Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/products/volume_09/issue_03

Text File | 1995-11-10 | 21KB | 364 lines

Products Available
9.3
A4 portables Ö Due to popular demand and to satisfy outstanding orders,
Acorn is building a further 400 or so A4 portables. In addition, Acorn
has made spare part provision to support the product for three years.
However, this will be the final build of the A4 and is the final
opportunity for customers to purchase the portable. The A4s are now
available at the special price of ú1350 inclusive through Archive. A 3-
year extended warranty is available for a further ú150. The A4 is 4Mb
RAM, 80Mb HD and comes with Acorn PC Soft and MS DOS as standard.
9.3
Statement from Acorn... Acorn is continuing to research and develop
notebook portable technology, recognising that there is a requirement
for desktop equivalent notebooks in education, in small numbers, as a
specialist resource. However, there are currently no plans to market a
successor to the A4 until the price of colour screen technology comes
down and the performance of notebook battery technology improves to
allow use of long lasting, long battery life portable product that
education needs.
9.3
Acornæs success with the Pocket Book has demonstrated that palmtop
technology offers a tremendous growth opportunity for the application of
portable IT in education. The Pocket Book performs most of the functions
that a Notebook system is typically used for, but at a fraction of the
cost, and with the advantages of greater portability and longer battery
life.
9.3
Acorn prices Ö At the introduction of the Acorn Education Agency scheme,
Acorn severely reduced the discount offered to non-Agency dealers. What
we were not told at the time was that the same discounts were applied to
ALL Acorn products including software. As a result, virtually all
Archive prices for Acorn equipment have had to rise, in some case above
r.r.p. because the prices we quote include carriage. Otherwise, we would
end up selling things like manuals and software at a loss because they
are so heavy and the p&p is so high. (Is there any other computer
company that sells software to dealers at the same, tiny, discount as
they do hardware?!)
9.3
ACross is a crossword program from Kudos Computing. It uses a dictionary
of answers and clues, plus a pattern-matching engine, to create fully
symmetrical random crosswords. The program has been designed in a
modular fashion to allow additional dictionaries of clues and answers to
be added later. The dictionaries themselves have been graded for
different ability levels and Kudos will be monitoring usersæ feelings
about the grading to ensure the methods they employ are fair. The first
dictionary supplied, Quick 1, is based around short answers of 3 to 6
letters and a grid size of 3 to 11 squares; difficulty levels are hard,
medium and easy. ACross costs ú24.99 inclusive plus ú1.50 p&p.
9.3
ANT Internet Suite Ö This is an integrated set of programs and utilities
to make Internet access easy for Acorn computer users. It includes:
Dialler Ö an easy-to-use setup utility to get on line without any fuss.
Fresco Ö a fast and powerful World Wide Web browser which fully
implements HTML 2.0, supports forms, HTML 3.0 and Netscape extensions,
and gives you access to mail, FTP and Gopher direct from the web. Marcel
Ö an advanced electronic mail and Usenet news program for sending and
receiving text and program files, and reading and posting news articles.
It features support for SMTP and POP3 as well as MIME and IMAP
protocols. FTP Ö file transfer for uploads and downloads from remote
computers. Utilities Ö search and set up utilities including Ping. All
the programs work together in a consistent and interface-compliant
manner. The price for the professional version will be ú99 +VAT from
ANT.
9.3
ARM700 upgrades Ö By all accounts, it looks as if this is a product that
will NOT be available. The pressure on ARM Ltd is to produce faster and
better non-floating point processors, so the next ARM upgrade is likely
to be an 810, although we donæt yet know when that will be coming. If
you are waiting for an ARM700, you can either have a credit or take an
ARM710 which is virtually the same price as the ARM700 was going to be.
Give us a ring if you are not sure what to do and want further advice.
9.3
ATAPI CD-ROM drives Ö (This isnæt a Product Available but I thought this
was the best place to put this comment to draw attention to it.) As I
understood it from an article in Computer Shopper, the point of ATAPI
(as on the new RiscáPC 600/700s) is that you can have a CD drive as well
as two hard drives. So this is what we have been telling everyone they
can do with their new RiscáPC! However, Acornæs Technical Support
Department assures me that they can only have two devices Ö two hard
drives OR the hard drive and a CD drive. That means you have to go to
SCSI for a second hard drive if you want to use an ATAPI drive. Sorry
for creating confusion!
9.3
If you want to use the CD-ROM that is currently sitting on your shelf,
you could buy a RapIDE32 IDE interface costing ú119 + ú5 p&p +VAT from
Yellowstone Educational Solutions Ö see Products Available for details.
This allows you to use four IDE devices in addition to the two provided
by the Acorn interface. They hope too that it will soon support
removable media.
9.3
Audio mixing card Ö This allows the older models of Risc PC (ACB15,
ACB25, ACB45) to take the audio output from a CD-ROM drive and channel
it through the computeræs internal sound system. It works happily with
or without the 16-bit Éminnieæ sound card and also has a gain control to
allow you to set the volume of the CD to best match the rest of the
sound system. The Archive price is ú44 inclusive.
9.3
Bible Picture Library CD-ROM for use on RISC OS machines, mentioned in
Archive 9.2, is available for ú49 inclusive from: Ian Gooding, 18
Larksfield, Covingham, Swindon, SN3 5AD Ö a CD on 30 day trial is also
available from the same address.
9.3
BJC4000 cartridges Ö When the ink runs out on your new BJC4000, the
first thing to do is buy some new ink tanks. These are available through
Archive at ú7 for a black ink tank and ú17 for the colour tank. When
youæve done so many sheets (the manual suggests 5,000, I think), they
say you should replace the printhead, so you would buy a Éblack
cartridge plus printheadæ for ú28 through Archive and a Écolour
cartridge and printheadæ for ú40.
9.3
BJC600 special price Ö One company still has supplies of the BJC600
which we can sell (while stocks last) for ú370. The BJC600 Éonlyæ does
360╫360dpi while the 600e (at ú430) does 720╫360dpi.
9.3
Doodle from SEMERC is a new musical painting package. It provides
nursery and reception children, as well as special needs students, with
a simple introduction to Paint-type programs. The program uses twenty
four colours, and comes with a thin and thick pencil tool and a fill
tool. Each colour is associated with a different sound which plays low
if the colour is placed towards the bottom of the screen, and goes
higher as you move up the screen. Pictures are saved as Paint files and
can be printed or placed into other software packages. Doodle also works
with SEMERCæs new Touch IT touchscreen. Doodle costs ú20 +VAT from
SEMERC.
9.3
Freddy Teddy from Topologika has a new title in the series called
Directions. Freddy has to find his way to various places in his town.
Movement is around a map using either up/down/left/right commands, or
Logo-like inputs such as turn left/right/forward/backwards. Children are
given a list of five destinations, chosen at random, which Freddy must
visit. Each place provides a simple animation to watch, and at the end
thereæs a certificate to fill in showing what happened at each location.
Directions is aimed at Key Stage 1, is available for all Acorn computers
and costs ú20 +VAT +ú2.50 p&p from Topologika or ú25 through Archive.
9.3
HolyBible is now also available in Greek, Hebrew and the Good News
Version. The GNB module costs ú45 +VAT or ú51 through Archive. The Greek
and Hebrew modules cost ú25 +VAT each or ú28 through Archive, and the
Greek and Hebrew fonts ú20 +VAT or ú22 through Archive. Output from the
Hebrew Old Testament can be output to Impression and Easiwriter Pro
although only in the latter can it be edited (because Hebrew is right-
to-left reading!).
9.3
Iiyama 21ö monitors Ö One customer drew our attention to the fact that
the specifications of the two Iiyama 21ò monitors are almost identical
except that one is 3kg heavier and costs ú100 more! The 0.30mm aperture
grille of the 21 Pro is about equivalent to the 0.27mm dot pitch of the
21 FST, so what is the difference in practical terms? Having talked
Iiyama, they say that the 21 FST is the better of the two in terms of
crispness of text display and the 21 Pro is better in terms of colour
definition. So, you pays your money... the 21 FST is ú1490 and the 21
Pro is ú1590 through Archive.
9.3
(We havenæt had a chance to look at the new 17ö Iiyama yet but we have
seen the new 17ò Pro Diatron monitor in action on a RiscáPC and it is
really excellent. If you put it alongside the Acorn 17ö, you can
certainly see the difference Ö it is a noticeably clearer and crisper
display, as visitors to the NCS stand at Acorn World 95 will be able to
attest. Ed.)
9.3
Mechanisms is the first CD-ROM in the Technology Series from Creative
Curriculum Software. It took two years to develop and contains over 1000
pages of information. Drawing on examples from the home, industry and
history, Mechanisms uses pictures, photos, diagrams and overlays to
display the material. To accompany the CD-ROM, Creative Curriculum
Software supply an educational Resource Pack which includes suggested
project work. Mechanisms costs ú69 +VAT for a single user version and
ú99 +VAT for a site/network licence. (ú79 and ú115 respectively through
Archive.) Both versions include the Resource Pack and come on a dual
format CD-ROM.
9.3
Occasion is a diary and personal organiser for RISC OS machines from
ExpLAN Software. It provides a calendar, diary, address book, phone book
and notebook and can be used by a single user or across a network. The
calendar can be set to any year from 1970 onwards and acts as the access
for the diary. Clicking on any day opens the diary page in one (or both)
of two formats, either a listing of the events for a single day split
into birthdays, anniversaries, reminders and appointments, or
appointments for a week at a time. The address book can assign names and
addresses to six definable categories, and the print facility can be
used for producing labels as well as pages for inclusion in a paper
diary. The phone book includes two diallers, either via DTMF tones on
the machineæs speaker, or via the serial port and a modem. The notebook
incorporates a text editor for writing short items of text. One of
Occasionæs major features is its ability to cross-update information
between Acornæs Schedule, running on a Pocket Book, or Agenda on a Psion
Series 3; data can be loaded into Occasion from either, and then
transferred to the other.
9.3
Occasion comes in two variants: Family Occasion operates on a single
desktop with cross updating to multiple Pocket Books and costs ú69.95
inclusive or ú67 through Archive. A second variation, Gala Occasion,
operates on networked computers and so costs more. For full details
about Gala, ExpLAN suggest you talk to them first to see if itæs
appropriate for your needs.
9.3
PC Card Cooler Ö If you are worried about the high temperature of the PC
card in your RiscáPC, the new PCáCard Cooler, costing ú21 from Repair
Zone is what you need. It consists of a fan which is attached to the
card, draws its power from the connectors on the main circuit board and
creates a continuous blast of air over the surface of the 486 chip. It
reduces the working temperature of the chip quite considerably.
9.3
If you would like to order a PC Card Cooler, send a cheque for ú21,
payable to öRepair Zoneò, either to the NCS office (and we will pass it
on) or direct to Repair Zone.
9.3
PC Cards from Acorn Ö Acorn are producing two faster PC co-processor
cards for the Risc PC. One is to be a 486DX2-66 and will retail for ú249
+VAT and the other is to be a 486DX4-100 and will be ú299 +VAT. Both of
these cards will have socketed processors so that you can upgrade them
at a later date. The current word from Acorn is that they will be
available by the end of November. Whenever they do become available, we
expect to sell them for ú293 and ú351 respectively, regardless of
whether they are bought with or without a computer.
9.3
Pentium class PC card Ö Aleph One are producing a Pentium class PC co-
processor card for the Risc PC. It uses the new Gemini 2 ASIC and the
processor is a Cyrix 5x86 running at 100MHz. This costs ú549 +VAT from
Aleph One or ú645 through Archive.
9.3
PC Exchange Ö This is a means of directly transferring text, graphics
and other data between the drag and drop environment of RISC OS and the
Windows clipboard. It consists of a RISC OS application which displays a
window showing the contents of the Windows clipboard as file icons which
you can drag in or out to wherever you like, and a Windows program öthe
inside manò to watch over the clipboard. ASCII text is automatically
translated between PC and Acorn format and sprites are also converted to
and from Windows Bitmaps on the fly. PC Exchange is ú26 inclusive from
NCS.
9.3
!PCx86 update Ö This is (currently) version 1.91 of the Risc PC co-
processor card software. It now supports SoundBlaster emulation for the
playback of .WAV files (sound samples) and also passes MIDI information
on to any MIDI synthesizer that you might have such as a PowerWAVE or
ESPæs exciting new software-only MIDI synthesizer which should be
available in time for next monthæs Archive. !PCx86 can be obtained from
Acornæs ftp server   (ftp://ftp.acorn.co.uk/pub/riscos/releases/pccard/
pcx86.arc) or, if you prefer to have printed documentation, it is
available for ú10 from NCS.
9.3
Pocket Book II Ö The 512Kb Pocket Book II has finally been withdrawn and
replaced by the 1Mb version at ú335 inc VAT through Archive. The 256Kb
version (ú241 through Archive) is stilláavailable.
9.3
RiscáPC extended warranties Ö A more flexible approach to extended
warranties has now been adopted by Acorn. The cost is, simply, 3% of the
purchase price of the computer and its Acorn-badged upgrades per extra
year of warranty, i.e. to extend the warranty to three years (two extra)
is 6% and to extend it to five years (four extra) is 12%.
9.3
SENstore is a program designed to help take the burden out of writing
individual education plans for special needs children. It lets you
create a report with up to five different report headings and fifteen
different topic headings of your choice, simply by clicking the mouse.
It comes with over 750 comments about Strengths, Weaknesses, Targets,
Action Plans, Monitoring, Review and Assessment, across a wide range of
subjects. Itæs easy to alter these or add your own, and you can store up
to 3,750 comments on a hard disc or 1.6Mb floppy disc. SENstore costs
ú34.95 (or ú5 for a working demo version) from HS Software.
9.3
Sibelius version 3 Ö The new version of Sibelius should be available by
the time you read this (ömid-Novemberò). The two main enhancements are
ÉFlexi-timeæ which allows you to use a Midi keyboard to enter music into
the computer in real time, and standard Midi file conversion so that
files can be transferred to Sibelius from other music programs.
9.3
Sibelius is also now available in three configurations with increasing
functionality (and increasing price!) Ö Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7 Student
and Sibelius 7 Professional. The prices are as follows (Archive prices
in brackets):
9.3
Sibelius 6 Ö ú179 + VAT (ú200)
9.3
Sibelius 7 Student Ö ú495 + VAT (ú550)
9.3
Sibelius 7 Professional Ö ú888 + VAT (ú990)
9.3
Site licences are also available although the new prices are not fixed
as yet. Ring the NCS office if you are interested in a site licence.
9.3
Speak is a software speech system which allows you to listen to text
files. Text may be spoken continuously, or a word or clause at a time.
Various talk-as-you-type options are provided, and simple editing may be
performed while the text is being spoken. The Speak speech system is
already being used within third party educational software, and can be
found in a number of products, including Clicker, Writing with Symbols,
TalkWrite and Talking TextEase. The Speak module and its data takes
about 150Kb, and will run on any Acorn RISC computer. Itácontains a
comprehensive pronunciation dictionary, as well as an exceptions editor.
It costs ú19.50 inclusive, or ú1.50 for a demo version from Jonathan
Duddington (address in Factfile).
9.3
Spobbleoid is the latest offering from Fourth Dimension and (so they
say!) carries an EC health warning Ö ÉThis game is highly addictive: Do
not start a game when you are restricted by timeæ!!! Apartáfrom the
usual Fourth Dimensional humour, Spobbleoid has 72 levels, set over 12
action zones; 2.5 Mb of visuals; 8 channel stereo FX, including 11
original soundtracks; a level designer where you can create your own
mayhem; and 50 fps action with three parallax scrolling, mixed by Graeme
Richardson. The game features a chap called Spobbleoid, a small robotic
orange, whose mission is to save Earth from the evil alien Pepperpots;
their aim is to steal all the edible things from earth. Your job is to
help Spobbleoid by collecting all of the objects on every level and
splat all the monsters on the way. Spobbleoid costs ú29.95 from Fourth
Dimension or ú28 through Archive.
9.3
The Big Picture is an image-processing package from Longman Logotron
that takes full advantage of the excellent graphics offered by the
RiscáPC, while remaining accessible to owners of single MByte machines.
With The Big Picture, it is possible to create and edit images in 16.7
million colours and print on any sized paper, even posters. Big effects
can be created on modest machined using The Big Pictureæs virtual memory
system. Images, including photographs and video stills, can be captured,
retouched and altered with the Big Picturesæs graphics capability. It
supports JPEG, PhotoCD, GIF, TIF, sprites, and Clearfiles. It can also
accept drawfiles which it translates into bit-images.
9.3
The Big Picture costs ú69 +VAT from Longman Logotron or ú77 through
Archive. For existing users of Revelation ImagePro, it is possible to
upgrade to the Big Picture by sending Longman Logotron the ImagePro
program disc and a cheque for ú37 inclusive. A site licence upgrade
costs ú84.60.
9.3
Timebase from Widget Software is a program for recording how much time
you spend on particular projects. Using the built-in clock of the Psion
3a/Pocket Book II, you can record how much time you spend on a job,
input the hourly rate you charge, then get a print out of how much to
bill clients. Timebase allows you to charge at different rates,
depending on what it is you are doing; it will even give you a summary
of work in progress telling you how much you would get if you billed
someone today. Timebase is for use on the Psion 3a/Pocket Book II and
costs ú49.95 inclusive for the floppy disc version or ú69.95 for SSD.
9.3
World Development Database from Worldaware Software has been updated.
The new edition has 20 more countries (bringing the total to 149)
including the Énewæ European countries. The data comes in several
formats, including CSV and Key Plus, and covers such things as: economy,
environment and health, population growth, school enrolment, access to
safe water, etc. The User Handbook has Key Stage 3 and 4 geography and
mathematics course-work, with teachersæ notes and photocopiable
worksheets. The World Development Database is available for ú35 as a
single user set, consisting of User Handbook, the Worldæs Bankæs
Development Data Book. The Environmental Data Book, and data disc. The
ú68 site licence pack includes extra Data Books and a copiable disc.
These are available from Worldaware Software.
9.3
Talking Calculator from Wyddfa Software is a large add and subtract
calculator for Key Stage 1 which uses sampled sounds to teach basic
numbers and number skills. Using the mouse and pointer, children select
numbers and operations to help them with their sums. The computer
displays the numbers as apples or coloured pencils, and speaks them at
the same time. Teachers can choose from four ranges of numbers, and so
vary the size, and hence the difficulty, of the sums that can be input.
Talking Calculator costs ú16 inc VAT from Wyddfa Software.
9.3
Review software received...
9.3
We have received review copies of the following: ÅACross (g), ÅAPDL DTP2
CD (aeu), ÅAPDL PDCD 1&2 (aeu), ÅMechanisms CD (e), ÅSpobbleoid (g),
ÅTalking Stories (Gwen goes to School and Gwenæs Nose) (e), ÅTrellis
(u), ÅVistamusic-3 (music package for the non-keyboard player).
9.3