Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/magazine/volume_09/issue_11

Text File | 1996-07-15 | 316KB | 6,163 lines

Products Available
9.11
Atomwide Printer Adaptor Ö Sharing a printer over a network sounds like
a great idea, but dedicating a computer to the task of printer serving
is clearly a waste of valuable resources. The Atomwide Network Printer
Adaptor enables printing on a TCP/IP network without the need for a
dedicated print server or someoneæs workstation doubling as one.
9.11
The adaptor connects between any available 10Base2 or 10BaseT Ethernet
socket and a printer, and so allows a printer to be located wherever it
is required. By removing the need for a dedicated printer server, near
which, traditionally, your printer would have been placed, the number of
possible positions for the printer within your networkæs topology is
greatly increased. This maximises a printeræs usage by a greater number
of people, and should circumstances change, the printer (along with the
Adaptor) can be re-positioned extremely quickly and easily. If
necessary, you can use more than one Atomwide Network Printer Adaptor on
the same network.
9.11
The Network Printer Adaptor needs to be managed by an Acorn SchoolServer
(or other Microsoft Windows NT file server) Ö a network spooler, running
on the Acorn SchoolServer, spools data to be printed to a file and sends
it, using the TCP/IP protocol, to the Network Printer Adaptor. Printers
connected to your network via an Acorn SchoolServer and a Network
Printer Adaptor can be used by Acorn workstations as if they were
connected locally. It comes in either a one parallel printer or three
parallel printer version and has a network data transfer rate of 10Mbps.
9.11
The one printer version costs ú199 +VAT +p&p, or ú232 through Archive.
The three printer version costs ú299 +VAT +p&p, or ú350 through Archive.
9.11
Barcodes is a fully RISC OS-compliant application which produces EAN-8
and EAN-13 barcodes in drawfile format. The output may be saved as a
drawfile, dragged into Draw or straight into a DTP window. EAN-8 and
EAN-13 barcodes are used in package design and retailing. EAN-13
barcodes may optionally have two or five-digit add-on codes which are
used on periodicals (International Standard Serial Numbering) and books
(International Standard Book Numbering). Beneath the barcode appears the
barcode number in OCR-B font, and optionally the ISSN and ISBN barcodes
may have the ISSN/ISBN number in OCR-A font above the barcode.
9.11
Features include: the bar thickness can be altered to compensate for
ink-spread; the barcode may be saved as a Éstripæ, i.e. the bars are all
the same height; there are checksum-verification routines to assist in
generating a new ISBN number; a barcode number can be Édraggedæ into the
!Barcodes window; a new routine produces Code 128 barcodes for inclusion
in the BIC Binderæs Pack label for packs of books. The application
occupies 100Kb of memory and is RISCáOS 3 only. It makes full use of
interactive help, etc. Checksum generation is automatic, and a check is
made on the validity of the ISSN/ISBN number including its checksum.
9.11
Barcodes costs ú85 (no VAT) from Kang Software. A full description of
the software, and sample drawfiles of the output, can be found on their
web site. (See Factfile.)
9.11
Christian Computer Art Ö There are 45 clipart discs, plus two CDs
available in the CCA range: 1 & 2 Christmas Story and Symbols. 3 Easter.
4 Harvest. 5 Christian Symbols. 6áMoney, Poverty and War. 7 Environment.
8áMission and World Scene. 9 Baptist History and Membership. 10
Apologetics. 11 Evangelism. 12áLifestyle. 13 Banners. 14 Borders. 15
Editorial Flair. 16 Illuminated Letters. 17 Adults and Youth. 18
Children and Families. 19 Celebration. 20 Music 21 Leisure. 22 Weddings.
23 Old Testament Stories. 24 New Testament Stories. 25 NT Parables and
Sayings. 26 Bible Maps. 27 History, Prophecy and Bible Study. 28 OT
Background and Archaeology. 29áNT Background and Archaeology. 30
Sideliners. 31 & 32 Good News Bible OT Stories. 33á&á34áGood News Bible
NT. 35 Good News Bible texts from the OT. 36 Good News Bible texts from
the New Testament. 37Ö45 Good News Bible remaining pictures, in sequence
through the Bible.
9.11
The complete set of pictures above, plus the Apocrypha images from the
Good News Bible, are also available on the Christian Clip Art CD-ROM.
There are about 1,700 images on this disc, all stored as sprites. Copies
of about half the images are also stored in Draw format, and a smaller
number as ArtWorks files. A sophisticated thumbnail viewer can display
images in their categories, and also allows the user to search for
images with given keywords in a text description. The CD also acts as a
resource to the ExpLAN HolyBible product, where it provides a reference
into the complete set of Good News Bible pictures which can be displayed
and copied into DTP documents, etc.
9.11
A second Bible Picture Library CD-ROM is also available, containing all
the Good News Bible pictures, as the floppy disc collection, plus a huge
range of archaeological and historical pictures to illustrate the world
of the Bible. There are about 3,100 images on this CD, all in
monochrome, and stored in PCX format. The Acorn thumbnail viewer
converts these into sprite format ready for use in Acorn applications.
9.11
Discs cost ú5.90 each for one to four discs, and ú4.90 each for five or
more discs. CD-ROMs cost ú49 each and are available from Christian
Computer Art. They also do a 30 day Étrialæ period, and have a free
catalogue available.
9.11
Cyclone is an external floppy disc drive for the Psion Series 3a and
Acorn Pocket Book II. Itæs a high quality, portable 3╜ö floppy drive
unit that provides a flexible, low-cost solution to off-line storage and
back-up for the Pocket Book II. We hope to have one for review soon!
Cyclone costs ú169.95 inclusive or ú165 through Archive.
9.11
DIY RiscPC Ö If anyone is still thinking about buying a RiscPC and had
hoped to catch the Éend of Juneæ deadline for getting a StrongARM
upgrade for ú99 +VAT, donæt panic! You havenæt missed the special offer
because Acorn have extended it to the end of August. What is more, by
waiting, youæve probably saved yourself even more money! The price of
SIMMs has dropped even more. An 8Mb SIMM is now only ú75, a 16Mb is ú140
and a 32Mb is ú310 Ö well it is at the time of going to press but, who
knows, it may have dropped even further by the time you are ready to buy
your computer Ö give us a ring to find out the latest pricing. Also,
drive prices have dropped, see overleaf.
9.11
Drive prices Ö The prices of hard drives have dropped further Ö not as
dramatically as SIMM prices, but still quite helpful. For example, a 1Gb
IDE is now only ú190 including fitting and cables, and there is a 1.6Gb
for ú240. These can only be used on RiscPCs with RISCáOS 3.6 or higher.
9.11
As a result of the DIY RiscPC upgrades, we have several 540Mb hard
drives, ideal for rejuvenating your A5000, for only ú120 while stocks
last! Please ring if you want one, to see if we still have any left.
These can be used in RiscPCs too, provided you have a spare IDE
connector (each RiscPC has one spare, but that is sometimes used up by a
CD-ROM drive.)
9.11
PD drives are also down in price to under ú400 Ö see the Price List for
the latest prices.
9.11
Dr Smithæs C Development Toolkit Ö This suite of tools was launched at
the Wakefield Show, and has received some good reactions. The toolkit is
designed to work with Acorn C v. 4 or 5 (i.e.áDesktop C and C/C++),
though various sections of the kit will work with other compilers such
as GCC, Easy C, or any assembler that outputs AOF files. There are three
sections to the toolkit: MemCheck is a Memory Access Checker (requires C
v. 4 or 5). Linking this library against your C program, and calling a
single function causes every access to and from memory to be checked.
This has the effect of instantly catching illegal array accesses,
overwriting of code areas, dereferencing of garbage pointers, and many
other common C errors. Facilities for debuggings with Flex, Dynamic
Areas, and trusted libraries are all included. HeirProf is a
Hierarchical Profiler which analyses a program as it runs, to produce a
comprehensive hierarchical listing of function run times, enabling
programmers to painlessly tune their code for speed, getting instant
feedback on the bottlenecks in their code, and giving fast assessment of
the impact that changes make. Misc Utilities are supplied to ease common
programming tasks, including programs to produce Éstrippedæ header files
for fast compilation, to rename objects within libraries to avoid name
space collisions, and to automatically generate Cv4 libraries from Cv5
ones.
9.11
A demo version of Dr Smithæs C Development Toolkit can be downloaded
from: ftp.comlab.ox. ac.uk/oucl/users/robin.watts/DrSmiths.zip
9.11
The full version costs ú50 +VAT +p&p from Warm Silence Software, or ú58
through Archive.
9.11
HTMLEdit 2 from R-Comp, builds on the success of its predecessor, adding
hundreds of new features and improvements to bring new life to your Web
pages. Features include: Full HTML 3 and Netscape extension support;
full support for the creation of UNIX/DOS relative paths; over 100
foreign characters supported, with automatic conversion for text files;
multiple master pages; two¡click HTML table creation; all options
user¡configurable; links to RISC OS programs for extended functionality;
HTML ÉAssistantsæ to guide you through common tasks; file conversion to
allow the use of existing data in your page.
9.11
HTMLEdit 2 is available from R-Comp and costs ú45 for a single user
licence, and ú150 for a site licence. Upgrades from version 1 are ú15.
Carriage is ú5 for orders outside of EU.
9.11
MultiGen2 Ö (This was mentioned last month but we got the pricing wrong.
Itæs even cheaper than we said and therefore even better value for
money!!) The high band Genlock adaptor from Sonamara Computer Video has
dropped in price and gone up in specification. It now supports
resolutions of up to 800╫600, with simultaneous RGB, S-Video and
composite video outputs, as well as S-Video and composite video inputs.
Features of the external unit include under/overscan options, image re-
scaling and re-positioning, freeze frame and fade (with adjustable rates
of fade). An infra-red remote control provides full control over all
functions. The MultiGen2 is available for PAL or NTSC. AáMultiGen2 Pro
is also available offering resolutions up to 1600╫1200 plus 2╫ zoom and
pan.
9.11
MultiGen2 costs ú299.95 inclusive or ú290 through Archive. MultiGen2 Pro
costs ú499.95 or ú485 through Archive. For users who require
professional titling in their videos, there are two new bundles
available Ö MultiGen2 + Claresæ Titler for ú369.95, and MultiGen2 Pro +
Titler at ú549.95 (ú355 and ú530 respectively through Archive).
9.11
Observess Ö the expert system shell for the Acorn RISC OS machine. This
was mentioned last month, but we said it was from Chessfield Software
instead of Cherisha Software. Apologies to both companies. As we said,
Observess is fully desktop compatible and incorporates an IF... THEN...
rule structure with up to three conditions. It provides support for
percentage-based certainty factors on facts and rules, and single or
multiple recommendations based on the certainty factors. Included in the
latest version (2.71) is a backward chaining inference engine. The price
remains at ú40 (no VAT) for a single user copy, or ú120 for a site
licence. Further information can be obtained from: Cherisha Software Ö
[e-mail].
9.11
Ovation Pro Ö The long awaited re-write of Ovation is now shipping.
Called Ovation Pro, itæs Beebugæs attempt at bringing onto the market a
professional DTP package which can compete with the likes of Impression
(and ultimately, we hope, with packages on other platforms). Whether
they have succeeded or not, only time will tell; this first version has
got some very impressive facilities, with more to come later in the
year.
9.11
Among its features are: a set of drawing tools for making lines and
curves; rotation for text and pictures; OLE; skewing for text and
pictures; kerningáand tracking; text flow around frames or theápicture
within a frame; bezier control points for editing the standoff on
repelled frames; make      local/make master for master frames; its own
scriptingálanguage; a set of pre-defined macros for automating common or
repetitive operations, plus the ability to create user-defined macros;
macros can be operated from a button bar or by using key presses; drag
and drop between chapters and other documents; find and replace; styles
and effects.
9.11
Ovation Pro costs ú165 +p&p +VAT or ú185 through Archive. Site licences
are also available at ú600 +VAT for a 30 station site licence, and ú300
+VAT for a 15ástation licence.
9.11
Photodesk 2 is now ready, and according to Spacetech, it has undergone
an Éentire re-write taking into account all the positive customer
feedback and the needs of professional usersæ. The main emphasis in the
development of Photodesk 2 has been in improving the overall quality of
the tools, effects and filters. Slickness of operation, ease of use and
quality of output have all been high on the list of objectives for the
new version. According to Spacetech, the way in which it operates and
handles input and output will make the application more familiar to
users of existing industry standard solutions. Certainly, from what we
have seen so far, it looks very impressive.
9.11
Here are a few of the changes youæll find in Photodesk 2: Improved use
of virtual memory, using MEMC to re¡map pages; complete multi-channel
capability with as many alpha channels as the user requires; new
filters, improved outline tracing and de-focus; channels can be defined
as masks, images or maps; gamma controls for each ink; new soft edge
paint brush; improved airbrush and anti-aliasing; complete Twain
compatibility; improved cut and paste operations; OLE; cloning; ripple
map; image blur Ö the list is endless! It is also StrongARM-ready,
having been successfully tested running the StrongARM processor. A full
description of Photodesk 2 can be seen on Spacetechæs Web site at:
                   http://www.digibase.com/spacetech
9.11
Photodesk 2 costs ú229.36 +VAT +p&p or ú255 through Archive. A site
licence is available for ú595 +VAT or ú665 through Archive. Upgrades
from Photodesk can be obtained directly from Spacetech for ú59.41 +VAT.
The original Photodesk is still available for users who do not need the
advanced facilities of Photodesk 2 at the Archive price of ú185.
9.11
Physical Processes Ö At Key Stage Two, children should use IT across a
variety of subjects, process information in different ways, and compare
their use of IT with other methods. ÉIT In Topicsæ provides an approach
to this. The disc contains nearly 800Kb of drawfiles, graphs, sprites,
worksheets, textfiles and applications (over 100 files altogether).
Children can work at the computer, or files can be printed out and
photocopied for working on, thus providing a flexible way of integrating
IT into topic teaching. Worksheets can be used as they are or modified.
If the wording or amount of information given is not right for a
particular group or individual, it can be changed. Worksheets at
differentiated levels to suit different abilities can therefore easily
be produced. The worksheets give plenty of activity ideas and other
resources that can be used in a variety of ways. Further, new files and
worksheets can be made by combining the text and pictures. Topics
covered by the software include, Earth and Beyond, Electrify, Forces,
Light, and Sound. Physical Processes costs ú15 +p&p from Chalksoft Ltd.
9.11
Pocket Book II games Ö Purple Software have a range of games which will
run on the Acorn Pocket II. These include 3a Chess, Backgammon, and
Chinese Chess. All of the games use the Pocket Book IIæs enhanced
graphics capabilities and have a save and load facility; take back
pieces and replay moves; request the computer to suggest a move; play
against the computer, a human opponent or watch the computer play by
itself.
9.11
3a Chess is a chess game with 2D and 3D display options. The game comes
with a built-in chess clock, selection of playing levels, and
incorporates a set of master games selected by an International Master.
The Backgammon game, in addition to the above, can be switched between
aggressive or defensive playing styles. There is also a Bridge program
which is suitable for anyone wanting to get to grips with the game, as
well as for the more skilled player. The program offers displays in both
text mode and graphics mode, using conventional playing cards. You can
play against the computer or enhance your game using a tutor mode. It
uses a natural bidding system with Stayman, Blackwood and a choice of
no-trump conventions.
9.11
Each of the three titles (Backgammon/Chinese Chess, Bridge and Chess) is
available on SSD at ú34 +VAT +p&p or ú40 through Archive. The games are
also available on PC floppy discs at ú29.74 +VAT +p&p or ú35 through
Archive.
9.11
Scientific programs at HENSA Ö Two Fortran utilities: The portable high
level graphics utilities package, PGPLOT, has now been upgraded to
version 5.10, and is available at:   gopher://micros.hensa.ac.uk/11/
micros/arch/riscos/d/d062 or from the HENSA World Wide Web pages. The
main upgrade is that it is now possible to use two output devices
simultaneously.
9.11
The well known molecular drawing program, ORTEP, (Oak Ridge Thermal
Ellipsoid Program) is now available on the World Wide Web. Fortran
source and examples can be found at:                  http://
www.ornl.gov/ortep/ortep.html. It has been adapted to use PGPLOT for the
graphics, which made it simpler to port ORTEP III to the Acorn. It is
now available from HENSA, with a similar address to PGPLOT, but ORTEP is
entry /e/e102.
9.11
Unlike Rasmol reviewed last month, Ortep is used mainly for smaller
molecules, where the atom positions are more precisely known so that the
thermal ellipsoids carry useful information on the atom vibrations as
the temperature changes.
9.11
Another useful program in HENSA is MoleDraw which is a Draw-like program
with additional functions for making two dimensional chemical diagrams.
It is available as reference number e061.
9.11
Simple Control is a new program from Camboard Technology, designed to
introduce control and LOGO style programming. Simple Controlæs four
programs centre around a simulated electronic control box, which is
similar in operation and style to conventional control boxes used in
schools. This simulated control box enables the pupil to learn about
control without the practical problems associated with an actual control
box. Simple Control is unique in that it combines a tutorial with
embedded code boxes for pupils to type in LOGO style commands. They can
see the result of these commands immediately, in the simulated control
box window. Simple Control contains four programs: Direct Control is a
point and click control with inputs, outputs and control box windows.
Computer Control introduces programming the computer with LOGO style
commands which interact with the simulated control box. Buggy is used to
control a simulated buggy. Control Simulations provides several examples
of control systems. Disc-based worksheets are included.
9.11
The single user price is ú19.95 +VAT, and a site licence ú44.95 +VAT,
from Camboard Technology. It requires RISC OS 3.10 or higher. Further
information can be obtained by contacting Camboard Technology direct, or
by visiting their web pages at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com:80/
homepages/camboard/.
9.11
TeleText Turbo Ö The TeleText Turbo from XOB can capture and distribute
eight live and eight local services from each of up to six TeleCards.
Data is cached at the server, so access, even from a remote client, is
regularly quicker than a Teletext television. The cache is updated
automatically, so each page will, on average, be no more than a few
seconds out of date or, if desired, the client can request that pages
are grabbed directly off air. A viewdata editor is supplied, to permit
the setting up of local services for departments, for example. The
server can coexist with other servers, such as level 4.
9.11
The Tele-Card with single user software costs ú152 +p&p +VAT, Teletext
Turbo Network Serving software costs ú229 +p&p +VAT, and Card and Server
purchased together cost ú359 +p&p +VAT or  ú180, ú270 and ú410,
respectively, through Archive.
9.11
VideoBase Ö It has been a long time coming (around four years), but
VideoBase version 2, from Paul Hobbs, is now available. VideoBase is an
application to keep track of recordings and free spaces on a collection
of video tapes. It is designed to make maintaining the database as easy
as possible and to avoid the possibility of inappropriate inputs.
VideoBase is Shareware Ö the ultimate money-back guarantee Ö if you
donæt use the product, you donæt pay for it. Details on how to register
your copy, which will disable the start-up banner, can be found in the
manual supplied with the application. Registration costs ú8. The
application is available from Paul Hobbsæ web site at http://
ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paul_Hobbs/videob2.htm
9.11
If anyone has any questions or wants more information, Paul can be
emailed at: Paul.Hobbs@ t¡online.de Ö he would also be very grateful for
any feedback that you can provide, especially if you donæt like it, or
find any bugs.áuá
9.11
Abacus Training  29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2 6QA.
(01793¡723347) [01793¡723347]
9.11
Acorn-by-Post  13 Dennington Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2BR.
(01933¡279300)
9.11
AcornáComputeráGroup  645áNewmarketáRoad, Cambridge, CB5á8PB.
(01223¡725000) http://www.acorn.co.uk/
9.11
AcornáNC + Acorn OM  645áNewmarketáRoad, Cambridge, CB5á8PB.
(01223¡518518) [01223¡518520]
9.11
AcornáRiscáTechnologies  645áNewmarketáRoad, Cambridge, CB5á8PB.
(01223¡577800) [01223¡577900] <[e-mail]>   Customer
Services:   01223¡577876 <[e-mail]>
9.11
ANTáLtd  P.O.Boxá300, Cambridge, CB1á2EG. (01223¡567808) [01223¡567801]
<[e-mail]>
9.11
APDL  39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London, SE26 5RN. (0181-778-2659)
[0181-488-0487] <[e-mail]>
9.11
Argonetá(a.k.a. VTI)  Unitá1, TheáShopwhykeáCentre, ShopwhykeáRoad,
Chichester, PO20á6GD. (0500¡585586) [01243¡531196] <[e-mail]>
9.11
AspexáSoftware  HeatheráHouse, Tavistock, Devon, PL19á9AG.
(01822¡611060) [01822¡611061]
9.11
AtomwideáLtd  7áTheáMetroáCentre, BridgeáRoad, Orpington, Kent, BR5á2BE.
(01689¡814500) [01689¡814501] <[e-mail]>
9.11
BeebugáLtd  117áHatfieldáRoad, StáAlbans, Herts, AL1á4JS. (01727¡840303)
[01727¡860263]
9.11
Camboard  P.O.Boxá416, Cambridge, CB3á7YS. (01223¡264512) [01223¡264512]
<101320,[e-mail]>
9.11
ChalksoftáLtd  P.O. Boxá49, Spalding, Lincs, PE11á1NZ. (01775¡769518)
[01775¡762618]
9.11
CherishaáSoftware  16áWoodsideáDrive, Wilmington, Dartford, Kent,
DA2á7NG. <[e-mail]>
9.11
ChristianáComputeráArt  21áLynwoodáAvenue, Langley, Slough, SL3á7BJ.
(01753¡527903) <[e-mail]>
9.11
CircleáSoftware  POáBoxá36, Bodmin, PL30á4VY. (01208¡850790)
<[e-mail]>
9.11
ClaresáMicroáSupplies  98áMiddlewicháRoad, Rudheath, Northwich,
Cheshire, CW9á7DA. (01606¡48511) [01606¡48512]
<[e-mail]>
9.11
ColtonáSoftware  2áSignetáCourt, SwannsáRoad, Cambridge, CB5á8LA.
(01223¡311881) [01223¡312010] <[e-mail]>
9.11
CrickáComputing  123áTheáDrive, Northampton, NN1á4SW. (01604¡713686)
[01604¡458333] <[e-mail]>
9.11
DialáSolutions  DialáHouse, 12áChapeláStreet, Halton, Leeds,
LS15á7RNá(0113¡232¡6992) [0113¡232¡6993] <[e-mail]>
9.11
Eesox  Suiteá8C, NewtonáHouse, 147áStáNeotsáRoad, Hardwick, Cambridge,
CB3á7QJ. (01954¡212263) [01954¡212263] <[e-mail]>
9.11
HCCSáLtd  575¡583áDurhamáRoad, Gateshead, NE9á5JJ. (0191¡487¡0760)
[0191¡491¡0431]
9.11
iSVáProducts  86, Turnberry, HomeáFarm, Bracknell, Berks, RG12á8ZH.
(01344¡55769)
9.11
KangáSoftware  LocationáWorks, 42áOldáComptonáStreet, LondonáW1Vá6LR.
(0171¡494¡0888) [0171¡287¡2855] http://www.argonet.co.uk/location/works/
kang.html
9.11
KineticáComputing  312áPlungingtonáRoad, Preston, Lancashire.
(01772¡461301)
9.11
KudlianáSoft  8áBarrowáRoad, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, CV8á1EH.
(01926¡851147) <[e-mail]>
9.11
LongmanáLogotron  124áCambridgeáScienceáPark, MiltonáRoad,
CambridgeáCB4á4ZS. (01223¡425558) [01223¡425349] <[e-mail]>
9.11
MattáBlack  6áHenryáCourt, HenryáStreet, Peterborough, PE1á2QG.
(01733¡315439)
9.11
PurpleáSoftware  EustonáHouse, 81-103áEustonáStreet, LondonáNW1á2EZ.
(0171¡387¡3777)
9.11
R-Comp  22áRobertáMoffat, HigháLegh, Knutsford, Cheshire,
WA16á6PSáá(01925¡755043) [01925¡757377] <[e-mail]>
9.11
ReallyáGoodáSoftwareáCompany  39áCarisbrookeáRoad, Harpenden, Herts.,
AL5á5QS.
9.11
Repair Zone  421 Sprowston Road, Norwich, NR3 4EH. (01603¡400477)
9.11
SEMERC  1áBroadbentáRoad, Watersheddings, Oldham, OL1á4LB.
(0161¡627¡4469)
9.11
SherstonáSoftware  AngeláHouse, Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16á0LH.
(01666¡840433) [01666¡840048] <[e-mail]>
9.11
SimtecáElectronics  AvondaleáDrive, Tarleton, Preston, PR4á6AX.
(01772¡812863) [01772¡816426]
9.11
Sonamara  TorquayáRoad, Shaldon, Devon, TQ14á0AZ. (01626¡873866)
[01635¡297866]
9.11
Spacetech  21áWestáWools, Portland, Dorset, DT5á2EA. (01305¡822753)
[01305¡860483] <[e-mail]>
9.11
StormáEducationaláSoftware  CoachmanæsáQuarters, DigbyáRoad, Sherbourne,
Dorset, DT9á3NN. (01935¡817699) <[e-mail]>
9.11
Topologika  IslingtonáWharf, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10á8AT. (01326¡377771)
[01326¡377771] <[e-mail]>
9.11
WarmáSilenceáSoftware  StáCatherineæsáCollege, ManoráRoad, Oxford,
OX1á3UJ. (0585¡487642) <[e-mail]>á(RobináWatts)
9.11
WyddfaáSoftware  3áPreswylfa, Llanberis, Gwynedd, LL55á4LF.
(01286¡870101) [01286¡871722]
9.11
WyndedáSoftware  16áFinderneáDrive, Wymondham, Norfolk, NR18á0HU.
9.11
XOB  Balkeerie, EassieábyáForfar, Angus, DD8á1SR. (01307¡840364)
9.11
YorkshireáInternationaláThompsonáMultimedia     TelevisionáCentre,
Leeds, LS3á1JS. (0113¡243¡8283) [0113¡243¡48840] <[e-mail]>
9.11
Xemplar Education  The Quorum, Barnwell Road, Cambridge, CB5 8RE.
(01223¡724724) [01223¡724324]     http://www.xemplar.co.uk/
9.11
Archive Monthly Disc Ö ú2
9.11
 (Now on 1.6Mb, but available as two 800Kb discs if you ask specially.)
9.11
u Arcscan data files Ö Updates for volume 8 and part of 9.
9.11
u Electronic clipping Ö Acorn news items of interest from the Net.
9.11
u StrongARM logo (opposite) and Digitiser price table from Jim
Nottingham Ö page 38.
9.11
u Starting Basic programs from Ray Favre Ö see page 43.
9.11
u PD sent in by Sudipta Sarkar (TaskKill and !WindowRd) Ö see page 27.
9.11
u Encodings for !T1toFont for CorelDraw3 CD Ö Brian Cocksedge Ö page 36
last month.
9.11
u æ97 year planners in Schema, Draw and Ovation (English and Welsh) from
Aneurin Griffiths.
9.11
u Psion FAQs sent in by John Woodthorpe.
9.11
u Psion FAQ sent in by John Woodthorpe.
9.11
The following information is about the Christian faith, not specifically
about computing.
9.11
First of all, an apology. I said last month that öduring the next 12
months, it is expected that about a quarter of a million people will be
going on an Alpha course.ò Actually, that was the prediction for 1996,
i.e. part statistic and part prediction. The approximate figures are:
æ91: 600, æ92:á1,000, æ93: 4,500, æ94: 30,000, æ95: 100,000, æ96:
250,000. There is either some amazing brain-washing going on here, or
God is doing a wonderful work of opening peopleæs eyes to the truth that
is found in Jesus... depending on your perspective!
9.11
Secondly, Iæd like to re-issue the ömad/bad/God challengeò, first
presented in Archive 7.1. If you look at the things Jesus did and said,
as reported in the Bible and contemporary writings, this man made many
claims to be God. If you doubt that, I suggest you have a read through
Johnæs gospel in a modern translation. You will find dozens of occasions
where Jesus says things like öI am the truthò, or just öI amò, which is
the Jewish name for God. He claimed to forgive sins, he accepted
peopleæs worship and twice the crowd threatened to stone him. öWhy?ò
said Jesus. öFor blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.ò
John 10:33
9.11
So, logically, if he made claims to be God then either (a) he thought he
was but wasnæt Ö so he was mad, or (b)áhe knew he wasnæt God but made
the claims anyway Ö so he was bad, or (c) he was who he said he was,
God, so we ought to pay very close attention to what he said. The
challenge is to give an alternative explanation, and the prize is a
yearæs free Archive! But itæs no good saying that the Bible records are
unreliable. You may be right, but if so, thereæs little point in
considering Jesusæ claims.
9.11
If youæd like a copy of Johnæs gospel to read, just let me know and Iæll
post you one.
9.11
P.B.
9.11
Paul Beverley
9.11
Acorn, the on-going saga
9.11
The latest piece of exciting news is the formation of NChannel
International Ltd, by Hermann Hauser, with a 44% share-holding by Acorn.
The aim of the company is to produce and market Acornæs NetStation range
of NC computers worldwide. HH believes that this is the best financial
opportunity that Acorn has had in 10áyears, because the potential market
is so enormous, and because Acorn are so far ahead of the field.
However, for Acorn, this is a no-loss venture Ö if it succeeds, they
stand to make a lot of money but, if not, they lose nothing. Weæll give
you more details as the story unfolds, but weæve put the text of the
Stock Exchange announcement about it on the monthly program disc.
9.11
Acornæs latest products?
9.11
As I write this, two days before a press briefing at Xemplar Education,
all I can tell you is that they are going öto announce the RISC OS
development plan for the next two yearsò and that there will be öa
number of new product announcementsò. So all I can do for now is to say
öWatch this spaceò. If, as I suspect, these are significant new
products, I will produce a supplement sheet to put in with the mailing.
9.11
Technical articles, please?
9.11
Weære still rather short of technical articles for Archive. I guess itæs
because youære all on holiday or, at least, sunning yourselves in the
garden, or is it Euro æ96 mania?! Either way, I hope that someone is
going to produce some articles during July/August, or the next Archive
is going to be rather thin. (Please!)
9.11
Subscription base growing
9.11
You will be pleased to hear that your efforts at recruiting new
subscribers are bearing fruit, as the number of new subscribers is very
encouraging indeed. I think people are beginning to cotton on to the
fact that Acornæs technology is now much sought-after, worldwide, and
are wanting to hear the latest news. The offer of a free yearæs
subscription for anyone introducing a friend to Archive still stands.
Phone us if you want another application form.
9.11
Keep up the good work!
9.11
Fact-File
9.11
Key: (phone)áá[fax]áá<net>
9.11
Norwich Computer Services    96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD.
(01603-766592) [01603-764011]
9.11
<[e-mail]>  OR  <[e-mail]>  OR
<[e-mail]>
9.11
http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/archive/
9.11
Saturday opening Ö Since becoming an Acorn Centre of Technology, NCS has
started to open on Saturday mornings, 9 Ö 1. However, since 95%+ of our
business is done by mail order, virtually no-one comes to visit us on a
Saturday Ö there was only one this week.
9.11
For an experimental period, therefore, we are going to say that we will
only be open by prior appointment on Saturdays. So, if you want to visit
us on a Saturday, youæll be most welcome, but please ring us Mon-Fri and
tell us roughly when you would like to call in. Thank you.
9.11
Operating Systems Column
9.11
Ian Beswick
9.11
This column, first mentioned in Archive 9.2 p15, has been a little while
coming to fruition Ö partly owing to other personal commitments, but
mainly because some of the products I am going to be writing about have
taken rather longer than expected to come to market!
9.11
With the recent arrival of the Hydra multi-processor board for the
RiscPC, high performance x86 processors, and the forthcoming release of
the StrongARM, the hardware available to the Acorn community is now
impressive, to say the least. However, without software to take
advantage of it, the hardware is just an expensive desktop ornament. So,
whatæs it all about?
9.11
Multi-processing
9.11
There are two kinds of multi-processor configuration Ö symmetric and
asymmetric. In a symmetric system, all the processors have equal status
(peers), whereas in an asymmetric system, one processor is in overall
control (the master) and the rest (the slaves) are subordinate. In
either case, the operating system/environment should provide facilities
to enable the processors to take their share of the work, or there is
little point having them!
9.11
Current operating systems which make use of multiple processors include
WindowsNT (e.g. in a dual Pentium system), several flavours of UNIX
(e.g.áSolaris, or AIX, with multiple SPARC or PowerPC processors), and
the much hyped TAOS (which is confusingly pronounced as Dow-OS). The
observant amongst you will note that RISCáOS does not feature in the
list. At least not yet!
9.11
The Simtec ÉHydraæ
9.11
The Hydra is an asymmetric system, with a master ARM processor
controlling up to four slave ARMs, although future versions may allow
more than four slave processors. An x86 processor card may also be
connected to the Hydra, but the current development version will not
allow both the x86 and the slave ARMs to run concurrently, due to timing
restrictions which have not yet been overcome, but the consumer version
(when available) should fix this problem, since it will use a custom-
built ASIC instead of a set of reprogrammable MACH chips. Another
welcome advantage of this use of the ASIC will be a lower price tag!
9.11
The Hydra comes in two parts Ö the processor bus card (horizontal) and
the logic card (vertical) Ö as seen in the photograph below. (They are
rather small, sorry Ö Ian only had lo-tech facilities available for
taking piccies. Ed.) The bus interface plugs into one of the existing
processor sockets on the RiscPC motherboard, and fits horizontally,
level with the bottom of the first slice. It is raised up from the
motherboard by a set of long pins, in order to fit over the top of any
network interface in the NIC slot. Aáself-adhesive plastic strip is
provided to ensure that the processor card does not short out against
the NIC. Due to this extra height, the processors extend into the second
slice, so you need to leave the lid off if youæve only got one slice!
9.11
A disARMed Hydra!
9.11
The logic card, containing the aforementioned MACH chips, plugs into the
main processor board at right angles to the other processors. It is this
card which contains the clever arbitration logic which enables the
processors to coexist. The advantages of having the logic on a separate
card are two-fold. Firstly, the individual ARM processor cards can be
standard parts, the same as are used in the Master slot, and thus
cheaper than if an arbitration ASIC were required for each processor
(e.g. like the Gemini ASIC for the x86 cards). Secondly, the logic card
can be exchanged for a new one, as and when changes are required to the
logic.
9.11
The remaining slots are for (from right to left): the Master (ARM)
processor, an optional secondary processor (e.g. 486 or 586), an
optional local memory card, and four slave (ARM) processors. Power must
also be provided to the interface, by means of the standard internal
power connector (seen behind the Master processor socket).
9.11
Hydra software
9.11
The system comes with four main utilities:
9.11
!Hydra Ö loads the various modules, and sets up the system ready for
use,
9.11
!HydraTerm Ö provides the equivalent of a task-window for each slave
processor,
9.11
!HydraBug Ö allows the registers of each slave processor to be monitored
during execution,
9.11
!HydraFP Ö installs the equivalent of the floating-point emulator
software onto any slave processors without their own dedicated FP
hardware.
9.11
The system is programmed by means of a set of SWIs which provide a
fairly basic API (Application Programmeræs Interface). A ÉCæ veneer
library is provided for these SWIs, although they can equally well be
called from Basic if required. The purpose of the SWIs is to determine
what (if any) slave processors are available, allocate Échunksæ of
memory for them (by means of Dynamic Areas), and schedule Éthreadsæ to
run code on them. Only seven SWIs need be used for most purposes,
although a further nine are available for more advanced use. These SWIs
are only suitable for running on the Master processor.
9.11
Legalised slavery
9.11
The slave processes, when scheduled to run, have their own memory-map,
which closely resembles the RISCáOS memory model. They have access to a
limited set of the RISCáOS-like SWIs, which are implemented by the Hydra
kernel rather than by RISCáOS itself. Anything not covered by this
subset of SWIs cannot be done by the slave processors, and has to be
handled by the Master processor.
9.11
Spot the heatsink?
9.11
Memory can be set up to be shared between slaves and/or the master, or
exclusive to a single processor. Shared memory is important for
communication between processors, but carries a performance penalty,
since it cannot be cached by any of the processors. Only one processor
can access the main memory at any time.
9.11
The big problem with the slave processes is that, currently, they must
be written directly in ARM assembler, since neither Basic nor the
various ÉCæ libraries can run in the slave memory map. I had hoped to
write a benchmark program (in order to be able to answer the $64M
question), but so far Iáhavenæt had sufficient time to brush up on my
assembler skills to be able to write a sufficiently detailed program.
9.11
The $64M question
9.11
How fast does it go? Well, it all depends really. As youæve probably
guessed by now, there is currently virtually no software written to take
advantage of the Hydra, so the simple answer is that most of RISCáOS
doesnæt go any faster than without it fitted! However, all is not lost
because the system is supplied with an excellent demonstration program,
aptly called !ParaBrot, which displays the Mandlebrot set fractal in all
its glory, making full use of the Hydraæs potential.
9.11
For the benefit of those of you who may not have seen or heard of the
Mandlebrot set (where have you been for the last decade?), it is a fancy
graphic which can be calculated by a relatively simple computer program.
The Mandlebrot set itself is just a set of numbers Ö in this case
complex numbers Ö which satisfy a particular equation, and a remarkably
simple equation at that. Complex numbers are often shown as points on a
plane, and are coloured either white or black depending on whether or
not they satisfy the equation. To make life more interesting, points on
the edge of the set are coloured to indicate their closeness to being in
the set.
9.11
The big problem with the Mandlebrot set is that the solution is
iterative, and points near the edge of the set can take many 1000æs of
iterations to decide whether or not they are inside or outside. This
takes quite a lot of processing power! Many years ago, Iáwrote a
Mandlebrot program for my trusty BBCáMicro, in 6502 machine code for
speed, which Iáused to leave running over the weekend in order to obtain
results like the one shown. A RiscPC with a fully populated Hydra can
manage it in a matter of 41áseconds!
9.11
The reason for the demo being a Mandlebrot set isásurely no coincidence
Ö due to the very nature ofáthe algorithm, it is ideally suited to a
multi-processor implementation. This therefore seemed likeáthe
idealácandidate for benchmarking the Hydra,áalthough the results should
not be taken outáofácontext Ö few otheráapplications could
benefitáquiteáso enormously.
9.11
Mandlebrot warning Ö Do not adjust your eyes
9.11
I selected a fairly detailed region on the edge of the Mandlebrot set
(as shown) and slightly modified theá!ParaBrot program to provide
timings. The sameáprogram was run with a large number of different
processor combinations, and the results areáshown ináthe graph below.
9.11
The vertical axis indicates the speed-up factor, compared with the time
taken on a single-processor RiscPCá610 (this took 245 seconds to run).
Each test is represented by a bar of stacked boxes indicating the
processors being used. The bottom block in each stack shows the Master
processor, and the blocks stacked on top indicate the slaves Ö the
numbers inside the blocks indicate the model and clock speed of the
processors.
9.11
For the purposes of the test, I had at my disposal five 30MHz ARM610s
(second hand cards, courtesy of Clan Acorn), and two 40MHz ARM710s.
However, this left various combinations of processors left untested, and
these have been shown faded with É??æ below them.
9.11
The last two results show a purely speculative indication of the
relative performance of the StrongARM. Before anyone asks, nobody has
actually tried putting StrongARMs into a Hydra yet! I will endeavour to
find out about StrongARM compatibility, and bring you the results in
future columns.
9.11
The future of Hydra
9.11
The Hydra is now working and available, and is being used by several
software developers for use in forthcoming products. However, due to the
very nature of multi-processing, only certain kinds of tasks will
benefit from the Hydra (e.g. graphics applications such as ray-tracing,
photo-retouching, 3-d games, and mathematical modelling and emulation
packages).
9.11
At present, the programming tools available for the Hydra are primitive
to say the least. However, whilst writing this article, I heard that the
author of the !ParaBrot demo is working on writing a proper multi-
threading library, which will run under RISCáOS both with and without
the Hydra fitted. I have only had chance to quickly read the draft
specification, but it seems to offer an effective symmetric multi-
processing environment, whereby all threads can be coded in ÉCæ, without
having to worry about masters, slaves and ARM code. This is very good
news, especially since it seems unlikely that Acorn will make the
underlying changes to RISCáOS which would be required to directly
implement multi-processing at the operating system level. However,
certain Acorn applications, such as !Replay, are prime candidates for
being Hydrated!
9.11
Other avenues which will be available to Hydra owners include running
non-RISCáOS operating systems, such as RiscBSD and TAOS... (To be
continued!)
9.11
The Atomwide ISAdaptor
9.11
When running Windows on an x86 co-processor, the system is limited by
the emulation of the PC hardware which can be provided by the host
machine. Whilst it never ceases to amaze me that this works at all, even
the best emulation in the world cannot hope to achieve the same
performance as having the real hardware available. This is what the
ISAdaptor is all about.
9.11
ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) is one of the many types of
expansion card bus which can be found on IBM-compatible PCs (others
include MCA, VESA local-bus, and PCI). ISA is probably the most widely
used, especially on older systems, and most state-of-the-art Pentium
systems with fast PCI busses still include a few ISA slots for backwards
compatibility. The original PCs came with virtually everything on ISA
expansion cards (including floppy and hard disc controllers, serial and
parallel ports, graphics cards, network cards, etc), and most of these
will work in the ISAdaptor.
9.11
The ISAdaptor is available in two forms Ö either in an external mini-
tower style PC case, or as a RiscPC slice. The external box houses up to
eight ISA cards, one of which is taken up by the ISAdaptor itself, and
also contains a mains power supply and space to mount additional drives.
The RiscPC slice only houses three ISA cards, thus giving two free for
use. However, up to three ISA slices can be daisy-chained together,
giving up to eight free slots. Be warned: the ISAdaptor impinges on the
space where the 5╝ö drive would go, so donæt budget on being able to fit
a CD¡ROM drive in the same slice.
9.11
The other half of the ISAdaptor comes on a standard podule card, and
this connects to either the external box or the ISA slice by means of a
pair of ribbon cables with IDC connectors. The cables supplied with my
system only just stretched from the slice to the podule (which currently
has to be in slot 1, since this is hard coded into the driver
software!), and assembling the RiscPC slices is very much a work of art.
The situation is further complicated by the SCSI ribbon cables in my
RiscPC, and I was initially concerned that the resultant tangle of
ribbons might lead to cross-talk between the SCSI and ISAdaptor cables,
since neither are shielded. It seems to work OK, but not with the SCSI
interface in slot 0 (i.e. with DMA).
9.11
Testing, testing!
9.11
The present version of ISAdaptor is very much a beta-test prototype, and
they have not yet gone into full production. Many problems exist with
the driver software, which is currently supplied on disc rather than in
ROM Ö the main problem being that they canæt get the PC card to work
with DMA to the ISAdaptor. This is a shame, since a large number of ISA
cards require DMA to work.
9.11
However, the ISAdaptor can be accessed from RISCáOS, as well as from the
PC card, and if anything, this software is currently more usable than
via PCx86. For example, I have a multi-I/O card fitted in the ISA, and
this allows the serial port to be accessed from either RISCáOS (by means
of the Block Drivers) or from Windows, although obviously not both at
the same time! This feat is achieved by specifying which IRQs (interrupt
request signals) can be used by RISCáOS and which by Windows. I also
have a SoundBlaster card fitted, which will act as a mixer, controlled
via a RISCáOS front-end. Additional drivers are in development, possibly
allowing a second printer port, or sound sampling via the SoundBlaster
audio card.
9.11
Whilst, at first, the ISAdaptor would seem the ideal way of taking
advantage of cheap PC interfaces, the additional cost of the ISAdaptor
itself is likely to make this uneconomic. The main market is likely to
be amongst specialist users, for whom the equivalent Acorn podule does
not exist. When the cost of the ISAdaptor is combined with that of a
high-spec x86 card, one could buy a reasonably specified complete PC
system, but it is a rather nice weapon to have in the armoury against PC
advocates saying ö...but it wonæt work with Industry Standard
interfaces...ò Ö it will now!
9.11
I will bring you further information on this remarkable piece of
hardware if/when it becomes available.áuá
9.11
CDFast2
9.11
Colin Sutton
9.11
CDFast2, from Eesox, is a clever utility claimed to improve the
performance of most CD-ROM applications Ö itæs the successor to CDFast,
with several worthwhile enhancements. It uses improved intelligent data
cacheing algorithms and works in the background, offering configurable
cache sizes tailored to suit your computer system, and is based on the
use of more efficient code.
9.11
Important new features include support for multiple simultaneous drives
and Quad (4x) and Octal (8-speed) CD-ROM drives. It will work with PC
Card/Emulation using DOS or Windows, and is supplied on a single 3╜ö DD
floppy with a simple but very clear instruction booklet.
9.11
CDFast2 requires RISC OS 3 or later, and is claimed to run on any
version of CDFS, with all CD-ROM applications, CD-ROM drives and any
Acorn Archimedes/RiscPC computer Ö a clear, positive statement indeed!
9.11
Installation
9.11
CDFast2 is installed on the iconbar in the usual way from a writable
backup copy of the original floppy or, better still, copied to the hard
disc.
9.11
Most of my testing of CDFast2 (version 1.10) was done on a RiscPC 700
with 26Mb RAM, Cumana SCSI II (vers 2.0) interface, Pioneer DR-U124X
Quad speed CD-ROM drive with Eesox SCSI driver, CDFS 2.28, and with a
486/DX4 100MHz PC board with old fashioned Windows 3.11.
9.11
I simply copied !CDFast2 application into the recommended RiscPC
location, i.e. $.!Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks, re-booted, and it appears on
the iconbar ready for use.
9.11
Configuration
9.11
Configuration is the important bit Ö to tailor it to suit your
particular set-up and available memory. From the configure option on the
iconbar menu, we have a window of choices:
9.11
Various operating modes are available. The off option simply means that
it is turned off, and no performance enhancement will take place,
although it still consumes 4Kb for its code.
9.11
Minimum Memory uses 12Kb for code and cache, but you will get a 18-40%
performance improvement.
9.11
Enhanced uses 36Kb for code and cache, and gives 25-50% performance
enhancement at the expense of this extra memory.
9.11
Extended uses 4Kb for the code and 48Kb to 256Kb, configurable, for the
cache. This is where we get the best overall increases Ö a claimed 30-
60% Ö at the expense of extra memory. The choice is yours, but you
should select as much memory as you can afford, to give as much speed
enhancement as possible.
9.11
I selected the maximum of 256Kb (but 128Kb was also tried) and clicked
the appropriate Quad speed. Save updates the config file which
determines the default setting for next time it is run. OK accepts your
choices for the current session, but also has the effect of flushing the
cache Ö useful and necessary from time to time.
9.11
Selecting the Quit option from the <menu> will remove the application
icon from the bar but CDFast2 will continue to operate, in the
background, and provide performance enhancement.
9.11
CD-ROM drive
9.11
As an aside, I should mention that the Pioneer DR¡U124X drive is claimed
to be 4.4 speed. So is it? Well, those thoughtful people at Eesox have a
little utility, !CDSpeed, which checks just that. A quad speed should
transfer data at 600Kb/sec. This Eesox utility, when run, tells me the
drive has a throughput of 677Kb/sec Ö re-assuring!
9.11
Performance
9.11
I set out to provide figures, timings, etc of CD-ROM disc activity, with
and without CDFast2, but soon realised that they would vary enormously
between different setups. But, everything looked very positive, and that
was all I really needed to know. Eesox have provided a statistics window
(just click on iconbar icon) so you can see exactly what is going on.
9.11
This gives an indication of how well CDFast2 is working. The higher the
hit rate, the more efficient is the cacheing. Anything over 30% is good
and gives noticeable speed improvement. I did obtain a rate over 90% and
quite regularly achieved 70% upwards. Cache hits and misses indicate
number of times data has been located in the cache, or required to be
read from the CD-ROM disc, respectively.
9.11
When the novelty of figures and percentages has passed by, just get on
with your tasks and you soon get the feeling of the improvements to the
CD-ROM access. After a while, turn off the cache and your CD-ROM drive
suddenly feels decidedly sluggish Ö that convinced me!
9.11
I have noticed one oddity. Although I dismount my CD-ROM discs, I found
that selecting the next CD¡ROM disc actually opened the filer window of
the previous disc. Further attempts to access the current disc could
cause CDFS to indicate an internal error. Emptying the cache seemed to
overcome the problem and allowed the next disc filer window to be opened
correctly. As I am rushing to beat the threatened postal strike, I will
have to deal with this problem later.
9.11
Conclusion
9.11
A modest price to pay for very worthwhile enhancement in performance of
30% Ö 45%, dependent on your setup. Every CD-ROM user should have it
installed. It is most effective when accessing applications, like
databases, containing a large number of files. I have much need for
converting various graphic images where the waiting time is now
considerably reduced. Most spectacular is conversion of 16Base PhotoCD
images, some of which are achieved in almost half the time. The
irritation of the CD access being slower than HD access is now
significantly reduced. As for the PC card and Windows, improvement is
apparent here too, making the PC a joy to use Ö well, relatively
speaking!
9.11
CDFast2 costs ú25 +VAT (ú28 through Archive) or ú15 +VAT (ú17 through
Archive) when ordered with an Eesox CD-ROM drive. An upgrade from CDFast
costs ú10 inc VAT direct from Eesox. Site licence and network versions
are also available.áuá
9.11
STOP PRESS: The problem with CD-ROM disc swapping and dismounting is now
resolved. The latest version performs without hiccup with regular Acorn
and PC disc swapping. I have also checked out the product on the older
A440/1 series with RISC OS 3.1/ARM 2, 4Mb RAM, Cumana Bravo dual speed
CD-ROM drive (popular in schools) and SLCD interface. Speed enhancements
are beneficial there too, and no problems were encountered.áuá
9.11
The Coming of the Thin Client
9.11
Robin Bloor
9.11
This is an article, published on the net, which I thought was
particularly relevant to Acorn and its future. Iáasked Robin if we could
publish it, and he kindly agreed. Copyright remains ⌐Bloor Research
1996.
9.11
Over the past decade, the corporate computer market has been driven by
the proliferation of the PC. The benefits delivered by PCs were
undeniable. They revolved around personal productivity applications;
word processors, spreadsheets, personal organisers, presentation
programs, reporting programs and so forth. PCs also had a major
influence on the pricing of computer products, putting a downward
pressure on both hardware and software prices in the corporate market.
9.11
Many new hardware ideas began to emerge first on the PC (usually as add-
in boards) because vendors could gather a better revenue stream. The
software market followed a similar pattern, with the PC market driving
the development of most kinds of software. In the momentum of this,
Microsoft became the dominant software vendor and Intel the dominant CPU
chip vendor.
9.11
The situation is now set to change again.
9.11
A split in the PC market
9.11
In the past, we did not distinguish between the PC bought by the
individual for home or personal use, and the desktop PC. There was
little reason why we needed to, as the same specification was roughly
adequate for both roles. However, we can now see a very definite split
taking place. The home market PC specification is heading strongly in
the direction of a multimedia unit that has enough muscle for games
playing (i.e. video) and which is Internet enabled. The reason for this
is obvious. Most home PC users want multimedia, educational software,
games software and so forth, because they see a PC as a vehicle for
entertainment as well as a useful domestic device.
9.11
The ideal PC specification for the corporation in now diverging widely
from this. It will not be a vehicle for entertainment. Multimedia is not
going to proliferate in the office, for the time being, and when it does
it will not be employed in the manner that it is on the home PC. The
emphasis with the corporations is on integration.
9.11
Disillusion with the corporate PC
9.11
There is now considerable concern in the corporate market about PCs,
especially in large corporations where PCs have proliferated, and the
costs have proliferated with them. While the PC delivered obvious
benefits, its progress was irresistible. This is no longer the case. The
benefits of further investment in PCs have become more and more
marginal. Word-processing for all, spreadsheets for all, personal
information management for all, graphics and presentation for all, PC
based email for all, and then what?
9.11
Alongside this, the true costs of PC usage have begun to emerge. There
have now been a number of studies which show that the PC is
significantly more expensive than a dumb terminal. For example, one
produced by ITG in 1993, found that the average cost per transaction for
the PC LAN installations it surveyed was, on average 14.3 times higher
than for the mainframe installations. The problem with such surveys is
that they do not compare like with like. You cannot simply remove the
PCs, because you lose the personal productivity applications. But they
make a point.
9.11
There are many hidden costs in PC usage, some of which stem from
indiscipline amongst PC users and the poor implementation of PC strategy
by IT departments, and some of which have been unavoidable. The
following is by no means a complete list:
9.11
Å The uncontrolled duplication of data across the organisation (due to
individuals and departments setting up their own databases).
9.11
Å The duplication of applications code (due to individuals and
departments writing their own applications in a non-co-operative
manner).
9.11
Å Lack of standardisation on desktop hardware (dueáto individuals and
departments doing their own procurement, and the migration of older PC
hardware through the organisation to departments with smaller budgets).
9.11
Å Lack of standardisation of PC packages (due to individuals and
departments making their own choice of word processor, PC database,
etc).
9.11
Å Inadequate training leading to lower personal productivity (due to
under investment in training and the fashion amongst some users to
acquire the vary latest version of PC applications).
9.11
Å Inadequate support for PC usage (due to many factors including PC
vendors providing a poor level of support, the lack of standardisation,
PC users choosing to support themselves, the lack of an adequate support
strategy and so on).
9.11
Å Under utilisation of PC resources (due to the lack of development
software that can utilise PC resources, the limitations of PC operating
systems and the over-configuration of PCs).
9.11
Å Inadequate management of the PC resource (dueáto the lack of software
capable of guaranteeing security, integrity, consistency and recovery
from failure).
9.11
Å The poor integration of PCs with centralised computing (due to the
lack of adequate technology to provide integration).
9.11
On top of this, we can add a general lack of strategy in the deployment
of PCs caused primarily by the fact that the technology changes so
quickly.
9.11
Of these factors, technology change is probably the most difficult for
corporates to deal with. Consider an organisation such as an insurance
company or a bank that has many regional offices and which is embarking
on a programme to install new hardware and new applications throughout
its branches. The PC is the natural vehicle, and the likely design will,
at the moment, involve putting a PC LAN with several PCs and a server
into the offices. Such a system will take time to build and then will
have to be implemented in a roll-out, gradually replacing the hardware
that exists over a period of time. Most of the technology choices (which
level of PC, which server and server OS, which development software,
what communications capability, which PC packages and so on) will have
to be taken early on in the project.
9.11
The full costs for such a project are likely to be high, and it will be
difficult to complete such a project in less than, say, a three year
time frame. In reality, the return on investment may not become positive
until the third year and yet the whole project could be wrong-footed by
a switch in the direction of technology. Any one of the technology
choices made could be visibly wrong within a two-year time frame,
because of technology changes or vendor failure.
9.11
Such a project is high risk and, not surprisingly, many corporates are
reluctant to make such investments. Indeed, they are becoming unlikely
to make such investments until they have confidence in the stability of
the technology over a longer time frame. The same is true, but to a
lesser extent, of PC investment throughout the corporation. Further
investment to upgrade technology is difficult to justify unless there
are clear benefits. So where are the benefits? The major area where
benefits could be delivered is in better integration, not in upgrading
desktop technology.
9.11
The LAN in a can
9.11
Desktop technology has been in the corporate driving seat for many years
now, but there are clear signs that this is changing. In recent years,
we have seen PC software vendors bundling their software into integrated
packages (Lotus Smartsuite, Microsoft Office, etc) and many of the
recent products launched by PC based software vendors are not personal
productivity products at all, but products for the corporate market such
as Lotus Notes, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Back Office.
Integration on the desktop, and integration with server software, are
becoming the order of the day.
9.11
At the same time, we are seeing the gradual take-off of massively
parallel hardware which must eventually spell the death of the PC LAN.
9.11
Technically, there is no reason why PC LAN servers should not simply be
nodes of a massively parallel computer. This idea, which is being pushed
by IBM in promoting its SP2 hardware, can be thought of as server
consolidation, but is also referred to by the more poetic phrase; the
LAN in the can.
9.11
In the software development market, we now see the establishment of a
second generation of client/server software which can build applications
that will work in enterprise-wide client/server configurations. We are
also seeing the emergence of object-based middleware which will better
be able to manage messaging in such environments. All of this software
could (and in some cases can) function on MPP hardware. Multiple servers
will soon not be required.
9.11
Enter the thin client
9.11
The next question to ask is: Does the corporate world actually need PCs
at all. There are many reasons to suggest that it does not. First of
all, it does not need the kind of PCs that are sold to the home market.
It does not need local floppy drives, local hard disks and local CD-
ROMs. These capabilities can all be provided from a server at less
expense.
9.11
Secondly, only in a few specific circumstances does it need a very
powerful dedicated CPU. Such power is required for engineering
applications, multimedia authoring and high resolution graphics work.
For most PC applications, further power will deliver very little
advantage. In other words, for most applications that provide general
benefits to corporate users, PC power has reached its limit.
9.11
So, why not rethink the whole idea and provide a desktop device (or
range of devices) that are designed to meet the real corporate need. We
have come to call such a device Éthe thin clientæ because its resources
would be thin compared to the typical PC. Its exact specification can
currently only be guessed at, but many hardware and software vendors are
now thinking along these lines. They are serious enough to have arranged
a meeting to hammer out a specification.
9.11
Another straw in the wind is the interactive services that the telecomms
companies across the world are thinking of providing. The telecomms
companies do not envisage the customer device being a PC Ö they want
something that is far easier to use and far less expensive for their
electronic shopping and video-on-demand services.
9.11
Java: Another straw in the wind
9.11
If we are to have thin client hardware, many of the tasks of the current
PC operating systems will become redundant. We will not want local
storage, but will want to load all data and all applications from some
other server device (possibly a massively parallel machine). In other
words, we will require a thin operating system that works exactly in
this fashion. For those who havenæt yet realised it, there is already
such an operating system and it doesnæt come from Microsoft, it comes
from Sun.
9.11
Java is a piece of software that was designed from the outset to run on
a thin client; it was designed to run software on consumer electronics
devices for the home. Basically, it is real-time interpreter with its
own language (the Java language) that derives from, but is quite
different from, C. In 1994, Sun used it to build a Web browser which it
launched under the name HotJava. HotJava can load and run Java-written
applications that reside at other Web sites, and will do so
automatically when Java Applets are embedded in Web pages.
9.11
Netscape have announced that they will be bundling Java in the next
version of their browser. At the moment, the enthusiasm for Java sits
with the Internet surfers, but there is no reason why it could not be
tried within the corporate market, and Sun have everything to gain if it
is.
9.11
The server eats the client
9.11
On many occasions, in our reports, in magazine columns, in talks with
journalists, in presentations and briefings to our customers, we have
indicated that we eventually expect server hardware to Éeat the clientæ
in the corporate market. We predicted this simply because it was
technically feasible, a sound idea and in the interest of the major
server vendors that it should happen. We are now beginning to see the
corporate market become disillusioned with the passing PC era, and we
are seeing products appear that will support a return to centralised
computing.
9.11
Opponents of this will decry it as a return to the past, to mainframe
computing, but it is not, it is simply a move to greater resource
efficiency. Given what is at stake, there are bound to be arguments and
debates amongst the interested parties, full of sound and fury. But it
doesnæt matter, because the technical arguments are already over. The
thin client will prevail.
9.11
If you would like further information on this white paper, please
contact Robin Bloor at: Bloor Research Group, Challenge House, Sherwood
Drive, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MK3 6DP. (01908-373311) [01908-377470]
[e-mail].áuá
9.11
Internet Column
9.11
Dave Pantling
9.11
There have been some interesting developments this month, but on the
Monday before this column was due, my RiscPC power supply did its best
to take down the National Grid, destroying my motherboard in the
process. I am using a borrowed RiscPC. Thanks, Julian!
9.11
Upgrades!
9.11
News of two major upgrades this month. ANT will be releasing issue two
of the ANT Internet Suite ösome time in Julyò. It will cost ú10 for
registered owners, but anyone whoæs bought their copy since the
Wakefield show can upgrade for free. The upgrade will extend the
features of the web browser, news and mail clients.
9.11
Argonet will also be releasing a major upgrade to their Voyager package.
Voyager has improved dramatically over the past few months, and version
1.08 promises to be a further significant step. The news software was
always plagued by long processing times, but an all-new piece of
software is set to change all that. Early reports from the twenty
testers suggest that the new software is a significant enhancement.
9.11
Voyageræs new manual is also ready, and will be a complement to the
electronic manual supplied with 1.08. Subscribers will be sent the new
manual and a disc containing the complete new version of Voyager, within
the next two or three weeks.
9.11
Argonet also inform me theyæve taken on more staff to improve their
customer support.
9.11
Elsewhere in this issue, Chris Johnson has reviewed HTMLEdit 2, and I
hope to be commencing a thread on HTML, so anyone can design their own
web pages. I will also be looking more closely at the Internet Suite and
Voyager upgrades.
9.11
NChannel International
9.11
Acorn made a Stock Market announcement on 13th June that it has entered
into a distribution agreement with NChannel International, öto enable
Acorn, without bearing significant financial risk, to exploit its
technology lead, and to access under the Acorn brand name, the potential
global consumer market for Network Computing products... NChannelæs
chairman is Hermann Hauser, and David Lee, Managing Director of Acorn,
is a non-executive director.ò Note the ÉAcorn brand nameæ bit!
9.11
The purpose of this company, in reality, will be to sell NetStation-type
products, without placing Acorn at the centre of the financial risk, but
it does show that Acorn are looking for, and finding, new ways to push
their technologies.
9.11
The latest NetStation developments can be found at http://
www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/nc/
9.11
As usual, please feel free to email me, [e-mail], or write to
me c/o the editor.áuá
9.11
Free Web Pages for Schools
9.11
Mike Battersby
9.11
Last week, I was in one of our local schools (Beverley School Ö no
relation!), as they wanted to develop web pages which would constitute,
in effect, a kind of school brochure. I have similarly been developing
web pages for the Kingston Schoolsæ IT Unit newsletter/magazine which
looks at IT developments in education, with particular reference to our
role as an Acorn in Education Centre. (Those interested can find these
on http://members.aol.com/intersitu/.)
9.11
We have both taken advantage of the free subscriptions to AOL (America
Online internet provider/online media service) that are being offered to
secondary schools, and these include 2Mb free web space for each of the
five users allowed in each subscription. Unfortunately, AOL requires
proprietary software to access it and this is currently only available
for PCs, but each school in the borough which uses AOL at present, is
running it happily on a RiscPC.
9.11
HTML and graphics formats
9.11
To make the pages, we used HTMLEdit from RComp, their excellent HTML
authoring aid. Soon this will be unnecessary, owing to the ability of
programs such as PendownDTP to export WYSIWYG pages as HTML files.
However, for the moment, it is an interesting exercise to use HTMLEdit,
which is constantly being updated to allow for developments of HTML, and
can currently cope with HTML3 codes.
9.11
HTMLEdit also includes graphics converters, because to put graphics on
the web so that users of all platforms can access them, it is necessary
to use a format such as GIF or JPEG. If you donæt want to use HTMLEdit,
there are other utilities which can convert from sprites, e.g. the PD
utility Creator which will convert to GIF format.
9.11
Apart from HTMLEdit, you also need a web browser to view your pages.
There are various of these around the public domain, and RComp supply my
personal preference which is the PD version of Doggysoftæs Termite which
is called !Webite. This browser seems to cope with recent developments
in HTML better than most, and allows saving of a complete page as a
drawfile which makes it easy to drop into DTP to print examples, etc.
Published web browsers such as Termiteæs off-line browser and ANTæs
Fresco can also be used, of course.
9.11
Fiddly bits
9.11
Once you have constructed a page in HTMLEdit, and converted your
pictures to GIF or JPEG files, it is worth checking a few things. Make
sure that the names of the picture files in your HTML file are exactly
the same case for each letter as on disc. RISC OS will cope easily with
the case being different so that Épicæ will find a file called ÉPICæ or
ÉPicæ or Épicæ etc, but once uploaded onto the web server, the case of
the letters is likely to matter. My advice is to pick a rule and stick
to it Ö mine is lower case for all files. The same applies to links to
other pages of yours.
9.11
In your HTML file, a GIF file is likely to be denoted as something like
pic.gif whereas, on disc, it will appear as pic/gif because you canæt
put full stops in RISC OS filenames. If they do not already have
filetype extensions, I suggest you put them in. This means keeping the
basic file name down to about six letters, as RISC OS only allows 10 in
total, and the /extension such as /gif or /jpg takes up four of these.
The extensions may be useful when transferring to the PC side of a
RiscPC, and when uploading onto the web server.
9.11
This may all sound a bit fiddly, but once you have done it successfully
once, it gets easier (really!)
9.11
In time, you will need to start organising files in sub-directories, but
HTMLEdit can cope with pathnames for the web server (Unix) into sub
directories and back again. For example, a file called Émypage.htmlæ in
a subdirectory called Énextlotæ would be Énextlot/mypage.htmlæ, and a
GIF graphics file called Éhomeæ coming from the parent directory would
be É../home.gifæ (full stop, full stop, oblique, home.gif). If this
sounds complex, donæt worry, HTMLEdit will sort it out for you.
9.11
Uploading
9.11
When these are all ready, they can be dragged into a convenient
directory on the PC partition of the RiscPCæs hard disc. Uploading is
very easy on AOL; simply signing on and following menu options to go to
oneæs own username directory and choosing upload. You enter the name
that the file is to have on the web server and then find the file you
wish to upload through a dialogue box (no drag and drop here in
Windows!!!). Click on upload, and off it goes. This process has to be
repeated for each individual file but when they are all there, you can
enter a web browser and see them set up Ö instantaneously!! Beware that
if you use HTML3 compatible commands, some browsers which canæt cope
with these (including AOLæs own!) may produce some very odd results! If
you want to see the first efforts of Beverley School, they are on http:/
/members.aol.com/BeverleySc/.áuá
9.11
Pocket Book Column
9.11
Audrey Laski
9.11
Sightings
9.11
On television: a rather silly series of programmes called the
Technophobeæs Guide to the Future included an item on palmtops, in which
an Éordinaryæ family were selected to test a few models while going
about their daily business. Though some enthusiasm was generated in the
family, the presentation seemed unlikely to give the watching
technophobes much sense of why it might be worth overcoming their fears,
and the fact that the Psion 3A which was used included all the available
extras made it seem a forbiddingly expensive option.
9.11
At a conference: it was being used by another participant to take notes.
Like many users, she said she had hesitated to buy it at first, thinking
it an expensive toy, but now wouldnæt be without it.
9.11
A puzzle
9.11
Somebody went to the trouble of discovering my telephone number to ask
my advice about something to do with the Pocket Book. As it happened, I
was extremely busy, and said I couldnæt talk just then, but suggested a
time after which I would be available. The caller never came back to me,
leaving an uncomfortable sense of unfinished business. Perhaps the
problem solved itself....
9.11
Dealing with $ revisited
9.11
The ever-invaluable John Woodthorpe of Rugby writes with what will, I
believe, be the definitive word on Éthe problem of dealing with ZIP
archives containing DOS files with $ in their name.æ He asked the person
he rightly calls Éthe excellent David Pillingæ if he could solve the
problem, and a new module for SparkFS, which does so, arrived by return
of email. Apparently, Éit is not in the current release of SparkFS but
heæs happy to hand out copies by email (contact
[e-mail]).æ
9.11
Recommendations
9.11
John also draws attention to the Internet Psion FAQ, which is Éa fund of
useful information on the Psion and Pocket Book machinesæ and can be
downloaded from http://www.uni-sb.de/~ww36asms/psionfaq.html. This would
probably provide all the information needed by Philip Hopwood, of
<[e-mail]> and no other address. He emailed Archive to
ask if there were any books giving more information about the working of
the Pocket Book than were given in the manual, because he was having
trouble adding applications he had grabbed from the net. This reminds me
to remind readers on the net that Iæm still snailmailing (18 Ebury
Street, London, SW1W OLU) and that it helps enormously to get a real
world address as well.
9.11
Of course, I sometimes miss addresses. It was John Woodthorpe who
pointed out that the information Iáclaimed not to have, about the
astronomical application, Procyon, is in the ReadMe file Ö I should have
spotted it. The Procyon people can be reached at Vampire Vengeance, c/o
Drosseartstraat 10, 6243 DA Geulle, The Netherlands, or at
[e-mail], or [e-mail], or Compuserve: 100561,122.
9.11
Hidden perils
9.11
Ed Harris, of Royston, writes to warn of a couple of bugs he has
encountered in trying to use hidden files in lieu of password
protection:
9.11
1) In Write, make the default document ÉWriteæ hidden, this being the
only document. A dummy document name of ÉWriteæ is still shown and gives
access to the hidden file. If a new document is then created then the
dummy document is removed, taking with it the hidden document which is
then inaccessible.
9.11
2) Connecting to the RiscPC using PocketFS II while there is a document
with the hidden attribute set, results in the hidden document being
deleted.
9.11
He lost a 21-page document in this way, and hopes to save other users
Éfrom suffering from the lost document bluesæ.
9.11
Endnote
9.11
The summer dearth has started; last month I simply didnæt have enough
material to make a column, and even now itæs a shortie. Please take your
Pocket Books out into the garden and tap out something for me for next
month from the deckchair.
9.11
P.S. Sightings from abroad would be welcome.áuá
9.11
Music Column
9.11
Alan Gibson
9.11
I must thank everyone for the encouraging response to my first column Ö
Iæm going to be busy over the coming months! As well as many öHelloæsò
and offers of help, I have had several queries, many of which have been
regarding problems trying to get Midi interfaces to work with the PC
cards.
9.11
I have spent a while looking into this and do have some positive news.
If you simply wish to play back standard Midi files (SMFs) from PC card
software through the computeræs sound system, you need ESPæs Software
Synthesiser (which does not need a Midi interface as it uses sound
samples played from disc). It also pays to have one of the latest
versions of !PCx86 to ensure full compatibility with this software.
9.11
If you want to actually use, say, an external keyboard for input and
output with the PC card, then you may have different problems, depending
on which Midi card you have. Problems arise with the various cards using
different, incompatible versions of the Ésameæ module, which also means
that you canæt use an older card such as the MidiMax with a DMI50 on the
same machine without clashes.
9.11
The new Midi module is like !Printers, in that there is a core set of
routines to which you can add specific drivers for different cards.
Unfortunately, there are only a few cards supporting this module at the
moment, although the other cards will hopefully be supported soon. The
best advice I can give at the moment is to contact ESP (01159-295019)
and ask about their Midi Support Package which should be available in a
few months time. This promises to solve the PC card problems and perhaps
even the incompatibility problems between different manufacturersæ
cards.
9.11
ESP are also close to finishing their 8-bit version of the Software
Synthesiser (so A4 users can at last have Midi playback!) and will also
be releasing a support package for designing your own instruments.
9.11
Master keyboards
9.11
Master keyboards are Midi-equipped keyboards which (usually) produce no
sound of their own. This is not as useless as it may sound! They are
used to control other devices, usually sound modules, drum machines etc,
from one central point. The theory is that when you find a master
keyboard which you like the feel of, you can just upgrade the sounds at
a later date by adding more sound modules rather than buying another
complete keyboard.
9.11
There are effectively two different Ékindsæ of master keyboards, those
which are intended for using with a computer and those for studio/
performance use. Both types can control any module (with differing
degrees of effectiveness) and have assignable controllers to send
messages around your setup. The more expensive ones also have keyboard
Ézonesæ which you can set to play different instruments, e.g. a piano on
the right hand and a bass on the left.
9.11
The computer type tend to be small, have a few octaves of unweighted
keys and are usually grey(!) They are often used to input into a
sequencer or notation package Ö much easier than using the mouse. Some
common examples are the Yamaha CBX-K1 (which has 37 mini keys Ö useful
for small hands or where desk space is very tight), the Roland PC-200
MkII (this is the one I use and has 49 spring-weighted keys and one
controller) or the Fatar 610+ (61 semi-weighted keys with two
controllers).
9.11
The studio type of master keyboards are predominantly covered by Fatar,
including the Studio 900 (with two controllers with 88 weighted keys for
us pianists!), the 1176 and 1100 (four zones and two controllers with
76/88 weighted keys) and the 1000+ Studio 2001 which has eight zones,
four controllers and 88 weighted keys. Phew!
9.11
Having said all this, you can actually use any keyboard as a master Ö
just turn the volume down! Ifáyou already have a keyboard, it will do
just as well for most computer purposes. The downside of master
keyboards is the same as the upside, in that they produce no sound of
their own. This means that if you cannot get your computer to Éplay as
you playæ, you will need some kind of external amplification. This all
adds to the overall cost, but is well worth it if you intend to have
several sound sources all controlled from one keyboard, especially if
you want to play away from your computer.
9.11
Next month (probably!) Iæll give a rundown of the Midi interfaces
currently available. If I get a lot of queries, I will cover these first
and perhaps cover the Midi cards later on.áuá
9.11
Alan Gibson <[e-mail]>
9.11
Help!!!!
9.11
Articles for Archive Ö Please could we have some articles about various
software packages along the lines of öHow to get the best out of...ò?
There has been lots written about Impression, but what about some of the
other packages?
9.11
I agree entirely, Anne. For example, because I have been using Edit for
emails, I have discovered <ctrl-f4> which allows you, very easily, to
stick ö> ò as an indent in front of some lines text Ö and did you know
that <f4><f2><f1> causes Edit to re-start a search without using the
mouse?! OK, I know these things must be in the manual somewhere, but I
donæt have time to read it. Thatæs where a useræs view, expressed
through Archive, isáso valuable. What one person has Édiscoveredæ can be
of considerable help to the rest of us. Ed.
9.11
Anne Parmenter, Chippenham.
9.11
!Manager Ö Has anyone come across BASS? (Belgian Archimedes Software-
writers Society) Are they still contactable? Can anyone help me to get
the data out of their !Manager program? I have been using it for a long
while and would now like to use a more powerful database, but I donæt
know how to get the data out of !Manager.
9.11
Martin Osborne, Winchester
9.11
Network Computer Column editor Ö We asked last month for someone to edit
a column for Archive about Acorn Online Media, possibly also combining
it with the NC side of Acornæs operations. Paul Irwin has offered to
find out about AOM, but at the rate things are progressing, we need
someone separate to try to keep tracks of NC issues.
9.11
Iæm getting lots and lots of press clippings about Acorn and the NC
(many thanks to all who send them!) and press releases and bits off the
net (see the monthly program disc). I read them all, but I just donæt
have time to digest the information and think about the significance of
it all. Is there anyone who does have a bit of time and who would like
to take on this task? (As with all Archive writing, itæs done for love,
not money, sorry! We find we get better articles that way!!) It would
certainly be an exciting and interesting job to do. Any offers?
9.11
(Net access preferred Ö sorry, but it makes such a difference to the
speed and ease with which the job can be done.)
9.11
Ed. <[e-mail]>
9.11
PC software Ö About the only use I make of PC software is to run the
Cumbria Journey Planner:
9.11
http://www.wwwebguides.com/pubtrans/cumbria/info.html
9.11
This runs fine in the PC Emulator and so, on the RiscPC, I am trying to
run the PC Emulator rather than get the PC card. The single-tasking
version works OK, but the multitasking version (1.81) gives the error
message:
9.11
ÉIllegal XDPI or YDPI in spriteæ
9.11
Can anyone advise on what this message means?
9.11
Peter J Stoner <[e-mail]>
9.11
Making your own CDs
9.11
Mike Battersby
9.11
With the need for greater and greater amounts of storage space growing
all the time, schools face particular problems because that need is
multiplied by hundreds when the needs of all their pupils and staff are
taken into account.
9.11
Many schools are developing multimedia projects, and with the inclusion
of colour scanned photographs or Replay movies, these soon add up to a
number of megabytes or considerably more. While developing these, it may
be quite satisfactory to use a hard disc for storage, but at this rate
of usage, a hard disc is soon filled up and the space is needed for the
next set of developments or projects. It is a shame to have to erase
them altogether but it is unlikely to be feasible to archive them to
floppy disc, and even removable hard discs would represent a costly way
of archiving.
9.11
Similarly, if a school builds up sets of its own resources, electronic
photographs from an Ion camera, digitised video frames or large scanned
sprites, and if these resources are only needed occasionally, can you
afford precious hard disc space to store them for the occasions when
they are needed?
9.11
What if schools want to share and exchange resources with other schools;
there is no problem if they fit on floppy disc, but you canæt go posting
off a normal hard disc, and removables are again an expensive option.
9.11
Well, for all these needs, and possibly many others, the answer could be
to put materials onto a writeable CD-ROM. Most schools have at least one
CD-ROM drive from which to extract the contents, or the ability to
network CDs using software such as Cumanaæs CDNet 2. A CD is light and
inexpensive to post and small for storage. Even if multimedia projects
were, say 20Mb in size, around 30 could be stored on a single CD-ROM.
9.11
Only a couple of years ago, the introduction of a writeable CD would be
beyond the means of most schools but now the cost has come down to just
under ú1,000 (+VAT) from Eesox (including some gold discs and the Eesox
CD simulator software Ö highly recommended) and it is much more
affordable.
9.11
We at the Kingston Schools IT Unit have recently purchased such items
from Eesox and, last week, Iáput one to the test. One of our local
schools is entering the Tesco multimedia competition and, having taken
video and used Ion and scanned photographs, their Genesis application
was just under 30Mb Ö a bit too much to fit on a floppy!!
9.11
The writable drive, which can also be used as a normal quad speed CD-ROM
drive, is a SCSI device, so you would need a SCSI card if you donæt
already have one. I used an old Cumana 16-bit card which worked quite
happily. The first thing to do after you have checked everything for
accuracy is to have the items converted to a CD-ROM Éimageæ, i.e.áa
datafile that will be understood by CDFS. This is done using the
!ISOform software provided. This is easy to run, as you just specify the
directory to be converted and the destination in which to put the image.
!ISOForm checks that the directory structure is suitable for CDFS and
also checks out your filenames because certain characters that are
allowed by ADFS are not allowed by CDFS. If there are any errors, these
are listed and you can revise your resources accordingly, well before
you mess up a CD! An option box allows you to have public read access
set automatically to the files so that the CD produced can be used
easily over a network.
9.11
Once the image has been built up, the CDSim software comes into its own.
This allows you to run the image datafile that would be put on the CD
under CDFS, i.e. simulating it running on a CD-ROM. This allows you to
check that everything really does function as it should when run from a
CD. This can be particularly useful for resources such as Replay movies
to check they play at a reasonable speed. Various types of CD-ROM drives
can be simulated Ö double speed, quad speed, etc, etc. This again is
easy to run and is a safeguard as a double check that your resources are
ready for writing to a CD. The gold CDs are around ú6-8 a time which is
very reasonable but you donæt want to waste them if you can avoid it,
and this software certainly helps that.
9.11
Once everything has been checked, you are ready to write the CD. Again,
this is remarkably straight forward Ö just running the CDScribe
software, dragging the file into a box specifying the file to be
written, entering the device number of the CD drive, and off you go. The
30Mb Genesis application took around 6 minutes to be written. If you
want more than one copy, this process (just the writing, not the
creating of the image or testing) is repeated in each case. I found that
re-setting the computer just before the final write seemed to help avoid
any errors.
9.11
Future planned uses include distributing a Genesis application,
developed here at the centre, to some of the local schools, and
distributing Ordnance Survey datafiles converted into drawfiles using
Minervaæs excellent Map Importer program. These drawfiles tend to be
quite large and only a few fit on a floppy disc, but the files for all
the borough could be fitted on one CD-ROM for the LEA schools that want
them.
9.11
This is not a full review of the Eesox software and drive, but I was
impressed by the simplicity of use and the outcome. If schools canæt
afford their own, perhaps other centres like ourselves could provide one
that could be available for use by schools, for the times when they are
needed.
9.11
The CD Recorder is available through Archive for ú895 (internal) or ú965
(external). This includes one gold CD. The CD Simulator software costs
ú170 if bought on its own, or ú110 if bought with the CD Recorder. Extra
gold discs areáú9 each or ú75 for a box of ten through Archive. uá
9.11
Hints and Tips
9.11
C/C++ Books Ö I found öC For Dummiesò from IDG Books a perfect tutorial.
Itæs informal and American, but it explains everything in a very
comprehensible manner. The ISBN is 1-878058-78-9 and it costs ú18.99,
although IDG Media in the UK (the publisher of Acorn User) may be able
to do you a special deal. The company also produces a öFor Dummiesò book
on C++.
9.11
IDG Media, Media House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield SK10 4NP.
[e-mail], http://www.idg.co.uk, or http://www.idg.com.
9.11
Alex Singleton, Surrey
9.11
A circle in perspective Ö Most drawing programs can draw an ellipse.
Most artists will use this when drawing (say) the top or bottom of a
vase, but a circle in perspective is not an ellipse!!
9.11
Firstly, choose a square to fit the circle. Draw this square, with its
diagonals, in perspective to a suitable vanishing point, as shown. Where
the diagonals cross, draw the line marked Édiameteræ. Draw the line OA.
This is used to draw an octagon in perspective.
9.11
Construct the octagon ... Where the line AO cuts the diagonals, draw
horizontal lines to D and C. Do similarly for E and F on the other side.
9.11
Draw a continuous curve to touch the centres of the sides of the octagon
(where the sides cut the diagonals and diameter).
9.11
Click on the bottom icon of the toolbox to get the dotted box around the
drawing. Use the Éhandlesæ to alter the size and shape! Copy it, then,
anywhere you like!
9.11
John Mitchell, Wishaw
9.11
Internet data overload Ö I found that I was keeping more and more items
from the internet newsgroups, just in case I needed to refer to them
again, such as FAQ, useful contacts, or WWW addresses. But, of course,
trying to find anything with only file names to go on was impossible.
9.11
I thought about designing a database in my database package, but then a
Clares advert suggested Knowledge Organiser II. I found someone who had
a demo, but that only showed searching, not creating a database, but I
took a chance anyway and decided to buy it with the aim of getting
organised. I havenæt regretted it Ö the demo does not do it justice!
9.11
KO II is all about storing text and giving it references to make it easy
to find again. Perfect for this use. As well as the built in context
code fields, you can add your own Ö which I didnæt realise at first. So
my database has a field for the news item title, plus date downloaded,
and then uses the KO II context code fields to Édescribeæ the entry. You
can also add more codes as you gradually learn your search requirements.
Iæve already been able to search for things I stored days before, going
straight to the article instead of guessing, wrongly, where I put it.
9.11
The package could do with a couple of improvements which I have
suggested to Clares, but I would certainly recommend it for anyone
struggling as Iáwas. KO II costs ú75 through Archive.
9.11
Clive Bell <[e-mail]>
9.11
Comment Column
9.11
A7000 pricing Ö I ordered an A7000 for school from Acorn (2Mb/425Mb)
only to be informed that this has been discontinued in view of people
wanting 4Mb to run CD-ROMs. I thus had to pay an extra ú76 +VAT for 2Mb
of RAM when Iácould have upgraded the 2Mb version myself to 6Mb for ú55
including VAT through Archive.
9.11
Then I thought I would get the 2Mb network version for less, and put in
a hard drive myself. I contacted Acorn but was told that the network-
dedicated machines have no operating system. Thwarted again! I could
have bought an 850Mb drive for the same extra cost that Acorn were
charging for the 425Mb drive.
9.11
Come on, Acorn! I am trying to make my schoolæs budget go as far as
possible; please be more flexible, or reduce your prices!
9.11
(It wouldnæt surprise me if they did, Charlie Ö although Iáperhaps
shouldnæt say that or people will stop buying computers until the prices
do go down!! At the very least, with the price of RAM dropping through
the floor, they could double the RAM on all the machines and still
charge the same prices. Ed.)
9.11
Charlie Alford, Leicester
9.11
Acorn versus Windows Ö I have a friend at work who is a dedicated PC
man, and he cannot understand anyone owning any computer other than a
PC. We have had many Édiscussionsæ about the relative merits of the
Acorn and the PC.
9.11
One day, he was full of the news that Acorn were no longer going to be
producing these Énon-standardæ machines and, at last, I would be forced
to buy a machine that was an Éindustry standard PC compatibleæ. I tried
to convince him that my RiscPC was a 486 as well as an Acorn machine,
but he poo-pooæd the idea, saying that emulated PCs never worked
properly and werenæt worth bothering with.
9.11
Over the next couple of days, I was playing with some PD software on my
RiscPC, and managed to get it to start up with a custom banner instead
of the normal Acorn RISCáOS banner. As a joke, I designed a ÉWindows 97æ
banner. The next time my work colleague came to the house, I led him to
believe that Iæd got hold of a beta copy of Windows 97, and invited him
to have a play Ö he fell for it hook, line and sinker and was very
impressed with Windows 97 (RISCáOS 3.6)!!!
9.11
I havenæt persuaded him to change from his beloved PC, but heæs now a
lot more respectful of Acorn machines.
9.11
(Name and address supplied.)
9.11
Acorn World 96 Ö I have been asked by EPS Events to get as many
developers (hardware and software) to participate in the Theatre
Sessions at Acorn World.
9.11
If anyone is interested, could they contact me a.s.a.p., please?!
9.11
Keith Parker, 33 Fieldend, Twickenham, Middlesex, TW1 4TG.
<[e-mail]>
9.11
Archive newsgroup? Ö I often read Archive articles, particularly those
which invite readersæ comments, and wonder what other readers think. It
is obviously impossible for contributors to summarise all their
responses in a later article, and anyway the topic may have gone off the
boil by then. The obvious answer would be an Archive Usenet Newsgroup.
9.11
What do people think about the idea? Please let me know what you think,
whether positive or negative.
9.11
Geoff Williams, <[e-mail]>
9.11
Archive Small Ads column Ö I placed a Wanted advertisement for a RiscPC
and monitor in the June edition of Archive, which was delivered on
Thursday 13th. I was amazed by the response. (I had half expected to
have to carry the advertisement over a month.)
9.11
I got three messages by email (one on Thursday before Iáknew Archive had
been delivered, one on Friday, and one on Monday from the Netherlands Ö
the post must be slower over The Channel!), and three by phone on
Friday.
9.11
Each person who contacted me offered a machine that near enough met my
spec. Anyone would have been an acceptable purchase. By 10 a.m. on
Saturday 15th June I had agreed to buy separately a RiscPC and a
monitor.
9.11
Archive looks a good place to advertise!
9.11
Tony Hilton, <[e-mail]>
9.11
CD-ROM lending library? Ö If you havenæt been to your local library
recently, you wonæt know that a company called Ramesis is offering to
lend CD-ROMs to library members for a nominal weekly fee (ú1.50 at my
library). However, before you jump for joy... yes, youæve guessed it,
the range only features PC and Mac CD-ROMs.
9.11
I contacted Ramesis, to ask if there was any intention to cater for
Acorn CD-ROM users. The answer was fairly predictable. öThe Acorn user-
base is very small compared to PCs and Macs.ò
9.11
Maybe you would like to let Ramesis know that there is a demand for
Acorn CD-ROMs and having access to them in your local library would be
very welcome. Try before you buy!
9.11
To contact Ramesis: email <[e-mail]> or phone [phone]
(9a.m.Ö8p.m. Tue/Thu and 9a.m.Ö5p.m. other weekdays).
9.11
Gary Jones <[e-mail]>
9.11
Email orders Ö More and more subscribers are placing orders by email.
Thatæs fine by us as it speeds things up, provided you supply all the
information we need. As a reminder, here are a few pointers:
9.11
Ö Remember that credit cards (as opposed to debit cards like Switch and
Delta) attract a ú3 surcharge, or 3% for orders over ú100.
9.11
Ö If you are ordering by email, we only store your credit card number on
our database if you specifically ask us to do so. If we have stored it
then, for subsequent orders, please quote:
9.11
  (a) Your subscription number so that we can identify you (e.g. we have
41 J. Smiths on our main database!)
9.11
  (b) The last four digits of the card number so we can be sure weæve
got the right card number.
9.11
  (c) The expiry date (because this changes and we donæt store it).
9.11
  (d) For Switch, the issue number or the Évalid fromæ date (these also
change and we donæt store them).
9.11
Ed. <[e-mail]>
9.11
Network Computers (9.10 p20) Ö Acorn and Oracle only announced their
Network Computer venture earlier this year Ö and now they have built it!
Perhaps that is not so amazing Ö the prototype BBC Micro was built and
demonstrated in four days. I will take Paulæs word for it that the
machines in the photograph (p19) are not just empty boxes.
9.11
But, hold on a moment, they havenæt written the specification yet Ö
isnæt that what the Reference Profile will be? Is this prototype so
flexible that it can be developed into whatever the market decides (in
August) it requires? What did the demonstration actually do? Whatever it
did, it is great to see a plug in an international press release which
actually mentions Acorn by name and advertises the breath-taking speed
of StrongARM.
9.11
(The reference profiles were launched in draft form on May 20th, and
will be Éfinalisedæ in August. Anyway, since Acorn were heavily involved
in the drafting, youæd expect them to have something which was a pretty
close approximation to being NC compliant, from an early stage.
9.11
At the launch, Acornæs demo NetStation did net-surfing and email using
ANTæs software, wordprocessing courtesy of Icon Technology, MPEG video,
two Java applets and ran Macromedia Director, the multimedia authoring
package. Ed.)
9.11
I recently read a PC column in a national newspaper in which the author
decried the development of NCs, because you can buy a reasonable second-
hand PC with Net software for $500, so there is no need for a
specialised machine. This completely misses the point. Most of the
population has no need for general purpose home computers, and wouldnæt
know how to use one Ö and those who do wonæt want last yearæs model! The
NC will satisfy a market which wants the mass communication, and
information facilities, without having to learn how to use a PC Ö and
without the expense of buying those components which will never be used.
This has every prospect of becoming a universal domestic appliance, as
the video recorder did some years ago. The writer sadly lives in a
blinkered world which despises anything that is not PC-based.
9.11
(The other reason that article totally misses the point is that the
significance of the NetStation goes way beyond net-surfing and email Ö
see the ÉThin Clientæ article on page 13 for more details. Ed.)
9.11
Colin Singleton, Sheffield
9.11
Portfolio again! Ö Iæm probably in some danger of banging the drum too
hard here, but Iæve been asked to make a further comment about
Portfolio. It seems that adverts, and the mention given in Products
Available, may be giving the impression that Portfolio is suitable only
for use in education and, indeed, I understand the author has said this
splendid application was öwritten for simplicity of use because it was
for use in Primary Schoolsò.
9.11
For my part, as a business chap, I take the view that Iæm all for
simplicity and ease of use because that helps productivity (= profits).
I trust that Dave Wilcoxæs review in Archive 9.6 p72 and my bletherings
in 9.9 p43 will dispel any suggestion that Portfolio is in any way
limited in its use; quite the reverse. It has quickly become our prime
presentation application for business and on-the-job training andáÖáas
with any good product Ö the more we use it,áthe more we like it.
9.11
To underline its general suitability, can I offer an anecdote? A
colleague recently gave a presentation toáa group of foreign VIPs, in
support of a major contract for ÉUK plcæ. He was using a real lash-up,
consisting of a 7-year old A410 (lid off and fan unplugged to keep the
noise down!), connected to a 33ö TV, and switching between video from a
VCR and Portfolio images from the computer. Iæd preparedáthe drawfiles
for the Portfolio bit and, watching the presentation from a back seat,
even Iáwas impressed. Apparently, so were the VIPs as, at the end, there
was a seemingly-spontaneous round of applause! Smug smiles from the
Brits; warm glow all round...
9.11
If any user, or potential buyer, would like to send me a formatted disc
(in a jiffy bag please) and return postage, Iæd be glad to send some
example files with notes, showing some of our favourite effects that can
so easily be achieved with Portfolio.
9.11
Jim Nottingham, 16 Westfield Close, Pocklington, York, YO4 2EY.
9.11
Rodents (mus electronica) Ö Until recently, my experiences with computer
mice have been unfortunate.
9.11
My first mouse arrived with a RiscPC 600 about a year ago, and was over-
sensitive to light, and its replacement had the same problem.
9.11
The third mouse has been working for nearly a year without any real
problem but has needed very frequent cleaning to keep the cursor moving
smoothly. This has always been more effective if Iáopened the case and
blew on the perforated disks in addition to clearing fluff from the
rollers. I was therefore very interested in Richard Simpsonæs article on
optical mice in Archive 9.2 p34, and on his advice, bought a Mouse
Systems device from Ceratech.
9.11
The first one I received would only run for half a minute each time the
machine was turned on, but its replacement is behaving beautifully. It
has no moving parts to go wrong or to need cleaning, and it glides, on
two strips of suede fabric, over its metal mat that is printed with a
fine dotted pattern. The motion feels luxurious, giving superb control
over the cursor and this, combined with the delightful feel of the
switches, makes the mouse a joy to use.
9.11
I make no apology for praising the device so highly, but I have to say
that there are major problems on the way before reaching this happy
situation.
9.11
As Richardæs article made clear, the Mouse Systems product is designed
for use from a serial port. This not only means that a modem, say,
cannot be used at the same time, but when used in this way the cursor
movement is Éskitteryæ.
9.11
The problem is solved by a little rewiring Ö which invalidates the
guarantee. I felt nervous over the risk of damaging a chip by over-
heating, and so soldered leads to safe connections to which the chip
contacts run. For cursor movement, this meant soldering to the back of a
plug socket, and for the switches, Iásoldered to the back of the
switches themselves. It may be worth saying that lead 4 is taken to
earth, and a convenient connection point is any one of the switch
contacts which are linked together. Lead 6 is the one that runs to the
side of the zener diode away from the switches.
9.11
I bought a mouse lead from NCS. I had to choose between Logitech and
Digitech; the latter was ú2 cheaper and I knew of no disadvantage, so I
settled for this. It is only 85 cm long when fitted, and this may
explain the lower price. For me there is no problem, but my left-handed
daughter finds it a little short for comfort.
9.11
The lead has two advantages. Firstly, it has a moulded-on grommet that
fits the new mouse perfectly, at least after a sharp knife has been used
to trim off a little from the top so that the mouse lid can close
without compromising the action of the menu switch. The other advantage
is that it terminates in a 9-pin socket. I therefore took the new wiring
to a 9-pin plug that I placed under the printed circuit board. Now the
old lead can be plugged in to allow the mouse to be used as
manufactured, or the new lead can be mated to the new plug to run the
system from the computer mouse port.
9.11
I should warn that at the testing stage, I wasted several hours tracking
down an apparent intermittent fault that kept freezing the cursor. I
should have known better Ö I was testing with the mouse lid open, and
ambient light was overwhelming the system. With the lid closed,
everything behaved perfectly!
9.11
In achieving this state of affairs, I am grateful to Richard Simpson not
only for his article but also for very helpful correspondence on the
subject. The one detail I would like to add to his account is to say
that the pins of the mouse plug, seen from the free end, are numbered
thus:
9.11
Appreciation is also due to the suppliers for replacing defective mice
promptly and without quibble. The Acorn replacements were dispatched
immediately, leaving me free to struggle with the cripples until the new
ones arrived, and the Mouse Systems device was dispatched as soon as the
defective one had been returned and examined.
9.11
The remaining problem is financial. The mouse cost ú89.30 and the lead
ú11.
9.11
The result, however, is luxury Ö a fitting partner for an Acorn machine.
9.11
Robert Beech, <[e-mail]>
9.11
Iæm glad that Robert is so pleased with his optical mouse but I have to
add a note of warning. Another contributor wrote to say heæd got an
optical mouse and that it was wonderful. A few days later he wasnæt so
keen and, eventually, he hated it so much, he got rid of it! I alerted
Robert to this fact and pointed out that I had had a similar experience
when I tried an optical mouse, liking it at first and then feeling that
it wasnæt as good as I had first thought. Robert has had several weeks
with his optical mouse and is still happy with it, so yer pays yer
money...
9.11
Ed. <[e-mail]>
9.11
Screen grabbing Ö As far as !Snapper is concerned, I agree completely
with Rob Ives. (Archive 9.9 p48) We have it at school and it seems to
have some very good features. However, there is a PD alternative, which
is rather spartan by comparison (it offers only two options: use it, or
donæt use it!). Itæsácalled !WindowRd, by Jason Tribbeck, and allows you
to grab windows, menus, or the iconbar       (with/without pinboard) off
the screen by hitting <shift-shift>, which promptly saves it to the same
directory as that which contains the application itself.
9.11
(!WindowRd is on this monthæs program disc. Asáscreenshots are so
helpful in articles (hint, hint), Iáhope that many of our contributors
will avail themselves of a copy!!! Ed.)
9.11
Sudipta Sarkar, Birkenhead
9.11
Shakespeare and silicon! Ö You may have noticed that PD libraries have
started selling computerised versions of classic literature texts, and
Iæd like to put in a good word for them. One of the occupational hazards
of studying literature is when you half-remember a quote, but canæt
remember exactly where it comes from, or how it was phrased. This is
where your Acorn can help!
9.11
For instance, you can now buy the complete plays of Shakespeare for just
a couple of pounds. Using a text search program (like Robert Lyttonæs
!LooknFind or, my favourite, Justin Fletcheræs !TextScan), you just plug
in the word you know (e.g. Éblanketæ) and up pops the line (Lady
Macbeth: Énor heaven peep through the blanket of the nightæ). So what?
Well, a lot of modern texts are directly or indirectly inspired by
Shakespeare and allude to his plays. That example was one I looked up
this morning whilst preparing for my English A-level exam (which is
tomorrow!), and came from a poem by Sylvia Plath. I didnæt have the time
or effort to flick through my Complete Works of Shakespeare, and the
computer was invaluable.
9.11
The applications are numerous. If youære directing a production of one
of his plays, then the text file could be really useful. Imagine being
able to edit out the bits you donæt want, and then print it out at a
fraction of the cost of published versions. You do miss out on the
notes, which is a shame, but as a director, you know them already...?
The only other problems are the lack of line numbers, and that the
editions arenæt specified.
9.11
There are other texts available, including the Canterbury Tales in
original and modern versions. However, owing to the copyright laws,
nothing underá50 years of age can be distributed. If I could have a
request, it would be for some of Dickensæ novels Ö they are so large
that an electronic search is almost essential. Also, has any reader come
across anyáFrench or German literature on disc? Iæd be interested to
know if you have.
9.11
Literature texts are available from all major PD libraries, including
APDL and the Datafile, and I think they also appear on the CD
collections.
9.11
Nigel Caplan, Leeds
9.11
StrongARM compatibility Ö Until we see the whites of the StrongARMæs
eyes, we wonæt know exactly how many compatibility problems weære going
to have, but the signs are very positive. A lot of work has already been
done at ART on finding ways, within the operating system, to avoid
problems occurring.
9.11
Dave Walker, at ART, who looks after the software developers, says öRISC
OS SA (as the new version of RISCáOS is currently titled) will have a
number of new SWIs to do such things as explicit cache flushing and code
synchronisation, but details of these are not yet on release.
Arrangements are in place whereby registered developers are kept up-to-
date on the progress of the new StrongARM API, and given broad details
of what to check for when estimating code compatibility. Also, an
appointment system is being organised so that developers can come into
ART and test their code on a 200MHz SA-110.
9.11
öAll ART-registered developers are being kept posted by me regarding
compatibility issues, as they emerge and become clear. API details will
be sent to them soon. If other developers want these details, they are
very welcome to register and can mail me for details:
[e-mail].ò
9.11
Ed. <[e-mail]>
9.11
StrongARM tactics? Ö It is quite difficult to read about 200MHz machines
when sitting at my little A3000 (of which I am a very proud owner!), but
I hope you wonæt misinterpret my comments as Étechno-envyæ! I do feel
that, occasionally, a cynicæs view is needed amidst the euphoria that
surrounds every press release from ART. A cynic is best described as
someone who has had his rose-tinted spectacles smashed, and without
wanting to kill off all hope in Acorn, I would like to suggest that the
future may not be as bright as has been suggested.
9.11
I was intrigued to read, for instance, about Acornæs Netsurfer, which
apparently is set to revolutionise the world. The thing is, Iæm not
convinced. To start with, I still canæt remember ever having heard of
Oracle before their deal with Acorn, and with that lack of public
awareness, itæs hard to believe that the great British public is going
to treat Acorn any differently.
9.11
A very important question, then, is whether anyone will actually buy
this contraption. I donæt somehow think that when Larry E. (whom Iæve
certainly never heard of!) clicks his fingers, everyone is going to rush
out and buy an NC. Letæs face it, people who want to use the internet
are likely to be computer buffs with their PCs. The Éaverage home useræ
(that mysterious suburban species) has only just worked out how to use
an ansaphone, and is still struggling with the video recorder. If they
do decide to lay out money on home entertainment, it is more likely to
be for a satellite/cable system, the latter of which can now access the
Net Ö Acorn are perhaps onto a better bet with Online Media.
9.11
My mind wanders back a few years to the rise and fall of Phillipsæ CD-I
system, which was also due to revolutionise the world of home
electronics. It didnæt. People who wanted to use CD-ROMs bought a
computer. The NC is starting out from with an even more dubious
technology Ö we are always reading that the Internet is a Évictim of its
own successæ, with archaic systems running too slowly and becoming
overloaded.
9.11
The cost is also significant. OK, so the NC is to cost around ú300 Ö
which I think is still a lot of money to the home user Ö but then youære
going to have to join a network, and because they will have to handle
the storage (there is no local storage, apparently), the subscription
fees could be very high. On a practical point, the prospect of typing an
email on that remote¡control style handset is not very attractive!
(AáQWERTY keyboard will be available as an option. Ed.)
9.11
Then thereæs Bill Gates, who Ö according to Alexander Singleton in last
monthæs Archive Ö is Éfeeling threatened by the Oracle NC.æ Letæs take a
trip back to planet reality here. Gates is the most successful business
man in the history of the microcomputer. Windows may be a lousy piece of
programming, but it does dominate the silicon world. Is it really
credible that he would be ignoring the NC if it were such a gold-mine?
My cynical side tells me that he is keeping well clear! (Ever heard of
Éprideæ?! Do you really think that Bill Gates would admit that his arch
rival had stumbled onto something new and important, and simply follow
on behind? No way! Ed.)
9.11
Whatæs in a name? Ö The talk of the Acorn community at the moment is the
StrongARM chip Ö a sort of turbo booster rocket for your Risc PC (but
not my A3000!) I love the name Ö to have a Éstrong armæ can mean to have
lots of children! Presumably itæs going to be supplied on a daughter
card .... sorry!
9.11
And then one use of it being suggested is in the Stork Ö which is
another great name Ö conjuring up thoughts of the delivery of new-born
babies! Iæve written about the Stork before in Archive, when I feared it
would be too expensive. It now appears that it will be under ú1000 Ö if
itæs ever sold!
9.11
I was strongly in favour of this until Andy Ward reported last month
that its tracker ball is designed exclusively for right-handers. Oh wake
up, Acorn! You canæt just alienate a large chunk of the market by
ignoring left-handers. Although I am right-handed, Iáalways use the
mouse with my left-hand (which caused havoc when I used the schoolæs
computers!), and I donæt see why I should modify my habits (which arenæt
that abnormal) because of Acornæs lack of foresight.
9.11
And back to the future... I donæt find it as easy as most Archive
writers to be so positive about the future of our beloved Acorn. I
fervently hope it has a future, but I suspect it will be limited to a
small niche of supporters (us) and to education (thanks to Xemplar). At
Wakefield (and even a cynic has to congratulate the WACG on a splendid
show!) Iágotáthe feeling that the two main target groups wereápower
users Ö multi-processors, StrongARMs etc Ö or educationalists. Perhaps
Iæm wrong (and Iædábe delighted if Acorn could prove me wrong), butáI
donæt think the world is yet ready for the Acornárevolution.
9.11
Nigel Caplan, Leeds
9.11
Undoing the noose Ö TaskKill, by Doggysoft, is a PD module which will
only be of use to those without a RiscPC/A7000. Its main purpose is to
provide a way of killing off tasks that hang the machine. Acorn has
wisely built such a feature into its latest models, but for those with
older computers, hitting <alt-#> (keypad É#æ) will quit most
applications that are hanging the machine. This is fairly compact, and
wonæt pinch too much of the module area. It is also possible to switch
it on/off via its iconbar icon, or from the command line. This program
is very handy to have permanently loaded, as it can save the time taken
to reboot.
9.11
(TaskKill is on this monthæs program disc. Ed.)
9.11
Sudipta Sarkar, Birkenhead.
9.11
Voice recognition Ö Does anyone know if there is any work being done on
voice recognition for the Acorn machines? Surely, with the processing
power of the StrongARM, this is an ideal opportunity for producing
another application that is the Ébest on any platformæ Ö like Sibelius Ö
so that people will want to buy a StrongARM RiscPC just to get good
voice recognition.
9.11
Ed. <[e-mail]>
9.11
Geraldæs Column
9.11
Gerald Fitton
9.11
Correspondence
9.11
I am still receiving many letters which contain questions and remarks of
a philosophical nature arising out of my comments in the Mayá1996
Archive. One which Iáfound well written, in that it was both witty and
yet quite serious, suggested that Iáwas more than part way towards
proving the existence of God with a spreadsheet! Although Iáwould not
make that claim, Iámust confess to a certain sense of satisfaction to
know Iáhave caused some of you to öthinkò Ö particularly if it is for
the first time in many years that you have been inclined to wonder.
9.11
Iáhave had many letters from teachers to which Iáwould like to give a
general response. Good teachers can be proud of their profession. Iácame
into full-time teaching late in life, but, like many of you, Iáfind it
very satisfying. In my working life, initially Iámade things like
aeroplanes which worked ù and that gave me a great deal of pleasure. In
a second career, Iámadeáprofits, mainly for others ù that too was
satisfying until Iádiscovered that Iádidnæt like the person Iáwas
becoming. At my interview for the job which Iánow hold, Iárepeated some
of the above and added that being a teacher would give me an opportunity
to Émake peopleæ. Iáwas asked to explain what Iámeant ù so Iádid!
9.11
The reality was better than my expectations. As well as providing my
students with knowledge, to those with the currency to buy, Iátry to
peddle wisdom. The currency the student needs is time, patience,
curiosity and an addiction to seeking that which is true. The student
with the currency to buy the wisdom that is peddled by a good teacher,
will be freed from exploitation by those who are determined to twist the
truth into traps for the na∩ve. With the decline of the libraries, the
extended family, and the growth in those TV programmes which entertain
rather than educate, good teachers remain one of the few sources of
wisdom for the young. To those teachers, Iásay that the value of the
wares which you peddle are beyond any price which can be included in a
financial balance sheet ù be proud to do so, and donæt sacrifice them on
the altar of assessment criteria.
9.11
Before knowing his exam results, a student made a special journey today
solely to thank me for changing his life. This student is not one of my
brightest Ö he is likely to fail his exam and we both know it ù but my
heart was touched by his gratitude. It was most eloquently expressed and
totally unexpected. Iáshall treasure that eternal moment ù it is likely
that he will remember me kindly for the rest of his life. Most good
teachers Iáknow have experienced such moments.
9.11
Iáhave received several more letters which relate to my comments about
the morality of the National Lottery! Iánever suspected that so many of
you would want to discuss your views (or mine) with me. In spite of all
the advice Iæve received, Iástill cannot understand my reluctance to
participate in the lottery yet, at the same time, Iádonæt feel anything
like the same way about Premium Bonds. Suggestions are invited.
9.11
PipeDream
9.11
Iáshall continue with my detailed comparison of various spreadsheets in
future issues of Archive, but Iæve been asked by many of you to öget to
the bottom lineò. OK, here goes.
9.11
Possibly Iæm prejudiced but, in spite of its age and, by the standards
of more modern Archimedes software, its peculiarities, Iáprefer
PipeDream most of all. Iáaccept that those of you who have never used
PipeDream but have used other Archimedes packages would find it more
difficult to learn than other spreadsheets, but one of its advantages is
that it is a mature package with only a few obscure residual bugs. It is
an integrated spreadsheet/word processor package. Everything which you
can do through the menus is available as a keyboard shortcut. It
contains facilities so that you can build up your own custom functions
and command file (automated sequences of keyboard shortcuts). You can
print quickly using fonts resident in the printer. The graphics package
is superb.
9.11
Schemaá2
9.11
My second choice is Schemaá2.
9.11
Iáhave not had Schema all that long, but Iálike it. There is no doubt in
my mind that, for some reason or other, Schema has not had the quality
of media coverage which it deserves. It is a completely different
package from the early Schema and, with hindsight, it would have been
better to give it a new name (rather than Schemaá2). It is an excellent
spreadsheet, much more modern in its look, feel and operation than
PipeDream. More importantly, it works ù Iáhave yet to find a serious
bug!
9.11
Iáam getting used to using the common clipboard to create tables or
charts in Schema and load them into Impression. The more Iáuse that
facility, the more Iálike it. Iáfind that Iácan keep a Schema
spreadsheet alive in one window whilst using Impression for all the text
of my document. Then Iáillustrate my text with a table taken from the
live Schema document. Porting charts via the clipboard is a bit more
tricky and Iáhave had a few problems.
9.11
If Iáhad to pick just one thing in Schema which Iáwould like added, it
would be the facility to edit text within a cell rather than in the
formula line. Iábelieve that, together with the Ébig slotæ facility,
this would provide nearly all the requirements that many have for a
combined text and number processing package.
9.11
If Iácould have two new features, the second would be Object Linking and
Embedding (OLE) so that Iácould edit Draw files from within Schema and
Schema tables from within Impression.
9.11
Schema macros
9.11
Last month, in error, Iálikened Schema macros to PipeDream custom
functions. Using the Schema macro language, you can create not only the
equivalent of PipeDream custom functions but also PipeDream command
files. In fact, you can mix both functions and Schema commands within
the same macro. Many is the time that correspondents have asked me how
to do something in PipeDream or Fireworkz which required such a mixture
and Iáhave had to say that it couldnæt be done, or at least it couldnæt
be done that way.
9.11
In many ways, writing Schema macros is more like writing a Basic program
than writing a PipeDream custom function, so those of you with some
skill in Basic will find it easier to write Schema macros than PipeDream
custom functions. Using a Schema macro, you can load spreadsheets, you
can modify their shape (add columns for example), you can create links
between unrelated documents, you can create drawings (in a similar way
to that which you can in Basic) and add them to your document, you can
execute special functions you have created, change and apply styles,
print out the result and save part, or all, of what you have done under
any file name you choose ù and thatæs not a comprehensive list. The only
problem Iáhave is getting to grips with the huge degree of flexibility
which this gives.
9.11
As with the PipeDream ÉRecordæ command, you can record sequences of
commands as a macro (instead of writing them out in the programming
language) and then merge the recorded commands with other commands or
functions.
9.11
Iáam surprised that there is no library of Schema macros available so
Iæm going to start one. Let me quote the manual.
9.11
öIf you cannot write macros yourself, you can still make good use of
macros written by other people. In time, macros for all sorts of useful
jobs will appear in the Schema community.ò Send me your macros and Iæll
make them more widely available.
9.11
Porting
9.11
Iáam working on various methods of porting spreadsheets from PipeDream
and Fireworkz into Schema. If you have already done this, Iæd like to
hear from you.
9.11
The Ébottom lineæ here is that Iáhave ported quite complex individual
spreadsheets and linked sets of spreadsheets into Schema. So, if you are
thinking of giving up Fireworkz in favour of Schema, you neednæt worry
about all the hard work you put into creating your Fireworkz document Ö
it wonæt be wasted Ö it can be ported into Schema.
9.11
Price
9.11
The price of Schema is ú125 through Archive, including VAT and delivery.
Remember that your time and frustration should be taken into account
when you decide whether to continue struggling with less mature bug-
ridden packages which are upgraded far too frequently. Really, the
initial price of a package is negligible compared to the effort you put
into entering data, formula, etc. If that can be made easier, or less
frustrating, you will soon get a return on your investment.
9.11
Fireworkz
9.11
Iáget letters asking me if it is worthwhile upgrading your current
version of Fireworkz to the latest version. You have to pay for every
upgrade now, so this is not a trivial question. Iáget letters asking me
what significant differences there are between the different versions.
9.11
Iáregret the answer that Iámust give. As far as Iácan determine, all the
recent upgrades are merely bug fixes. Some of you who have paid for an
upgrade knowing that it is just a bug fix find that a bug which didnæt
exist in an earlier version has now appeared in the paid for upgrade!
9.11
My advice to you is to document carefully any bugs you find, send your
discs to Colton Software with the documented bug, and you may receive a
free upgrade with the bug you have documented fixed. On the other hand,
if what you are doing with Fireworkz does not reveal any bugs, then
donæt upgrade ù stick with the earlier version. Eventually, given time
(and enough complaints), Fireworkz will mature into a reasonably bug
free package. At that time, you may find it worthwhile paying for an
upgrade.
9.11
Most of the serious bugs are in the database part of FireworkzáPro. This
is both a good and bad thing. The good thing is that most of you have
given up using the database part, so the bugs in it donæt matter any
more. The bad thing is that Stuart Swales (the programmer) is spending
most of his Fireworkz time on the database and so not much is happening
to the non-Pro section (which has its shortcomings).
9.11
Several of my correspondents tell me that they are returning
FireworkzáPro to Colton Software and asking for a Édowngradeæ back to
Fireworkz non-Pro together with a refund of the price they paid for the
upgrade. They say that this is not just öIáthought it might be a good
idea to have the full package but Iæve changed my mindò but öthe
database part of FireworkzáPro doesnæt work in the way it was advertised
so Iáwant my money back!ò
9.11
Graphics in non-Pro is still a problem area. Iáreceive reports (and
discs with examples) which demonstrate how difficult it is to position
graphics where you want them and then, in many cases, even when youæve
got the graphic where you want it on screen, only half the graphic
prints! The work around is this. Firstly, load the graphic into Draw (or
better into DrawPlus). Select All and then Group all the selected
objects. Drag the selection so that the bottom left corner of the group
is close to the bottom left corner of the Draw document. Save the
document in Draw format. Now load the object into Fireworkz. Do not
embed the graphic object in the Fireworkz document but leave it as a
referenced object. You will find that it is easier to position, and it
prints as it appears on screen.
9.11
Upgrading
9.11
From time to time, Iáam asked about upgrading hardware as well as
software. My general advice is not to upgrade unless you have a use for
the extra facilities that the upgrade will give you. Be patient! Given
time, youæll find that initial difficulties will be resolved as the
package matures or the innovations of the new hardware stabilise.
9.11
Letæs get particular. Do you really need the newest (not yet available)
Acorn machine to do the things you want to do? If not, Iásuggest that
you ought to consider buying not the newest machine but the more mature
RiscPC. The new machine just over the horizon, like the grass on the
other side of the fence, looks a bit too green. My advice to you is
that, if you can, you should wait until that greenery matures. In the
meantime, its delicious and luscious specification is driving down the
price of the RiscPC (a little) but, more importantly, it is making for a
much more flexible policy regarding the way it is sold.
9.11
Have a look at Paulæs Écustom builtæ RiscPC offer. Essentially, you
start your specification with the bottom of the range RiscPC and you add
extras to it to your own specification. Do you want a writable CDáROM
drive? Yes! Then add it to your specification! Paul will give you a
quote for your ÉMix and Matchæ specification, build it for you, test it
and deliver it to your door in working order. You will have exactly the
machine you want and, in many case, it will be at a lower price than if
you bought an off-the-shelf, top-of-the-range model!
9.11
(What have Iádone to deserve this free advertising?! One correction
though, if Iámay, is that Iácan guarantee that in ALL cases, the DIY
RiscPC will be cheaper than an off-the-shelf computer Ö unless Acorn
reduce their pricing. Ed.)
9.11
Iádare say that, for the less adept, if you tell him what software you
want installed on your hard disc, heæll put that on for you. Maybe, if
you are like one of my correspondents, a person who finds the
installation of software fraught with difficulties, you should send Paul
your master discs (Schema, Publisher, Printers, Fonts, etc) and Iæm sure
that (for a reasonable fee) Paulæs team will not only put together a
RiscPC to your specification, but will install on it all your favourite
packages and check out that they work together harmoniously. Such an
installation service for the nervous takes all the hassle out of
upgrading their system.
9.11
Paul will have to speak for himself but Iæve been asked if Iáknow of any
company which will transfer all my correspondentæs favourite software
from his current A3000 hard disc to a new RiscPC which he hasnæt bought
yet. He wants to go to a supplier who will provide that service. Iáhave
suggested to him that he tries Norwich Computer Services and gets a
quote for a Mix and Match RiscPC to his specification with all his
software packages and his own personal data files installed thereon and
ready to go. At present heæs still thinking about it. So Paul, is this a
market youære willing to service?  (Of course there is Ö you know me,
Gerald Ö Iæll do anything for money! Ed.)
9.11
Finally
9.11
Thank you for all your letters. Iáenjoy them all. Please feel free to
write to me about any matter Iáraise, even if it has nothing to do with
computers. Iáwill reply.
9.11
If your letter is technical, please include a disc with an example. My
address is that of Abacus Training given at the back of Archive.áuá
9.11
Puzzle Corner
9.11
Colin Singleton
9.11
I was perhaps a little unkind in reporting that Puzzleá62 Athletics and
Football had defeated many readers. It is never my intention to
deliberately mislead, though in this case I appear unwittingly to have
succeeded. Dr Riha and Tony Ward solved the puzzle by pure mathematics
and showed that the radius of the curves is 100pîp▓Ö4 and the football
pitch is 100 metres by 200î┌(p▓Ö4)
9.11
The latest winners ...
9.11
(66) The New Chairman
9.11
An excellent response to this puzzle, and nearly all got it right Ö or
rather their machines did. I think everyone used a computerised slog
technique. Fair enough Ö isnæt that what computers are for? The prize
goes to Ed Harris of Royston, Herts.
9.11
(67Ö69) St Andrew Ö Four Points Ö Cigarettes
9.11
Only two readers found six arrangements of four points and the
arrangement of seven cigarettes. Several readers chickened out of the
latter on the dubious grounds that they do not smoke! Clive Semmens of
Ely wins the prize.
9.11
... last monthæs answers ...
9.11
(70) Noniamonds
9.11
The slightly cumbersome name was coined by TáHáOæBeirne of Glasgow,
writing in New Scientist ináthe early sixties, derived from the fact
that a (mathematical) diamond comprises two triangles. Entries that I
have received so far have solved five of the eight tessellations. I will
hold this puzzle over for another month or two, to see if we can
complete the set Ö please ignore the deadline printed last month.
9.11
(71) Ninety-nine
9.11
If N is the number, and it has d digits, we can deduce that
10╖Ná+á10d+1á+á1á=á99╖N, whence 89╖Ná=10d+1á+á1. The puzzle can now be
solved by long division Ö divide 89 into 1000...001 Ö just keep going
until it Éworks outæ. The smallest answer is
112359550561797752809á╫á99á=á11123595505617977528091.
9.11
(72) Multiple Primes
9.11
Another computer slog, I think. Eleven primes can be formed from the
digits 1, 2, 3, 7 and from 1, 2, 7, 9.
9.11
(73) 1000000! Again
9.11
My apologies for printing the wrong puzzle number (69) last month. I
have received several answers of varying length, including two which
agree to 1024 digits. The number is
8.263931688331240062376646103172666+á╫ 105565708. A reasonable
approximation (six significant figures) can be obtained from Stirlingæs
Formula n!ᣫá┌(2p)á╫áeÖná╫ánn+╜. This qualifies as a Quickie Ö any
other approach perhaps does not!
9.11
The same accuracy can be achieved from a small program which totals the
logarithms of the numbers 2Ö1000000 using double-precision arithmetic
(as in Basic64). To achieve more than about eight correct digits, you
must multiply the numbers using multi-length arithmetic, retaining the
first however-many digits at each stage. Several readers have failed to
appreciate the extent to which the inevitable rounding errors are
multiplied to swamp the correct portion of the value.
9.11
... this monthæs prize puzzle ...
9.11
(74) Backing the Horses
9.11
This puzzle was inspired by one in a recent Weekend Supplement of the
Daily Telegraph. At the Utopia Racecourse there is no betting tax, and
the bookmakers do not make a profit! For example, ifáthere were three
horses in a race quoted at 1:1, 2:1 and 5:1 against, you could stake ú3
on the first, ú2 on the second and ú1 on the third, and no matter which
horse wins, the bookie would pay you ú6 (including your winning stake
returned) which is precisely the total you staked! Under the Utopian
rules, the combination of odds must always allow this trick to work with
a suitable choice of stakes. Got that?
9.11
In the Prime Fillies Stakes (sponsored by British Beef), the number of
horses is always a prime number, and each of the odds¡to¡one¡ against is
a different prime number. What is the smallest possible number of horses
in the race? The number one is not prime, so the trio above, including
even money (1:1), is not a solution.
9.11
For the more masochistic readers, supposing I said that the odds against
were all odd prime numbers?
9.11
... and this monthæs prize quickies ...
9.11
(75) Wrestling
9.11
Another sporting puzzle slightly modified from a contribution by John
Greening (who also helped me resolve the pitfalls of calculating
1000000! Ö Thanks John!). Assume [... think of a number ...] that a
total of 567 competitors enter the Olympic Wrestling tournament this
summer. If it is organised on a standard Éknockoutæ basis, how many
bouts will be required to determine the winners of Gold, Silver and
Bronze medals at each weight category for each wrestling style?
9.11
(76) Declining Multiples ...
9.11
Tim Tyler sent this one, which he attributes to Douglas Hofstander and
describes as an Éold goldieæ. (Iáwonder if Tim rowed for Cambridge?) A
number contains the ten digits 0Ö9, once each, and is a multiple of ten.
Lop off the last digit and you are left with a multiple of nine Ö then
lop off the next¡last and you are left with a multiple of eight, etc.
What is the number?
9.11
(77) ... of Seventeen
9.11
Yet another adapted from Scottish Mathematical Challenge! Can you find a
number of the form 7777....7774 (a long string of sevens followed by a
single four) which is divisible by 17?
9.11
And Finally ...
9.11
A flattering note from a research establishment at Oxford University
reminds me that league tables are not everything. Dr Geoff Hale has told
Paul that my column is his favourite bit of the magazine, but he never
finds time to send entries. Thanks for the ego trip, Geoff! He also has
a message for those of us who moan about number-crunching jobs running
for hours, or even days. His machine has been monitoring data from six
separate projects day and night for six years, without a break, and
without a hiccup! Definitely a feather in Acornæs cap. (Geoffásays heæs
trying to find time to write about his project for Archive! Ed.)
9.11
Please send solutions (by Friday 9th August), contributions and comments
to me, at 41 St Quentin Drive, Sheffield, S17á4PN.áuá
9.11
Ovation Pro
9.11
Gabriel Swords
9.11
Itæs been a long time coming, but Ovation Pro has arrived. This is the
first of two articles looking at the program, this being a quick
introduction to its main features, and a Éfirst impressionsæ view of it.
9.11
As Ovation Pro becomes (arguably) the only other Éprofessionalæ DTP
package for the Acorn market, it will inevitably be compared to
Impression Publisher. So, how does it compare? Well, on first
impressions, Iáthink it compares very well. In fact, if Impression
hadnæt stopped being developed, this is probably where it would be by
now! There are, of course, some things missing, and these may or may not
come with the free upgrade later in the year, but there are already a
number of things which Impression does not have. For example, although
Ovation Pro doesnæt have an abbreviations dictionary, a selective word
count, or a number of my favourite key short-cuts, it does have a
powerful and flexible macro facility, and an open scripting language
which allows the user to define, or redefine, some of its features to
suit his or her preferences.
9.11
In fact, you get the sense that this is a very open program altogether,
giving users (and presumably third parties) access to designing their
own extensions. To facilitate this, thereæs an ÉAppletsæ directory which
provides an entrance to the program for extensions. Already included are
two additional files which give support for Artworks files and old
Ovation files. In the future, additional Applets may become available
that will add extra functions to the package. There are also some sample
scripts that can be loaded into a ÉLibraryæ directory and which adds a
ÉScriptsæ option to the main menu. This leads to a number of submenus
which contain some useful additions. Believe me, there is scope here for
people to write endless articles about writing your own program
extensions!
9.11
In this way, it might be better to compare Ovation Pro with the likes of
Pagemaker or Quark Express, rather than Impression Ö six years ago, when
Iástopped using Macs, Express was designed with extensions, and uses
frames in a similar way to Ovation Pro.
9.11
The program
9.11
The Ovation Pro package comes on eight discs, with a manual, a tutorial
book and a quick reference guide. So far, Iáhave found the manual to be
well laid out, easy to understand and informative. Also on the discs are
some additional fonts, some clipart, three text filters, some sample
scripts, and a tutorial. Installing is uncomplicated and quick, as is
loading onto the iconbar.
9.11
The screenshot on the previous page, shows the main window display.
Along the top of the page, thereæs a button bar, initially with a
selection of pre-defined buttons, each of which control some function of
the program. Any of these buttons can be removed, re-ordered or re-
defined. Inside the program, there is a bank of sprites which can be
used as buttons for your own macros. To the left of the window, thereæs
a toolbox containing the eight main DTP tools, and four shape tools. The
toolbox can be moved to anywhere on the screen and re-shaped or re-
ordered to suit individual needs. Along the bottom, thereæs a movable
info palette. This contains information about the current operation
being carried out ù one very useful feature for me, is that frame size
and coordinates are always displayed in the palette.
9.11
To the left and right of the main page, there is a user definable area
called the Épasteboardæ (not shown here). This is an extra area of space
which can, amongst other things, be used for placing odd bits of text or
pictures until youære ready to use them. The pasteboard is saved when
you save a file, but will not be printed unless its contents spill onto
the main page.
9.11
Frames
9.11
The program is frame-based and, by default, new frames have text flow
switched on and colour filled with white. As far as that goes, itæs the
same as Impression, but from here on, everything changes. To begin with,
a frame doesnæt have to be a rectangle. It can be elliptical or
irregular. Frames can also be drawn freehand using one of the shape
tools (seeábelow) ù these are like the straight line and curve line
tools found in Draw. You simply draw your shape, double click on the
line, and the frame is created Ö irregular frames are not limited to
graphic frames only, but apply to text as well. As you can see, the text
assumes the shape of the frame.
9.11
Once a frame has been created, there are some very flexible text flow,
stand-off and insert options. For example, Éinsertæ and Éstand-offæ can
both be edited to make any shape on the inside or outside of a frame Ö
see below. Here, the internal text repel has been changed to make the
internal shape irregular. This gives you the ability to vary the
internal repel on each side. You can also see that the external shape
has been changed, repelling the text on the right hand side. Where a
frame is curved, bezier control points are provided to give a greater
degree of control over the smoothness of lines.
9.11
Where a frame contains a graphic, as shown below, text flow can be set
so that the text flows around the shape of a graphic rather than the
frame itæs in.
9.11
Linking one frame to another is achieved by using a Link tool; this
directs the flow of text from one frame to another. Even after the link
has been made, itæs a simple matter to un-link, or change the link to
another frame. Any frame, text, or picture can be rotated or skewed, and
text remains editable in any of these states. Frames which contain text
or graphics do not become permanently fixed to text or graphics; so, if
you remove the text from a frame, a graphic can be dropped in to replace
it; if you remove the graphic, text can be dropped in.
9.11
As well as altering frames individually, they can also be changed
globally. Multiple frames can be selected, and various attributes
assigned to them collectively ù like text flow, fill colour, size,
relative position, angle and skew, etc. This means you can select, say,
five frames, all with different attributes, then apply one style to all
of them, all at one go. Finally, selecting frames can be done
individually with select/adjust, or all together with select all, or
selectively using       shift/ctrl and drag select.
9.11
The way Ovation Pro works with frames is a good example of how the
program operates as a whole. You arenæt just given a few static options
and left frustrated Ö instead, the whole process has been well thought
out, with flexibility being a key feature. This will be welcome to
anyone who has had to select twenty individual frames for deleting, or
has had to change one feature in each of them.
9.11
Miscellaneous features
9.11
Some of the other features on offer are:
9.11
Grid: A grid can be superimposed onto the page and used as a guide for
placing frames and graphics; additionally, guide rules can be dragged
from the horizontal and vertical rulers and can be placed accurately by
typing a coordinate; objects can be snapped to the grid or other frames.
9.11
Styles and Effects: There are full style and effects options Ö weæll
look at these next month.
9.11
Search and Replace: The search and replace works very much like search
and replace in Edit, with a drop down window for wildcards ù it works
very quickly and tells you how many items have been replaced once it has
finished.
9.11
Spell checking: The spell checker is quick in operation, with very fast
screen re-draw as it moves through the text. Iæm not sure yet if itæs as
intuitive at guessing my mistakes as Iáwould like it to be ù only time
will tell.
9.11
Drawing: As already mentioned, there are two drawing tools, a straight
line and curve tool. These work in the same way as they do in Draw. The
start and ends of lines can be set to butt, round, square or triangle,
and thickness, colour, pattern, join can also be set. It makes drawing
the odd line with arrow head a much simpler operation. As with other
objects, lines can be rotated.
9.11
Drag and Drop: Pictures and text can be dragged and dropped onto any
page in a document, or to another document outside of the current one.
Selected items will either be copied or moved, depending on whether
shift or ctrl is held down.
9.11
Invisibles: This shows or hides symbols that represent invisible
characters in a document, like spaces and line returns. When invisibles
are enabled, the invisible characters are represented by symbols. For
example, a new paragraph is represented thus ╢, aáspace is shown
as╖dot╖between╖╖words.
9.11
Duplicate: This duplicates frames and lines by as many times as the user
requires.
9.11
Other: Also included, in no particular order, are: kerning, tracking,
vertical shift, sub and superscript, underline, strikeout, small caps,
reverse, case change, text colour, OLE, picture cropping, make local/
make master, Thesaurus, Mail Merge, etc.
9.11
Conclusions
9.11
So far, Iáhave been very impressed with Ovation Pro. Itæs not just the
features that it offers, itæs the way it has been designed. Being so
open, it lends itself to change and development, and not just from its
original designers. There could easily be scope for third party
extensions (providing there isnæt some licensing problem!)
9.11
Drawbacks? There arenæt any yet, but by the end of the month, Iáwill
probably have a Éwish listæ. One problem with this version is that it
hasnæt implemented control for colour separations and some other
professional features. Having to wait until the autumn for these, means
Iáwonæt be able to use Ovation Pro as much as Iáwould like to. When they
have been implemented, registered users will receive free upgrades.
9.11
Stability? So far, Iáhavenæt been using it for long enough to see how
stable it is. Beebug admit there are still some bugs they know about,
but these are being worked on, and in the meantime, they suggest you
save your files regularly. As a professional user, Iáreally, really hate
crashes! Not only do Iálose the last ten minutes of work, but
Iáinvariably have to re-boot my computer, re-load my work and pick up
from where Iáleft off ù this does not make me happy. One of the things
Iáshall be hoping for is that Ovation Pro proves to be more stable than
other professional DTP packages Iácould mention!
9.11
Next month, weæll look at some more of Ovation Proæs features, including
text styles and effects, master pages, and working with pictures.áuá
9.11
Using the Vision 24 Digitiser
9.11
Jim Nottingham
9.11
The HCCS digitiser system is now well-established, having been on the
market for some three years. Under the name Vision, it started life in
cheap-and-cheerful, 254-line, monochrome form and the Hi-Vision/colour
upgrade was reviewed in Archive 6.2 p23. The system continues to be
developed, and I am looking in this article at Vision 24 (the palatial
24-bit colour version) which has been with us for a while and a
Épanoramaæ function upgrade which is now available.
9.11
The system is extraordinarily flexible in that interfaces are available
in both 254 and 508-line versions for internal fitting in all Acorn
models (except A4) with additional external options for the A3000. It
doesnæt even stop there, as micropodules are available for the
innovative Ultimate system (described in Archive 6.5 p11). The pricing
structure for all that, including upgrades, is fairly complex, so
details will be set out on the monthly disc.
9.11
This review has been conducted using a 508-line micropodule, with the
Panorama upgrade, installed ináa RiscPC 700. The few functional
differences between this and other variants will be discussed in the
course of the review. Video terminology and factors affecting digitiser
performance were covered in the lead-in article last month (9.10 p56).
9.11
Hardware installation
9.11
The interface podule installation is entirely straightforward with no
lurking nasties. The only connection required is for the source video
via a D¡plug at the rear of the podule. However, a 1m adaptor lead is
provided with a composite video phono socket which enables easy
connection to a camcorder, video still camera, VCR, TV output, AUX
output of a Teletext adaptor, etc.
9.11
Software installation
9.11
The !Vision 24 software (Version 7) comes on a single floppy disc and
can be copied to, and run from, hard disc.
9.11
The full 508-line application software with Panorama is 464Kb on disc
and, when loaded onto the iconbar, takes up 1148Kb of RAM. In theory, it
might just be possible to run a 254-line version from floppy disc and
2Mb RAM, but that would probably limit usage to single-image, monochrome
digitising. To make use of 24-bit colour, the multi-image function, and
Panorama, at least 4Mb RAM and a hard disc with a few spare Mb becomes
the minimum requirement.
9.11
Documentation
9.11
The original and oft-criticised Vision user-guide (inásprite format) has
been replaced by a well-written, 8¡page, A5 booklet. With the Panorama
upgrade comes a 20-page booklet, in two sections, to take in the new
facility. There is considerable duplication between the two parts, but
this is actually very helpful as, in effect, each is a self-contained
user-guide for Vision 24 and the Panorama Ébolt-onæ.
9.11
Capturing an image
9.11
Grabbing a single image is uncomplicated and largely intuitive. Double-
clicking on the !Vision 24 application puts a É24æ icon onto the
iconbar, and clicking on that opens the Vision preview window and
control panel. Clicking <menu> over the window gives various control
options.
9.11
The screen mode needs to be set to 256 greys/colours or higher but, if
desired, the digitised output can be pre-set to give 32K or 16M colours.
Clicking on the Play button (2) displays the incoming video, in
monochrome, in the preview window. On the RiscPC, this is refreshed at
2-3 times/second which is perfectly adequate for grabbing a static or
slow-moving image. When the wanted image is seen, clicking on the Stop
button (1) freezes the display and shows the image currently held within
the framestore.
9.11
To process a colour image, clicking on the C button (5) opens a larger
Vision Image window which, initially, is blank but then the image is
gradually built up, line-by-line, to fill the window. On the RiscPC,
this takes some 25 secs for the first field, followed by a further 25
secs for the second field, interlaced with the first. For a monochrome
output, pressing the M button (4) gives an image in 4 secs. The end
result is a 508-line, 2-field image, in colour or monochrome, which then
can be saved as a 720╫508 pixel sprite via the Vision window menu.
9.11
All controls are Éliveæ during this process, so the brightness (7),
contrast (8), colour (9) and RGB controls (10) can be adjusted and the
effect observed on subsequent lines. Clicking again on C or M
re¡processes the whole image using the revised control settings. If you
make a total hash of it (easy!), clicking on Default (6) resets the
controls to the start-up values. When you quit Vision 24 using the
iconbar menu, the control settings at the time are saved and, when
Vision 24 is next started, these become the new default.
9.11
Adjusting the variable controls and getting the optimum effect does take
some practice, particularly as it is easy to over-compensate. It is
important to get it right at this stage as, once a fresh image is
grabbed, this overwrites the existing one. So my advice would be to take
some time over the processing and even save a number of sprites with
different control settings.
9.11
Grabbing moving images
9.11
With the preview window being refreshed at only 2¡3átimes/second at
best, grabbing the wanted image from a moving sequence is rather more
tricky. Anticipating the delay is possible, but rather hit-and-miss, so
a more precise alternative is to view the source video on a camcorder
viewfinder, or a separateáTV/monitor. Then, at the instant the wanted
image is seen, click on the G[rab] trigger button (3) which grabs that
frame. It is then displayed in the Vision window and can be processed as
normal.
9.11
This is a very effective option, and tests show thatáÖábelieve it or not
Ö it is perfectly feasible to grabáa particular image consistently to
within 1/10 second, or every 2nd or 3rd video frame.
9.11
Perversely, on occasions, nothing is grabbed at all! The reason for this
is quite understandable; while one is concentrating on the camcorder
viewfinder or    TV/monitor, it is very easy to move the mouse
inadvertently so that you arenæt pointing at the Grab trigger any more.
Then, when you click <select> on G, you Émissæ, and nothing happens!
9.11
There are two ways of getting round this. Firstly, the version 7
software introduces a Sequence option which enables a user-set sequence
of frames to be grabbed and stored temporarily either in RAM or on hard
disc. However, the frame capture rate is limited to around 4 frames/sec
(RAM) or 2 frames/sec (disc) Ö which equates to about every 6th or 12th
video frame Ö so it is not as precise as using the G trigger. Similarly,
you have to process all the frames in the grabbed sequence (at, say, 1
frame/min) before you can view the resultant sprites. Nevertheless, the
Sequence option is invaluable if you get only the one attempt (e.g. when
grabbing something from a live broadcast).
9.11
Secondly, there is the DIY method! If you have a copy of Keystroke (and,
if not, why not?!), it is possible to set up a hotkey to emulate the
action of clicking on G. For my own use, I picked a combination of
<alt><space> which works a treat.
9.11
Digitiser performance
9.11
My overall view of Vision 24 is that, within the inherent limitations of
the system, the output quality is really very good indeed. None of the
Éminusæ points are of great consequence and, indeed, in some cases, the
system makes particularly good use of what it has. Some of the system
features which limit or improve performance are as follows:
9.11
Å The 508-line performance of the 2-field system falls short of the 570-
line ideal and the resultant cropping needs to be taken into account
when taking the source video. Iæve not found this limitation to be
significant but, in readersæ emails, there is a mention of öthe area
digitised covers only about the top four-fifths of the TV picture, which
can be annoying sometimesò.
9.11
Å With a horizontal lines/pixel ratio of 1:1 and an aspect ratio close
to 4:3, the output sprite is 720╫508 pixels in up to 24-bit colour.
9.11
Å With the 508-line system, Vision 24 does not have the option to
superimpose the two fields to improve the signal/noise ratio in a noisy
environment. (Perhaps the best way of getting round this is to grab a
sequence of frames, as the instantaneous noise level on one image may be
less than the others.)
9.11
Å With the 508-line system, it is possible to process a single field
(first or second) to reduce blurring of a moving image.
9.11
Å When using the 254-line, single-field variant, or when a single field
is being processed to reduce blurring, Vision 24 (unlike some other
systems) cunningly retains the 720╫508 pixel sprite size. It does this
by processing as if both fields were available, except that the data for
the second (interlaced) field is simply a repeat of the first. Note
that, although there are still 508 pixels in the vertical, the effective
lines/pixel ratio has been halved to 1:2 instead of 1:1.
9.11
Å Output image quality using a Lo-band video source is well up to the
standard one might expect. However, when using a Hi-band, or better,
video source, some degradation is evident on image quality compared with
some (relatively expensive) digitisers. Whether this is due to the
frequency response and bandwidth characteristics of the Vision 24
digitiser itself and/or the lack of an S-Video connector is not clear.
9.11
Vision 24 Ö conclusions
9.11
To summarise the Vision 24 digitiser as tested, Iáwould say that Ö
within the limitations discussed Ö it definitely produces the goods, and
it certainly represents excellent value in terms of quality and
performance per pound. In general, it is very easy to set up and use
and, reflecting its pedigree, is entirely stable with very few rough
edges. As a universal digitiser (one solution for all users), it is
splendid.
9.11
Panorama Ö
9.11
The Big Picture
9.11
Panorama is an optional extra for use with Vision 24 (working with any
254 or 508-line interface). To get the upgrade, you need to send your
interface card to HCCS and, in return, you appear to get a Christmas
hamper! The sizeable box contains your upgraded interface and the
goodies listed below (definitely not for little fingers or glue-
sniffers).
9.11
In essence, Panorama allows you to take a rectangular sequence of
digitised frames, and get the computer to merge and blend them into a
single image of much higher definition than is normal for the single
frame. There is a limit of two frames in the shorter axis but, in
theory, there is no limit to the number of frames in the other.
Panoramic images in the vertical, horizontal or diagonal are possible.
9.11
The general procedure
9.11
The main requirements for the source images to be used by Panorama are
that they must be in 32K or 16M colour, and adjacent frames must overlap
by at least 2/3. The user-guide goes into considerable detail on how
best to prepare the source video, digitise a sequence and process the
panorama but, reduced to basics, the procedures are:
9.11
Å Capture the source video, perhaps a simple panning shot using a
camcorder, preferably mounted on a tripod.
9.11
Å Digitise a sample frame from the source video and optimise the
brightness setting etc.
9.11
Å Grab the desired sequence of frames from the source video (allowing,
say, 2 frames/second plus a few frames leeway).
9.11
Å Click on C to process the sequence. The resultant sprites are saved
into a single sprite file. (It would be feasible to use a sequence of
images from a video still camera instead.)
9.11
Å Review the sprite file, deleting any unwanted images and thinning out
the remainder to minimise the total, ensuring adjacent images overlap by
at least 2/3.
9.11
Å Select Panorama function, drag the sprite file to the É24æ icon Ö and
wait patiently!
9.11
Be very, very patient...
9.11
This is where five SA-110s on a Hydra would come in handy... To merge
and blend the images seamlessly, Panorama has to perform an enormous
amount of number-crunching and, on the RiscPC 710, this takes around 15-
25 minutes per frame. In the meantime, RAM and disc storage overheads
are considerable.
9.11
To put all that in perspective, the panorama below (Castle Howard,
a.k.a. Brideshead Revisited) started life as a 12-second panning shot.
Allowing for a little leeway, a 30-frame sequence of 32K colour images
was captured and digitised Ö total 21Mb! Six unwanted images were
deleted and, of the remaining 24, every third image was retained to
maintain the    2/3 overlap between frames.
9.11
Panorama needed just under 4Mb RAM for the processing which, to merge
and blend the nine remaining sprites, took 3hrs:40 mins.
9.11
Be very, very impressed...
9.11
After all that time, and patience, the reward comes as a 2Mb+ sprite
(2,000╫500 pixels) whose overall definition and quality is considerably
better than that of the individual images going to make up the panorama.
This has much to do with the success of the blending process and, in
general terms, the final image quality is more akin to, say, a 300dpi
scanned image than one digitised from a relatively low-resolution video
source.
9.11
Although the techniques necessary to ensure 2/3 overlap between
consecutive upper and lower frames in a 2 ╫ n panorama, are fully
explained in the user-guide, they are, to say the very least,
interesting! By the time you read this, I hope to have tried out an
alternative, undocumented technique which, if it works, could simplify
the whole procedure.
9.11
Printing panoramas
9.11
Vision 24 includes a utility to enable huge panoramas to be printed
using, say, A4 paper as Étilesæ (hence the ruler, knife and adhesive).
The number of tiles, with or without overlap or crop marks, is user-
selectable.
9.11
I havenæt tested this function rigorously but, on the basis of a brief
assessment, it appears to run as advertised. It will work with any 16-
bit or 24-bit sprite, not necessarily one prepared in Vision 24 or
Panorama.
9.11
The end bit
9.11
This monthæs offers: If any readers would care to supply one or two
formatted discs (in a jiffy bag only please) with return postage, Iæll
send you some sample images grabbed by the Vision 24 digitiser,
including the source sprite for the above panorama (1.6Mb disc required
for the 32K colour version).
9.11
If you ask, I will supply some explanatory notes about the alternative
techniques, the pricing structure and the Keystroke hotkey mentioned
above. Iæll supply the A4 envelope but please include sufficient postage
to cover 100g (e.g. two 2nd class stamps). JimáNottingham, 16 Westfield
Close, Pocklington, York, YO4 2EY.
9.11
The Vision24 digitiser (254 lines) is ú103 through Archive, and the 508
line version is ú135. The complete Panorama pack including 508-line
digitiser, 16 sheets of A4 inkjet paper, 16 foam A4 tiles, a can of
aerosol glue, a stainless steel 12 inch ruler and a knife(!) costs ú290
through Archive Ö remember to specify which computer you are using.
Upgrades are available, but only direct from HCCS, not through
Archive.áuá
9.11
VersaTile
9.11
Christopher Jarman
9.11
Several years ago, in my school, I used to have a whole lot of paper
pads with Arabic patterns on, which were wonderful for keeping children
occupied during wet playtimes. They coloured them in with fibre tips.
The publishers professed all kinds of mathematical and educational
benefit from them, but they were just entertaining.
9.11
There is something of this element in VersaTile. It claims to encourage
mathematical ideas; and indeed tessellation is a mathematics Éthingæ.
However, as in those heady days of multihedra and milkstraws, Iásuspect
that there will be more fun extracted from this application than
mathematics.
9.11
Floor pattern made in VersaTile and put into Architech as a drawfile for
a base to the model 3D minaret.
9.11
VersaTile comes on two 800Kb discs, one called the Editor disc which
contains the main application, but also free copies of Oak Solutionsæ
DrawPlot and DrawPrint. The other Examples disc contains 29 VersaTile
files showing the wide range of designs which are possible. Two A5-size
printed manuals for all these, complete the package. It is essential to
register the application before it can be used and, as is normal today,
it is easier to use when installed on a hard disc if you have one.
9.11
It is well worth looking through some of the examples before trying any
designs yourself, just to get an idea of what the program has to offer.
It is quite surprising how sophisticated the tiling patterns can become.
Anyone who has admired Arabic architecture will be able to have a go at
some of those complex designs after a short while with this package.
9.11
There are two useful tutorials in the draft manual, and I would advise
working through them slowly because the toolbar is not obvious, and this
is the best way of getting to know what it will do. I confess that,
before starting on VersaTile, I had thought that all the tiling and
tessellation one would ever need to do could be done quite easily using
Artworks. However, although it would be possible to use Artworks for
most of the patterns, VersaTile is so elegant in the way it magnetises
tiles together, either by their sides or their corners, that it is a joy
to create with it. The maximum number of sides that you may
automatically give a shape is thirty, but I found that after twenty
sides almost any shape looks like a circle.
9.11
There are tools to change the colours of tiles, the colour of their
borders and the thickness of the lines. You can rotate, reflect and
magnify and, of course, combine any number of different tiles in any
number of combinations. The program is somehow satisfyingly obedient and
neat. Tiles do not have to touch edge to edge, they can be overlapped,
grouped and generally manipulated in ways that I had never thought of,
until I tried playing about with this program.
9.11
The results can be saved as VersaTile files, or as drawfiles, so it is
possible to use your patterns immediately in DTP or other applications
such as Architech or Iotaæs Complete Animator. Or they can be dropped
into Artworks to be manipulated in all the usual ways.
9.11
It is clear that mathematicians will be able to demonstrate 2D and 3D
shapes and their properties. Many pupils will be able to discover for
themselves what is meant by congruence, translation and rotation, etc.
The manual says that, although the program is founded in mathematics, it
will be of use to Artists and Designers. Itæs a very well justified
claim.
9.11
Well, I am off to design a magic carpet, a Navajo cloak, an African wall
hanging and a Celtic belt. VersaTile will both inspire and help me.
9.11
VersaTile is available from Dial Solutions, price ú50 +VAT or ú56
through Archive.áuá
9.11
Starting Basic Ö 12
9.11
Ray Favre
9.11
Text and graphics Éviewportsæ
9.11
This session starts to introduce the keyword VDU Ö which covers a vast
range of (mainly) visual effects. It is always in the form VDUxx (where
xx is a number in the range 0-255) and often needs further numbers
attached to it as parameters. We will be devoting a later article to
this keyword alone, but for now only five VDU commands are introduced.
9.11
(The points covered below are demonstrated in the program ÉGraphTextæ on
the monthly disc Ö in rather lurid colours! The program allows you to
step through each section in sequence, by pressing any key. The REMs
suggest some changes to make to explore the effects. It is probably best
to read all the points first, then read the program REMs and take a hard
copy. Then re-read them while stepping through the running program.)
9.11
Separate viewports
9.11
So far, weæve used text in the conventional non-Wimp way Ö positioning
it on the screen using line and character spacings counting from the top
left-hand corner Ö and helped by the TAB keyword and other Émodifiersæ
when necessary. Thereæs nothing wrong with this method, but it has its
limitations.
9.11
It is important to realise that, so far, when we have put text or
graphics on the screen, we have in fact been putting the text on the
Étext screenæ and the graphics on the Égraphics screenæ. There are, in
effect, two separate Éscreensæ which can be regarded as separate
entities by the programmer Ö each with its own viewing window onto the
screen. Acorn prefers to use the term Éviewportæ, no doubt to avoid
clashing with Wimp Éwindowsæ.
9.11
Under default conditions, both text and graphics viewports are identical
in size and position (both filling the screen). Therefore, under default
conditions, text and graphics appear together, although they are in fact
overlaid. A little later, we shall see how to change these viewport
sizes and the separate text and graphic viewports will then become self-
evident.
9.11
Instructions VDU 4 and 5
9.11
Having separate text and graphics viewports raises the question of how
to get both text and graphics onto one viewport. Fortunately, BBC Basic
is very flexible. If we issue the Basic instruction VDUá5, theátext
cursor is made to move to the graphics viewport and to coincide with the
graphics cursor. The text cursor is then inseparable from the graphics
cursor Ö and just as invisible. Text can now be written on the graphics
screen and positioned (more precisely than in the text viewport) with
graphics statements e.g. MOVE. When youæve finished, VDUá4 separates the
cursors again, putting the text cursor back to the text viewport Ö and
to the exact position it was when the VDUá5 command was issued.
9.11
Once the VDUá5 instruction has been issued, the text colour control/
plotting actions (not yet covered fully in this series) are determined
by the graphics colour/plotting actions in force Ö so, for instance, to
set the text colour you need to use the GCOL keyword.
9.11
Despite this change of text controlling actions, many of the usual text
cursor control commands e.g. linefeed, carriage return, TAB, etc all
still move the combined text/graphics cursor by the correct amounts for
the display mode being used Ö but the text no longer scrolls when the
side or bottom of the viewport is reached.
9.11
For instance, letæs assume you have already issued the VDU 5
instruction, and the combined text/graphics cursor happens to be
somewhere near the centre of the screen. If you now issue the
instruction PRINT öabcò (i.e. without a semi-colon or other cursor-
controlling commands) the combined text/graphics cursor will print öabcò
at the current cursor position and then jump to the left-hand edge of
the viewport one line down Ö just as it would do in the text viewport.
9.11
However, when you are using VDU 5, this feature willápossibly not be
what you want Ö so you will find that you will be using the semi-colon
at the end of a PRINT statement very much more, to hold the combined
cursor at the end of the printed text. Betterástill, you will get into
the habit of moving theácombined text/graphics cursor to exactly where
you want it before each text/graphic printing/plotting action. This is a
far safer practice, because it then doesnæt normally matter where the
cursor ends up afterwards.
9.11
Similarly, when using VDU 5, you need to be a little careful about using
TAB (with a single number) after a PRINT statement ending with a semi-
colon. As with the normal text screen, if the cursor is already past
your TAB number, it will jump to the next line before printing starts.
9.11
For these reasons, it is less common to see text cursor control
commands, apart from the semi-colon perhaps, being used after a VDU 5
has been issued.
9.11
Text character position
9.11
Using VDUá5, there is an immediate difference seen in the way the text
position is defined Ö compared to what we are used to in the text
viewport Ö because the graphics origin (point 0,0) is at the bottom
left-hand corner of the default screen and positive y-axis values move
the cursor upwards.
9.11
A second, consequential, difference is that text characters are now
printed with the top left-hand corner of their Écharacter gridæ at the
cursor position. (The Écharacter gridæ can best be thought of as a
standard rectangular grid of pixels used to define the letter shapes.)
In the text viewport, we are used to the cursor being positioned in line
with the bottom of the text characters.
9.11
Try printing text at graphics point (0,0) to see these differences Ö
youæll only just see the tops of some letters. (If you are puzzled why
you can see the tops of some letters, rather than nothing at all,
remember that plotting point (0,0) actually plots the bottom left-hand
pixel on the screen. Refer back to Part 10 about screen resolution and
pixel sizes.)
9.11
Overwriting
9.11
With VDU 5, if you overwrite one piece of text by another, the original
will not be deleted Ö it will be, literally, overwritten. This enables
some good text effects to be achieved; e.g. repeating some words in a
different colour and offsetting them slightly produces shadow effects.
9.11
Defining viewports (VDU 24, 26 and 28)
9.11
We can very easily redefine the graphics and text viewports Ö using
VDU24 and VDU28 respectively. They both work in a similar manner, but
there are differences.
9.11
VDU28 takes the form:
9.11
VDU 28,LeftmostTab%,BottommostTab%, RightmostTab%,TopmostTab%
9.11
Note that there are four numbers after VDU28 and they are separated by
commas. These numbers, as suggested by the variable names used above,
define the position and size of the rectangular text viewport. The
values are in text coordinates, i.e. character tab and line positions on
the default viewport Ö and the resulting rectangle will include the
positions given. So:
9.11
VDU 28,5,10,15,0
9.11
will change the text viewport to a rectangle 11 text characters wide
(from tab position 5 to tab position 15, both inclusive, on the default
screen) and 11 lines high (from line 0 to line 10 inclusive).
9.11
Note that this command only allows you to redefine a smaller text
viewport somewhere within the default text viewport. If you use a number
larger than the maximum characters-per-line or lines-per-page available
in the screen mode in use, the command will revert to the default
viewport. (As this happens without an error message, the cause can be
less than obvious sometimes. Be particularly careful if you develop a
program in one mode and change it later.)
9.11
Having redefined the text viewport, all subsequent text printing
operations will occur in the new viewport and its top left-hand corner
will be the new tab position (0,0). Normal scrolling will occur at the
new viewport boundaries. Anything already on the screen before the VDU28
instruction, and outside the new viewport, will remain.
9.11
There is nothing to stop you redefining the text viewport in this way as
often as you like, and many programs do this, e.g. to get a scrolling
window within other, static, text.
9.11
It really is as simple as that, but donæt forget that having issued such
an instruction, the new viewport will not be self-evident on the screen
unless, for example, you then redefine its background colour, for
instance.
9.11
VDU 24 takes the form:
9.11
VDU 24,LeftmostPoint%;BottommostPoint%;RightmostPoint%;TopmostPoint%;
9.11
Note the semi-colons after the first comma Ö and the extra semi-colon at
the end. This time, the values are in normal graphics OS units and again
you can only redefine a graphics viewport smaller than, and within, the
default screen size for the screen mode in use. (However, this time
there is a rider to which we will return later, concerning what happens
if we alter the graphics origin.)
9.11
With VDU 24, the graphics origin is not automatically changed. Graphics
commands will act exactly as before, but only those actions which cause
plotting within the redefined window will actually become visible Ö so
the effect is very much more like a smaller window on a larger screen.
9.11
VDU 26 simply returns everything to the default viewports (and returns
graphics origin to bottom left-hand corner if it has been changed).
9.11
Final point
9.11
If you issue a VDUá5 command in a non-Wimp program, ensure that your
error traps issue a VDUá4 before they report an error to the screen.
Otherwise an error occurring while the VDUá5 is in force might well
print its error message outside the viewport and you will have no idea
that an error has occurred, nor whatæs gone wrong.
9.11
(Now is the place to examine the demonstration program, ÉGraphTextæ.)
9.11
Back to the ÉLoanæ
9.11
program ...
9.11
To show how VDUá5 is used in practice, ÉLoan_12Aæ on the monthly disc
has been upgraded from ÉLoan_11Bæ (i.e. as left from the last article) Ö
solely in respect of some changes to the labelling on the two graphs
currently available. That is, under DEFáPROCfindNumberOfPayments and
DEFáPROCaxes(TargetLine). The only significant new point to note is how
we have used the new variable CharWidth% to offset the text to the
desired positions. CharWidth% is assigned the value 16 because we are
using a display mode which is 1280 OS units wide and can have 80 text
characters across it, i.e. 1280 / 80 = 16. There are ways to set this
offset automatically to take account of any display mode, but that is
beyond us yet.
9.11
ÉLoan_12Bæ provides the substantive upgrade for this session. It
contains the necessary lines to put the number of graphs to be plotted
under the control of a REPEAT...UNTIL loop, plus some simple algorithms
to adjust the trial interest rate each time so that the graph eventually
Éhomes inæ on the target line. To make things more attractive, the
colour of the graph changes when itæs Égetting nearæ Ö and the graph of
the final result is picked out in yet another colour. Itæs worth going
through the action in more detail...
9.11
Getting the program to converge on the answer
9.11
We firstly have to decide what accuracy we will accept for the final
interest rate answer Ö and the listing chooses 0.1% at line 3220. Having
set this, PROCaxes() is amended (lines 3660-3700) to draw two short
lines bracketing the target line near its right-hand end, to represent a
Égetting nearæ area. These lines are arbitrarily set apart at 10 times
the accuracy limit and are drawn over approximately the last 5% of the
x-axis.
9.11
Having set the initial conditions and installed the REPEAT...UNTIL loop
within DEFáPROCplots(), the trial interest rate adjusting mechanism is
called (at line 4340) after each graph is drawn. It is a two-stage
mechanism: the trial rate is firstly varied fairly coarsely, by
PROCbracket, until the program registers that it has found two trial
values which straddle the target. i.e. it has a value in the variable
LowRate which is known to be Étoo lowæ and a value in HighRate which is
known to be Étoo highæ. This condition occurs Ö see DEF PROCbracket Ö
when both CumTooHigh% and CumTooLow% become TRUE. For the first few
iterations, both LowRate and HighRate will both be either Étoo highæ or
Étoo lowæ Ö and hence only one of CumTooHigh% and CumTooLow% will be
TRUE. Once bracketing has been achieved, the interest rate adjusting
mechanism switches to PROCconverge which Ö by line 4960 Ö Éhomes inæ the
HighRate and LowRate values until the result of ÉNæ accumulations (i.e.
the right-hand end of the graph) differs from the target value by less
than the specified accuracy.
9.11
After each graph is drawn, a check is also made (line 4320) to see
whether the result is within the Égetting nearæ range. If it is, then
next time round (line 4240) the graph plotting colour is changed from
cyan to white. When the answer is reached, the final graph is re-drawn
in red. The overall effect (see Figure 1) is typically a spray of
broadly similar graphs: the cyan-coloured outer ones surrounding some
white ones, with a single, red graph among them representing the answer
value.
9.11
However, this is not always the case, as sometimes the algorithm Égets
luckyæ and hits the target with very few attempts Ö whereas, at other
times, reaching the Égetting nearæ criteria doesnæt always prevent the
next few adjustments to the trial interest rate from going outside the
Égetting nearæ area again, before finally zeroing in.
9.11
The best visual effect is obtained by having a reasonably high interest
rate (but not too high), which produces nicely curved graphs, not too
close together.
9.11
The plotting action takes place too quickly for human observation, so a
1-second pause has been added to the REPEAT...UNTIL loop, by PROCpause()
in line 4260. This PROC uses the built-in function TIME which, in this
case, simply reads the internal computer clock at the start of a
REPEAT...UNTIL loop, then keeps reading the clock again each time round
the loop Ö until the new time differs from the initial reading by more
than the number of centiseconds weæve chosen Ö in this case 100, or
1ásecond. The REMs in DEF PROCpause() should enable you to follow this
very common timing action.
9.11
There are a few other points worth noting in the listing. Because we
need to know the result of one complete accumulation of N terms (i.e.
one graph plot) before we know whether or not Ö and in which direction Ö
to adjust the trial rate, the checks need to come at the end of the
REPEAT...UNTIL loop. This means that the trial rate is adjusted once
more after the answer has been achieved, just before the loop is exited.
This could be overcome by an additional condition applying to line 4340,
but to keep it as simple as possible, Iæve overcome this by
recalculating the Éanswer rateæ after exiting the loop (line 4400) Ö
using B, which is calculated at the start of each loop and has therefore
not been altered again before exit. Also, this same B is used to re-plot
the final graph in red (line 4380) Ö because we didnæt know it was the
final one when it was drawn the first time!
9.11
Expanding the action ... next time
9.11
The program works well enough, but the action at the right-hand end of
the graph, in and around the Égetting nearæ area, is pretty cramped and
difficult to see in detail. It would be nice (and a good graphics
exercise) to zoom into that area Ö and this is what happens next time,
together with some other finishing touches.
9.11
Donæt forget the feedback, queries (and A4 SAEs for printed listings)
to: 26 West Drayton Park Avenue, West Drayton, UB7 7QA.áuá
9.11
Two patterns from the example disc
9.11
System Variables - Part 2
9.11
Andrew Berry
9.11
Last monthæs article described the use of Obey$Dir, App$Dir and
App$Path, and the list will be extended this month to cover other system
variables.
9.11
Filetypes
9.11
Each type of file associated with an application has a filetype. This is
so that the computer knows which application should load the file into
when it is double-clicked, and so that it can also display the
appropriate icon in a directory viewer. For instance, drawfiles have a
filetype &AFF. This information can be displayed by clicking <menu> over
the file in a directory viewer and following the menu structure to
display the ÉAbout this objectæ window. The filetype is displayed in
brackets in the second icon down, but for most types of file, there is
also a description of the filetype, for instance ÉDrawFileæ or ÉSpriteæ.
This extra information is known as the textual name and is set by a
system variable.
9.11
The system variables which hold this information are of the form
9.11
File$Type_xxx
9.11
where xxx represents the filetype in hexadecimal. The list of filetypes
can be displayed by typing
9.11
*Show File$Type*
9.11
at the command line. Once the textual name has been set, it can be used
instead of the filetype when, for instance, setting the type of a file.
The advantage of using a textual name is that it is often easier to
remember than the hexadecimal filetype.
9.11
Using EasiWriter as an example, the !Boot file contains the following
line which sets the filetype &D01 to have a textual name ÉEasiDocæ.
9.11
Set File$Type_D01 EasiDoc
9.11
Run types
9.11
If you look at the list displayed by *Show, you will see a large group
of variables of the form
9.11
Alias$@RunType_xxx
9.11
with many of them followed by a statement such as
9.11
Run ADFS::Programs.$.!App.!Run %*0
9.11
Each of these lines contains information which tells the computer how to
load a particular type of file when it is double-clicked. For instance,
EasiWriter sets the system variable Alias$@RunType_D01 when it is first
seen by the filer. Thereafter, when an EasiWriter file (type &D01) is
double-clicked, the computer knows to send it to EasiWriter for editing.
If you try to load an EasiWriter file without first letting the filer
see the EasiWriter application, an error is generated because this
variable has not yet been set and the computer doesnæt know what to do
with that particular type of file.
9.11
You may notice that most lines finish with É%*0æ. This is replaced by
the filename of the object which was double-clicked, so the application
knows the filename of the file to be loaded.
9.11
Run types are usually defined in the !Boot file of the application so
that files can be loaded without first loading the application. In the
case of EasiWriter, the !Boot file contains the following line
9.11
Set Alias$@RunType_D01 Run <Obey$Dir>.!Run %*0
9.11
where <Obey$Dir> is automatically replaced by the pathname of the
EasiWriter directory, as described last month.
9.11
Print types
9.11
These are similar to run types, and determine the action to be taken
when a file is dragged to a printer driver. Although it is more usual to
print a file from within an application, dragging some types of file to
a printer driver will load the appropriate application and then print
the file. For this to work, a system variable of the form
9.11
Alias$@PrintType_xxx
9.11
must be set. Again, using EasiWriter as an example, the !Boot file
contains the following line.
9.11
Set Alias$@PrintType_D01 Run <Obey$Dir>.!Run -p
9.11
Note that this line includes a trailing space after É-pæ.
9.11
App$Options
9.11
This is used to hold start-up options for the application ÉAppæ, and
will normally be included in a desktop boot file. It consists of a list
of options separated by spaces. If an option can be set either on or
off, it should consist of a single character followed by É+æ (for on) or
Éæ- (for off), for example ÉP+æ or ÉDæ-. Other options should consist of
a single character followed by a number, for example ÉD24æ. Your
application should only save those options which differ from the
default. If all options are in the default state, this variable should
not be set.
9.11
Options for Draw are set by the variable Draw$Options, the use of which
is described in the User Guide. For example, I have added the following
line to my !Boot application.
9.11
Set Draw$Options MS
9.11
This causes Draw to start up with ÉSelectæ, being the default tool for
each new file which is created or loaded.
9.11
Alias$...
9.11
One of the first lines displayed by *Show is
9.11
Alias$. : Cat
9.11
Without this line, you would not be able to use the abbreviation É*.æ to
display the current directory ù you would need to type *Cat each time.
Other abbreviations can be set in this way. For instance, if you often
type ÉRMReInit SpriteUtilsæ then you could set the system variable
ÉAlias$RMæ (or other suitable abbreviation in place of ÉRMæ) by typing
the following
9.11
*Set Alias$RM RMReInit SpriteUtils
9.11
after which, typing *RM would execute the command É*RMReInit
SpriteUtilsæ. The characters %*0 can also be used as shown.
9.11
*Set Alias$RM RMReInit %*0
9.11
Again, the command RM has replaced RMReInit, but can now be used with
any module title, not just SpriteUtils. For instance, typing É*RM
Percussionæ would execute the command É*RMReInit Percussionæ, because
anything entered after ÉRMæ is substituted for %*0.
9.11
These are rather trivial examples, but it would be possible to build up
your own series of system variables to replace long commands which you
often type. Lines to set these variables could be included in a boot
file.
9.11
A useful application of this type of system variable has been suggested
by Alex Singleton. For protection purposes, it is possible to redefine
the command É*Configureæ to essentially disable any reconfiguration of
the computer from the command line, for instance in a school. The
following line should be included in a boot file.
9.11
Set Alias$Configure Echo This computer cannot be reconfigured|M||
9.11
Any attempt to use the *Configure command will now produce the message
given. To bypass the protection the command
9.11
*Unset Alias$Configure
9.11
must be entered, after which *Configure will work as normal.
9.11
CLI$Prompt
9.11
The usual command line prompt is single asterisk (*) but this can be
changed by the use of the system variable CLI$Prompt. For an example of
this, type the following at the command line.
9.11
*Set CLI$Prompt <143>
9.11
In this case, the angular brackets do not denote a system variable, but
the character with ASCII code 143 (Å). You will see that the command
line prompt will change from the usual É*æ to ÉÅæ. A more useful
application of CLI$Prompt would be to display the current time followed
by an asterisk. This is achieved by the use of the following line.
9.11
*SetMacro CLI$Prompt <Sys$Time> *
9.11
Donæt worry about the use of SetMacro ù this will be described next
month. If youære interested in the difference between Set and SetMacro,
try using Set in the above example and look for the effect this has on
the prompt.
9.11
Miscellaneous
9.11
The current time, date and year are held by the system variables
Sys$Time (as used above), Sys$Date and Sys$Year respectively. Wimp$Scrap
holds the full pathname of the Wimp scrap file which should be used for
data transfer. Wimp$ScrapDir holds the full pathname of the scrap
directory within the application !Scrap which can be used for storing
temporary files. Desktop$File holds the filename of the Boot file which
was run when the desktop first started up. Finally, Wimp$State has the
value Édesktopæ when the desktop is running and Écommandsæ otherwise.
9.11
Next month
9.11
In the final article next month, Iæll describe the use of File$Path and
Run$Path and explain how to set system variables using *Set, *SetEval
and *SetMacro. If you have any comments or corrections concerning this
article, please write to me at: 39 Lancaster Avenue, Sandiacre,
Nottingham, NG10 5GW.áuá
9.11
Mission Control: Crystal Rain Forest 2
9.11
Mike Tomkinson
9.11
One software house that has consistently produced high quality products
for the Acorn platform is Sherston Software. Their latest offering only
suffers from a long title Ö Mission Control: Crystal Rain Forest 2. It
is presented in the customary plastic wallet and consists of four discs,
a User Guide, various task cards, an educational ideas booklet, some
maps, a colour poster and some fact cards Ö quite a package even before
you load it up!
9.11
The stated educational aim of the adventure is to introduce primary
school pupils to control technology in a highly original and motivating
way. That comes straight from the User Guide and so the package should
be judged against the stated aim.
9.11
Loading the game is straightforward and its runs from hard or floppy
disc. The software is copy protected by the key disc system, which
requires a Startup disc to be in the disc drive at startup. This is for
the Single User version, although an unprotected version is available
with the site licence version. I do not like copy protection although I
do see the need for it.
9.11
On running the adventure, you are prompted for the various discs as
required, or it can be installed on your hard disc. The program takes
over the whole screen, rather like the excellent Badger Trails from the
same software house and programmer, Simon Hosler. It can initially be
disconcerting for the experienced user to lose the familiar desktop, but
it has two distinct advantages for younger users Ö it presents a less
distracting screen, and it allows a greater screen area for the
excellent graphics and instructions.
9.11
The language used in a program that is aimed at junior school children
must always be considered carefully. They must be able to read it and
understand it. If the game is used in an educational setting, this would
present no real problems as the teacher could prepare the pupils by
selecting any unfamiliar words and ensuring that the pupils did
understand them. For this reason, I feel that the game is not suitable
for any other than the most capable of pupils without a reasonable level
of teacher intervention.
9.11
As an introduction to control technology, it is not suitable without
some prior knowledge and preparation. This may appear obvious, but the
game states it is an introduction whereas it might be better to consider
it as reinforcement of basic ideas, such as input and output, etc.
9.11
Whilst on the subject of terminology, the whole adventure can be
configured so that the pupils are presented with the same instructions
as the control boxes they are likely to encounter in their own school.
This is a particularly nice touch as there are now so many different
control boxes available.
9.11
It is this attention to detail that really sets this package apart. The
teacher (or parent) can customise the whole adventure for the children
using it. Parts of the game are similar to the old text-style adventure
games, and the whole package involves children in solving problems.
Although adults may be a little irritated by the characters and setting:
öThe land of Azon, on the planet Oglo, is in deep trouble...ò type of
thing, children seem to have no problem with this, and it is certainly a
tried and tested method, as Sherston have been using it for many years
in most of their now classic pieces of software.
9.11
The booklet of Educational Ideas contains just that Ö some ideas for
extending the use of the package into other curriculum areas and topics.
Mission Control could be a starting point for control technology within
a technology project, but would require some lead in, as stated above.
9.11
The package costs ú44.95 + VAT (ú50 through Archive) for a single user,
and site licences are very reasonable: ╫1.5 for Primary and ╫2 for
Secondary Schools. This represents excellent value.
9.11
In conclusion, I cannot speak too highly of this package. It is well
conceived, well presented and certainly worth the asking price. It
belongs in any Junior School attempting to present Control Technology in
an interesting and entertaining way. It is particularly suited to the
National Curriculum Key Stage 2 Programme of Study for the controlling,
monitoring and modelling section. Sorry for the lapse into National
Curriculum speak, but the program is aimed primarily at schools. Having
said that, any parent looking for something more educational than
zapping the aliens would be well advised to look at this package.áuá
9.11
Freddy Teddy Directions
9.11
Lisa and Bob Ames
9.11
Lisaæs bit
9.11
The game is a memory game. You learn about directions. There is a list
of places to go to. You go to those places and count the things there.
When you have visited the places, there is a question box. You type in
your answers.
9.11
If you want to change the counter, alter the sound effects, show names
or count the moves, just press <ctrl-T> and you will get the Teacheræs
menu. You have to type the number of your choice and you will change it.
9.11
Some children may need to write the answers down on a piece of paper as
they count them. I think it is quite suitable for children aged 4 and
over.
9.11
Bobæs bit
9.11
This is a very simple program intended to help teach the concept of
relative Left/Right, Up/Down, Forward/Backward, and absolute Left/Right.
9.11
The action takes place on a map which runs in full screen mode 12; there
are thirteen places on the map, and a random list of five places to
visit is displayed at start-up. The places include specific entry
points, where accuracy is needed, e.g. Library, Stadium, Church; and
some general areas, entered from any point, e.g. Woods, River, Market,
Square.
9.11
There are two types of Directions used; these are chosen via a teachersæ
control page. The first, absolute direction, refers to the arrow (for
Freddy); e.g. left/right and forward/backward as the character would see
it. The other type is screen-based; Up/Down and Left/Right. The
teachersæ page is where the number of objects to count is decided;
whether absolute or relative direction is used; whether the place names
are shown, and selecting move counting and sound effects on or off.
9.11
The labels for places can be shown. This is useful because the drawings
are not particularly brilliant, e.g.áthe Supermarket could well be a
block of flats! The list of places to visit can be displayed again by
pressing the space bar. Upon entry to a place, the visitor is asked to
count a number of people or things. These numbers are asked for when all
places have been visited. Lisa had to write the numbers down. (Iáfound
it difficult to remember four previous numbers while counting the slow
appearance of ten cars at the Supermarket!) The teacher can choose
between up to five or ten objects to count.
9.11
The target age group isnæt shown on the package, or in the instructions.
This is probably because the program will be appropriate at different
ages for different children. However, with the very young, operation is
difficult if the required level of reading hasnæt been achieved.
9.11
I spotted only one inaccuracy in the manual; describing extra classroom
work, the author writes; öOur own left and right are identified by the
asymmetry of our bodiesò I know what he means, but it isnæt what he
wrote! The last section in the manual is called Where Next?, and takes
the form of trailers for other Topologika software!
9.11
As part of a set of programs, perhaps there could be a subscription
system where further purchases would attract a (substantially)
discounted price.
9.11
A very effective piece of software, but all too brief for the cost.
Freddy Teddy Directions costs ú20 +VAT +ú2.50 p&p from Topologika, or
ú25 through Archive.áuá
9.11
HTML Edit 2
9.11
Chris Johnson
9.11
Some time ago in my Networking Column, I gave a short report on HTMLEdit
version 1 as it was then. Iáconcluded that it looked a useful program,
but I was yet to be convinced that it was good value for money. Since
that time, a regular series of upgrades arrived by email (what an easy
way to be supplied with upgrades!), and HTMLEdit has finally reached
version 2. To my mind, this latest version is streets ahead of the very
early versions.
9.11
New features
9.11
Let me just cover a few of its features. It is now HTML 3 compliant,
although it does not force this on you. When opening a new document, you
can choose which version of HTML you wish to be used for the header, and
if opting for the later style, it is possible to set up the colours (as
seen in a browser) using colour pickers, background texture, and so on.
Quick entry of HTML 3 styles is now supported. For example, I find the
sub- and super-script styles invaluable in scientific uses. In the
toolbar and menu system, the HTML 3 enhancements are kept separate, so
it is easy to work at the HTML 2 level. Other HTML features it now
supports include tables.
9.11
Other improvements include multiple document support Ö a major
shortcoming of the first version.
9.11
The obligatory toolbar
9.11
In common with lots of other applications, it now supports a large
toolbar. Unlike most other applications, the toolbar is not attached to
a particular window, but floats in the desktop. It operates on whichever
HTMLEdit document has the input focus, and has buttons for most
operations.
9.11
The toolbar has the capability of keeping itself on top of the window
stack. When this was first introduced in one of the beta upgrades, it
was not very intelligent, in that it kept popping up onto the top of
everything, including newly opened filer windows and even menus! I guess
the author received a lot of feedback about that one because it was soon
improved! In the latest version it only comes to the top when an
HTMLEdit window has the input focus, and even here, it is more
intelligent, since it will not force itself on top of a menu or a
browser window when it is being used to preview the document being
edited. Iánow find that I like it when I click in an HTMLEdit window to
make some changes, and the toolbar immediately comes to the surface from
under several other windows. If you do not like this behaviour it can be
turned off completely.
9.11
File import
9.11
One of the major new features is a range of file import tools. For
example, importing a CSV file will convert it into an HTML table, and
there are a number of options for converting text files into HTML
format. I have not yet used this in anger so cannot really comment. You
can now import a sprite file, and it will convert it to a GIF or JPEG
file directly.
9.11
The GIF support includes GIF89, with interlacing and masking. It is
possible either to specify the colour to use for the mask, or simply to
take it from the sprite mask, as produced in Paint. One word of warning
here. In Paint, converting pixels to the Émaskæ colour does not actually
delete what was in the sprite before masking it. The mask is interpreted
by the plotting routines in the operating system as pixels that must not
be plotted. I assume that HTMLEdit simply looks at the first pixel in
the image that is masked and uses that as the mask colour. Therefore, it
is necessary to clear the mask to a single colour not used in the rest
of the sprite and then convert it back to the mask. This is very easy to
do in Paint using the flood fill option. If this is not done, the final
masked GIF may not display correctly.
9.11
I find it is extremely quick and easy to import and link to an image
file, and for this feature alone, it is worth the cost of upgrading from
version 1 to version 2. When importing images in this way, the size of
the image is automatically inserted (essential if you wish capable
browsers to render the page before downloading the images), such things
as border thickness and alignment can be set, and the relative file path
names are set up.
9.11
Other nice features
9.11
What other things do I like? Well, thereæs the intelligent delete, that
deletes the whole of a <tag> or anchor with one keypress, and the ease
with which one can drag and drop local files to set up the correct
relative paths in hypertext links. (This only works if you keep to the
final directory structure of course.) Filing system paths are completely
Unix-compatible. Other features I have not yet made much use of, include
the handling of forms, and the use of master pages to set up new
documents.
9.11
Browser support
9.11
HTMLEdit can be used in parallel with any RISC OS browser to get a
preview of your pages, with a single click on a toolbar button. In fact,
it is recommended you use more than one browser to make sure your pages
display correctly. I had become so used to using ArcWeb, that it came as
a bit of a shock when I used Webster and Webite off the latest AU CD-ROM
to test some of my pages. (They all worked all right, but just looked
örather differentò, with different font styles, colours and so on.)
9.11
Value for money?
9.11
Is HTMLEdit value for money? At ú45, it is not cheap, but it now has so
many features which put it well ahead of the various public domain add-
ons to certain editors, that I believe it is money well spent, if you
are serious about producing HTML documents. I have found it to be
invaluable. It is not WYSIWYG of course, but since the whole idea of
HTML is to allow the browser to render pages as it sees fit, you cannot
strictly have WYSIWYG anyway.áuá
9.11
Chris Johnson <[e-mail]>
9.11
Small Ads
9.11
(Small ads for Acorn 32-bit computers 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.)
9.11
WARNING Ö The text file containing these small ads was the subject of a
last minute disc error! We HOPE these adverts are correct, but cannot
make any guarantees.
9.11
6x TEAC CD-56E CD ROM drive, with cables, two months old, works with a
RiscPC 700, ú75. SCSI 2 to SCSI 1 cable, new, unused, suitable for
Power-Tec board, ú16. Eddie Lord, [e-mail].
9.11
80Mb HD, Conner, IDE, ideal for A3010, ú40 o.n.o. Phone Charlie on 0116-
266-0123.
9.11
A310 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, dual floppy drives, 10Mb IDE HD, AKF11
monitor, backplane with Interword ROM, external 5╝ö floppy drives, PAL
TV adapter, Amstrad SM2400 modem, ú300. Phone [phone].
9.11
A4000 4Mb RAM, 210Mb HD, RISC OS 3.1, ú400. With AKF18, ú480, or with
AKF60, ú600. Phone [phone].
9.11
A5000 Would the person who submitted a small ad for an A5000 please send
it in again. The disc error scored a direct hit on your advert! Sorry!!
9.11
Acorn 486 card, for RiscPC, complete boxed and unregistered, with DOS 6,
unwanted gift, ú99 + VAT, try it out then use it to save ú200 +VAT off a
5x86 card. Phone Harry on 01895-630344.
9.11
AKF60 multisync, boxed as new, ú150 o.n.o. Phone William on 01475-
673063.
9.11
Free to a deserving cause: 135 issues of Acorn User (almost all of Nov
æ83 to Dec æ95), 61 issues of The Micro User (Dec æ83 - Oct æ89). Buyer
must collect from Chelmsford, or pay carriage. Phone Derrick on 01245-
225671 after 7pm.
9.11
Job offer from Pineapple Software: Pineapple are looking for a new full-
time employee to handle technical queries, telephone sales and general
running of day to day business. Training can be provided. Phone Jim on
0181-599-1476 for details.
9.11
RiscPC 600, 8+2Mb, 420Mb, 17ö  AKF85 monitor, 16-bit sound card, Cumana
CD drive with mixer, 486-33 PC card, ú1650. Good offers considered.
Phone [phone] eves.
9.11
Software: Times CD-ROM Sampler (DOS only) ú10, Populous (game) ú10,
Event (diary) ú5. Will sell all three for ú20. Phone [phone] eves.
9.11
Wanted, 4-8Mb RAM expansion for A5000. Phone John on 01942-884738.
9.11
Wanted, ArchiTech or Apollonius PDT, will collect. Phone [phone].
9.11
Wanted Any Acorn machine with RISC OS 3.1 or later, 4+Mb RAM, hard disc,
1.6Mb  floppy, CD¡ROM, multisync monitor. Complete or nearly. Total cost
within ú1,000. Contact Anthony on 0113¡226-9059 or as
[e-mail].áuá
9.11
SPEX Plus and SPEX Environments
9.11
Bob and Lisa Ames
9.11
We reviewed Spex version 1, published then by ExpLAN Software, in
Archive 7.2 p75, but SpexPlus (Environment Designer) is now distributed
directly by Aspex Software. It is supposed to be an improvement on Spex
and, certainly, it arrived with several more, very welcome,
environments. The various environments are chosen in the opening page of
the software from a new menu with better, smaller icons than the
original program.
9.11
SpexPlus came to me with several additional discs: Home Environment disc
1, Moon Base and Street Scenes, Leisure Pool, Items for a Primary
Classroom, and a disc of clipart. The Home Environment with SpexPlus is
the same as that included with the first version, except that a few
items are omitted, notably the bunk beds from the bedroom. It was nice
to see another of my original criticisms addressed Ö the mains sockets
(called Éplugsæ) in the ÉFittingsæ collection, can now be positioned
half-way up the wall for use in kitchens, etc.
9.11
The biggest difference between the programs is immediately visible. The
program disc contains an installer which allows the installation onto a
single computer and Écannot be transferredæ to another one! I hate this
type of installation! However, there are three Écountsæ on the install
disc, one for the classroom, one for the teacheræs computer and one
spare for when things go wrong Ö good idea!
9.11
The key feature of the upgrade seems to be that items may be selected
from any of the environments and used anywhere. Thus, a bath may be
placed in a kitchen should you wish to! More seriously, it indicates
that areas of criticism in my original review (the shortage of items)
have been addressed, as there is now a wealth of items available for
incorporation into any given room.
9.11
In fact, the environments are not restricted to rooms. The most stunning
of the new sets must be the Moon Base. Here, the magnification facility
is used to great effect, as a huge moonscape may be constructed,
complete with all the living quarters, air locks, observation domes, and
even moon vehicles. This was Lisaæs first and largest undertaking. Some
blank backgrounds or base plates are supplied Ö itæs fun constructing a
moon base while avoiding craters!
9.11
The other outdoors set is called Street. This takes the form of a couple
of Éblocksæ with street corners in a suburban town. The houses are
limited in their design Ö the only types available seem to be detached
and a lop-sided semi-detached. There is also choice of a pub and church
(but no graveyard!), shops and various items of street furniture. It
would have been nice to have had a choice of close-packed terraced
houses as well.
9.11
There seems to be an omission in the costings section. While the cost of
actual houses is included, ground rent, council tax, and land cost does
not seem to be represented. (The graphic representation of comparison of
costs and quantities seems important to the authors.)
9.11
The original program had only a very limited number of different sets of
environments available to choose from Ö restricted to the four basic
rooms of the house. My original review said this was a major limiting
factor, but these new sets of environments now go some way to address
this. However, there does need to be even more sets Ö I would suggest a
new set every two months, at reasonable cost.
9.11
Failing a reasonably quick, cost-effective supply of new environments, a
set of instructions is necessary. These would show exactly how to
construct new places or items. This seems very difficult to do at the
moment, as even a simple job like changing the size of a door takes a
lot of work to execute without throwing up errors. (£see Stop Press!)
9.11
The last disc, called Clip Art, is exactly the same in both issues, and
is a collection of ready-completed areas. For example, there is a sample
of each room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, etc, given in Draw (3D) format
without the plan or elevation views.
9.11
Future environment items are said to include historical eras, (Roman,
Elizabethan), workplaces (hospital, shop, office) and outdoors (to
include a garden and park). In fact, one of the manualæs screenshots of
the first menu shows Temple and Garden already available!
9.11
Each set of environment items may be made available to the main program
by double-clicking over its icon. Thus, a limited choice of groups of
items may be made available. When a set is unselected, the icon for that
set turns from full colour to grey. Although this is RISCáOS compliant,
it is not very obvious. A better approach would be for something very
different to be used, such as a similar icon but with a definite Éstrike
throughæ.
9.11
I rather like the new facility of having information on each item
available by clicking <menu> over the item entry. This gives size and
cost, amongst other data, and shows a 3D representation of it. The
pricing given may be changed and saved for future use.
9.11
Other attractive additions to the program include ÉSnap to itemæ (the
difficulty of accurate positioning of items beside each other was a
shortcoming of the original program), and ÉGrid lockæ, which is useful
for geometric designs, e.g. moon base. The ÉColour Designeræ is useful
for colouring the walls and floors of the classroom, for instance. There
is now an ability to use existing or custom-designed drawfiles as ground
plans. This is demonstrated by the fact that the new base plans for Moon
Base and Street come with the program discs of Spex+.
9.11
ÉOutlinesæ is a feature for removing the line outlines from each item,
and this creates a far more realistic effect. The kitchen units blend
into each other, for instance, as in real life. Backgrounds may now be
made, including effects such as colours, stars and graduated colour
fills.
9.11
Printing may now be scaled to fit a page, and a poster may now be
printed using many pages. There is even the facility to print individual
pages, one at a time, rather than the whole set of pages, to allow for
changes to the layout, or for printing errors.
9.11
The final new feature to mention is applying an action to a door. In
this way, connections may be made between rooms. Unfortunately, I have
not yet been able to get this to work.
9.11
The mini ÉGod-slotæ, which is obtained by leaving the program info
window on screen and watching the scroll message, is this time from
Jeremiah 29: 11-14 which starts (appropriately enough) ÉFor I know the
plans I have for you...æ Subtle Ö without being intrusive!
9.11
Conclusion
9.11
This is a very worthwhile upgrade at ú39 +VAT from Aspex Software or ú44
through Archive.
9.11
STOP PRESS
9.11
Just as I was finishing the above review, a mailshot from Aspex Software
arrived. This details some price changes, and the release of the
SpexPlus Development Kit, priced at just ú24.95 +VAT or ú28 through
Archive.
9.11
This utility appears (I havenæt seen it yet Ö watch this space!) to
enable the relationship between SpexPlus items and their drawfiles to be
made clear. This should allow users to make new custom items and also
give the ability to modify earlier work. A set of examples (with some
part-finished!) is included. Just the thing I was asking for!
9.11
The other piece of news is aimed at smaller schools. The site licence
price problem has been addressed. The full site-licence is available for
ú139 +VAT but, if small numbers of machines are used, or if the numbers
are slowly increasing, extra single-machine licences are available for
ú6.50 each, and 5 and 10¡machine licences are ú59 or ú99 +VAT
respectively. This is a much more realistic approach to multi-machine
pricing! With so many other manufacturers, the difficulty of licensing a
small or changing number of machines is often misunderstood. It is often
an unrealistic licence pricing policy which decides the eventual choice
of program. Well done Aspex!
9.11
A further improvement in the pricing (which removes yet another of my
grumbles) is the price of the new ÉBundleæ of SpexPlus items. This
consists of four environments (each worth ú19.95 +VAT, or ú23 through
Archive) for ú49 +VAT, or ú55 through Archive.áuá
9.11
The Calabash Pirates
9.11
Denise Bates
9.11
Imagine a cold, windy, snowy Monday morning in February, the first day
of half term. Imagine two boys, one aged nine the other almost seven
wanting something to do. Enter the postman with a review copy of Storm
Educational Softwareæs The Calabash Pirates, an adventure game for seven
to eleven year olds.
9.11
Installation
9.11
The software is provided on one disc and has been archived using ArcFS,
a read-only version of which is supplied. The program will run from the
floppy disc on a 2Mb machine but better performance is achieved if the
material is de-archived and installed on a hard disc. This procedure is
straightforward. Within fifteen minutes the program had been installed
to the hard disc of an A5000, RISC OS 3.1 computer and the intrepid
testers were transported to a desert island for the rest of the morning
whilst Mum simply had to keep checking on their progress.
9.11
Manual
9.11
The Calabash Pirates comes with an extremely good manual which clearly
explains hardware requirements, how to load and run the software, and
what all the various activities are. The manual also indicates which
National Curriculum attainment targets each activity relates to.
Accompanying the manual is a twelve page teachersæ reference guide which
provides a short history of piracy and gives plenty of ideas for a
variety of cross-curricular activities which a class could undertake.
9.11
Operation
9.11
The software is extremely easy to operate and any child who has mastered
mouse control, and can read instructions from the screen, should have no
problems in working unaided. In practice, this is the sort of program
where most benefit will be gained from letting children work in small
groups. The software can be configured to run at one of three levels,
shipæs cat (easy), captain (moderate) or buccaneer (difficult). This
allows the game to challenge the problem-solving abilities of children
of different ages. It also means within a class the activity level can
be tailored to the needs of individual pupils, enabling brighter
children to be stretched, or slower ones encouraged, whilst still
performing ostensibly the same work.
9.11
Activities
9.11
The Calabash Pirates is an adventure game which is set in late Tudor /
early Stuart times. Four pirates have landed on a desert island in the
Caribbean in search of their fortune. They have obtained a map from
which to work out the location of a hidden cache of treasure. In order
to find the treasure, they have to navigate themselves round the island
encountering a number of challenges on the way.
9.11
The sort of challenges include patching the sail to create a pre-
determined pattern, working out sums from symbols (at buccaneer level
the sums are not to base 10) and navigating a ship to harbour (at
buccaneer level this includes calculating the number of degrees to
turn). Successful completion of an activity gains bonus pieces of gold.
Between activities are historical questions about the time of the
pirates or exploring the New World. These are intended to stimulate
understanding of the historical context and to prompt a pupil to consult
reference books.
9.11
Teachersæ version
9.11
The program is thoughtfully supplied in two versions. One is the full
adventure game which pupils are supposed to use. The other is a
shortened teachersæ version of the challenges and is designed to allow
the teacher to investigate various activities without having to roam
around the island. Not only is this a useful facility for teachers but
it also enhances the potential of the software for class use as one
particular activity can be set for every child in the class to have an
individual turn.
9.11
Saving and printing
9.11
The game can be saved at any stage which is useful as it could easily
take a few hours to complete the adventure in a classroom situation. It
is also possible to print out the screen at any stage so long as a
RISCáOS printer driver is loaded. Quite how useful this would be is
debatable, and it would certainly be heavy on toner if each child were
to be given a printout.
9.11
Criticisms
9.11
It is difficult to find any criticisms of the program. IfáIádo have any,
it is the need to go through easy stages to get to an answer as this can
be frustrating toáa user who sees the answer straight away.
9.11
Conclusion
9.11
The Calabash pirates is a well thought out resource which successfully
links Key Stages 2 and 3 mathematics with geography and history in an
engrossing adventure. The clarity of the manual is impressive. Teachers
will find the educational benefit of the activities is optimised if the
software is used at relevant points in history and geography studies
rather than concentrating solely on the mathematical aspects. Parents
will find that it keeps seven to eleven year olds creatively occupied
for hours without needing significant adult assistance Ö especially
useful during cold, half-term holidays!
9.11
The Calabash Pirates costs ú25.99 (including VAT and p&p) from Storm
Educational Software or ú25 through Archive. At this price, it
represents excellent value for money. Details of site licences are
available from the manufacturer.
9.11
P.S. PC and Mac versions are also available Ö if you really must!áuá
9.11
Click Art Ö Sports and Games
9.11
Dave Walsh
9.11
Clipart or resource collections are arguably very difficult to review.
After all, they are static and do nothing; there is no learning curve
and their usage should be broadly similar for all users.
9.11
I have a wide range of clipart, and use it in business, training and
educational contexts, within DTP and multimedia. So, what is it that I
want from a clipart pack? Firstly, I look for art which is going to be
of use. This may seem an obvious starting point, but with the quantity
of art available in both public domain and commercial arenas, it is easy
to have a mish-mash of art from different sources that makes the good
pieces hard to find unless you have a consistent and thorough filing
system. This Matt Black pack benefits from sensible division into
appropriately named directories (borders, courts, fitness, flags,
flying, gear, horses, ice&snow, icons 1, icons 2, sports and water),
which makes finding an appropriate picture far easier.
9.11
The American heritage of the pack does mean that British sports, such as
cricket, are absent, whilst American football is well supported and
rugby becomes soccer! In all, there are about 182 coloured draw file
pictures (although Artworks copies are available separately) in the 12
categories. As I have come to expect from Matt Black, the images are
exquisitely produced and are supported by a full colour catalogue of
images, written alphabetical index and Hugh Eaglesæ !PicaPic utility.
The latter has improved greatly from earlier versions and is certainly
worth revisiting to index your clipart collections. All the images I
checked had been saved at a zoom factor of 1:1 and are ideally suited
for grey scale printout if you are not using colour. Printing them out
as line art is more difficult, but is possible with the way the pictures
have been created.
9.11
The pack has been titled öSports and Gamesò quite accurately when you
consider that images of hopscotch, lego and bridge are part of the
collection. In fact, the pack covers a wide range of sporting activity
as well, ranging from fishing and croquet through to skiing and ice
climbing. As a very rough guide, the pack contains 18 water sport
pictures, 9ágolf, 6 indoor sports, 14 games, 11 American sports, 43
sporting images relating to common school sports, 8 winter activities,
19 leisure sports (e.g. hiking, fishing etc), 24 Éadultæ games (ranging
from pool to bridge and poker to chess), 11 athletics and fitness
images, 10 flags, 8 equestrian events and 2 flying activities.
9.11
I reckon that any sports club secretary, sports shop or secondary school
PE department would make great use of much of this material for posters,
newsletters, team lists or match reports. As the images come with a site
licence, they represent very good value for a secondary school wanting
to use computers to encourage sporting activity. I would have no
hesitation in recommending the pack as a high quality source of
generalist sporting images.
9.11
The Sports & Games Click Art pack is ú35 from Matt Black (who are,
currently, including a Éfreeæ pack with every order).áuá
9.11
Notice Board
9.11
Andy Jeffery
9.11
This review is based on an early version, 1.02, of Notice Board. The
idea behind this application is to provide a simple method of producing
the kind of monitor displays that can be seen advertising, for example,
the services and efficiencies of the Post Office whilst we wait in the
queue. Any Draw or Artworks files can be used to provide a display
sequence complete with fades and even, if required, aátimer showing each
pageæs display duration.
9.11
Notice Boardæs editor provides a central window in which the whole
design of a display is created. The first task is to create a new notice
board. I found this procedure a little confusing and unconventional.
When first loaded, the editing window automatically opens with a
previously created notice board already loaded. It is necessary to use
menu on the iconbar icon to create a new file and discard the old. Also,
the create window on the iconbar is actually labelled Écreate new
pagesæ, which is confusing because, later, it is necessary to create
pages as part of the display.
9.11
Having created a new notice board and saved it to disc, Écategoriesæ
need to be created Ö these are, basically, individual directories
created inside your notice board application. Each category can be given
a priority number which will vary the frequency of display of the pages
from within that category. Pages are Draw or Artworks files and can
contain any features common to these formats Ö including, of course,
text and sprites.
9.11
Each category also specifies a template Ö once more, slight confusion is
caused by being called Étitlesæ. Aátemplate is another drawfile
containing a rectangular area in which other Draw / ArtWork files will
be displayed. The idea behind the use of a template is that a layout
design common to all the pages in that category can be provided Ö
perhaps a frame design with a heading.
9.11
Having created a category, and decided on the template, the task of
designing the pages can begin. One of the very user-friendly techniques
used in this program is the true integration between this and Draw and
ArtWorks applications. Once a file of either of these formats is loaded
Ö simply by dragging a file onto the pages section of the main editor
window, any further editing of that file can be achieved by selecting
the edit option. The page will then be reloaded back into the relevant
application for alteration, and the usual <f3> keypress will re-save the
file back inside the Notice Board application.
9.11
Once the set of pages has been designed, various options can be set
which will control the display sequence. Individual pages can be set to
be displayed at different times and on different days of the week. The
time that each page is displayed can be automatically adjusted if a page
contains more words, and a chosen graphic can be displayed moving down
the displayed page, indicating visually the amount of time that the
particular page has remaining. The format and display of a real time
clock can also be added to the display sequence.
9.11
The screen fade option provides many variations, and those selected are
applied randomly between each page in a display. It is not possible to
select individual fades for each page, but the variety of fades make a
random selection of those selected more than satisfactory. Random page
display is also available. The screen resolution and colour combination
can be chosen to take full advantage of the RiscPC specifications, but
this application will run quite satisfactory from a 1Mb RISC OS2 floppy
machine. The option to use Acornæs Squash application assists with the
production of displays on lower specification machines, and the ability
to produce a run-only display on a floppy disc is also provided.
9.11
Conclusion
9.11
This is an excellent program which could easily be used to provide a
range of applications, from a very cost-effective monitor display in a
shop window using just an A3010 and a TV, to a very professional display
of slides in a large format with 16 million colours on a RiscPC. The
only real criticism and initial difficulty I had with using this
application was with the manual, but I would assume that this early
version has since been replaced. I really wish that those who write
software would cease writing manuals. Perhaps, Archive should suggest to
software houses that reviewers be invited both to test the software and
edit the manuals!
9.11
Notice Board, costing ú35 (no VAT) from Really Good Software Company,
can be recommended as an excellent purchase.áuá
9.11
Cambridge Reading Talking Books
9.11
Rob Ives
9.11
The Cambridge reading scheme uses a variety of authors and illustrators
to give schoolchildren the chance to see a range of styles as they are
learning to read. Now, to expand childrenæs experience, Cambridge
Reading have teamed up with Sherston to produce six of their ÉBeginning
to Readæ books, as a collection of animated, talking books for the
computer.
9.11
Talking Books
9.11
Unpacking the video style case, you find six neatly stored 800Kb discs
and a slim manual. The manual is common to Acorn, Windoze and Mac
platforms, and provides instructions for installation and program use
for each OS. Also included are teacheræs notes and advice on the use of
the program. Each of the six discs contains one story, a !System folder,
a !Fonts folder containing the rather attractive ÉTabloidæ font, and a
ReadMe file with latest information about the software.
9.11
The software can be copied straight onto a hard disc but, horror of
horrors, requires the floppy to be present for the software to load.
What is the point of a hard disc if you have to use key discs?
Apparently, ifáyou purchase a site licence, this copy protection doesnæt
apply but with six discs in the pack, surely they could be liberally
handed around the school anyway! To add insult to injury, both the
Windows and Mac version appear to run from a hard disc without the need
for a key disc.
9.11
The programs are run in the usual way. A double click on the programæs
icon installs it onto the iconbar from where it can be launched with a
single click. There are a number of options available from the iconbar
menu. It is possible to choose whether the whole of a sentence is read
out when it is clicked on, or each individual word. As the program
reads, each word is highlighted. The colour of the highlighting can be
chosen here as well as the volume of the speech. Unfortunately, the
volume bar graph canæt be dragged. The arrow buttons have to be used to
set the desired volume.
9.11
A word log can be saved from the options dialogue box. This lists, along
with the time and date, which words children have clicked on and how
often. Useful, perhaps, if children are using the program unsupervised.
9.11
!PlayBook Copyright ⌐ Sherston
9.11
            Software Ltd, 1995
9.11
Word usage log file.
9.11
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
9.11
Book: Hot Day
9.11
Date: Sun Mar 31 15:55:35 1996
9.11
Word         Amount
9.11
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ-
9.11
shoes          1
9.11
jeans          1
9.11
the            3
9.11
floor          2
9.11
The stories
9.11
The six stories are written and illustrated by five different authors
and artists. The pictures are delightful, and the animations add an
extra dimension not possible in a paper book. All the pictures are based
on 256 colour sprites, although they also look good on a 16 colour
screen. For some reason, when Iátried to change to 16-colour mode to see
what it looked like, the font information was lost. It was easily
reloaded by clicking on the modified !Fonts application supplied on the
discs.
9.11
The stories are aimed at Key Stage 1 children (Infants) but were
sufficiently interesting to engage the children in my year four class.
Use of the books is simple, with four basic icons used to control them.
Right and left arrows move forward and backwards in the book. An eye
button is used to play animations and an ear button reads the words on
the page.
9.11
A click on the menu gives a range of choices. The index is a simple list
öPage 1, Page2, Page 3...ò Although this is functionally OK, it would be
nice to have a visual index with a thumbnail picture of each page Ö as
in P.B. Bear. This wouldnæt take up much disc space Ö there are only
eight pages in each book Ö and it would make the index much more usable.
9.11
The books can be set to read to you. Buttons animate at appropriate
moments, and the animations with sound effects are shown, as well as the
story being read. The single-tasking option allows the book to fill the
whole screen, and also speeds up operations on earlier machines
guaranteeing that highlighted words and speech are synchronised. This
was very well-behaved, returning you to the screen mode you left when
you have finished.
9.11
The only problem was with RiscPC and A7000 computers where the screen
stayed a blank grey for some 30 seconds after the program had finished.
This is a problem with the Windows Manager Module according to the
readme file on the disc, which says, ö...you will notice that when
<ctrl-q> is pressed to return to the desktop...ò and then goes on to
mention the above problem. Weird Ö when <ctrl-q> is pressed nothing
happens! According to the manual, you should use either <Esc> or <f12>
to return to the desktop!
9.11
As well as using the icons, it is possible to activate the animations by
clicking on the pictures. There are usually two or three simple
animations on each page. Although they are small, they are of a high
standard and certainly entertain young readers. The six stories cover a
range of topics from ÉMy Petæ, as seen in the illustration, to ÉThe
Picnicæ and ÉWhat For?æ There is no common theme apart from high quality
of illustrations and well chosen language.
9.11
Conclusion
9.11
These talking books are of a high standard, and Iáwould have no
hesitation in recommending them to either class teachers or special
needs departments in search of extra support materials. The pictures are
wonderful, the sound effects well done and the speech is clear and well
synchronised to the highlighted words. My only reservation is the
horrible key disc protection. Cambridge Reading Talking books need RISC
OS 3 and 2Mb of memory. They cost ú40 +VAT from Sherston or ú47 through
Archive. This compares favourably with the ÉBig Booksæ, large books for
class reading available from Cambridge Books, which cost ú9.95 each.áuá
9.11
Physics Tutor Levels 5-8
9.11
Charles Hill
9.11
This is best described as a self-contained revision/learning program
aimed at levels 5-8 of the Science National Curriculum section on
Physical Processes. The package comes with an 8-page manual and is on
two discs Ö 3Mb of hard disc space is recommended for a single subject.
The version reviewed was 1.50 (July 1995).
9.11
The program was run on an A5000 computer with no problems except for a
slight hitch during installation Ö I have reviewed a demonstration
version, but the original !Sprites file was incorrect and froze the
computer. A telephone call and some simple editing quickly solved the
problem.
9.11
The program runs as a multiple choice type test. After loading the
program and double-clicking on the icon, there is a choice of subject
area with about 20 or 30 questions in each: Astronomy, Circuits, Energy,
Floating & Sinking, Forces, Light, Magnetism, Motion, Radiation, Sound.
9.11
Most of the above categories are self-explanatory, although the choice
of headings does not reveal all the contents. The Circuits section
includes static electricity, capacitors and some numerical calculations;
the Energy section includes some questions on weather maps; the Floating
& Sinking section includes pressure and kinetic theory; Forces includes
calculations on speed and acceleration; Magnetism includes
electromagnetic devices; the Motion section is mainly motion graphs; and
Radiation covers radioactivity.
9.11
The material is described as being primarily for GCSE, and NEAB Physics
in particular, with the note that it may be suitable for Key Stage 3.
Some sections would be beyond the range of many Key Stage 3 pupils,
although others are quite appropriate Ö on some topics a Year 8 pupil
was quite successful. These comments imply that the material does cover
a wide range of ability and the label of levels 5 to 8 is appropriate at
the lower end, but I feel that some questions go above level 8 in
standard. The coverage of the Key Stage 3 programme of study is good, if
not entirely comprehensive (this would be a difficult task), and it
certainly goes beyond this.  I have no access to the NEAB GCSE syllabus
for further comparison.
9.11
The questions are presented in a clear and attractive format which can
also be downloaded as drawfiles (ofágood quality but without the
multiple choice answer buttons) for further work if necessary. The
questions are of a four-choice type and clicking on the letter button of
your choice either informs you that you are correct and gives you a
brief reason why, in case you guessed(!), or wrong, and give you
information to help you get a correct answer second time around. The
window with this information is helpfully positioned so that it is
unnecessary to move the mouse before clicking on ÉNext Questionæ, and it
contains a running total of the number of correct questions answered so
far.
9.11
Once all the questions have been answered, there is an opportunity to
return and re-attempt questions incorrectly answered before, or you can
quit the program or attempt a new section.  The mouse menu button can be
used to produce a short list enabling the question frame to be saved as
a drawfile, to quit or to go to a specific question (by number). If this
option is used, any existing score of questions correct is replaced, and
this does seem to be a pity, as it is not helpful if someone just wishes
to go back and review a question, already answered correctly, during a
test. Atáany point in a section, it is possible to change to questions
in another section, but again the score of correct questions is not
transferred to the new section.
9.11
The manual is clearly set out and easy to use, although the program is
so straightforward that only occasional reference, to search out
additional features, is likely to be necessary.
9.11
The program does seem to be well designed, attractive and easy for
students to use, and in this form it is likely to be a useful revision
aid. It is not particularly powerful in giving the teacher diagnostic
information (e.g. as a range of difficulties are present in the
questions, it might be possible to get some assessment of National
Curriculum levels). In one or two sections, letter A responses seem to
be too frequent and, in questions with numerical answers, it would be
better if choices were arranged in order of size in all, rather than
some, questions. The drawfiles and the answer text are easily accessible
to pupils and so it is essential that they are write-protected to avoid
illicit tampering and the creative(?) versions of the questions that may
result!
9.11
Physics Tutor is produced by Kinetic Computing who also produce Biology
and Chemistry versions (not reviewed here). The price is ú25 for a
single user (ú49 if all three subjects are purchased). Site licence
prices are ú75 for one subject and ú195 for all three.áuá
9.11
Impact2 Relational Database
9.11
Peter Jennings
9.11
When a new application arrives with a substantial loose-leaf manual, it
is a rather reassuring indication that it is a serious piece of software
with an implied promise of upgrades and updated documentation. Impact2
(version 1.11), the relational database creation program from Circle
Software, comes on a single disc accompanied by more than 100 pages of
instruction in a loose-leaf binder at a serious software price of ú95
+VAT. Databases created in the earlier ImpactPro can be used with it.
9.11
Relational databases are those which allow their data to be shared
between files. This is well illustrated by some of the examples
included. Clicking on ÉVideosæ on a list from an iconbar sub-menu opens
a database which records the stock of a video hire shop. Aásecond
database of ÉAddressesæ is also opened automatically, and the Videos
file draws on this for the details of the shopæs customers. The
Addresses file can be used completely independently of the Videos file
and is not restricted to business use. Its cards also include more
personal details, which do not appear on the Videos records, such as who
is to receive a Christmas card and even photographs of some of the
people known socially.
9.11
When a database is opened, a control panel appears on screen giving the
option of displaying the data on individual cards, or as a table showing
the whole file, with each card entry on a single line. Both displays can
be on screen together, and clicking on an entry in the table highlights
it in red and opens the appropriate card. The card can be attached to
the control panel and this helps avoid confusion when more than one
database is on screen.
9.11
The control panel is also used to set up indexes to sort entries into a
particular order, such as alphabetical, and to make sub-sets defined
with filters. A sub-set used by the mythical video shop makes a list of
which videos are currently out on loan, showing who has hired them,
while one in the Addresses file lists everyone who is to receive a
Christmas card, ready for printing the labels.
9.11
A row of tool icons on the control panel allows for browsing entries,
entering new data, deleting a card, find and replace, merging data into
an Impression report, printing labels, importing and exporting data,
printing or exporting reports, making backups, creating alternative sets
of cards and re-editing the layout. The use of interactive help, not
present in the first few versions, becomes necessary here. Although the
control panel is illustrated in the manual, the meanings of its several
unfamiliar icons are not given with the illustration in the edition I
have. Instead, their use is explained with tiny thumbnail pictures
scattered throughout the book.
9.11
Fields can be selected for printing in any order and can even be joined
(concatenated) so that, for example, title, first name and surname can
be printed together on the same line even if they are in a different
order onáthe database cards. A separate program for designing and
printing labels is provided, including a good selection of designs and
sizes, and this can also be used by other applications.
9.11
Data can be imported and exported in Comma or Tab Separated Value format
(CSV and TSV) and displayed data can be dragged into an application such
as !Edit or a word processor or straight into a directory to create a
text file. It is even possible to export entries one item to a line,
which is useful for addresses and for printing a single label.
9.11
Another useful facility for Impression users is support for Impulse, the
public domain module from Computer Concepts, which allows data to be
sent to Impression with instructions to merge and, if required, print
the results. This can be used with Impression Junior (now widely owned
since being distributed free on an Archimedes World disc), although a
bug in the original version of Impression may sometimes cause problems.
9.11
A database can contain more than one set of cards. Alternative sets can
be created to exclude, for example, sensitive material, while the main
set is barred to unauthorised users by setting a password.
9.11
Most databases require fields containing different types of data. In
Impact2 these can include: Text of up to 32 lines; Notes, which are
files of any type and length, stored within the database and instantly
displayed when required; Number, in various formats; Calc, for
displaying the result of a calculation, such as the addition of VAT;
Date, displayed in almost any format; File, which holds the pathname of
any file on the computer and runs it with a click on a button; Image, a
sprite scaled to fit the display; Flag, which is displayed as a text
legend with a tick box to indicate an on/off option (such as whether a
subscription has been paid); Option, a display of up to 32 radio buttons
with text legends, to select one item from a range of options; Browser,
a display icon with a pair of arrows to choose one item of defined text,
such as öMr, Mrs, Miss, Msò; and Menu, similar to a browser but with a
pop-up menu.
9.11
A new database is created by a click on the iconbar menu, which brings
up a window where the blank card can be designed by dragging data items
of the required types from an attached tool window. These can then be
positioned and dragged to the required size. A ÉLabelæ can be added to
any of them to provide a title. This is all done in a slightly awkward
way. After each item is placed on the card, yet another window is opened
and this has to be used to select a range of attributes. For example,
the wording on a label has to be entered in the attributes window rather
than directly on the label, and it does not appear on the card until the
attributes window has been closed.
9.11
Text has to be allocated ÉDisc spaceæ, otherwise it is liable to be
truncated and may not even fill its field on the card, but there is no
explanation of how to judge how much is required.
9.11
Cards are all a mottled grey, matching the RiscPCæs iconbar. This drab
look is explained, in a rather severely worded note, as being to
öconform to the Acorn desktop standard styleò. This, of course, is very
much a matter of taste, and some people will prefer a monochrome look,
but it seems strange that a user who has to customise every other aspect
of a database is not allowed to choose the colour of its cards. There is
always the alternative of resorting to FormEd, or a similar utility, to
edit the templates, but most other database programs do provide a colour
option at the design stage.
9.11
Relational database programs tend to be among the more expensive, and if
you do not need the relational facility, you may wish to consider
something cheaper which may offer almost everything else. For many
users, though, the ability to share data which would otherwise have to
be duplicated will fully justify the extra cost.
9.11
Impact2 is a powerful and flexible program with all the important
features needed. It is not difficult to learn and it soon becomes quick
and simple to design and create even complex databases which are very
easy to use. Users are encouraged to report any problems for immediate
attention and correction, and upgrades are available without charge.
Potential buyers can get a free demo disc from Circle Software, which
comes with a printed instruction book containing the guided tour from
the manual.
9.11
Impact2 costs ú99 +VAT from Circle Software or ú110 through Archive.áuá
9.11
Impact2 Discovered
9.11
Neil Griffiths
9.11
I came to computers in 1984 with a BBC and dot matrix printer, and since
then I have Égraduatedæ through various marks/types to my present RiscPC
600. I should add that I am fully retired and have no business
connection with Circle Software. I write this article since, so far, I
havenæt noticed a similar review in any of the computer magazines or
press. Apart from a general interest in computers, my main use over the
years has been of a personal nature Ö address lists, christmas card
lists and a perpetual diary/journal.
9.11
Initially, Mini Office served my purpose and this was soon followed by
Minerva DTO Ö a suite of five interactive programs covering word
processing, database, spreadsheet, graphs and communications. The
database has been extremely useful and was in use for over five years.
By this time, I had become the membership secretary for a private
organisation of 300 members, and I wanted something more than even the
reliable Minerva database. After searching around, I spotted an
advertisement for Impact▓ by Circle Software, at that time in Swindon.
It seemed just what I wanted, so my order went in by telephone.
9.11
The package
9.11
The package arrived promptly Ö one disc, a well-written manual and the
usual release notes and installation information. I donæt know how other
people respond, but with any new product, I simply love to work step by
step through a tutorial, or something similar, and in this respect
Impact▓ gained my confidence, especially as the manual has Chapter 1
headed ÉA Guided Touræ and Chapter 2 ÉAn Overviewæ. Following chapters
cover the more detailed procedures in setting up a database. I should
add that the disc contained several live databases which can be used for
reference in training. These, of course, can be dispensed with later if
you become stuck for space Ö and who isnæt?
9.11
Impact▓ follows the normal accepted practice of mostádatabases and, at
first, it appears a little strange. The heart of the system centres
round ÉIndexesæ, ÉFiltersæ and ÉItem Selectionsæ, which although self-
explanatory, have to be appreciated in conjunction with other facilities
which appear on the Control Panel when each database is loaded. I
suppose Iáshould have mentioned that loading of the program initially
was again simplicity itself, well described and quite easy to follow.
9.11
The Impact on Impression
9.11
It wasnæt until I reached the chapter on ÉImpression Reportsæ that I
fully appreciated the advantages of the interactive facility of Impact▓
with Impression. I think Circle Software could have made much more of
this aspect to their advantage in the advertisement Ö I will try to
explain. All the data is contained in a fairly normal sort of database,
but one of its facilities is to produce a ÉTableæ, the contents of which
are controlled by ÉIndexesæ, ÉFiltersæ and ÉItemsæ, so you can see, we
have a very powerful means of getting on the screen and on paper just
what we want from our database.
9.11
For anyone who uses Publisher/Impression/Style, Impact▓ is an absolute
must, as the resultant combination knows no limits. If you add Tablemate
and Artworks, there isnæt much we cannot cope with. To sum up, the data
is extracted from the database governed by what is contained in Indexes,
Filters and Items, it is then displayed as a table, and this table can
then be printed out via Impression.
9.11
Labels
9.11
There is also a complete chapter on printing labels, and I must add that
this is also very simple and straightforward. Any size label can be
produced in any font. Included is a standard format for all ÉAveryæ type
laser labels, but you can quite easily design your own label or any size
envelope, all of which can be Ésavedæ for future use. You can print
direct, or to file and later to printer, whichever you want.
9.11
Set up your own database
9.11
The production of your customised database is again straightforward, and
one distinct advantage of Impact▓ is the ability to change/delete an
item after you have started to use the database. I can recall the
Minerva database where, once loaded and filled with data, it was a case
of starting again. Mind you, I still keep a blank copy of any database
tucked away in case of errors or mistakes! With Impact▓, supposing you
wanted to alter a field Ö say make it longer Ö this can easily be done.
Also, adding a further field, altering the position or order of
presentation, or any other complex change, can be carried out after the
database has been brought into use. All the standard calculations can be
used, and these can also be altered later if necessary. Dates can appear
in any acceptable form, and the program appears to cater for all
personal requirements.
9.11
May I help you?
9.11
What about help, which we all need at one time or another, because even
the best of manuals sometimes fail to provide the answer? Both in
Swindon, and in their new home in Bodmin, there has always been either a
cheery voice, or an answerphone, to take your queries. John Skingley who
runs Circle Software was always most helpful and patient with my
queries, and I have to admit that there were quite a few in the early
days, mainly to do with printing. Their back-up and updating leaves
nothing to be desired Ö usually a free update if you return the original
disc, which I have done two or three times since purchasing.
9.11
I must emphasise that this is not meant to be a full review of Impact▓,
as I feel sure that I have left out essential items, but for the benefit
of other Impression users who need a database which will work in
conjunction with Impression/Merge, I consider that Impact▓ is an
absolute Émustæ. It is very reasonably priced too, at just over ú100.áuá
9.11
A new database is created by dragging the required data items onto a
blank card.
9.11
Data can be displayed on cards, as a table or (as here) both together.
9.11
A separate label printing program, with a useful set of ready designed
labels, can also be used with other applications.
9.11
!Speccy Ö Spectrum Emulator
9.11
Alex Card
9.11
Following my review of !Z80Em in Archive 9.7 p73, Iáreceived a letter
from Germany extolling the virtues of !Speccy by Carsten Witt. This
letter wasnæt from the author himself but a satisfied customer (to my
mind the best kind of recommendation). Carsten kindly sent me a review
copy.
9.11
!Z80Em from Warm Silence Software is a good program, although it
currently lacks one or two features that would make it an excellent one.
It canæt use some Spectrum file formats, it has no multitasking mode
and, at the time of my review, there was no facility for emulating a
128Kb Spectrum (though this has since been added). There are also some
other odd quirks such as the way in which emulation speed was indicated.
!Speccy deals with all these, and has a number of other useful
additions.
9.11
File formats
9.11
!Speccy is supplied with a file format converter program (!SpecConv)
which enables four filetypes to be used with the emulator. This is
particularly useful if you have the 3000 game, Speccy Sensation 2 CD-ROM
or files ported from one of the PCæs numerous Spectrum emulators.
Conversion between SNA, TAP, DOS and Speccyæs own filetype are easily
carried out and it hasnæt failed yet, although Iæve had to convert via a
two stage operation on a few occasions.
9.11
Through the square window
9.11
!Speccy is fully RISC OS compliant and opens as a window, but the mode
chosen should be fairly low-res as itæs not possible to adjust the size
of the window to anything larger than it first appears. Ideal modes
would be 15 or 21 and, on a RiscPC, 640╫480 would be the maximum usable.
If used on some hi-res modes on the RiscPC, !Speccy causes problems,
particularly with the palette. These modes are totally unsuitable
anyway, as the window will appear too small.
9.11
Personally, I much prefer running the emulator in the single-tasking,
full screen mode, but with the option of multitasking, it would have
been useful to have included an optional window displaying what each of
the keys do in Spectrum mode. Better still would have been to allow the
pointer to be used to input commands. For those who have never used a
Spectrum, if you press key ÉKæ for example, the command ÉLISTæ appears
on the screen (very confusing) Ö and other keys produce equally crazy
results! I would imagine, however, that very few users would be
interested in programming the Spectrum anyway, unless they are either
mad or masochistic!
9.11
Hardware support
9.11
The program is currently much more complete than !Z80Em in its support
of associated Spectrum hardware. Multiprint, Multiface 128, Interface 1
and Microdrive options are available.
9.11
Interface 1 option allows the serial port and cartridge files to be
used, and must be set for the Microdrive to be accessible.
9.11
Multiface is an add-on device from a company called Romantic Robot, and
is used to backup running programs to tape, disc or cartridge. For this
option to work, youæll need to have access to the appropriate ROM image,
which isnæt supplied for copyright reasons. When this is available, a
menu is pulled up by pressing the ÉPrintæ key. In any case, a snapshot
of memory can be taken at any time, so this is still of limited use.
9.11
Multiprint is also from Romantic Robot, and falls under the same
restrictions as the Multiface. It allows control of an Epson-compatible
printer, and also allows limited investigation into, and adjustment of,
Spectrum memory.
9.11
In 128Kb Spectrum mode, the icon switches to match the Ébig brotheræ
modelæs appearance. The major improvements in hardware terms over its
48k predecessor are in having 3-channel sound as opposed to single
channel, improved graphic and colour controls (noticeable that sprites
actually maintained their colour when moving over a background object)
and, of course, extra memory for running larger programs. In the last
years of Spectrum production, plenty of programs utilising 128Kb were
written (many of which are on the Speccy2 CD) and this seems to be a
perfect translation of the code. In some cases, it is too perfect, as
there was a minor glitch in sound control which is carried over to
!Speccy!
9.11
One of the things I disliked about !Z80Em was the way in which speed was
indicated Ö it took the form ö&1000000ò which was pretty meaningless.
OK, you could increase it and things happened faster, but it is a messy
way of going about it. !Speccy is much neater and easier to understand.
Itæs in the form of relative speed compared to an actual Spectrum, so
100% exactly matches and the increase/decrease buttons allow for fine
adjustment.
9.11
One niggle I have on the adjust arrows in speed and volume, for example,
is that the user is not able to input directly from the keyboard Ö all
changes are by clicking on the arrows only. Since the ARM710 often
initially sets a value of 600%, it can take some time to reduce the
speed to a more usable value. However, there is a way around this
fiddling about. It is possible to make a small modification to the !Run
file to set an initial speed. Iæd have preferred a button to default to
100%, as itæs unlikely that speeds anywhere near approaching 600% will
ever be desirable.
9.11
The usual Ésave screen as a spriteæ and Étake a snapshot of memory to
save game positionæ are both present, along with the ability to use up
to two joysticks.
9.11
On a free transfer
9.11
The serial port can be used to transfer files to the Archimedes in
conjunction with the Interface 1 option, and protected Spectrum tape
games can be directly loaded via the RS423 port using an ordinary
cassette player, switching to the so-called ÉSmooth Modeæ which disables
most of the Archimedes interrupts, and then using the load option to
directly access the tape player. Itæs still far too fiddly for me, and
Iæd thoroughly recommend the Speccy 2 CD compilation (providing, of
course, you have a CD¡ROM drive!). There are thousands of Spectrum games
around and, unlike those of the BBC ÉBæ, the Spectrum ones all appear
now to be Public Domain, so you can freely swap with friends.
9.11
All in all, !Speccy is probably the most comprehensive Spectrum Emulator
youære likely to come across. It still has the edge over the latest
version of !Z80Em from Warm Silence Software (though the gap has reduced
considerably with the new 128Kb version).
9.11
!Speccy is difficult to fault Ö it does what it sets out to do very
well, and it is a very complete emulator, but Iástill donæt have the
same strong feelings towards Spectrum games that I have for old BBC
ones. Still, if you were brought up on ÉStop The Expressæ, ÉTir Na Nogæ
or ÉAd Astraæ, !Speccy is definitely the one for you.
9.11
!Speccy, the Spectrum Emulator, is available for ú20 +p&p from Carsten
Witt, Rostocker Strasse, 45739 Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany.áuá
9.11
DrawWorks 2
9.11
Christopher Jarman
9.11
In the words of Aaron Timbrell, the producer of DrawWorks2, öIt is a
complete set of integrated applications designed to improve Draw,
Acornæs own drawing package.ò
9.11
Now, I came to computers late in life, and I only know the modern
Acorns, so unlike many long established enthusiasts, I actually started
drawing with Artworks and never spent much time with Draw. Since
installing DrawWorks2, I have had the chance to see, first of all, what
an excellent program the original Draw is, and now with this laughably
inexpensive addition (ú20 through Archive) how very impressive it can
become. I just wonder what Acornæs built-in applications would have all
been like if Aaron had been employed at the Cambridge works from the
beginning!
9.11
Believe me, this is an upgrade which takes the normal Draw, which you
all know and love, through what Iábelieve is called a quantum leap! To
begin with, there are over 60 new buttons added to the Draw window!
9.11
As with all iSV products, you get far more than you pay for. The on-
screen manual, which is presented in iSVæs house style application, is
worth the price on its own. This is no measly Help or ReadMe file, but a
proper fully-illustrated manual on screen with search and saving
abilities, which actually tells you what you want to know. It also
includes illustrated step-by-step tutorials! See opposite.
9.11
These are some of the things that the new toolbar offers:
9.11
A paper sizing menu
9.11
Immediate loading of a named file
9.11
Click on/off the grid
9.11
Instant select of text colours, fill colours, line and background
colours, etc.
9.11
Select snap to grid
9.11
Toggle portrait/landscape paper
9.11
Kern/unkern text
9.11
Convert thin lines to thick for printing
9.11
Colour filters
9.11
Merging selected paths
9.11
and many other activities which are too numerous to list.
9.11
Of course, many of these functions were already there in Draw, but not
all by any means, and it is so much more convenient, and stylish, to
have them all on a movable toolbar. There are actually eight completely
new features.
9.11
Some of the buttons have further menus attached for even more choices to
be made or pre-set, such as changing the grid to rectangular or
isometric (even Artworks canæt do that).
9.11
What is more, the original Draw toolbox has been redesigned too, and
looks great.
9.11
The new ability to select out and save colour separations is first rate.
It is much easier to do in practice than using Artworks, so I shall be
tempted to save out my Artworks files as drawfiles just for that
purpose!
9.11
The diagrams below show my Acorn Cybervillage logo separated into the
Keyfile, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow within about four minutes using the
Draw2 facility.
9.11
Then there is the DrawTrix button, which alone can give you hours of fun
just turning your images into all kinds of bulges and shapes. If you
have tried iSVs FontTrix program you will have some idea of what this
can do to your drawings.
9.11
DrawWorks2 comes on a single 800Kb floppy with the manual and over
thirty example drawfiles of the tricks and manipulations that can be
done with the application. DrawWorks 1 has been going since 1991, but
iSV say that the N║ 3 version is already being worked on! At this rate,
it may hardly be worth buying any other vector graphics program!
9.11
Order it now Ö I guarantee you wonæt be disappointed!áuá
9.11
Key
9.11
Magenta
9.11
Cyan
9.11
Yellow
9.11
Wyddfa Talking Stories
9.11
Patrick McTiernan & Pauline Barnett
9.11
This is a review of Wyddfa Softwareæs Talking Stories: öGwen goes to
Schoolò and öGwenæs Noseò. Their own introduction to the Talking
Stories, at the beginning of the supplied instructions, is probably as
good as (or better than) anything I could write:
9.11
Talking Stories is a new series of interactive electronic story books
for children (KS1). The stories range in difficulty and each emphasises
a different type of word. There are four stories in this series Ö Gwenæs
Nose (verbs,ánouns and adjectives), Gwenæs Tummy (colour adjectives),
Gwen goes to School (nouns and pronouns) and Gwen at the Fair (verbs).
The child can listen to the whole sentence on each page by clicking on
the speech bubble icon (using the select button of the mouse), or to
individual words by clicking on them. One word is missing from each
written sentence for the child to fill in from the words column on the
left of the picture. This is to encourage the child to look at the
sentence as well as listen to it.
9.11
The reviewers
9.11
I am employed as a CAD engineer, but qualified as a teacher of science
and mathematics; my seven-year-old sonæs teacher is in charge of IT at
the local infantsæ school, where I installed the Talking Stories on her
RiscPC and let her (and the children) test them in the school
environment. This review is split into two parts; the first by me,
Patrick, and then the report from the school by Mrs Barnett. It is
interesting to note the several areas of agreement between us, on what
could be improved, despite neither of us reading the otheræs text until
they were both largely completed.
9.11
What you get
9.11
The software came in ÉPrestigeæ data files, stiffened plastic wallets
with enough room for A5 printed material and two 800Kb floppy discs. The
cover and the usage instructions emphasise that the software will run on
1Mb Acorn RISC machines. Each story comes with a full-colour A5-sized
booklet of eight pages, showing each of the images in the story, and two
folded A4 sheets, giving information under the headings öTo install and
load your programò, öHowáto run Talking Storiesò, öThe iconbar menuò and
öProblem solvingò.
9.11
Installation
9.11
The ö...install and load...ò section starts with the introduction given
above, and then goes on to step-by-step installation instructions. I
felt that these could have been more clearly split between hard and
floppy installation; but otherwise, they were quite clear. Iádonæt feel
that there is any obvious Éright wayæ to help users install software for
computers, and copying RISCáOS applications to a directory is one of the
better ways. The instructions are adequate.
9.11
One section deals with how to run the program on a 1Mb Archimedes, using
a small application they supply (öFloppyFontò) to put the fonts into RAM
disc to prevent disc-swapping. Unfortunately, this didnæt work correctly
when I tried it on my RISCáOS 3.11 machine. This was, apparently, due to
a slight programming error when creating the RAM disc but Wyddfa are
looking into the problem.
9.11
The very first instruction tells you to use a 256-colour mode, and lists
a number of preferred 256-colour modes by number (which may be less
helpful for RiscPC users). On RISCáOS 3 and above, the colour-stippling
of the Draw module is so good that a 256-colour mode is not essential;
but 256 colours does make the colours brighter and more solid.
Installation on a RiscPC 600 and an old A310 (both with and without hard
disc) posed no real problems. No mention is made of RiscPC differences,
and only the differing behaviour under RISC OS 2 and 3 is mentioned. As
usual with RISCáOS machines, this was not a problem.
9.11
Try before you buy
9.11
Some readers may have already tried the demonstration version of öGwen
goes to Schoolò on the Risc Disc Volume 1 CD-ROM (or from elsewhere).
This has very similar loading instructions to those on the printed
sheet, with the addition of slightly more technical information on
required Font Cache sizes. The demo includes three of the eight pages of
öGwen goes to Schoolò, and gives a good introduction to the Talking
Stories programs. The demo version has the same program version as the
current release, having been compiled in April 1994. There are only a
few differences in the template files and !boot.
9.11
What you see and hear
9.11
The speech is in a very clear and pleasant male voice with a faint Welsh
accent. My wife thought that the speaker might even be from Birmingham!
I come from Shropshire, and Iæm convinced he was a Welsh speaker.
9.11
The format is much the same in each story: the program window, which is
the right size to nearly fill a mode 15 screen, is divided into a large,
colourful image, a text area at the bottom and a word-choice toolbox at
the left. There are eight pages. Each gives a sentence, related to the
image, with a single missing word. The missing area has a flashing text
cursor which cycles in colour. There is a choice of eight words to fill
the gap, a button containing a speech bubble (which means öspeak the
whole sentenceò), and a pair of forward/back buttons. The forward button
is initially greyed-out.
9.11
There are options to control how much of a clue is given to the child
for the words Ö either the full name, or the first letter is given as a
clue, or no clue may be given. When any word on the screen is clicked,
it is spoken after a short loading delay. When the correct word is
chosen, it appears in the sentence and the forward button is un-greyed,
allowing passage to the next page.
9.11
The images are nicely drawn, but not so startling as to distract from
the task in hand Ö learning to read. Gwen the bear is a simple figure,
without any special characteristics beyond öa red nose shaped like a
heartò (which features in öGwenæs Noseò) and a red bow tie. The teacher
in the school is obviously Indian, a small nod in the direction of
multi-cultural teaching. The scenes are very British in all other
respects (schools, cooking barbecues, having a bath). Gwen is gently
naughty.
9.11
Trial one: In the home
9.11
Does it work for its intended function? Does it help children learn to
read? I tried it out on my 4-year-old daughter, Sarah, who canæt really
read at present, and my 7-year-old son, Thomas, who is a good reader.
Sarah tried öGwenæs Noseò first. She poked at it a little randomly at
first, even with some guidance. After three pictures, she began to get
the idea. She tended to work on first letters rather than trying to
match the whole word. She was finding it straightforward to match the
word in the picture to the one in the menu at the 6th picture or so.
Throughout, she paid little attention to the sentence at the bottom,
using only the matching of the word on the picture to the ones in the
menu.
9.11
As an observer, I would say that too little attention was drawn to the
gap in the words (for the missing word). Also, the fonts were too small
for easy recognition (this was better on the RiscPC), and there was no
Ébig noiseæ when the correct word was discovered, and no highlighting of
the words or gap at any time. The gap wasnæt the same size as the word
which eventually appeared.
9.11
The competition
9.11
For comparison purposes, and to keep the children amused, I ran the demo
of öJim gets the Sneezesò from Sherston Software (and also installed it
at school). This has music, rapid highlighting of words, more complex
images (stored as compressed bitmaps), familiar characters from the
öRosie and Jimò TV series, some cartoon movements with accompanying
sounds which the user can trigger, and asks some questions which have to
be answered to move on. The sound is loaded into a cache in chunks for
each picture, so there is no loading delay for each word.
9.11
This certainly held the childrenæs attention more, on account of its
Éfunæ aspects. The dynamic highlighting of the words and more rapid
response to mouse-clicks, gives an immediate and refreshing quality
which keeps them interested. By rapidly clicking on the words, the
children get amusing öscratchingò effects which are impossible with the
Wyddfa Talking Stories, and can even make up their own sentences. Thomas
kept going long after Sarah had left the computer, making up his own
silly sentences.
9.11
Interestingly, when moved to the RiscPC, the Sherston program then
looked quite crude (because it uses bitmap images). In contrast, the
Wyddfa programs now looked a lot better, because they are produced in
Draw format.
9.11
Trial two: In the school
9.11
Most of the children in my class have had an opportunity to work with at
least one of the Talking Stories. This covers quite a wide ability
range. It has, of course, been impossible for me to work with or
supervise each child as he or she has worked with the programs. The
comments set out below, therefore, have evolved from observation, from
talking to the children (especially the more able ones), and from
discussion with my Special Education Assistants who work closely with
the less able children. I hope our contribution is of some use.
9.11
1. All the children actually enjoyed using the programs. The pictures
are bright, colourful and provide detail, which can be used to stimulate
conversation with less able children.
9.11
2. A lot of the children are confident readers. They had fun completing
the programs as they were new to them but they did not find them a
challenge. öThey are too easy!ò was the feedback from them.
9.11
I felt that, for this range of children, öRosie and Jimò provided a bit
more stimulus, as they had to respond to a command to get a result.
9.11
3. The less able children worked with a Support Assistant alongside
them. They tended to enjoy just clicking the mouse and changing the
pictures and needed support to turn the program into a structured
learning experience. These children would find it difficult to work
meaningfully on their own. They tend to click on every word until they
find the right one, without understanding the sentence at all.
9.11
To accommodate these children it would really mean devising a special
needs program with shorter, simpler sentences and perhaps concentrating
on High Frequency words which the children work on daily.
9.11
4. The middle group of children, i.e. Éaverage readersæ, coped well.
They learnt very quickly to match the given word on the screen. Further
experience, having just the initial letter of the missing word as a
clue, and then having no clue at all, would gradually increase their
independence.
9.11
In conclusion, the Stories were useful and could be the focus of further
work incorporating the ideas and vocabulary presented, which would
reinforce the childrenæs learning.
9.11
It is difficult to make some judgements in the context of our school as
we have quite a lot of able children, whereas other catchment areas are
not so fortunate. As Key Stage 1 programs, the Wyddfa Talking Stories do
not extend our more able 6-7 year olds although, to be fair, these
children are already working beyond this stage.
9.11
The Talking Stories provide a language experience that is popular with
the children, because it is fun.
9.11
I, personally, wondered about introducing a spelling function, which
would also extend skills to the use of the keyboard. Perhaps, once the
correct missing word had been found, it could be acknowledged either
visually, or by sound, and then, instead of it appearing immediately in
the given space, the child could type in the word. By doing this, the
child is made to focus even more on individual words.
9.11
Price and availability
9.11
Wyddfa Software have four talking stories about Gwen, the lovable,
mischievous bear: Gwenæs Nose, Gwenæs Tummy, Gwen goes to School and
Gwen at the Fair. These cost ú20 inclusive each, or ú50 inclusive for
all four, from Wyddfa Software.áuá
9.11
Essential Selection Demo CD-ROM
9.11
Ed Archer
9.11
This is a free CD giving a sample of eighteen different multimedia CDs.
Itæs not an easy thing to öreviewò, but Iáhave also had a chance to look
at the full versions of several of the packages at our local teachers
computer centre which was very helpful. Actually, in some cases, seeing
the full packages changed my view of the CD. This suggests that the
sample is not all that effective in giving you a flavour of the real
thing.
9.11
Having access to the demo in both PC and Acorn modes has much to commend
itself. Iátried using the demo CD on both platforms and found the Acorn
(a RiscPC with 8Mb RAM) a very much better platform for multimedia. Why?
The average PC is a lumbering beast which is dated, and only kept going
by this add-on and that add-on. The RiscPCs are, by comparison, very
easy to use.
9.11
The demo disc
9.11
Yorkshire Televisionæs demo disc covers a wide range of topics Ö
everything from Aspects of Religion to the Second World War. Iáshall
make a few brief comments on each of the eighteen demos.
9.11
The first, about the environment, is Water, a subject very much in the
public eye at the moment. Iáenjoyed some parts of the demo better than
other parts. The section on oil spills was informative and was exciting,
but the section on dolphins wasnæt very enthralling. However, the full
disc, which Iátried out at the Computer Centre, was excellent Ö the demo
just didnæt do it justice.
9.11
Science is devoted to the elements. The information about Nitrogen was
good, and it certainly made the Periodic Tables much more interesting
than when Iáwas at school. The video too was useful, but Iáwas somewhat
perplexed by the need to have so much historical information on people
such as Cavendish and Lavoisier.
9.11
Global Conflict was fairly interesting, though it did have an American
emphasis, having been compiled from American archives. The demo was
excellent, Iáliked the video on the Blitzkrieg, and the maps, although
they could have been more detailed.
9.11
Environment: Land and Air appears to have considerable potential as a
learning tool. The explanation in the overview video section was
excellent. Iáwas similarly impressed by the video clip; the demo pulled
no punches and emphasised, in a clear way, the importance of
environmental issues.
9.11
Science: Materials Ö As it was only a demo, it was difficult to choose
which material to go for. The choice of coal was sensible in that it is
a material that everybody reckons they are familiar with. The video clip
on this subject served to whet my appetite, as it was so informative
and, in this respect, the demo has obviously done its job!
9.11
World War II: Sources and Analysis Ö As a historian, Iáam keen to see
anything that could be valuable in the classroom. The demo gave me a
loud, clear message that the data was there to be made use of, in that
it could easily be exported for use in project work. The depth of the
source material was also good, and Iáwas pleased to see the inclusion of
a section on the role of the African Americans.
9.11
Climate Ö The overview video was gripping stuff, packed with interesting
material. It definitely merits an award similar to those given to other
products from Yorkshire Television.
9.11
Aspects of Religion was a truly excellent demo. Iáwas particularly
interested by the way the subject was handled, reflecting the multi-
faith world in which we live. Attention was drawn to the fact that one
could easily compare aspects of different religions. There is a Étrial
saveæ facility, which is very handy for those pupils doing research on
Religion.
9.11
Contemporary Issues is quite an apt title in that the demo concentrates
on the topical issue of Crime and Punishment. A special feature which
Iáexamined in this demo was the Éassessment manageræ that enables
teachers to test and monitor pupilsæ progress. This feature can be
altered to allow teacher help. This is to be found on the majority of
the programs and is really useful.
9.11
Max and the Machines is familiar ground for me as it is aimed at helping
young children learn how to read. From what Iácould see, this program
would do this job admirably. It would undoubtedly fire a childæs
imagination.
9.11
The demo in Conservation was a clip from the overview about global co-
operation. The only criticism Iáhad of the clip was that it was really
too short to do the job of convincing me that this was a useful CD,
although what Iádid see, held my attention.
9.11
Dwindling Resources Ö The demo clip was informative, and emphasized the
wasteful nature of Modern Man. If the rest of the CD is as good as the
demo, this is an obvious one for the classroom.
9.11
British Birds Ö The database was a strong feature of this section and
the demo showed just how good it was. For a person like myself who knows
next to nothing about birds, Iáfound it a veritable mine of information.
Other useful features Iánoticed, were the bird song facility and the
interactive quiz designed to reinforce learning.
9.11
Inventions and Inventors looked interesting, but Iáfelt that the demo
did not give me sufficient information to form much of an opinion about
its merits.
9.11
Interactive Learning Ö There is a demo of the feature which is given
away gratis with most of the CDs, Iáhave reviewed. Iáwas impressed with
the way it enables you to make a scrapbook of text, video and audio
clips. This is an important feature in that it enables pupils to create
their own multimedia programs.
9.11
En Marcha Ö this is a Spanish program which is really a utility. In the
past, Iáhave been very critical of attempts to use computers for
learning Modern Languages. However, En Marcha is something else. Itáhas
two hours of spoken Spanish, and a sound-recording facility so that you
can compare your own efforts with what is on the disc. The Lexicon is
great, as it helps you to find a word and also gives you an appropriate
context. The games Ö Exploring a Spanish Town and Tidying up the House Ö
were very useful.
9.11
The Physical World has some interesting exemplar material. It includes
an examination of coastal erosion, a look at People and the Environment,
which homes in on Amazonia, and finally a video clip showing the effects
of the great Mississippi flood of 1993. The full program would be
indispensable if it is as good as the demo.
9.11
Finally, two demos connected with the French language: En Route had a
good video display which would encourage children to learn French. The
built-in assessments for this particular program were well done.
Directions 2000 was similar in layout and design to the En Marcha
program. It was as good as En Marcha, and should encourage a great
interest in learning French.
9.11
Despite my initial reservations about demo discs, Iáwould really
recommend this one to all teachers. Remember that it can work on an
Acorn or a PC. Iáenjoyed the disc very much and it should be helpful to
those teachers seeking ideas about what CDs to buy for their schools.
9.11
Last but by no means least, itæs free! All you have to do is to write to
Yorkshire International Thomson Multimedia.áuá
9.11
Second World War, Continued...
9.11
Gabriel Swords
9.11
Over the last two months, we have been looking at how two different
products deal with the Second World War. We have seen how both approach
the subject in very different way; in the Photobase Decades collection
(9.6 p75) we have seen that Longman Logotron give you thousands of
pictures and allow you to decide what you do with them; Anglia
Multimedia, on the other hand (9.8 p77), give you fewer pictures (just
over two hundred), but more text to explain the pictures and ask
questions. This month we shall look at another source of material,
Interactive Learning Productions/Yorkshire TV.
9.11
Under review are ILPæs two Second World War CD¡ROMs: World War Two:
Global Conflict, and, World War Two: Sources and Analysis. What ILP
provide is a complete multimedia experience. There are hundreds of
photographs, video and audio clips, text and diagrams.
9.11
The packages
9.11
Both CD-ROMs are attractively packaged. They come in an A5-sized loose
leaf slip binder; inside is the CD-ROM itself, and a floppy disc
containing a Scrapbook program. The binder is made up of a user guide, a
curriculum pack, and Scrapbook guide Ö the curriculum pack contains
suggested study guides covering some of the subjects on the CDs. For
example, on the Global Conflict CD, there are studiesáon: the origins of
the conflict in Europe, Blitzkrieg, Gotterdammerung, and the war in the
FaráEast. At the end of each section, there is a questions page relating
to the study. Both CD-ROMs are aimed at the 11Ö16 age group.
9.11
Global Conflict
9.11
One very good thing about this CD-ROM is that you donæt have to read the
manual to work out how to use it. The opening screen only gives you five
option buttons to click on Ö Maps, Investigate, Index, Overview and
Credits. Once inside a subject, most of the other button icons are
reasonably self-explanatory and intuitive. You do, however, need to read
the user guide to get the most out of the Scrapbook application.
9.11
Investigate: This option takes you into the heart of the program; itæs
from here that you investigate the themes, events and causes of the
Second World War. This part is again divided into five sections,
corresponding with the study guides: Origins, Blitzkrieg,
Gotterdammerung, Far Eastern Conflict and Japanese Invasion. Each of
these sections contains a video introduction giving a kind of overview
of the subject Ö this can be stopped at any stage and further
investigation made by clicking on an Éinvestigate buttonæ.
9.11
A time-line along the top of the screen gives access to data relevant to
a date clicked on Ö this moves the video sequence to that point as well
as any text or pictures associated with it. Inside the investigate
window there is again a further range of buttons which lead into more
text, audio and photographs, giving the user an opportunity to explore
each subject by looking at themes, events and biographies. Most of the
subject matter here is accompanied by at least a photograph, always
text, and sometimes video, speech or diagrams.
9.11
What you get then is a progression from the general to the particular;
from the overview to the detail. The deeper you go, the more information
you get. This means that if you want a quick summary of, say, how and
why the war began, you can watch and listen to the video introduction.
If you then want to look at a bit more detail, say the Treaty of
Versailles, you can use the investigate button to go deeper.
9.11
TrailSave: Along the way, there may be bits you want to keep for future
reference or revision. The TrailSave allows you to save slides as you go
along. Itámeans you can skip around the CD and save out the bits that
are relevant to the subject or theme you are studying. The TrailSave
data can then be saved toádisc and loaded again as necessary.
9.11
Index: A CD-ROM can contain hundreds of megabytes of really useful
information; whether it works or not depends on how easy it is to get to
that information, and how systematic it is when you get there. Unlike a
book, which you can flick through, to see all the pictures and text,
unhelpful CD-ROMs can Éhideæ things from you. With some, there could be
heaps of information you didnæt know existed simply because you took a
wrong turn somewhere. To help overcome this problem, ILP provide a very
good index of headings and sub-headings, all of which can be viewed in
alphabetical or chronological order. Spelling isnæt a problem either Ö
if you canæt spell ÉVersaillesæ, just type Éversæ, click OK and the
index will take you to the nearest word to your spelling.
9.11
Scrapbook: is a separate application which comes on floppy disc. Its
purpose is to provide the user with another means of saving data. This
can be done by dragging text, pictures or video clips from the CD¡ROM,
or by direct editing by the user in the form of text or audio.
9.11
Also on Global Conflict, thereæs a good section of maps showing some of
the major battle zones, and diagrams of some of the more famous battles
(see summary below for more details).
9.11
Sources and Analysis
9.11
The Sources and Analysis CD-ROM adds a different dimension to the study
of the Second World War, and helps take you behind some of the events.
Its two main sections deal with Case Studies, and Themes. With the Case
Studies, you can explore in detail subjects like: Pearl Harbour, the
Blitz, Women at War, Iwo Jima, the End of the War, GIæs in Britain, the
Allied Invasion of Italy, etc. Each of the Case Study screens is divided
into a number of menus giving access to a particular part of the study.
The screen shot below shows some of the sections available in the Pearl
Harbour study.
9.11
Some of the Themes covered include: African Americans, Propaganda,
Atomic Weapons, D-Day and the Holocaust. Here, the user is not looking
so much at battles, tactics and who caused what, but at some of the
incidentals, the things that happened because of the war.
9.11
In all the studies, extensive use is made of original documents,
letters, diaries and posters. You can see pictures and read the text of
some of the actual documents, letters and memoranda written at the time
by the men who made some of the most momentous decisions of the war. You
can also read the letters of soldiers who had to carry out those
decisions.
9.11
In the section on Source Material, thereæs a Compare option which lets
you compare material about the same incident, or on the same theme, from
different points of view. You could, for example, compare side by side,
axis propaganda with allied propaganda. Or you could compare diary
extracts from soldiers on different sides, both calling the other Éthe
enemyæ and both blaming the other for the war. This allows you to see
the war from other peoplesæ points of view, enabling a Écompare and
contrastæ analysis of different aspects. This is one of the great
strengths of this CD; it allows you to Éget insideæ the minds of the
people who were involved, whether itæs a Japanese NCO or a Major General
in the American Army. It also covers aspects of the war you might not
find in a general text book. This is one of the great advantages of a
CD¡ROM Ö you can cram a vast amount of information onto one disc,
including the original documents, and make it all accessible to a wide
audience.
9.11
Conclusions
9.11
First impressions are very good. It looks and feels like a lot of time
and effort has gone into the production of these CD-ROMs. Not only is
there a wealth of information, but it is easily accessible and
interesting to use. The video clips add a certain realism to the whole
thing, and they are ones that you probably have never seen before. Good
use has been made of whole Émultimedia thingæ Ö thereæs enough happening
on these CD-ROMs to keep your attention, and to encourage you to
explore.
9.11
The language used does not Étalk-downæ to anyone; in fact, you could
argue that for an eleven year old, it might, at times, be a touch
difficult. However, one very useful feature is that unfamiliar words are
highlighted in blue, and if you click on one, it opens a window giving a
definition of the word. So, for example, you might come across the word
ÉBlitzkriegæ in a section where the term hasnæt been explained; if itæs
highlighted, you simply click on it for a definition.
9.11
These CDs are designed to help newcomers get a good overview of the war,
while at the same time, providing plenty of information to interest any
student who wants to explore in Second World War in more detail. I think
they do the job very well Ö recommended to any school, or if you can
afford them, to home users.
9.11
The CDs cost ú79.99 +VAT +p&p or ú92 through Archive. If you want to see
more of the ILP collection, they do a free preview CD-ROM see below for
details.
9.11
P.S.
9.11
One other, very encouraging thing about these CD¡ROMs is the ILP
helpline. I had a problem with my copies of the CD-ROMs Ö it was due to
my version of ARplayer which kept crashing! I called the helpline, and
although they couldnæt help me immediately, they rang back with the
answer very quickly. It was also the kind of helpline you donæt mind
doing business with; they were not condescending, nor did they expect
you to know any computer jargon Ö you tell them about your system, and
the problems, and they talk you through solving them. If only every
helpline were the same!áuá
9.11
Summary of contents
9.11
Global Conflict
9.11
Maps: This section allows you to zoom in from a map of the world down to
your selected area of interest. You can also choose from a list of
countries. The maps section contains information on the following:
Countries: Maps, statistics, background information and a summary of the
war experience of 28 countries, including the UK, the USA, Russia,
Germany, Japan, South East Asia and China. Events: Maps and a brief
description of a number of key events of the war, including the attack
on Pearl Harbour, Battle of the Atlantic, Stalingrad, Island Hopping and
the Italian campaign. Animations: Some of the events are illustrated and
clarified by animated maps. These events include German expansion,
Japanese expansion and the North African Campaign.
9.11
Overview: The overview offers information on the following areas:
Videos, Events, Biographies, Key themes, Search facility, Maps section,
Trailsave, ILP, Other titles in the series.
9.11
Investigate: using Video / Summary text / Events / Biographies / Themes,
it looks at: Origins (Origins of the war in Europe); Blitzkrieg (Poland
Ö Barbarossa); Gotterdammerung (Barbarossa Ö VE Day); Japanese expansion
(Origins of the war in the Far East); Far Eastern Conflict (Pearl
Harbour Ö VJ Day).
9.11
Index:A quick and easy way of finding a particular piece of information
from any part of the disc.
9.11
Sources and Analysis
9.11
Case Studies: Pearl Harbour; The War in North Africa; The Allied
Invasion of Italy; The Internment of Japanese Americans; Iwo Jima; GIs
in Britain; The Blitz; The Home Front; The End of the War; Women at War;
Resistance.
9.11
Themes: Propaganda; The Atom Bomb; The African Americans and the War; D-
Day; The Holocaust
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Compare: By allowing two sources to be studied side by side, Compare
enables the budding historian to contrast a variety of sources on the
same subject therefore developing a more in depth understanding of the
Second World War.
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Source Filter: To help you negotiate the sources is Source Filter, an
invaluable tool that will enable you to locate sources by type, year,
theme and subject.
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Other: Also included with this CD-ROM is the Scrapbook application, the
Trailsave option, Overview and Index.áuá
9.11
The Serial Mouse Pen
9.11
Bob Black
9.11
I originally got the mouse pen to try out using Claud & Maude, a program
for practising letter shapes, and I was very pleased that I did. For
handwriting practice, this makes perfect sense. The mouse pen plugs into
the serial port and has a piece of software to enable it to run on a PC
or any Acorn.
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In size, it is more like one of those big felt tips than a ballpoint,
but kids had little trouble manipulating it, probably for that very
reason. Although it is an adult size item, it is light, and the select
button is situated where the index finger can comfortably find it.
9.11
Any new device is difficult to use the first time out, but because of
its similarity to a pencil, this is probably easier to get used to than
a mouse or a roller ball, as itæs a familiar action. One great thing
about it is the fact that, when loaded, it does not disable the mouse,
so ordinary use can continue, and the pen can then be picked up to use
at any time that is convenient. For the kids doing their letter shapes,
it made life much simpler. It is easier to draw straight lines with this
device, and the whole process became more meaningful than when the mouse
had been the only option.
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As for using it in other programs, again it proved really useful,
especially for drawing and painting packages, and it was ideal for grid-
based work and CAD. Iæm no artist, but I am forced to draw occasional
diagrams and worksheets, and had often longed for a graphics tablet to
help me draw on screen, but a decent one would set me back over ú200, so
it was out of the question, considering how little it would be used. The
mouse pen, at ú45, is a viable alternative and, given its versatility,
and the fact that it is simple to install, has to be an essential item
for any home or classroom computer.
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I expect to see a lot more software companies make use of this as an
option in the near future and even without specific software like Claud
& Maude, it is a valuable tool. The Serial Mouse Pen is produced by
Fellows Computerware. The Acorn driver is by Brilliant Software and the
complete setup is available from SEMERC at ú45 +VAT.áuá
9.11
Smudge the Scientist
9.11
Bob & Lisa Ames
9.11
This package comes as three discs and three related work books and also
a program guide for supervisors. The package is aimed at 4-7 year olds,
and öpresents the general principles of scienceò.
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The two characters, the dog called Smudge (from the first number-based
program called Smudge the Spaniel, reviewed by us in Archive 7.1) and a
new friend Cecily, encounter Living Processes & Decay, Electricity &
Magnetism, and Weather & Floating/Sinking, all öin everyday situationsò.
The program is not protected and is also available in the form of site
licences, for which Storm Software should be contacted direct.
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The program suite really should be decompressed and installed onto a
hard disc drive; I was amazed to find the file count revealed the
unpacked size is 5.7Mb for the complete suite, including the !Fonts
directory (which is helpfully configured for RISCáOS 2 and 3). It is
important to note that both the !Fonts and !Scrap directories need to be
seen by the filer before any of the programs are run, otherwise very
strange behaviour occurs Ö I noted this in my first review. However,
there is still no real feedback to the user about missing files if the
program is run from hard disc.
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There are some facilities which are described as ÉAdvancedæ, and are
described in the separate Supervisorsæ section of the manual. These
features are not available from screen menus Ö they require use of the
red function keys and, consequently, are not easily available for the
student. There is no keystrip, but Iáwouldnæt say that, for instance,
the printing out of the Studentæs Notebook pages is advanced. It should
be available from within the Notebook directly. While on the subject of
the Notebook, the limit of one page of text only is very restrictive.
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The programs are self explanatory. The Workbooks are for further
investigative work away from the computer. They contain lots of ideas
for practical work. This is the best section of the package. It
encourages the student to carry out work far removed from the computer,
sometimes outdoors Ö it might even discourage computer work, as the
experiments are so interesting!
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In the Life & Living booklet, there are ideas for germinating cress
seeds under different conditions; a bean sprout growing demonstration;
and other experiments on Decay. The Electricity section holds fewer
suggestions, two simple circuits being suggested, but Magnetism has more
ideas for making games and magic tricks. The Weather section has a large
number of things to do and make Ö instruments for a weather observation
station, experiments with ice, rainbow and cloud generation. I feel
these work areas help justify the price asked for the package, because
there does not seem to be enough (despite the unpacked size!) in the
software alone.
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Lisa started at the beginning, after I arranged the installation work,
and continued through the set. She came off the computer after 70
minutes saying she had done it all. Fair enough, it held her attention
for that length of time in a straight line (not easy for a butterfly-
brain!) but if that was all there was to the package, I would feel
cheated. This is where the workbooks redeem the price asked, as the
subsequent work is much more involving, taking time over several days in
some cases (e.g. growing, decaying, etc.)
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Generally, the package contains accurate information, as required of a
teaching package, but there are a few minor but regrettable mistakes.
9.11
Strange bits
9.11
In the programs, there is a facility to arrange the items in groups
(soft/hard, decay/wonæt decay), but the program does not decide whether
the groupings made by the child are correct or incorrect Ö I expected it
to do so. It appears from the support materials, that children are
expected to discuss their selections and correct them if necessary. This
is difficult if the child is working alone. Perhaps an optional correct/
incorrect answer response could be added?
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Life Living Decay Ö With the plant naming-parts section, where the
various coloured parts are dragged from the ömenuò onto the bare outline
to complete the picture, minor misalignments resulting from unsteady
hands should be automatically adjusted. Iáhave seen Mac software which
does this, and the general effect is much better. Plants also need air
to grow, even in a closed system like the bottle garden suggested Ö this
is omitted from the fact file.
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Electricity and Magnetism Ö There seems to be the usual confusion in the
authoræs mind with the word ömagneticò. In the program and the workbook,
the word magnetic is used to describe materials which are attracted by a
magnet; this is not correct! The dictionary definition for magnetic is
öexhibiting the properties of a magnetò.
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In the Floating/Sinking workbook, there is the proper warning attached
to the öfloating in waterò section, about the dangers of unsupervised
ponds. However, there is no mention of the lethal nature of the mains
electricity which is usually the youngsteræs first contact with the word
electricity. There must be a warning to avoid mains sockets Ö the
student should use low voltage batteries only.
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Actually, if a fresh mallory cell is short-circuited for any period of
time, the cell and certainly the conductors will get hot enough to burn
flesh quite badly, and there are records of explosions in such
situations! Care is obviously needed even with low voltage supplies, and
these warnings must be provided.
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Conclusion
9.11
Generally good value, a few minor but annoying faults Ö why does it take
so much hard disc space? Perhaps further additions to the suite could
make better use of the keys and provide a keystrip Ö itæs very annoying
to have to refer to the manual each time. Overall, scores 9/10.áuá
9.11
Clicker Plus
9.11
Bob Black
9.11
I suppose that, in basic terms, there are two types of educational
software. There are programs that are written for you, which you run and
have specific contents, and there are framework programs which offer you
a method of presenting tasks in a certain way, but for which you have to
write the contents.
9.11
Most of my experience is with people using software at home and,
occasionally, with people in school who use software for specific
reasons and, for this, the former type of software is ideal. Framework
programs require a good knowledge of using computers, and a good deal of
time to learn the inæs and outæs of the particular framework program
that you are using. This is not for the faint-hearted or for people with
little time for preparation and study.
9.11
The best known of the framework programs must be My World, which allows
exercises to be built up for kids to use Ö rather like on-screen fuzzy
felt. Originally, it had a basic set of activities pre-drawn that you
could load and use, but it was soon discovered that it was not too
complex to write exercises that suited an individual child, or a group
of children, and slowly but surely, a great bank of resources was built
up so that My World could be used easily for any subject in the
curriculum Ö Massey Ferguson even used it to train their apprentices in
how to assemble engines in the workshop!
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Clicker Plus is a framework program that does much more. At its most
basic, it is an on-screen Éconcept keyboardæ which allows access to the
computer without using the Qwerty keyboard Öthis in itself can be very
useful. It comprises anything up to a 100 boxes or grids which are
displayed on the screen in any size that you want.
9.11
Each of these grids can contain a variety of objects. Plain text can be
entered to make word boards, or sentence-makers, and just clicking on
the box will enter that text into any wordprocessor. At the same time,
it can contain a sound sample so that the word is spoken (or an
associated sound played) by the computer. It could contain a symbol or a
graphic instead of the word and it can also perform an action, like
closing that grid box and opening another.
9.11
Grids can be made to perform any task that can be performed with the
keyboard, like insert, delete, space etc, and the grids can be coloured,
resized and re¡shaped as required. The grids are so versatile that you
can create a background picture to the whole set of grids and then add
grids with their own graphics, sound and functions over the top. You
could even load a video sequence to illustrate a point.
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So this is much more than it seems, and it is quite feasible to call it
a multimedia package, as it would be quite simple to construct your own
talking books or language tutors. The possibilities for this software
are endless. So, if you are a person with a limited budget but with a
fair amount of time on your hands to construct activities, this is an
essential piece of software.
9.11
However, I donæt know many people with a lot of spare time on their
hands, and I suspect that most teachers and parents do not fall into
this category. Iásuspect that Clicker Plus will initially appeal to the
enthusiastic, and computer literate, teacher or parent, and to the rest
of us it would be another of those great resources that sits on the
shelf because no-one has the time or the expertise to use it. There are
a small number of pre-written grids that accompany the software, but
they are little more than demonstration pieces and have very limited
value on their own.
9.11
What Clicker Plus needs is a huge library of pre-written, specific,
easy-to-use grids that could be purchased cheaply to run from the master
program, in much the same way that My World now has developed its
library of screens to cover almost any eventuality at home or in the
classroom. When that happens, if it happens soon enough, I suspect that
we shall all want to buy a copy. Until then it remains a remarkable
achievement with a limited market. Ten out of ten for quality and
reliability.
9.11
The Clicker Plus package is ú55 +VAT from Crick Computing. There is also
a switch version for those unable to use the mouse.áuá
9.11
Money Manager Pro
9.11
Dave Wilcox
9.11
Money Manager Pro from Wynded Software is a development of their Money
Manager program which has been available for a year or more. The Pro
version has been offered for review, although it is still currently in
the beta-testing stage, and is obviously not quite ready for release at
present. It even crashed completely when I was trying to enter data Ö
but I will give an overall opinion of what I have seen so far. In other
words, this is more of a preview than a review.
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Package aim?
9.11
This program is designed for the management of home or business
accounts, and can best be compared to your monthly Bank Statement. The
program can handle numerous accounts, and since the original Money
Manager copes with twenty accounts, I presume Pro will expand on this
capacity. Very basically, it stores all inward, outward and sideways
movements of your cash, regardless of account, in one long list. From
this overall list, it is possible to list all or certain transactions
based on account code, or class code, etc.
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The program
9.11
The program installs itself onto the iconbar in the usual manner.
Clicking on the icon presents three windows, ÉAccount Codesæ, ÉClass
Codesæ, and ÉMaináMenuæ.
9.11
ÉAccount Codesæ Ö This lets you establish any accounts you wish to
manage, and can incorporate any accounts you are likely to have; Current
Accounts, Savings Accounts, Credit Card Accounts, etc. Each account is
set up with three entries; an abbreviation for ID purposes (I used 1, 2,
3 etc), the account name (Current 1, Visa, etc) and, most importantly,
the starting balances.
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ÉClass Codesæ Ö These codes are used for entry ofátheátype of
transaction. The default entry is Éx0áÖáTransfersæ, which is present to
cover transfer actions between your different accounts. Others you may
like to set up could include cheques, card purchases, cash machine
withdrawals, salary, or any others you can think of. Each entry again
has an ID code, e.g. c1 Ö Cheque. The ID code is any code of your
choice, so long as it consists of a letter followed by a number Ö this
gives plenty of scope.
9.11
The ÉMain Menuæ window gives the main control of the program. Most of
these functions Iáhave not really been able to test fully, having been
unable to enter what I would deem sufficient data for a reasonable test.
However, options will exist on the finished product for adding/editing
entries, bar/pie chart presentation of data, detailed statements,
monthly analysis, account balances, class totals, account analysis,
account statistics, VAT statements, reconciling entries and adding a new
month (only 12 months are held in the program at any time).
9.11
Two other windows which can be opened by clicking <menu> over the Main
Menu window are ÉMarksæ and ÉVAT Ratesæ. The marks window lets you
incorporate an ID tag for who is spending the money, or an ID for the
type of cost, e.g. car, clothing, etc Öáaáone character ID is used here.
The VAT Rates window I would imagine would be of little use to most
users of this program, but using the same methods, differing VAT rates
may be entered. Once the above aspects are set up, their windows are
displayed for reference purposes only.
9.11
The principal use of the ÉMain Menuæ is obviously ÉAdd/Edit Entriesæ, as
shown above. The top two rows are the control lines, with entries being
selected by the mouse. As you can see, the selected month is May. To
work, an entry needs to be selected, then one of the top row options
activated, again by clicking with the mouse.
9.11
Conclusion
9.11
I am very sceptical of money management programs, having been brought up
to use spreadsheets for this sort of application. However, this program
has a lot of potential. Data entry is fairly quick to learn, with a few
idiosyncrasies, but these cause little problem. Soáto the author, Neil
Walker, I say donæt give up! Iáwould hope that itæs not too far to the
end of the tunnel. Neil says in a text file on the disc, öThe program
was written in this manner as it is a port of a PC program, and it was
considered necessary to bend the Style Guide to make the PC user feel
comfortable with the program.ò I would say to Neil, forget the PC user,
your target market is the Acorn user. I await the finished product.
9.11
The original version, Money Manager, costs ú24.95 inclusive, and Money
Manager Pro will cost ú44.95. The upgrade from Manager to Pro will be
the difference in prices, i.e. ú20. Upgrades that cover bug fixes will
be free of charge, but if new features are added, a charge of ú5 will be
made to cover costs.áuá
9.11
A screenshot from the propaganda section showing a cartoonáfrom the
ÉBisto collectionæ.
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