Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/magazine/volume_06/issue_10

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 286KB | 6,088 lines

An exciting future?
6.10
Part of my job as editor of Archive is to get as much information as
possible about Acorn products, past, present and future, and communicate
it to you, the reader. I also have to assess the mood in the industry
and try to give a prophetic edge to my comments. So, how does the future
look?
6.10
There are lots of new processors being developed by ARM Ltd Ö the links
with Apple, 3D0, Sharp and now Texas Instruments can only help to
provide the revenue to keep Acorn in the forefront of development work.
So it doesnæt need much of a prophetic gift to say that Acorn are
working on a new range of machines. The question is, what and when?
6.10
The Éobviousæ time for Acorn to launch a new range of machines would be
at the Acorn World Show in October Ö the first show actually Éownedæ by
Acorn. A nice idea, but my gut feeling is that they will announce things
like the new Élook and feelæ desktop (which no-one is supposed to know
about but which has already been seen in magazines and used in
demonstrations at some of the regional Acorn events). And it wouldnæt
surprise me if they made some sort of moves on the monitor front Ö
making themselves more compatible with the rest of the microcomputer
world.
6.10
Itæs always dangerous to make predictions, but my guess is that we wonæt
see the next batch of new machines until the beginning of 1994. If Iæm
wrong, Iæve no doubt someone will let me know!
6.10
I hope you enjoy another bumper bundle of information in this monthæs
magazine.
6.10
With best wishes,
6.10
Products Available
6.10
Å    1st Paint Ö Keyboard Technology have produced an art package aimed at
Primary Schools. 1st Paint has all the normal art drawing functions you
would expect, including access to a picture library, editable colour
palette and a choice of eight patterns and eight picture stamps. 1st
Paint costs ú35 +VAT from Keyboard Technology.
6.10
Å    A3010 IFEL upgrade Ö IFEL have produced a 4Mb upgrade for the A3010.
This costs ú107 +VAT from IFEL or ú120 through Archive.
6.10
Å    A3010/3020/4000 Technical Reference Manual Ö This is now available and
in stock. It includes a full system description, parts list, network
interface specifications and circuit diagrams for all the computers.
This costs ú29.95 from Acorn or ú33 including carriage through Archive.
(N.B. Despite the price of this compared with the A4 TRM, it actually
contains a much larger amount of information. The contents of the A4 TRM
weighs about 600g whereas the A3010etc TRM weighs over 2╜kg!)
6.10
Å    A4 Technical Reference Manual Ö The TRM for the A4 is now available
and in stock. It includes a full system description, parts list, monitor
adaptor cable specifications, expansion bay details and circuit diagrams
including main pcb and Econet pcb. This costs ú65 from Acorn or ú64
including carriage through Archive.
6.10
Å    A4000S Ö Acorn and Northwest SEMERC have combined to release a system
for special needs based on the A4000. The hardware is extended with a
Cumana EMU expansion unit and a user port, and there is software pre-
installed on the hard drive: Phases #3, My World, Choices, GridIT and
Screenplay plus clipart including pictures and symbols for keyboard
overlays. The education price of the A4000S is ú899 +VAT including an
AKF18 multisync monitor. There is an upgrade pack available for existing
A4000 owners costing ú119.50 +VAT.
6.10
Å    A5000 improvement Ö The 4Mb/120Mb version of the A5000 has been
increased in specification at no extra cost. It now has a 160Mb hard
drive and the price remains at ú1599 +VAT (ú1879 through Archive).
6.10
Å    Amazing Maths Ö This is a competitive educational program from
Cambridge Software House. It is based on mental maths work and provides
practice on number bonding, multiplication, division, addition and
subtraction. It is concept keyboard and touch screen compatible. The
price is ú19.95 +VAT from CSH.
6.10
Å    Archimedes Disc Rescue Ö Anyone who has been örescuedò by LOOKsystemsæ
package will be able to testify to its value but you really need to buy
it before things go wrong Ö think of it as an insurance policy. It was
reviewed by Mike Allum in Archive 6.1 p23 and Gareth Long is working on
a more in-depth review at the moment which we hope will be published
soon. Archimedes Disc Rescue costs ú35 inc VAT through LOOKsystems and
is now available through Archive for ú33.
6.10
Å    Archive Monthly Program Disc Ö This month it contains: material from
Genesis/Magpie Column, two JPEG applications, PipelineZ bits, C multi-
threading demo, ARM cache on-off application, öHow to write for Archiveò
document plus some Artworks material if it arrives in time.
6.10
Å    Archivist Professional Ö This data management system from Oregan
Developmentsæ has been upgraded again, this time as ÉArchivist
Professionalæ. This now offers a card index for text, figures, graphics
and sound. The cards will also accommodate complete text files, limited
only by computer or disc memory and these, like the graphics and sound,
are stored in the file as resources which can be exported into other
applications. Selections of cards with a common theme can be compiled
into subsets. The price is ú44.95, with a site licence available at ú50,
and upgrades from version 4 at ú10 and version 2.4 at ú15.
6.10
Å    Artworks Renderer Ö If anyone is developing an application and wants
to allow it to display and print Artworks files, you can get a copy of
the Artworks rendering software, plus documentation, from Computer
Concepts. (Artworks has currently sold over 5,000 copies plus over 100
site licences!) However, before you publish an application using CCæs
software, you have to obtain a licence from them. There will usually be
no charge for this licence, especially where the application promotes or
supports the use of Artworks but they reserve the right to set a charge
for the licence or to withhold the licence altogether, at their
discretion. For example, I doubt that they would grant a licence to
someone using it to help them write an art package!
6.10
CC are also preparing documentation (currently 250 pages and rising!) on
how to implement further Artworks modules (see David Wildæs comments
last month, p22). This will cost you ú10 +VAT for the necessary source
code plus the manual as an Impression document on disc.
6.10
Å    Auto-loading disc copier Ö We gave information last month about the
new budget (3╜ö only) auto-loading disc copier. The copier costs ú1150
inc VAT and comes with very basic software. The LOOKsystemsæ AutoCopy
software is multitasking, very sophisticated and easy-to-use but it
costs ú350. However, we have worked out a deal whereby you can buy the
two together for ú1350 instead of ú1500, i.e. the software is almost
half price. This is fortunate because we have realised that the single-
tasking software that comes free with the auto-loader only works on the
pre-A5000 computers and doesnæt seem to work properly on RISCáOS 3!
6.10
Å    Canon BJ200 price drop Ö Canon have reduced the price of the BJ200
(some HP prices went up last month!) so that the BJ200 on its own is now
ú340 through Archive and the BJ200 with TurboDriver is available at ú380
through Archive. (The BJ200 is actually cheaper if bought directly from
CC. This is because they buy in such large quantities. However, they
wonæt give any dealer discount on this particular model Ö or the BJ230.
Their price, including the TurboDriver, is ú335 inc VAT & carriage.)
6.10
Å    Canon BJ230 Ö Canon have also just released an A3-sized printer
similar to the BJ200 and not much higher in price. The BJ230 on its own
costs ú390 through Archive and the BJ230 with TurboDriver is available
for ú430 through Archive. (The BJ230 is actually cheaper if bought
directly from CC. Their price, including the TurboDriver, is ú387 inc
VAT & carriage.)
6.10
Å    Canon BJC800 price drop Ö Canonæs A3-sized colour printer is now
available for ú1650 through Archive or ú1700 including the CC
TurboDriver and lead.
6.10
Å    C User Group Ö C programmers may be interested to know that the C User
Group UK is forming a sub-group to concentrate on issues relating to C
users in the Acorn world. Membership of the parent group is ú12 (or ú5
for students) and an extra ú5 for membership of the Acorn sub-group.
Contact Bob Docker, 4 Lexfield House, 75áHighbury New Park, London, N5
2EY.
6.10
Å    Darryl the Dragon is a new problem-solving adventure program for
younger users (key stages 1 & 2). If you enjoyed Grannyæs Garden, you
will love Darryl the Dragon. Darryl has caught a cold and lost his fiery
breath which, being a good dragon, he uses to cook his food, warm his
bed at night and toast marshmallows for his friends. Will you help him
to collect the things he needs to make his breath flame again? The
single-user version is ú19 +VAT (ú21 through Archive) and a primary site
licence costs ú39 +VAT (ú42 through Archive). There is also a set of
Activity Sheets available from 4Mation for ú10 +VAT.
6.10
Å    DBEdit upgrade Ö 4Mation have produced an enhanced version of DBEdit
incorporating many of the suggestions of existing users. The version
remains at ú30 +VAT (ú33 through Archive) and existing users can upgrade
free of charge by sending their master disc back to 4Mation. The new
version contains a ReadMe file with documentation for the extra
features.
6.10
(They donæt ask for an S.A.E. or paddibag but since they are offering a
free upgrade, I think it would be a nice gesture. It would show that we
appreciate their generosity and encourage them to continue that policy!
Ed.)
6.10
Å    !DrawPaint Ö In response to the plea for an easy way of converting a
drawfile into a sprite, the Derbyshire Support Centre for IT (DESCIT)
has told us about !DrawPaint. It is an application that loads onto the
iconbar. It allows you to drag a drawfile onto it and it provides a
spritefile icon for dragging to a filer window or straight into another
application. This utility costs ú10. Send cheques payable to öDerbyshire
County Councilò to Pam Winn at DESCIT.
6.10
Å    Fast PC Emulator Ö A new product has just come on the market to
compete with Acornæs PC Emulator. The Faster PC Emulator is hand-coded
in ARM assembler and claims to offer the following advantages: faster
graphics handling, more accurate sound implementation, support for some
Tandy video modes (useful for games), on-line configuration
modifications allowed. (It sounds almost too good to be true when you
think of the man-hours of work Acorn have put into their Emulator over
the years!) The cost is ú19.95 including p&p. Send your cheque (made
payable to D.J.Lawrence) to: !FasterPC, 33 High Street, Farnborough,
GU14 6ES. N.B. It requires an Acorn ARM computer running RISC OS 2 or 3,
minimum 2Mb RAM and MS DOS or DR DOS.
6.10
(We have a copy for evaluation and it looks as if it should be thought
of as a Ésecond string to your bowæ rather than as a complete
replacement for Acornæs PC Emulator Ö but perhaps I shouldnæt pre-judge
it before the full review. Ed.)
6.10
Å    Fonts galore Ö Monotypeæs quality typefaces, previously available on
other computer systems, are now available for the Archimedes.
LOOKsystems are supplying these fonts for Acorn RISC OS computers and
have just released their first pack of 100 fonts for ú95 (inc VAT, UK
postage paid).
6.10
Adrian Look, explains, öThe PC and Mac platforms have just experienced
Éthe TrueType revolutionæ Ö type foundries can supply typefaces in
TrueType format and thus avoid using Adobe PostScript with its
accompanying royalties. As a result, font prices have fallen
dramatically with TrueType fonts costing less than a tenth of their
PostScript equivalents.
6.10
These changes have made it much more viable to convert fonts into
RISCáOS format. By releasing Monotype fonts, we will transform the range
and quality of typefaces that are available for the Archimedes... and
they will be better value for money!ò
6.10
Fonts include: Goudy Text, Lombardic Capitals, Bembo, Poliphilius,
Blado, Dante, Goudy Old Style, Janson, Baskerville, Garamond, Platin,
Platin Expert, Century Old Style, Century Expanded, News Gothic,
Rockwell, Arial, Gill Sans, Braggadocio, Headline, Matura, Mercurius
Script, Neographic, Onyx, Palace Script, Pepita, Perpetua, Swing, 20th
Century, Zeitgeist Cameo.
6.10
The fonts are supplied in either RISC OS 2 or 3 format including
scaffolding and kerning pairs (RISC OS 3 only). Skeleton lines are not
yet provided but will soon be available as a free upgrade. 100 Monotype
fonts (Pack 1) will cost ú95 from LOOKsystems or ú90 through Archive.
6.10
Å    F.R.E.D. Ö This is a new arcade game from Software42, said to be öthe
ultimate arcade puzzle gameò. F.R.E.D. costs ú20 from Software42.
6.10
Å    Gemini is a matching pairs game from Cambridge Software House. It has
three levels of difficulty and you can put in your own sprites to make
up your own games. It is touch screen compatible and costs ú29.95 +VAT
from CSH.
6.10
Å    HP Deskjet 510 Ö The HP Deskjet 500 has been replaced by the DJ510. It
is basically the same except that it is faster in text mode (which most
Acorn printer drivers donæt use anyway!). Still, it works out cheaper
than the DJ500 Ö partly because we have found a cheaper supplier. The
Archive price is ú360 instead of ú390. You can run it with the Acorn
printer drivers but for extra speed and improved features (on RISCáOS
3.1) use the Ace PROdriver (ú44) or the new TurboDriver mentioned below
(ú53 including cable).
6.10
Å    HP Deskjet 1200C Ö Hewlett Packard have just released an A3 colour
inkjet printer which works out somewhat cheaper than the Canon BJC800,
currently priced at ú1650. The Archive price is ú1390 inclusive. You
would be well advised to run it on RISCáOS 3.1 and buy an Ace PROdriver
(ú44) or the new TurboDriver mentioned below (ú53 including a printer
cable).
6.10
Å    HP ÉPortableæ Deskjet 500 Ö Hewlett Packard have just released a
portable Deskjet printer, presumably to rival the Canon BJ10ex (and the
new 10sx). All I have been able to find out about it so far is the
price. We can sell it without sheet-feeder for ú300 or with a sheet-
feeder for ú350.
6.10
Å    HP Laserjet 4L Ö You can now get a 300 d.p.i. laser printer for ú670
inc VAT and carriage. Hewlett Packard have recently launched the
Laserjet 4L. You can run it with the Acorn printer drivers but for extra
speed and improved features, on RISCáOS 3.1, use the Ace PROdriver (ú44)
or the new TurboDriver mentioned below (ú53 including a printer cable).
6.10
Å    IronMask 2.1 Ö IronMask 2.1 is an upgrade of Turing Tools RISCáOS file
security system, in response to usersæ comments. IronMask 2.0 customers
can upgrade to IronMask 2.1 by returning their master disc to Turing
Tools.
6.10
Å    Jackbox is a jack-box version of Holdfastæs Joypad computer keypad
(see below). It provides switch inputs via ╝ö jack sockets for each for
the cursor and fire buttons equivalent to the Joypad. It has a standard
Atari style digital joystick connector and can be used with the Leading
Edge Joystick Interface (ú38 through Archive). The Jackbox costs ú25
+VAT from Holdfast Computing.
6.10
Å    Joypad is a computer keypad which is öfriendlier and tougher than a
mouseò. It is particularly designed for children and special needs
users. It has a standard Atari style digital joystick connector and can
be used with the Leading Edge Joystick Interface (ú38 through Archive).
The Joypad costs ú21.27 +VAT from Holdfast Computing.
6.10
Å    My First Words Ö This is an öinnovative way of helping children to
readò from Cambridge Software House. It aims to help 4 to 7 year-olds to
make up and print their own sentences. It is content-free (i.e. you can
put in whatever words you want to use) but comes set up with sample
files from the GINN 360 reading scheme as used by many primary schools
in the U.K. The price is ú29.95 +VAT from CSH.
6.10
Å    Multimedia Encyclopedia Ö Hutchinsons have now released the full
RISCáOS version of their encyclopedia CD-ROM. This now includes over
1,500 photographs plus illustrations, maps and textual data and over 250
sound clips. It has over 25,000 articles, thousands of cross-references
and hundreds of tables all classified under six headings: Aspects of
Society, History, The Arts, Places, Life Sciences and Science &
Technology. It is published by Attica Cybernetics Ltd and is priced at
ú149 (+ú5 p&p) +VAT.
6.10
Å    Numero 62 is a multi-language version of N║62 Honeypot Lane from
Resource aimed at primary school work in a whole range of subjects. It
is based round the idea of exploring and discovering the routines and
relationships that exist within a household through a year. At the press
of a key you can switch between English, French, German or Spanish.
Numero 62 is ú35 +VAT from Resource or ú38 through Archive.
6.10
Å    PAL + SVHS encoder Ö Pineapple produce an adaptor that takes the RGB
output from the Archimedes and creates a PAL encoded signal. There is
also a socket so that you can have a normal RGB monitor connected at the
same time. These are ú69 +VAT from Pineapple or ú75 through Archive.
There is also a version that has an SVHS output as well as the PAL
output. This can be very useful if youæve got a TV or video with an SVHS
socket. This version is ú79 +VAT from Pineapple or ú86 through Archive.
6.10
Å    Paradroid 2000 is Coin-Ageæs conversion of the Amiga game of the same
name. It is a droid-based shoot æem up with a certain amount of
strategic thinking needed to enable you to complete each level
successfully. The price is ú25.99 from Coin-Age or ú24 through Archive.
6.10
Å    Pre-formatted 1.6Mb discs Ö For the benefit of floptical owners, we
are offering pre-formatted 1.6Mb discs Ö ú17 for 10. (This is because
Morley flopticals can read and write 1.6Mb discs but not format them.)
6.10
Å    re-Print Ö (This is a product coming in September.) T-J Reproductions
are offering some help for professional and semi-professional designers
using Archimedes and trying to öinterfaceò with commercial printers. T-J
are producing re-Print which is part magazine, part reference manual,
part training guide and part DTP support group. This is being set up as
a result of T-J Reproductionsæ experience of running a DTP bureau for
Archimedes users. The annual cost will be ú68 (zero VAT) from T-J
Reproductions (ú58 if received by 31st July). It may be that you have
something to offer Ö if so, get in touch with them and start the mutual
support going as soon as possible.
6.10
Å    Sand Harvest Ö This is a computer-based role-play simulation for
geography and IT at key stages 3 & 4. In it, you experience the
difficulties of life in the Sahel. The three roles to be played are
nomad, government officer and villager. The cost of Sand Harvest,
including teacheræs and pupilæs guides, is ú68.15 (inclusive) for a
single-user version and ú103.40 for a site licence from CWDE Software.
6.10
Å    ÉSay-itæ language tutors Ö Bits ænæ Bytes are producing a series of
discs for different languages aimed to provide language listening
practice. Each disc has digitised speaking of the words in the given
language and you have to say which of four possible translations is
correct. You can choose whether the foreign word is just spoken or also
appears in written form on screen. We have so far seen !Dis-le (French,
two discs), !Dilo (Spanish) and !Sprich (German) but there are others
including !Gong-che (Chinese!) and all of them are being distributed by
Bits ænæ Bytes on a shareware basis. Write to them for full details.
(Readers in the Netherlands and Germany, may like to know that they also
have an English-Dutch version and an English-German version.)
6.10
Å    Symbol Collection Ö Widgit Software have released a collection of
1,000 drawfile symbols comprising most of the Rebus Glossary which can
be used to provide pre-reading aids for early learners or literacy aids
for adult learners with special educational needs. The Symbol Collection
costs ú25 +VAT from Widgit Software.
6.10
Å    Taxan 789 LR monitor (again!) Ö We have tried out the 14ö Taxan 789LR
(LR just stands for low radiation) at Mike Laneæs suggestion and it does
indeed work very well with the State Machine colour cards. (We havenæt
yet had a chance to try it on the CC Colourcard but weære pretty sure it
will be OK.) In a mode like 1024╫768, it is very clear and very
noticeably better than the Acorn multisync and even the Eizo 9060 looks
a little fuzzy by comparison. The 9060, despite being rather more
expensive) does not go up to such high horizontal frequencies as the 789
and so it cannot manage 256 colour modes at some of the higher
resolutions.
6.10
If you try to push up to 1152╫848 (16 colours) or 1152╫424 (256
colours), the 789 displays it OK but it is obviously beyond the
resolution of the tube and so the quality suffers. If you reckon that
the picture is 260mm wide (measured) and the dot pitch is 0.28mm, that
suggests about 900 dots horizontally so there is a limit to what you can
expect the monitor to do. Certainly, although you can display the
1600╫600, 16-colour mode, it isnæt very enjoyable to use because the
monitor obviously is working beyond its capabilities.
6.10
Still, at ú440 for the monitor + ú280 for a G8 or ColourCard (or ú314
for G16), the Taxan 789LR represents a very cost effective way of
getting a significant improvement to the video output of the Archimedes.
The next step better would be the 15ö Eizo F340iW at ú720 and the
improvement in display quality, though noticeable, is not that
significant for the extra ú280. The main difference is that you get a
wider range of adjustments and that it is micro-processor controlled, so
you donæt have to keep fiddling with the controls Ö this is a very
significant factor if you are someone who changes modes a lot.
6.10
If you want higher resolutions, you really have to go up to 17ö or 20ò.
I am hoping to try out some of the Taxan 17ö and 20ò monitors so that I
can compare them with the Eizos whose prices have gone up so much
recently Ö Taxanæs prices actually went down on 1st June!
6.10
If you want to use the Taxan 789LR without a colour card, A310/3000/410/
420/440 owners will need a VIDC enhancer (ú28), Careware 18 software
(ú5) and a 15/9-pin adaptor (ú12) as the computer is 9-pin and the
monitor has a fixed lead with a 15-pin plug. So the total is
ú440+28+5+12 = ú485. Owners of A5000/3010/3020/4000 wonæt need the VIDC
enhancer or the adaptor but they will need the Careware 18 software,
i.e. ú445 total. The A540 doesnæt need the VIDC enhancer either but it
does need the Careware 18 software and the 15/9-pin adaptor, i.e. ú457
total.
6.10
If you want to use a Taxan 789LR with a colour card, all you need is the
monitor and the card. There is no need for any extra adaptors, etc.
Remember, too, that the colour cards are standard size podules and
therefore will not fit in A3000/3010/3020/4000 although they will work
on the A3000 if you have an external case to put it in.
6.10
(By the way, we still have one or two Acorn multisync monitors for sale
at ú270. The same applies as for the Taxan 789 in terms of VIDC
enhancers and adaptors. In fact, strangely enough, the plastic cases of
these two monitors, all except for the screen surround, are identical Ö
it must have come from the same case manufacturer and been made in the
same mould!)
6.10
Although I have waxed lyrical about the Taxan 789, you need to be aware
that it is only monitors like the Eizo 9060 and the Microvitec 1440 that
will work properly with all games. The reason is that they have a
frequency range that goes down low enough not to need a colour card or a
VIDC enhancer to increase the frequency. Some games use Éillegalæ poking
of the video controller to increase their speed and those that do so
will not work on the colour cards and some of them wonæt work with a
VIDC enhancer either.
6.10
Å    Turbo Driver range grows Ö Computer Concepts have launched two more in
their series of TurboDrivers for improving the quality and speed of
printer drivers for RISCáOS 3. The Hewlett-Packard TurboDriver can be
used with Deskjet, Deskjet Plus, Deskjet 500, the new Deskjet 510 and
the colour printers: Deskjet 500C and 550C (also, presumably, the new
DJ1200C). This also includes a version for Laserjet printers. CC claim
öinitial tests show that the TurboDrivers print and return control
anything between three to ten times faster than either the Acorn drivers
or the Ace PROdriversò (Quite a claim! We are going to have to get
someone to check it out for us! Ed.)
6.10
The second new TurboDriver is for the Epson Stylus 800. This one is
claimed to return control to the user öfive times faster than the Ace
PROdriversò.
6.10
The new TurboDrivers will handle full 24-bit colour separations and
offer öPostScript-like control over half-tone screens, i.e. programmable
screen types and screen angle, screen density, etc. The drivers cost ú49
+VAT from Computer Concepts or ú53 through Archive. (N.B. They require
RISCáOS 3.1 or later and 2Mb RAM minimum.)
6.10
Å    TV Adaptor Ö Acorn sell an adaptor that will take the RGB output from
an Archimedes and produce a UHF signal that you can plug straight into
the aerial input of a TV. The quality of the signal is obviously limited
by converting the signal to UHF but if a TV is all you have then it is
very useful. The TV adaptor is ú59 +VAT from Acorn or ú65 through
Archive.
6.10
Å    Vector upgrade Ö 4Mation have now released Vector version 1.1 which
has a number of extra facilities added at the request of existing users.
The upgrade is ú10 +VAT from 4Mation if you send back your Vector
application disc. Extra features include: graphics level control
(controls the amount of detail shown on screen), auto-save options, more
mask options, text-to-path on multiple objects, rotate/skew/scale/
transform about origin, overlay lines, auto layers and keyboard short-
cuts. The price of the new version remains the same Ö ú85 +VAT or ú92
through Archive.
6.10
Å    Viking Library Ö Widgit Software have produced a resource pack
comprising over 250 symbols, with their accompanying words, to help
children read and write about Vikings. It costs ú12.50 +VAT from Widgit
and is for use with their language, communication and literacy package,
From Pictures to Words, which costs ú35 +VAT from Widgit.
6.10
Å    Virtual Golf is Fourth Dimensionæs new golf game. öNo more power
meters Ö you control the swing by moving the mouse.ò Gordon Keyæs latest
golf game is based on the Wentworth course and has features including:
up to four players, strokeplay, matchplay, six tournaments, animated
course maps, auto-caddy, replays, game-saving, course viewing options,
practice options and driving range. This new game costs ú34.95 from
Fourth Dimension or ú33 through Archive.
6.10
Å    World Development Database Ö This database provides social and
economic statistics on 129 countries in computerised form for use with
either KeyPlus or Grass databases. The pack includes geography and maths
coursework material. It costs ú30 +VAT for the KeyPlus version and ú25
+VAT for the Grass version and is produced by CWDE Software.
6.10
Review software received...
6.10
We have received review copies of the following: 1st Paint (e), An Eye
for Spelling (e), AppFS (u), ArcVenture III Ö The Vikings (e), ArtSchool
(ea), Axis (g), BookStore (e), CardMania (g), Choices (e), Crossword
(g), !Dis-le, !Dilo & !Sprich (e), !DrawPaint (u), E-Numix (e), F.R.E.D.
(g), Frontier 2000 (e), Games Wizard and The Hacker for comparison (g),
Gemini (e), Humanoids & Robotix (g), Insight (e), Killerbugs (g), Mini
Expansion Adaptor (h), My First Words (e), Numerator Workcards (e),
Numero 62 (e), Sand Harvest (e), Screenplay Training Video (g), Sea,
Trade & Empire (e), Serpents (g), Soapbox (e), Splash (ea), SpySnatcher
(g), Squish (u), Switch (g), Tiles (e), TimeTraveller Ö 1500Ö1750 (e),
TimeTraveller Ö Britain since the 30s (e), Virtual Golf (g).
6.10
e=Education, g=Game, u=Utility, a=Art, h=Hardware, m=Music.ááA
6.10
Government Health Warning Ö Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health.
6.10
There are two men lying in hospital beds, both seriously ill, both
expected to die very soon. One is in a private room surrounded by mounds
of fruit and flowers and has a string of relatives and friends visiting
him. He is being cared for by private nurses and attended by a string of
top specialists. The other man is rather less örich and famousò. The
question I have is... Which of the two is better off?
6.10
Itæs a silly question really because when you face death, no amount of
money and öinfluenceò makes any difference. It also serves to remind us
of the ultimate statistic Ö ten out of every ten people will die some
time during the course of their life!
6.10
But what about these two men? Could one be öbetter offò in any way?
Well, just suppose that God didnæt exist and suppose that when we die
thereæs önothing but wormsò. If thatæs the case, we might as well...
öEat,ádrink and enjoy yourself, for tomorrow you may die!ò
6.10
But what if God does exist and what if there is some sort of reckoning?
6.10
I know that some people will accuse me of trying to frighten people into
becoming Christians but if what Jesus said is true, the consequence of
ignoring the ultimate question of öwhat happens when I dieò is VERY
serious. Let me illustrate this from Jesusæ own words...
6.10
Jesus said, öI have come into the world as a light, so that no-one who
believes in me should stay in darkness.ò (John 12 v46). People can
accept that sort of statement Ö it shows what a öniceò person Jesus was.
But read on to verse 48 of the same chapter Ö Jesus also said, öThere is
a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that
very word which I spoke will condemn him on that last day.ò You see itæs
important to listen to everything that Jesus says and not just the
öniceò bits Ö otherwise we get a distorted picture. According to him
there is a reckoning and itæs on the basis of the response we make now
to what Jesus has told us (and shown us by his life) about God.
6.10
Norwich Computer Services 96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD.
0603Ö766592 (Ö764011)
6.10
4th Dimension     P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742Ö700661) (0742Ö781091)
6.10
4Mation     11 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32
8PA. (0271Ö25353) (0271Ö22974) Mike Matson 0825Ö732679
6.10
Abacus Training    29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2
6QA.
6.10
Acorn Direct     13 Dennington Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2RL.
6.10
Acorn Computers Ltd    Fulbourn
Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, CB1 4JN. (0223Ö254254) (0223Ö254262)
6.10
Aleph One Ltd     The Old Courthouse, Bottisham, Cambridge, CB5 9BA.
(0223Ö811679) (0223Ö812713)
6.10
Atomwide Ltd     23 The Greenway, Orpington, Kent, BR5 2AY. (0689Ö838852)
(0689Ö896088)
6.10
Attica Cybernetics Ltd     Unit 2,
Kings Meadow, Ferry Hinksey Road, Oxford, OX2 0DP. (0865Ö791346)
(0865Ö794561)
6.10
Bits æn Bytes     26 Grenville Road, Saint Judes, Plymouth, PL4 9PY.
(0752Ö667599)
6.10
Cambridgeshire Software House    7 Free
Church Passage, St Ives, PE17 4AY. (0480Ö67945) (0480Ö496442)
6.10
Clares Micro Supplies     98
Middlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7DA. (0606Ö48511)
(0606Ö48512)
6.10
Coin-Age Ltd     23 Cooper Street, Nelson, Lancashire BB9 7XW.
6.10
Colton Software (p11)    2 Signet
Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge, CB5 8LA. (0223Ö311881) (0223Ö312010)
6.10
Computer Concepts (p23/24)    Gaddesden
Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, HP2 6EX. (0442Ö63933) (0442Ö231632)
6.10
CWDE Software     1 Catton Street, London WC1A 4AB. (071Ö831Ö3844)
(071Ö831Ö1746)
6.10
Dalriada Data Technology (p27)    145 Albion
Street, Kenilworth, Warkwickshire, CV8 2FY. (0926Ö53901)
6.10
DESCIT     Chatsworth Hall, Chesterfield Road, Matlock, DE4 3FW.
(0629Ö580000, extn 6863) (0629Ö585588)
6.10
Holdfast Computing     Strode
House, Strode Gardens, Alveston, Bristol, BS12 2PL. (0454Ö411126)
6.10
IFEL     36 Upland Drive, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 6BD. (0752Ö847286)
6.10
Keyboard Technology     Unit 3,
Gordon Road, Loughborough, LE11 1JX. (0509Ö610706)
6.10
Leading Edge    376 Meanwood Road, Leeds, LS7 2JH. (0532Ö621111)
(0532Ö374163)
6.10
Longman-Logotron     124 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4
4ZS. (0223Ö425558) (0223Ö425349)
6.10
LOOKsystems     47 Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, Norwich, NR5 9AY.
(0603Ö764114) (0603Ö764011)
6.10
Minerva Systems     Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter, EX1 1TL.
(0392Ö437756) (0392Ö421762)
6.10
New Era Software    204 High Street, Woodville, Swadlincote, Derbyshire,
DE11 7DT. (0283Ö812818)
6.10
Paul Beverley
6.10
Help!!!!
6.10
Å    3D0 Ö Does anyone know of any companies developing software for the
new 3D0 machine? Willing ARM programmers are offering their services.
Contact Matthew Spencer, ARM Software Programming, 58 Milton Road,
Polygon, Southampton, SO1 2HR.
6.10
Å    Dentists admin program Ö Are there any Archimedes-using dentists out
there? Mike Matson of 4Mation has just been out to Iceland and found
that they have an excellent program there for keeping dental records
including Émouth mapsæ (or whatever you call those sheets that show the
shocking state of each decaying tooth!) plus treatment notes and
appointments. If any dentists would be interested in using the program
in this country, drop Mike a line c/o 4Mation or ring him on 0825Ö732679
(except that heæs out of the country until 3rd July).
6.10
Å    Menu Online Help Ö I have been experimenting with the ANSIáC öhelp_ò
commands. Although they work as described for dialogue boxes, I have had
no success with menus. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who can
offer assistance.á Richard Simpson, Farnborough.
6.10
Å    Modems for Archimedes Ö There is a dearth of practical information
about what modems are suitable for use with the Archimedes. If people
could tell us which modems they are using, with what leads and with what
software, that would be most helpful. Ideally, I would like something
with fax facility and to be capable of V32 as there are some bulletin
boards now that only operate on V32. Michael Clark, Christchurch, N.Z.
6.10
Å    Parallel port tape streamers Ö Has anyone written, or know of, any
software that can be used on any of the increasing number of cheap
parallel port tape streamers available for the PC market? Of particular
interest to me is the Trakker 120Mb, currently available for around ú259
+VAT Ö a lot less than SCSI equivalents.á G.A.Smith, Rainham.
6.10
Å    Radius monochrome monitors Ö Has anyone had any experience running
Radius monitors on Archimedes?á Tord Eriksson.
6.10
Å    Reading Mac discs Ö If, as you say in your comparison of Macs, PCs and
Archimedes last month (p16) there is a PC program for ú175 that reads
and writes Mac discs on a PC, is there any chance that it might work on
an Archimedes via the emulator? If so, what is the software and where do
I get it?á Bill Richardson, Elgin.
6.10
Å    Scanner or digitiser? Ö Rather than use a CC Scanlight 256 to scan A5
sheets of print at 7 or 8 point, how feasible is it to use an HCCS
colour digitiser and a Sony Video 8 camera for the same job and how
large are the resulting files?á Francis Aries, Herts.
6.10
Å    Scientific software Ö Chris Johnson would like to thank all those who
responded to his request for scientific orientated software, made in a
previous issue of Archive. He is in the process of putting together a
couple of discs of some of the material which authors wished to be
placed in the public domain. He hopes to reply individually to all those
who responded and return their discs with some example software on, as
time permits.
6.10
He would still like to receive more scientific software to add to the
collection and extend the range. There were, for example, very few WIMP
based applications.
6.10
Å    Watford Graphics Tablet Ö Does anybody know of a fix for using the
Watford Graphics Tablet under RISCáOS 3? Please contact Dave at NCS.ááA
6.10
Ovation Column
6.10
Maurice Edmundson
6.10
Iæm sorry I missed the June issue. I have been enjoying a trip abroad
visiting my family.
6.10
Using Ovation for family trees
6.10
I have had a most interesting letter from Mr. Aneurin Griffiths of
Trefin near Haverford-West regarding his use of Ovation for printing out
family trees. Seeking out oneæs ancestry and constructing family trees
has become a popular activity in recent years, and a number of software
packages have been published to assist with this task. Mr. Griffiths
makes use of one such program, called öFamily Historyò published by
MicroAid. I have not used this myself but since I feel his account will
be of interest to other readers, I will pass on his letter more or less
as he sent it to me. There are one or two interesting and ingenious tips
which he has devised which might have useful applications in other
Ovation documents.
6.10
öFamily Historyò is a program which helps you to organise ancestral
information. Details are entered into the program in terms of families
with data such as date of birth, date of marriage, where married, date
of death, etc. together with notes relating to the individuals concerned
Ö occupations, residence, qualifications and so forth. Finally, there
are facilities for entering the links between the families. The program
can then print out a form of family tree with the earliest generation on
the right and the descendants towards the left. Mr. Griffiths uses this
to construct another pictorial tree in Ovation with a traditional layout
on an A3 sheet in landscape format. He uses an A3000 computer linked to
a Canon BJ130E bubble jet printer.
6.10
Preparing the page
6.10
The first task is to select the landscape A3 page from the New Document
option on the iconbar menu. A border of suitable thickness is chosen
(Object menu) and added to the main frame. Extend the paragraph styles
list to give three new type faces, e.g. öNamesò using Trinity, 10pt
normal text. (Alternatively modify the Base Text to this style, since
this will become the main type face for the document.) öDetailsò, say
8pt Homerton for adding information about the person such as the dates
of birth and death; öSymbolò, 18pt Homerton for providing an = sign of
the correct size. All three are formatted centre with adjustments to
öspace beforeò as described later.
6.10
Scroll the page until the lower left corner is filling the screen. Draw
a small text frame close to the edges of the page and modify it so that
in position and size it has integer dimensions Ö not vital but can be
useful as things develop. In my own experiments, (with a main frame
having 12mm margins) I made the values in the Modify Frame dialogue box
X=15mm; Y=254mm; Width = 40mm; Height=18mm. Now from the Duplicate Frame
option in the Object menu, duplicate it 10 times horizontally, with a
horizontal offset of about 3mm. This creates a stack of overlapping
frames, each of which can be selected in turn and slid to any position
on the page by using <adjust>. They will be used to enter the names and
the details such as dates of birth, etc. Here is an example:
6.10
Now repeat this process for another stack of smaller frames but before
duplication, enter into the first frame an öequalsò sign, adjusting the
font size to create a sign of appropriate height and width for the
document (I decided on 18pt). The frame should be such that the = sign
is exactly the same depth below the top of its frame as is the name in
the ancestor frames. This makes for easy alignment when constructing the
tree and can be achieved by a judicious use of Éspace beforeæ when
defining the fonts in the paragraph styles window.
6.10
Construction of the tree
6.10
The otherwise empty A3 document page now has at its lower left corner, a
bank of empty frames for later use with family names and a similar bank
of smaller frames containing the = symbol. From the View menu select
<Show Rulers> and from the Object menu select <Snap to Guides>. The
construction of the tree can now go ahead, making full use of both
vertical and horizontal guidelines to assist with the layout. Position a
guideline across the page where the family names are to appear, making
allowance for the fact that the name will appear slightly below this
line, as described below.
6.10
Activate the top frame of the stack, type in the name and dates, etc,
then slide it into position using <adjust> so that the top edge snaps to
the guideline with the frame hanging down. Repeat for the = symbol frame
and then again for the next name. Provided the text and symbol were
positioned at the same depth in their frames as recommended earlier, all
the text will be aligned horizontally, but some adjustment may be
necessary to balance the names on either side of the =. This is easily
achieved by either sliding the whole frame or by using <select> on the
right hand edge of the text frame to adjust its length; the type
continually adjusts itself to a central position.
6.10
The link-lines between families, ie. the öbranchesò of the tree, are
drawn using the line tool, again making use of guide lines for
convenience. Remember that holding down <shift> whilst drawing these
will ensure that they are truly horizontal or vertical, as the case may
be, the diagram, although not to scale, illustrates the principles.
6.10
Mr. Griffiths technique makes good use of a number of Ovationæs special
features, and I particularly like the idea of stacking frames in
advance. This could have applications elsewhere, e.g. for constructing a
questionnaire which consists of questions of varying length with an
answer box at the end of each question. With a stack of frames tucked
away in the corner, a box can be slid rapidly into position after each
question is typed on the page. Its length can be adjusted in situ. In
this example, the boxes would be empty but framed.
6.10
I would welcome correspondence from other readers about any hints and
tips they have devised when using Ovation. Write to me at N.C.S.ááA
6.10
William OVATION
6.10
1894 Ö 1936
6.10
=
6.10
Oak Solutions
6.10
From 6.9 page 23
6.10
Colton
6.10
From 6.9 page 24
6.10
Hints and Tips
6.10
Å    Altering Impression frames Ö Here is another one of those hints that
everyone but me probably knew about all the time: If you want to change
the attributes of several different frames, (like making them all
transparent) all you do is click on the first frame, call up Alter frame
(with <ctrl-f10>), make the changes and then click OK with <adjust>
instead of <select>. This keeps the Alter frame dialogue box on screen.
Then click <select> on the next frame to be changed and make the change
in the Alter frame dialogue box which is still there on screen. This
speeds things up no end.á Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany.
6.10
Å    Background printing Ö Various comments in Archive have suggested that
you need the Ace PROdriver in order to get background printing. However,
Keith Sloanæs PD program !Spooler (on Shareware 24) works with a
Panasonic 1124 + Impression II on RISCáOS 3.11 Ö cheaper than using a
PROdriver!á Chris Dawson, Derby.
6.10
Å    Disc storage boxes Ö Looking for new disc storage boxes? Look no
further than your local Supermarket or D.I.Y. Superstore! I have
recently purchased the Moduleá2000 Box and Lid (Ref. noæs. Unitá2 and
Lidá2) manufactured by Addis, the plastic kitchen accessory
manufacturers. The size of the box is 450╫190╫127.5mm and comes in
various colours. The combined cost of the box and lid recently was ú4.78
and it holds approximately 144 discs. (I have arranged them in four
rows, each holding 36 discs). What is more, it is made in Britain, like
the Acorn Archimedes, and better in style and strength. Give me Addis
any time!á Timothy Brown, Kent.
6.10
Å    Floptical drives Ö I offer the following as ÉHintsæ arising out of the
fairly extended process of getting my floptical drives to work (with
much help from Morley), in the hope that they will be useful to other
new owners.
6.10
The drive will not work at all with older ROMs fitted to the SCSI
interface board Ö you need version 1.12 at least. If you already have a
SCSI hard disc (or other SCSI peripheral) there should be no termination
resistors in the floptical drive. They are easily removed but you have
to remove the drive from its case first Ö they are close to the ribbon-
cable connector on the underside of the drive.
6.10
The drive is recognized as two devices. The 21Mb disc counts as a hard
disc and appears as SCSIDrive5 in my case (as I already had a SCSI
drive), while the facility for reading and writing to ADFS discs counts
as a floppy drive. I could not get the floppy device to be recognized at
all using the SCSI_conf program on Morleyæs support disc, but had to do
it manually, using: *configure scsifslink 0 2 (followed by a reset).
This gives a Éfloppyæ icon called SCSIDrive0. (My drive arrived set up
as SCSI device 2 Ö you would need to modify the configure command if it
was set up to be another number.) There is no conflict between the SCSI
and ADFS floppy drives, although they are both called 0, and anyway the
computer will not allow you to call the SCSI floppy drive 1 if there is
no SCSI floppy drive 0.
6.10
The writing under the SCSI drive icons changes from the drive name to
the disc name when a disc is mounted. This is potentially confusing
until you know about it, because the default name of the 21Mb disc is
the number of the drive. I got into even worse confusion because I had
tested the Floptical on its own, so the disc became labelled ödisc4ò.
When I restored the real SCSI hard disc as well as the Floptical, I got
an error message saying there was a conflict of disc names.
6.10
By the way, since the floptical drive will not format discs, does anyone
know of a source of high-density floppies formatted ADFS 1.6Mb? Philip
Draper, Borehamwood.
6.10
In view of this problem with flopticals being unable to format 1.6Mb
discs, we are offering pre-formatted discs at ú17 for 10. Ed.
6.10
Å    Pocket Book battery connections Ö The middle battery connector on the
Pocket Book/Psion 3 does not allow the use of AA batteries with indented
positive and/or negative terminals (e.g. Ever Readyæs rechargeable
cells.)á Paul Bisonnette, Otterfing, Germany.
6.10
Å    SigmaSheet does not return to the desktop neatly. If programs such as
Ovation are running, their Alt-key combinations will be lost when
SigmaSheet returns. To solve this, amend the SIGSHEET program as
follows. Look at the end and find DEFPROCexit and change it to read:
6.10
DEFPROCexit
6.10
*FX 4
6.10
ON:*FX 225,1
6.10
*RMReInit InternationalKeyboard
6.10
IF INKEYÖ2 : END : ELSE *Quit
6.10
John Waddell, Renfrewshire.ááA
6.10
Small Ads
6.10
(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 Ésmallæ
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)
6.10
Unfortunately, last month I re-printed the previous monthæs small ads by
mistake. Sorry about that! So this month is rather longer than usual...
6.10
Å    40Mb ST506 Hard Disc (Watford) and card (for A300/400) ú120, Watford
Hand Scanner ú60, Watford SVGA Enhancer ú30, 4 slot backplane ú10,
Voltmace joystick ú6, Midnight Tracer ú20, ArcScan with Library disc 1
ú13, DeskEdit (v1) ú12. Phone 0453Ö832897.
6.10
Å     A3000 Learning Curve 2Mb, colour monitor, ú450 o.n.o. Phone
0634Ö721447.
6.10
Å    A3000 2Mb, manuals, software ú350. PipeDream3, Fish, Pawn, TwinWorld,
Artisan, Holed Out, ú10 each. Repton3, Casino, Maddingly Hall, Talisman,
Prof Mariarti, Plague Planet, No Excuses, Topologika adventures,
Jinxter, Microdrive, Superior Golf, ú5 each. Z88 + mains adaptor ú75.
Phone 0227Ö374172.
6.10
Å    A3000 (4Mb), twin 3╜ö drives, monitor and stand, Voltmace joystick,
ú650. RISCáOS 2 PRM, ú20. A3000 Technical Reference manual ú15.
Interdictor, Real McCoy, Real McCoy 2, Powerband, Nevryon, ú8 each.
Phone 0256Ö27355.
6.10
Å    A3000 upgraded with RISCáOS 3 and ARM3. Colour monitor, external SCSI
Hard drives 20Mb Seagate and 50Mb Quantum. Multitude of original
software including Impression II, Pipedream 3, Poster, Jigsaw,
Compression, Cyber Chess, etc + 100 discs, many full of software. All
for ú950. Contact John Crabtree on 0803Ö832505 (state personal) anytime.
6.10
Å    A310, 4Mb RAM and software, ú300. 40Mb hard disc drive + controller
ú140. ARM3 upgrade ú80. Acorn multisync ú180. Phone 0744Ö58404.
6.10
Å    A310, RISCáOS 3.1, Acorn colour monitor, ARM3, 4MB RAM, 48MB SCSI HD +
card, ú600, CC ROM/RAM Podule ú20, 4 podule backplane ú20, First Word
Plus ú30, Acorn DTP ú20, DR-DOS 5.0 ú20 Phone Russell on 031Ö666Ö1565.
6.10
Å    A4 model II (4Mb RAM, 60Mb hard disc), 6 months old, as new, ú1780. PC
Emulator v1.82) ú50. Euclid 3D modelling ú30. Superior Golf, Trivial
Pursuit, Interdictor (unopened), ú8 each. Phone Basingstoke 0256Ö467574.
6.10
Å    A4 Notebook 4Mb/60Mb for sale, due to change in school policy. Very
good condition, ú1299 o.n.o. Further details from Pip Cartwright, IT
coordinator, 0603Ö860505.
6.10
Å    A410/1, 4Mb RAM, 40Mb IDE, RISCáOS 3.10, Acorn Multisync monitor,
manuals, Learning Curve and other software, ú950 o.n.o. Phone
071Ö703Ö5675.
6.10
Å    A440/1, RISCáOS 3.11, Acorn colour monitor, 4Mb RAM, 40Mb IDE HD +
interface, ú800. Phone Russell on 031Ö666Ö1565.
6.10
Å    A5000 4Mb/40Mb, RISCáOS 3.10, 18 months old, excellent condition,
boxed, manuals, etc. ú975. Acorn PocketBook, 2 months old, ú145 o.n.o.
RISCáOS 3.10 upgrade with manuals, ú25. Phone 0782Ö771914 or 412515 Ext
4034.
6.10
Å    Acorn Desktop Publisher ú40. Beebug Star/Epson colour printer driver,
ú8. GammaPlot ú20, System Delta+, ú30. DR-DOS 5.0, ú20. Nevryon ú8,
Powerband ú8. Computer Concepts ROMs InterChart ú10, InterSheet ú15,
SpellMaster ú20. All originals. Phone 0737Ö832159 (evenings).
6.10
Å    Acorn DTP, ú25; First Word Plus 2, inc disc of Epson LQ drivers, ú25
(or ú40 for both). Phone 0457Ö863351.
6.10
Å    Acorn Floating Point Co-processor, ú250 o.n.o. Chartwell ú15. Phone
0925Ö811420.
6.10
Å    BJ200 printer with CC Turbo Driver. New in March, hardly used, cost
ú351, will sell for ú251, buyer collects from Cambridge. Phone
0223Ö351308.
6.10
Å    Compression ú15. TWO (ICS) ú5. DeskEdit2 ú15. Rhapsody2 ú20. Forms
Designers ú5. (All originals with handbooks). A3000 1-2 Mb expansion
board (Atomwide) ú20. Phone Ernie on 0493Ö740557 eves.
6.10
Å    EMR MicroStudio v1.0 and Music Disc set (cost ú79). EMR StoryBook and
Story Book Set 1, ú40 (cost ú70). Both are brand new and unregistered.
Phone 0302Ö722781 after 6.
6.10
Å    Panasonic KXP1124 24pin dot matrix printer v.g.c. Friction, tractor
and sheet feed with original box and manuals, ú120 o.n.o. Multistore II,
ú180 o.n.o. Phone 0778Ö394Ö235.
6.10
Å    PC Emulator, latest version, unregistered, unused. Bargain ú60 +p&p.
RISCáOS 2 PRM, ú30+p&p. Phone 0952Ö613619.
6.10
Å    PC Emulator v1.7 ú25, Drop Ship ú9, Holed Out ú9, Arcticulate ú9,
Break 147 and Superpool ú15. Phone Ben on 0392Ö367009.
6.10
Å     Psion Organiser II Model XP, 32Kb Datapak, 32Kb RAMpak, 16Kb
Datapak, Mains unit, manual ú85. Phone 091Ö536Ö2066.
6.10
Å    R140 workstation, including Unix 4.3BSD, X11, X.desktop, Fortran/C,
RISCiX manuals, Programmers Reference Manuals vols I and II, 4Mb RAM,
47Mb hard disc, Ethernet card, Taxan 770+ monitor, ú1500 o.n.o. Phone
0895Ö230826.
6.10
Å    Reconditioned A300s, each with backplane, fan and new mouse. 1Mb with
RISCáOS 2 ú275. 4Mb with RISCáOS 3.1 ú475. Hard drive with interface
from ú150. Phone 0736Ö63918.
6.10
Å    RISCáOS 3.1 upgrade (ALA31), complete and unused with all manuals ú30.
Also unused, First Word Plus 2, ú20. Phone 0561Ö362452, evenings
(Scotland).
6.10
Å    Series 3/HC/Pocket Book items: 128Kb RAM disc with new battery ú55,
Series 3 Link ú50, Spell Checker & Thesaurus ú40. Phone Mark on
0905Ö754277 after 6.
6.10
Å    Swap my Z88 for working Acorn hardware, e.g. HiVision Digitiser
(standard podule) or hard disc; both with cash adjustment. Z88 has 128K
RAM and 32K EPROM, case, Parallel/Serial cables, PC/Acorn link, eraser,
mains adaptor, manuals and magazines. Or sell outfit for ú140, buyer
collects or plus postage. Phone Chris on 0424Ö211400 (Sussex) after 6pm.
6.10
Å    System Delta+ v2 ú5. Datachat 1223 Modem and lead ú35. Phone
0223Ö629868.
6.10
Å    Taxan 795 14ö Trinitron Multisync, ex cond, ú300. Phone 0276Ö38905.
6.10
Å    Two 105Mb SCSI 3╜ö half height fast drives, 12ms with 64Kb cache.
Beebug DFS buffer. Interword, Intersheet, Spellmaster, Pacmania, Zarch,
Enter The Realm, Accodata serial buffer. Phone Coventry 0203Ö410047.
6.10
Å    Wanted Ö A5000 + multi-sync (ú1200), Aleph One PC card (ú300). Cash
waiting. Contact M Spencer, 58 Milton Road, Polygon, Southampton, SO1
2HR.
6.10
Å    Wanted Ö Acorn A4 Portable with hard disc and 4Mb RAM. Phone Bristol
0272Ö736237.
6.10
Å    Wanted Ö Artisan 2, preferably upgraded for RISC OS 3.1, but not
essential. FWPlus printer driver for HP Deskjet 500C that makes use of
elite, condensed and expanded text, possibly colour. A PRES or Oak
monitor stand and expansion box for A3000, for floppies and hard drives.
Write to: Peter Young, 20 Racecourse Lane, Northallerton. North
Yorkshire. DL7 8RD.
6.10
Å    Watford Hand Scanner in good working order ú75. Phone 0392Ö79727.
6.10
Å    Watford Hand Scanner (mkII) for A400/A5000 ú99. Voyager (=Magic) modem
for Archimedes or BBC ú19. Black dial telephone ú10. Phone Francis on
0582Ö833937.
6.10
Å    Z88, 128Kb RAM, parallel printer cable, topper, mains adaptor,
carrying case, PC Link II with Archimedes cable, two books Ö öZ88
Computingò and öUsing your Z88ò + full set of Z88 Eprom magazines in
binders. ú175 the lot. Phone Alan on 0227Ö622153.
6.10
Å    Z88 Laptop +128Kb RAM, mains power supply, case, manual + two books,
copies of user club magazines, printer cables and BBC cable and software
link. Phone Southampton 0703Ö433223.
6.10
Charity Sales Ö The following items are available for sale in aid of
charity. PLEASE do not just send money Ö ring us on 0603Ö766592 to check
if the items are still available. Thank you.
6.10
10 out of 10 Maths ú5, Apocalypse ú5, Arcade Soccer ú2, Colony Rescue
ú2, Drop Ship ú2, Genesis (from Learning Curve) ú5, Grannyæs Garden ú10,
Ibix the Viking ú2. , Interdictor 1.0 ú3, Karma Flight Trainer ú2,
Kitchen Plan ú2, Micro English ú2, Money Matters ú2, PC Emulator (1.34)
+ DR-DOS 3.41 ú20, RISCáOS 2 PRM ú25, Tactic ú2, Terramex ú2, The Wimp
Game ú5, Twin World ú4, White Magic ú2.
6.10
(If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes computers you
could donate for charity, please send it to the Archive office. If you
have larger items where post would be expensive, just send us details of
the item(s) and how the purchaser can get hold of them.)ááA
6.10
Comment Column
6.10
Å    Basic program compressing Ö I read the article on Basic crunching this
month in Archive and it got me thinking about a subject which makes me
very disappointed. A large number of people think that the speed gain by
crunching comes from the shortened variable names, therefore when they
write programs, they use short, non-descriptive variable names in their
coding, thus making it hard to read, debug and so forth. While doing
some experimenting a few months ago, I discovered that there is no
reason to use short non-descriptive variable names with Basic V. The
program looked like this:
6.10
PRINT öThe program starts now...ò
6.10
time%=TIME
6.10
FOR i_am_here_to_test_this%=1 TO 1000000
6.10
The_Rain_in_Spain_On_The_Moors1%=2
6.10
The_Rain_in_Spain_On_The_Moors2%=4
6.10
The_Rain_in_Spain_On_The_Moors3%=0
6.10
The_Rain_in_Spain_On_The_Moors3%= The_Rain_in_Spain_On_The_Moors1%
+The_Rain_in_Spain_On_The_Moors2%
6.10
NEXT
6.10
PRINT (TIME-time%)/100;ö seconds.ò
6.10
The output of this program is 39.95 seconds with a cache on a A440.
6.10
Program 2 looked like this:
6.10
PRINT öThe program starts now...ò
6.10
time%=TIME
6.10
FOR i%=1 TO 1000000
6.10
a%=2
6.10
b%=4
6.10
c%=0
6.10
c%=b% + a%
6.10
NEXT
6.10
PRINT (TIME-time%)/100;ö seconds.ò
6.10
Again the output of this program is the same, 39.95 seconds.
6.10
When the program was crunched, the third example is thus:
6.10
PRINTöThe program starts now...ò
6.10
a%=TIME:FORe%=1TO&F4240:b%=2:c%=4: d%=0:d%=b%+c%:NEXT
6.10
PRINT(TIME-a%)/100;ö seconds.ò
6.10
The output of this is now 31.72 seconds, shaving 8 seconds off the time.
The speed increase comes from the placement of the colon and the lack of
spaces in the coding. It seems that this is caused by the fact the
entire line is interpreted once.
6.10
For the fun of it, I compiled the program in example number 1 using Risc
Basic and execution of the program only took 2.85 seconds. If one can
afford the 20Kb overhead, I think this is the best way to get a speedy
program.
6.10
The only exception to the replacement of the long descriptive variable
names is in the use of SYS calls. The speed gains are mind-boggling.
Consider this example:
6.10
PRINT öThe program starts now...ò
6.10
time%=TIME
6.10
FOR i%=1 TO 100000
6.10
SYS öOS_ReadMonotonicTimeò TO centiseconds%
6.10
NEXT
6.10
PRINT (TIME-time%)/100;ö seconds.ò
6.10
The execution of this program took 35.01s.
6.10
By simply replacing the öOS_ReadMonotonictimeò with &42, which is the
numeric value of ReadMonotonic time, execution drops to a staggering
3.92 seconds. The problem is that the program is unuseable if it needs
to be re-read. However, by simply adding a REM to the new coding:
6.10
PRINT öThe program starts now...ò
6.10
time%=TIME
6.10
FOR i%=1 TO 100000
6.10
SYS &42 TO centiseconds%:REM Mono-tonic Time
6.10
NEXT
6.10
PRINT (TIME-time%)/100;ö seconds.ò
6.10
The program again becomes readable and this program takes only 4.43
seconds to complete giving an increase of 8 times better performance
than the original.á Mike Smith, Plymouth.
6.10
Å    DTP service Ö T-J Reproductions offer an excellent professional
printing service to Archimedes users. They can supply an information
pack on request which contains details for people wishing to use DTP to
present their work.á Brian Webber, Hendon.
6.10
Å    Eizo T560i monitor + CC colour card Ö I ordered a ColourCard directly
from CC after I had seen one in operation at a local Acorn exhibition at
the end of last year. It finally arrived on 18th December. I installed
it on my A540 (driving an Eizo T560i) without difficulty. I soon
established that the most useful modes to me were 114, 122 and 117 for
general purpose work (1024╫768, 1152╫848 and 1600╫600). All are 16
colour and the values are for graphic resolution only. A special module
from CC was used (vers 1.08 for the Eizo560).
6.10
All went well until about the end of December when I found that mode 114
was losing lock at the beginning of the frame, affecting about the top
20%, this being pulled about 2 to 3 cm to the right, decreasing as the
frame progressed until it was again correct.
6.10
This only happened when the monitor had been running for half an hour or
more. A further hour caused mode 122 to be similarly affected. When it
occurred, the onset was sudden and complete.
6.10
The effect could be reversed when cold air was blown through the monitor
casing. Careful investigation with RS Componentsæ freezer narrowed the
problem down to C28 and IC21. (C28 is the timing capacitor for one part
of a dual monostable IC21, type 74LS221.) The Eizo monitor worked
perfectly when the colour card was removed and seemed to be within
specification according to my measurements.
6.10
I contacted Tom Bonham of Technical Support at Eizo Corporation. He was
very helpful but firm. He would not let me buy, or release to me, a
circuit diagram of the monitor. Nor would he discuss the function of
these and nearby components.
6.10
All service work must be undertaken through them at a charge of ú50
(probably a minimum) if outside guarantee and outside specification. As
I considered that the monitor was within specification, I declined. He
suggested the problem was caused by the colour card failing to produce
line synchronisation pulses during the flyback period.
6.10
I next contacted Mr Nigel Star of Wild Vision (CCæs partners in this
project). He agreed with Mr Bonhamæs diagnosis but could not offer any
simple solution. He has offered to write a new module for me which would
give the monitor more time to synchronise at the start of each frame.
Unfortunately, I would then lose the top 20% of each frame.
6.10
This problem is probably common to both Wild Vision and State Machine as
I understand they both use the same video output device. (I use a G8Plus
on a T560iT and it does have the same problem but only in mode 12. Ed.)
6.10
Desperation time. The colour card offers facilities that are too good
not to use, so I started to trace the circuitry and calculated (and
measured) the monostable timings.
6.10
Solution. I placed a 220pF capacitor in parallel with C28, and all
problems disappeared! It seems that, as the temperature rose, the value
of C28 decreased or the internal leakage current of IC21 increased.
6.10
Very Important Warning. The printed circuit board in the T560i uses
surface mount components, so specialised equipment is needed to safely
undertake any work on it. This is NOT work for the enthusiastic amateur.
It may, however, point the way to a solution to anyone else who has
encountered a similar problem with this monitor and colour card.
6.10
I do feel that Eizo Corporation is misguided in its policy of not
releasing circuit information to a bona-fide customer and engineer.á
David Coppen (just for the record... BSc, CEng, MIEE).
6.10
Å    Nasty phone calls! Ö How would you like it if someone kept ringing
your phone number and asking if you were Norwich Computer Services?
Well, the gentleman who has the Norwich phone number 766659 certainly
doesnæt. Apparently, if you ring 7666592, instead of 766592, it ignores
the last digit. I sent him a couple of free Archive mugs as a sweetener
but I donæt think he was too impressed! So, if subscribers could be
extra careful when dialling 766592, Iæm sure he would be most grateful.
Thanks. Ed.
6.10
Å    Products Available?! Ö Do you remember the illustration I gave last
month (p52) to show why we at Archive try to insist on Products
Available actually being products available? I mentioned a product which
was said to be available Éat the end of Marchæ Ö then, in mid April, it
was to be ready Éin about three weeksæ Ö in mid-May, it was said to be
ready Éin about two weeksæ. As I write (mid-June) it is Égoing into
production nowæ and will be ready Éin about three or four weeksæ! The
same company has another product which was going to be available Éin
mid-Aprilæ which, in mid-June, is also Éabout three or four weeksæ away.
Exactly the same prognosis applies to another product of which they
said, in mid May, Éwe have launched...æ.
6.10
Iæm sorry if you think that I am labouring the point but it does make
life difficult for those magazines which try to give accurate
information about Products Available.
6.10
Å    Whatæs in a name? Ö Well, quite a lot if itæs your name and some
stupid editor gets it wrong in his magazine! With apologies to Mike
McMillan of Reading, the two contributions he sent in last month on
pages 19 about moving files and 52 about ink cartridge refilling got
attributed to Mike McNamara and Graeme Wallace. Sorry about that Ö we do
try to give credit where it is due. Ed.
6.10
Å    Which machine is King? Ö Every now and then computer magazines are
wont to print articles bashing the opposition Ö well, it would be a
little odd if they praised the opposition too highly!
6.10
At work, I regularly use a variety of machines including Unix work-
stations, PCs, Archimedes and Apple Macs. The reason I use all these is
that we choose the best system for each job. And what is the most
significant factor in this? We reckon itæs software, peripherals and
inter-connectivity Ö in that order. Also, we have to consider what
everybody else uses for a certain task. If we go our own way too much,
we could have skills and data transfer problems.
6.10
I would like to see the debate move on from Émy widget is better than
yoursæ. How about, my platform has a better choice of budget/mid-range/
quality image origination tools? (Some contributions do say this sort of
thing Ö they just seem to get swallowed up by the bits and bobs
variety.)
6.10
For instance, did you know that Archimedes and PCs can very easily be
linked into, and share data files with, a Unix network, but that it is
both traumatic and expensive to do so with Macs?
6.10
Macæs running Photoshop and Quark Express are the de facto standard in
reproæ houses. How does the Archimedes square up to this? How many
Archimedes systems (or PCs) can cope with 50Mb (yes, 50!) image files Ö
thatæs the size of a 24 bit A3 image at 300 dpi. (Does anyone really use
files that big? Ed.)
6.10
How much software specifically designed for primary schools is available
on anything other than the Archimedes?
6.10
How many non-PC machines have databases packages of the standard of
Dbase IV, FoxPro and Paradox?
6.10
If you need raw power, how does the opposition square up to Unix
workstations in price/performance?
6.10
Of course, the next step on from here is to talk about how easy it is
for a software or hardware developer to produce or port products of each
category to a particular platform, and then to sell them when he has
finished.
6.10
What we want to see is each platform making serious commercial efforts
to encourage and enable software and peripherals appropriate to various
application areas and, by offering the inter-connectivity, to enable
users to pick and choose horses for courses more easily.
6.10
If we argue only about bits and bobs then, lawyers permitting, all
computers will end up looking the same and that would be boring.á Tim
Hubbard, Oxford.
6.10
Thanks, Tim, thatæs a really helpful starter for a constructive
discussion. If anyone has anything to say on this matter, drop me a line
Ö with the text on disc, too, if you want it considered for publication.
Thanks, Ed.
6.10
Å    WindowEd Ö Further to the review of WindowEd (6.8 p71), I have been
using this program for some time and agree with most of what your
reviewer said. However, I must point out that the Interface module which
WindowEd uses is now obsolete since its functionality has been included
in RISCáOSá3.1 in a considerably easier-to-use form. Armen Software must
dispense with Interface and provide a graphical method of selecting 3D
icon styles if their software is not to have a serious gap.á Richard
Simpson, Farnborough.ááA
6.10
JPEG Column
6.10
Stuart Bell
6.10
There was a massive response to my article, öFirst Steps in JPEGò
(Archive 6.9 p45), so hereæs the first of what may become a regular
feature.
6.10
Trevor Attewell faxed the Archive office to point out that Irlam
Instrumentsæ AlterImage package also offers a JPEG facility. He comments
that itæs simply a matter of dragging file sprites around the desktop.
Three quality settings are available, Élowæ giving files about 10% the
size of the original. Trevor is also impressed with the quality of such
small files.
6.10
Better with 24-bit
6.10
Mike Williams made a number of useful comments: First, JPEG really
shines with 24-bit colour images; he finds that, for 256 colour images,
JPEG isnæt much better than GIF compression, and the latter is much
faster. Also, for cartoon-type sprites (i.e. large areas of single
colour), JPEG doesnæt do very well, and the restored images can show
colour fringing along the edges of single-colour areas. To illustrate
his comments, he quotes the following figures:
6.10
24-bit TARGA file:    960Kb
6.10
SPARK compressed:    386Kb
6.10
JPEG (24-bit) file:    41Kb
6.10
whereas for an Acorn (8-bit) file:
6.10
Mode 21 sprite:    320Kb
6.10
SPARK compressed:    111Kb
6.10
GIF file:    109Kb
6.10
JPEG (8-bit) file:    77Kb
6.10
Hints & Tips
6.10
Cain Hunt wrote in with two discs full of demo files, having had Égreat
funæ compressing files since my last article. He offers the following
tips: Firstly, using !Creator to produce GIF files rather than PBM files
saves an awful lot of disc space, and cjpeg will happily read them.
6.10
Secondly, he shares my findings about the lack of image degradation with
medium quality sprites. He uses the HiVision digitiser and continues the
Éfamily snapshotæ emphasis of my review of the original !Vision (Archive
5.12 p.43) with pictures of a toddler Éplayingæ the piano, with a öQò
setting of 25. Relative file sizes are 357Kb (195Kb with Compression)
and 21Kb. The A5 laser prints are indistinguishable (but see Tom Kirby-
Greenæs comments below).
6.10
Thirdly, Cain comments that, öSince JPEG files are so compact, it is
slightly unfair to compare their quality with files 4 to 10 times as
big. As an exercise, I tried reducing the image in size using the
scaling function in !ChangeFSI so that the CFS file of the image is
about the same size as the JPEG files. This produced files 11% and 31%
of the original image area. Comparing the re-expanded versions of these
files with equivalent sized JPEG files, the JPEG images win hands down!ò
6.10
And finally from Cain, a warning: öThe kind of image also makes a
difference. On disc 2 there are JPEG and original images of The Great
Shepherd and a raytraced image (produced with QRT). The scanned photo
does very well (the JPEG documentation suggests that real life images
compress well) but the Raytraced image is awful Ö even Jpeg75 which is
the same size as the original file under CFS.ò
6.10
Image quality
6.10
We are always going to have problems illustrating image quality on the
printed page, but weæll try! Below is first a small section of the
original ray-traced image, at about four times Énormalæ size, and then
the same section (above) which has first been JPEGed with öQò at 75
(normally a value high enough for superb quality), and then de-JPEGed
again.
6.10
Cain kindly sent his letter on disc, as well as on paper (as did Mike
Williams). Thank you, gentlemen ù perhaps others might take the hint!
And, since Iæm a sucker for the family album, hereæs öPlayItSamò ù
simply to show how useful JPEG can be ù for the 21Kb and 367Kb files are
indistinguishable on an A5 laser print.
6.10
Desktop JPEGging
6.10
C. de Gelder wrote from the Netherlands to point out that there is no
need to use !Creator to generate the P6 format file. The !ChangeFSI
documentation shows how to do it from the command line, and it can even
be done from the desktop, öeven if itæs a little tricky.ò The process
involves modifying the Template file in !ChangeFSI using FormEd.
Apparently, an error message is given when !ChangeFSI is run from the
desktop, but it still works. The JPEG file is then produced from the P6
format file. Iæm glad to hear that the process can be accomplished
without recourse to !Creator, but there are even better solutions to my
problem ù read on!
6.10
öNever mind the quality...ò
6.10
Tom Kirby-Green wants to raise the question of how we measure the loss
of quality inherent in the JPEGing process. He suggests that 300dpi
laser printers do a bad job of reproducing 256 grey scale images, and
continues... öItæs my guess that if Stuart had carried out comparisons
with enlarged areas on screen, he would have seen a very noticeable
difference... ...I donæt mean to sound overly critical but from my
experience with using JPEG when viewing on screen, the quality reduction
can be very noticeable. Stuart might also like to try this out with
colour images, where the effect can be even more noticeable. All this is
not to devalue JPEG ù just to warn that if it is used within, say,
multimedia, the user should be aware that the reduced quality is
noticeable.ò
6.10
Please do take note of Tomæs warnings! I donæt think that I overstated
the power of the JPEG algorithms, because the loss of quality on Énormal
sizedæ screen displays of the sprite in question was very small. As with
the printed versions in the article, screen displays of enlarged areas
do show some loss of quality, and the printed versions in Archive are
very similar to the equivalent screen display. It all depends what
youære using the images for. If I were displaying them on an 8 foot high
Évideo wallæ of monitors, Iæd forget JPEG. However, for small scale use,
on screen or paper for DTP, the quality will be far better than that
obtained simply by using some brute force technique to reduce the
storage requirements of the image, like Cain Huntæs experiments with the
Éscalingæ option under !ChangeFSI. As Tom also mentions, one of the
Étricksæ that JPEG uses is to remove colours that the human eye is not
particularly sensitive to, and it also knows about the eyeæs inability
to distinguish adjacent similar colours. Even so, however clever the
techniques, it remains an inherently Élossyæ system. As the cliche
reminds us, öThere ainæt such a thing as a free lunchò ù but this Émealæ
is a better bargain than most!
6.10
Two desktop JEPGgers
6.10
Last time, I complained about the relative user-un-friendliness of
!ChangeFSI when it comes to using JPEG. I recounted the rather complex
procedures that Iæd had to employ to get round them. Neil Hoggarth wrote
pointing out again that !ChangeFSI will produce P6 files, but not from
the desktop, because the writeable icon only accepts numeric values.
More importantly, he has written a front end to !ChangeFSI to produce
JPEG files from sprite files. He calls it !JFIF. Itæs a public-domain
utility that must be installed in the same directory as !ChangeFSI, and
a single line must be added to the !Boot file of that application.
Effectively, it forms a desktop interface to the JPEG routines contained
in !ChangeFSI, and very effective it is, too. Thank you, Neil. !JFIF
will appear on the Archive monthly disc.
6.10
!JPEGit
6.10
Thomas Down, presumably having encountered just the same problems, has
also done something about it, producing !JPEGit as an application which
modifies !ChangeFSI to solve all the problems which I mentioned last
time.
6.10
If !ChangeFSI has been modified by !JPEGit, when you run !ChangeFSI, it
places two icons on the iconbar. One is used to ÉJPEGæ normal sprite
files; the other to, among the usual options, uncompress JPEG files back
to Acorn sprite format. As with !JFIF, everything can now be done from
the desktop. Choices about the compression process, such as the
öQualityò factor can be changed, and (unlike !JFIF) saved, from the
desktop.
6.10
Thomas has produced two versions of !JPEGit, one is public domain and
the other is shareware with a ú3.50 registration fee. The PD version
will be on the Archive monthly disc. The shareware version offers:
entropy optimisation for greater compression; a fast mode option which
can give a considerable improvement in speed; automatic opening of the
choices box before each compression job and automatic generation of
comprehensive reports.
6.10
!JFIF or !JPEGit?
6.10
Itæs certainly too early for a proper evaluation. Both packages work,
and work well. But both crashed, or rather, I suspect that the
underlying !ChangeFSI routines crashed, when there wasnæt sufficient
memory available for the conversion process. Trying to use !JPEGit again
after freeing more memory crashes the whole machine.
6.10
Both have one or two rough edges in that !JPEGit keeps offering its
öSaveò window when youære pointing at files in the directory, and !JFIF
does not get rid of its öSaveò window properly. The single-icon front
end of !JFIF is a little neater (except that clicking Émenuæ gives
ÉJTIFæ, not JFIF!). On the other hand, !JPEGit allows options (e.g. the
default öQò value) to be saved, and it also produces files of the type
Éjpegæ, with a nice J icon, rather than JFIFæs less informative files of
type Édataæ. But for those interested in the workings of RISC OS, Neil
even supplies the ÉCæ source code to !JFIF.
6.10
Both Neil and Thomas have produced, very quickly, two very useful
utilities. Next month, I hope to include a comparative test of !JFIF and
the two versions of !JPEGit. In the mean time, both provide excellent
front ends for the JPEG routines in !ChangeFSI, and that can only
encourage its use on Acorn machines. So why didnæt Acorn give us a
decent front end in the first place?
6.10
But whatæs the use of JPEG?
6.10
When all is said and done, JPEG is no more than a means to an end ù the
economic storage of large sprite files. I use it in the following way:
Having bought a !Vision digitiser, I enjoy grabbing images off my
camcorder and then printing them out for use in letters and notes. Many
images I store for repeated use ù a kind of digitised family album. To
store lots of 157Kb images would soon eat up disc space, but 20 to 25Kb
(with öQò at 25) is rather better! For images a few inches across,
produced on a 300dpi laser printer, there is no perceptible loss of
quality.
6.10
In practice, because I use Compression, the actual savings are nowhere
near as great, but if you havenæt got Compression, JPEG will be very
attractive, if not essential. It is well worth using Compression with
standard sprite files (remembering that there is no image loss), but I
was very interested to find that one of the Compression-ed JPEG files
was larger than when not using Compression. This seems to confirm the
efficiency of the JPEG process, in that !cfs was unable to find any
redundancy in the stored image. The lesson may be to access JPEG files
through the normal, not the !cfs, disc directory.
6.10
Cross-platform portability
6.10
One of the claimed strengths of JPEG is that because it is an Éindustry
standardæ, JPEG files produced on a PC compatible should be readable on
a Mac, and so Acorn machines should be able to share data similarly. An
additional advantage is that images which would be too large for 720Kb
(or even 1.4Mb) PC format floppies will, when JPEGged, fit onto that
most portable of media quite happily. Also, print shops who are geared
up for PC or Mac file formats should be able to read and print Acorn
JPEG files. I say öshouldò, not because I have any reason to doubt that
such a process would work, but simply because Iæve never tried it. Have
you used JPEG files to move data across different platforms? Did it
work? Please let me know.
6.10
And finally. . .
6.10
On the monthly disc, you will find !JFIF and the public domain version
of !JPEGit, both with documentation. Additionally, there will be a
number of JPEGed files, submitted by this monthæs correspondents and
which illustrate some of the points which they made.
6.10
Lastly, how about an informal competition for the most interesting image
(judged quite subjectively by me) which can be JPEGed into 32Kb of disc
space (not using an other compression technique as well!) Any (non-
copyright) source, any input technique, totally arbitrary judging, and
no prizes whatsoever, except for seeing your image (space permitting) in
print and/or on the monthly disc.
6.10
Until next month, comments about JPEG, your favourite ö<32Kb imagesò and
experiences of !JPEGit and !JFIF will be gratefully received, via the
Archive office.ááA
6.10
CC
6.10
New artwork
6.10
CC
6.10
From 6.9 page 17
6.10
(About Scanners)
6.10
A Pair of CD-ROM Drives
6.10
Jim Bailey
6.10
This was intended to be a review comparing Cumanaæs CD-ROM package and
the Mac package sold by Archive but, as I will explain, problems arose.
My system consists of an A5000 with a Lingenuity SCSI podule and an
external 200Mb SCSI hard drive.
6.10
I ordered from Cumana at the Acorn Show in October and asked Paul if he
would like a review. He agreed but also requested that I did a
comparison with the Mac CD-ROM which he would send on loan.
6.10
The hardware
6.10
The Cumana drive is a Sony drive with an internal power supply; the Mac
is by Chinon and the supply is a separate large black brick. On the
front of each is a headphone socket with volume control, the rest is
similar to a floppy drive. On the back are two female SCSI connectors, a
power switch and a pair of stereo phono sockets for connection to a hi-
fi system.
6.10
The Mac drive came supplied with one caddy and a disc head cleaner.
Cumana supplied three caddies and a pair of self-powered mains speakers.
The head is self-cleaning. The manual is for a previous version and
needs to be rewritten for the current drive.
6.10
Both come with a SCSI cable but if you already have a SCSI drive you
will need a daisy chain cable. I did order one for Cumana with my drive
but it was not supplied. (I wasnæt charged for it!) Fortunately, I
managed to buy one from a local Acorn dealer.
6.10
When I first received my drive, I had problems with running some of the
CDs. I was able to test the drive on a Cumana SCSI podule and the
problems disappeared. I rang Lingenuity and was advised that they would
ring back with an answer. They did not but, the next morning, I received
in the post a replacement ROM which cured the problems Ö excellent
service.
6.10
Speed
6.10
I tested for speed by writing a small Basic program to load in a large
file of 1,975Kb. Both drives gave the same result of 148 Kb/s, about 5╜
times slower than the internal 40Mb IDE disc on the A5000. As regards
seek time, the Chinon appeared slightly faster but as files on CDs never
become fragmented, this makes little difference when it comes to using
the drives.
6.10
Compatibility
6.10
The Cumana drive handled everything as one would expect it to. It played
music CDs with the supplied !CDPlayer; this worked on both podules. The
Mac drive, however, was a total failure as far as the Archimedes is
concerned. Often when a RISCáOS CD was inserted, this drive would read
the disc, pause for a few seconds then eject the disc. If the disc is
re-inserted several times it will eventually remain there; PC CDs were
not rejected. Also, I have a copy of Acornæs Replay CD-ROM which I
obtained free from the Acorn stand at the Acorn User Show. The Mac drive
would only run these at 12╜ frames per second; at 25 frames per second
there were longer pauses and the picture would jump forward. I checked
with Cumana and they advised that Chinon drives had problems with Replay
files.
6.10
Mac CD-ROMs
6.10
The CD-ROMs supplied with the Mac drive are of no use to the Archimedes
user. The Archimedes  sees the Mac directory as a single large file.
6.10
Cumana CD-ROMs
6.10
The Cumana discs are a mixed bunch. Three are RISCáOS and three are
CDTV/PC format. What follows is a short review of each disc.
6.10
Revelation 2 (RISCáOS)
6.10
Revelation 2 has been previously reviewed and I will just limit myself
to what is actually on the CD. Both Revelation 2 and !REVXTRA are
supplied. Also there are four Magpie files with a Magpie reader. These
files are used to demonstrate some of the features. This is more
effective than using the manual. The rest is a set of directories
containing about 64Mb of sprites. This may seem a lot but it means that
the CD is about 90% empty. The sprites cover a number of fields but I
found this to be the weakest part of the package.
6.10
Hutchinson Encyclopedia (RISC OS)
6.10
This is a machine readable copy of the encyclopedia which you can buy in
your local bookshop. It appears to be identical as far as the
information contained. I do not like this product at all; it has a great
many facts but insufficient information. There is very little depth.
Many of the references are only a few lines long and comprehensive
references appear rare.
6.10
Searching the indices has its problems. Try searching for a date or a
number and the program crashes with a fatal error Ö not enough memory.
Giving the program more memory does not make any difference. Searching
for a word in either the title or word index is slow. If the word is not
in the index then usually the nearest word is highlighted; but often the
search just continues and continues and continues. The longest I gave it
was 10 minutes before I reset the system. This is the only way out,
there appears to be no way to abort the search.
6.10
Also, scrolling through the indices is too slow. The program does not
appear to do any buffering and reads the CD at every change. Also it is
not possible to find the end of the index by pulling the scroll bar down
with the mouse. The best is well short of the end and you have to resort
to clicking too many times before the end is reached. You cannot use
search with özzò because of the problems previously mentioned.
6.10
There are two other search routines which do not appear to have this
problem and accept phrases as well as single words and the speed is much
more acceptable Ö most of the time. The simple search handles a single
phrase whereas the complex version allows AND/OR and can restrict the
search to the text, title, category or any combination of these. After
the search is completed, a list is displayed and a choice can be made or
each can be seen by clicking on the next item tool. If there are too
many then the search can be refined and then repeated.
6.10
Many selections will contain cross references and clicking on the link
will take you to the relevant text Ö sometimes. I have not studied this
encyclopedia in detail as it is not a product for casual reading but
some of the short-comings I have found are:
6.10
The reference for Neil Armstrong has a cross reference to the Apollo
project but when the link is clicked on, you are presented with the God
Apollo.
6.10
Accelerated freeze drying:- see AFD... but then you get...  AFD:-
Abbreviation for accelerated freeze drying, a common method of food
preservation. See also food technology.
6.10
Equity link under law finds the theatreæs EQUITY union.
6.10
Dictionary of The Living World
6.10
(RISCáOS with Replay)
6.10
This is much like the Hutchinson Encyclopedia; many references but no
real depth; but this is sold as a dictionary not an encyclopedia. There
are 108 film clips (versions for other computer apparently also have 50
longer movies according the the box), 256 pictures and 81 sound clips.
The clips appear mainly to have been taken in zoos, I am sure that there
must be films available of all of these in the wild. One movie of the
Aardwolf can only be classed as a movie because the bushes in the
foreground move. The animal appears to be asleep!
6.10
The movies are in a separate directory and the supplied ARM Movie Player
can be used to view them without running DOLW.
6.10
The Bible, Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare (non-RISCáOS)
6.10
These are all of a similar nature. The text is broken down into
directories for each book (Holmes) scenes (Shakespeare) or chapters
(Bible) and the illustrations are in a separate directory. The same
programme, with amendments to cover the differences, is used for each CD
but when I received them two ran but one, The Bible, crashed. I
telephoned Cumana who advised me to reduce the number of fonts
available. I did so and the program ran Ö but as it was based on the
same program as the other two there must be a better solution.
6.10
To correct the !Runimage in !Bible, change these line to read as
follows:-
6.10
2600 DIM mb% 5000 :REM menu data block
6.10
2610 DIM md% 5000 :REM menu block containing indirected data
6.10
These programs are not very robust. I had regular crashes and the search
functions only worked sometimes. For example, if the search was for
öJesusò and öweptò, the search failed but if the search order is
reversed then the search is successful. (Must be related the the
frequency of occurrence of the two words. Ed.)
6.10
Searches can be made for up to five single words but not phrases. The
search ötoò öbeò öorò önotò found 16 scenes in Hamlet but crashed
immediately afterwards. The Sherlock Holmes CD has music on it but if
the music is still playing when you next access the disc, there is a
contest between the music and the data; neither wins and a reset is
necessary. This CD also has a quiz for each book.
6.10
Conclusion
6.10
My advice is that unless you would actually buy the CDs supplied with
the drives, I would look around for the cheapest drive without any CDs.
Even cheap CDs which you will never use are expensive. The government is
encouraging schools to buy CD drives but for the home I cannot find any
applications that would make users rush out to buy a drive. For
professional writers, there is one CD-ROM which would make a drive
essential i.e. the Oxford English Dictionary Ö but that costs more than
the drive. Acorn have now brought out their own CD drive which is a
double speed Sony drive capable of reading photo CDs. I would recommend
buying this type of drive.
6.10
(Oh dear! This makes us look rather stupid. We fell into the trap of
thinking that a CD-ROM was a CD-ROM. We have removed the Chinon drives
from our Price List and would agree with Jimæs recommendation to
consider the alternative of the Acorn Multimedia Unit, costing ú590 Ö or
the Cumana 600 drive, which we also sell. This also costs ú590 or ú515
for education.
6.10
This means that I now have two Chinon CD-ROM drives for sale with free
Mac CDs discs! We would be prepared to sell them for ú300 each although
the original price was ú480! This is just so that we can get rid of
them. If anyone knows of a school who would be interested, please let me
know as it would be nice for a school to benefit from our mistake.
Ed.)ááA
6.10
Dalriada
6.10
New artwork
6.10
(Please expand for best use of space.)
6.10
Perspectives
6.10
Peter Thomson
6.10
This is a simple interactive 3D drawing package from TechSoft UK Ltd
that allows the user to create wire-frame images of solid objects.
6.10
I have found that using this program is a most effective method of
displaying and teaching the relationship between the lines of a drawing
and the object that they represent.
6.10
Views
6.10
Perspectives will show the three orthographic views, i.e. the plan,
front and side elevations of an object, in first or third angle
projection. It will also display isometric and oblique views as well as
a 3D view with full perspective.
6.10
3D Ö Stunning!
6.10
Three pairs of glasses are supplied with the package Ö each with one
green filter and one red filter. The display is drawn in these two
colours as two slightly different images from viewpoints about 10cm
apart. The brain of the observer is able to combine these images to
produce a 3D view of the object. The 3D view gains a stunning
perspective when seen through the coloured glasses. The 3D image can be
rotated in both horizontal and vertical planes and displayed against a
black background.
6.10
Standard toolbox and menu
6.10
The program is controlled with either a toolbox displaying icons or a
written menu in a very similar way to the Draw utility. I found both
methods so close to the Acorn standard that I did not need to read the
manual in order to make good use of the program.
6.10
A clear manual
6.10
The manual provides five tutorials that guide the first time user
through the program. It does assume that the user is familiar with the
orthographic method of drawing a 3D object and can understand the use of
coordinates in three planes to locate points in space. I found it easier
to start by playing with the program and drawing approximate shapes of
objects rather than placing them in precise positions as suggested by
the tutorial. The reference section gives a clear description of the
options available but, again, a prior understanding of orthographic
projection and 3D coordinate planes is useful.
6.10
Tools and options
6.10
This program offers a smaller range of drawing options than Draw but the
options act in a very similar way. The drawing options will produce open
or closed lines, rectangles or polygons and circles. Only straight lines
are used Ö the circle is a many-sided polygon Ö and the end of each
straight line is a control point that can be selected and moved or
processed.
6.10
The process option performs its transformations round a fixed process
origin but you can move the complete drawing to change its relationship
to the process origin before performing a transformation. Parts of a
drawing can be flipped, rotated or scaled in any plane. The selected
parts can be copied to produce a separate group of lines or extruded so
that each new point remains connected to its original.
6.10
A group of points can also be swept round the process origin in all
three planes, with each point linked to the previous copy. All sweeps
are a full 360 degrees.
6.10
There are also zoom options and grid based options and the display can
be saved as a drawfile.
6.10
Drawbacks
6.10
I found only one drawback in that there is no option to group lines to
form a smaller object that will retain its identity within the main
design. Once two groups of lines overlap within a drawing, it is very
difficult to reselect all the points for only one of those groups. It is
not possible to merge objects from previous drawings.
6.10
Conclusion
6.10
This is an excellent program for illustrating the teaching of basic
methods of technical drawing.ááA
6.10
ArtWorks Column
6.10
Trevor Sutton
6.10
I am still receiving plenty of correspondence about printing. Perhaps,
one day, the concept of an electronic gallery displaying computer images
on wonderful high resolution monitors with hardware capable of
displaying more colours and shades than the human eye can handle may
happen Ö it could even be linked with Midi music machines assaulting our
other senses. Until that time, most of us will probably want to commit
our artwork to paper in some way or other so I still expect to receive a
good number of letters discussing printers, the drivers and AW. Do keep
them coming because the large variety of printers and drivers means
different solutions to different problems.
6.10
I begin this monthæs column with an experience from Tord Eriksson whose
name must by now be familiar to Archive readers.
6.10
Dithering ArtWorks Ö Tord Eriksson
6.10
Having read about others having problems with printing ArtWorks files, I
might have found the solution and its called dithering.
6.10
This screenshot shows !ArtWorks info box and the square, looking more or
less like it eventually was printed.
6.10
To test my idea I made a Mac-style square with ArtWorks (see above) and
saved it as a drawfile. This I then loaded into any program I could
think of: Vector, Poster, Chameleon2, Fontasy, Placard, TypeStudio,
4Mationæs DrawPrint, Oakæs DrawPrint (crashed first try as it couldnæt
find any resources applying to SWEDEN, even if the error message said it
would default to UK!) and the slowest of them all, ArtWorks.
6.10
I used a Canon BJ-330 for printout and the RISCáOS 3.10 Bubblejet
printer driver. This can be set to various resolutions (I used 360╫360
dpi) and five different print modes: mono, large halftone and small
halftone; grey, large halftone, small halftone and dithered. Mono,
naturally, canæt handle any greys at all, so I tested my normal small
halftone and the dithered setting. All programs used managed very well
in printing the square but, in grey halftone, it looked more like an
archery target than a smooth fluid wash from grey to black. Using
dithered mode, everything changed Ö the colour changed almost perfectly
from grey to black, more or less like the screen shot above. (Although
the result from ArtWorks is slightly different from that of Vector and
the others in that it is less even, looking a bit like a halo around the
moon, it is very pleasing compared to the first result!
6.10
This is how the ArtWorks file looks when loaded into Vector. Clearly
visible are the concentric öringsò.
6.10
Conclusion
6.10
When printing an ArtWorks file with gradual fills, or when using
Chameleon, remember to use the dithered setting! This setting reproduces
flat greys as an unruly pattern of dots, so use it only when there is a
must!
6.10
Hopefully this little tip will help others, including our ArtWorks
editor!
6.10
Thanks to Tord for these tips. It is interesting to repeat here that I
find the large halftone setting works best with the BJ10ex. So, keep
sending in your results and then perhaps we can have a summary of all
the best methods of printing from AW in a future column.
6.10
Alphabetic Art
6.10
I was interested to receive two discs from Andy Jeffery entitled the ABC
of ART. Not surprisingly, they were discs A and disc B. They contained
work presumably drawn using AW and saved in AW format compressed using
Spark and therefore it is possible to use either Sparkplug (included on
the discs) or ArcFS to unpack them. The quality of the drawings is very
high and is the equal of anything on the clipart discs accompanying AW.
The cost of each disc is ú8 (inc. postage).
6.10
Disc A contains thirteen AW files all beginning with the letter A and
are as varied as Alsatian, Aborigine and Angel. Some of the files
contain a number of images and the really useful ones are possibly the
different letter Aæs and the Arrows. Disc B contains just nine AW files
but the Butterfly file has four pictures and the Plants_B file has six
plants. Similarly there is a file of letter Bæs and some Borders. To be
a bit pedantic, they are not actually borders but corners which, if you
were very clever, you could make into borders. (See AW column in Archive
6.8.)
6.10
You will get a feeling of the high quality of the work from the
examples. However, a columnist would not be a columnist if he wasnæt
allowed a few minor criticisms. Firstly, I am doubtful of the idea of
alphabetic discs as it gives no real unity to the work. I guess the
xylophone on the X disc is going to be a very big file indeed. People
would, I think, prefer topic-based discs and am sure that the
illuminated initials alone would sell very well as a pack. If you think
about it, you would have to spend ú208 to get the whole alphabet! So,
come on Andy, how about a botanical disc with the common wild flowers?
6.10
My only other comment is perhaps unfair to Andy as it applies to most
ArtWorkers and I include myself here. Perhaps it should have been a
Coda! Hand-tracing of scanned or digitized images is beautifully simple
in AW and much of the graphic work I have seen is probably done that
way. If I am wrong, I apologise and am even more impressed by the skill.
However, it is often possible to recognize the images from which
drawings are made. Those images were conceived and created by someone
else, either photographically or by hand, so should we use them without
some kind of acknowledgement. This, I realise, is controversial so letæs
have your comments.
6.10
The discs are available at ú8 each from: ABC of Art, Tideways, South
Road, Brean, Somerset, TA8 2SE. (Cheques payable to Andy Jeffreys,
presumably.)
6.10
Disc C should be available May/June 1993 and subsequent discs will
follow at two monthly intervals.
6.10
Font filing
6.10
In my column in Archive 6.6, Steve Hutchinson suggested the need for a
new version of FontDir to solve the problem of providing the correct
fonts for each document. Our Ed. said, öwatch this spaceò. Several
solutions were offered, but it looks like Adrian Look has come up with
the goods Ö a new font filing system is soon to be released by
LOOKsystems. I received a demonstration version and it should be the
answer to most peopleæs problems. I expect that a full review will
appear elsewhere in the magazine but from an AW point of view, the best
feature is that dragging an AW (or Draw or Impression, etc) document
into the Font Directory window will cause the document to be scanned for
any fonts used. These fonts will then be made available Ö automatically.
It also supports a variety of previews to remind us what the fonts look
like. The system can also support extendable Font partitions up to 512Mb
in size and capable of storing over 5900 font families. That should just
about satisfy most people I know!
6.10
Coda
6.10
Because vector graphics programs like AW can produce such crisp work, we
will always be striving to produce the best possible printed results.
This is becoming more significant with the graded fills, 24-bit colour
and ever-increasing grey scales. We are moving closer and closer to
airbrush quality results and without all those messy nozzles to clean
out. Let us have some more ideas on how you use AW and some examples of
your work, if possible, to demonstrate techniques.ááA
6.10
S-Base Column
6.10
Tim Powys-Lybbe
6.10
After the long but successful travail of getting S-Base to perform as I
thought a relational database should, I was confident that I would have
no problem transferring over my names, addresses and telephone numbers
database to S-Base. This addresses database started many years ago in
ViewStore on my recently deceased B (crocodile tears), graduated for a
few weeks to System Delta and has been reasonably happy for some years
now in Data-Ease under the PC Emulator. It had moved before and would
move again.
6.10
I must digress for a few words on the subject of Data-Ease. It is my
current standard of comparison for a stand-alone relational database
system. While it is solely text-based, it has one of the easiest card
öpaintingò tools I have come across and makes very light work of
creating a relational database. Further, it regularly wins competitions
for speed of creation of new systems. On a 386 PC it is fast but under
the Emulator it creaks along somewhat and will not print directly to a
Laser Direct.
6.10
I have now transferred the data from Data-Ease to S-Base and devised
most of the facilities I want. S-Base is far faster than Data-Ease under
the Emulator but that is not surprising. The other achievement is that
the find and look-up facilities on S-Base, particularly the Selector,
are vastly superior to Data-Ease, once they have been developed, of
course Ö what a struggle that was! S-Base may be powerful but is not
easy!
6.10
The task that I reckon to be the most difficult is that of transferring
data out of your current database and into S-Base. The S-Base facilities
are limited unless your current database will export in CSV, Comma
Separated Variable, format. You can only export one table at a time from
your original database. The steps, for each table, are:
6.10
1. Print out the precise definitions of all the fields of each table in
your current database. Most database systems have a facility to do this.
6.10
2. Create a file in S-Base with exactly the same definitions. Note that
you will not be able to include any of the look-up facilities that were
in the definitions for your current database.
6.10
3. Export from your current database, using whatever means it permits,
though it must not have any coding or compaction.
6.10
4. Load the exported file into Edit and see what it consists of. (All
very easy so far, by comparison with what is to come!) The object is to
convert it to records that have:
6.10
(a) inverted commas at the start and end of each text field and none if
a numerical field,
6.10
(b) commas between each field,
6.10
(c) line feed at the end of each record, including the last record.
6.10
You are likely to find all sorts of entries in the file such as 1,0[0d].
The answer is to use Editæs Find and Replace facility with the Magic
characters switched on.
6.10
I exported my data from Data-Ease in the only format that looked
feasible, DIF, which appeared in Edit with one field per line and
looking like:
6.10
öFleetò[0d]
6.10
1,0[0d]
6.10
öAldershotò[0d]
6.10
where öFleetò and öAldershotò were two successive fields. To convert
this to CSV, all the characters between öFleetò and öAldershotò had to
be replaced with a comma. This was done in Edit by typing:
6.10
\x0D\n1,0\x0D
6.10
in the öFindò box and a bare comma in the öReplace withò box and with
Magic characters turned on. \x0D stood for Carriage Return, ASCII 13,
shown by [0d] in the source file; \n was for the line feed.
6.10
The inter-record marker of BOT had to be eliminated and left merely as a
new line.
6.10
5. Finally, this has to be pulled into S-Base. The Read-me file within
S-base gives the basic information on how to import a CSV file; I used
the following procedure successfully:
6.10
| Import a csv file, to add to
6.10
| the existing file
6.10
|
6.10
def proc import_csv(file_name,imp_name)
6.10
local fd
6.10
  fd = @openin imp_name
6.10
  import csv def fd, file_name
6.10
  while !(@eof fd)
6.10
|     Next line only works for the
6.10
|     fileæs literal name.
6.10
    import csv fd, address_list
6.10
    create file_name
6.10
  endwhile
6.10
  close fd
6.10
enddef
6.10
In this S-base procedure, öfile_nameò is the name of the S-Base file
into which the data is to be put and öimp_nameò is the full ADFS (or
whatever) name of the source CSV text file. However, the öimportò
command will not accept variables for S-base file names (this took not a
little time finding out...) so I had to commit the solecism of using the
real file name of address_list within the procedure, hoping that at some
time in the future Longmans would rectify this little feature.
6.10
But it worked and the data was ported to S-Base!
6.10
Delete button
6.10
One necessary feature of record manipulation that was strangely left out
of the tutorial database was that of Delete. It is relatively simple:
add a Delete icon to the base card template, make it into a field on the
Format and give it an S-Click handler set with a handler of:
6.10
delete file_name,recnum  record}
6.10
if @recordcount file_name > 0 {records in the file?}
6.10
    adding_rec = FALSE
6.10
    recnum = @tof(file_name,0)
6.10
    load file_name,recnum
6.10
else   {prepare to add a new one}
6.10
    adding_rec = TRUE
6.10
    recnum = 0
6.10
    zero file_name
6.10
endif
6.10
card set element ahandle,file_field
6.10
if adding_rec then card set protect ahandle öaddò,öfindò
6.10
,ödeleteò
6.10
proc setup_arrows(file_name)
6.10
card update ahandle
6.10
Obviously complications arise if you are trying to delete a record
that is referenced in a related file but the above will suit most
purposes. The öfile_nameò is the same variable as before, öfile_fieldò
is a variable for the first field in the card and in which the cursor is
to be placed when a record is opened. Other variables are as in the
tutorial database.
6.10
Next month
6.10
Thatæs all for this month but on my list of things to write about in
the future are:     Radio icons (Yes/No), Browse lists, Deleted records &
printing, Comparing dates, Use of RETURN in a procedure, Iconbar icon &
menu, Menus & mouse keys, Selecting reports.
6.10
I have also completely proceduralised the processes of using related
files to be browsed for data for entering up a main file. While this is
not simple, it gives very fast and pleasing effects. Iæll hope to get
this on a later program disc.
6.10
But this is a column for all of us: let me know what you have found
about this package so that I can pass it on. Write via Archive or direct
to me at Rosewood, Church Road, Winkfield, Windsor, Berks, SL4 4SF.ááA
6.10
Serenade
6.10
Stewart Watson
6.10
Serenade from Clares is a multitasking 16 track music sequencer with a
host of features and Éan intuitive user interfaceæ. The package,
enclosed in the usual Clares folder, consists of a manual, a program
disc and a resources disc.
6.10
Program disc
6.10
The program disc contains the main application which needs to be
initialised the first time it is loaded but thereafter loads directly
onto the iconbar. In addition to the Serenade application are a !System
folder, a !Max application which maximizes available memory, if
necessary, and a ReadMe file containing up-to-date information on the
latest version of the program.
6.10
Set-up
6.10
Serenade is fully multitasking, so will run alongside Rhapsody and
Rhythm Bed, for example. Also on the program disc is a directory of
patches for setting up Serenade to run with a variety of different
manufacturersæ products, including setups for Yamaha, Technics, Roland
and Ensoniq. By default, Serenade uses a General Midi configuration but
this can easily be changed by dragging one of the other configurations
onto the main screen. To customise a setting for any non-standard
equipment, there is a file provided which can be edited using any text
editor such as Edit.
6.10
Resources disc
6.10
The resources disc is purely an examples disc containing three
directories of examples (Classics, Drums and Rags) and an information
file from Words and Music who provided the demos.
6.10
No internal voices
6.10
Unlike Notate and Rhapsody, Serenade does not use internal voices, so
if you want to hear your work you need a Midi keyboard or expander. It
would be possible to work without a Midi input device (Midi keyboard,
guitar, etc) but to input scores using the mouse could be rather
tedious. The lack of internal voices is a minor omission Ö it is quite
useful to be able to add sampled sounds into a score from time to time.
I suspect the reason is that, because it is possible to sync Serenade to
Rhythm Box, the programmer was using the Archimedes internal voices for
percussion sounds, something that it is rather good at. It will
therefore be possible to load samples into Rhythm Box and trigger them
from Serenade, if necessary.
6.10
Three modes
6.10
On loading the program, you are presented with the main screen which
consists of a large grid with a function panel down the left hand side.
The top three icons represent the three modes of operation within
Serenade, Edit/Draw, Play/Record and Cut/Paste & Transform.
6.10
Edit/Draw
6.10
Notes are displayed on a grid which is subdivided into bars and beats.
Lines of varying length are used to represent note values in relation to
the piano keyboard. By default, only one track is shown at a time but it
is possible to change the display to show all sixteen tracks at once.
Notes can be drawn and edited in the grid but it is obviously easier to
enter notes from a Midi keyboard or other controller.
6.10
Record/Play
6.10
The second icon changes the toolbox under the grid to a set of tape
recorder-like controls. It is worth noting that a track must be set to
record in the track sheet before recording can take place. This is a
useful device for ensuring that you donæt accidentally record over
previously recorded work. It is also possible to lock tracks so that it
is impossible to record over them.
6.10
It is from Record mode that Rhythm Box can be synchronised to Rhythm
Bed.
6.10
Cut/Paste & Transform mode
6.10
In the third mode, blocks can be marked, cut and pasted and
manipulated as in a text processor.
6.10
Track list
6.10
Clicking on the T icon in the function panel opens up the Track Sheet
window.
6.10
In this window you can select the voices and Midi channels for the
various tracks. Tracks can be muted, made solo, recorded and locked. It
is also in this window that tracks are quantized and transposed.
6.10
Guitar window
6.10
One of the most exciting innovations in Serenade is the guitar window.
Clicking on the guitar icon in the function panel opens a window showing
a guitar fretboard and a set of default chords. Chords can either be
selected from those supplied or made up by clicking on the fretboard.
6.10
Event list
6.10
The event list window offers an alternative method of editing
individual notes, program changes, etc. The information in the edit
window can be searched, specific values transformed and new events
added.
6.10
Notation
6.10
Files can be exported to and imported from Rhapsody but tracks do need
to be quantized first so that Rhapsody can interpret the note lengths
correctly.
6.10
Files
6.10
Files can also be imported from and exported to other sequencers and
computers in Standard Midi file 1 format.
6.10
Hot keys
6.10
When I opened the package, I was surprised at the lack of a function
key strip but though function keys are not used (other than f3 Ö save),
there are key short-cuts for some operations, especially in cut and
paste mode. I understand that later versions will make substantially
more use of keyboard short cuts.
6.10
Midi generator
6.10
The Midi Control Generator window, gives you complete control over all
nine Midi control devices over all 16 Midi channels, enabling you to add
effects like modulation and portamento. The window looks like a mixing
desk, each channel having its own slider. There is also the facility for
taking up to eight snapshots of the position of the sliders.
6.10
Manual
6.10
The manual is clearly laid out with copious illustrations. All the
icons found on the screen are displayed and clearly explained in the
manual. One extra bonus is the Midi Jargon Buster section which
explains, in simple language, the most commonly used Midi terms.
6.10
Verdict
6.10
Serenade looks good, feels good, sounds good and is a joy to use. The
back up of a reliable supplier means that potential users can buy with
confidence, knowing that software support is available. Clares are
operating a sensible policy of free upgrades. The version I had for
review was 1.00 but I understand from Clares that they are already onto
version 1.05 and I hope to be able to test that before the next issue of
Archive.
6.10
Conclusion
6.10
Serenade fills a gap in software provision on the Archimedes, in that
it is capable of importing from and exporting to other sequencers and
other computers. Clares have a real winner on their hands, and the
program has been well worth the wait. Serenade is available at ú135 from
Clares Micro or ú125 through Archive.ááA
6.10
A-Link Communications Ö Scripts
6.10
Mark Godwin
6.10
This is my final article on the Series 3 communication software
supplied with A-Link.
6.10
As with all other applications, Script will have to be installed Ö and
remember that it exists on drive C (A-Link firmware). Once it is
installed and selected, you will have the same menu options as the OPL
editor which is also similar to the word processor.
6.10
For those of you who do not have an OPL editor, I will explain the
differences between WORD and SCRIPT menus. Off the main menu of WORD and
SCRIPT, the first three sub-menus (File, Edit & Scan) are the same. The
fourth sub-menu on WORD (called Word) has been replaced on SCRIPT with
Prog and their are subtle differences in the Special sub-menu. Sub-menu
Prog has as options Translate, Run, Show error and Indent.
6.10
Translate Ö This option is used to convert the text version (source
code) of the script to a format the Series 3 can easily use (object
code).
6.10
When you have finished keying the script, you must Translate it before
it can work. If the translation completes with no errors, you will be
given the option of executing it, otherwise it will produce an error
message and place the cursor on the relevant line.
6.10
Run Ö When the script has been translated correctly, this option is
used to execute it. When it is executed, it will actually be run by the
COMMS application. When the script ends/terminates, you will be left in
the COMMS application.
6.10
Show error Ö This is used to repeat the error message created by the
last translate.
6.10
Indent Ö This allows you to structure your scripts so the layout looks
correct. This function is more valuable when you have structured
commands, which the script does not.
6.10
When this is selected, you will be presented with a window and two
options: Screen spacing & Autoindent. Screen spacing allows you to
select the number of characters inserted at the current cursor when
<tab> is pressed.
6.10
Autoindent can be turned on or off. If it is selected, it will cause
an automatic tab on the next line when <enter> is pressed. The tab
position selected is based on the first non-blank character on the
previous line. So if, on the current line, the first non-blank character
is character 15 and then you press <enter>, you will automatically tab
to the 15th character on the new line.
6.10
The sub-menu, Special, has three differences, these being ÉOutlineæ,
ÉPref.æ and ÉPasswordæ. ÉOutlineæ is present but does nothing.
ÉPasswordæ is not on the menu. ÉPrefæ will present you with a window and
the options ÉBold charactersæ and ÉCharacter widthæ.
6.10
If ÉBold charactersæ is selected, all characters on the screen are
shown in bold. ÉCharacter widthæ can either be mono-spaced or
proportional. (Monospaced characters are all the same width, whereas
proportionally characters have varying widths, so an Éiæ would take up
less width than a ÉWæ.)
6.10
General
6.10
Parameters for the following commands will be identified by square
brackets ([]), e.g.
6.10
SEND [parm]
6.10
Labels, when coded, are in the form of label name followed by a colon,
e.g.
6.10
Label:
6.10
To put more than one command on a line, the first command should be
followed by a space, a colon and then the second command, e.g.
6.10
DRAIN :STOP
6.10
Commands may be in any combination of upper and lower case and comment
lines start with an exclamation mark. When a script stops running, you
will be placed in the terminal emulator, as this actually runs a script.
6.10
Supported commands
6.10
The commands available are limited in comparison to ArcTerm7 but never
the less are useful. Until I got the A-Link, I made use of scripts with
the 3-Link to backup all of my data. The commands can best be broken
down in to six sets: Hardware control, Character control, File control,
User interaction, Execution control and ÉOtheræ.
6.10
Names
6.10
Before I explain the available commands, I must explain the use of
NAMEs which I mentioned in my last article. NAMEs are like variables in
a program. You think of a NAME and then assign a value to it. These
NAMEs, when used in scripts, will be replaced by the values assigned to
them.
6.10
The values assigned to a NAME can contain upper or lower case and can
be up to 64 characters long. The NAME itself can only be 16
alphanumerics long and must start with a letter.
6.10
NAMEs fall into one of three categories: ÉStringæ, ÉNon-stringæ and
ÉReservedæ. ÉReservedæ then breaks down into STRING and CONTROL, but
beware not to confuse ÉStringæ and STRING.
6.10
ÉStringæ NAMEs are used in strings and these are restricted to SEND
and SENDWAIT. For this type of NAME to be recognised when coded, it must
be between < and >, e.g.
6.10
SEND öATD<BBSphone>ò
6.10
In this example, BBSphone is the NAME which would be assigned a phone
number.
6.10
ÉNon-stringæ NAMEs are used in the place of strings, but not between
quotes. These are used in place of filenames and in place of strings for
the INFO and ALERT commands, e.g.
6.10
TRANSMIT Filename,öXMDMò
6.10
In this example, Filename is the NAME that would be assigned with the
name of a file, e.g.
6.10
INFO Message
6.10
or
6.10
ALERT Message
6.10
In these examples, Message is the NAME that would be assigned with the
text you wished displayed.
6.10
In addition to the names you supply, six STRING NAMEs (s1, s2, s3, s4,
s5, s6) and four CONTROL NAMEs (c1, c2, c3, c4) have been reserved for
specific commands.
6.10
STRING NAMEs are assigned values by the QUERY command (explained
later). Briefly, these NAMEs are assigned a value through an input
window. They can then be used like ÉStringæ and ÉNon-stringæ NAMEs.
6.10
CONTROL NAMEs are used with the ON command (explained later). These
NAMEs are given a numerical value which decrements and is then tested by
the ON command. This simple operation allows you to perform loops. These
cannot be used in place of ÉStringæ and ÉNon-stringæ NAMEs.
6.10
In order to assign/modify/delete a NAMEæs value, you must use the
NAMEs option from the COMMS application main menu. This same menu allows
you to add a password to the names file for use with the PASSWORD
command (explained later) and to prevent other people from using them in
the COMMS application.
6.10
When a NAME has been assigned, it will retain its value until you
amend it. If you process one or many scripts, these values will be
present in all of them.
6.10
Hardware control
6.10
Commands in this section are CONNECT, HANGUP, RESET and SETUP.
6.10
CONNECT [time] GOTO [label] Ö This will wait [time] half seconds for a
connection to be made with the Éother endæ. If the connection is not
made within this time, it will branch to [label], otherwise it will
continue with the next instruction, e.g.
6.10
CONNECT 20 GOTO again
6.10
This will wait 10 seconds for a connection to be made. If it is not
made it will go to Éagainæ.
6.10
HANGUP Ö This will cause the modem to hang up. This is achieved by
dropping the DTR signal for 3 seconds which will cause the modem to drop
the DCD and hang up.
6.10
RESET Ö This will set all the parameters back to their original
settings. I have never used this command and cannot say what the
original settings are. The manual suggests that you might use this
command before a setup command.
6.10
SETUP ([commands]) Ö This command is used to set certain communication
parameters. When this command is issued, it will only affect the
parameters you specify. Any not specified will be left unchanged.
6.10
The following sub-commands are available for use with this command:
BAUD, DATA, STOP, PARITY, HANDSHAKE, FAIL, ECHO, NEWLINE, BACKSPACE or
TIMEOUT. These commands are enclosed between brackets, followed by an
equal sign, the value, a space and then separated by a colon, e.g.
6.10
SETUP(BAUD=9600 :DATA=8)
6.10
BAUD Ö [9600, 4800, 2400, 1200, 600, 300] Ö Specifies the transfer
speed in both directions. Only one of these values may be used.
6.10
DATA Ö [7,8] Ö Describes the length in bits of the word. Only one of
these values may be specified.
6.10
STOP Ö [1,2] Ö Details the number of stop bits. Only one of these
values may be specified.
6.10
PARITY Ö [NONE, ODD, EVEN] Ö This sets the type of parity in use. Only
one of these values may be specified.
6.10
HANDSHAKE Ö [NONE, XONXOFF, RTSCTS, DSR, DCD] Ö Any number of these
values may be assigned, indicating what types of handshaking can be
used. If more than one is used, it should be separated by a comma, e.g.
6.10
SETUP(BAUD=300 :HANDSHAKE=DSR, DCD)
6.10
FAIL Ö [NONE, DCD, DSR, PARITY] Ö Any number of these values may be
assigned, in the same fashion as HANDSHAKE. By specifying a value, it
will cause the script to stop if that problem occurs. However, if you
are using one of the ON Éerroræ conditions (explained later) this will
allow them to work and trap that error.
6.10
ECHO Ö [ON, OFF] Ö Details the state of local echo. Only one of these
values may be specified.
6.10
NEWLINE Ö [values] Ö Read notes below on how to specify.
6.10
BACKSPACE Ö [values] Ö Read notes below on how to specify.
6.10
TIMEOUT Ö [value] Ö 0 or the number of half seconds.
6.10
When specifying what should be transmitted for a NEWLINE or a
BACKSPACE, you can use any combination of character or character codes
enclosed between quotes. Character codes are used for commands, such as
Éenteræ (i.e. ö<$0d>ò or ö<13>ò) or Éenteræ and Éline feedæ (i.e. ö<$0d>
<$0a>ò or ö<13><$0a>ò, etc.) and one of the typically used backspace
values (ö<8>ò or ö<127>ò).
6.10
Character control
6.10
Commands in this section are WAIT, ON REPLY, SEND and SENDWAIT.
6.10
WAIT [time] Ö This will cause the script to wait [time] half seconds
before it continues.
6.10
ON REPLY [text] GOTO [label] Ö This command can only be used in
conjunction with the WAIT command.
6.10
While the WAIT command is waiting, this command will check incoming
data to see if it matches [text], if so it will branch to [label]. If
the match is not made, it will carry on with the next instruction when
the WAITæs time is up, e.g.
6.10
WAIT 10 (ON REPLY ötextò GOTO ok)
6.10
If you wish for more than one value to be matched, you can repeat the
ON REPLY command within the brackets, e.g.
6.10
WAIT 10 (ON REPLY ötextò GOTO ok
6.10
ON REPLY öanotherò GOTO oops
6.10
ON REPLY öyet anotherò GOTO end)
6.10
The matching will occur anywhere in the text being sent (so to check
for öonò would match with öonò, öonlyò, öcommunicationò, etc..) and is
case dependent. While in operation, all data sent to the Psion will be
thrown away as the checks are being made.
6.10
SEND [text] Ö This command will send [text] to the receiver.
6.10
Unless the text is followed by a semicolon, it will have a line feed
added to it (as specified by the SETUP command) and if you want to send
the contents of a NAME field then enclose the NAME in <>.
6.10
The actual value sent for a line feed can be changed on the Psion by
using the öTranslatesò option on the öSpecial menuò if the SETUP command
is not used, e.g.
6.10
SEND öFredò;
6.10
This would send the text öFredò but would not append it with an enter
key, e.g.
6.10
SEND ö<password>ò
6.10
This would send the text attached to the NAME password and append it
with an enter key, e.g.
6.10
SEND ölogonò
6.10
This would send ölogonò, appended with an enter key.
6.10
SENDWAIT [time] [mess],[test] GOTO [label] Ö This command is a
combination of SEND, WAIT and ON REPLY, but with one difference: the
branch to [label] is made if the text [test] is not received before
[time] half seconds. So...
6.10
SENDWAIT 20 ölogonò,öidò GOTO fail
6.10
ok: ..... id was requested ....
6.10
Is the same as;
6.10
SEND ölogonò
6.10
WAIT 20 (ON REPLY öidò GOTO ok)
6.10
GOTO fail
6.10
ok: ..... id was requested .....
6.10
File control
6.10
Commands in this section are CAPTURE, EXISTS, NEXISTS, RECEIVE and
TRANSMIT.
6.10
CAPTURE [filename] OFF DEBUG APPEND Ö Firstly, DEBUG and APPEND are
optional parameters, which are explained later and you can only specify
[filename] or OFF, not both.
6.10
This command will cause all data sent to the Series 3 to be copied to
the given filename. The incoming data is still available for you to use
with other commands.
6.10
When specifying the file, you can also specify the complete file path
but if the file path is omitted it will be placed in the ö\SCOò
directory, e.g.
6.10
CAPTURE öAudit.logò
6.10
or
6.10
CAPTURE öLOC::A:\BBS\Audit.logò
6.10
If you wish to terminate the capture, you use OFF, e.g.
6.10
CAPTURE OFF
6.10
If the specified file exists, it will automatically be overwritten but
you can use APPEND to add this new data to the end of this previously
created file, e.g.
6.10
CAPTURE öAudit.logò APPEND
6.10
When data is being written to the capture file, it is written out
exactly as it was received. DEBUG will display invalid values as hex, so
a character code of 7 would be <$7> and <$F> would be character code 15,
e.g.
6.10
CAPTURE öAudit.logò DEBUG
6.10
DEBUG and APPEND can be used together.
6.10
EXISTS [filename] GOTO [label] Ö This command is used to check if the
given file ([filename]) exists. If it does, the it will goto [label].
6.10
NEXISTS [filename] GOTO [label] Ö This is similar to EXISTS except the
goto is executed if the file does not exist.
6.10
RECEIVE ö[filename/path]ò, ö[protocol]ò Ö This command is used to
receive one or more files. Bear the following in mind as a lot of the
detail here will also be relevant for TRANSMIT.
6.10
The different values that [protocol] can have are as follows;
6.10
XMDM Ö XMODEM checksum (128 byte)
6.10
XMCRC Ö XMODEM CRC (128 byte)
6.10
XM1K Ö XMODEM CRC (1Kb)
6.10
YMDM Ö YMODEM (128 byte)
6.10
YMDMG Ö YMODEM/G (128 byte)
6.10
YM1K Ö YMODEM (1Kb)
6.10
YG1K Ö YMODEM/G (1Kb)
6.10
ASCII Ö Straight binary (no protocol).
6.10
In the case of XMODEM, ASCII and single file YMODEM transfer, you need
to specify the complete filename for the data being saved.
6.10
In the case of YMODEM multi-file transfer, you need to specify the
file path where the files are to be placed, e.g.
6.10
RECEIVE öLOC::A:\BBS\ò,öYM1Kò
6.10
TRANSMIT ö[filename/path]ò, ö[protocol]ò Ö This is the same format and
parameters as RECEIVE. When specifying single file transfer, you must
supply the full name.
6.10
Multi-file transfer is possible, but file selection is limited to wild
characters. To send all the files in a given directory you would code
this: TRANSMIT öLOC::A:\BBS\*.*ò,öYM1Kò. To send all image files, you
would code TRANSMIT ö\APP\*.IMGò, öYM1Kò. You cannot specify filenames
uniquely or tag them to send as a group.
6.10
User interaction
6.10
Commands in this section are ALERT, BEEP, INFO, MENU, PASSWORD and
QUERY.
6.10
ALERT ö[message]ò Ö This will display the [message] on the screen
until you press <escape> to continue.
6.10
BEEP [duration],[pitch] Ö The [duration] is specified in 1/32 of a
second and the pitch can be calculated from the following: KHz = 512/
(value+1) The higher the value, the lower is the pitch. Middle C is
about 523Hz when rounded and would have a value of 978 (rounded).
6.10
INFO ö[message]ò Ö This command will display the given [message]
temporarily in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
6.10
MENU ö[title]ò (ö[option 1]ò GOTO [label1] ö[option 2]ò GOTO [label2]
ö[option 3]ò GOTO [label3]) Ö This command will display a menu on the
screen with up to six options available. If an option is selected then
the GOTO associated with that option is executed. If <escape> is
pressed, the menu is removed and the script continues with the next
instruction.
6.10
Each option, and the title, may have up to a maximum of 30 characters,
e.g.
6.10
MENU öComms menuò (
6.10
öReceive dataò GOTO RECV
6.10
öTransmit dataò GOTO TRAN
6.10
öProtocolò GOTO SETUP)
6.10
PASSWORD Ö This command will ask for the password attached to the
current names file to be entered.
6.10
If the names file does not have a password, nothing happens but if it
is incorrect, the script will terminate.
6.10
QUERY ö[title]ò (ö[option1]ò [var1] ö[option 2]ò [var2] ö[option 3]ò
[var3]) Ö This command will allow up to 6 variables (s1,s2...s6) to be
assigned values. When this is executed, a window will appear with the
specified [title] (up to 30 chars) and up to 6 lines. Each line can
contain an [option] text (up to 20 chars) and the required variable
(which can accept up to 64 chars).
6.10
The variable names s1 to s6 are the only names that can be used but
they can appear in any sequence, e.g.
6.10
QUERY öSign onò (
6.10
öPhone number:ò s1
6.10
öUser id:ò s2
6.10
öPassword:ò s6
6.10
öCapture file:ò s3)
6.10
In this example, s1, s2, s3, & s6 will be assigned values when <enter>
is pressed. If <escape> is pressed, the script will stop and the query
dialog removed. Because s1 to s6 are reserved, any future script will
pick up the previous scriptæs values but as soon as a QUERY is executed,
they are set to blanks. Use of these reserved names was described
earlier.
6.10
Execution control
6.10
Commands in this section are CALL, EXIT, GOTO, ON and SET.
6.10
CALL [script name] Ö This command, when executed, will terminate the
current script and start to execute [script name]. When [script name]
ends, control is not passed back but the script ends.
6.10
EXIT Ö This will terminate the current script.
6.10
GOTO [label] Ö This command is used to amend the sequence of your
program. On execution, it will continue processing from [label].
6.10
ON [condition] GOTO [label] or ON [condition] OFF Ö There are four
[condition] situations that can be used with this command.
6.10
If the condition is met, script execution will continue from the
[label] given by GOTO.
6.10
Three of the four conditions can be grouped under errors/failures.
When one of these occur, the GOTO is executed.
6.10
Condition=SEND FAIL Ö If a SEND or SENDWAIT cannot transmit the data
within the TIMEOUT time (part of the SETUP parameter), the SEND FAIL
error will be raised, e.g.
6.10
ON SEND FAIL GOTO Serror
6.10
Condition=LINE FAIL Ö This will occur if the phone line is lost during
a connection and either FAIL=DSR or FAIL=DCD was specified in the SETUP
command, e.g.
6.10
ON LINE FAIL GOTO Lerror
6.10
Condition=PARITY FAIL Ö This will occur if a parity error occurs and
FAIL=PARITY was specified in the SETUP command, e.g.
6.10
ON PARITY FAIL GOTO Perror
6.10
For the latter three conditions, the use of ON [condition] OFF will
stop these errors being checked for, e.g.
6.10
ON SEND FAIL OFF
6.10
or
6.10
ON LINE FAIL OFF
6.10
or
6.10
ON PARITY FAIL OFF
6.10
The final condition to explain is the use of control NAMEs (mentioned
earlier).
6.10
These control NAMEs are assigned a numerical value which decrements
and is then checked by the ON command. If the control NAMEs is non-zero
then the GOTO is executed, otherwise the script will continue, e.g.
6.10
ON c1 GOTO repeatit
6.10
SET [control name]=[value] Ö This command is used to assign one of the
control NAMEs with a value, e.g.
6.10
SET c1=5
6.10
ÉOtheræ
6.10
There is only one command in this section and that is DRAIN. This
command will empty the receive buffer.
6.10
Finally
6.10
All my articles were keyed in on my Series 3 and spell-checked with
Psionæs spell checker. These were then copied to my Archimedes and
translated to text by PocketFS. If you put your mind to it the Series 3
is capable of Émanyæ things!ááA
6.10
Genesis/Magpie Column
6.10
Paul Hooper
6.10
Doing up buttons!
6.10
Before you think Iæve finally cracked up, I had better explain that I
am going to devote most of this monthæs column to the subject of buttons
in Genesis. The correct use of buttons is what makes Genesis so
powerful. Buttons are not just the sprite/drawfiles that you create, but
also the script and actions that go with them.
6.10
New buttons
6.10
In last monthæs tips, I mentioned the use of the DLink. This gives you
a NEXT and PREVIOUS button on a page. The sprites for this are placed
into the shared resources area, so it is a simple matter to replace them
with sprites of your own: click <menu> over a Genesis application icon
and open the ÉShowæ submenu, click on ÉResourcesæ then copy your sprites
into the window. Make sure that you name both the sprite and the sprite
window with the name NEXT or PREVIOUS. Next time you use DLink, your own
sprites will be used. On this monthæs disc you will see two video-style
buttons which can be used in place of the sprites supplied.
6.10
A few weeks ago, whilst compiling an application, I realised that the
DLink was insufficient for my needs and what I required was a Dlink but
with up and down buttons rather than next and previous. Using the
Genesis Script Language, I created a UDLink which has the same effect as
Dlink, giving two buttons which turn to the next or previous pages. This
is how you can do it: Modify the video style Énextæ sprite and produce
both an Éupæ and a Édownæ button. Then save these into the shared
resources area. Drag the ÉEmptyæ action button in !GenLib into !Edit and
type in:
6.10
DEF FRAME öUpò
6.10
SPRITE öupò
6.10
RIGHT 96 64
6.10
ACTION PREVIOUS
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
DEF FRAME öDownò
6.10
SPRITE ödownò
6.10
LEFT 96 64
6.10
ACTION NEXT
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
Save the action script, then next time you require it, just drop it
onto your page. The script and the buttons are on this monthæs disc.
6.10
Family tree
6.10
Using a modified form of the above, allows you to create a family tree
button. The trouble with sprites is that, if you increase their size
they become ragged and they can only use the system font. The way to
overcome this is to use !Draw and create just the wording that you
require on the button. Then using the Éemptyæ button again, type in the
following:
6.10
DEF FRAME öDadò
6.10
DRAW öFatherò
6.10
FGCOL 7
6.10
BGCOL 11
6.10
LEFT 192 64
6.10
BORDER
6.10
ACTION PREVIOUS
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
DEF FRAME öKidsò
6.10
DRAW öSonò
6.10
FGCOL 7
6.10
BGCOL 11
6.10
RIGHT 128 64
6.10
BORDER
6.10
ACTION NEXT
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
The two drawfiles are called öFatherò and öSonò and are saved in the
shared resources area of your application. Again these are on the
monthly disc.
6.10
Return to menu!
6.10
The ÉHomeæ button provided in !GenLib returns you to the title page
but I find this of limited use. Normally, when I compile an application,
there is a menu page with a series of options which the viewer can
choose. This is not the title page but normally around page 2 or 3. Once
I have set up this menu page, I set up a script and button which will
return me directly to the menu page. For example:
6.10
DEF FRAME öReturnò
6.10
SPRITE öreturnò
6.10
SIZE 96 64
6.10
ACTION GOTO ö1ò
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
In the above example, the menu is on page 1 and the sprite I am using
is called ÉReturnæ. Now once you have created this button, just drop it
onto any page and you have an instant button to return you to the menu.
It is a simple matter to combine the Éreturn to Menuæ button with the
DLink to provide three video style buttons on the same page. On the disc
is a button called VTLink, (Video Triple Link) which will do just that.
It has been modified so that all the sprites come out at the correct
size and the border is switched on.
6.10
Menu buttons
6.10
To round off this section on Genesis buttons, one way which you can
improve your menus or words in text frames that you wish users to click
on is to make them stand out. On the disc is MenuButL (Menu button
long). This uses sprite LongBut2 as a background, with a text frame
placed on top of it in which you can place your own text. This can be
dropped onto any page as long as you have saved LongBut2 in the shared
resources area. The script language for this is shown below:
6.10
DEF FRAME öBackgroundSpriteò
6.10
SPRITE öLongBut2ò
6.10
FGCOL 7
6.10
BGCOL 0
6.10
SIZE 640 96
6.10
BORDER
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
DEF FRAME öTextFrameBlankò
6.10
TEXT ötext0ò
6.10
STYLE öTrinity.Bold.Italicò
6.10
SIZE 320
6.10
FGCOL 8
6.10
SIZE 512 96
6.10
END FRAME
6.10
If you have any buttons you use a lot, please send me a copy to enable
me to pass them on to others.
6.10
Magpie buttons
6.10
Buttons in Magpie operate in a different way. The button is only a
graphic and each button has to be programmed with its own action. They
cannot be given action statements like those in Genesis. In Magpie,
there is no shared resources area. In Genesis, this shared resources
area is saved in the application. In Magpie, the buttons are in !Magpie
or !MagpiRead itself. So if you customise your buttons and wish to send
your binders to someone else, you will need to send them a copy of your
buttons as well. These then need to be placed into the ÉButtonsæ sprite
file window within !Magpie or !MagpiRead.
6.10
One advantage of this is that if you only intend to use one or two
types of buttons within a binder, you can eliminate from your copy of
!Magpie the buttons that you are not going to use. This will save you
working through the alternatives when you are setting up your binder.
!MagpiRead can also be modified in this way using only the buttons that
are required by the binder it is reading, saving disc space.
6.10
Magpie buttons are always sprites Ö they cannot use drawfiles. Yet
with a little thought, you can create a ÉMenu Returnæ button which will
take you back to the menu page. Just create a sprite in the ÉButtonsæ
sprite window and you can use this to move to the menu page. If you send
the application to anyone, make sure you include a copy of !MagpiRead
with the sprite added. The other alternative is to create a sprite or
drawfile and drop it onto each page and then create a transparent button
over the file.
6.10
Swap shop
6.10
My thanks go to Elaine Jones for her Genesis application on the design
of equipment for disabled people. If there are any CDT teachers who
would like a copy, just send me a disc and I will provide you with a
copy and !Browser which will enable you to use the program without any
need for Genesis. The only thing I would ask in return is that you
provide Elaine with some feedback. To save disc space this month, the
list below shows the applications that are available now. (M for a
Magpie binder or G for a Genesis application)
6.10
    Oxburgh Hall Ö G (800Kb and 1.6Mb versions)
6.10
    British Birds Ö G M
6.10
    Insects Ö M
6.10
    Solar System Ö M
6.10
    Weather Ö G M
6.10
    Medieval English Churches Ö G M
6.10
    Designing Disability Equipment Ö G
6.10
The following are in preparation:
6.10
    Owain Glydwr
6.10
    The History of Chartism
6.10
    Modern Fighters
6.10
    Wroxham Junior Farm
6.10
    Harvest in the past
6.10
If you want any of the above, all you need to do is send me one (or
more!) of your applications which we can add to the catalogue and
include a blank disc for each application that you require.
6.10
Finally
6.10
Next month, I hope to be looking at the way each of the programs deals
with sound samples. If you have any particular points on this or any
other query about Genesis or Magpie, just drop me a line or disc to:
Paul Hooper, 11 Rochford Road, Martham, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. NR29
4RL. Phone: 0493Ö748474.ááA
6.10
Printer Drivers For Beginners
6.10
Tim Nicholson
6.10
With the advent of RISCáOS 3.1x, Acorn have provided, in !Printers, a
potentially powerful and flexible printer driver system. Unfortunately,
it can also cause much grief and confusion when trying to set it up
properly. This is due to a number of factors including incompatible
default settings, poor documentation and quirks of the software.
6.10
The RISCáOS 3 manuals contain a couple of chapters describing
!Printers and the associated printer definition file editor !PrintEdit.
Unfortunately, they do not lay out the information in a way that leads
you step by step through the processes necessary to set up your system
from scratch. This article attempts to correct this omission. It is
based on a combination of information contained in the manuals and
poking about in the software to see what makes it tick.
6.10
I have experimented with a cut-sheet bubblejet printer, an Epson
compatible dot matrix printer using continuous feed, fanfold stationery,
and a Laserjet II compatible printer. Since the results I have found
differ little between the types of printer, I will describe matters in
general terms, and indicate differences where they occur. My remarks do
not relate to PostScript or direct drive laser printer drivers which
both work somewhat differently.
6.10
What you need
6.10
In order to make a start, you will need the following to hand: !Draw
(found in the Apps folder on the iconbar), working copies (as opposed to
the originals) of !Printers, !PrintEdit, (supplied on the Apps1 disc),
Top_Left and a printer definition file that suits your printer, obtained
from the selection available in the printers directory on Apps2. The
Readme files in the printers directory give a good indication of which
driver to use with your printer if you cannot find one that matches
exactly. This should at least get you started and provide some usable
graphics modes.
6.10
Because definition files cover a range of printers with common
software but differing mechanical layouts, it is unlikely that you will
be able simply to install the required definition file and produce
perfect results without a little tweaking. There are two main areas that
will almost certainly need attention. One is the printeræs X and Y
offset settings which are part of a printer definition file and the
other is the paper margins/paper size parameters which are stored within
the !Printers application.
6.10
A working copy of !Printers will contain a number of definition files
within itself Ö there is one for the default settings of !Printers, one
containing the combined definitions of all the printer types that
!Printer currently knows about, and several paper size files. These
files are all in textual form and may be edited directly by the very
bold but it is more usual to make use of facilities within !Printers and
!PrintEdit to modify the various parameters. These changes, however, do
not always take effect immediately unless special precautions are taken.
This can be one of the biggest sources of confusion and bafflement when
trying to set things up.
6.10
Finding your printeræs limitations
6.10
As supplied, !Printers contains no printer definitions at all and so
the first job is to give it a definition file. Double click on your
working copy of !Printers Ö after a while, a grey printer icon should
appear on the left hand side of the iconbar. The grey icon indicates
that there is no active printer definition.
6.10
Click <menu> over this icon and select [Printer control...]. A Printer
Control window should now open. Into this window, drag your chosen
printer definition file Ö the window will display details of the printer
definition you have installed. A new coloured icon should also have
appeared on the iconbar with the printer name underneath it. By default,
the definition should be active and set up for parallel connection. If
this is not to your requirements, use the [Configure...] and
[Connection...] sections of the Printer Control menu to modify the
connection to what you are using (e.g. serial). Also, in the same menu,
set the paper size to be that which you will be using if the default A4
is not appropriate. Donæt forget to click OK after making changes rather
than just closing the window with the close icon.
6.10
The RISCáOS 3 User Guide is reasonably clear up to this stage although
I do not recommend that you load more than one printer definition file
until you have really sorted out the first one and become familiar with
the set-up procedure. If you are using a printer which has several
emulation modes, check that any internal switches in the printer are
correctly set up to be compatible with the printer definition file you
are using Ö your printer manual should give guidance on this.
6.10
Ensure that your printer is connected, switched on and loaded with
paper. You are now ready to drag the Top_Left file to the printer icon
on the iconbar. A small inverted L should be printed in the top left
hand corner of the paper. If your paper is blank, donæt panic. It means
one of two things Ö either you have one of the few printers whose
default print origin is off the edge of the paper, and therefore has
negative offsets or, more likely, your printer mode does not support
graphics accessed by the öESC,Kò control code sequence which Top_Left
assumes. Laserjet II and Deskjet 500s can fall into this category. If
you find yourself in this situation, simply refer to the section below
on checking paper margins and use the drawfile to obtain an estimate of
how much you need to trim the X and Y offsets from their current values.
Remove the sheet of paper from your printer and put in a safe place
while I make a small digression into the mechanics of printers(!)
6.10
Printer mechanics
6.10
All printers, be they typewriter-derived, like dot matrix and bubble
jets, or laser printers, need to be able to locate the paper securely
whilst doing whatever they do to get ink onto it. This means that most
cannot print over the entire area of the paper and so have unprintable
areas alongside each edge of the paper.
6.10
The top and bottom areas are a function of the printer mechanics and
vary from printer to printer. They do not depend on the size of paper
used, except perhaps for laser printers. A similar argument holds for
the left and right unprintable areas, except that this is a function of
paper width as well as printer design. It is usually possible, by means
of internal switch settings and computer control codes, to further limit
the actual printing area of a printer. Therefore, no matter what margins
may be set up in computer software, there will be areas that the printer
will not print on.
6.10
The Top_Left printout gives an instant indication of a printeræs
default top and left unprintable areas. This information is required by
!Printers to ensure that it locates its output on the paper correctly.
It is also required by you when setting up paper margins in the Paper
size window because it is imperative to ensure that any top and left
margins set here are at least as big as the printeræs unprintable areas
and, preferably, slightly larger.
6.10
When working with fanfold paper, you need to decide between the
convenience of having the perforations located at the tear-off bar,
which necessitates a large top margin, and wasting an extra sheet either
side of your wanted printout. The extra sheet means that you can set the
perforations near the print head, and have a small top margin. Once you
are familiar with matters, you can have paper margins and a printer
definition set for each option.
6.10
Modifying the definition file
6.10
In order to modify your printer definition file to the values you have
just discovered, it is necessary to start the !PrintEdit application by
double clicking on it. This application does not install on the iconbar
but opens a Definition Editor window. Drag your printer definition file
into this window Ö after a pause, all the blank boxes should be filled
in and at least some of the Text modes: boxes will cease to be greyed
out.
6.10
The Paper X offset: and Paper Y offset: boxes are the main items of
interest. These figures should be modified to the values obtained by
means of a ruler applied to your Top-Left printout. Remember that X is
the left margin and Y the top. Before saving this modified definition,
it is necessary to make a couple of other changes. One is to avoid
confusing !Printers and the other to avoid confusing you. Change both
the Printer type: and Printer name: boxes to something else e.g. Canon
bubblejet2 and bubblejet2 respectively.
6.10
Click <menu> over the window and save your modified definition file
under a new name. !PrintEdit should update all the graphics modes
contained within the definition before saving the new file. In the
!Printers Printer Control window, open the menu over the line containing
your previous definition and select Remove. The window should be blank
once more. You may now drag your new file to the Printer Control window
which will then contain a line with your new definition name in it. As
confirmation, the printer icon on the iconbar should have your new name
on it.
6.10
IMPORTANT, do not be tempted to Remove your first driver from
!Printers and then load in your modified file without having changed the
Printer type: name as instructed above. If you do, !Printers will simply
reactivate the old definition you öremovedò and the changes will not be
implemented! You have been warned.
6.10
Ensure that you have the correct connection and paper size set and
select Edit paper sizes... from !Printers iconbar menu. Set the top and
left graphics margins to sensible values which, at a minimum, are
slightly bigger than X and Y as set in the printer definition file.
6.10
Checking paper margins
6.10
To test out the modified definition, you need to make up a test file
in Draw. Open a Draw window and select MiscÖPaper limitsÖShow. Ensure
that the paper size is the same as you are using (say A4), or the next
size up. Turn on Grid lock and Show. Select a fill colour of light grey
and the box drawing tool, (the one above the T). In the top left hand
corner, draw a box with its bottom and right edges aligned with the grid
major axes and big enough to overlap into the margins. Do a similar
thing with the other 3 corners, aligning the respective edges to grid
lines. Select text mode, place the cursor somewhere in the middle of the
paper and type in öTHIS WAY UPò. Save this file somewhere as, say,
öMarginsò.
6.10
To print out this test drawfile, drag it onto the iconbar printer
icon. You should now have a piece of paper with four grey boxes printed
near the corners. The inside edges of these boxes should have a thin
solid black line along them, the outside edges should be grey. The
distance between the top of the paper and the top of the grey boxes
should be equal the top margin setting in the paper sizes... window and
the distance between the left edge of the paper and the left edge of the
grey boxes should equal the left margin setting.
6.10
If you were unable to use Top_Left to set up your offsets, or there is
still an error, and your top margin is too small, it means that your Y
offset is too big. (If you set a margin of, say, 2cm and a Y offset of
1cm, the printer driver knows it only needs to move down another 1cm
before it starts printing. If, however, the real figure is only 0.5cm,
the printout will start 0.5cm too high).
6.10
Similar arguments apply to the left margin, but this is also dependent
on how the paper is loaded. With form-fed paper, or a cut sheet feeder,
the margin will be much more consistent than single sheets loaded into a
printer. It should, however, be correct to within loading tolerances.
6.10
If either figure needs adjustment, itæs back to !PrintEdit to adjust
the offsets. Remember though that while Top_Left gave us absolute
figures for X and Y, we have now measured an error in the settings and
need to trim the figures. Do not forget to generate another new name for
this further revised definition before saving to a new file.
6.10
Note that the X and Y figures entered in !PrintEdit are subject to
rounding errors, as are the paper margins. Setting the margins slightly
bigger than the X and Y figures ensures that the software does not get
confused into thinking that a margin is smaller than an offset.
6.10
Setting the right hand margin is a question of making sure that it is
greater than your printeræs physical limitations for the size of paper
in use. A measured value greater than that set, is indicative of too
small a setting but you need to allow for the possibility of lateral
misalignment of the paper with cut sheet printers. A good indication is
that the total margin width is the same as the total of the settings of
left and right. A usual figure for the right margin would be to make it
the same as the left for symmetry.
6.10
Problems at the bottom
6.10
The bottom margin is a little more tricky. If it is too small, you can
get the problem of spurious extra form-feeds or the bottom of pages
being printed at the top of a separate sheet, even when there appears to
be room on the current sheet for the printout. The reason for this is as
follows.
6.10
When !Printers has sent a line of graphics information to the printer,
it sends a -line end string-. This string will normally end with a line
feed. When !Printers has finished sending all the graphics lines for one
page, either because it knows it has reached the bottom margin, or
because it has run out of data to print, it issues -form feed- followed
by -page end- strings. Therefore, !Printers must be able to send the
whole of the last line of graphics, followed by a line feed and a form
feed, before either a cut sheet printer registers it is out of paper, or
a continuous feed printer has calculated that it has started on a new
sheet of paper. The limiting case is when the final line feed just
causes either condition to be true. In this case, the final form feed is
executed on the next sheet of paper causing a blank sheet to be
generated. As a consequence of this, the minimum acceptable bottom
margin will be equal to the printeræs standard linefeed amount (usually
1/6th inch).
6.10
With continuous stationery printers, there is also the perforation
skip setting which causes the printer to skip past the perforations
without !Printers knowing anything about it. There are two ways round
this problem. Either disable perforation skip on the DIP switches on
your printer, or amend your definition file to include a string to turn
this off before commencing any printing. Unless you are familiar with
editing printer definition files to a greater depth than discussed here,
I recommend using the DIP switches. Perforation skip is a safety net for
when raw text data is sent directly to the printer without going via any
sort of printer driver. There is no real need for this kind of operation
with RISCáOS 3 and so it is never really necessary to have it switched
on.
6.10
There is one other source of incorrect form-feeding with continuous
stationery. This will occur when the text height setting (in lines) does
not match the paper size. This is because, before printing commences,
!Printers sends a set up string to the printer to tell it how long the
paper is that it is using. Since !Printers passes this information to
the printer in units of lines, it obtains the information from the text
height setting. This problem is only likely to occur with non-standard
paper lengths, e.g. labels. Most printers work on a basis of six lines
to the inch at their default spacing, so use this ratio to calculate the
correct text height figure to insert.
6.10
Tidying up
6.10
By now, you should have a workable printer definition file which
enables !Printers to format output correctly onto your paper, without
clipping any of the printable area. Not only should the margins be
correct but the inside edges of the boxes should be the correct distance
from the paper edges. Note that Draw defines the paper origin as the
bottom left hand corner whereas the printer origin is the top left hand
corner.
6.10
There is one last thing to do before you have finished customising
your version of !Printers and that is to save a copy of your definitions
within !Printers itself. This is so that each time you start !Printers,
it will already know the definition you have just created and it will
start up with your preferred paper size, print resolution, etc.
6.10
At this stage, you may decide to change the names you have used to
describe the printer definition you have modified. If so, reload your
modified file into !PrintEdit and change the printer type: and printer
name: to something meaningful. Remember that the type is what is listed
in the Printer control window and the name is what is displayed on the
iconbar. Resave your definition file to a safe place, Remove the
previous definition and drag this final version into !Printersæ Printer
control window. Check that the default paper sizes, connections and
print resolutions are correct for you and finally use Save choices on
the iconbar menu. The next time you run !Printers, it should come up
ready to print without further adjustment.ááA
6.10
Talking Pictures
6.10
Simon Anthony
6.10
Wyddfa Software has produced a package aimed at very early learners.
It is subtitled öthe colouring book that talksò and that is exactly what
it is.
6.10
It comes in an A5 plastic folder with two discs and a slim manual (in
my draft review issue). On cataloguing the first disc, you find the main
application, TalkPic, a stencil-making application (to create your own
pictures), a Font directory containing the Anwen font, the various parts
of the System package, one talking screen (Baby), a white mode 0 sprite
to use as a blank and the sound samples associated with the screen
called öbabyò.
6.10
The second disc holds more screens and their sounds. These sound
samples take up over 700Kb of that disc which only leaves room for four
screens, so the ability to make up your own screens is essential Ö as is
the ownership, and proficiency in use, of a sound sampler.
6.10
Talking in use
6.10
Double clicking on a talking screen will, as you would expect, load
the application and that particular screen. If you are not already in a
256 colour mode, (15 for example) an error window is generated,
prompting you to change. Being multitasking, it does not change mode
automatically because this could disturb other desktop applications. In
order to prevent the childæs random clicking syndrome from killing the
application (and anything else that is available) the multitasking
aspect can be locked off. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way back
into the desktop on RISCáOS 2 from there, other than by a hard reset. In
RISCáOS 3.1, pressing <shift-f12> will tuck the screen behind the icon
bar which lets you get at the save and quit features.
6.10
If you click on parts of the drawing without having first selected a
colour, the Archimedes will remain silent. If you click on a colour (not
white initially) you will be able to hear dulcet female tones
pronouncing the colour (as you click on it) and the name of the bit you
want to colour. I labour this point because if you do it the other way
round, you could think something is wrong when nothing happens.
6.10
It is possible to re-colour any area you wish and there is also a
rubber facility which toggles between the last two coloured states. The
rubber does odd things to the text box. The addition of such a box is
irreversible although the text itself, and its colours, can be altered.
The text is displayed at a lighter tint than the box colour, which is
user-selectable in the normal way. These lighter tints are not available
for the main screen which is a pity. Once coloured to perfection, the
picture can be saved as a sprite for printing.
6.10
Looking at Talking
6.10
Should you not heed the advice to use a 256 colour mode, the colours
which are displayed down the left of the screen will not match the
verbal descriptions. With 256 colours to choose from, a menu of only 13
colours including black (very dark grey), white and light grey is a bit
drab. The choice of indigo is also rather odd. I know there are only a
few names with which to differentiate colours but only one shade of
green is a real limitation here. öLight greenò could surely have been
used as a spoken name as they do include a beautifully enunciated öpale
blueò.
6.10
The use of the additional adjective ölightò with the existing colours
and names could have doubled the colours and halved the extra size
needed in terms of sound samples. The arrangement of the colours is also
a bit dull for my tastes although younger users donæt seem to mind.
There is a black-on-white line drawing in the colouring area but the
amount of detail possible is limited by the need to get a pointer tip
into it to colour it.
6.10
New things to talk about
6.10
Each flood-fillable area has a name defined by its co-ordinates. These
are held in a text file associated with the uncoloured sprite in a
combined file known as the östencilò. That is why an application is
required to create a new Talking Picture. Starting with the supplied
blank sprite, which is the correct size and in the only acceptable mode
(0), the technique is to load it into Paint or some other package and
either paint on, draw (if in Draw) or dump on (by using the öPaint with
Spriteò option of Paint) a simple black outline for eventual colouring.
By using the stencilæs assigned co-ordinates, the areas which can be
given names (and coloured) are entered into a text file along with the
co-ordinates and the sound sample file needed to Éspeakæ it. The new
sprite and the text file can now be merged via the stencil utility and,
hey presto, a new talking picture is born.
6.10
And finally...
6.10
There are two things to think about when you buy a piece of
educational software: What do you want it to teach and will it do the
job better than any alternative for a reasonable price? To answer the
second question first, it costs ú20 (inc VAT) from Wyddfa Ö which is not
a lot Ö but a paper colouring book is cheaper.
6.10
If the idea is to keep the child quiet and happy, Talking Pictures
does its job very well. Children are not likely to get hooked on this
sort of program and neither are they going to learn a lot about
colouring, spelling or reading that couldnæt have been gained from the
paper alternative. However, Talking Pictures is clean, quick and easy
for the child to use and is an excellent way to de-mystify computing for
a very young person. Unless you are a talented artist and/or programmer
with access to a sound sampler, you will quickly run out of things to
colour in and words for it to speak.ááA
6.10
ProCAD Review
6.10
Richard Fallas
6.10
ProCAD has recently been released by Minerva as the full-blown follow-
up to CADet, which was reviewed in Archive 6.7 p61. It costs ú495 plus
VAT (ú1580 +VAT for a site licence), and will run on 2Mb machines and
upwards under RISCOS 2 or later. Some features are, however, only
available under RISCáOS 3.10. The program is supplied with a (standard?)
Minerva boxed ring binder containing the manual. Two 800Kb discs are
provided; one featuring ProCAD and also PlotterA0, which is a plotter
driver for ProCAD files; the other providing various drawing, symbol and
report examples. ProCAD may be backed-up or installed on a hard disc.
The version provided for review was v1.01 but this was upgraded to v1.02
during the course of the review.
6.10
The competition
6.10
The price tag puts this application at the top end of CAD (and almost
all other) packages for the Archimedes. The only other comparably priced
package that I am aware of is Delphainæs DelCAD which is currently
priced at about ú450 (originally circa ú1500). Oak Solutionsæ PDT
originally cost around ú300 but is now nearer ú150. I have only briefly
seen DelCAD, at the NEC three years ago, and hence have only a vague
recollection of its capabilities. PDT is much more familiar as I have
used it to produce many drawings over the past four years or so.
6.10
Lower in price are several other offerings, namely WorraCad, G-Draft,
Autosketch, Techsoft Designer and Minervaæs own CADet which are all
priced below ú200. My list includes only general CAD packages as opposed
to 3D, Circuit Board and Art-based programs. (Apologies if I have missed
anybody out!)
6.10
In the PC world, prices are somewhat different Ö although there has
been a noticeable reduction of some of the major players. AutoCad is
currently around ú3000 but there are a number of programs around the
ú500 mark including FastCAD, Generic CADD and Drafix which ProCAD
superficially resembles. Note, however, that serious PC (and workstation
users) seldom make do with a bare CAD package. Specialist enhancements
which add features, e.g. Architectural Extensions, are commonly used and
add to the effective cost. It is also worth noting that AutoCad and
FastCad can both be enhanced with additional (third party) facilities
being available as if they were part of the main application. This
extendability is of considerable importance.
6.10
The price of ProCAD gives some idea of the importance of the
application, not only to Minerva, but also to Acorn as well. If programs
of this level of sophistication are being written, it shows confidence
in the platform. The other side of the equation is that if ProCAD sells
well, so will the platform. This will increase the exposure of both in
the Érealæ world outside of education. It is my sad conclusion that
Acorn have not yet succeeded in convincing industrial purchasers (and PC
software developers) that they are worthy of con-sideration. I hope this
is changing. Minerva are keen to sell systems and given that, for some
potential customers, a CAD program may be the only package they ever
require for that particular computer, this should be attractive provided
the software is sufficiently capable and is well supported.
6.10
Review objectives
6.10
I was very pleased to be asked to test the software, because finding a
comprehensive, time-effective CAD system continues to be something of a
passion (and a Holy Grail) for me. I had actually seen ProCAD at beta-
test stage and was keen to see how it had matured. However, there is
necessarily a limit to what can be achieved in a review of this sort.
You, the readers, will want differing levels of information. I, as a
tester, have to get to grips with the package as well as I can in a
short space of time, digest that experience and relate it, if possible,
to other existing programs. With an application as complex as ProCAD,
this is bound to be uneven. Nevertheless, I take the task seriously
because I have noted some pretty vague and superficial Éreviewsæ of
recent software releases which frankly donæt reveal much useful
information about the subject.
6.10
Minerva are pretty up-beat about ProCAD, and claim a good level of
interest among AutoCad users at the recent CADCAM show. I will attempt
to assess their success from one useræs point of view. If the review is
relatively lengthy, I hope this will be excused as I believe ProCAD is
an important development.
6.10
User interface
6.10
In common with WorraCad and CADet, the control of ProCAD is through
RISCáOS icons and windows, with a control layout similar to CADet.
Button bars are provided for Tool and Snap selection in addition to
standard menus and keystroke short-cuts. Several Snap and Tool options
have been added to the CADet choices. Function key definitions add to
the multiple selection methods. Each drawing window is naturally
sizeable, as per Draw, and various parameters may be set via the iconbar
menu ÉPreferencesæ option. The appearance of the buttons is fine; more
importantly they function well and 3D feedback is well implemented.
Several of the tool buttons have dialogue boxes (accessed via the adjust
button!), and these I found a little fussy and sometimes unclear
however, they can be Épinnedæ onto the screen which is useful.
Coordinate information is provided on the Snap button bar in a box which
is writeable when appropriate.
6.10
Multiple views of the drawing may be open at one time, with an
overview window and a tiling option to arrange them on the screen if
required. Each window has a status bar at the top which shows tool,
snap, pen and colour, line-style, layer and text class information.
Moreover, adjustment of several of these may be made by clicking on the
status bar itself which I found very convenient. Pen and line-styles may
be set in this manner. Sub-menus may be kept open by depressing a pin
icon, although screen clutter quickly becomes a problem. I really must
get a colour card and try all this at 1280 ╫ 1024 resolution!
6.10
Sensibly, many of the keystroke shortcuts emulate Draw, including the
use of <Shift-SEL> for mouse-controlled zooming. I would, however, like
to see more functions added to the keystroke list as using RISCáOS menus
over a complex drawing window can be very tedious. There are some blanks
in the Function Key series so perhaps these can be utilised? (Minerva
tell me that you can actually edit and add keyboard shortcuts Ö see the
manual page 202. Ed)
6.10
Snap-based drawing
6.10
Minerva make great play of the snap-based nature of the program, and
rightly so. New elements can be made to attach to selected points on
existing entities, e.g. endpoint, midpoint, centre, point, projection,
grid, tangent, perpendicular, etc, as well as specifying absolute or
relative coordinates in x-y or polar form. Snap selection is easy and
may be altered during the creation of an entity as required. Cleverly,
several snaps may be operative at once and the computer clicks
discreetly as each possible snap is encountered. There is no appreciable
delay in the action of the snap box, which makes for very rapid
selection. Feedback is provided in the status bar as to which type of
snap is being offered, where more than one button has been depressed.
6.10
Fundamentals
6.10
ProCADæs authors have made a deliberate policy of relating the drawing
file to the ultimate output, i.e. a piece of paper. Several output
formats are supported, e.g. Draw, DXF and Print but I assume that most
serious users of CAD software want hardcopy via a plotter, or its modern
raster equivalent. HPGL dominates this approach and is based entirely on
integer data. This means that the smallest unit a plotter has to contend
with is 0.025mm which it considers as 1 unit. Minerva have, therefore,
bound the concept of paper size implicitly to the drawing being created.
There is considerable logic in this. Firstly, speed of redrawing is
particularly fast, because of the integer maths being used. Obviously,
decimals are available but only down to a certain level, and zoom ratios
are thus limited. It is an approach, however, which is totally different
from most other CAD packages, particularly PDT which utilise floating
point arithmetic and hence have an effectively infinite zoom potential.
6.10
Speed
6.10
To give an indication of speed of redraw, a complex drawing was
converted via DXF file from PDT to ProCAD. Approximate redraw times
(excluding recalculation in PDT) were as follows (The (Z) columns
indicate use of zoom):
6.10
    PDT    PDT(Z)    ProCAD    ProCAD(Z)
6.10
ARM 2    31 s    9 s    3 s    12
s
6.10
ARM 3    11 s    3 s    1.5 s
1.5 s
6.10
Recalculation is carried out in PDT to maintain parametric
relationships but can be suppressed if required and is not required for
zooming in and out or panning. In the example above, Recalc added 8
seconds to the effective redraw time with an ARM 3. ProCAD doesnæt have
a Recalc equivalent and hence appears significantly faster. There is,
however, a significant factor for ARM 2 users which is not so obvious
when the drawing is at high zoom ratios. With an ARM 2 processor, ProCAD
slows down considerably in this state and the redraw time increased some
fourfold, whereas PDT speeded up! This phenomenon is interesting as it
suggests that the ProCAD redraw is well optimised for the ARM 3 cache.
Oak obviously use a fast checking algorithm to exclude items outside the
field of view. Minerva warn users to reduce objects to smaller
subdivisions to improve zoom redraws but Iæm not sure how practical (or
necessary for ARM 3 users) that is. However, it can be seen, that ProCAD
is very quick and that is crucial to all CAD users. I do not have access
to AutoCad on a fast PC but suspect that the machine would have to have
a fairly exotic specification to approach this sort of redraw
performance.
6.10
On the down side, this integer based system limits the relational
accuracy. For many purposes, it works acceptably well e.g. ends of
lines, midpoints and coordinates all snap Éaccuratelyæ. I encountered
problems with large radius arcs, however, particularly in creating
tangent arcs. Here, ProCAD would not get me closer than about 1mm (as
plotted) to the theoretical intersection of one arc. Being used to the
uncanny precision of PDT this was disappointing and reveals a weakness
which also emerges if successive manipulations/transformations are
carried out.
6.10
Novel features
6.10
There are a number of novel features which add to the useability of
the program. Clever (and partially parametric) symbol implementation
means that symbol libraries may be maintained with efficient storage of
multiple copies of each symbol in the drawing file. Symbols may be
scaled on entry or converted to standard groups, and thence entities,
for individual editing if required. Also unusual is a report facility
which enables interrogation of a drawing file for the occurrence of
certain groups identified by items of a specified Étext classæ. Entity
and area fills are available but require care in the selection of
relevant bounding entities. Break points may need to be created to
achieve the expected results. Cut-outs of areas of a drawing may be made
for copying or enlargement as a detail.
6.10
Four internal fonts are provided, and I was very impressed to see the
inclusion of !Font capabilities. RISCáOS 3.10 users have full rotational
control of any outline font, and text produced may be converted to
groups and (pattern) filled as required. Text may be entered in lines,
in paragraph form or via ASCII files. Also provided is a configurable
Undo buffer which got me out of trouble more than once, as I was able to
retrace my (maladroit) steps.
6.10
Another dimension
6.10
Add to this the more standard options to replicate entities in
circular, linear and Éfollow itemæ arrays, fillets, chamfers, parallel
lines and various geometric extensions and it is clear that ProCAD is
well-endowed with drawing aids. Dimensioning is also well catered for,
and I particularly liked the option to add text to any dim before final
confirmation. Dimensioning is another area, however, where a choice has
had to be made. Dims are not associative, i.e. they do not alter if the
entity which they describe is subsequently altered. Nor can they be
edited (as dimensions), i.e. they must be deleted and recreated.
6.10
This gives me some doubts. PDT (being fully parametric) recalculates
all dims which are based on parametric points. Changing drawings is
therefore a dream Ö provided it is set up properly in the first place.
PC FastCAD is not parametric but if a selection including a dimension is
stretched, the dimension is updated. Similarly, WorraCad maintains
dimensions associatively after editing. ProCAD, by contrast, creates the
dimension based on the entity (using snaps) but henceforth considers the
dim to be merely a group which can subsequently be ungrouped and changed
at will.
6.10
The dimension text value, however, is not updated. On talking to
Minerva about this, they suggested that altering dimensions ought not to
be too laborious, and that some Éassociativeæ systems are not immune
from problems. Iæve never had problems with PDT in this regard but nor
does PDT give the same flexibility of drawing enhancements. What I would
have preferred to see, however, is dimensions being identified as dims
in the file structure, such that they could be edited in turn to the
updated snap point, but retaining style attributes which can be tedious
to recreate. Potential users will have to consider the relative
importance of this facility to them.
6.10
All users will want control over scales and units and there are
comprehensive facilities for these. Of interest is the facility to input
a value with a letter suffix which ProCAD will attempt to interpret
according to the known unit definitions. Expressions may also be
entered, many of which function according to text class associations. I
particularly liked the ÉSelect byæ options which permit clever
permutations of selection for subsequent manipulation and editing.
6.10
Wish list
6.10
As always, this user wanted more than was provided and would like to
see some or all of the following:
6.10
new snaps    Ö mid point between two points
6.10
    Ö at distance on chosen arc
6.10
    Ö at distance on chosen line
6.10
new dims    Ö arc length
6.10
new info    Ö angle of line
6.10
    Ö arc length
6.10
    Ö layer of item
6.10
new text    Ö align with existing line
6.10
new arcs    Ö tangent to arcs or line/arc directly (not via fillet)
6.10
I would also like the select mode to be configurable to remain active
after editing. At present ProCAD tries to anticipate my needs by
changing to the appropriate draw mode of the item last edited. I would
also like the main drawing window to become immediately active after
selection of a layer (or other sub-menu option) but currently a click is
needed to reactivate the drawing window.
6.10
Connectivity
6.10
Any CAD program must have access to other CAD system resources. ProCAD
is well provided for in this regard, as DXF and Draw import and export
are all included. Initial problems with DXF import of points have been
resolved in v1.02, as have some extraneous lines which appeared using
v1.01. A scale factor for DXF import is suggested based on destination
paper size, for altering or acceptance before translation and I found
the system now works well.
6.10
Drawfile passing in both directions is also very good, although I
would like to see use made of Drawæs thick line capability. A pen-size
table could be used to create monochrome drawfiles whose line
thicknesses corresponded to the pen/colour combination in ProCAD. This
would provide users of laser and inkjet printers with very capable, if
small, raster-based plotters. I have actually written a routine to
process HPGL files to achieve this effect but it would be nice to do it
on the fly and it should not be too difficult to implement.
6.10
Also provided is a clever means of file creation using CSV files in
ASCII format. This seems quite comprehensive and allows spreadsheet or
Basic-based drawing creation for cases of complex geometry or where
similar drawings of differing dimensional/text content are required.
This goes a long way towards offering a pseudo-parametric capability but
does require the setting up of template files/programs for each required
drawing. I see this facility as being of considerable importance because
third party suppliers will be able to offer specialist enhancements to
ProCAD, albeit indirectly, and as such, should be of similar application
to AutoLisp in AutoCad. What is not evident is whether Éinternalæ
enhancements may be added by third party software houses (or Minerva
themselves) as modules, such that the new functions are available as
menu/icon selections.
6.10
The manual
6.10
A good tutorial section starts off what is a clear and well-printed
manual. Appendices give adequate detail of the file structures and
related information, and most aspects have been covered. I donæt think
the index is at all adequate, however, being more in the nature of a
reverse contents page, and several areas of the manual were covered in
less depth than I would have liked. In particular, editing was not
covered in sufficient detail. Further tutorial information would be of
assistance to many users, and Minerva could help by updating (by disc
file?) this section as user feedback (and confusion!) is forthcoming.
6.10
User productivity
6.10
Can ProCAD speed up drawing production? This might be more of a
philosophical question really Ö is CAD appropriate for the task in hand?
Not all drawings are appropriate candidates, and good old manual
drafting still has its place, thank goodness! Also, using any CAD system
can subtly alter the style of the user, along the path of least
resistance. Iæve seen many CAD drawings (particularly architectural)
which are nothing like as presentable as their hand-drawn equivalents.
6.10
ProCAD does offer a number of aids to ensure that drawing style may be
assisted, rather than controlled by, the software. Creation of a user
symbol library is a must here but this will take considerable time and
thought. Learning any new system is a matter of faith; unless you let go
the crutch of what you know, you will never fully realise the new
programæs capabilities but this can take a long time, so be warned! Do
not embark on a new job (to a tight budget) with a new CAD package but
rather ease yourself in gently without time being critical. Ultimately,
the yield will justify the effort of learning and Iæm sure ProCAD will
be a productivity aid. Mechanical and production drawing in particular
are likely to be highly appropriate applications.
6.10
Problems
6.10
ProCAD crashed twice in use with a Éfatal erroræ message. The Autosave
option helped reduce the pain here but it does reveal the need for
further error-trapping. Converting symbols to groups and attaching
radial dimensions to arcs caused my crashes. I also experienced some
anomalies with text slant angle on plotting Ö I suspect that PlotterA0
may be responsible. PlotterA0 certainly wasnæt happy with paragraphs of
text created using the vertical bar character, as all subsequent
plotting was rotated through 90 degrees. No doubt Minerva will be
working on these difficulties and any others that emerge. Also, as noted
earlier, care is needed with some snaps where geometric complexity seems
to lead to accuracy problems (particularly arcs). Dimension arrows on
the ends of arcs do not accurately align with the arc, and large radii
seem to be excessively jagged on the screen, i.e. more than screen
resolution.
6.10
Files are backwards compatible, with a polite suggestion, on loading
old files, that a new version is saved. I experienced some problems with
this, however, which Minerva will no doubt resolve Ö in particular, the
Plotter_A0 seems sensitive to file version.
6.10
Conclusions
6.10
Is ProCAD the complete CAD answer Ö the öonly CAD package youæll ever
needò? Unfortunately, for me, the search for the Grail goes on. I was
impressed by the program but its lack of accuracy in certain
circumstances would limit its use for me and I have to admit to
preferring associative dimensions. For example, when laying out
bellmouths to roads, if curves do not intersect precisely, the resulting
drawing looks poor and any dimensional feedback must be suspect.
6.10
Many potential users, however, will find it matches their draughting
needs rather better. If your need is for rapid manipulation of drawing
elements and good embellishment facilities (fills, fonts, etc) then this
program may well meet all your requirements.
6.10
I have been waiting for PDT to be improved in certain areas in which
ProCAD excels Ö but so far in vain. If even a few of ProCADæs facilities
were available in PDT, I would be a happy man. As it is, neither offers
me quite enough in terms of ease of use and drawing productivity tools,
together with reliable precision and parametric associations. Obviously,
Iæm looking for an elusive beast! Perhaps the way forward is to use both
as appropriate.
6.10
I note that Oak Solutions have recently upgraded WorraCad and they
have plans for a souped-up PDT Ésometimeæ. I will check these out as and
when but in the meantime ProCAD offers the most comprehensive drawing
program I have yet seen on the Archimedes. If Minerva continue to listen
to users and actively continue development and polishing of the product,
I am sure it will establish itself as one of the Éheaviesæ in the
Archimedes world.ááA
6.10
Electromagnetic Compatibility
6.10
Barry Haines
6.10
I have read a number of comments about interference emanating from the
Archimedes and the only solution I have seen suggested is to use Baco-
foil as wallpaper. I though it would be helpful therefore to give some
information about electromagnetic compatibility. Most radio frequency
interference (RFI) occurs in the VHF & UHF parts of the spectrum and
simply covering a wall with foil will probably have little effect. The
solution would be to stop it at source which means modifying the
computer or switching it off altogether!
6.10
As I use my Archimedes for remote imaging, I needed to screen as much
as possible to minimize the interference to sensitive receivers. The
suggestions given in this article could reduce levels by as much as 60 Ö
80dB but, for most people, this would be more than would be needed.
6.10
Identifying the source
6.10
Basically itæs just a case of slowly un-plugging things until the RFI
goes away. I would recommend first trying the keyboard as this throws
out dreadful interference. To my surprise, things like the printer, VDU,
serial and mains lead had little effect and neither had the SCSI I/O as
long as the disc was not being accessed.
6.10
Keyboard
6.10
First remove all screws to remove the bottom half of the case and then
all mounting screws on the PCB to remove the top. Apply a nice thick
coat of Nickel-screening paint to the inside. (RS & Maplin do spray
paint.) Earth the metal plate to the PCB and if you are up to soldering,
make up a new lead using four-way individually-screened cable. The plug
is a miniature DIN which can be obtained, as well as the cable, from
Maplins.
6.10
If you are nervous about replacing the cable, try wrapping it in Baco-
foil. I also replaced the mouse lead but this had little effect.
6.10
Podules
6.10
This will vary from podule to podule so it may well be a case of suck
it and see.
6.10
The Oak SCSI and MR45 hard disc did not cause too much RFI but to
minimize any effects, I mounted the hard disc under the computer and Z-
folded the excess ribbon cable before wrapping it in Baco-foil.
6.10
The one podule I did have trouble with was the Spacetech weather
podule and this was due to an earth loop because of an inadequate earth
to the input phono socket. The solution is to run a stout length of wire
from the i/p earth pin on the phono socket to the earth tag on the
backplane (0V i.e the one with the black lead from the PSU). I also feed
the i/p lead a couple of times through a ferrite ring but this will only
reduce the interference by a few dBæs.
6.10
Computer
6.10
Most of the interference radiates out between the podules at the back
and is especially noticeable if the Econet option is not fitted.
6.10
The best method is to screen the back with copper shim or Baco-foil.
First cut the shim to completely cover the back with about 3 inches to
fold under the bottom. Next remove all screws to the podules and case
including the three underneath then, holding the shim in position, rub
it to obtain an impression of all connectors and mains outlets etc.
Using a scalpel or razor blade cut out the impressions so the shim
mounts flush with the back then, using a scriber or dart, make a small
hole for all the screws and re-assemble. Then fold the excess under and
fit the three screws underneath.
6.10
It would be best not to cover the ventilation holes on the side of the
case but if this is a problem, mount the screen with a gap for the air
to escape and hopefully most to the radiation will get reflected back.
6.10
Conclusions
6.10
Although these modifications will not completely cure the RFI, they
should solve most problems. To obtain even lower emissions, the
Archimedes would probably need to be located in an anechoic chamber.
6.10
I used indoor aerials for weather satellite and amateur radio and,
prior to these mods, both were unuseable but now, apart from a couple of
spot frequencies (harmonics of the clocks), most interference comes from
a PC several doors away.
6.10
Although I have made reference to Baco-foil, this is purely to
describe the stuff you put your roast in and not any trade name.
Preferably, the thick strong stuff but if you are rich then I would go
for the copper shim (0.002 Ö 0.005ö).
6.10
Finally, these labels that state the equipment complies to EEC or FCC
EMC rules and regulations are about as reliable as a promise from a used
car salesman.ááA
6.10
Diction(ary)
6.10
Simon Anthony
6.10
ÉDictionæ is the name which New Era Software gives to a product which
is not just a list of words but a real, albeit limited, multitasking
dictionary. This is a modest package at the modest price of ú15. It
comes on a single very under-filled disc which includes a copy of
!Scrap. Because of Dictionæs intuitive simplicity, the manual is not
essential reading, nor is it a great task to read, being short and to
the point.
6.10
Diction is aimed at early or slow learners as well as at more advanced
readers and so the provision of both the correct spelling and a single
line explanation of each word helps correct the main problem associated
with a mere spell checker Ö that of context. Diction still leaves the
eventual choice of word up to you but the short definition is displayed
directly below the word.
6.10
The only way to check or look up a word is by typing it directly into
the find window. Diction can cope with mixed case input and preserves
the case as far as possible in the replaced word. There are two ways in
which to copy a corrected word into your text. Either select your text
window and then click <adjust> on the word in Dictionæs find window or
drag the find window and drop it in the target window directly. (For
fun, I dropped it into a filing window and, to my surprise, created a
one word textfile.)
6.10
Have a guess
6.10
Even though !Diction is a very small application, its size belies its
power. For example, when asked to find the word frig it showed fig, frog
and rig Ö which is a good selection for a two second search. It
describes frog as an amphibious animal which is unequivocal enough for
me: I then asked it about amphibious. öNo words foundò, it said. This is
because the words and their meanings are held as separate entries in
Dictionæs database of 6,000-odd target words. We can expect some
instances like this as there are many occasions where words used in a
description may themselves not be in such a small dictionary Ö which is
a pity.
6.10
Where a word has several meanings, two or more descriptions are
included. Right is in three times, right_1 being Écorrectæ, right_2 the
rather obscure comment, Éoneæs dueæ and right_3 being Ésideæ. Making
comments about the descriptions and exclusions could be thought
invidious but what is a dictionary if not its descriptions? Further,
some of the exclusions do seem to be a bit arbitrary.
6.10
To give one further example, Lie_1, Énot tell the truthæ does not have
a matching description of Énot telling the truthæ for ÉLyingæ, which
only shows Éstretched outæ. For a poor speller such as myself, this is
an important omission. Fortunately, there is an Éadd word and
definitionæ facility with which anyone can put that right (up to the
memory size or access time limits).
6.10
The dictionary target words are stored in compressed form but each
description is held in full and so any new word takes up much more space
than in a straight-forward checker. The problem of the data file getting
too large for the disc is a long way off at the moment, as it is only
174Kb. The extra words needed to tackle the recursive explanation
problem may rapidly have filled the space but I think the main reason
for the small word list is that the entire program, data files and all,
runs within main memory where it uses 224Kb Ö quite a lot in a 1Mb
machine. On top of that, it runs mainly in Basic. As an example of the
power of Basic in RISCáOS, this is remarkable but if the data file had
been much larger, the response speed would become a real factor.
6.10
A few niggles
6.10
There is no Écheck fileæ, Écheck documentæ or Écheck as you typeæ
facility, but then Diction is a dictionary and it can be used as a
rudimentary Thesaurus if youære pushed Ö a spell checker canæt do that.
I also have a grumble about the name of the application. There is always
a problem in giving long names to programs when only 10 letters are
available, (nine if you include the ! character). The name !Dictionry
might have been a better choice (even though it is spelt incorrectly)
because !Diction suggests that the application has something to do with
enunciation.
6.10
To conclude, to finish, complete...
6.10
New Era have no doubt spent a lot of time and money in producing
Diction, so it is a pity that the result is spoilt for want of a haæpth
of a really quick assembler. If it ran at full ARM speed, it could have
been given a much fuller list of words and better descriptions. As it
is, the content looks as if it has been designed to aid early readers up
to mid-teens and each user will have to make his own decision as to how
well this choice has been made. For my own use, itæs just too limited
but for ú15 (inc VAT) it is not bad value for money.ááA
6.10
Grannyæs Garden
6.10
Alan Wilburn
6.10
Grannyæs Garden is a 2.6 Mb graphic adventure for children and is
designed to run on a 1Mb machine. The four discs containing the program,
!System, !Fonts and !4Tune come in a clear plastic wallet, along with a
registration card and a twenty-page A5 manual.
6.10
History
6.10
Before dealing with the program details, I will cover the history of
the program to clear up some questions which will already be in the
minds of teachers and some parents who will have heard about it from
their children. Grannyæs Garden was one of the first graphic adventure
programs on the BBC B, 10 years ago, and became the yard stick for the
programs that followed.
6.10
The program took hold of the imagination of teachers and pupils alike,
with stories of teachers unable to complete sections and, in
desperation, phoning colleagues/advisors for help at 2áa.m. The new
program is identical to the original but the full graphic and animation
capabilities of the Acorn machines have been implemented. There is no
sound because of memory constraints, so you will not get the witchæs
cackle Ö a CD-ROM version, with sound, will be available in the future.
6.10
The manual
6.10
The manual leads you very effectively through getting the program
running and the various options available. Setting up instructions for
loading onto a hard disc are on the disc in a ReadMe file. The manual
also contains a story to be read to a class to introduce the story and
set the scene. There is a brief outline of the adventure, answers and
passwords for adults (very useful for teachers doing a quick scan of a
program). There are two suggestion sections, one on how to use the
program and the other, four pages of related activities away from the
computer.
6.10
Getting started
6.10
The program is protected and has to be initialised and your name/
school added to the program for future identification and then it can be
backed up and put on a hard disc, if available. In use, the program is
started from Disc 1 which then asks for the correct disc to be loaded.
In the case of hard disc use, Disc 1 has to be in Drive 0 as a Ékeyæ to
enable the program. !System and !Fonts are provided to make the program
self-supporting, but you can use your own !System and any fonts you own.
!4Tune gives an annoying, repetitive tune via a Sound Tracker, separate
from the main program, to allow it to run on a 1Mb machine.
6.10
Story outline
6.10
Six children have been kidnapped and you are invited to look for them
with the help of a magic raven. You are taken to a number of locations
and have to solve problems to find the six children. If you make certain
choices, the witch comes and sends you back to the beginning. There are
four places which have to be explored and completed in sequence. As each
is completed, a password is given so the locations do not need to be
revisited. At the Woodcutteræs House, you have to solve a simple puzzle
and explore the rooms. At the Giantæs Garden, you have to enlist the
help of a variety of animals to overcome obstacles. In the City of
Dragons, you have to capture four baby dragons. The Land of Mystery has
to be fully explored using a map to collect information and articles.
6.10
Each of the locations is very well drawn and there are numerous
animations via NOOT which are very well done. I was particularly
impressed by two of the baby dragons, one bouncing on a pogo stick and
another using a catapult, firing stones out of the screen, giving a very
good 3D effect. Each location has to be explored and decisions made to
solve a number of problems. Recording ability and logical (and some
lateral) thinking are necessary to complete the adventures Ö I have
found three pupils to be the ideal number, as this leads to more
discussion to sort out problems.
6.10
Controls
6.10
There are a number of controls to set a variety of options. The
optional sound tracker music has a full range of sound levels via a
menu. The Granny Icon provides choices for the font and size to be used,
a screen size option and restart. Within the program is the facility to
export a screen as a sprite and a remote control facility where the
screen movement can be paused and stepped forwards and backwards.
6.10
Conclusions
6.10
I found the program to be very good, with excellent graphics and
animation. I would recommend its purchase even if you have the BBC
version, because the enhanced version is a definite improvement. It is
difficult to suggest an age range for the program as I know of Reception
classes who use it as a class or group activity and Secondary slow
learners of 14/15 who have enjoyed and gainfully used it Ö an age range
of 10 years.
6.10
Resource Pack
6.10
To extend the activities connected to the program, there is a resource
pack available. This consists of an Art Disc of pictures and 24 activity
sheets for photocopying, in a plastic wallet.
6.10
The activity sheets are to extend the range of activities away from
the computer and are not aids to solving problems within the adventures.
So, if you have used the program before, you will find previous
worksheets you have produced still applicable. Each sheet is well
designed and laid out in a clear and satisfactory manner with good
pictures and borders where applicable. The sheets cover topics such as
homes (animal and human), diary and exploreræs log pages.
6.10
There are recording sheets for personal details, descriptions of
people, places, holidays and for placing adverts. There are four sheets
connected to map work utilizing the map from the adventure. Amongst
other things, the remaining sheets concern assessment tests for good or
bad witches, making spells and drinks, a witches menu and letter.
6.10
The Art Disc contains five directories covering:Ö Buildings (7),
Creatures (14), People (9), Scenes (6) and Vegetation (6), all in
coloured drawfiles. All the main characters/locations in the program are
covered in the files. I found the pictures to be well drawn and
coloured. These files should provide a very useful set of pictures that
can be used in childrenæs work, work-cards or printed in large formats
for display work. Unfortunately, I found that they did not print out
very well on my Epson FX100 and LaserDirect printers. The difference in
grey scales between colours and shadings were such that, on printout,
there was poor definition Ö I would have to edit colours in !Chameleon
to make reasonable use of them.
6.10
Conclusions
6.10
I would suggest that you try printing one of the drawfiles to see if
your printer gives reasonable results, before buying, otherwise I do not
see much use for them in DTP and display work. If the printout is
acceptable, the whole pack would be a useful addition to the program.
6.10
Grannyæs Garden is ú24╖50 +VAT from 4Mation (ú27 through Archive). The
GG Resource Pack is ú15 +VAT from 4Mation.ááA
6.10
Landmarks Ö Aztecs
6.10
Joe Gallagher
6.10
Several programs from the Landmarks series of historical simulations
have been reviewed in the pages of Archive magazine in the past. For
those new to the series, each Landmarks program presents a simulation of
a meeting between pupils and a child from a particular historical epoch
and/or geographic location. The encounter consists of a dialogue which
takes place, in real time, over a period of three days.
6.10
Several reviews have expressed reservations about the programs and, in
the light of this, it was with some apprehension that I took delivery of
a review copy of Aztecs. My guinea pigs were a group of year 5 and year
6 children who had already been working around the theme of the voyages
of discovery.
6.10
In this simulation you meet Jade Doll, an Aztec girl, who is your
guide on a tour of the city of Tenochtitian, capital of the Aztec
Empire. The year is 1519 and Montezuma, the emperor, is at the height of
his powers.
6.10
Documentation
6.10
The program comes on a single disc and installation on a hard disc
presents no problems. Longman Logotron insists that the work on the
computer should be seen only as a part of the overall topic and this
view is reflected in the documentation which comes with the program. The
software is accompanied by two guides: one for the teacher and the other
for the pupils. These are standard with all the programs in the
Landmarks series and, as we have come to expect from Longman Logotron,
are produced to a high standard. The teacheræs guide provides an
overview of the program as well as relating the learning outcomes to
National Curriculum attainment targets. The pupilsæ guide provides a set
of useful activity sheets related to themes which may arise from the
simulation.
6.10
Most of the criticisms centre around the fact that the Archimedes
versions are no more than straight ports from the Nimbus and IBM ranges.
Indeed, it is true that there is no more than a minimal acknowledgement
of the facilities offered by the Acorn range of computers. Although the
program is RISCáOS compliant and runs happily within the desktop
environment, for all the difference this makes, it might as well be a
single tasking program. I can only echo the comments of earlier
reviewers on this issue.
6.10
We were running the program on the schoolæs A5000 and there was no
perceptible difference between the standard of the graphics on Acornæs
flagship and those of the schoolæs obsolete Nimbus PC186 range. Still,
there were no complaints on this score from the children.
6.10
More importantly, I was impressed by the way the program picked out
some customs and aspects of Aztec life which the children had touched
upon in their own research of the topic and allowed these themes to be
investigated at a deeper level. There were some animated flashes of
recognition amongst the children as Jade let slip some reference or
other about her life and some of the rather strange customs of her
people. The program has a very useful option of enabling the dialogue to
be recorded for later retrieval so that it may be edited or printed out.
This enabled the children to concentrate on the program without the need
to make copious notes.
6.10
Technical shortcomings
6.10
As a way of consolidating existing learning and stimulating new areas
of research, the Aztecs provided a valuable, alternative resource to
textbooks. Reading about a culture cannot compete with hearing about it
from someone who was there. However on the technical front, the
weaknesses still remain.
6.10
The children were rather puzzled that Jade didnæt seem to know whether
she was a boy or a girl. When Jade had taken us to the priestæs house,
one of the children asked her to go in. To our surprise, she announced
that it was quite a way away and promptly took us back to her familyæs
turkey run on the chinampa!
6.10
The slow update of the text screen is very frustrating and this, in
conjunction with the way that the program stores the useræs keypresses
while answering your previous question, did cause problems on occasions.
While it might detract from the illusion of a live conversation, it
would perhaps be simpler to dispense with the typed response altogether
or at least provide options to speed it up or switch it off. Iæm tempted
to suggest that hypertext links for significant words or phrases would
be helpful for younger or less able children but this might be getting
away from the öDungeons and Dragonsò feel of the program.
6.10
Landmarks the CD?
6.10
Nevertheless, while on the subject of bells and whistles, the
Landmarks series would provide an ideal vehicle for showing off some of
the multimedia capabilities of the Archimedes. There are sadly few
affordable CD applications for the Archimedes which one could describe
as real musts for primary schools. Longman Logotron has dabbled in CD
media already, producing a CD version of Revelation. Now, a CD version
of Landmarks with high resolution graphics, sound and video clips Ö that
would really be something to write home about!
6.10
The Aztecs costs ú19.95 + VAT from Longman Logotron or ú26 inc VAT
through Archive.ááA
6.10
Using RISCáOSá3
6.10
Hugh Eagle
6.10
I have hardly had any letters this month Ö the most exciting
development has been the arrival (with a publication date of December
1992!) of the Programmeræs Reference Manual. If you have got a copy and
find new things in it which you think might be of general interest,
please share them with us by writing to Paul Beverley at Archive or me
at 48 Smithbarn, Horsham, Sussex, RH13á6DX.
6.10
Programmeræs Reference Manual
6.10
First Impressions
6.10
Itæs very heavy (Paul says 7.2 kg but my bathroom scales say 14╜ lb ù
theyæve obviously been designed to flatter!)
6.10
The number of pages has increased by nearly 50%, but it has still been
fitted into four volumes plus a thin but convenient booklet containing
the indexes. A separate Style Guide is going to follow later in the year
when Acorn have had time to revise it. (This is intriguing ù does it
mean that Acorn are considering substantial changes to the recommended
style of RISCáOSáapplications?)
6.10
Since the new volumes contain an average of about 800 pages each they
are obviously very fat. Just as the RISCáOSá2 PRM followed the RISCáOSá2
User Guide in being spiral bound, the new books conform with the shape
and öperfectò binding of the RISCáOSá3 User Guide and Applications
Guide. Luckily it seems to be possible to make them lie open on the desk
(their sheer size helps here!) without breaking their backs. So,
provided the binding proves to be strong enough to stand up to intensive
use, the new format should be satisfactory.
6.10
The manual is basically quite similar to its predecessor. It describes
the operating system in great detail, starting with basic concepts such
as SWI calls, vectors and interrupts, then moving on to the kernel of
the operating system (modules, memory management, keyboard input, VDU
output, etc.) before dealing with the various modules which have been
added to the operating system. The sections follow a common pattern: a
brief introduction and overview, followed by technical details in
narrative form and then the full details of each of the relevant
operating system calls (SWI calls, *-commands, etc). In many cases,
quite detailed programming hints are also given, sometimes accompanied
by program listings to illustrate particular points.
6.10
The new edition has been updated to take account of changes in the
operating system up to and including version 3.11, and some extra
explanatory material has been added. The increase in size is a bit
deceptive. For example, the number of pages occupied by the section on
VDU drivers has increased by 46 (over 25%) but the actual content has
scarcely changed. What has happened is that the new page shape and
format seems to hold slightly fewer words so several descriptions of OS
calls which filled a page in the RISCáOSá2 manual now spill over to the
top of a second page. There is therefore a lot more white space.
6.10
In fact, the degree of change in the parts of the manual covering the
more well-established features of the operating system (especially the
kernel) is fairly limited. Where OS calls have been added or changed,
the manual reflects this (and helpfully spells out the differences
between different OS versions) but alterations to the explanatory
sections are generally minor. Additions that I have noticed are a brief
explanation of sprite ösave areasò (the old manual was very mysterious
on this subject), a new section on using sprites with 256 entry palettes
and several pages setting out extra guidelines on memory usage.
6.10
The main areas of expansion, not surprisingly, are those where there
has been most change in the operating system or where additional modules
have now been integrated with it:
6.10
    ÅááFiling systems
6.10
    ÅááThe desktop (Wimp, etc.)
6.10
    ÅááColourTrans
6.10
    ÅááFonts
6.10
    ÅááPrinting
6.10
    ÅááInternationalisation
6.10
    ÅááNetworking
6.10
    ÅááShared C library
6.10
The main subject index has also more than doubled in length and is
much better than the feeble effort in the RISCáOSá2 PRM, although it
still seems to me to be very skimpy for a manual of this length and
complexity.
6.10
Who should buy it?
6.10
As its name implies it is definitely for programmers. Although there
is a lot in the manual that non-programmers might find interesting, by
way of background reading on how the software works, it is not likely
that they would find it of much practical use.
6.10
Not all programmers will want it. It is possible to write advanced
programs using only the information provided in the User Guide and in
the reference manuals for Basic and other programming languages.
However, if you want to write multitasking Wimp programs, or programs
that are going to work satisfactorily with different filing systems, or
programs that use outline fonts or manipulate Draw format data, amongst
many other examples, then you will need to take advantage of the more
sophisticated and powerful features of the operating system. For this,
you will need more information about how the operating system works,
together with technical details about the multitude of SWI calls. There
are other books that will take you quite a long way in this direction,
and a lot can be learned from magazine articles and other peopleæs
programs. However, I imagine that most people with a serious interest in
programming will soon find a need for the PRM.
6.10
If you already have the RISCáOSá2 PRM should you upgrade? If you want
to use the features that are new in RISCáOSá3, then there is no doubt
that the answer must be Éyesæ. However, programs written for RISCáOSá2
should continue to work satisfactorily and, in many areas, the
differences between the two versions of the operating system are not
very dramatic, so it is possible that you could continue to get by with
the old manual. Perhaps the answer depends on how aware you are of its
limitations.
6.10
If you are in any doubt about buying the new manual, I strongly
recommend having a good look at a copy before you decide.
6.10
The manual costs ú100 including carriage from Archive. If you have the
RISCáOSá2 version you can upgrade for ú59 plus ú4 postage and packing by
sending the öindex front coverò of the old manual as proof of ownership
to Acorn Direct. Cheques for the upgrade should be made out to öAcorn
Directò. (The address really IS in the FactFile Ö sorry I forgot it last
month. Ed.)
6.10
Program points
6.10
Å    QuicKey ù Last month (Archive 6.9 p 61), we reported a problem
with this program. Ian Copestake has written to say that this problem
was cured by an update released in April 1992 ù over a year ago! ù and
was caused by a bug in RISCáOSá3. He says that customers can always
obtain minor updates like this by returning their original disc plus ú1
worth of postage stamps (or a reasonable overseas equivalent). He also
asks if contributors can check that they have up-to-date versions before
reporting problems.
6.10
Å    Fourth Dimension games ù A. H. Hunt had a problem with Black Angel
(öone of the casket segments was missing at the Planet Valve (23%)ò) but
this was rectified by 4D immediately. He also says that Break147 and
Saloon Cars run (for him) without any problems.
6.10
However, Arthur Taylor found that the hint by D. S. Allen in Archive
6.9 p62 on Break147 and SuperPool didnæt work for him. Perhaps
significantly, the relevant line of the Basic program was line 100 not
line 90 in his copy, and also his program wasnæt compressed but was
heavily protected. (I wonder whether the version of Break147 which A. H.
Hunt has would work on his machine, and whether Fourth Dimension can
supply it?)
6.10
Å    Rotor Ö This game from Arcana does not work on RISCáOS 3 and
Arcana have, apparently, gone bust. Fortunately, Superior Software have
bought out the rights to the program and sell it as part of their öPlay
it Again, Sam 1ò compilation. Apparently, if you send your Arcana
version of Rotor to Superior with a cheque for ú10, they will send you a
copy of Play it Again, Sam 1.á John Waddell, Renfrewshire.
6.10
Å    Recommended programs (which do work) ù Arthur Taylor strongly
recommends Simon Burrowsæ FontsPlus: he has created four fonts
directories and with FontsPlus on the iconbar he can choose to have all
or none of them active (if none, the ROM fonts are still available); if
he doesnæt load FontsPlus, then they are all available ö... simple as
that!ò
6.10
He says that other PD or shareware programs that seem to work fine
with RISCáOSá3.10 include: DiskBase v0.65, DiskCat v1.50 (disc
cataloguers), FuncKeys v2.02 and KeyWindow v1.40 (keystrips and keys
from the desktop) and a super neat new mode changer from Dave Thomas:
!Mode v1.03 ù it can store up to 8 modes in a small desktop window and
seems very well behaved.
6.10
Å    Watford scanner Ö In Archive 6.8 p27, we reported problems with
the Watford Handscanner (1990, issue 2). Apparently, there is an upgrade
to the software (version 1.1) available from Watford.á D Webb,
Cumbernauld.
6.10
Disc drive problems
6.10
Å    360Kb PC discs Ö Richard Fallas writes: öWhile trying to transfer
data to the hard drive of an old PC recently, I discovered that there
are no hard and fast rules about compatibility with 40 track discs.
Previously, I had used my switchable 40/80 track 5╝ö drive (with Beebug
Interface) under the emulator, having set up a suitable device in the
config.sys file. This no longer works under RISCáOS 3.10, so I tried to
transfer directly.
6.10
öThe disc format was correctly identified and the files written (with
switch set to 80 track) without hitch, but the PC didnæt want to read
them (using copy *.*), although it would give me the directory listing.
6.10
öBeing stubborn, I tried again, saving and copying file by file. This
worked... sometimes! The longer the file the greater the chance of a
glitch, but eventually I got all the files across. This worked on files
up to 75Kb in size, so persevere!ò
6.10
Å    IDE drives ù Arthur Taylor advises that you should not assume that
the IDE support built into RISCáOSá3 will work with an IDE drive that
has been added to a pre-A5000 computer. He found with his IDE drive
supplied by DT that he had to set the number of IDE discs to zero in
!Configure and then run DTæs setup, after which he had no problems.
6.10
Å    ST506 drive fitted to an A3000 ù Tony Flaherty was interested to
read of the hardware problem experienced by Colin Wood (Archive 6.9 p61)
when fitting a ARM3 to his A410, since he has recently experienced a
similar problem with his A3000. He writes:
6.10
öI have a basic ARM2 machine with RISC OS 3.1 and an Orion 2 Mb
upgrade.  I recently added an external 20 Mb ST506 hard disc using an
ex-PC MFM drive and an Acorn external controller. The drive and a
suitable power supply/fan sit in a home-made expansion box.  I suffer
the usual A3000 problems with regard to the oxidation of the memory
connectors.  The hard disc also tends to generate defects if the system
is powered down in an abnormal way (i.e. not <ctrl-shift-f12>).
6.10
öMy problem was symptomatically the same as Colinæs in that,
initially, the system froze completely while I was editing a First Word
Plus document eventually forcing me to press <reset>. The screen flashed
red then blue with no further action Ö a power down produced the same
results, I tried this several times to no avail. Finally in desperation,
I opened the box but nothing looked out of place (no charring or loose
leads).  I powered up the machine and this time all was well, however,
when I verified the disc 20 or defects were reported, when these were
added to the discæs defect list, using *DEFECT, some of the files within
the first Word Plus application directory where corrupt and this had to
be restored from a backup.ò
6.10
Tony wonders, therefore, whether Colin Woodæs assumption that his
problem related directly to the ARM3 upgrade was correct.  Could the
problem lie with RISC OS 3.1?  Does anyone have any views on this?
6.10
Other matters arising
6.10
Å    Cache control Ö In response to the comments about difficulty on
RISCáOS 3 with hares, tortoises and ARM3s, David Percival has sent in an
application that controls it properly. It evens notices if you have
typed in a cache-on or cache-off command or have executed one within a
program and it still displays the correct icon on the iconbar!á David
Percival, Swanley.
6.10
Å    Redraw problems (Archive 6.8 p29) Ö A problem of incorrect screen
re-drawing in !Edit was mentioned. Tim Nicholson has had the same
problem with Deskedit! He says it seems to be a particular problem with
unformatted text that only has carriage returns/line feeds as paragraph
breaks and nowhere else. Since both pieces of software have the same
problem, he wonders if the bug is in the SharedCLib? Has anyone else had
the same problem?
6.10
Å    Printing after Artworks (Archive 6.5 p31 and 6.8 p24) ù Roger King
reported a problem with spurious fine horizontal lines about 4mm long
scattered throughout printouts when printing from another application
after printing from Artworks. Steve Hutchinson found that putting his
LaserDirect podule in a different slot (as recommended by Computer
Concepts) solved this problem for him. Unfortunately, this didnæt work
for Roger. However, he has now found a cure: after printing from
Artworks, select öQueue controlò from the printer icon and then select
öFlush bufferò. He observes that it would seem that Artworks is leaving
something önastyò in the printer buffer, although a CC representative
with whom Roger discussed the problem suggested that Acornæs printer
drivers might be at fault.
6.10
Å    Photocopying via LaserDirect (Archive 6.8 p24) ù Tim Powys-Lybbe
has got version 2.10 of the LaserDirect printer driver which works quite
satisfactorily and he has no more problems öphotocopyingò from Scanlight
Plus.
6.10
He adds cryptically that ösome things may not print totally as one
would expect in Paint or Scanlight Plus, particularly their positioning
on the page, but putting them into Draw or Impression totally solves the
problem.òááA
6.10
PocketFS Problems
6.10
Mark Godwin
6.10
After producing my review on PocketFS, I have recently come across a
few serious problems.
6.10
These problems all stem from the naming convention used on a PC and
Series 3, which makes use of file extensions. This extension acts like
the Archimedes filetype in uniquely identifying a type of file, but the
result is that a PC name is actually 11 characters (omitting period),
whereas the Archimedes is 10.
6.10
Unfortunately, there is no ideal answer to these problems but, in my
opinion, the solution implemented by PocketFS has some serious flaws.
6.10
Problem 1
6.10
The extension is sometimes used to identify the file uniquely, i.e. a
file called TEST could be a directory or end with extensions PIC, TXT
and DAT, e.g.
6.10
TEST.PIC
6.10
TEST
6.10
TEST.TXT
6.10
TEST.DAT
6.10
Unfortunately, the Archimedes cannot have a file or directory with the
same name, even if they are different types. The way PocketFS overcomes
this problem is to append a numeric count to like names. For my example,
you would see TEST, TEST000001, TEST000002 & TEST000003. If you now copy
these files to another disc on any device (even the Psion) the file
extension is lost.
6.10
To make matters worse, if you now copy these files back to the Psion
you will end up with two files TEST and TEST0000. The names are
truncated from 10 to 8 characters, so TEST000002 and TEST000003 would
not be copied as their new name would be the same as TEST000001 (when
truncated).
6.10
It does not take a genius to work out that if you back up your Psion
using PocketFS, you cannot restore it. You have to painfully copy each
non-unique name across one at a time and then rename it using the Psion.
Also, before you can rename it, you must have already made a note of its
extension before you copied it. This can also be a problem because these
names are not necessarily in the same order on the two machines.
6.10
Problem 2
6.10
The second problem with PC filenames is the use of characters that are
invalid on the Archimedes (such as @, &, $, etc..).
6.10
Unfortunately, the character É&æ is not translated, and the characters
É$æ and É@æ appear as the same character on the Archimedes. What makes
this situation worse is that the translation only works in one
direction, Series 3 to Archimedes. This really adds to the problem
detailed above for backing up your data.
6.10
A solution to this problem would be to allow the user to specify what
characters are translated and to allow it to work in both directions. So
if you specify that É@æ on the Series3 should be translated to É~æ on
the Archimedes, it would be clever enough to work out that transferring
files the other way would convert É~æ on the Archimedes to É@æ on the
Series3.
6.10
Problem 3
6.10
PocketFS will examine certain file extensions on the Series 3 and
convert them to filetypes on the Archimedes and vice versa. This means
that on either machine, the opposite machineæs file identity is kept
through this translation table. Unfortunately, this list is fixed and no
support for extending it is given. Their solution to this problem is
adequate but would have benefited from allowing the user to increase the
file extension to filetype Étableæ.
6.10
Another solution to this problem and the ones above would be to append
the data of the files copied from the Series3/PC with their original
name and extension and then give these new files a unique filetype on
the Archimedes. This unique filetype could then be used by all
applications to cause interrogation of this appended data to see what
the original filetype (on the Series3/PC) was. This could even be taken
further by ADFS supporting this filetype and using this name and
extension in all filer operations. In this way, PC names could exist on
the Archimedes without altering the current directory structure.
6.10
This concept, I believe, is already in use with Compression (produced
by Computer Concepts) for holding the original Archimedes filetype
before it was compressed and the filetype changed to ÉCFSlzwæ.
6.10
Problem 4
6.10
The last problem is only a small one. A PC directory is theoretically
endless whereas the Archimedes has a limit of 77 files. So you have to
be careful about selecting all the files in a Psion directory for
copying. There may be too many.
6.10
One further point
6.10
One other feature which could save a lot of time is the option for the
Archimedes to refresh its copy of the Psion directory for each of the
drives on the Psion, preferably independently. Currently, you have to
dismount the Psion and then open one of the viewers again.ááA
6.10
Pocket Book / OPL Column
6.10
Mark has offered to be a centre for information interchange about the
Pocket Book and, more particularly, OPL programming. If you have any
ideas, questions, hints, OPL programs, etc, send them to Mark at 5
Bearcroft Avenue, Great Meadow, Worcester, WR4 0DR. However, please
donæt automatically assume that Mark will reply to all your letters. As
with all our specialist editors, Mark is doing it for love, not money.
Mark will answer letters as far as possible, but if he gets inundated,
we need to bear with him. Ed.
6.10
Time-Sliced Multi-Threading in C
6.10
Richard Simpson
6.10
A number of modern operating systems, such as Sunæs Solaris 2.x and
Microsoftæs Windows-NT, provide support for multi-threading. Although
RISCáOS does not provide any specific support for this very useful
programming technique, the ANSIáC compiler does allow you to achieve a
limited form of it.
6.10
What is multi-threading?
6.10
I will assume that you are familiar with the concept of multi-tasking,
where execution appears to occur simultaneously in several different
programs. Multi-threading is a finer grained version of the same idea,
where execution appears to occur simultaneously at several different
points in the same program. Each point of execution is known as a
thread.
6.10
The progress of threads is often controlled by external factors such
as the availability of I/O resources or interrupts and they are thus
very popular in real-time applications. I believe that on the
Archimedes, thread execution can only be controlled on a time basis
(although it may be possible to do something with Signals), hence the
title of this article.
6.10
The alarm functions
6.10
The alarm functions provided as part of the RISCáOS library are the
basis of this multi-threading scheme (not to be confused with the ANSIáC
alarm function).
6.10
The two most important of these are, alarm_ timenow which returns the
current monotonic time and alarm_set which does what its name suggests.
6.10
The syntax of alarm_set is:
6.10
typedef void (*alarm_handler)(int called_at, void *handle);
6.10
void alarm_set (int at, alarm_handleráproc,ávoidá*handle);
6.10
The upshot is that a call to alarm_set will set an alarm for a given
time. When that time is reached, a function which you have specified
will be called and passed an item of data which you have defined. An
example may serve to make this clearer:
6.10
void bell (int now, void *handle)
6.10
{clang , %s\nö, (char *) handle);
6.10
}
6.10
main ()
6.10
{. 6.10
    alarm_set (alarm_timenow + 100, bell, (void *)
6.10
öWAKE UP ! !ò);
6.10
    . . .
6.10
}
6.10
When alarm_set is called, it will return almost immediately, but one
second later (100 centiseconds) bell will be called and print öClang
Clang, WAKE UP ! !ò.
6.10
Bell is called by the automatically generated event handling code and
will therefore only occur immediately after a call to event_process. You
must call event_process frequently if your alarms are to go off near
their requested times. There is no danger of a thread being called
whilst another function is executing, and because of this, our thread
code does not have to be re-entrant. If an alarm is set for a time which
has passed, the function will be called at the next available
opportunity.
6.10
The value returned in variable Énowæ is the time at which bell was
called and will be greater than alarm_timenowá+á100 if execution of bell
was delayed.
6.10
The clever bit
6.10
How does this enable us to produce a thread? The answer is to use a
form of recursion. If a function calls alarm_set and gives itself as the
alarm_  handler function, it will get called again some time later and
continue to do so indefinitely thus forming a separate thread. So, if we
modify our previous bell function to:
6.10
void bell (int now, void *handle)
6.10
{clang , %s\nö, (char *) handle);
6.10
    alarm_set (now + 50, bell, handle);
6.10
}
6.10
Then after the initial 1 second delay, bell will print its message
every ╜ second. Of course, we do not have to have an initial delay, if
you dispense with the ö+á100ò in main, then the thread will start
immediately.
6.10
Thread timing
6.10
There are two ways to define the delay until the next invocation of
the thread function. One is to add to the start time contained in now
(as above), and the other is to add to a value returned by
alarm_timenow. It is very important to use the correct one, and this
depends on the application.
6.10
The former case will cause the thread to execute a known number of
cycles in a given period. I have used this, for example, to display a
count-down clock. The thread executes once per second, decrements a
variable and displays the result. Problems will occur if a significant
delay results (e.g. due to the desktop being suspended). When
multitasking resumes, the thread will execute almost continually until
it catches up with real time and this can produce a very considerable
CPU load. Such threads need a mechanism to discover when they are more
than a few seconds behind and jump some cycles.
6.10
The second solution (using alarm_timenow) avoids the problems above
and is preferable in most cases where precise timing is not required.
6.10
Multiple threads
6.10
The real power of threads becomes clear when you consider that one
function can be used for any number of parallel threads. All you need to
do is call it from outside a number of times with a different item of
data passed as the handle on each occasion. For example:
6.10
alarm_set (alarm_timenow, func, (void *) &a);
6.10
alarm_set (alarm_timenow, func, (void *) &b);
6.10
These two lines will launch two threads, one working on variable a and
the other on b.
6.10
There is also no need for each thread to cycle at the same speed, or
even a constant speed. Many of the threads which I have written alter
their cycle time depending on the importance of the data they are
processing and even the current CPU loading.
6.10
If a function is part of more than one thread, be very careful about
using static local variables.
6.10
Getting data in and out of threads
6.10
By far the best way to get data in and out of a thread is to declare a
structure and use the address of that structure as the void handle.
Since the structure is passed by name, data can be transferred in both
directions.
6.10
If you wish to address all invocations of a given thread rather than
an individual one, global variables can prove useful.
6.10
Stopping a thread
6.10
If a thread can reach its own decision on when to die, all it has to
do is not call alarm_set before returning and that will be the end of it
(remember to free any malloc-ed memory though).
6.10
If you wish to kill a thread from another function, the best technique
is to have a ödie nowò flag in its data passing structure. The thread
should check this on each invocation and stop if it is set.
6.10
It is also possible to use the alarm_removeall command. This removes
any outstanding alarms with a given handle.
6.10
An example
6.10
What follows is the simplest thread demonstration that I could come up
with. You must provide it with a template file containing a template
called text. The simplest way to do this is to copy
Resources:$.Resources.Edit.Templates. I have not included any way of
halting the program, so you will have to stop it from the Task Manager.
6.10
/* Threads - Simplest possible thread demo program */
6.10
#include <stdio.h>
6.10
#include öalarm.hò
6.10
#include öevent.hò
6.10
#include öflex.hò
6.10
#include öres.hò
6.10
#include öresspr.hò
6.10
#include ötemplate.hò
6.10
#include ötxt.hò
6.10
#include öwimpt.hò
6.10
txt a_text; /* Global pointer to window */
6.10
static void threads_thread (int called_time, void *handle)
6.10
{= (int) handle;
6.10
   char message[30];
6.10
   sprintf (message, öHello, Iæm a %d second thread.\nò, delay);
6.10
   txt_insertstring (a_text, message); /* Write string toáwindow */
6.10
   txt_setdot (a_text, txt_size (a_ text)); /* Move cursorátoáendá*/
6.10
   alarm_set (alarm_timenow () + delay * 100, threads_thread,áhandle);
6.10
}
6.10
int main ()
6.10
{controlò) ;
6.10
   flex_init ();
6.10
   res_init (öthreadsò);
6.10
   resspr_init ();
6.10
   template_init ();
6.10
   alarm_init ();
6.10
   txt_show (a_text = txt_new (öThreadsò));
6.10
   alarm_set (alarm_timenow (), threads_thread, (void *) 2);
6.10
   alarm_set (alarm_timenow (), threads_thread, (void *) 5);
6.10
   alarm_set (alarm_timenow (), threads_thread, (void *) 11);
6.10
   while (TRUE) event_process();
6.10
   return (0);
6.10
}
6.10
Conclusion
6.10
Multi-threading is a programming technique which looks set to become
increasingly popular, especially in real-time applications. RISCáOS does
not yet provide support for full multi-threading, but the tricks which I
have outlined provide a passable imitation.
6.10
Next time you write a real-time program, try using threads. You will
be surprised how easy and effective they can be.
6.10
Reference
6.10
C.J.Northrup, Itæs a multi-threaded world, Byte, May & June 1992.ááA
6.10
Beginnersæ Column Ö !Boot Files
6.10
Laura Handoca
6.10
Q. What is a !Boot file?
6.10
A !Boot file contains commands responsible for setting up your
computer in the way that you want it every time you switch it on or do a
<ctrl-reset>. It is worth noting that öbooting upò your computer does
not necessarily imply using a !Boot file. The computer has a default
start-up sequence Ö adding a !Boot file simply tells the computer to
modify its start-up procedure to fit your specifications.
6.10
Q. Where do I find/put it?
6.10
The !Boot file should be placed in the root directory of the default
disc (i.e. your hard disc, or a floppy you keep for öbooting upò). For
the sake of convenience, the rest of this article is written assuming
that you have a hard disc. If you donæt, the root directory referred to
is always the one on your öbooting upò floppy.
6.10
Q. What can it do?
6.10
It essentially allows you to öpersonalizeò the way in which your
computer sets itself up. You can specify the following things:
6.10
1) Which applications (if any) you want to run
6.10
2) Which mode and palette you use
6.10
3) Allocation of memory
6.10
4) Which (if any) directory viewers are opened Ö for instance, it is
frequently useful to have the root directory opened automatically to
save you having to click on the relevant disc icon.
6.10
5) The appearance of your pinboard, i.e. whether you want applications
ödroppedò on the pinboard, or pretty backdrop pictures installed.
6.10
This is by no means a definitive list but it covers the basics, which
is all beginners really need to know. Once you have grasped the way in
which the !Boot file system works, it is easier to work out more obscure
commands.
6.10
Q. Is there only one !Boot file?
6.10
No. Each application may have one, though it is not vital (see Archive
6.9 p 20), just as all applications have a run file. However, the !Boot
file associated with an application contains only commands for running
that program, so you shouldnæt fiddle with these until you have
graduated from beginner status, or unless you are specifically told to
in an upgrade. The !Boot file we are concerned with here is the one in
the root directory, since that affects the basic computer setup.
6.10
Q. How do I create a !Boot file?
6.10
[N.B. The following explanation only applies if you are using RISCáOS
3. Creating a !Boot file in RISCáOS 2 is more difficult since there is
no pre-defined method of saving the current setup of your machine as a
file, so you have to type in lots of commands. If you have RISCáOS 2 and
need some help, try reading the manual and if you still donæt
understand, write to me. If there is sufficient demand, I will do an
extra article dealing with it. Basically the procedure in RISCáOS 2
consists of saving a file of type öObeyò from !Edit that contains the
commands you wish to have executed. You will also need to type
*Configure Boot at the * prompt, as well as executing the lines
concerning the disc and filing system given below.]
6.10
There are two steps involved in creating a !Boot file: setting up the
computer and saving the !Boot file. I will deal with the latter part
first, since it is very simple.
6.10
If you click <menu> over the Acorn on the far right of your iconbar,
you will see an option called öDesktop Bootò. Moving over the arrow
brings up a standard ösaveò window, with the filename automatically
ö!Bootò. Underneath is a box with an option for öAutobootò, which you
should select (make sure there is a star in the box); this ensures that
the computer will try to run the file every time you start up the
computer. The !Boot file icon can then be dragged to a directory, the
same as any other file or application. Although the main !Boot file is
in the root directory, it is sometimes useful to save it elsewhere,
particularly when editing your !Boot file (see later).
6.10
So much for the mechanics of making a !Boot file: how do you make it
do the things you want? In RISC OS 3, this is generally very simple.
Just follow this procedure:
6.10
1) Switch on the computer or perform a <ctrl-reset> to ensure nothing
else is running.
6.10
2) Set up the machine in the way that you want it to appear, i.e. run
the required applications, set the memory allocation (using the task
manager), mode, palette, etc. Make sure you donæt do anything
unnecessary, such as running an application, deciding you donæt want it,
and quitting it again, since this will clutter your !Boot file. It is
worth spending a little time at this stage working out a plan of
campaign, even to the extent of scribbling down a list of things to do,
before resetting the computer and doing it öfor realò. Once you have set
everything up as you want it, simply select the öDesktop Bootò option as
described above and save the !Boot file in the root directory. This
saves the current set-up of the computer as a file.
6.10
In theory, this should now work, but you ought to check the settings
of the default filing system and default drive. To do this, go to the
command line prompt (Press <f12> or bring up a Task Window), and type at
the * prompt:
6.10
    *status drive
6.10
This will tell you which drive number the computer will automatically
look at to find the !Boot file. If you are using a hard disc, this
should normally be ö4ò whereas if you are using a floppy for booting up,
it should be ö0ò. If this is wrong, (e.g. says ö0ò when you want to boot
up from the hard drive) use the command:
6.10
    *configure drive <n>
6.10
You will then need to repeat this procedure for the file system to be
used. Type:
6.10
    *status filesystem
6.10
You should know what filing system you are using Ö this will usually
be ADFS but if you are using a drive that has been added to your machine
it may be IDEFS or SCSI. If you have the wrong one, type, e.g.
6.10
    *configure filesystem SCSI
6.10
Finally, assuming the current disc and filesystem are the two you have
just configured, type:
6.10
    *opt 4,2
6.10
This sets up the disc such that the computer will try to ö*Runò your
!Boot file as opposed to ö*execæingò it, ö*loadæingò it or doing
nothing. (This is mainly a throwback to the days of the BBC B etc.)
6.10
From now on, when your computer is reset, the !Boot file will
automatically be run for you. If, for any reason, you do not want the
!Boot file to be run when you switch on or <ctrl-reset>, hold down
<shift> while the computer is switched on or reset.
6.10
Q. How do I edit my !Boot file?
6.10
You will almost certainly find that, over a period of time, you will
need to modify your !Boot file, perhaps to include a new package you
have bought. In order to edit your !Boot file, you need to understand
what it contains and why.
6.10
Once you have saved your !Boot file, load it into Edit (or any other
desktop editor you happen to use). You can do this by double-clicking on
its icon while holding down <shift>. You will see a variety of types of
line. For instance, if you have set particular memory allocations using
the task manager, you will have lines of the form:
6.10
    ChangeDynamicArea -Fontsize 128K
6.10
If you have specified that the root directory opens automatically, you
will see a line something like:
6.10
    Filer_OpenDir adfs::IDEDisc4.$ 2 918 712 232 -sn -si
6.10
The ö-snò and ö-siò refer to size of icons and the sort order of the
files in the directory (i.e. sort by name using small icons here).
6.10
Then there will be an assortment of lines such as:
6.10
Filer_Boot Resources:Apps.!Alarm
6.10
Filer_Boot adfs::IDEDisc4.$.Fonts
6.10
The purpose of these is to tell the computer where to find an
application, so that it can recognize file types without the relevant
application having been run. This is easier to explain using an example.
Letæs say that I somehow managed to set up my !Boot file without the
line:
6.10
    Filer_Boot adfs::IDEDisc4.$. Datastuff.!Squirrel
6.10
Since !Squirrel is not in my root directory, the computer wonæt öseeò
it when I boot up, even if my root directory is automatically opened. If
I then open a directory containing a Squirrel file, the file icon will
appear blank. When I try to load the file (double-click on the icon) I
get the error message öNo run action specified for this file typeò.
However, if I add the above line to my !Boot file, the file will have a
Squirrel icon and double clicking on it will load Squirrel.
6.10
There will then be a section concerned with the mode and palette. e.g:
6.10
    Wimpmode 27
6.10
Set this to the mode you find most comfortable to work in. Then:
6.10
    Desktop SetPalette (followed by a string of characters)
6.10
Then you may find a section specifying which applications to run.
These will be of the form:
6.10
    Run adfs::IDEDisc4.$.Toolkit. Spellcheck.!Spell
6.10
If you have set out the backdrop in any way, i.e. dropped icons onto
it, or created a backdrop sprite, there will be some lines starting with
the word öPinò. To set up a backdrop sprite, drop a sprite file onto the
pinboard and choose one of the öMake Backdropò options from the menu
obtained when the pointer is over the file. When the !Boot file is saved
the relevant line will be present. The sprite file does not need to
remain on the pinboard.
6.10
You can edit the !Boot file in one of two ways. Either type in new
commands following the pattern of the existing ones, or use a second
!Boot file. The latter method may be better if you are not sure of what
to type. Again, it is easiest to explain by giving an example.
6.10
Imagine you have just bought Artworks and since you do a lot of
drawing, you decide to modify your !Boot file to install Artworks on the
iconbar ready for immediate use. Reset your computer (as you did for
creating the initial !Boot file), run Artworks, and save a new !Boot
file somewhere other than the root directory. Alternatively, drag the
!Boot file icon to the iconbar and drop it onto the !Edit icon. This
will load it into !Edit without it being saved anywhere on disc (this
can be a useful technique in many situations with most types of file).
Of course, in order to do this you will need to have opened another
directory, but it doesnæt matter this time.
6.10
Load (i.e. press <shift> and double-click on the icon) both the new
!Boot file and the main one into your text editor (e.g. !Edit). Find the
line relating to running Artworks in the new file, and copy it into the
main file. Save the main file and delete the new one. If you now reboot
your computer, you should find Artworks installed on the iconbar.
6.10
Complications and points of confusion
6.10
1) You may find that not all the applications you have run when
preparing your !Boot file appear when you next start up the machine. The
probable cause is that they were written before RISCáOS 3 and donæt know
about the new operating system. The only way to make these work is to
type in the relevant line in the !Boot file, following the pattern
explained above. The easy way to do this is to type RUN and then hold
<shift> down and drag the application into the Edit window. This
automatically enters the full pathname of the application for you.
6.10
2) Setting up the !Alarms application... There seem to have been
numerous problems with this, so either no-one reads the manual or else
the manual is unclear. I donæt want to explain the whole of !Alarm here
Ö there are 12 pages devoted to it in the manual, and at least some of
it makes sense! I am really concerned here with how you incorporate a
particular set of alarms you have created into your !Boot file.
6.10
Basically, once you have sorted out the selection of alarms you want,
and the set up of !Alarm (e.g. the format of the time display on the
iconbar), save an Alarm file somewhere relevant. You then need to save a
temporary !Boot file which you can load into !Edit. Find the lines which
refer to !Alarm, and copy them into your main !Boot file. They will look
something like:
6.10
    Set Alarm$Options -timeout ö10ò -weekwork 62 -format ö%z12:
6.10
%mi %pm. %we %zdy%st %m3ò
6.10
    Run Resources:$.Apps.!Alarm adfs::IDEDisc4.$.Library.Alarms
6.10
The first line refers to the format of the öclockò on the iconbar. The
second one tells the computer to run the !Alarm application, loading up
the alarm file you have just saved. This is the bit at the end of the
second line, i.e. öADFS::IDE-Disc4.$.Library.Alarmsò. You should beware
of the fact that your alarm file wonæt be loaded up automatically unless
it appears in the !Boot file; simply being saved in the root directory
is not enough. An alarm file is essentially like any other file; the
computer does not know to chose any specific file unless you tell it to
do so!
6.10
For the more ambitious
6.10
The !Boot file does not need to be a file, it can also be an
application directory called !Boot. This can contain a !Run, !Boot,
!Sprites file etc, as with any other application.
6.10
When the !Boot application is run, the !Run file will be executed
first. This happens before the Desktop is started up and can be useful
since some things are better done at this point. You can put a line in
the !Run file that will start up the Desktop, using a file of the type
we have been discussing in the rest of the article (but change the
filename from !Bootö to something else!) to set up the Desktop to your
preferred specifications. A suitable line might be:
6.10
    Desktop -File <Desktop boot file>
6.10
N.B. This Desktop boot file is NOT the one called !Boot in the !Boot
application directory. That !Boot file is only responsible for setting
up things to do with the !Boot application, NOT the setup of the
computer. In theory the ö<desktop boot file>ò could be called anything
and saved anywhere; in practice it is most convenient to keep it in the
!Boot application directory.ááA
6.10
Spreadsheet Column
6.10
Chris Johnson
6.10
Schema
6.10
Don Lewis has sent me a long letter on the subject of Schema in an
attempt to redress the balance of the column a little. Brian Cowanæs
article in the April issue has prompted him to say a few things in
favour of Schema, which he thinks is a most under-sung spreadsheet. Don
writes...
6.10
öI can compare Schema with Brian Cowanæs description of Eureka, and
the only facility that he lists that is not shared by Schema seems to be
the automatic alignment of split windows (although this can be done
manually with little effort and any settings are preserved after a
reload). All other features of Eureka that he mentions are present and,
in addition, the manual has an index! It has  window splitting
vertically and horizontally (both together and there seems to be no
limit on the number of views); full outline font facilities in cells or
blocks; row and column size changes by dragging; a good selection of
functions including matrix arithmetic Ö I do not know how powerful in
comparison and, being a physiologist instead of a physicist, my demands
will be less than his.
6.10
I accept that Schema is quite slow to load, but a little careful
planning of the day reduces that problem. Its tendency to crash for no
apparent reason adds to the problem as well as being a major drawback in
itself. Saving to disc, however, is fast enough and I do this frequently
to avoid losing major changes in a spreadsheet. Loading is especially a
problem if you use the facility to reference a cell back through a chain
of other spreadsheets Ö but this is a very useful facility, and if a
crash occurs with one sheet in use the others often remain available.
6.10
One trick that I have learnt concerns restructuring a sheet. I have
had to divide sheets that have become too large and, at first, simply
deleted a block of rows or columns. To my surprise, I found that the
stored file was no shorter even after reloading and resaving. It seems
that old data is retained. This is easily overcome by deleting the data
in the block (with <ctrl-X> rather than <ctrl-W>) before erasing the
rows or columns.
6.10
One great advantage of Schema is its macro facility (which Eureka
seems not to have). (Eureka 2 apparently does Ö see below for news of
its imminence. Ed)  It is very easy to use because it is a sub-set of
Basic rather than some obscure set of unintelligible symbols (Logistix).
Also, there is a simple access to SYS commands.
6.10
You can also use quite complex Basic commands in cells if you want to
avoid a Macro. This has to be on one line but it is possible to use É:æ
separators as in Basic. I have not yet found the limit to the length of
such a command (which does not seem to be discussed in the manual). One
problem with Macros is that you are liable to lose parts or get a
garbled version after reloading if too many are used together but this
only seems to happen when developing them rather than using them to
analyse data.
6.10
The graphics are rather limited and are aimed more at attractive
commercial presentations rather than detailed scientific graphs for
publication. Graphs do not update automatically but redrawing is quite
quick. Schema offers three levels of graphics commands, and the lowest
level (Basic-like with a few simple windows facilities) allows very easy
development of specialized packages. I think I have (or can) incorporate
all the features of the best IBM graphics packages Ö I have used FigP
and Harvard Graphics. I have not attempted to add the facility to mix
several graphs on one sheet but it is so easy to do a montage in Draw Ö
which is necessary anyway to rotate text for vertical labelling of the
ordinate.
6.10
The other advantage quoted for Eureka is the level of commitment of
Longmans. Clares initially referred one of my queries to the authors of
Schema, and I found the latter very helpful on this and other occasions
when I wrote directly. I have been told that they are working on a major
revision that will take care of the loading speed and provide more
extensive graphics facilities. I believe this has been much delayed
because it involved substantial rewriting, but a version should be
available soon for trials.ò
6.10
Thanks Don Ö perhaps this will be the catalyst to prompt other users
of Schema to write.
6.10
Eureka
6.10
Before I start on the technical side, Paul tells me he has received a
press release from Longman Logotron which states, öEureka 2 is now
availableò. When I rang them, Longman Logotron said that it would
actually be available öin about two weeksò (8/6/93). The good news is
that the price is not increasing and registered users will get their
upgrade free of charge Ö send in those registration cards, quickly.
6.10
Printing
6.10
John Wallace, of Longman Logotron, has been kind enough to set the
record straight on printing selected areas of a sheet. He writes, öWhen
printing out a selection from a worksheet, first select the area(s)
required. Next, choose ÉOptionÖ>Set print areaæ which creates a name in
the name list called ÉPrint_Areaæ. When you go to print, the selection
made at the time ÉSet print areaæ was chosen will be printed out. You do
not need to go through ÉFormulaÖ>Goto...Ö>æ first each time. The option
to print checks to see if the name ÉPrint_Areaæ is defined and, if so,
uses it. To see the name definition, either press <ctrl-N> with the
worksheet selected or choose ÉFormulaÖ>Define name...Ö>æ, which opens
the ÉDefine nameæ dialogue box.ò
6.10
This means that, if you subsequently want to print the whole sheet,
you must either delete the name ÉPrint_Areaæ from the name list or, as I
sometimes do, rename it, so that the program no longer finds the name
ÉPrint_Areaæ when it checks.
6.10
Memory problems
6.10
A number of users are having difficulties using Eureka on a 2Mb
machine, because of its voracious appetite (in Archimedes terms) for
memory. Some of the manifestations of memory shortage are unexpected.
For example, J.A.Brook normally uses mode 27, but because memory was
getting tight, he changed to mode 12, and carried on working for a while
before saving the sheet. On a subsequent occasion, he attempted to load
the data back in while in mode 27 and, to his horror, the sheet appeared
on screen but all the cells were blank! However, when he then changed to
mode 12, all the cells immediately filled with their original contents!
6.10
I have tried a few tests on my machine (a 4Mb A5000, and so the page
size is 32Kb), with version 1.0 of Eureka. When installed on the
iconbar, Eureka takes a slot of 1088Kb. However, it also takes 64Kb of
RMA during the installation process. (It does not appear to claim this
permanently, so after installation it can be reclaimed by dragging the
RMA bar in the task manager display.) Loading a 43Kb sheet, causes the
wimp slot to be extended by 64Kb, the slot now being at 1152 Kb. What I
have also noticed is that when the menu is accessed and a dialogue box
is created for the first time, the wimp slot is extended by another
32Kb, so the slot is now at 1184Kb. It is little wonder that memory is
tight on a 2Mb machine. If the sheet is closed, the wimp slot is not
reduced below the 1184Kb size.
6.10
I believe that one of the areas that LL are working on is memory
management and slot size. However, I think we have to accept that the
more features an application has, the more code is going to be needed.
Anyone who has installed applications on PCs or Macs will be aware of
how much code can be involved on these platforms. PC applications make
frequent use of overlays because of memory constraints (i.e. only part
of the program is in memory at any one time).
6.10
Closing sheets
6.10
A few users have been puzzled by the way that, when you lose a sheet,
Eureka sometimes seems to retain the sheet in memory and sometimes not.
Eureka treats the close boxes on the worksheet and the control bar/edit
box differently. If you click on the close box of the worksheet, then it
is closed AND removed from memory (a dialogue is opened if the sheet has
been modified and not saved). If, however, you use the close box on the
edit window, the sheet is simply removed from the screen and can be
reactivated from the iconbar menu (following WindowÖ>), when a list of
all sheets closed in this way is displayed. This is somewhat similar to
the önew viewò option in Impression. Page AÖ55 of the manual summarises
the ways sheets can be closed.
6.10
Default fonts
6.10
If you are tired of continually setting the font to your favourite
style, and you almost always use the same outline font in your sheets,
it is possible to change the defaults used by Eureka. It is necessary to
edit the !run file of the application. (Keep a backup of the original in
case you do something silly! Open the !Eureka application directory by
double clicking on it with <shift> held down and load !run into Edit or
a similar editor. Near the end of the file, you should find something
like the following.
6.10
| Default setup for RO3, ARM3 and VGA.
6.10
| Set Eureka$WinLibSystemFont : +font=Homerton.Medium +size=12
6.10
| Set Eureka$WinLibDialogFont : +font=Homerton.Bold +size=10
6.10
| Set Eureka$WorksheetFont : +font=Homerton.Medium +size=10
6.10
As supplied on the master disc, each of these lines has the vertical
bar at the start. This means that it is treated as a comment and
ignored, so the system font is used as default. Using your working copy
of the application, if you remove the comment bar and resave the file,
the font named will be used as default next time Eureka is started. You
can also change the name and size of the font to your favourite (using
the exact font name). Do not change the format of the lines or insert or
delete spaces. You can choose only to use an outline font for the work
area of the sheet or also for dialogue boxes and windows, depending on
which comment bars you remove. Note that some of the changes will only
be apparent when you create a new sheet, since old sheets will remember
the old default font.
6.10
The first line above implies that these defaults are suggested for use
with ARM3 machines, but the newer ARM250 machines are much faster than
the ARM2 machines and should cope with the extra load on the processor.
In the final analysis, it is the user who decides what is acceptable in
terms of speed of screen update and so on.
6.10
Window tool sprites
6.10
John Wallace (of Longman Logotron) points out that one of the
commonest questions he is being asked is, öEureka uses its own window
tool sprites, but I have my own window tool sprites. Can Eureka use the
new window tool sprites?ò He writes öThe answer to this question is, Iæm
pleased to say, yes, if the user has version 1.04 of the software.
6.10
All that is required is for the user to copy the sprite file ÉTools3Dæ
into the !Eureka application directory. When run, Eureka will use the
new 3D window tool sprites in preference to the default standard window
tool sprites.ò
6.10
How to contact me
6.10
My postal address is Chris Johnson, 7, Lovedale Grove, Balerno,
Edinburgh, EH14 7DR; I can also be contacted by e-mail as
[e-mail] .clust if you have access.
6.10
I am happy to receive anything in connection with spreadsheets, hints
or tips, problems, solutions to problems, or just requests for help.
What would also be of interest is examples of unusual uses of
spreadsheets.ááA
6.10
The Puddle and the Wardrobe
6.10
Hilary Ferns
6.10
This pack is aimed at children at pre-school level and the lower end
of the infant school, and comprises two separate programs. Each program
comes on its own unprotected disc. The discs may be copied for use on
other machines within the establishment. (It cannot be installed on a
network.) Additionally, the pack contains a few worksheets for colouring
and some simple concept keyboard overlays.
6.10
The programs load by double-clicking in the directory viewer, but do
not load onto the iconbar. They both take over the whole screen, which I
think is an advantage for young children. Throughout both programs, the
mouse control is simple, but they also support the Concept Keyboard (as
for the BBC), which can be linked via Acornæs midi or i/o podule.
6.10
A poem is the basis for ÉThe Puddleæ, explaining how Teddy ÉGot his
brolly in a muddleæ and ÉStepped into a great big puddle.æ The poem does
not appear in the program but is provided as an introductory activity in
an A5 black and white booklet, together with the song version.
6.10
The screen is clear and colourful, with bold pictures, but the
graphics, although adequate for the purpose, are not quite as
sophisticated as in many recent RISCáOS programs. Freddy Teddy is seen
walking through the rain, with sound effects, holding his umbrella and
when he falls in the puddle, the children need to remember the colour of
all five items of his clothing in order to hang them on the line to dry.
If an incorrect choice is made, Teddy will appear briefly to remind
them. The time that he remains on the screen is determined by options
set on the teachersæ page. Teddy has quite an infectious laugh when the
task is successfully completed.
6.10
In ÉThe Wardrobeæ, the children choose between the gardening, the
snow, the paddling pool or the bathroom scenes. The task is then to
choose five suitable items which must be taken in the correct order.
Again, the pictures and colours are bold and there are one or two sound
effects. Quacking ducks appear in each scene, even in the bath!
6.10
The attractive thing about the programs is their simplicity and ease
of use for young children, each offering only one simple task. Another
bonus is that they could form a part of many different cross-curricular
classroom topics, including work about teddybears, colours, clothes,
types of materials, weather, etc. There are lots of places where they
would fit in quite naturally. However, their use is limited to the very
young. (I understand that ÉThe Playgroundæ, is another Freddy Teddy
game, introducing logo-type commands, and would seem to be a suitable
sequel.)
6.10
The Puddle and the Wardrobe costs ú29.95 +VAT from Topologika or ú32
through Archive.ááA
6.10
PipeLineZ
6.10
Gerald Fitton
6.10
Thanks for your letters, problems, discs, words of praise, criticisms,
etc. Once again, because of the quantity, I am including many of the
details on the Archive monthly disc. Because of deadlines, it is too
early to know whether you approve of this transfer of information from
written word to disc. Let me know and Iæll fall in with your wishes.
6.10
Wordz labels
6.10
The directory Labels on the monthly disc contains copies of
correspondence Iæve had with Steve Harratt.
6.10
He wants to print a logo of his camera club on each of the 18 labels
of an Avery 3ábyá6 label sheet. The essence of the solution is to make
18 copies of the logo as a drawfile and then paste the DrawFile into
Wordz as a backdrop. The names and addresses are then entered as a CSV
file (originated in PipeDream) and dragged into a Wordz document as a
table of labels.
6.10
The monthly disc contains Steveæs example worked out in full.
6.10
A school project
6.10
The following is an edited letter I received from Alan Jackson of New
Zealand. Please contact him directly for further information about this
project.
6.10
öDear Gerald, During our winter School holidays, I was going to take
three 16 year old boys to a three day equestrian event. The organiser of
the event was planning to do the admin on Viewsheet and came to us, in
advance, for advice. We decided to produce the results using PipeDream.
6.10
The whole event would be spread over three days, Day 1 being dressage,
Day 2 the cross country and Day 3 the show jumping. The organisers
needed daily totals as well as a running total. We used the opportunity
to stretch some of our keener and more able students and it turned out
to be a three and a half day job in the field, and several sessions
after school in the planning.
6.10
There were three competing age groups and we treated them on separate
sheets, the sheets for Senior and Intermediate were identical in
structure.
6.10
Needless to say we made some silly mistakes, like having an enormous
sheet which we tried to move around quickly. We would have been better,
I think, to delete and save a large block of results (say for day 2 when
there was a large number of scores for each fence) and then re-insert
them for the final scores before the end of the last day.
6.10
Fortunately, the board for the Laser Direct arrived in the lunchtime
post on the day we departed for the event at 4pm and we were able to
produce the printout extremely quickly indeed.
6.10
At the end of each day, we produced the daily tally and at the end of
the event we did produce the results we were asked for inside 10 minutes
of the final presentation, so that competitors could buy a full copy of
their own and their teamæs results before they left for home.
6.10
The header page we used to form the cover of the results booklet was
created on Impression using their equestrian logo (scanned on Scanlight
Junior and pixel-edited in !Paint) and the new borders from Computer
Concepts.
6.10
It was a good way to get to know PipeDream, good practical work for
the boys involved, (we were able to give credits for internal assessment
in the Computer Studies course), useful public relations for the School
and the fastest set of results that this event had ever had in its
twenty odd years. I think that some schools in UK might be able to use
the idea and perhaps make some money for new school equipment by using
their equipment and selling their services.
6.10
Feel free to circulate the sheets so that they might form the basis of
some improvement for other sporting events.
6.10
Alan Jackson, 77 Hull Street, OAMARU, New Zealand. ([phone])ò
6.10
Electricity usage
6.10
Mr BáRáMerridan has sent me what he describes as öquite a simple
electric chart calculatorò which you will find on the Archive monthly
disc together with an explanation of how to use it.
6.10
Help
6.10
RáJáDarby asks for help with a couple of problems for which he has
provided disc examples. I have transferred his files to the Archive
disc. If you have a solution, could you contact him directly, please?
6.10
Mr Merridan also asks for help with the following: öHas anybody any
ideas how parts of the grid can be left out of titles, etc? As you will
see by my spreadsheet, the headings all have grid lines running through
them.ò
6.10
My reply included the following remark. In PipeDream, it is not
possible to selectively delete the grid. In the past, I have used a
separate graphic to produce a grid but this is a very fiddly job and I
donæt recommend it. Of course, it would be possible to use a combination
of Wordz and PipeDream to do exactly what you want but PipeDream and
Wordz are not hot linked! Resultz will be hot linked to Wordz and the
PipeDream spreadsheet should be easily Éportedæ into Resultz. Maybe that
is the long term solution!
6.10
Mr Merridanæs second problem reads: öI have a Hewlett Packard 500C
printer, RISC OS 3, a 40Mb Hard disc and 4Mb of RAM. I would like to
know how to do a screen print and how do I get it to print in colour Ö
in simple terms please.ò
6.10
My reply: To Éscreen printæ from the Archimedes first you need to
capture your screen as a sprite. You do this by loading the application
!Paint and Égrabbingæ the whole screen as a sprite. The sprite can then
be printed from the !Paint application or, if you wish, loaded into a
different application (such as PipeDream) and printed from the other
application.
6.10
So far as printing in colour is concerned, you need a colour RISCáOS
printer driver suitable for your printer. Generally, these are provided
by the suppliers of the printer but, if you have RISCáOSá3, then one of
the colour printer drivers supplied by Acorn should Éworkæ with your
printer.
6.10
Printing bar charts
6.10
Michael Sawle suggests that there should be an option in PipeDreamá4
to print the bars of the bar charts in shades of grey. Does anyone know
how to arrange to do this? His second problem is that he wants to print
the names of the bars in the centre of each of the bars. Can you help?
6.10
Custom function monitoring
6.10
Andrew Murray has developed a custom function which monitors custom
functions. He says:
6.10
öThe enclosed material may be useful to any of your members who are
involved in developing Custom Functions for PipeDream 4. It provides a
convenient facility for displaying custom function parameters (and other
values) within a custom function program under development. It consists
of a set of custom functions in the document [c_o], including a function
öexampleò designed to demonstrate the facilities provided, which is
invoked from the document [Example].ò
6.10
The functions created by Andrew are on the monthly disc in the
directory CustomChck.
6.10
Premier league
6.10
Philip Tolhurst (amongst many others) would like some help with a
spreadsheet of football league results. All the files are on the Archive
monthly disc in the directory Football.
6.10
Nested ifs
6.10
I have been asked many times how to do away with nested Ifs. One such
questioner is CáGáHillier of the Mark Rutherford School whose nested If
looks like the following few lines:
6.10
if(K57=18,8,if(K57=17,8,
6.10
if(K57=16,7,if(K57=15,7,
6.10
if(K57=14,7,if(K57=13,6,
6.10
if(K57=12,6,if(K57=11,6,
6.10
if(K57=10,5,if(K57=9,5,
6.10
if(K57=8,5,if(K57=7,4,
6.10
if(K57=6,4,if(K57=5,4,
6.10
    ))))))))))))))
6.10
The quick answer is to use a custom function which uses a lookup
table. The directory WineList on the Archive monthly disc is a typical
example for which I developed such an approach for an Australian reader,
Ian Masterton. You might find it useful if you have this kind of
problem.
6.10
ChartArt
6.10
On the Archive monthly disc is a directory called Bridge. It is a
light hearted attempt to make the Chart facility of PipeDreamá4 produce
pictures. The function in the Bridge directory produces a likeness of a
suspension bridge! Robert Macmillan of Colton Software is offering a
small prize for any (reasonably good) ChartArt!
6.10
Finally
6.10
In their uncompressed form, the PipeLineZ files on the Archive disc
amount to about 300Kb. The text of this article is about 10Kb so you can
see that there is much more on the disc than I could ever include in
print in the magazine. Please let me know your reactions to this
strategy. Would you prefer one or two items dealt with in depth in the
magazine or do you prefer this new strategy of more blanket cover with
details on the disc?
6.10
Please let me have your contributions, problems, solutions and letters
on disc so that I can more easily make them available to others without
having to re-key. The Post Office are chewing up more of our post than
they used to so please use a Mail-lite (or similar) bag and ensure that
no part of the disc is under the stamp or I might have to rebuild a
broken disc in an attempt to read it. Like the Archive Editor, I am
having to remove the shutter mechanism completely from too many discs
that have been hit by the franking machine! Also, please donæt put any
sellotape on the disc shutter Ö it is almost impossible to remove
cleanly.ááA
6.10
DTP & Programmersæ Utilities Disc
6.10
Hutch Curry
6.10
Software 42 have released a disc of utility programs ostensibly
designed to assist the programmer and/or DTP user. The supplied disc
contains six programs and costs ú15. A site licence is also available
for ú30. The version available for review was incomplete as the manuals
were not supplied. There were, however, text files on disc with complete
instructions. The contents of the disc are as follows:
6.10
Broadcast (Version 1.10)
6.10
Broadcast is a utility to display standard RISCáOS draw and sprite
files at the PAL broadcast display quality of 625 lines at 50 Hz frame
rate with 2:1 interlace. This corresponds to a digital resolution of 768
╫ 576 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The primary use of Broadcast is to
transfer images from the Archimedes to video tape or other video sources
via either the monochrome composite video output or a colour PAL encoder
card (available from third party suppliers).
6.10
Additionally, Broadcast can be used to display sprites from multi-scan
monitor modes on a normal monitor and to obtain the highest quality
display of drawfiles possible on a normal monitor. Images are displayed
using the maximum of 256 colours currently available on the Archimedes,
with additional colour enhancement from the supplied application
CTenhance (see below). However, as CTenhance is apparently not
compatible with RISCáOS version 3.1, I was unable to judge its merits
when used in conjunction with Broadcast.
6.10
Broadcast was easy enough to use in each of its modes. To be honest, I
had never previously wanted to transfer images from the Archimedes to
video tape. Having now done so, I donæt think I will have much future
use of this facility. I expect that for others this may be a Éusefulæ
utility.
6.10
ComndCTRL & CommandC (Version 1.10)
6.10
Command Control (ComndCTRL) is a utility program providing an easy and
flexible way to use *-commands from the Desktop without having to resort
to f12 and the keyboard. Many *-commands are provided in the companion
CommandC application. Clicking on this application will open two viewers
containing configuration (CFG) files. The viewers are named Internal for
RISCáOS *-commands and External for command line programs/utilities. Any
of these configurations can be loaded and installed on the iconbar by
double clicking on them. As different parameters need to be set for
different commands, there is a facility for entering parameters from the
menu of each command.
6.10
One of the nicer features is the ease with which additional commands
can be created and saved for later use. In general, I thought this was
the most useful of the utilities and it is now always to be found on my
iconbar.
6.10
CTEnhance (Version 1.0)
6.10
CTEnhance stands for ColourTrans Enhancement and is a module and
RISCáOS front end application designed to greatly increase the number of
colours which can be represented by the ColourTrans module. The
ColourTrans module is used by many RISCáOS applications to represent 24
bit RGB colour values on the limited palette available with the current
Archimedes display system. Current versions of ColourTrans (0.52 & 0.62)
work by selecting the closest colour to the desired 24 bit RGB value,
which can be found from the current palette. This gives a fairly good
representation in 256 colour modes, but very poor results in modes with
less colour, especially in two colour modes where only black or white
can be used. CTenhance allegedly increases the number of colours in all
modes by using a technique of error diffused dithering.
6.10
I use the term allegedly as I was unable to get CTEnhance to work
sensibly. With RISCáOS Version 3.1 there appeared to be some essential
incompatibility between ColourTrans and CTEnhance as all the greys and
black went to the same mucky dark grey. Menus became dark rectangles
with no visible text. Undeterred, I then tried CTEnhance on a RISCáOS 2
machine and Ö although there were no untoward effects, I was unable to
get it to do anything very obvious. The problem may have been due to my
lack of understanding on what I should do. However, if that were the
case then the supplied documentation is clearly inadequate.
6.10
GraphTask (Version 3.0)
6.10
GraphTask is an application to provide a Graphic TaskWindow as an
extension to the Edit taskwindow concept. GraphTask allows the full use
of graphics, whilst preserving the ability to run true RISCáOS tasks at
the same time. According to Software 42, Graphtask is aimed at the
enthusiast programmer who is able to write small non-wimp programs, and
would like them to run in a window on the desktop, but does not have the
time or the expertise to tackle the complicated RISCáOS windowing
operating systems calls. Additionally, GraphTask should appeal to anyone
who has a desire or requirement to run pre-RISCáOS Archimedes programs
or BBC (Model A, B, Master, Compact or Electron) programs.
6.10
Most Basic and machine code programs can be used in a Graphic
Taskwindow as long as they:
6.10
Are not proper RISCáOS windowing programs.
6.10
Do not directly access the screen.
6.10
Do not try to re-configure the machine.
6.10
Do not claim operating system vectors or use interrupt code.
6.10
Do not try to leave the desktop, (65Host or PC emulator).
6.10
Eight bit BBC computer programs which require 65Host will not work but
65Tube can be used to run Basic or 6502 assembler programs in a Graphic
Taskwindow. 65Tube can be entered by typing *EmulateTube from within a
taskwindow.
6.10
Programs which try to redefine the cursor keys or action (OS_Byte 4 /
*FX4) will run but not always function correctly, e.g. Arm Basic Editor.
Programs which use multiple screen buffers to improve graphics updating
will run, but will not always give the correct display in the Graphic
Taskwindow.
6.10
GraphTask should be easy to use. It starts in the usual manner by
double-clicking on its icon Ö it then installs itself on the iconbar.
Compatible programs can then be run within a Graphic Taskwindow by
either dragging the file to the iconbar icon or opening a new task
window and using the command line. However, dragging of files from
filing systems other than SCSI or ADFS (such as SparkFS or FlopFS) threw
up continual path errors. Once it was loaded, I found that only about
80% of the programs I tried worked successfully with an acceptable level
of graphical output. In addition there is, of course, a speed penalty
for running in a Taskwindow. This seemed excessive and would put me off
its regular use. For example, the Finsbury benchmarks, which ran as a
single task in 0.87 seconds, took 117 seconds in the task window. A
simple graphical benchmark of point plotting went from 0.39 to 11.34
seconds by running it in the task window.
6.10
For those of you who are particularly interested in this sort of
Graphic Taskwindow, you should be aware of the existence of a public
domain application called VMode by Brian Brunswick that fulfils the same
role.
6.10
PrintCTRL (Version 1.10)
6.10
PrintCTRL has been designed for the Star LC10 colour, and other
printers in the Star range, to provide comprehensive printer
configuration and background text file printing. According to the
documentation, the program will also work both with colour printers that
provide Epson JX/EX emulation and with most Epson compatible monochrome
printers. All printer command codes are contained in a resource file
which can be altered by the user to suit non-standard printers.
6.10
PrintCTRL can be used either with applications which output to the
printer in text mode or from the desktop directly. When printing text
files from the desktop, printing is done in the background (other tasks
continue running). PrintCTRL can also be used to set up the printer
before any printing is done, selecting various printing styles not
normally available.
6.10
As I do not have access to a Star or other compatible colour printer,
I was unable to assess how well PrintCTRL performs in colour. However, I
was successfully able to use the program with an elderly 8 pin Kaga
(Epson FX compatible) printer. I was able to modify the file of printer
codes to provide very effective control over all selectable aspects of
the printer such as font selection, type size and so on. The background
printing of text files was a definite plus.
6.10
SWIStat (Version 1.01)
6.10
The SWIstat application provides information on the activity of all
SoftWare Interrupts (SWIæs) occurring in your machine. From my own point
if view, this was far and away the most interesting program in the
suite. According to Software 42, it is intended for programmers who wish
to debug or improve the efficiency of their programæs interface with the
OS, or their own modules. It does this by showing exactly which software
interrupt calls are being made, when and in what quantity.
6.10
When started, SWIstat installs itself on the iconbar. Clicking on this
icon will open the main window. This window contains information on all
the currently installed modules in the machine. Each module that
provides SWIæs has its own entry, giving its name and a value and a
graphic display of this value, similar to the bars used in the Task
Manageræs window. The value is either the total number of SWI calls
handled by modules since the application was first installed in the
machine, or the number of calls handled in a set time period.
6.10
Clicking on any of the module names will display a sub-window for that
module. The contents of the window are similar to those of the main
window, except that the number of calls (totals or per interval) for
each SWI that the module provides are displayed. The first entry is the
total for the module, as is displayed in the main window.
6.10
In use, this application worked faultlessly and provides a fascinating
insight into what is going on behind the scenes in your Archimedes. It
is very revealing to look at what the operating system is getting up to
when the machine is switched on and supposedly doing nothing.
6.10
Conclusion
6.10
I think that Software 42 have actually misnamed this suite of
programs. I spend the vast majority of my waking hours either
programming or using DTP. I do not believe that any of these programs
will actually be useful to me in either of these pursuits. This is not
to say that none of the programs are useful. However, I think that the
programs will be found to be of use (or not) equally across the range of
Archimedes users. Because of the problems with some of the programs, I
cannot enthusiastically recommend that everyone should rush out and buy
a copy. But if you do, I am sure that you will find sufficient utility
to justify the expense.ááA
6.10
Northwest SEMERC     Fitton Hill
CDC, Rosary Road, Oldham, OL8 2QE. (061Ö627Ö4469)
6.10
Oak Solutions (p12)    Suite 25,
Robin Enterprise Centre, Leeds Road, Idle, Yorkshire BD10 9TE.
(0274Ö620423) (0274Ö620419)
6.10
Oak Solutions     Broadway House, 149Ö151 St Neots Road, Hardwick,
Cambridge, CB3 7QJ. (0954Ö211760) (0954Ö211760)
6.10
Oregan Developments     36 Grosvenor
Avenue, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield, B74 3PE.
6.10
Pineapple Software    39 Brownlea
Gardens, Seven Kings, Ilford, Essex IG3 9NL. (081Ö599Ö1476)
(081Ö598Ö2343)
6.10
RESOURCE     Exeter Road, Doncaster, DN2 4PY. (0302Ö340331)
6.10
Risc Developments     117 Hatfield
Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 4JS. (0727Ö840303) (0727Ö860263)
6.10
Software 42     109 Ferry Road, Hullbridge, Essex, SS5 6EL.
6.10
State Machine     75 Upper Wellington Street, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1
5AA. (0582Ö483377) (0582Ö480833)
6.10
Techsoft UK Ltd     Old School
Lane, Erryrs, Mold, Clwyd, CH7 4DA. (082Ö43318)
6.10
T-J Reproductions     Unit 42,
Sapcote Trading Centre, Dudden Hill Lane, Willesden, London, NW10 2DJ.
(081Ö451Ö6220) (081Ö451Ö6441)
6.10
Topologika     P.O. Box 39, Stilton, Peterborough, PE7 3RL. (0733Ö244682)
6.10
Turing Tools     149 Campbell Road, Cowley, Oxford, OX4 3NX.
(0865Ö775059)
6.10
Widgit Software     102 Radford
Road, Leamington Spa, CV31 1LF. (0926Ö885303)
6.10
Wild Vision     15 Witney Way, Boldon Colliery, Tyne & Wear NE35 9PE.
(091Ö519Ö1455) (091Ö519Ö1929)
6.10
Wyddfa Software     3 Preswylfa,
Llanberis, Gwynedd, LL55 4LF. (0286Ö870101) (0286Ö871722)