canæt keep up. QuickTime-intensive applications are likely
to be expensive if only because they will require expensive machines for
animation fidelity.
5.11
Spatial resolution is more difficult to compare since no-one could show
me a decent quarter screen film, though all said it was quite possible
(so why werenæt they showing it?). Colour resolution appeared a bit
better in QuickTime than in Replay though it is difficult to make fair
comparisons when there is a big difference in picture sizes. I suspect
that the restricted colour palette available to Replay has an effect
and, as mentioned earlier, new video hardware which makes use of
Replayæs 15 bit capability will be needed before some of the lack of
colour precision (particularly quantisation effects) can be eliminated.
5.11
Well thatæs all for this month. I hope to take a closer look at
Millipedeæs video graphics developments next. If you have any ideas or
contributions, please write to: 1 Melford, off Buckingham Road,
Tamworth, Staffs, B79 7UX.ááA
5.11
5.11
PD Column
5.11
David Holden
5.11
Those who have ordered disks from APDL recently will probably have
discovered that I am taking over the library. The original proprietor,
Peter Sykes, no longer has the necessary time to devote to it. It will
be Ébusiness as usualæ during the change-over, so if you have sent an
order to the old address, Peter will to continue to supply disks to
avoid delays, although new orders should preferably be sent to me at the
address at the end of this article.
5.11
The initials APDL stand for the Archimedes Public Domain Library and
this indicates something of its history and why I was willing to take
over. As the name suggests, APDL was the first library ever (after
Archive, of course) for the Archimedes. It has never sold cheap disks
where the volume of the contents is more important then the quality but
has instead concentrated on trying to supply the latest versions of the
best programs. Peter has always attempted to obtain material direct from
the authors rather than from other sources. This helps to ensure that
the latest and most up-to-date programs are available. APDL has always
given support to authors and this will certainly continue.
5.11
I will be taking the opportunity to re-organise the catalogue, so even
if you have a recent one, it will probably soon be out of date. For a
short period, if you send me any disc with a recent APDL label, I will
return it with a copy of the new catalogue when it is ready without
charge. (Donæt forget to make a copy of the disk before you send it to
me.)
5.11
In the past, APDL also distributed the Archive Shareware and Careware
disks. This started in the very early days of the Archimedes when both
Archive and the concept of PD were less widely known. There is now no
reason for this and so the Archive disks will be discontinued.
5.11
I also hope to add to the few PC disks in the catalogue. There is a lot
of superb Shareware for PCæs and, by using the PC emulator, this will
hopefully extend the range of programs available for the Archimedes.
They will all be checked to ensure that they run properly and at an
acceptable speed under the emulator.
5.11
I shall certainly try to avoid using this column to advertise APDL so
this is the last time I shall talk about it at length. However, I hope
that it will give me the opportunity to extend my knowledge and
understanding of the Archimedes PD and Shareware scene.
5.11
Dirty pictures
5.11
You will probably have noticed that the proprietor of a PD library has
been convicted for distributing pornographic material on computer disks.
The library in question was dealing with PC programs but there is quite
a bit of this stuff about, both pictorial and prose, for other compu
ters, the Amiga in particular. Amigas tend to be owned by Éyoung
personsæ and I doubt very much if libraries ask for proof of age before
sending the disks. For that reason alone, I am opposed to any of this
material being sold by normal libraries.
5.11
Thankfully, there doesnæt seem to be much in evidence for the Archi
medes. I donæt doubt that, with the availability of cheap scanners and
the amount of material now being ported over from the PC and Amiga, it
will soon start to appear in bulk. Some is being sent from Scandinavian
countries already. Hopefully, Archimedes owners are a bit more mature
and sensible than most, so there shouldnæt be much of a market. I would
certainly urge all libraries to have nothing to do with it.
5.11
Copyright infringements
5.11
There have also recently been a number of raids by Trading Standards
Officers working with F.A.S.T. (the Federation Against Software Theft,
who act against software pirates) and the Performing Rights Association
and prosecutions will doubtless soon follow. No, not more obscene stuff
but copyright material. The bulk of this is computer music, although
some was commercial software and magazine cover disks.
5.11
I have mentioned this point about computer music in correspondence with
libraries in the past and warned that soon F.A.S.T. and the P.R.A. would
act. They now appear to have done so. If you have, for example, a
Tracker version of the theme from ÉNeighboursæ in your library, you have
been warned. There is no legal difference between selling a computer
disc containing sampled material and a pirated tape of a record.
5.11
As for magazine cover disks, the sample disk sent by one of the
libraries I mentioned last month had a program stolen from a magazine on
it. Some libraries actually advertise magazine disks in their
catalogues. Since Archimedes libraries are comparatively small, they
have so far not attracted the attention of F.A.S.T. but donæt think that
will always be so, especially when libraries issue catalogues advertis
ing pirated material.
5.11
More about documentation
5.11
Two months ago, I wrote about documentation for PD programs. I had
intended to continue last month with some further comments and advice to
PD programmers but other more immediate items took precedence. This
month, I will continue by describing some of the minor but annoying
Éfaultsæ that programmers sometimes include.
5.11
I often find text files which are not properly formatted. They have
obviously been written using Edit on an 80 column screen. When read with
any other screen width, the lines are split in the wrong places. Always
properly format the text. I had thought this so self-evident that I
didnæt bother to mention it but I have noticed several programs with
this problem.
5.11
Another less common fault is to use justified text. It might look pretty
to have the right hand edge of your text all neatly lined up, but in the
standard system font or printed without microspacing, it is tedious to
read. Remember that instruction texts and manuals will normally be
printed out in draft mode which is altogether different from properly
kerned and microspaced fonts.
5.11
Application sprites
5.11
It is normal to define the icons for the application sprites in the
!Boot file with the line ÉIconsprites <Obey$Dir>.!spritesæ. Put this
line in your !Run file as well. There are two reasons for this. Firstly,
if the program is required to respond to Éfile clickingæ and the user
sets up a Run Alias for the filetype, the program may be Run from this
command without the OS ever having Éseenæ the application directory and
hence the !Boot file. If this is done, and the application sprites are
not also defined in the !Run file, the application will start up and
install itself correctly but the sprite on the icon bar will be
Éinvisibleæ, which can be a bit disconcerting.
5.11
The second reason is that if the line appears in the !Boot file, RISC-OS
loads the sprite definitions as soon as it sees the application. Most of
the time this is OK because, without them, the application will just
have the default sprite and not its own, which doesnæt look very pretty.
However if, like me, you have dozens of disks of PD and want to look
through them for a particular program, there is a delay as all those
unwanted sprites are loaded. Also the Wimp doesnæt discard them
afterwards, so the RAM taken up is not relinquished until the computer
is reset. Like other people who have a lot of disks of PD, I often
remove or disable that line in the !Boot file. When you actually run the
program, if the sprites are also defined in the !Run file, they are
loaded so that the program can display its icon on the icon bar but,
until then, your RAM is left uncluttered.
5.11
Donæt forget that the iconsprites defined in the !Boot file should only
be those required by RISC-OS before the application is run. It should
contain the sprites for the application icon and any sprites for
filetypes to aid identification. Any sprites not required until the
program is actually run, should be in a separate sprite file loaded by
the !Run file or by the program itself.
5.11
Several PD programs use sprites with standard names like Éradioonæ and
Éradiooffæ and define their own sprites with these names. Unless it is
absolutely essential, donæt use Éstandardæ names for any sprites you
define. If you do, they will replace the normal sprites and so appear in
every other applications windows. This can be very annoying. If you
define sprites for your windows, give them unique names. It may make
things a bit more awkward when you create the windows but it makes it a
lot easier for everyone else.
5.11
Defining OS variables
5.11
Another similar suggestion concerns OS variables defined by the program.
The most common is a line defining the name of the application direc
tory. You often see in !Run files the two lines:
5.11
Set MyApp$Dir <Obey$Dir>
5.11
Run <MyApp$Dir>.MyProg
5.11
when a single line would suffice:
5.11
Run <Obey$Dir>.MyProg
5.11
There are only two valid reasons for defining an OS variable in this
way. Firstly, if your application needs to respond to Éfile clickingæ,
you must define an OS variable to the name of the application directory
in the !Boot file (and also in your main !Boot application, if you have
one) so that RISC-OS will then know where to look for the Éowneræ of
that filetype if you should subsequently double-click on one. The second
reason is if the application needs to be able to find its directory
after it has been loaded and initialised.
5.11
You should normally only use an OS variable if the application requires
access to its directory after initialisation. If it simply has some sort
of Setup or Data file in its application directory or a sub-directory
thereof, which it requires when it is first run, then <Obey$Dir> will
suffice.
5.11
Even in this instance, my personal preference now is to expand the
<Obey$Dir> definition and record this internally. This is easy enough to
do. Remember that if RISC-OS subsequently Éseesæ another version of the
program, your OS variable could be reset to the new version which can be
a nuisance. I have often had mysterious requests to insert a certain
floppy disc after running an application from my hard disc because a
duplicate exists on one of the floppies that I have used. Owners of hard
disks may have experienced this problem if they have used a magazine
disk or some other disk with a copy of !System on it. Every time RISC-OS
needs something from the !System directory it asks for the floppy
because it has Éforgottenæ about the copy on your hard disk.
5.11
If your program does set up an OS variable (and any others that the
program creates) it should be *unset when the program is terminated,
unless it is required for file-clicking when it must, of course, be
retained.
5.11
Both of these points are comparatively minor but they are good program
ming practice and it is also good manners not to fill up other peopleæs
computers with unnecessary clutter. Every additional variable and sprite
slows the computer slightly.
5.11
RunImage
5.11
I strongly disapprove of the practice of calling the actual program code
!RunImage. I know that this is what Acorn recommend but that doesnæt
make it any more sensible.
5.11
There are good reasons for giving standard names to !Boot and !Run
because the OS needs to be able to find them. However, the program code
is only invoked from the !Run file so it does not need a standard name.
I probably have several hundred program files all called !RunImage.
Provided they are kept in their original directory, and just Run in the
normal way this isnæt too important but it is very easy to delete the
wrong one or, when writing programs, to copy the code to the wrong
directory. If you are writing in Basic, it is also normal to put the
name of the program in the first line and if the program name is
RunImage, it is very easy to type SAVE and save it to the wrong
directory, perhaps overwriting another application. This problem has
manifested itself on more than one occasion Ö I have run a program only
to have something totally unexpected happen.
5.11
My own preference is to give the program code the same name as the
application but without the É!æ. This is simple, obvious and completely
unambiguous. This is one instance when I urge you to ignore Acornæs
recommendations and do the sensible thing.ááA
5.11
5.11
LogIT
5.11
Peter Thomson
5.11
LogIT is a small portable data logger. It is aimed at measurement in
school science lessons and biology or geography fieldwork but would be
equally of use wherever a series of readings from measuring probes is
required. LinkPack software controls the programming of the data logger
as well as the display of information on screen. LinkPack+ extension
improves the analysis options and the ability to transfer data to other
programs.
5.11
This review is based on LogIT plus LinkPack+ version 4, working on
A5000s and A310s.
5.11
Hardware
5.11
The hardware is robustly constructed and should stand up well to school
use. Three probes can be used at a time. When using light, sound and
temperature probes, the complete unit only measures 15cm ╫ 7cm ╫ 3cm,
both small and light enough to slip into a pocket. There is a comprehen
sive range of probes available, all constructed to the same high
standard. If you have already got probes with a 1 volt output, you can
connect these to an adapter. Other sensors can be constructed by the
enthusiast with a little skill and knowledge, to plug into LogIT using a
second adapter.
5.11
The main advantage of using LogITæs own probes is that these are
automatically recognised by the system and calibrated results are
displayed. This can save a lot of time when a new experiment is being
set up.
5.11
A second group of sensors provides digital inputs to the system for
timing, starting measurement and marking positions on a series of
readings. These range from push switches to light gates and reflective
switches.
5.11
LogIT will operate from rechargeable batteries and extends their
lifetime by going into low power sleep mode between readings. A mains
power pack is very useful for laboratory work but this should not be
used outside. The LogIT unit itself must be kept dry when used outside.
5.11
Software
5.11
The software will run from hard or floppy disc with three program icons
sitting on the bar Ö two utilities and the main program. The first
utility called LogIT collects results from the LogIT hardware and stores
them on disc in LogITæs own format or in CSV or SID. This last format is
a recent Software Independent Data format that includes details of
sensors, units and scales as well as the raw data.
5.11
The second utility converts existing LogIT files into a wide range of
formats suitable for Schema, PipeDream, Key Plus, GraphBox and Presenter
2 as well as CSV, SID and tab formats.
5.11
The LinkPack+ program has a limited icon bar menu but the full menu
appears at the top left of the  display. This takes over the whole of
the screen but leaves other applications intact.
5.11
Setting up
5.11
Setting up LogIT for an experiment is very straight forward. You plug in
the three probes you are going to use and then select the option
Éprogram LogITæ from the menu. Selecting the sub-menu option Éstart
conditionæ, gives you several options with a choice of time interval or
duration for the experiment. A further alternative is to record on a
button push. Sub menus allow choice of the time interval. Now you return
to the main menu and select the option Ésetup LogITæ Ö the process is
intuitive and very painless. It works reliably with GCSE children
setting up their own experiments.
5.11
If the LogIT unit remains connected to the computer during the experi
ment, the results can be displayed in real time as well as being
recorded for later analysis. Up to four sets of results can be recorded
remotely before the unit must be connected to the computer and the data
downloaded.
5.11
Results display
5.11
The graphic display is clear but does not match the quality of presenta
tion of PipeDream 4 or GraphBox.
5.11
The results of each of the three probes can be displayed on its own
scale, each with its own axis displayed alongside the graph.
5.11
In analysis mode, any part of the graph can be selected and displayed on
a larger scale. The numerical value of any point on the scale can also
be shown in a table above the graph. The gradient of the line can also
be shown but I could find no way of adjusting the time interval on which
this calculation was based. Two points on the graph can be selected by
the cursor. The difference between them can be shown.
5.11
The analysis menu provides the option to smooth a graph by averaging
adjacent points. Filtering replaces single readings, which differ by a
large amount from those on each side, with the average of those on each
side. This is to remove spikes.
5.11
Calculations can be performed on the section of graph displayed to show
maximum and minimum values, average value and area under the graph.
5.11
The default mode of displaying the data is to plot each value separately
against time. One data channel can also be plotted against the values
from a second data channel. Offsets and altered scales can also be used
on the data so that the user has full control of the way that data is
displayed.
5.11
Sensors which provide a digital output frequency proportional to an
analogue value are counted for one second at each time interval.
Individual events can also be counted over longer time intervals, but
the events need to be separated from each other.
5.11
Expansion units are available (not reviewed) to provide four change-over
relay outputs, to provide an audible alarm and memory cartridges that
can store programs and set up LogIT away from the host computer.
5.11
Documentation
5.11
There are several guides with this equipment Ö all models of clarity. An
A5 booklet provides clear and simple instructions for the use of LogIT.
A4 folders contain a software guide which describes the use of all the
options in a clear and logical way. A teachersæ guide provides detailed
information on using your own probes, setting up and running the
software plus photocopier masters for a comprehensive range of experi
ments. A technical guide is also available but this would only be needed
by the enthusiast who wanted to write new programs for LogIT.
5.11
Technical details
5.11
... from the technical guide.
5.11
LogIT is a Z80 based processor with 16k ROM and 8k battery-backed RAM.
Communication with the host computer is via RS232 serial link at 9600
baud, 8 data, 1 stop, RTS/CTS.
5.11
Analogue sample rates are 300 readings per second on one sensor at 8 bit
resolution or 100 per second at 12 bit resolution. Digital event timing
has a 10 ╡s resolution for single events or 25 ╡s for multiple events.
5.11
Frequency sensors can be used up to 30kHz.
5.11
Conclusion
5.11
LogIT has impressed me with its reliability. It is one of the few
packages that I have had to review that has never crashed the system. It
has also been one of the easiest as the documentation provides clear
instructions at all stages. Most of the time, the documentation was not
needed as the sequence of menus is well thought out.
5.11
A slight minus point for me is the failure of the program to use printer
drivers, restricting graphic output to Epson compatibles.
5.11
I have used PipeDream 4 to process data and produce further graphs and
found that the combination of the two did everything that I required of
them.
5.11
I have no hesitation in recommending LogIT with LinkPack+ for school
use.
5.11
LogIT and LinkPack+ are available from Griffin and George.ááA
5.11
5.11
PinPoint
5.11
M Dixon
5.11
PinPoint is being marketed by Longman Logotron as öa new generation of
database for the Acorn Archimedes Computerò. In carrying out this
review, I have been very impressed with the Analysis Workbench which is
the application suite for analysing the contents of the database.
Overall, PinPoint is a very attractive piece of software and I can think
of many occasions when I wish I had had access to it. The distribution
box contains a well presented manual which I found very helpful as a
first time user. However, there are limitations to PinPoint in terms of
(a) scope, since it operates on a single data table at a time, (b)
functionality, since it does not have a programmable query language and
(c) layout of textual output, which cannot be designed as part of the
report generation.
5.11
The approach taken by Longman Logotron is to allow the user to define a
screen which has text and field definitions associated with it. The
definition of the fields for the screen specifies the underlying data
table. That screen is then used for data capture and also can be used
for browsing through the data already entered. An analysis workbench is
provided which allows the analysis of data in a data table. The analysis
allows the selection of records in the data table according to complex
criteria. However, there is no join that can be defined between the
underlying data tables so the system is currently a single table
database system. PinPoint uses a tool set with icons displayed on a menu
window.
5.11
One of the most attractive features of the system is that the software,
both for the form definition and for the report and graphical output,
has been based upon an object-oriented approach. The user can manipulate
blocks of objects in a very easy way; this is consistent with modern
good software engineering practice.
5.11
It is clear that Longman Logotron have geared their material towards
schools and have placed considerable emphasis on the use of PinPoint
within the curriculum; this should not discourage other potential users,
many of whom could benefit greatly from the quality of analysis
available from the workbench.
5.11
Longman Logotron have introduced their own terminology, which they
justify as being the type of language used in the home, rather than
using computer technical terms. They envisage the data being collected
on a set of sheets of paper and kept together in a stack. I leave it to
the reader to decide whether adding the term ösheetò to the existing set
of terms, record, row and tuple, and adding the term östackò to the list
of table, data table, relation and file, is a helpful enhancement of
terminology.
5.11
The review was carried out on an ARM2 machine with 2M of memory.
5.11
Forms
5.11
The basic approach to the definition of a data table is to require the
user to define a data capture form. The format is to have a field name,
called a question, which appears on the form. The user then defines an
external representation for the data items which is used by Pinpoint to
construct a window for data capture and display. The user can very
easily modify the form with the use of the appropriate tools. A question
and its window can be moved separately or together as a block; groups of
questions can be moved around as blocks. A short field name is also
required and this name is used in selections and report output.
5.11
The font for questions and text can be changed using the font and size
defined by a Pen Style tool. There is also the capacity to paste in
graphics from draw and sprite files. Once the basic form definition
tools have been mastered, this is a form editor which will be easy to
use both for screen presentation and for paper output for completion in
a survey. The form editor is often a very weak feature of database
systems while being of crucial interest to the user; Longman Logotron
have done an excellent job with this one.
5.11
PinPoint supports a range of field types including character, date,
integer, decimal numbers and boolean. There is a multiple choice
question field type which also allows an ordering of choices. The user
can define a multi-line character field, up to ten lines of up to fifty
characters. These additional field types indicate that Longman Logotron
have deliberately put effort into usersæ requirements which normally
need a work-around.
5.11
Data input / update
5.11
Data input follows a simple record by record style with cursor control
behaving in a sensible way. A small quibble is that <return> acts as
both a field and a form terminator. This means that when <return> is
pressed on the last field, the sheet is completed and the user is
supplied with a new (blank) sheet for completion. Since there are other
keys which allow for the movement to next field, this is unnecessary. It
is understandable that the form completion is not restricted to the Save
Sheet icon as this would be not be appreciated by experienced users but
<F3> could be made the only keyboard terminator. In update mode,
<return> simply tracks round the windows.
5.11
I was pleased to see that there was effective date validation including
correct treatment of February in leap and non-leap years.
5.11
The stacks (data tables) allow duplicate sheets to be entered and there
does not appear to be any facility to enforce uniqueness on any column
values.
5.11
In selecting sheets for update, there is a simple search facility in
which a value match can be used to retrieve a sheet. It appeared that
once a sheet had been updated, the selection criterion was lost so I was
unable to perform a selection on a set of sheets for update since the
selection window with Next sheet on it disappeared. Nor was I able to
see a way of performing a bulk update of existing sheets. There was no
direct öbackout?ò from updating a sheet but a simple indirect method was
available via the change sheet icons which provide a warning menu with
the possibility of forgetting the change to the existing sheet.
5.11
Disk storage requirements appeared to be about three times what I would
have expected from making a simple guess at the number of bytes required
to store character, integer, real, date and boolean fields.
5.11
Searching
5.11
The selection criteria that may be applied to the stack of sheets are
very powerful.
5.11
A very simple search is provided for use with the data capture side.
Fields are broken up into character, number and date types. A search for
a match can be defined and the sheet containing the first match is
displayed; a simple Next sheet menu allows the user to see further
matches on a sheet by sheet basis. The form used for the display of the
retrieved sheets is the form used for data capture. The order of search
is the system issued record number which results in a FIFO retrieval
order. For a form with both integer and real numbers defined as fields,
this type of search would retrieve a match on either. While this may
seem to be imprecise, I can think of many occasions when such a feature
would have been an advantage, e.g. searching for a significant string in
text and in a headline, start and end dates.
5.11
There is also the facility for allowing wild card searching on character
fields. The # character is used to indicate a single wild character but
there does not appear to be any wild string character. Unfortunately,
once an update is performed on the basis of the selection made, the
search is restarted from the beginning, even though the selection
criterion is retained, when search is recalled on the menu.
5.11
If the stack is put on the work bench, a powerful and precise set of
selections can be applied. The sheets are displayed in table format and
the user has the ability to decide which fields are displayed, and the
order of the columns, using very simple tools on the default output. The
user can also change the display width of the output columns. The whole
of the stack appears to be read into memory when it is loaded into the
workbench Ö this means that there is a significant delay on loading and
unloading from the workbench. However, the actual operations on the
stack, once loaded, are fast. I have only exercised a subset of the
facilities because of time constraints. I constructed a test database of
1300 sheets, with many duplicates, consisting of character, integer,
real, date and boolean field types, to exercise this part of the
functionality. The output can be sent to file which can then be printed
or refined before printing. The output can be incorporated into an
Impression document edited, and have the font changed.
5.11
Essentially, the user is presented with a menu containing the names of
the fields and must choose one of them. For number and date fields, the
<, =, > and range operators are available. For character fields, the
search can be for an included string. Although the range selection is
accepted, I was unable to get it to work for character fields. The
ordering on character selection is what I expected from ASCII values
i.e. 1 < A < a.
5.11
There is the option of making the selection or excluding the selection,
on matching from the operators. The operators can be combined using
repeated application of the selection. The user can also request the
presentation of certain statistical data such as the sum, mean, median
and standard deviation from both the selection and the full stack. It is
this kind of selection and analysis which will make PinPoint very useful
to such a wide range of users.
5.11
The user can select the order in which sheets are displayed according to
values in a field. The sorts can be nested, so several levels of
ordering are available for the same stack. The selection and ordering
criteria are displayed on the screen in an easily readable text format.
5.11
Graphical output
5.11
PinPoint allows the user to select pie charts, bar chart histograms,
graphs and scatter diagrams for the output of a stack or selected sub
set of it. The graphs can be produced as either frequency/ percentage or
cumulative graphs. It is very impressive that the selection criteria are
included in the annotation of the graph so that the user is not expected
to keep a manual check of what has been done.
5.11
The output is in the form of objects which can then be further manipu
lated. For example, a pie chart can produced which is then pulled apart
into slices for further clarity. The annotation can be moved around and
additional items added to the diagram using the drawing tool set. The
units which were used in the definition of fields are included in the
annotation. It is possible to require the output to be in the form of a
three dimensional projection; this was a feature which was very useful
when plotting histograms in which one of the values was very much less
than the others. The pen style can be changed to allow the definition of
different font and point size. More than one graph can be put on the
same page. The only failure I found was when attempting to construct a
scatter graph of height against date (of birth); the system ran out of
memory, failed softly and prompted the user to stop another application
to release extra memory. I showed that the actual graph could be
constructed by using a smaller stack.
5.11
Import / export
5.11
The exchange of data with other applications is via CSV files. The
export of data is a straight forward menu option. Importing data needed
the loading of a separate utility which does not install on the icon
bar. I tried to use this import data facility with one of PinPointæs
distribution stacks but it failed after 135 sheets. Longman Logotron
found a similar effect and suggested that the distribution file had a
fault. I successfully used the Import facility to load 1320 rows into a
stack which I defined from scratch myself and the stack behaved normally
in further use.
5.11
Documentation
5.11
PinPoint comes in an attractive box with a 175 page manual. This is well
written and easy to use for a beginner. The first 100 pages have a set
of eleven lessons which constitute a tutorial and are a good introduc
tion to using PinPoint. The rest of the manual is reference material. I
was pleased to see that, unlike many manuals, there is an index which
can be used for tracing material in both the tutorial and the reference
section.
5.11
The database approach
5.11
C.áJ.áDate, stated the general guidelines for the database approach as
ödata being integrated and sharedò. His intention was that database
developers should be able to concentrate on manipulating the data and
allow the database management system to handle the internal representa
tion and storage of the data.
5.11
PinPoint follows the modern pattern of having a record identifier which
is independent of the data and this is very welcome, although it is
stack (table) specific rather than system wide.
5.11
The level of integration of data is limited by the fact that it is
geared to a single table approach. It is not possible to construct a
sheet (record) based upon more than one stack (table) using a join
operator. This means that if a user wishes to construct a database with
data about Customers and the invoices raised for a customer it would be
necessary to paste the two pieces of information together using a text
processor. In its advertising material, Longman Logotron claim that
PinPoint can provide multi-file analysis. This refers to the ability to
analyse, one at a time, the contents of more than one stack and to
output the results in the same report; for compatible data, two graphs
can be overlaid.
5.11
The review was carried out using a single user version of the software.
However, there is a site licence for a multi-user version of the
software for machines connected via Econet. I have been told by Longman
Logotron that a stack (table) may be accessed by more than one user in
read-only mode but that only one user can access the stack for update,
with the locking being applied by the underlying operating system. This
means that table locking rather than row locking is applied.
5.11
Taking the usual interpretation of data sharing in a single user context
to indicate that the data is shared between the data capture and data
analysis programs, PinPoint provides that element of sharing. However,
the range of analysis and update is restricted to the programs provided.
5.11
For stacks (tables) on the Analysis Workbench, PinPoint applies a set
level approach to the retrieval of data, satisfying the conditions
imposed on the selection. However, there does not appear to be a
facility for bulk update of sheets (records) according to some selection
criterion. Projection, selection of columns, is also straightforwardly
available from the workbench.
5.11
PinPoint costs ú99 +VAT from Longoman Logotron or ú105 through
Archive.ááA
5.11
5.11
Econet Column
5.11
Neil Berry
5.11
After an absence of over a year, the ÉEconet Columnæ has returned!
5.11
I thought that it might be nice to make a return to the pages of Archive
by giving away a free gift Ö several free gifts in fact Ö in the form of
some new networking software, written by Alan Williams in Australia.
5.11
The first program, available on this monthæs program disc, is !awServer,
a Level IV style fileserver for RISC-OS machines. There are still a
number of deficiencies within the program and it is still in a very
experimental state but very useful none-the-less. It is an Acorn
compatible server as far as possible and mimics the Acorn style of space
accounting, group and user names. It is also password file syntax
compatible with Acorn servers. It is limited by the nature of the RISC-
OS filing systems that it serves. Most of these will be instantiations
(Acornæs word not mine) of filecore and as such will have an upper limit
of directory entries that is lower than a normal fileserver.
5.11
It is a multi-tasking program that looks to the Econet like a fileserver
and maps the RISC-OS filing system world into Econet protocols, allowing
up to ten discs to be seen from the Econet Ö a disc simply being
somewhere pointed to by a RISC-OS directory name. Each exported disc
could be a directory on a hard disc or they could in fact be different
hard discs. Each exported disc can have its own name and can have its
own password file which does not have to be in the exported area (a
useful security point). The password file syntax is compatible with
Level3/Filestore and, as a consequence, users/groups, etc are exactly as
they would be on Level3/Filestore. It should export any RISC-OS filing
system and has mostly been beta tested with ADFS but also Acorn SCSI and
TCP/IP NFS. Some filing systems may not report free space properly but
all other functions should work.
5.11
At its current level of development, !awServer should be regarded as a
useful utility rather than a replacement for an Acorn server. There are
currently only known to be four client requests not supported by the
server. They are *LOAD & *SAVE as command line operations, the CatHeader
and UID function call. The only machines likely to be affected by these
three are Atoms Systems or Archimedes-only nets using the broadcast
loader.
5.11
You will need to do a little work setting up the server before you can
use it. The serveræs operational parameters are set up as system
variables in the !Run file before the server starts. You should edit
that file to suit your own situation. Briefly, the items that can be set
are as follows;
5.11
Set Server$DevX:ClientAreaName Adfs::4.$
5.11
Set Server$DevX_PWF Adfs::4.$. Passwords
5.11
This pair of lines can be repeated up to ten times, from X=0 to X=9. It
defines the locations of the areas you wish to serve and also the name
that area will have when viewed from the net. You should substitute
appropriate names in place of ClientAreaName in the above example. You
can see from this that you can serve any area of the RISC-OS filing
system world. The second line above is where to find the Password file
for the area. It should be noted that it is not necessary for the
password file to reside in the shared area and so it can be hidden from
the clients.
5.11
The following line sets the maximum number of users that can log on to
the server.
5.11
Set Server$Users 10
5.11
It is also possible to get the server to write a trace file of all the
requests made by the clients. The following line would set up a trace.
5.11
Set Server$Trace <Obey$Dir>. TraceFile
5.11
At the bottom of the page is an example of the trace file output (some
have been shortened to fit on this page);
5.11
It should be noted that the trace file gets very big, very quickly and
should only be used in exceptional circumstances. It may be helpful in
reporting bugs.
5.11
Version 0.5 introduced a command line option ÖNOICON. This causes the
server to run under the wimp but not to create an iconbar icon. This
helps to reduce desktop clutter! It can still be killed via the task
manager.
5.11
You could start the server with a line like:
5.11
Run <Server$Dir>.!RunImage ÖNOICON
5.11
Subsequent versions of the program introduced support for broadcast
loading, extended file handles for ARM machines (up to 32 open objects),
*SETFREE, *TIME, *DATE and *DISCS as built-in commands, as well as
wildcards within disc names.
5.11
Applications for which the software has already been used, include
loading an educational package called ÉCraxisæ onto a Master 128 from a
VAX. Essentially, !awServer was running on a 440 serving a filing system
called NFS. NFS was a mount to an NFS server running under VMS on the
VAX via Ethernet. Other people have been experimenting using it to serve
fonts from RAM disc. Basically, your imagination is the limit to what
you can do with this program! There is a problem serving CDFS and it is
suspected that it is actually a problem with the hardware, not the
software. Free space may not return properly for strange filing systems,
some server function calls are not supported yet and programs that lock
the password file may make it very upset! Apart from these teething
troubles, it is a very nice piece of software which is being updated as
you read this. Any major bugs that you find whilst using the program,
apart from the ones mentioned above, should be sent to me so that they
can be corrected. If there are any improvements that you would like to
see, then note those down (be as detailed as possible please) and also
send those to me for possible inclusion in future versions.
5.11
What next?
5.11
Next month, I will bring to you the second of Alan Williamsæ suite of
programs, a spooling printer server! As before, I can be contacted at:
21 Pargeter Street, Stourbridge, West Midlandsá DY8 1AU (no phone calls
please). If you have any comments about this column or would like to
offer some ideas or tell the world about some new simple method of doing
a tedious networking job, then write in and tell me. I canæt promise to
answer all letters individually but I will try to give any subjects
raised an airing on these pages.ááA
5.11
5.11
Server started at Sat,23 June 1990.11:13:19
5.11
Sat,23 June 1990.11:13:24 0.1 Stranger *I am FRED
5.11
0.1 Client Function 21 Read user environment
5.11
0.1 Client Function 14 Read disc names.
5.11
0.1 Client Function 6 Find :Archimedes.$.ArthurLib type 101.
5.11
0.1 Client Function 7 Shut 4.
5.11
0.1 Client Function 18 Read name of dir on
5.11
0.1 Client Function 3 EXAMINE for title and ACCESS.
5.11
0.1 Client Function 3 EXAMINE for title and ACCESS.
5.11
0.1 Client Function 3 EXAMINE for title and ACCESS.
5.11
0.1 Client Function 3 EXAMINE
5.11
0.1 Client *Lib WORK
5.11
Typical trace file output
5.11
5.11
Twilight Ö The Screen Protector
5.11
Jahinder Singh
5.11
Twilight by ÉThe Really Good Software Companyæ is a useful screen
protecting utility. Image burn on monitors can be a serious problem but
it happens so slowly that you hardly notice, until it is too late and
the icon bar is etched onto your screen. Image burn is caused by the
phosphor dots on the inside of the screen getting over-used and worn
out. However, because only one image is being displayed most of the
time, only specific dots get damaged. Twilight installs a module that
keeps track of user input to the machine Ö mouse movement or the
pressing of a key. If nothing happens for a predetermined time, the
screen is blanked out and a changing pattern appears instead. To return
to the machine simply involves moving the mouse or pressing a key and
the normal screen is restored instantly.
5.11
At present there are quite a number of these screen protectors available
for the Archimedes in PD. Twilight however, offers several unique
features. Unlike most other screen protectors, Twilight is multi-
tasking, even when protecting the screen. Tasks such as printing can
continue in the background Ö most useful. There is also a password
feature which can be activated if you have to leave your machine
unattended, just in case you are writing a love-letter or something else
confidential. The software can also be configured to commence as soon as
the machine is switched on or reset, such that access is still pro
hibited. The screen can also Ébe sent to sleepæ by pressing the current
Éhotkeyæ combination or by moving the mouse to a selected corner. There
are quite a number of effects which can be chosen Ö or the software can
be instructed to select effects at random. It is also possible to write
your own special effects.
5.11
Other features
5.11
The time between the absence of user input and the activation of screen
preservation can be changed. It can also be disabled, thus allowing
either the hotkey combination or the movement of the mouse to the
desired corner activating screen preservation. The hotkey combination
can also be changed from its default setting of <ctrl-shift-tab>. There
is also a mini-filer allowing for the quick manipulation of effects.
5.11
The package
5.11
The complete package consists of a well produced A5 manual and a disc.
The software is very easy to use and it wonæt take too long to skim
through the twenty-four page manual. The program will run on the
complete range of Archimedes machines. Before using Twilight, there is a
short installation procedure because of copy-protection. Each copy of
the software is also serialised.
5.11
Conclusions
5.11
Twilight is a useful utility which performs its function very well. Once
installed, the software only requires about 14k (dependent on the
effect), so most people should be able to squeeze it in somewhere.
5.11
There are lots of similar PD packages available. I have tried !DimWit,
!HangFire, !MonitSave, !Saver, !ScrSave, ScPres, ScrBlank and VduSaver.
At the end of the day, a screen protector is a screen protector.
Twilight certainly compares very favourably with all these other
packages while at the same time offering several unique features, most
notably being able to multitask.
5.11
To conclude, this is a useful piece of software priced at ú29.95.ááA
5.11
5.11
Key Author
5.11
Joe Gallagher
5.11
Multimedia is really catching on in the educational world these days.
Even my head teacher, fresh from a consciousness raising session for
heads, took me on one side the other day to say how impressed he was by
these CD-ROM thingumajigs and how we should think about getting one for
the library! Now this is the very same man who starts talking about next
yearæs budget whenever I mention the possibility of buying a few extra
printer ribbons!
5.11
For those of you who actually have CD-ROMs in need of driving, the
choice is expanding rapidly in terms of multimedia packages which can
put some of their features to good use. Key Author, part of the Key
family of information handling programs from Anglia television, is one
of several which have recently arrived on the scene.
5.11
The version which was supplied for review was 1.00 and came in the form
of a single disc accompanied by a ring bound manual.
5.11
The manual is adequate, if rather brief. Given the relatively recent
popularity of multimedia, I think that some sort of of tutorial would
have been in order as well as, at least, one example presentation to
view and dissect. I say this as the result of several hours of building
presentations, very much by a process of trial and error, only to find
that they werenæt running properly because of some feature that was only
hinted at in the manual. This, as it stands, gives the very minimum of
information necessary to get started.
5.11
Genesis comparisons
5.11
Iæve experimented with Genesis and found it to be a very flexible
program. While Key Author does share many features with Genesis, it does
have an altogether different feel to it. For a start, it does not have a
script language. All operations are carried out through menus. It is not
as interactive in use as Genesis, although there is an option, when
creating a page, to execute that page. However, if you wish to try out
page links, you must run the presentation in its entirety using the
supplied run time browser. Moreover, Key Author is much more structured
than Genesis in its approach and seems aimed, very specifically, at
creating stand-alone presentations which have already been planned in
some detail. This results from several features which are at the very
heart of the program.
5.11
Doors and windows
5.11
The first feature concerns ways of exiting from a page. These are chosen
from the menu on each page edit window. As with other authoring systems,
you can configure your presentation to move on to the next page by
setting up öhot-spotsò which you click on, or by assigning keys to do
the job. In Key Author, you can additionally select a Timeout option
which enables your presentation to move automatically to the next page
after a specified period of time has elapsed. In fact, you have to
specify the time assigned to your page or your page will exit instantly.
5.11
The timer
5.11
This time aspect of Key Author pages also applies to the objects that
you place on a page. Objects can be ösavedò to the timer enabling you to
determine at what point in time the object will appear on the page and
also when it will disappear. This attribute can be applied not only to
graphics or text objects but also can be used with other media which Key
Author recognises such as video or audio. When you save something to the
timer, the object disappears from the page window and you have to choose
Timer from the Display menu in order to access it. This brings you to
the timer window where display sequences are represented as bars on a
time scale. These are a bit like the slider controls used in palette
menus. The timer is a very well thought out feature which enables the
author to construct and amend quite elaborate, synchronised sequences of
events involving multiple objects. It could even be stretched to create
some rudimentary animation. My only quibble is the very fact that saving
an object to the timer involves removing it from the page that you are
editing. You can, of course, choose the Execute option to see what your
finished page, with the timed objects, will look like to the user.
However it would be preferable, in terms of ease of page construction,
for your timed objects to remain on screen with perhaps some indication
as to their status. As it stands, in order to edit or even re-position a
timed object, you need to select Edit from the timer window and then
return to your page to carry out your action. Having done this, you must
then re-save the object to the timer!
5.11
Linking pages
5.11
Because of this, it is advisable to plan ahead in some detail when
devising a presentation in Key Author. This is made all the more
necessary by the way in which pages are linked. This program is much
less open ended or forgiving than Genesis. For instance, if you
construct a page that has no exit, your knuckles will be rapped when you
come to execute your presentation. This is necessary because, in its
present form at least, the presentations produced run only in full
screen mode, although they do return to the desktop after execution.
This reminds me of a similar feature of Avanti, reviewed by Ian Lynch in
Archive 4.12, and presumably is likewise intentional on the part of the
designers.
5.11
The two programs share another feature in their use of a flow chart
style planning window. In Key Author, this is not only an aid to
planning your presentation in a structured way but is in fact the only
way of making links between one page and another. After you select the
first page to be executed, you drop this onto the overview window and
öghostsò are created in accordance with the number of exit conditions on
the page. Once you have set up your other pages, with their exit
conditions, laying out your presentation is simply a matter of dragging
page icons from the page window to the appropriate öghostsò in the
overview window.
5.11
Pitfalls
5.11
There is one problem with this way of designing your presentation. If,
at a later stage, you decide to add a new exit to a page, say to branch
off to a new page, then this amended page will be removed from the
overview along with any other pages that are attached to it. Tough luck
if your page is near the beginning of your presentation! You will have
no alternative but to rebuild your structure from that page onwards.
5.11
Media and hardware supported
5.11
Key Author supports most types of media that are found in Genesis
applications with the exception of Euclid and Mogul files. In addition
to Draw, Paint and Edit files, the program can use Key Plus datafiles
and maps. With the appropriate interfaces, it can control devices such
as CD-ROM players and it can use sound that has been sampled through a
microphone or a cassette player. Other potential sources of material are
interactive laservision discs incorporating moving sequences, still
images and sound.
5.11
Apart from navigating your way through a presentation using a mouse or
keypresses, the presentation can also be set up to be used with a
touchscreen. The manual says that other RISC-OS compliant programs can
be launched from within presentations, returning to the presentation
upon exiting, This does seem to work with most well behaved programs but
is very demanding on memory, so if youæve got less than two megabytes of
memory Iæd forget it.
5.11
Organising your page
5.11
There is more than adequate control of page layout. Although you are
restricted to importing plain Edit text files, you can alter the format
of these quite extensively from within the program in terms of font
styles and sizes, etc as well as both vertical and horizontal justifi
cation. Text objects from !Draw can be imported but these are treated as
graphic objects. Although there is no Library facility as such, you can
share common resources within a presentation by creating a master page
and copying this to create new pages. Unwanted objects can be disposed
of by determining their duration via the timer. In addition, by
switching off the default Clearscreen option for a page you can retain
buttons or graphics from a previous page.
5.11
Tools
5.11
The program does come with several built in tools which can be made
available to the end user when running a presentation. These include a
calculator, notepad (for jotting down notes), compass, stopwatch, tape
measure, pencil and a screen dump facility which uses RISC-OS printer
drivers.
5.11
Conclusions
5.11
Used in conjunction with a CD player, Laserdisc or sound sampler, it
should be possible to create some very impressive presentations with Key
Author. Even if you are limited to using Paint, Draw and Edit files, you
should be able to still produce some very effective work for a rela
tively small outlay. The structured nature of the program would lend
itself well to any sort of authoring activity but it would be equally at
home as a medium for simple text and picture presentations by children.
The program seems fairly robust considering the number of the version I
was using. It is difficult to draw valid comparisons with Genesis as I
think that each program approaches multimedia in a slightly different
way. Nevertheless, with prices starting from ú55 for an individual user,
Key Author represents extremely good value, especially if you are an
existing Key Plus user or already have some usable hardware add-ons.
Unfortunately, you canæt distribute your finished masterpiece to anyone
who isnæt covered by the site licence for the program without written
agreement of Anglia Television. This is a pity as it would be a nice way
of schools and teachers sharing resources. Maybe they will relent and
market the run-time reader, !SysAuthor, separately for a small fee. Who
knows? Ö It could spread the word.
5.11
Key Author is produced by Anglia Television and is available from: ITV
Association, 6 Paul Street, London EC2A 4JH. Prices vary with size of
school.ááááááá
5.11
P.S. After seeing these comments, the publishers have agreed that they
will formally announce that the !SysAuthor reader program is to be
public domain. They have also developed a version of Key Author which
includes the ability to handle Replay files. This should be released
soon.ááA
5.11
5.11
Aircraft and Kite Design using Vector
5.11
Tord Eriksson
5.11
There are few areas where Vector is an absolute gain over DrawPlus, but
the aircraft builder will certainly find Vector very useful. Whether you
are building model aircraft, hang gliders, parafoils or man-carrying
home-built aircraft, you should get a great deal of help from Vector, as
long as your designs are less than the maximum paper size, B0 (roughly
1m ╫ 1.4m).
5.11
A wing of many ribs
5.11
Having calculated the wing area, weight, normal speed and other
variables using a pocket calculator or perhaps PipeDream, the next task
will be designing and building the wing. The first thing that many a
budding aircraft designer stumbles on is the manufacture of the ribs on
a tapered or elliptical wing.
5.11
Most wings, be it a gullæs wing or a man-made one have one wing profile
at the innermost point in the wing, usually at the centre of the
aircraft or where the wing disappears into the body, and another one
near the tip, where itæs usually a symmetrical or a so called semi-
symmetrical profile. In between these extremes the profile changes
gradually from the thick inner profile to the thin tip profile.
5.11
The length or chord of the wing-profile usually changes, too, as most
square tipped wings are very inefficient.
5.11
A third complication is the fact that most wings are twisted a bit, to
avoid the risk of the tips stalling before the middle of the wing. If
the tip stalls first, the aircraft will be uncontrollable at low speed.
5.11
These basic considerations are equally valid if you plan to make a
propeller, where the twist is much more marked as the path of a
propeller is a helix through the air.
5.11
Styrofoam wings
5.11
If you make a straight or tapered wing of styrofoam, you only have to
make the innermost rib and the outermost rib of plywood or metal. These
are to be used as templates for the hot wire or the file we use to form
the plastic in between. It is then imperative that they are mounted at
the correct angle on the block of foam so as to ensure that the wing
gets right amount of twist (also called wash-out). If you use this
technique, you have little or no use for Vector, except for enlarging
the wing profile that you might have scanned from a book or plotted from
a table of coordinates.
5.11
Classic wings
5.11
If, instead, you use the classic method of building the ribs of balsa
wood or, in the case of parafoils, ripstop nylon, you will be greatly
helped by Vector and its interpolation function. First of all, you draw
the innermost rib, including a horizontal help line and the chord line,
just to be able to check that the profile has the right angle to the
horizon:
5.11
Then itæs time for the tip rib. If you want dihedral, that is, a V-
formed wing when seen from the front, you simply place the horizontal
line further down. You might use someone elseæs drawings and then just
copy the distance, otherwise you have to calculate it yourself Ö most
easily done by drawing the wing from the front in full scale and
measuring the distance. In this example, I have put in a lot of twist,
much more than is normal to show the effect:
5.11
To make the profiles inbetween you just use the Vector interpolate
function, but there are some things to do first:
5.11
To make the interpolation easier, you need to merge the paths of each
profile and its help lines.
5.11
Secondly, make absolutely certain that the number of points in the paths
are the same in both öprofile templatesò and that the paths rotate the
same way, otherwise the result will be nil or useless.
5.11
Letæs make a wing of ten ribs per side:
5.11
Hey presto, we have all the ribs inbetween! By moving them apart, in the
usual manner, it is very easy to print them in any size you want and use
the printouts as templates. If the wing is to be elliptical, you have to
manually place the ribs so they form an elliptical outline.
5.11
Naturally, you might need some extra ribs between the innermost ribs of
the original straight-tapered wing, but that can easily be made with yet
another interpolation.
5.11
Fuselages made simple
5.11
Fuselages are made the same way, with a round nose that blends into a
square-ish centre to end in a thin tail boom Ö a perfect job for Vector!
First the tail end bulkheads, seven of them in this case.
5.11
The önose jobò is done in the same manner, beginning with the same
bulkhead but ending with the nose tip.
5.11
As with an elliptical wing, you have to manually set the distances
between the different bulkheads to get the rounded nose form, otherwise
the fuselage will have a straight taper both in the rear and the front.
5.11
Jalbert kites and things
5.11
The possible uses of Vector are unlimited, including boat-building,
railroad planning, map-making, graphics and freehand drawing. I have
mainly used it this first month for making kite rib templates, a couple
of yards long, for Jalbert kites (also called parafoils). These are
closely related to modern parachutes but are just made for fun and
normally used tethered.
5.11
Their main advantage, compared to classic kites of cloth and sticks, is
that they can easily be rolled up, put into a pocket or small bag and
forgotten. Try taking a four square metre classic kite on the bus and
you will see the problem. A parafoil is invisible until you unpack it
and, if the line breaks or the kite gets out of control, no-one will be
hurt Ö it simply turns into a bundle of cloth and strings dropping out
of the sky.
5.11
Big Jalbert kites are very powerful so a strong line is needed. A
Jalbert less than a square metre (as the small one in The Penguin Book
of Kites Ö highly recommended) will, in a moderate wind, pull on the
towline with some twenty pounds, so big kites need big guys or a
suitable object to tie the line to (cars, trees or big rocks are
recommended). If the kite has a single towline, you have to use brute
force to get it down, if the wind doesnæt abate. With twin tow lines, or
more, itæs childæs play to get it down. If you use three lines it can
even do aerobatics!
5.11
Saved by Poster
5.11
My latest kite turned out to be bigger than Vector could handle. (ANSI
B0 being the largest format it can handle Ö slightly bigger than A0.)
5.11
I was quite desperate, even planned to cut the templates in half, until
I remembered Poster (also from 4Mation).
5.11
In Poster, you can make up any page size you want, even pages 1000 ╫
1000 inches long are OK. So I made a 2000 ╫ 500 mm page of the original
B0 page I had made in Vector. Now the wing ribs had ample room and I
could use Poster to print the gigantic templates. The biggest needed ten
A4 pages for its printout. These sets I then glued together, cut out and
used as templates. The most elegant templates Iæve made!
5.11
Any week now I will have it finished...
5.11
Conclusion
5.11
With a little imagination and using the excellent printing facilities in
Vector, or Poster, you can make your own Jalbert, Microlight or Union
Jack.
5.11
If the project takes some time, it is probably due to the fact that you,
like me, forgot the golden rule among aeronautical enthusiasts: KISS!
(Keep It Simple, Stupid!) Good luck and remember: The sky is the limit!
5.11
P.S. If there are any other uses for Draw programs that you think the
general public might not know about, please write to me.
5.11
I am personally interested in anything aeronautical that involves
Archimedes computers, especially design programs that help the builder
choose the right engine, wing profile, wing area and weight.
5.11
The only programs I have are some programs in Basic for other computers.
Is there nothing for Archimedes? Those with information, please write to
me c/o Archive or direct to:
5.11
Tord Eriksson, ╓vralidsg. 25:5, S-422 47 Hisings Backa, Sweden. All
letters will be answered but SAEs help a lot! (SAEæs for use in Sweden?
You canæt buy Swedish stamps in UK Ö try sending him an international
reply coupon. Ed.)ááA
5.11
5.11
A typical model aircraft wing profile:  The Eppler E 193, suitable for a
range of aircraft types.
5.11

5.11
5.11
The main rib with its chord line and the horizontal help-line below. The
angle of attack is positive.
5.11

5.11
5.11
The tip rib with a lot of wash-out, making the angleáofáattackánegative.
5.11

5.11
5.11
All the rib templates plotted on top of each other, but easily separated
from each other with any Draw program, includingáDraw itself!
5.11

5.11
5.11
Archivist Database
5.11
Peter Jennings
5.11
Databases have always been one of the core programs for home and office
computers and there has never been a shortage of them on Acorn machines.
At a time when every new database program seems to come in all-singing,
all-dancing style, Oregan Software Developments have produced one in
more traditional form, handling only words and figures. So, are they
hopelessly out of touch with the Archimedes market? Far from it.
Sprites, animations and sound samples are rarely needed for everyday
records and Archivist, while simple to use, offers some unexpectedly
advanced features for the modest price of ú24.95. An unlimited user site
licence, with a set of quick reference sheets for the classroom, is
available for ú50 more.
5.11
Archivist is described as a öprofessional database management systemò
and Oregan say its ease of use has been tested with öextensive trialsò
in schools. Since its issue at the beginning of the year, the program
has been upgraded at least twice with some significant improvements and
the latest version (2.40) has been sent, free of charge, to all users.
5.11
Archivist comes as a single disc, unprotected but with an identifiable
serial number, and with an encouragingly short 17-page manual whose
slimness is a reflection of the programæs simplicity rather than any
lack of features or instructions. Disc and manual are packed in a video-
style case along with a function key strip and a registration form which
will ensure that you receive advice of future updates.
5.11
PD importer program
5.11
The disc contains the main Archivist program and a separate Archivist
Designer which is used to create a new database. Both programs put
scroll shaped sprites on the icon bar, distinguished only by a pen for
Archivist and a scalpel for the Designer. There is also an Importer
program making it possible to use files from other databases. This has
been put into the public domain so that updated versions can be obtained
from PD libraries as well as from Oregan, who supply them free of charge
if a blank, formatted, disc is sent. There is a list of the databases
supported and it will also accept CSV and TAB files from other,
unlisted, programs such as Masterfile. Two public domain fonts, called
Arizona (equivalent to PostScriptæs Revue) and California, are supplied
in Roman and Italic versions and there is a folder of example files.
5.11
Although Archivist does not accept graphics or sound samples it does do
quite a lot with words and figures. It has primary and secondary
sorting, a range of simple or complex searches and allows printing out
as cards or with the data set out in columns. Figures can be manipulated
and calculations made, as in a spreadsheet, by using mathematical
commands and formulae. Dates can be entered automatically in a choice of
nineteen different formats. The program is fully RISC-OS compliant.
5.11
Archivist files are physically scrambled but confidential records can be
kept even safer from prying eyes with an optional password, which is not
stored in the file.
5.11
The manual begins with a couple of pages of introduction, advising that
Acornæs interactive help system (on Applications Disc 1, supplied with
the computer) is used to the full. Then it defines the database
terminology of öfieldò, öcardò, öfileò, öformò and so on. It helpfully
uses the analogy of a book as being the equivalent of a file, with a
page being a card and a line of text a field. Also included are
elementary instructions for using the mouse and for loading and saving.
Finally, there is an explanation of how to use the program.
5.11
Designing a card
5.11
A new file is set up by clicking on the Designer icon, which opens two
windows, one a blank card and the other a toolbox for creating the
fields. This is a delight to use. The field type is set by clicking on a
radio button. The title, maximum length of data (up to 75 characters)
and any default text required are entered in appropriate boxes. Another
click and the field title and box appear on the card you are designing.
They can then be dragged into place and resized with the mouse pointer.
A background grid can be used for positioning, and either titles or data
boxes can be aligned with it. Finally, the size and shape of the card is
set by adjusting the window, as required, before saving the finished
design. This is not saved as a separate format file Ö the information is
all stored with the card.
5.11
One oddity is that data boxes do not appear on the card at their set
maximum size when the field is saved. The data box is always two
characters longer than the maximum size set, up to a length of 13
characters. So, unless the box is changed afterwards, longer entries may
not be seen in their entirety without moving the cursor along. There is
an Info panel in the toolbox, showing the X and Y positions and the
visual length of the field but these settings cannot be made until after
the field has been saved. Although settings can be entered in advance,
they are ignored when the field is created and all the field names and
data boxes appear at the top of the card, piled on each other, until
they are dragged into place.
5.11
When the visual length of the data box is being changed, a bug makes it
necessary to set this number to one character more than required as the
number mysteriously changes to one less than entered when the window is
first closed.
5.11
Fields can be of five different types: Text, accepting any letters and
numbers; Integer, for whole numbers only; Real, which takes whole
numbers or decimals; Formula, which is for making automatic calculations
as in a spreadsheet, and Date, where the card will be automatically date
stamped in a chosen style.
5.11
A card can be reloaded into Designer and changed at any time without
losing any of the data already entered.
5.11
There are some restrictions. Fields cannot be deeper than one line.
Titles are limited to a maximum of 10 characters each and this often
means that abbreviations have to be used. There is no choice of colours,
other than for the temporary grid used during designing, and the cards
appear with black text and white boxes on a light grey background.
5.11
Quick entry
5.11
Data can be typed into each field in the normal way and can be moved or
copied by use of a clipboard. There is also a quick entry facility from
a window which accepts up to sixteen separate lines of text or figures,
entered in advance by typing in or dragging from a text file. Clicking
on a button beside any of the lines inserts it directly into the chosen
field, thus making it delightfully quick and easy to handle repetitive
entries. It is even quicker and easier to set up default entries when
designing the card. They can then be overwritten later where not
applicable.
5.11
If a default formula is entered in this way, the result of a calculation
can appear in a box automatically when the figures are entered in their
own fields.
5.11
There is a nice touch when saving Ö the pen on the Archivist icon
scrawls away on its scroll of parchment!
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Data can be sorted and searched in a variety of ways. There is an öEasy
Searchò which opens a large window in the form of a blank card with
field titles. The data to be sought is entered into the appropriate
field or fields and the search begun. This is quite quick and, once
completed, a list of the cards which match the search specification is
shown. Clicking on any of them will display the chosen card.
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More complex searches can be carried out by entering Basic-type
öexpressionsò and there are examples in the manual showing how operators
such as INSTR, LEFT$, STR$ and VAL can be used, making this a very
powerful facility. The example files help to make the method clear.
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Printing can be in system or outline fonts, using RISC-OS printer
drivers. Cards can be printed exactly as seen on screen or changed to
your own requirements so that, for example, the field boundary boxes
need not be shown if you are printing on prepared forms. The database
file name can be printed at the top of each card, if desired. An even
more useful option is to print the data in columns headed with the field
names. Fields can be printed in a different order, in different column
widths or omitted altogether. Printer information and other variables
can be customised in a ösetupò window either temporarily or saved as a
default.
5.11
Export facilities
5.11
Data can be exported as plain text or in CSV or Draw file format, for
use in other applications such as DTP programs or word processors and
graph or chart-drawing packages. There is a built-in virus warning which
is triggered off if anything has been added to the application direc
tory. I discovered this because when I transfer a program to hard disc,
I usually save the subsidiary programs and files into the main direc
tory, where they can be easily be found. Despite not being able to do
this, I think that any measure against virus infection is very welcome.
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Sound and pictures can be fun to have in a database but they do add to
the cost of the software. So, if you just want a straightforward filing
system, for words and figures, you will find Archivist a versatile,
easy-to-use, database and very good value at just under ú25.ááA
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5.11
Pirate
5.11
Simon Anthony
5.11
This is an adventure offering in the ever growing early learning series
from Chalksoft. The aim of the game, which is educational, is to sail
and swashbuckle your way through simple but time consuming tasks,
collecting items without sinking your ship or being forced to walk the
plank by another pirate. The program comes on two discs but the second
part of ÉPirateæ, on its own disc, will only run after you have
completed the first stage. Once you have earned sufficient experience
points, you can swap discs and go for part two. However, it will only
run if it is loaded by the first part (a restriction which I found
annoying for review purposes). The new scenario is a land-based hunt for
yet more treasure and a captured King. In both parts the user has the
chance to learn a bit of simple map making and map reading Ö that is
unless you get killed first. Chalksoft hope that a surviving Pirate
player will have gained valuable help in Key Stage Two work in Geography
and Mathematics.
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Disc one loads from the Desktop by clicking on a Boot shaped icon or by
pressing <shift-break>. The standard Chalksoft tree logo is displayed
with the first hint of the simplicity of the upgrade from the previous
BBC incarnation. The system font is used throughout but the computer
default has been replaced with an attempt at a script font. This is
rather chunky but perfectly readable even when expanded to four times
size for prominent messages. Here is the first problem Ö when the
program is quit, the old system font is not restored. Only a hard break
will get it back. No matter Ö letæs get on with the program.
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Pirate in use
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The logic of the mouse-operated click boxes takes a bit of getting used
to but, once grasped, it is quite easy for the computer literate to
remember. The method of saving presents a confusion which could have
been avoided. Clicking on the save box, which can be reached by pressing
<escape> at any time, allows the position to be saved Ö which is fine Ö
but I know that you should not to put anything other than letters or
numbers in a file name (just in case). Chalksoft, however, realise that
their students may not, so they have error-trapped the input routine.
This error trap is faulty. I used a Éminusæ sign out of pure devilment
and the save window flashed something at me so fast I couldnæt read it.
My investigations showed Chalksoftæs error message which in effect says
ödonæt do thatò but the flag that bought it up is not cleared after the
first brief showing and so it causes an error itself. This error loop
can only be broken by pressing <escape> once more. My students would be
very irritated to lose a dayæs work that way. They would have given up
and pressed <ctrl-break>.
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The next problem comes after having successfully saved the position. If
you want to continue from where you left off you canæt just intuitively
click on Éplayæ. The programæs internal flag indicating whether this is
a new game or a continuation from a previous attempt is only set by a
Éloadæ Ö a Ésaveæ forces you to start again. This is silly.
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On my review copy, there is another, far more important error in the
program. A missing bracket from the end of line 5780 crashes the whole
thing. This line is run when the player declines the offer to explore
ÉDragon Islandæ. As a programming error, this is very minor but in terms
of a crashed (or should I say sunk) program, it scuppers the entire
offering and takes all its credibility down with the studentsæ hard
work.
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The graphics are quite artistic Ö a very low density airbrush has been
used to give impressionistic rather than photo-realistic or cartoon
images. The paperwork claims that Pirate ötake(s) advantage of the power
of the Archimedesò. Well, yes I suppose it does a bit. The fight scenes
are nicely done and the graphics for falling off things are a treat
worth Édyingæ for. All the same, the Archimedes can do far, far better,
but doesnæt have to and so Chalksoft donæt have to over-play that card.
Flashiness could well detract from the educational content. However,
that does not excuse the sound which is very poor and is definitely the
worst aspect of the program. It is a single channel (nothing wrong with
simplicity) default ÉBeepæ envelope which grates almost as much as the
frequently repeated tune. Surely Chalksoft could have found something
other than öBlow the man downò. I would have liked to hear the Captain
Pugwash theme but even that would get on my nerves if it was played at
almost every screen update. The irritating ditty can be turned down, or
even off, at the start of each part but it cannot be altered during play
without saving and starting again. For the review, I had it turned off
and so may well have missed some other, better prepared sounds (but I
doubt it).
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There are several other strange aspects of the program but the important
things are the good parts. I have spent two days playing it for this
review Ö that has to be a good sign. Granted, I speeded it up by
shortening the delay. I had to hack the program (for which I apologise
to Chalksoft) Ö that facility could be put in the start-up menu. The
display speed is fine for the average early reader but as the lines are
shown one at a time, the meaning of the sentence can be disturbed by the
wait for the end of it on the next line.
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There is a lot of humour in the style and presentation which kept me
playing until I had won through to the end. I canæt normally complete
adventure programs Ö even Grannyæs Garden is too tough for me, (remember
the Beeb?). Pirate has the same flavour. The tunes are as bad but I am
sure it will rank as a ögoodyò in the classroom. The game play is
randomly set which is perhaps a little unfair on a child who is doing
their best not to get killed but then what else is fair in life? Random
chance can be averted through good map making and the magic of computer-
aided resurrection. It is a sensible precaution to guard against spells
of bad fortune, such as walking the plank, by saving your position each
time you take the flag of another ship or find something good to
collect. Acts of God in part two (being killed by a lightening strike or
a rock fall) are just as unpredictable but far more deadly as there is
no save facility.
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This is all mentioned in the notes but they should have been reprinted
for the Archimedes rather than be amended with a compliments slip giving
the Archimedes control instructions. Are things so tight at Chalksoft
that they have to trim their sails? Donæt spoil the ship for a haæpeth
oÉ tar, say I. With a bit more effort in error checking, all will be set
fair for a program to treasure. Pirate is a good buy but it costs ú23.00
so donæt be too quick in helping the kids to solve it.ááA
5.11
5.11
Seven bulkheads in a tail section, all made by interpolating from the
front one to the last one and the five in the nose, to the left.
5.11

5.11
5.11
Wing profiles that fit full-sized aircraft as well as model aircraft are
few indeed. Two classic examples are  Clark Y (black) from the Thirties
and the Eppler 797 (grey), the latter, a modern equivalent. These
reproductions were scanned with Scan-Light Junior 256, the scans
corrected with Snippet (Paint works as well!), converted to Draw format
with !Trace, arranged and coloured with the help of Vector!  The
physical likeness is evident, but the reproductions are not exact, as
hand scanners easily slip....
5.11
5.11
ScanLight Junior 256
5.11
If anyone has bought a ScanLight Junior 256 from us in the last two or
three months, there may be a small modification you can make to your
ScanLight that will improve its scanning quality. Contact N.C.S. if you
are interested.ááA
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5.11