Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/products/volume_02/issue_09

Text File | 1995-02-21 | 12KB | 213 lines

Å  Acorn Selling off old stock of A440æs Ö Does anyone want one of the
old style A440æs (with 20 Mbyte drive)? Acorn are doing them at a
special price, so we can sell them for ú2750 (inc VAT & carriage). That
price includes colour monitor and RISC-OS. (Remember that the new 440/
1æs with 50 Mbyte drives cost ú3391 without a monitor.) Let us know
fairly quickly if you want one. I donæt think they have got vast stocks
of the things.
2.9
Å  BASIC Compilers Ö We now have both Risc BASIC from Silicon Vision and
Dabs Pressæ ABC version 2 in stock, though no sign yet of Mach Technol
ogyæs offering.
2.9
Å  CLabel Ö A label and ticket printing utility for just ú6.95 from Z & Z
Software.
2.9
Å  Film-Maker Ö The interactive 3D animation system, ú79.95 from Silicon
Vision is now in stock. (ú69 through Archive).
2.9
Å  Geoscan Ö a computer database and program on world development for
A310 and up. Gives information in the form of text, tables, maps, graphs
and diagrams about 100 countries of the world. Suitable for geography,
economics and general studies in schools and colleges from middle and
lower secondary upwards. Costs ú45 inc VAT and p&p from Passkey
Marketing.
2.9
Å  Golf Game Ö Holed Out! Ö A new game from 4mation has just come into
stock Ö a 3D animated golf game offering  match or stroke play, 14
clubs, 4 skill levels, left or right handed players, variable wind
speeds, digitised sound etc, etc. Reviewed in last monthæs A & B
Computing as ÉGame of the Monthæ. (See also page 38) (ú19.95 or ú18
through Archive)
2.9
Å  Hard Drives for the new 400 series machines including cables and
metalwork Ö Computerware drives are available through Archive: 20 Mbytes
for ú230 (inc VAT & carriage) and 40 Mbytes for ú420.
2.9
Å  Ibix the Viking Ö ú19.95 from Minerva (ú18 through Archive) is ömore
than just a gameò. It is basically a maze game along the lines of
Hoverbod and Thundermonk but it has three completely different levels.
Young children can play it at the beginnersæ level, then there is a
harder level for the more adventurous and finally an editor level in
which you can create your own mazes and your own characters. Hence the
break in the tradition of all Minervaæs games costing ú14.95.
2.9
Å  Integrex Screen Dump from Musbury Consultants now has a quarter size
dump as well as all the other sizes. If you have an older version which
does not have a copy of this dump, send your disc back to Musbury and
they will up-date it f.o.c. (N.B. This does not apply to the Canon dump
because the Canon printer does not have the extra graphics mode
necessary.)
2.9
Å  Newsmaster 2, from LTS, ú60 + VAT, improves on their original DTP
package (though it still works through the PC emulator) by allowing
screens to be imported from other programs such as Lotus 1-2-3 and PC
Paintbrush. It also has improved printing quality.
2.9
Å  PrintMaster Ö Also available from LTS is PrintMaster, ú40 +VAT, for
designing posters, long banners, headed stationery, calendars, greetings
cards etc. It has ten fonts, displayable in 5 styles, 11 different
borders and 120 clip art graphics plus a graphics editor for creating
your own pictures.
2.9
Å  Numerator Ö Maths learning package for Logotron Ltd is now available
in a newer, bigger, better etc format which is Arthur and RISC-OS
compatible. ú69 or a site licence for ú250.
2.9
Å  PAL programmer from Atomwide Ö A single width podule with its own
separate power supply is provided with software to allow you to compile
and program all the commonly used 20 and 24 pin PAL devices. ú199 +VAT
+ú2.50 carriage (or ú220 through Archive).
2.9
Å  RAM upgrade for 410/420 Ö Technomatic have ram chips in stock at ú180
+ VAT + carriage per 1 Mbyte. All you have to do is open up the computer
and plug in the chips (the right way round!) Ö couldnæt be easier.
2.9
Å  RISC-OS versions of CCD software are now available: Fortran Libraries,
ú49.50 (reviewed Archive 1.8 p 20 and 1.9 p 22), Xed Text Editor, ú19.50
(Archive 1.9 p 23) and Printer Buffer Module ú12.50 (Archive 2.1 p 30).
They also have a new product: C to Fortran Interface Tools which
facilitates conversion of programs between the two languages, ú34.50.
(All prices inclusive of VAT & p&p.)
2.9
Å  ScanLight Ö 200 d.p.i. A4 width hand held scanner with podule and
software Ö works under Arthur or RISC-OS. Ideal for use with graphics,
art and DTP programs. Now in stock at ú449+VAT + carriage or ú495
inclusive through Archive.
2.9
Å  Science Frontier 40 Mbyte Hard drives: For 310æs there is a podule
plus drive plus cables etc ú621, for new 410æs there is a drive plus
cables plus metalwork for ú435.85 and if you just want a bare drive to
replace an existing one, i.e. without cables or metalwork, they charge
ú419.75. (Prices are inclusive of VAT and carriage.) The drives in each
case are 35 ms Fujitsu drives and the podules are Acornæs own. They are
available from G.E.S. Computer Supplies in Aberdeen and are, at the time
of writing, available from stock.
2.9
Å  Sound Samplers from Armadillo Ö Armadillo now do a range of sound
samplers, starting from the A448 (ú135 +VAT +carriage or ú150 inc.
through Archive) which is an 8-bit mono sampler with a maximum sample
rate of 41 kHz. It has its own software allowing for loading, saving,
editing, sampling and playback. The sampling and playback can be
controlled through BASIC, Assembler, or C via system calls. Then there
is the A448b which is a stereo version of the A448 which also includes a
new WIMP software package, öHighnoteò. (ú160 +VAT +carriage or ú180 inc.
through Archive.) If you want to add a MIDI port, in, through and out,
you can choose the A448m (ú190 +VAT +carriage or ú210 inc. through
Archive). Finally, if you want 16-bit sampling (CD quality) with the
HighNote software, 44kHz sampling rate with 4 times over-sampling on
playback, Midi in, through and out, you need the A616 Ö a snip at ú1150
+VAT +carriage! (or ú1290 inc. through Archive.) Finally, there is fast
fourier transform software which performs a 256 point FFT in just 10 ms!
Spectra Fourier Analysis package cost ú60 +VAT +carriage (or ú66 inc.
through Archive).
2.9
Å  Voice Generator Ö MJD Software are preparing a WIMP based voice
generator allowing you to create your own voices either by editing
sampled waveforms or by combining waveforms, amplitude envelopes and
pitch envelopes etc etc. No price given. Details from Mark Davis on
01Ö567Ö4284.
2.9
Å  Wingpass Assembler Ö There is now a version 2.06 which clears one or
two floating point bugs. However, the main reason for issuing it was
that the changes that Acorn made in the latest version of their linker
output file created an incompatibility with relocatable modules as
reported by Tom Crane last month (Archive 2.8 p 41).  You can get the
new version by sending your Release Disk back to Wingpass and they will
replace it free of charge.
2.9
Review Software Received...
2.9
Apart from reviews already written we have received review copies of the
following software: CLabel, and Claresæ Arcade 3
2.9
Å  A3000 Ö the new BBC Microcomputer Ö Acorn say that they have already
had orders for 3,000 machines including 500 from Durham L.E.A. On
Acornæs past performance, and since I doubt that they will be planning
to make more than a few thousand before the end of the year, this does
not bode too well for the average man-in-the-street getting hold of one
before╔ well, what do you think? Christmas?  Or is that being too hard
on Acorn? Weæve ordered a couple from the distributors and will
obviously shout fairly loudly when they arrive. Acorn say that there
will be a ölimited numberò of machines available in June, but these are
being offered to L.E.A.s on a ö5 maximum per L.E.A.ò basis. They say
that öfull productionò is due to start in July.
2.9
Å  Atelier, ú99.95 (or ú85 through Archive) is a 256 colour art package
complete with animation Ö Peter Clements who is doing a review for A & B
says it is very, very impressive and thinks that it is even better than
Pro-Artisan (and cheaper!). In particular, he says that the range of
different fill routines is outstanding. Availability? Well, it may be
ready by the time you read this. Please ring if you are interested.
2.9
Å  Mach Technology Ltd update Ö Further to the item on page 4 of the May
magazine about ultra cheap drives and other software from Mach Technol
ogy, I gather from them that the drives advertised at ú249 are firstly
not inclusive of VAT Ö the advert was a little confusing on this issue.
The actual cost is thus ú286.35 plus carriage Ö still very cheap!
Secondly, they are 65 millisecond drives and thirdly they are external
drives, boxed with p.s.u., attached by cable to an internal podule.
There is at present no connector for a second hard drive, either
internal or external, but Mach Technology say they are going to do
upgrades later.
2.9
Having said all that, they are offering a range of drives, 20, 30 and 40
Mbyte, all external, all including podule at prices up to ú399 +VAT.
They said they would send me a sample drive at the begin-ning of May but
I havenæt had one yet Ö obviously I will let you know as soon as
possible whether they are as good value as they seem. In fact I rang
them today and they are still not available for sale. They hope they
will be available öin a week or soò.
2.9
Mach Technology also said that the other three items of software, the
Database, Modula-2 and Mach BASIC compiler were öready for shippingò.
However, we havenæt actually received any of them yet. They are now
saying (24th May) that Hyperbase should be ötwo or three daysò, Mach
BASIC should be öabout a week or soò but Modula-2 is öa bit further
offò.
2.9
They are also promising other exciting products. Firstly there is an MS-
DOS podule with an 80286 processor and 640k of ram. This will be
available for ú299 inc VAT. Secondly they are promising memory upgrades
for the 300 series computers Ö ú391 for upgrade to 2 Mbytes and ú598 for
upgrade to the full 4 Mbytes.
2.9
Å  Structural Analysis Ö  Neale Smith has taken a 2D structural analysis
program written for the BBC by Dr David Brohn and converted it and
enhanced it on the Archimedes. This is to be marketed in the near
future, but in the meantime, enquiries should be sent to Neale Smith, 13
Paddock Wood, Prudhoe, Northumberland, NE42 5BJ.
2.9
Å  Studio 24 Plus Version 2 will be available later in the year and will
be an upgrade for existing customers, handling data from version 1.0. It
will retailing at approx ú149.00.  It will support Render Bender
pictures during playing and various other animation techniques, from
realtime notation to video, using SMPTE timecode from the EMR  SMPTE
podule if required for serious film and art work with music.  Other
features include full multitasking control and extra edit pages, music
keyboard recorder function control. A professional version is also being
prepared called MegaStudio with unlimited tracks and up to 8000 Midi
channel control via one cable on  the EMR MINI (Musical Instrument
Network Interface) expansion podule.
2.9
About to be launched is the VuMusic program (which creates patterns from
Midi data via Acorn or EMR interfaces and can be run as a stand-alone or
within Studio 24 Plus V2.0. Price ú19.95 inc VAT. The EMR Sampler 8
podule is now available Ö sample sounds for inclusion in SoundSynth Ö
ú99 inc VAT.  Also imminent is a versatile program called Rhythm Box
that uses grid edit pages for making up to 8 internal sounds per bar
(made with SoundSynth or from Creations disks) Ö each bar can use
different sounds and tempo changes as well as pitch and rhythm patterns
to form a complete song.  Price ú29.95 inc VAT.
2.9