Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/magazine/volume_07/issue_06

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 277KB | 5,770 lines

Whither Acorn? − Part 16
7.6
I can’t remember quite how many times we have returned to the “Whither
Acorn?” saga − so I guessed that we were up to Part 16! Gabriel Swords,
in our Comment Column on page 24 has added his two penny-worth and I
have to admit that a month or so ago, I was getting a bit depressed at
the way things were (or weren’t) going. I could see Macs and PCs
snapping at Acorn’s (educational) heels and I was beginning to panic
because, unlike a number of other companies, we have refused to
diversify onto other platforms.
7.6
BETT ’94 was a turning point in my feelings about Acorn’s future. Apple
had no new machines to offer and the amount of Mac and PC educational
software was rather less than I had feared. Acorn, on the other hand,
were continuing to drop hints of new technology and the amount of new
Acorn hardware and software being launched was staggering. (The Products
Available section occupies eleven pages!) All I hope is that Mike
Williams’ prediction in Risc User of “towards the middle of the year” is
more accurate than my guess of “maybe not even until Acorn World 94” for
the launch of the new machines.
7.6
NCS / Archive Open Day − March 12th
7.6
A total of 27 Acorn-related companies will be displaying their wares at
our Open Day in March. It promises to be an exciting event so I hope a
good number of Archive subscribers will be able to come. I’m sure it
will be enjoyable from both a technical and a social point of view. For
more details, see page 17.
7.6
Growth in Archive?
7.6
This issue of Archive has been extremely difficult to put together
because of the huge amount of material. There is more advertising than
usual and a lot of good technical articles. Thanks to all those who have
responded to our request for more technical material and please be
patient if yours hasn’t yet been published. There’s over 25 pages left
for next month. But don’t let that stop you if you have something to
contribute − the more material we have, the more valuable Archive will
be to its readers.
7.6
Suddenly, I’m really looking forward to ’94!  I hope you are too.
7.6
Products Available
7.6
A lot of the new products available this month have an education bias.
This reflects the large amount of new software and hardware on show at
BETT ’94. However, there are a tremendous number of products of more
general application, so even non-education readers will find it worth
wading through the whole eleven pages!
7.6
•  Acorn Access is an important new AUN networking product. It is
described as an “entry-level plug and play” networking product. If you
have Acorn computers (RISC OS 3.1 with 2Mb+) in reasonably close
proximity, you can buy an Access Pack for each one, connect them
together and you will be able to share hard disc and printer facilities
between the computers. Each pack consists of an Ethernet card plus
appropriate drop-leads, T-connectors and thru-connectors to link the
computers together, and the Access software. This allows you to export
hard discs and printers so that they can be accessed by other computers
on the network. It requires no fileserver software or hardware and
therefore has no management overheads − no special knowledge is needed
to run it − indeed the installation ‘manual’ is a single A4 sheet and
the operating instructions are on another A4 sheet. However, you can
link it into an existing Level4 fileserver if you want to do so.
7.6
This is an extremely easy system to set up allowing up to about twenty
machines to be linked together over a distance of up to 185m. Acorn
recommend sharing one hard disc between about five or six machines and
it is possible, say, to share three or four hard discs between fifteen
machines on the same network segment. The hard discs can be shared on
the basis of ‘protected’ or ‘unprotected’, i.e. read-only or read/write
so you can prevent things being deleted if you choose! The schools that
have acted as test sites for Access have been extremely pleased with it,
particularly it terms of easy of installation and easy of use.
7.6
We haven’t got any pricing information at present but if it arrives in
time, we will put it in the Members’ Price List.
7.6
•  AUN Fileserver Level 4 release 3 is now available. This includes
Application Accelerator (see above) and !Gateway which enables two-way
access between two Ethernet networks of between two different cabling
systems such as Ethernet and Econet. Again, we are still waiting for
confirmation of pricing but I guess that the price will probably stay at
£399 +VAT or £430 through Archive. The upgrade for release 1 or 2 to
release 3 is ‘hoped to be about £100’.
7.6
•  Application Accelerator is another new AUN networking product from
Acorn. It is an application server which allows applications to be made
available to client machines on a read-only basis about four times as
fast as through the Level 4 Fileserver. However, Accelerator can export
any accessible directory or filing system and is not just limited to a
fileserver. For example, if it is put on an AUN gateway machine, it can
make a shared filing system accessible from both sides of the gateway.
If you have an application server using NFSFiler (from TCP/IP), you can
make this available to clients without them having to use NFSFiler.
Accelerator is compatible with TCP/IP (release 2) and Level 4 Fileserver
(release 3).
7.6
•  ArcFS2 − This is now being distributed by Vertical Twist and the price
has been increased to £24.99 inc VAT or £23 through Archive.
7.6
•  ArcSimp III − Mijas Software have now released version 3 of their
RISC OS compliant electronic simulation package. Its facilities include
digital circuit simulation, analogue circuit simulation, control system
design and mechanical system simulation. It comes in two forms: a
National Curriculum study version at £55 +VAT (site licence £150) and a
Professional Design & Research version costing £105 +VAT (site licence
£300).
7.6
•  ArtWorks 1.5 − This new version of ArtWorks provides support for 24-
bit sprites. It includes new TIFF file loaders and a fast-load feature.
The price remains at £169 +VAT from Computer Concepts or £180 through
Archive.
7.6
•  ArtWorks 1.5 on CD − This includes all of the clipart from the Clipart
CD, the new version of ArtWorks plus all the ArtWorks fonts. The price
remains at £169 +VAT from Computer Concepts or £180 through Archive.
7.6
•  ArtWorks Clipart CD − Computer Concepts are selling a CD which
consists of an ArtWorks file viewer plus over 800 ArtWorks example
pictures. It also has a demo version of AudioWorks with example audio
files and dozens of 24-bit photographs. The ArtWorks Clipart CD costs
£19 from Computer Concepts or £21 through Archive. (The clipart on this
CD is the same as is included on the CD version of ArtWorks.)
7.6
•  ArtWorks Made Easy by Ann Rooney is published by Dabs Press. As the
title suggests, this is aimed at the Artworks beginner and takes the
reader step by step through its various features and draws attention to
the principal differences between Artworks and Draw. Artworks Made Easy
costs £14.95 from Dabs Press or £15 through Archive inclusive of p&p.
(Books, being heavy are expensive to post.)
7.6
•  Basic WIMP Programming is a new book by Alan Senior published by Dabs
Press. It enables you to learn how to program the WIMP environment using
Basic. To assist program development, the book gives many example
programs which are designed to be easily adapted and expanded for your
own applications. An extensive library of procedures and functions is
also provided to simplify the program writer’s task. The price of £16.95
includes a disc of programs, procedures and functions. This is available
through Archive for £17 inclusive of p&p.
7.6
•  BearSheet is a “simple yet sophisticated” spreadsheet from ERIC
(Education Resources in Computing). It consists of two spreadsheet
programs aimed at different educational levels, does bar and pie charts,
line and scatter graphs and costs £29.95 inc VAT from ERIC with a
network version at £59.90 inc VAT.
7.6
•  BearWords is a wordprocessor/DTP package also from ERIC consisting of
three separate WPs at different levels from elementary to advanced
level. It is also concept keyboard compatible. BearWords costs £42.95
inc VAT from ERIC and a network version is available from them at £85.90
inc VAT.
7.6
•  Bodywise is an animated database of the human body from Sherston
Software. It provides an exploration of the human body for top juniors
and lower secondary pupils − just point and click the body-part they
want to know about and watch it work! (The mind boggles! Ed) There is a
setup option which allows teachers to choose which systems are available
to the children and to turn on or off the explanations and animations of
the sexual organs. Bodywise is fully RISC OS compliant and all
illustrations and text can easily be saved or transferred to other
applications. The package comes with user manual, a booklet of ideas for
classroom use, two sets of Body Search cards and a set of study sheets.
Bodywise costs £39.95 +VAT from Sherston Software or £44 through
Archive.
7.6
•  Brilliant special needs software − Brilliant Computing have produced
some more software for special needs children.
7.6
FacePaint allows the children (or you!) to create hundreds of silly
faces with different noses, eyes, ears, hair, hats, etc. Fill in a
‘features chart’ from an eye-witness report and then create your own
identikit picture. FacePaint is £30 +VAT from Brilliant Computing.
7.6
Look & Listen consists of five mini video games to develop basic road
safety skills. It uses the stereo sound and comes with a free pair of
headphones. It can be used with mouse, keyboard, touch screens or simple
switch. Look & Listen costs £25 +VAT from Brilliant Computing.
7.6
Sound Stuff consists of five games using a library of 24 sounds and
matching pictures. Find the sound to match the picture, use the stereo
facility to find where the sound is coming from, or play the matching
pairs game. It uses real recorded speech and can be used with mouse or
touch screen and comes with a free pair of headphones. Sound Stuff costs
£25 +VAT from Brilliant Computing.
7.6
•  CD-Net is a CD-ROM filing system for AUN. The idea of it is to
overcome some of the limitations imposed by existing hardware and
software. It allows CD-ROMs to be accessed either by special retrieval
software designed for a particular CD-ROM or through a CDFiler. CD-Net
is designed in such a way that, with “appropriate hardware”, it is even
possible to run Replay movies over the network. CD-ROMs have to be
specifically licensed to be accessed through CD-Net. There are currently
eight titles being licensed but more will be available over the next few
months. A CD-Net Trial Pack costs £39.95 +VAT from PEP Associates.
7.6
•  Celtic Clipart disc − This includes borders, panels, chains, motifs
and some hints on altering the graphics for your own use. It costs
£10.99 (no VAT) and is available from: Glyn Howells, Sicar Uchaf,
Brongest, Newcastle Emlyn, Dyfed, SA38 9ET.
7.6
•  Cistercian Abbeys is a Genesis application that uses graphics, plans,
maps and a database to explore medieval monastic life. Cistercian Abbeys
costs £45 +VAT from Oak Solutions or £50 through Archive.
7.6
•  Clipart & educational resource files − a range of clipart and
educational resource files are available from DEC_dATA at prices ranging
from £3 to £13 +VAT per set. New ones include Famous Buildings, Hand
Tools and Military Aircraft each £7.95 +VAT and The Party, Wedding and
Anniversary Collection, a two-disc set at £14 +VAT. There is also an
Impression Style Resource Disc at £7.95 +VAT which includes borders,
decorative drawfiles, map of the UK, masks, office symbols and sport
pictures and an Artworks Resource Disc at £8.95 +VAT which includes
decorative motifs, moulds for the envelope tool, drawings of gears and
stars, moulds for the perspective tool and a good number of sample
files.
7.6
•  Colour Hand Scanner − We now have information on Irlam’s hand scanner
as mentioned briefly in Products Available last month. This is an A5
scanner producing 24-bit colour output or 256 grey levels. Resolution is
from 100 to 400 dpi. The scan area is selectable up to just over 4
inches (about 10.5 cm). It has monochrome, 16 grey, 256 grey and 256
colour sprite support. The 24-bit formats include Clear files and
compressed JPEG. Brightness adjustment is done by control on the scan
head and gamma correction and sharpness are adjustable in software. A
version that will work in A3000/3010/3020/4000 machines is in the
pipeline but, at the moment, you need a computer that will take a
standard podules. The Irlam 24-bit Colour HandScanner costs £359 +VAT
+carriage from Irlam or £425 through Archive.
7.6
We had a look at this scanner at the BETT Show and it is VERY
impressive. The output has to be seen to be believed. We have put a few
sample scans on this month’s program disc.
7.6
•  Colour scanner correction − When I mentioned Irlam’s Proi-Mage
software and Epson scanners, I misquoted the scanning resolution. The
Epson GT-6500 (£1000 inc VAT through Archive) actually scans at
600d.p.i. and is even capable of going to 1200d.p.i. while the Epson GT-
8000 (£1,380 through Archive) scans at 800d.p.i. and is capable of going
up to 1600d.p.i.!
7.6
•  Conjugez! − This is a software tool from Creative Curriculum Software
for helping you learn French verbs and is applicable right from early
learners of French up to A level and beyond. Conjugez! has 3,500 verbs
built into sets of data files in a range of nine appropriate levels. The
education site licence version also has a utility for adding more verbs
and editing the existing datafiles. Conjugez! is £24.95 +VAT for a
single user or £89 +VAT for a site licence from Creative Curriculum
Software.
7.6
•  Cumana CD-ROM price increases − There have been various price rises on
CD-ROMs. The new Archive prices are as follows:
7.6
Creepy Crawlies − £100
7.6
Dictionary of the Living World − £175
7.6
Grooves − £25
7.6
Image Warehouse − £59
7.6
All four of the above − £180†
7.6
Space Encyclopedia − £44
7.6
World of Number
7.6
   Number Games & Short Tasks − £89
7.6
   Perspectives − £89
7.6
   Picture Gallery − £89
7.6
   Who Stole the Decimal Point? − £89
7.6
†Yes, I know that’s only £5 more than Dictionary of the Living World on
its own but they say it’s a special offer price, so who are we to argue!
7.6
•  Cycloids − GamesWare have taken over this Software 42 game. The plot
features a unicycle-riding clown whose job it is to save the world! It
features 256-colour cartoon graphics and comical sound effects. Cycloids
costs £19.99 from Gamesware or £19 through Archive.
7.6
•  Desktop Screenturtle − Topologika have produced a desktop version of
their easy-to-learn turtle graphics program. It offers a range of Logo
features but always with the aim of making it accessible for the younger
users − aimed at 8 to 13+ year olds. The new version has ‘many new
features’ including a toolbox plus drag and drop loading of screens and
word sets. You can also switch off the need for numbers after commands.
This ‘no numbers’ input mode works in conjunction with scaling options
for distance and direction and means that younger children needn’t worry
about numbers bigger than 10. Desktop Screenturtle costs £45 +VAT or £49
through Archive. An upgrade from the original version is available at
£10 +VAT from Topologika.
7.6
•  DrawPlot upgrade − Oak Solutions have upgraded DrawPlot, their HPGL
compatible plotter utility which works, for example, on the Roland CAMM
series. It now supports Graphtec plotters and work is under way on
Plotmate A3M and A4M plotters. DrawPlot allows you, simply and quickly,
to plot, cut or engrave drawings from drawfiles. CAMM1 cutters and CAMM2
millers can be driven in the same way as an HPGL plotter and DrawPlot
can be used, for example, to produce vinyl signs.
7.6
DrawPlot is part of their Draw Print & Plot package, which costs £30
+VAT from Oak Solutions or £33 through Archive.
7.6
•  Eagle M2 − The Eagle M2 multimedia card provides 12-bit stereo
sampling and playback at CD rate (44.1kHz), full Midi capability, 24-bit
colour and greyscale still frame digitising, Acorn Replay movie capture
and Eidos real-time movie capture. It has S-VHS and composite video
input, line level audio input and output as well as audio out through
the computer speaker or headphone socket. This is an impressive array of
facilities to have on a single-width podule and the price is impressive
too: £299 + p&p +VAT (£358.37) from Wild Vision or £340 through Archive.
It needs 4Mb and RISC OS 3.1 and, for Replay movie capture, an A5000 or
A540 with at least 4Mb is recommended.
7.6
David Lenthall has started a series about audio sampling (see page 43) −
and he will be mentioning this and other offerings on the Acorn audio
front next month. Ed.
7.6
•  Exploring Nature is a CD-ROM version of Usborne’s First Book of
Nature. It is targeted at primary and early secondary and aims to keep
up the Usborne tradition of “a very colourful presentation style with
hundreds of beautifully drawn pictures”. The basic approach is to let
children emulate the process of scientific discovery by doing a
simulated field trip on which they “measure” such things as temperature
and sunlight, and collect or “photograph” things they find. They can
then study from themed books or look up references in a nature
dictionary. From their collected information, the children can write up
a report or transfer pictures and data to other applications to collate
it further or make a special presentation of their work. Exploring
Nature comes with a teacher’s pack providing explanatory notes, user
guide and National Curriculum linkages. Exploring Nature costs £120 +VAT
from Hampshire Microtechnology Centre.
7.6
•  Fortran 77 − Intelligent Interfaces distribute a Fortran 77 compiler
and a desktop front-end for Fortran 77. The compiler itself is supplied
with linker, symbolic debugger (ASD) and utility library and costs £99
+VAT or £110 through Archive. The front-end, !Fortran77, enables Fortran
programs to be compiled, linked and executed in the RISC OS desktop
environment. It is supplied with DrawF, Graphics, SpriteOp, Utils and
Wimp libraries and costs £25 +VAT or £28 through Archive.
7.6
The compiler was originally distributed by Acorn as the Acornsoft
Fortran 77, release 2, compiler but Intelligent Interfaces have made a
number of changes: the compiler can now be installed anywhere in the
user’s directory structure, the User Guide has been completely re-
written, a Utility Library is included, the symbolic debugger
(previously distributed with the Acorn Software Developer’s Toolbox) is
included with its own user guide, a command to compile and link in a
single operation has been added and instructions on how to use the
linker in Acorn’s DDE are given.
7.6
•  Fonts (low cost) 1 − Tekoa Graphics have produced their first pack of
low-cost fonts. They are offering 25 outline fonts for under £1 a font.
They are suitable for use with RISC OS 2 and 3 although they do not
contain any auto-kerning data. The fonts (including the number in each
family) are as follows: Academy (2), Bengal (4), Bookmark (4), Chaucer
(medium italic only), Garland (4), Matrix (a fancy font), Moscow (a
Cyrillic font), Optimist (4) and Paladin (4). They are mainly serifed
fonts and are “mostly inspired by (but slightly different from)
industry-standard typefaces”. Fonts Pack One costs £20 +£2.75 p&p from
Tekoa Graphics (no VAT as not registered). (See Richard Hallas’ review
next month − it wouldn’t fit in this month.)
7.6
•  Fonts (low cost) 2 − The Datafile have renegotiated their licence
agreement with ITC of New York and URW of Hamburg. The result is (a)
lower prices for professional fonts and (b) a Pick ’n Mix service so
that you can buy just the fonts you want from a list of 33 families,
totalling 100 weights. The fonts seem to be of very high quality. (See
Richard Hallas’ review next month.) For more details, contact The
Datafile or see the advert on page 20.
7.6
•  F.R.E.D. − The 3D adventure game which was reviewed in Archive 7.1
p24, is now available through Archive at £19.
7.6
•  Go-Go! − This is a simple turtle graphics program from NW SEMERC for
teaching number, geometry and logic to special needs, primary and
secondary pupils. This is a full RISC OS multitasking package providing
a range of activities whose simplicity or complexity can be set by the
teacher. It includes a wide variety of ready-made scenes and pointers to
which the pupil must give instructions in order to move it around the
screen to a particular goal. Reward sounds can be programmed to play
when a particular task is completed. A map, ordnance survey symbols and
an on-screen ruler and protractor are provided for taking accurate
measurements. The price of the two-disc set for Go-Go!, including a
curriculum guide with more ideas, is £40 +£3 p&p +VAT from NW SEMERC.
7.6
•  Granny’s Garden CD-ROM! Cumana and 4Mation have combined to produce a
new multimedia version of this popular educational program. The CD-ROM
version has enhanced graphics so that you can take advantage of higher
screen resolutions if they are available. It also has music and sound
effects together with a narrated introduction to the story by 4Mation’s
own Mike Matson. It costs £29.95 +VAT or £33 through Archive.
7.6
•  Hard drive price drops − The prices of Mac hard drives (which work
well on Acorn using most of the SCSI cards currently available) have
dropped recently. The price drops are as follows:
7.6
  170Mb internal £310 −−> £260
7.6
  170Mb external £440 −−> £390
7.6
  525Mb internal £790 −−> £580
7.6
  525Mb external £910 −−> £710
7.6
  1Gb internal £1040 −−> £850
7.6
  1Gb external £1170 −−> £980
7.6
We also have a new drive: a 2Gb external at £1390.
7.6
Remember though that with Acorn’s existing range of Archimedes
computers, the maximum amount of memory that can be handled as a single
logical drive is 512Mb, so the 1Gb would have to be partitioned as two
512Mb drives and the 2Gb drive would take up all four drives possible on
a SCSI interface, leaving no room for a SCSI-type backup device!
7.6
(It would be a reasonable guess that these bigger drives will be more
easily handled on any new range of machines that Acorn might launch in
the future. Ed.)
7.6
A suitable SCSI interface would be a Morley uncached SCSI card (£160)
for the 170Mb drive and a cached SCSI card (£220) for the larger drives.
Below about 200Mb, the cache does not make a lot of difference to the
speed.
7.6
•  Hawk V9 MkII − Wild Vision’s Hawk colour digitiser used to be
available in two forms: standard and “hardware dithered” but the
standard version has now been deleted and the hardware dithered version
has been reduced from £269 to £199. This version allows you to have a
live display window in the desktop where the grabbed video picture is
displayed with full dithered colours. It also has a special mono format
useful for preparing material for monochrome DTP work. It comes with
fully RISC OS compliant software providing an “extensive range of image
scaling and enhancing options” allowing sprites produced to be dragged
straight into whatever desktop applications you are using. The price is
now £199 +£6 carriage +VAT from Wild Vision or £229 through Archive.
7.6
•  Help for dyslexics − A new book has been published which has been
sponsored by Acorn Computers and the British Dyslexia Foundation.
Computers and Dyslexia is edited by Dr Chris Singleton and aims to give
an overview of the best in current technology and educational practice
of help to those suffering from dyslexia which apparently affects about
4% of the population. Computers and Dyslexia is published by the
Dyslexia Computer Resource Centre, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX.
200pages, price £10.95, ISBN 1 898862 00 1.
7.6
•  High-density floppy disc interface − At last, owners of A310/4x0/540
computers can use 1.6Mb floppies and be compatible with the newer
machines. Risc Developments have produced an interface plus software to
allow you to interface to a high-density floppy drive and use F-format
Acorn floppies as well as 1.44Mb and 1.2Mb PC formats. You can buy it
with or without an HD drive unit and it has a set of link jumpers
allowing configuration for operation with a wide range of drive types.
It costs £119 +VAT for the interface or £159 +VAT for the interface plus
an HD floppy drive. For A310 to fit one of these drives internally,
there is a special fascia plate costing an extra £30 +VAT.
7.6
•  ImageBank from Irlam Instruments is a way of getting 10Mbytes of
colour scans onto a single floppy! It uses standard JPEG image
compression to allow 8-bit and 24-bit images to be archived. One major
advantage of it is that it provides the user with a thumbnail sketch of
each picture in a directory-type display so that you can easily select
the image you want. This can then be decompressed by double-clicking on
it. Images can be exported in JPEG, 24-bit Clear file, 256 colour sprite
or the new 15 and 32-bits per pixel sprites. A cut-down version is also
supplied so that your images can be distributed/sold or shown as
examples to other people. The complete package including the full and
the cut-down versions of ImageBank costs £25 +VAT from Irlam Instruments
or £28 through Archive.
7.6
(This month’s program disc contains some colour scans from Irlam’s new
hand colour scanner presented via the ImageBank reader software.)
7.6
•  Impression Style is CC’s exciting new WP/DTP package. For £99 +VAT,
you get facilities which are comparable with Impression II and many of
the facilities are in fact superior to the older (more expensive)
package. We hope to have a review of Impression Style before too long
but suffice it to say that its features include: integrated thesaurus
and dictionary, auto-section and paragraph bulleting, numbering and re-
numbering, full support for 24-bit images, graphics filter with TIFF
loaders, new interactive text ruler system and styles. Impression Style
costs £107 through Archive.
7.6
Impression upgrades: Impression Junior and Impression II owners can
upgrade to Style for £29 +VAT through Computer Concepts. Then when
Impression Publisher is released, Impression Style owners and Impression
II owners will be able to upgrade for £29 +VAT, again through Computer
Concepts. (Many people feel that the extra facilities of Style make it
worth upgrading once from II to Style and then again from Style to
Publisher. Ed.)
7.6
•  Inkjet Refills − For some time now, we have been intending to “go
green”(!) by stocking inkjet refills. We have now arranged a deal with
Quill Marketing in Norwich to stock InkMun refills which seem to have a
good reputation for quality and reliability. (However, if you try them,
perhaps you would report back so that we can check that they really are
as good as they seem.)
7.6
The cost savings involved are quite marked. For example, buying HP black
cartridges at £21 each would give you the same amount of ink as a pack
of two refills costing only £15. Prices are as follows:
7.6
Hewlett Packard 500/510/500C/550C/310
7.6
(and JP150)
7.6
Black standard − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Black high capacity − 2 refills − £20
7.6
Cyan standard − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Magenta standard − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Yellow standard − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Triple colour 9 refills (3 each colour) − £30
7.6
Canon BJ10
7.6
Black − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Cyan − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Magenta − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Yellow − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Canon BJ200
7.6
Black − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Cyan − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Magenta − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Yellow − 2 refills − £15
7.6
Canon BJC600
7.6
Black − 3 refills − £15
7.6
Triple colour 9 refills (3 each colour) − £30
7.6
Canon BJC800
7.6
Black − 2 refills − £21
7.6
Cyan − 2 refills − £21
7.6
Magenta − 2 refills − £21
7.6
Yellow − 2 refills − £21
7.6
I think these are likely to be the most popular ones which is why we
have been able to work out special prices on them. If you have other
printers for which you want refills, let us know and tell us the sorts
of quantities you are likely to want during the course of a year, say,
and we’ll see what we can work out with Quill Marketing.
7.6
•  IT in the Real World is a Genesis application that looks at the
applications and effects of IT in real life. It is aimed at Key Stage 3
and relates to IT capability levels 3 to 8. The IT in the Real World
pack includes information and worksheets and costs £30 +VAT from Oak
Solutions or £33 through Archive.
7.6
•  Ixion − The 3D adventure game (see review on page 32 last month) is
now available through Archive at £19.
7.6
•  Keyboards − If your keyboard is beginning to get a bit unreliable or
if you just want something of better quality (and cheaper!) than the
Acorn replacement keyboards then Castle Technology’s Ergo-Keyboards seem
a good bet (see Brian Cowan’s review on page 49). These keyboards are
compatible with the Acorn keyboard, including the mouse socket and the
reset button. They have industry standard 102 key PC layout and hardware
keyboard mouse emulation. (We also suspect that any new Acorn computers
will have standard PC keyboards, so you can get used to the slightly
different PC layout ready for the new machines!) The price is £99 + £10
carriage +VAT (£128.08) direct from Castle Technology or £120 through
Archive.
7.6
(Because Brian’s review was so positive, we reckoned there would be a
good number of people wanting to try these new keyboards so we have
arranged a special bulk purchase with Castle Technology and can offer
them at the introductory price of £105 inclusive − 18% discount. To take
advantage of this special price, please place your order a.s.a.p.
Thanks.)
7.6
•  Keyboards for A3000 − If your A3000 keyboard is beginning to get a bit
unreliable Castle Technology’s Ergo-Keyboards can now be attached to an
A3000. The price of the A3000 Ergo-Keyboard, including interface, is
£129 + £10 carriage +VAT (£163.33) direct from Castle Technology or £155
through Archive.
7.6
(We have arranged a bulk purchase of these keyboards and can offer them
at the introductory price of £135 inclusive − 18% discount. To take
advantage of this special price, please place your order a.s.a.p.
Thanks.)
7.6
•  Langdale is described by Creative Curriculum Software as “a massive
resource of materials to Key Stage 3 geography”. It provides OS maps,
diagrams, aerial and ground photographs, data, statistics, charts and
sounds all relating to Langdale in the Lake District. It consists of
eight applications on CD-ROM for £149 +VAT including a site licence. Two
of the applications, Stickle Project and River Project are available as
separate stand-alone applications on disc for £89 +VAT each for those
not having access to CD-ROM. Each price includes manual and teaching
materials as well as the CD-ROM or discs.
7.6
•  Laser printers − At the suggestion of Andrew Rawnsley last month (page
23) we have worked out a ‘cheap’ alternative to Laser Direct HiRes 4
(Archive price £925). If you get a ‘cheap’ Laserjet-compatible laser
printer and buy the CC HP TurboDriver (£53 through Archive) you don’t
need to pay as much as £925. It won’t be as fast but if you want the
quality of output that a laser offers, it’s a way of doing so for a
lower price. You can, of course, get a copy of Computer Shopper, or
whatever, and find the cheapest Laserjet-compatible available but if you
want a ‘good name’ printer to get the reliability then we would be happy
to supply either the Epson EPL-5000 at £630 (£680 with TurboDriver) or
the Panasonic KX-P4410 at £560 (£610 with TurboDriver). These prices are
inclusive of VAT and carriage. They both have 0.5Mb RAM (expandable),
will cope with envelopes and thin card and have paper trays taking 150
and 100 sheets respectively and run at 6ppm and 5ppm respectively.
7.6
(Readers have suggested other laser printers that they have used: Dave
Walsh uses an Oki400e and, with only 0.5Mb RAM, it seems to cope with
all but the most complex drawfiles. It has a straight paper path to take
heavier paper and envelopes, gives good quality output and is reasonably
cheap to run.)
7.6
•  Lemmings II − The Tribes − Krisalis’ latest Lemmings extravaganza is
now available. It is truly amazing what they can get those tiny little
animals to do! There is now a huge range of new and exciting Lemmings
types to try out and many new levels to test your ingenuity and stretch
your patience. Lemmings II is £29.99 from Krisalis or £28 through
Archive.
7.6
•  Little Smalltalk − A full-blown Smalltalk environment would cost over
£500 but if you want just to experiment with the concepts of object-
oriented programming, David Pilling’s Little Smalltalk (as mentioned in
Acorn User February 1994) is a good start. Little Smalltalk costs £5.99
from David Pilling or £6 through Archive inc p&p.
7.6
•  Maths Card − To help with the teaching of maths at Key Stages 1 & 2,
Creative Curriculum Software have produced Maths Card. Its aim is to
help you produce well laid out maths question sheets quickly and easily
as drawfiles ready for printing. It allows you to set up questions on
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division while controlling
things such as the occurrence of carrying figures, sign left or right,
etc. It also covers decimals, fractions, weight and length, and allows
the use of magic squares using Units to HTU. Maths Card costs £49 +VAT
from Creative Curriculum Software.
7.6
•  MidiMax is Wild Vision’s Acorn-compatible Midi card. It has on-board
FIFO buffering to allow reliable operation at maximum data rates. The
standard Midi In, Out and Thru connectors are provided as well as a
second Out connector to ease the interfacing of multiple devices.
MidiMax costs £69 +p&p +VAT (£88.12) from Wild Vision or £83 through
Archive.
7.6
•  My World 2 + 2 − NW SEMERC have produced a large pack of resources
based on their framework package, My World 2. Originally designed with
special needs in mind, My World 2 + 2 can be used by “people of all ages
and abilities across many fields of learning and recreation”. It
provides four discs of resources including alphabet jigsaws, an easy
writing screen, sentence building, picture building activities, kitchen
planning, pattern-making from shapes, DIY dinosaurs, solitaire,
draughts, town planning, pattern making, weather maps and charts. My
World 2 + 2 costs £39 +£3 p&p +VAT from NW SEMERC.
7.6
•  Oak Recorder II − This product has now been taken over from Oak
Solutions by Solent Computer Products Ltd and sells at £39.95 +VAT.
7.6
•  Oak Solutions price drops − A large number of Oak Solutions’ software
products have been reduced in price (since they moved into their new
premises − address in Factfile at the back of the magazine). The new
Archive prices are as follows:
7.6
  Arclight − £50
7.6
  Euclid − £55
7.6
  Splice − £33
7.6
  Tween − £33
7.6

7.6
  WorraCAD − £77
7.6
  KiddiCAD − £50
7.6

7.6
  Oak Logic − £77
7.6
  Oak PCB − £77
7.6
  Ancient Egypt − £50
7.6
  Castle Life − £50
7.6
  Saxon Life − £50
7.6
  ClassPrint LD − £77
7.6
  ABC Compiler − £77
7.6
  Cambridge Pascal − £77
7.6
•  Oxford Reading Tree Stage 2 Talking Stories − Sherston Software and
Oxford University Press have combined to produce “an exciting and
motivating way of consolidating vocabulary and learning to read at Stage
2”. Anyone who has seen Sherston’s Naughty Stories and More Naughty
Stories will appreciate the value of this team-up with OUP. This pack of
six stories by Roderick Hunt is animated with Alex Brychta’s
illustrations and Hannah Gordon is the narrator. The cost is £39.95 +VAT
from Sherston Software or £44 through Archive.
7.6
•  PenFriend − This is a “predictive typer” from Design Concept. What
that means is that, as you type, it offers you suggestions of what word
you might be typing. You can then avoid typing the whole word and just
click the mouse or press a function key to select from the list of words
that PenFriend offers you. You can have your own sets of commonly used
words so that it can guess more quickly what word you are typing.
PenFriend costs £25 +VAT from Design Concept.
7.6
•  Pocket Book offer extended again − Acorn’s offer on Pocket Books and
Schedule has been extended again − this time to 31st March 1994. The
Pocket Book is therefore still £200 (instead of £250) through Archive
and Schedule is £19 instead of £49. The Class-pack of 11 Pocket Books
plus an A-Link plus Mains Adaptor is on offer at £1699.50 +VAT or £1950
inclusive through Archive.
7.6
•  Pocket Ethernet Adaptor − Atomwide are now offering an Ethernet
adaptor that works on any of the Acorn Computers that have a
bidirectional parallel port (A4, A3010, A3020, A4000, A5000). It is easy
to install and remove and therefore offers a degree of adaptability not
offered by the normal Ethernet podules − and, of course, it saves a
podule slot. It is currently only available as a 10base2 interface but a
10baseT version is under development. The Pocket Ethernet Adaptor costs
£199 +VAT from Atomwide or £225 through Archive. It is fully IEEE 802.3
compliant, has a 64Kb local buffer memory and offers a transfer rate of
200Kbps peak.
7.6
•  PocketFS2 − The new A-Link software which was reviewed briefly last
month (p71) is now available as an upgrade for existing A-Link owners.
Send £9.95 (inc VAT & p&p) plus the original A-Link floppy disc to Acorn
Direct in Wellingborough. This offer lasts until the end of April 1994.
7.6
•  Primary Information Management System (PIMS) is a package produced by
Longman Logotron and Acorn Computers to provide a ready-to-use system
that will handle pupil and staff records, budgeting and accounts,
maintenance, insurance and inventory. It stores individual records
relationally, not hierarchically, giving flexibility in retrieving the
data to put straight into reports such as pupil assessment sheets, class
lists and registers. For those schools already using SIMS (the school
secondary version) all data can be transferred directly into PIMS. The
package includes an A4000 or A5000 computer with SVGA (AKF50) monitor,
inkjet printer, software, hotline support, start-up consumables,
training, delivery, installation and on-site maintenance for an all-
inclusive price starting from £1,999 +VAT (for the A4000 version) or £16
a week using the Acorn Options rental scheme.
7.6
•  PrimeSolver − The latest in Minerva Software’s “Prime” series aimed at
education in the primary and lower secondary sector is PrimeSolver. This
is described as “a creative and practical problem solving system for
entertainment purposes whilst being highly educational at the same
time”. (I had a look at it at BETT and it certainly seemed to be a lot
of fun!) It is basically a way of creating simulations and solving
mechanical puzzles using real-life mechanics of ropes, pulleys, cogs,
engines, pipes, etc. There are almost 60 tools provided to solve various
puzzles, 16 of which are provided with the pack although you can design
your own puzzles with the design mode provided. PrimeSolver costs £79.95
+VAT from Minerva or £88 through Archive. There are primary and
secondary site licences available for £120 and £320 +VAT from Minerva
Software.
7.6
•  Pro-Drivers from Oak Solutions − Despite what we said last month about
Oak Solutions (Ace) Pro-Printer Drivers no longer being sold (sorry for
the confusion!) they are still very much available. What is more, they
have come down in price making them more competitive than the CC
TurboDrivers. The Ace Pro-Drivers for Canon LBP 4/8, HP compatibles and
Epson ESC-P2 compatibles are now £35 +VAT each or £39 through Archive
and if there is an Acorn driver (RISC OS 3) for your printer then you
can use the Standard Pro-Driver which is only £15 +VAT or £17 through
Archive.
7.6
•  Report Writer from Creative Curriculum Software is a package for the
production of individual reports and assessment sheets using National
Curriculum statements of attainment. It gives easy access to all the
National Curriculum statements which can then be transferred into any
other RISC OS application. You can add words, phrases and sentences from
within datafiles to produces your reports. A single user version of
Report Writer (for KS 1/2 or KS 3/4) costs £49 +VAT. You can also buy
upgrade packs to increase the numbers of users and/or get other Key
Stage data discs, manuals, etc − contact Creative Curriculum Software
for full details.
7.6
•  Repro is a professional tool from Oak Solutions which allows the user
to manipulate the exact translation of colours from screen to paper. It
gives complete control over screen size, screen angles, gamma
correction, grey balance and black removal. Multiple palettes can be
defined so that differences caused by various types of printer or paper
can be minimised. You can also use the system to produce special effects
such as tweaking a colour to make it more vivid or enlarge halftones to
show individual colour spots. Repro can also produce colour separations
in various forms. It costs £50 +VAT from Oak Solutions or £55 through
Archive.
7.6
(This product only works with Acorn’s new RISC OS printer drivers... but
they aren’t ready yet. Ed.)
7.6
•  RF design software − Steve Hunt has developed a number of applications
which will be of interest to both professional and amateur RF design
engineers. They include a filter designer, a receiver noise figure/
intercept point analysis tool, an inductance ‘ready-reckoner’ and a
Smith Chart design aid. For more details, contact Steve Hunt at 21 Green
Street, Milton Malsor, Northampton, NN7 3AT (0604-858090 after 7 pm).
7.6
•  RISC OS 3 − First Steps is another new book by Anne Rooney, again
aimed at the beginner. It replaces, but is considerably bigger (at
around 500 pages long) than, the popular Archimedes First Steps. It
provides an introduction to Acorn RISC OS 3 computers, dealing with each
topic in considerable depth. It also provides up-to-date information
about developments such as CD-ROM, multimedia and special needs
provision. RISC OS 3 First Steps costs £14.95 from Dabs Press or £15
including p&p through Archive.
7.6
•  Seelinks are educational packages from ESM. The first, Seelinks −
Ourselves, is aimed at children in Key Stages 1 & 2 and provides
material for data handling to enable the children to collect and analyse
data about themselves. This pack costs £32.50 +VAT (including a site
licence) from ESM or £36 through Archive.
7.6
The second pack is Seelinks − Transport and is aimed at children in Key
Stage 2. It uses the subject of transport to develop skills in the data-
handling area. Transport costs £39.50 +VAT (including a site licence)
from ESM or £44 through Archive.
7.6
•  Sibelius 7 is the much-acclaimed “expert system for music engraving”.
If you are wanting to produce printed music, it seems that Sibelius 7
has all the facilities you could possibly want. The full package costs
£760 +VAT but, for non-professional users, there is a special offer
price of £485 +VAT. We hope to have a review of this amazing package
fairly soon.
7.6
•  Sibelius 6 is an education version of the full professional music
notation program, Sibelius 7. It has a simplified user interface but it
can still handle complex orchestral scores, all traditional musical
notation and a wide range of contemporary notation, Midi input and
output etc. Sibelius 6 costs £160 +VAT from Sibelius Software.
7.6
•  Soundcard − This is a 16-bit sound sampling board from Irlam
Instruments. it samples at a wide range of frequencies including CD and
DAT standard. You can record and replay sound directly to and from hard
disc. The Soundcard costs £299 +VAT from Irlam Instruments or £330
through Archive.
7.6
(More details will be given about this and the next product in David
Lenthall’s two-part article about digital audio. See page 43.)
7.6
•  Super Sound Expansion System − Expressive Software Products have
produced a podule which provides high quality sound output from the
Archimedes. It contains synthesizer chips with 170 different wavetable
instrument sounds which are sampled from the original instruments. The
output, which is 16-bit CD-quality sound, is fed to an external box
which provides a standard jack output with volume control as well as
Midi, phono and mini-jack outputs. All you then need is your favourite
Midi music package and you are all set to produce CD-quality music.
Super Sound Expansion System costs £249 +VAT from Expressive Software
Products.
7.6
•  Talking Computer learning materials − Longman Logotron have published
materials to be used with Talking Pendown which are said to make
“lasting improvements in reading, writing and short term memory”. It has
been tested on 68 children aged between 7 and 14 with serious reading
and memory difficulties and the results obtained were “impressive”. The
materials cost £29 +£3.53 p&p from Longman Logotron and Talking Pendown
costs £64 +VAT (or £69 through Archive) for a single user licence or
£190 +VAT or £330 +VAT for a site licence (primary or secondary
respectively).
7.6
•  The Civil War is the latest in Anglia Television’s series of Key Plus
datafiles. It enables students to study the English Civil War of the
17th Century, focussing mainly on events in England and Wales but also
including information and illustrations from Scotland and Ireland. The
datafiles, which are accompanied by a 24-page photocopiable A4 booklet,
include information on 150 battles and skirmishes including information
from the latest research, a Key Plus Map system to help in searching the
data, a case study of the Parliamentary Garrison at Chadfield in
Wiltshire and biographies of many of the principal leaders of the War.
The Civil War Key Plus pack costs £22 +VAT from Anglia Television.
7.6
•  Time Detectives − The Victorians − This is a new adventure-back-in-
time from Sherston Software written by Simon Hosler, author of Crystal
Rain Forest. It begins when three local children mysteriously disappear
in the sleepy seaside town of East Heston and pupils, taking on the role
of a reporter for the local newspaper, are given the task of trying to
track them down. The package focuses on the changes since the Victorian
era in “an original and entertaining way”. The package includes user’s
manual, a teacher’s book with ideas for classroom use, a catalogue of
Victorian artefacts together with sets of work and information cards to
be used in conjunction with the program. The Victorians costs £39.95
+VAT from Sherston Software or £44 through Archive.
7.6
•  Twain image acquisition software (see Archive 7.4 p4) is now available
for the Canon scanner (ScanLight Professional) and the Epson GT
scanners. They cost £20 inclusive from David Pilling or £19 through
Archive.
7.6
•  Ultimate Expansion CD-ROMs − There are now two CD-ROM drives available
that work with the HCCS Ultimate Expansion System. Both are Acorn
Replay, multi-session and PhotoCD compatible. Each includes an interface
in the form of a micropodule for plugging into an Ultimate multipodule.
The single speed drive (150 Kb/s) is £229 +VAT or £265 through Archive
and the dual speed drive (300 Kb/s) is £289 +VAT or £335 through
Archive.
7.6
•  Ultimate Expansion System − There are also some new (sadly, higher)
prices for HCCS Ultimate Expansion System Starter Packs. We have
therefore changed the Archive prices as follows: The SCSI Starter Pack
has increased to £114. The HiVision Starter Pack has been withdrawn and
replaced by a Colour Vision Starter Pack at £182. The Midi + HQ Sound
Sampler Starter Pack has been withdrawn and replaced by a Midi Starter
Pack at £114.
7.6
•  XLisp − This is a version of Common Lisp with object oriented features
(as mentioned in Acorn User February 1994). It is available from David
Pilling at £5.99 or £6 through Archive inc p&p.
7.6
•  Xword − Panda Discs’ crossword puzzle generator/solver program
(reviewed last month on page 59) has had some of Roger King’s
suggestions implemented and the price has dropped to £39.95 inclusive. A
site licence is now £95.
7.6
Review software received...
7.6
We have received review copies of the following: •Artworks Made
Easy (bk),   •Basic WIMP Programming (bk),   •Carnage Inc. (g),   •CD-
Net Trial Pack (u),   •Celtic Clipart (a),   •Easy Font − Needs to be
compared with FontDir (u),   •Fortran 77 & Front-end (l),   •Impression
Style Resource Disc (a),   •Jumble Fun (e),   •Kerner (u),
•LingoMaster (e),   •Oxford Reading Tree Stage 2 Talking Stories (e),
•Party, Wedding & Anniversay Clipart (a),   •Payroll Manager (b),
•PrimeSolver (e),   •RISC OS 3 First Steps (bk),   •Sounds &
Rhymes (e),  •Switch (g),  •The Church Year Clipart (a),   •The Civil
War Key Plus Pack (e),   •Time Detectives − The Victorians (e).
7.6
e=Education, b=Business, bk=Book, l=Language, u=Utility, g=Game, a=Art.
7.6
If you would like to review any of these products, please contact the
Archive office. Potential reviewers will need to show that they would
use the product in a professional capacity or that they have some
knowledge of the particular field.
7.6
Government Health Warning − Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health.
7.6
One of the readers of this God-slot said to me that the church was dead
on its feet. I responded by pointing out that the Christian church is
growing at a staggering rate in many parts of the world (e.g. Korea,
China and many parts of S.America and Africa). His first response was to
note that the growth was mainly in third world countries and to wonder
whether this was because of the limited development of intellectual
thought in those countries. (Before reading on, think about that
statement. Do you think it is true?)
7.6
That view is actually very prevalent − i.e. now that we have ‘come of
age’, intellectually, we have no need for Christian (or any other) God-
myths. My two counter arguments to that are: (1) We may have come of age
intellectually, but have we, in the UK, come of age morally? (Think
about family breakdown, drug addiction, homelessness, etc before you
answer.) (2) Why is there so much interest in spiritualism, New Age,
Eastern religions, etc? There is an aching void in people’s lives that
they try to fill by pursuits of one kind or another.
7.6
Just suppose for a moment that God does exist and that Jesus really is
who he said he was. If you were God, how would you react to people who
refused even to listen to what you were trying to say? In John 3 verse
36, Jesus says, ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but
whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on
him.’ God is just and will not condemn us for ignorance but if we have
the opportunity to consider Jesus’ claims, it’s worth checking them out
before we reject them as only for those of ‘limited intellectual
development’.
7.6
Paul Beverley
7.6
P.B.
7.6
Fact-File
7.6
(The numbers in italic are fax numbers)
7.6
4Mation   11 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32
8PA. (0271-25353) (0271-22974)
7.6
Abacus Training   29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2
6QA.
7.6
Acorn Direct   13 Dennington Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 2RL.
7.6
Acorn Computers Ltd   Acorn House,
Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge, CB4 4AE. (0223-254254) (0223-254262)
7.6
Anglia Television    Education
Department, Anglia House, Norwich, NR1 3JG. (0603-615151) (0603-631032)
7.6
Atomwide Ltd   7 The Metro Centre, Bridge Road, Orpington, Kent, BR5 2BE.
(0689-838852) (0689-896088)
7.6
Brilliant Computing   P.O.Box 142,
Bradford, BD9 5NF. (0274-497617) (0274-497617)
7.6
Castle Technology   Ore Trading
Estate, Woodbridge Road, Framlingham, Suffolk, IP13 9LL. (0728-621222)
(0728-621179)
7.6
Clares Micro Supplies   98
Middlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7DA. (0606-48511)
(0606-48512)
7.6
Colton Software (p27)  2 Signet
Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge, CB5 8LA. (0223-311881) (0223-312010)
7.6
Computer Concepts (pp8/28)  Gaddesden
Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, HP2 6EX. (0442-63933) (0442-231632)
7.6
Creative Curriculum Software  5 Clover
Hill Road, Savile Park, Halifax, HX1 2YG. (0422-340524) (0422-346388)
7.6
Cumana Ltd    Pines Trading Estate, Broad Street, Guilford, GU3 3BH.
(0483-503121) (0483-503326)
7.6
Dabs Press   22 Warwick Street, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 7HN. (061-
773-8632) (061-773-8290)
7.6
Database Publications (p42)  Europa
House, Adlington Park, London Road, Adlington, Macclesfield, Cheshire,
SK10 5NP. (0625-859444) (0625-879966)
7.6
Datafile (p20)  71 Anson Road, Locking, Weston-super-Mare, Avon, BS24
7DQ. (0934-823005)
7.6
David Pilling   P.O.Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool, FY5 1LR.
7.6
DEC_dATA   P.O.Box 97, Exeter, EX4 4YA. (0392-221702)
7.6
Design Concept   30 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh, EH9 2HG. (031-668-
2000)
7.6
Digital Services   9 Wayte Street, Cosham, Portsmouth PO6 3BS. (0705-
210600) (0705-210705)
7.6
ERIC   Pepabera, Findon Road, Findon, Worthing, BN14 0RD. (0903-872400)
(0903-872400)
7.6
ESM    Duke Street, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, PE13 2AE. (0945-63441)
7.6
Expressive Software Products    Holly Tree
Cottage, Main Street, Strelley Village, Nottingham, NG8 6PD. (0602-
295019)
7.6
GamesWare   Unit 26, The Bartletts, Hamble, Hants., SO35 5RP.
(0703−456523) (0703−456523)
7.6
Hampshire Microtechnology Centre   Connaught Lane, Paulsgrove,
Portsmouth, Hants, PO6 4SJ. (0705-378266) (0705-379443)
7.6
HCCS Ltd   575-583 Durham Road, Gateshead, NE9 5JJ. (091-487-0760) (091-
491-0431)
7.6
Icon Technology   9 Jarrom Street, Leicester, LE2 7DH. (0533-546225)
7.6
  (or Mike Glover on 057-286-642)
7.6
Intelligent Interfaces Ltd   P.O.Box 80,
Eastleigh, Hants, SO5 5YX. (0703-261514) (0703-267904)
7.6
Irlam Instruments   133 London
Road, Staines, Middlesex TW18 4HN. (0895-811401)
7.6
Krisalis Software   Teque House,
Mason’s Yard, Downs Row, Moorgate, Rotherham, S60 2HD. (0709-372290)
7.6
Lambda Publications   194 Cheney
Manor Road, Swindon SN2 2NZ. (0793-695296)
7.6
Lindis UK   Wood Farm, Linstead Magna, Halesworth, Suffolk, IP19 0DU.
(098-685-477) (098-685-460)
7.6
Longman Logotron   124 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4
4ZS. (0223-425558) (0223-425349)
7.6
LOOKsystems (p16)  47 Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, Norwich, NR5 9AY. (0603-
764114) (0603-764011)
7.6
Mijas Software (p63)  Winchester
Road, Micheldever, Winchester, SO21 3DJ. (0962-774352)
7.6
Minerva Systems   Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter, EX1 1TL.
(0392-437756) (0392-421762)
7.6
Morley Electronics   Morley
House, Norham Road, North Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE29 7TY. (091-257-6355)
(091-257-6373)
7.6
Northwest SEMERC   Fitton Hill CDC, Rosary Road, Oldham, OL8 2QE. (061-
627-4469)
7.6
Oak Solutions (p19)  Dial House,
12 Chapel Street, Halton, Leeds, LS15 7RN (0532-326992) (0532-326993)
7.6
Oregan Developments   36 Grosvenor
Avenue, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield, B74 3PE.
7.6
Panda Discs   Four Seasons, Tinkers Lane, Brewood, Staffs, ST19 9DE.
7.6
PEP Associates   34 Tiverton Way, Cambridge, CB1 3TU. (0223-212251)
7.6
Pineapple Software   39 Brownlea
Gardens, Seven Kings, Ilford, Essex IG3 9NL. (081-599-1476) (081-598-
2343)
7.6
Quantum Software   35 Pinewood Park, Deans, Livingston, EH54 8NN. (0506-
411162 after 6)
7.6
Risc Developments   117 Hatfield
Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 4JS. (0727-840303) (0727-860263)
7.6
Safesell Exhibitions (p7)  Market
House, Cross Road, Tadworth, Surrey KT20 5SR.
7.6
Sherston Software   Swan Barton,
Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH. (0666-840433) (0666-840048)
7.6
Sibelius Software   4 Bailey
Mews, Auckland Road, Cambridge, CB5 8DR. (0223-302765)
7.6
Silicon Vision Ltd   Signal
House, Lyon Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA1 2AG. (081-422-3556) (081-427-
5169)
7.6
Solent Computer Products Ltd   2 Mills
Lane, Longstanton, Cambridge, CB4 5DG. (0954-789701) (0954-782186)
7.6
Tekoa Graphics   16 Murray Road, Rugby, CV21 3JN. (0788-571434) (0788-
546376)
7.6
Topologika   P.O. Box 39, Stilton, Peterborough, PE7 3RL. (0733-244682)
7.6
Vertical Twist   Albany House, Oving Road, Chichester, PO19 4BH. (0243-
531194) (0243-531196)
7.6
Wild Vision (p18)  15 Witney Way, Boldon Colliery, Tyne & Wear NE35 9PE.
(091-519-1455) (091-519-1929)
7.6
Safesell
7.6
From 7.5 page 9
7.6
Computer Concepts
7.6
New Artwork or
7.6
From 7.5 page 22
7.6
Computer & Electronics Holiday for Young People !!
7.6
Scripture Union runs a Computer & Electronics Holiday for 13 to 16 year
olds (boys and  girls) at an attractive school in the Hertfordshire
countryside.
7.6
The dates? August 1st − 9th, 1994.
7.6
The price? £112.
7.6
For details, write to Jim Maddox, S.U. Holidays, 69 Claverdale Road,
Tube Hill, London SW2 2DH or phone [phone].
7.6
Credit where it’s due
7.6
•  Pineapple Software − I purchased a video digitiser some years ago from
Pineapple and it worked well until recently when the picture started to
break up. I rang Pineapple who suggested I returned it, apologising for
the inconvenience and saying there would be no charge. I think they
thought I had just bought it and that it was under warranty. I knew that
as soon as they saw the dust on it they would realise it was not new and
expected to get a bill for its repair.
7.6
I posted it on Tuesday afternoon and it was back again on Thursday
morning − imagine how surprised and pleased I was to receive it back so
quickly and with no bill − a tribute to the post as well as the
excellent service from Pineapple. All I can add is a thank you and a
guarantee of my future custom.  Alan Highet, Nottingham.
7.6
If you have had particularly good service, send details in to the
Archive office. Thanks. Ed.  A
7.6
LOOKSystems
7.6
New Artwork
7.6
Norwich Computer Services Open Day
7.6
10am − 4pm,  Saturday 12th March 1994
7.6
Thorpe St Andrew Lower School, Longfields Lane, Norwich.
7.6
A star-studded cast...
7.6
After the success of our first Open Day in November last year, we’re
holding another event in March which promises to be even bigger and
better! We are delighted to have so many leading companies from the
Acorn world joining us as exhibitors and there certainly will be
something to interest a very wide range of computer users.
7.6
If you look at the full list of exhibitors at the foot of the page, you
will agree, I’m sure, that the companies and organisations who will be
joining us represent the foremost names in Acorn technology and products
today.
7.6
The Open Day will be a great opportunity to see, try out and buy the
latest hardware and software products. You will be able to chat about
them with the experts and find out about current developments in the
Acorn world. For those of you who missed Acorn World 93 and BETT 94, or
who can’t wait for Acorn User Show in Harrogate in April, it will be an
ideal place to meet all these top companies under one roof and in a
friendly environment!
7.6
Other items on demonstration by individuals rather than companies
include computerised embroidery and computer video-editing.
7.6
A warm welcome to Archive Members
7.6
We are extending a special welcome to all our subscribers at an Archive
Members area, hosted by a number of contributors who are old friends of
Archive: Trevor Sutton, Hugh Eagle, David Holden and Richard Rymarz.
They will be available to talk to you about anything relating to their
Archive columns, Acorn/Archimedes issues in general or your particular
queries. Hopefully, there will be a number of other contributors around
and I’m sure it will be an extremely useful forum for sharing ideas.
7.6
There will be a display of the history of Archive, charting its growth
and development from the very first issue 1.1 in October 1987 to today.
All back issues will be on hand to browse through, plus a special offer
price on complete sets of Archive volumes 1 − 6.
7.6
In the Price List this month, you will find a Refreshments Voucher with
the compliments of Archive Magazine. You can use this at the Open Day to
get yourself a drink and a bite to eat “on the house” !
7.6
Special Open Day discounts for Members
7.6
Extra discount will be available to Archive Members with orders placed
on 12th March. This will be in the form of a £10 voucher (or £5
discount) with orders over £100; a £25 voucher (or £15 discount) with
orders over £250; a £50 voucher (or £30 discount) with orders over £500.
The vouchers can be used for any subsequent purchase from NCS.
7.6
Charity Bring & Buy − Will you help, please?
7.6
At our last event, we had a most successful Charity Stall and we are
doing this again. All proceeds of the Charity Stall will go to the
Battersey Cats’ Home. It’s the ideal time to send in or bring along
unwanted items of Archimedia to be sold in aid of charity. People are
more prepared to buy second-hand items if they can actually see them
before buying. So please have a look to see if you can find any pieces
of kit or software that you don’t need any more and would like to use
from someone else’s benefit − send it to the NCS office as soon as
possible (or bring it with you) and we will turn it into a Charity
Donation at the Open Day!
7.6
Practical details
7.6
It is my hope that Archive Members will come along and see us at the
Open Day and so, to help you make up your mind, here are some of the
practical details that you might be considering...
7.6
Thorpe St Andrew Lower School is about 2½ miles from Norwich railway
station. The taxi fare from the station to the school is about £3.50.
There are buses which run from just outside the station to the school
every 12 minutes and the fare is 88p.
7.6
A weekend in Norfolk?
7.6
If you are thinking that you might like to combine your visit to the
Open Day with a weekend in Norwich/Norfolk, we have a list of Norwich
hotels and accommodation, provided by the local Tourist Information
Board. We will send copies of this, together with a map of Norwich to
show how to get to the Open Day, to anyone who rings or writes to the
NCS office with a request.
7.6
The NCS staff are very much looking forward to the Open Day and we would
be delighted to see you there − come and introduce yourself to us and
meet fellow members of the Archive user group!  A
7.6
Anglia TV Education
7.6
Acorn Computers
7.6
Atomwide
7.6
BirdTech
7.6
Canon UK
7.6
Clares Micro Supplies
7.6
Cogent Software
7.6
Colton Software
7.6
Computer Concepts
7.6
Cumana
7.6
Digital Services
7.6
Epson UK Ltd
7.6
GamesWare
7.6
HCCS
7.6
Icon Technology
7.6
Longman Logotron
7.6
LOOKsystems
7.6
Mystery Software
7.6
Norfolk IT Team
7.6
NorthWest SEMERC
7.6
Oak Solutions
7.6
Sherston Software
7.6
Sibelius Software
7.6
S J Research
7.6
Topologika
7.6
Wild Vision
7.6
Wyddfa Software
7.6
Companies coming to the NCS Open Day
7.6
Oak
7.6
New Artwork
7.6
Mijas Software
7.6
New artwork
7.6
Wild Vision is the leading developer and manufacturer of expansion cards
for the Acorn range of microcomputers, and a subsidiary of Computer
Concepts Ltd., the Acorn industry’s largest and best-known software
developer.  Over the years, Wild Vision has been responsible for some of
the most innovative products in the Acorn marketplace and has
specialised in Video, Graphics and MultiMedia products.
7.6
Due to continued expansion Wild Vision is upgrading its technical
support service and will be implementing a new after sales care package
which will be second to none in the industry.  This has given rise to a
vacancy for a Technical Support Engineer to join our team based in the
North East of England.
7.6
This position offers an excellent opportunity for an Acorn enthusiast
who will provide a first class service including managing enquiries,
monitoring repair processes, and systems administration.
7.6
Applicants must be familiar with Archimedes, with a knowledge of
electronics and the principles of programming. Excellent communication
and administrative skills are essential.
7.6
Please forward a C.V. stating current salary to: Peter Wild, Wild
Vision, 15 Witney Way, Boldon Business Park, Tyne & Wear, NE35 9PE.
7.6
JOB  VACANCY
7.6
TECHNICAL SUPPORT ENGINEER
7.6
NCS own
7.6
double
7.6
page spread
7.6
It needs an NCS logo putting here because the one on the printout is a
scanned image.
7.6
Comment Column
7.6
•  Computer experts − Have you ever had a problem with your machine, or a
piece of software, and had to make contact with an expert? You what an
expert is... those programmers and engineers who inhabit dark spaces
deep in the ground. Their great joy in life it is to humiliate us poor
unsuspecting morons who only know about on and off switches, and double-
clicking on buttons.
7.6
I hate making contact − or should I say ‘interfacing’ − with these high
priests of the computer world. Before I ring, it takes me hours to
summon up enough nerve to make the call. My hands start to sweat and my
mouth goes dry. Then as soon as one of them comes on the line, all
attempts at lucid thought fail miserably − my mind goes into ‘fatal
internal error’ and everything that comes out of my mouth only
reinforces the impression he has... that I’m a moron.
7.6
In a vain attempt to try and lessen this impression, I now write down
helpful phrases which I hope will convince them that I know more than I
actually do... “I’m using v.2.1 of your software on an A5000 running
RISC OS 3.10, with a SCSI card, in a blueish-grey room on a brown desk”.
I usually feel fairly confident at this point − but then comes the
secret handshake which reveals whether I’m one of them or not... “are
you using vector separation on your podule or are you still in a quasi
reverential input mode...” The long silence that follows tells it all −
he knows I’m a moron! I can feel him looking around his office at his
colleagues, eyes raised with that look of... “I’ve got another one,
lads.”
7.6
I usually come off the phone thanking him very much for all his help but
knowing that I haven’t a clue what he was talking about and probably
I’ll have to live with the problem for the rest of my life.
7.6
What I long for is experts who will understand that most of us who use
these machines have no idea how the things work − and don’t want to know
− all we want to know is which button to press to make it do what we
want. OK, there may be times when I have to shift-double-click on an
icon, and maybe delete or change something, but that’s about as far as
it goes.
7.6
One expert − from a well known and much-loved company (not NCS!) − told
me, rather sardonically, that my problem was probably very complicated
and he didn’t want to waste time trying to explain it to me... so I
wrote, two weeks ago − I’m still waiting for a reply.  Gabriel Swords,
Norwich.
7.6
•  Flopticals for ADFS, part 4 − When I installed a new version of the
ROM for my Morley SCSI board (1.13), I had some difficulty setting up
the system − one of the two icons representing my Floptical drive had
disappeared and would not reappear despite attempts to reconfigure the
computer. The missing icon was ‘SCSI drive 0’ which was the nominal
floppy drive that handled ADFS discs. It turns out that Morley have
removed the software for handling ADFS discs from their latest ROM.
(They have stopped marketing Floptical drives altogether.) The situation
is actually more complicated than that. The drive does still recognise
1.6Mb discs as well as its native 21Mb discs − it will read and write
files to both these formats and correctly works out the size of the
disc. Morley seemed rather surprised by this when I spoke to them on the
phone. However, the drive will definitely not recognize 800Kb discs
now.  Philip Draper, Borehamwood.
7.6
•  Frontier − Elite II − Many Archimedes users loved (and still love) the
greatest space game ever made: Elite. Today the sequel has arrived,
named Frontier − Elite II − but sadly not for the Archimedes. Currently,
there are PC, Amiga and Atari versions available but the author, David
Braben, made the source code independent, which makes a conversion
easier. The question is, will he do the conversion? For this reason, I
have collected some reviews, stories and addresses into a small
application. This will give you a look into the game and write a demand
for a conversion! If you want a copy of this application, then write a
request to my e-mail address: [e-mail]. (There’s a copy on
the monthly disc. Ed.)  Atle Mjelde Bårdholt, Norway.
7.6
•  Hard disc life expectancy − Back in July, my A5000 (with Oak SCSI
card) failed to boot up in the normal fashion, due to my three and a
half year old 70Mb Rodime drive not spinning up. After switching the
computer off, waiting a while, and then switching it back on again, the
problem seemed to have gone away (huge sigh of relief). About a month
later, the same thing happened again but fortunately, the power off-on
sequence seemed to do the trick. A fortnight later still and the problem
occurred more often than not, and required more than one attempt to kick
the drive into life.
7.6
A phone call to Oak Solutions brought the depressing comment “the
average life expectancy of a hard disc drive is between three and five
years”. Ouch!! So, if you’ve got a hard drive that is over three years
old and the contents aren’t backed up, back it up, now! The suggested
explanation of the fault was that the bearings wear with age, such that
the power supply is unable to supply enough current to overcome the
friction to initially get the drive spinning, and that this is a
definite indicator to start thinking about a replacement drive.
7.6
Is a life of 3-5 years really typical for a hard drive, or have I just
been unlucky? Most people probably aim to keep a computer for five to
ten years before buying a replacement. That the hard disc may need to be
replaced during that period is a budgeting factor I’ve not seen
mentioned. How long can a removable type drive and cartridges be
expected to last? I had always been of the opinion that you should buy
the largest capacity drive you could afford, as you will fill it up
eventually. Though if it’s going to die before its half full, I’m not so
sure.  David Lenthall, Walworth, London.
7.6
•  Image Enhancement − Further to Cain Hunt’s request for a simple/cheap
image enhancer (7.1 p26), I’ve obtained Henrik Pederson’s excellent
!Process application which handles a range of 256 colour/greyscale image
types and does all sorts of wonderful things with them. !Process used to
be shareware but the plan is for Oregan Developments to release a
commercial version called PhotoTouch in the near future. In the
meantime, Henrik has put v1.21 into the public domain. (We have a copy
and could put it on a Shareware disc − but I’m afraid there’s no room on
this month’s program disc. Ed.)
7.6
 •  Mouse mat vandalism − We have a room full of Apple Macs at school
and have found that the screens on the LC2 take so long to refresh that
kids vandalise the mouse mats while they are waiting. Meanwhile, the
almost identical mouse mats on our two A5000s are in near new order
after the same period of time and many more hours of use.  Alan Jackson,
Oamaru, N.Z.
7.6
• Oak SCSI cards − A few words of warning to owners of Oak SCSI cards,
who may find themselves looking for a second or replacement drive.
7.6
According to Oak Solutions, Fujitsu drives should be avoided with their
interface, though according to Arm Tech Ltd the 540Mb Fujitsu drives
which they use present no problems with an Oak card.
7.6
Due to the death of one of my hard discs, I was in need of a replacement
drive. As Technology Matrix were advertising a 330Mb Fujitsu drive
(2622FA) at a bargain price, I opted for one of those. To cut a long
story short, although the drive seemed to work all right, when I tried
to fill the disc to capacity, I found that I couldn’t access beyond the
first 271Mb.
7.6
So back went the Fujitsu drive for exchange. This is a shame, as in many
respects it was a very nice drive. It was noticeably faster than my
Quantum 100Mb drive as the following table reveals (using the speed test
routine in Oak’s “!SCSIForm”) :
7.6
  Mode 0  Mode 15  Mode 21
7.6
Quantum 105S  1054Kb/s  1021Kb/s
1054Kb/s
7.6
Fujitsu 2622FA  1655Kb/s  1655Kb/s
1352Kb/s
7.6
Also, the Fujitsu’s reliability (MTBF) was quoted as being 200,000hrs
(i.e. about 23 years of constant 24hrs/day usage), so they are quite
safe in offering a five year guarantee. It can also be configured as a
SCSI 1 or SCSI 2 type device. (All Archimedes SCSI cards are SCSI 1,
probably because the podule bus bandwidth is a limiting factor which
would preclude any benefit from using a SCSI 2 interface.)
7.6
So, if anyone has an Oak SCSI card and is thinking of adding a Fujitsu
drive, ensure that the particular model is known to work (fully) with
it. The 540Mb drives which ARM Tech Ltd supply may well be OK, but it
doesn’t seem to apply to all models.
7.6
The onus of this problem seems to lie with Oak, as it is their SCSI
firmware which is ‘temperamental’ with Fujitsu drives. The drives
themselves are specified as being “fully SCSI compliant”, and apparently
they work with no problems on a Morley SCSI card.
7.6
A big thank-you to Lee Henderson of Matrix who was extremely reasonable
and understanding throughout the whole exercise and who allowed me to
try out the Fujitsu drive on a sale-or-return basis. I finally opted for
a Quantum 240Mb drive to sit alongside the 100Mb Quantum already
present. Both drives have performed faultlessly.
7.6
I was advised not to use a fan silencer with 2 drives. Re Colin
Buckland’s comments (6.12 p29) about his drive’s death and rebirth and
the implications against the fan silencer, I have decided to remove this
from my machine (it didn’t reduce the noise much, anyway). It would seem
to be more sensible to spend the money on a quieter fan (e.g. a low-
noise Papst device). Does anyone know of a suitable source?  David
Lenthall, Walworth, London.
7.6
•  Phaethon definition − The result of our ‘Call My Bluff’ competition
(Archive 7.4 p20) is that only one person got the correct answer − ALL
THREE definitions were correct! They all came out of my Collins English
dictionary. So I have therefore sent TWO mugs to Eric Hunter of Hitchin,
the only person to come up with the correct answer. Well done, Eric!
(Actually, he assures me that it is also a tropical bird − a type of
boatswain-bird − but I don’t know if that is a bluff or not!!)
7.6
•  To K or not to K? − Going back to the debate on the use of ‘kb’ or
‘Kb’ to represent kilobyte. ‘K’ is the SI abbreviation for Kappa (1018).
Certainly, RAM in quantities measurable in Kb (kappabytes) is very
attractive, though it is not very practical, financially. At £30/Mb, 1Kb
would cost £30,000,000 million. No doubt you could get a discount, but
you may have to wait a while for the order to be fulfilled. On the
subject of waiting, the time taken to refresh the RAM (assuming that it
is of the dynamic type) would require some fairly hefty processing in
itself. So really, the use of either ‘k’ or ‘K’ to refer to 1024 is
wrong.
7.6
I personally use ‘k’ and rely on the context to say whether it’s 1000 or
1024. To further the argument for the use of ‘k’, the approximation when
using ‘M’ for 1,048,576 (1024k) as opposed to 1,000,000 seems to be
accepted without question.  David Lenthall, Walworth, London.
7.6
•  Stability of Impression Style 3.01 − So far, I have noticed only one
one bug which will always cause Style to crash completely, forcing a
reset: when I click <adjust> on the Close icon of an “Untitled” Style
document. (In RISC OS 3, this would normally cause the parent directory
window to be opened but, of course, before the first Save, the document
file doesn’t have one.) This effect does not occur after version 2.17 of
Impression has first been run.
7.6
There is a small incompatibility with Keith Sloan’s utility !RMA-
Man(ager), version 1.6, which I use as the simplest way to remove
modules that I no longer need. Style’s spell checker sometimes (maybe on
one occasion in five) responds to any such attempt with an error message
about an unknown SWI and with a complete crash.
7.6
A very minor harmless bug concerns Autosave. If you press <f3> just when
the next Autosave is due, you will find two Save boxes on your screen,
and the Autosave prompt will remain even after you have clicked OK in
the other Save box.
7.6
There is a bit of a difficulty for users who have a foreign language
version of RISC OS in their machine, e.g. the German 3.19 version.
During the installation of Style, an application !CCShared is put into
!System. This, in turn, contains the !HyperView application which is
used for !WordWorks and the Interactive Help. The !Hyperview directory
contains Resources.UK, but no Resources.Germany, causing both programs
to fail. If you just rename the UK directory to Germany, various error
messages will appear during operation, so the thing to do is to copy the
UK directory as Germany, so that there appear to be resources for both
countries.
7.6
Despite these minor niggles, I am very satisfied with the upgrade.
Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany
7.6
•  Talking Wordprocessors − In Archive 7.5 p57, I mentioned that Icon
Technology offer a voucher worth 50% off the cost of PEP’s speech
program when you buy StartWrite. However, even if you purchase a site
licence of StartWrite, this voucher is only good for a single copy of
SpeechSystem − which seems a bit pointless. Since then, I have spoken to
PEP Associates who agreed that with the single user version, we had
“permission to copy it for use on as many machines” as we like on site.
I’m not sure what the difference is between that and a site licence,
but... if it walks like a duck... ! Thanks, PEP.  Joe Gallagher,
Hackney.
7.6
•  Whither Acorn? − That’s the question I keep asking myself. Not that
I’ve got any right to ask − I’m not a shareholder or anything. But it’s
a question I find myself asking the more I use these machines.
7.6
Is Acorn’s market, for example, the average home user who wants to do
accounts and write the odd letter, or who wants to let the kids play a
few games? Surely not. If all you want to do is play games then you’d be
better off buying a proper games machine − they’re cheaper and there’s
loads of games available to play. If you want to do simple things like
accounts and letters then buy a PC, or one of the more user-friendly,
and cheaper than an A3010, Macs. To do any of the above using ARM 3
technology is a bit daft − it’s like buying an MG to do the weekly
shopping.
7.6
Well, is it aimed at the professional market − the place where all this
power can be used to the full? The place where PC’s and Macs have
reigned supreme for years? It’s the most logical of places, but is the
hardware and software really up to it?
7.6
I consider myself to be a professional user − I write and design things
on an A5000, and people pay me to do it. I’d like to continue using it.
I’d like to see it gain more credibility in the professional design
market, but I find myself getting very frustrated it.
7.6
Today, yet again, I’ve had to re-do some PostScript files because when I
sent them to the image setting bureau, the separations didn’t work. On
another job, the pages were cropped all round and I ended up preparing
the artwork manually.
7.6
The programs I use are supposed to be ‘at the cutting edge of Archimedes
technology’ but, in truth, they only work correctly, for me, 85% of the
time. When I used a Mac I got to see the dreaded ‘Bomb’ about three
times in three years − on my A5000 I have an average of three crashes a
month, plus a whole host of strange error messages which shut down the
program I’m using as soon as I go near the OK button. This is not a very
professional way of running a computer company!
7.6
“Ah but”, I hear you say − “they’re cheaper than the opposition”. That’s
true of the software, but not of the machines − in some cases Acorn
machines are more expensive. But if the software only works properly 85%
of the time, it’s no good to me. For me, the two best design and page
layout programs available for the Archimedes are Impression and
Artworks, but even in their new forms, are still two years behind
Pagemaker and Freehand.
7.6
For a professional designer, it doesn’t matter how fast the machines are
or how cheap the software is, if it doesn’t do the job. And being
unreliable means I have to waste time re-doing things − and that costs
money − money which could be spent on more reliable software!
7.6
So is it a schools machine? Traditionally the answer is, of course, yes.
There’s certainly a lot of educational software about. My children use
Acorns at school and they like them − but they also use Macs, and they
like them too! If Apple and the PC manufacturers see a profitable market
in schools, you can bet they’ll be in there with plenty of software to
support them, and suddenly the fast, but expensive, Acorn machines will
be left behind.
7.6
I really do hope Acorn machines, and all the software that goes with
them, achieve something substantial in the professional market place − I
think they need to if they are going to survive. To do this they need to
recognise that speed and raw power isn’t everything − though, clearly,
having the speed and power gives them a lead over the others. On the
other hand, if the machines and software don’t do the things people
want, they won’t buy them.
7.6
It’s time they came of age and took the professional user more seriously
− that doesn’t just mean supersonic ARM7’s − it means giving us the
stuff to do the job as well as Macs!  Gabriel Swords, Norwich.
7.6
There is an element of truth in what Gabriel is saying but, personally,
I think he is over-stating the case to try to stir Acorn and third-party
companies into action.
7.6
Let me tell you the history of Gabriel’s life in DTP (he’s a personal
friend of mine so I’m sure he won’t mind!) as it makes his comments even
more poignant.
7.6
He was born and raised on Macs but, for several years now, he has popped
into the NCS office fairly regularly. He used to watch over my shoulder
as I worked on Impression on my A540. One day he asked if he could have
a play with Impression − he was impressed! Eventually, without any
persuasion, he asked us to quote for a DTP system based on an A5000. As
you will gather, he bought the A5000 and Laser Direct and has had good
use out of it.
7.6
I have to say that Gabriel has had more hardware and software problems
than most − which obviously colours his view of Acorn. I used to wheel
him out to ‘give his testimony’ to Mac-using customers who were thinking
of changing horses − but I won’t let him near them now!
7.6
Hopefully, the latest versions of Impression and ArtWorks (which Gabriel
hasn’t got yet) will help to lift his spirits but there is ‘room for
improvement’ as the Acorn community’s school report would probably say.
Ed.  A
Oak Logic
7.6
Bevis Peters
7.6
Oak Logic is a multitasking program for designing and simulating digital
7.6
logic circuits. It comes on one 800Kb disc, along with a few examples
7.6
and a large number of pre-made microchip circuits, (as will be explained
7.6
later), and a 36-page stapled A5 manual.
7.6
Installation to floppy or hard disc is very simple, although it does not
7.6
come with a copy of !Sysmerge for updating the !System folder, which
7.6
would have been handy.
7.6
The program
7.6
The software loads onto the iconbar by double-clicking, and takes up
7.6
about 256Kb of memory.
7.6
Clicking on the icon with <select> brings up two windows; the main
7.6
display and a separate unattached tools window. This tools window
7.6
contains icons for all the basic gates and a lamp, astable (oscillator),
7.6
input pad, output pad and simulation switch. Circuits are made up by
7.6
placing these symbols, or any other pre-made chips, onto the main window
7.6
by dragging and dropping them. These symbols are forced onto a grid
7.6
layout.
7.6
The manual starts with an example circuit; a traffic light simulator.
7.6
The construction of this is described step by step in a simple and easy-
7.6
to-understand manner, although with my knowledge of digital electronics,
7.6
I found myself skipping over bits. I found that the example circuit
7.6
worked just as they said it would, first time, with no problems.
7.6
The rest of the manual describes the various program options in more
7.6
detail, although the program is very simple to use and could probably be
7.6
tried without the manual at all − always a good test of software
7.6
friendliness.
7.6
In use
7.6
The program allows all the base components to be placed easily on the
7.6
board with its very handy dragging, although the dragging can be quite
7.6
slow with complicated boards and the components can only be placed in a
7.6
left to right orientation. Although this may be good practice, some
7.6
circuits look neater if you can make components point towards each other
7.6
− a mirror option would have been nice.
7.6
Wires are drawn with a straightforward Draw-like method, although again
7.6
this is slow. Having pushed <select> to mark the start of a wire, there
7.6
is a noticeable pause before it appears on the screen and if you move
7.6
the mouse before it has appeared, it does not get drawn at all. Moving a
7.6
single node or connection point on a wire moves all the wires joined to
7.6
that point as well, thus keeping the circuit intact. Also, deleting a
7.6
component deletes any wires which would have been left hanging off it −
7.6
this may neaten the layout, but if you want to replace a component with
7.6
another one, you have to redraw all the wires again. A neat point is
7.6
that the mouse pointer changes when it is over a node or wire to help
7.6
with the wiring.
7.6

7.6
Moving components about also keeps the wiring intact and is done
7.6
‘realtime’, i.e. you can see the component and the wires as you drag
7.6
them.
7.6
Input and output pins can be placed easily, and the text in them
7.6
changed, albeit only up to four characters long.
7.6
A circuit can be designed and then saved as a sub-circuit to be used in
7.6
later designs. For instance, I built a full adder and saved it and then
7.6
dragged it back into another circuit where it appeared as a box with
7.6
labelled inputs and outputs.
7.6
An astable is available whose rate can be changed, though not its duty
7.6
cycle. However, its maximum oscillation rate is set by the speed at
7.6
which the program can simulate the circuit.
7.6
When the simulation switch is thrown, the program continuously works out
7.6
the logic of the circuit, changing the astable’s state and redrawing
7.6
wires with a high logic value in orange. Inputs can be toggled between
7.6
high and low states by clicking on them with the mouse. What is
7.6
particularly impressive is that the circuit can still be edited while
7.6
the simulation is running.
7.6
The completed circuit can be saved as an OakLogic circuit or a drawfile,
7.6
and can either be printed through a RISC OS printer driver or sent to a
7.6
plotter. Two separate programs, DrawPrint and DrawPlot are used for
7.6
this. They allow for accurate printing and positioning on the paper, but
7.6
for OakLogic, to work, they were really necessary − and one of them must
7.6
be running to print at all. The results from my BJ10e were much the same
7.6
as just printing the equivalent draw file.
7.6
Problems
7.6
By far the biggest problem with the program is that the window redraw is
7.6
very slow, and often goes very wrong with complicated circuits.
7.6
To test the program, I recreated a slightly simplified circuit that I
7.6
designed for my degree which used parallel processing to run the Game of
7.6
Life algorithm. This was originally built up on a very powerful and
7.6
complicated DEC station and involved some very complicated simulations.
7.6
One processor in the circuit contained 72 gates and was built up from
7.6
many sub-circuits.
7.6
The program allowed me to build it very quickly and easily, and the
7.6
subsections could be simulated quite successfully. Trying to simulate
7.6
the whole circuit was almost beyond the program’s ability, however. The
7.6
screen redraw failed completely. To see what was happening, I had to
7.6
continually force the program to redraw the window by pressing <f12> and
7.6
<return> or by dragging other windows across it. It was also very slow,
7.6
although that was not altogether surprising.
7.6
Conclusion
7.6
This is a good program but not quite versatile or powerful enough for
7.6
particularly complicated circuit designs. Any serious circuit
7.6
simulations cannot be practically performed. A system whereby a text
7.6
file of the inputs can be written and fed into the software which then
7.6
produces a text file of the outputs would be more useful for complex
7.6
circuits.
7.6
For more simple designs and as a teaching aid, OakLogic is very good. It
7.6
is very simple to use and with the wires lighting up as the circuit
7.6
runs, it is very easy to see mistakes and to see how the logic is
7.6
working, and I’d certainly recommend it for schools teaching basic
7.6
digital logic.
7.6
OakLogic has recently been reduced in price. It is now £70 +VAT from Oak
7.6
Solutions or £77 through Archive.  A
7.6
 Writing a Program for the Archimedes
7.6
Francis Crossley
7.6
This article will briefly discuss why you might want to write a program,
how to choose a language and a few comments on style and structure. In a
second article, I will suggest how to start writing a program.
7.6
Why write a program?
7.6
Presumably, you want to write a program to solve a problem. Probably the
hardest and certainly the most important part of writing a program is to
define the problem carefully. If there are several parts to be solved,
should a very large program that does everything be used or is it wiser
to break the solution into several distinct parts, each having its own
program? Results from one part could be saved in a file to be read by a
second program − for example, this is a useful technique when the
intermediate results are of interest in themselves. I do this with
teleprinter signals which are recorded using one program and analysed
with a second. Different analysis can be done with a third program. This
approach means that each part can be fully tested quickly and easily
without waiting a long time for complex program to work through to the
end.
7.6
Which language?
7.6
This is a contentious subject so I will stick my neck out and say ‘it
does not matter!’. It will be useful, however, to indicate briefly what
considerations would help us decide on a particular language if several
are available.
7.6
a) Compatibility with other makes of computer
7.6
A Basic program written for the Archimedes would not run on a different
make of computer because the program is tokenised (each keyword being
replaced by a code which occupies less space and increases the speed of
interpretation on execution). The tokens are unlikely to be same on
different makes of machine. This problem can be overcome by saving the
program as text (spooling it). The foreign machine would then need to
accept the program in text form but it is likely that some commands
would need to be altered to suit this machine’s particular dialect of
Basic and any structures peculiar to Acorn Basic would need to be
rewritten.
7.6
A program written in a standard compiled language such as Fortran,
Pascal, C etc can be transferred as a text file to most other makes of
computer and can then be compiled (see later) and linked (also see
later) and then executed. I did this very successfully using Pascal on a
BBC B which I sent to a Prime multiuser mini computer using Kermit (a
very useful file transfer program). The Prime then compiled and linked
the code ready for execution.
7.6
b) Software secrecy
7.6
If the program is to be sold, you may not want the purchaser to see the
code being used. If the language is Basic it can be read, modified and
possibly sold by the purchaser. A compiled language does not have this
problem since what is sold is in a machine code which is peculiar to a
particular processor and is not readily understood by humans. But this
also means that compatibility with other makes of computer is lost. The
processor is the part of the computer which does all the work, in the
Archimedes it is an ARM2 or ARM3 and is incompatible in every way with
the processor used in a PC, for example.
7.6
c) Speed of execution
7.6
Before looking at the speed of execution, a few words are needed about a
fundamental difference between Basic and compiled languages. Basic is an
interpreted language which means that as each line in the program is
read, the computer converts it into a machine understandable form and
immediately executes the command, the next line is then converted and so
on. If these lines are met again as they would be in a loop, the
conversion process takes place again. This repeated conversion process
makes interpreted languages intrinsically slow. However one exception to
this is the set of mathematical routines built into Basic which, because
of their limited precision are much faster than their equivalent using
the floating point emulator.
7.6
Languages such as Fortran, C and Pascal are ‘compiled’ and ‘linked’.
Compilation is the process of translating statements into machine code.
One statement might give rise to many machine code words. (An example of
a short C program with part of the machine code is on the monthly disc.)
7.6
Linking adds the code you have written to that needed to perform
functions such as printing, writing and reading files etc. Compiled
languages are intrinsically fast.
7.6
The fastest and smallest program is one written in assembly language
which provides a way of programming the computer at the level of the
simple commands the processor actually executes. These programs are not
as easy to write as those written in high level languages because of the
huge effort involved in working out every single step needed by the
processor.  Assembly language is known as a low level language because
it involves writing commands which directly affect registers and memory
locations. For example, it may be necessary to obtain the screen memory
address and write directly to the screen thus increasing the speed of
drawing, etc. Some understanding of how the machine works is necessary
before using assembly language.
7.6
Summary
7.6
I use Basic for experiments with programs but for the more serious work
I use C. I have used Fortran and Pascal but rather than use all three
and worry about which one to use, I stick to one. C and Pascal require a
more disciplined approach than does Basic. The choice is really personal
unless speed or size of code are important, then you would use a
compiled language or assembler. If the techniques for writing a program
are known, it is easy to learn and use a new language when required.
There are other languages available which have their devotees or are
valuable for particular purposes − languages such as Lisp, Logo and
database languages. Any language could be used to write almost any type
of program but using an inappropriate one, e.g. Basic for a database
program, would be harder than using one designed for the job.
7.6
Another important advantage of the compiled languages is their improved
memory handling facilities, particularly the ability to use structured
data types. This allows the programmer to refer to a collection of
variables as a single object and makes dynamic data structures easier to
build. The only complex structure available in Basic is the array, where
all elements have to be of the same type. This rather limits what can be
done without accessing the machine at a lower level.
7.6
Style and structure
7.6
Neither of these is of any interest to the computer or the user. They
are of value only to the programmer because adopting a good style and
structuring the program will make the program easier to understand when
you come back to it, weeks after it has been written and therefore it
will be easier to modify. It should also decrease the chances of a minor
change in one part of the program, causing catastrophic failure
elsewhere.
7.6
What is meant by style? I use the word to mean things such as:
7.6
1)  Meaningful variable names − These make for increased readability. Be
careful though that they are not mistaken by the interpreter to be
keywords. Calling a data array DATA(i%) is my favourite mistake! Putting
upper case letters in a long name helps readability, e.g. NumberOfItems.
7.6
2)  Consistency − Use the same structure for performing the same
operation.
7.6
3)  Indentation − Indenting statements within FOR loops, IF ENDIF
structures, REPEAT UNTIL structures, etc helps to show which parts of
the program belong together.
7.6
4)  Control variables − Some people insist on the FOR NEXT control
variable being repeated adjacent to the appropriate NEXT, although
indenting the structure makes this less important and it is not required
by Basic. I tend to use single letters for the control variable if the
loop is short, perhaps presetting an array, and longer names where the
structure is more complex and the variable is used for some purpose,
such as a comparison.
7.6
Structure
7.6
This is the idea of breaking the solution into small parts, each doing a
clearly defined job. In addition, it is common to ‘hide’ these parts in
procedures placed together in the program. The opposite of structured is
what used to happen in early versions of Fortran when GOTO had to be
used to implement a choice using a simple IF statement. It then became
quite difficult to follow the possible paths through the program. It is
believed that one GOTO ruins a structured program but this is
exaggeration, we must be pragmatic and write programs which do the job
reliably and are reasonably easy to follow, especially if the program is
for our own use.
7.6
Acorn Basic has a wealth of features which make writing structured
programs much easier:
7.6
IF ...THEN...ELSE...ENDIF
7.6
FOR...NEXT
7.6
REPEAT...UNTIL
7.6
WHILE...ENDWHILE
7.6
CASE...OF...WHEN...OTHERWISE...ENDCASE
7.6
PROCDoSomething
7.6
FNReturnSomething
7.6
GOSUB...
7.6
ON...GOSUB...
7.6
The last two are not recommended since they do not give any clue to what
they do. A REM statement could be used but PROC and FN do the same job
and can have meaningful names. The CASE statement can be replaced by a
number of IF...ELSE IF ... structures and is preferred by some. Most, if
not all these structures are present in modern languages, C, Pascal and
even Fortran. BBC Basic, of course, has had them for years!
7.6
The final part of this article will consider a concrete example of
writing a simple program using some of the above ideas. These notes are
my personal suggestions, so if you have any comments I would be pleased
to see them either in Archive or you could send them to me at 156 Holmes
Chapel Road, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 4QB.  A
7.6
Help!!!!
7.6
•  Brainsoft Multipod Professional − I can’t get this to work under
RISC OS 3.1. Can anyone help, please?  Tim Hill, 29 Risborough Road,
Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury, HP22 5UP.
7.6
•  Calling all ArcTEX Users − I use public domain TEX software, modified
by Graham Toal for Acorn, which works well on my A440 with RISC OS 2.
After installing RISC OS 3.1, I have three problems.
7.6
(1) I get an error explaining that the TexFonts file cannot be opened.
The system crashes so I cannot preview any text.
7.6
(2) The texing process cannot access the macro file from hard disc so I
have to store copies of the macro file in the directory with the Tex
being processed.
7.6
(3) When I drag a directory with a Tex file onto the Tex icon, I am
informed the .tex file can’t be found, although it is where it always
was under RISC OS 2.
7.6
Are there any other ArcTEX users out there with answers to these
problems? I’d really love to hear from you!  Toni Beardon, University of
Cambridge Department of Education, 17 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2
1QA.
7.6
•  CD-ROM encyclopedia − I want to get a good encyclopedia on CD-ROM for
the school at which I teach. Acorn/Cumana recommend the Hutchinson one
but it got a thorough panning in the educational press so I wonder what
real users (as opposed to reviewers!) think about it. Or is there an
alternative?  Chris Price, Merton Court School.
7.6
•  Laser Jet IIIp margins − I have a Hewlett Packard LaserJet IIIp, and
have been frustrated with the broad (13mm) top margin when using the
RISC OS 3 printer driver. HP say this should be about 4mm. With advice
from Acorn plus a little experimentation, I found that I could get the
margin down to 5mm by modifying a line in the file
!printers.lj.resources.messages. The line, under the heading of paper
tray selection strings, reads:  PT_A4:|[&126A
7.6
and this should be changed to:
7.6
  PT_A4:|[&1-13u-177z26A
7.6
This works well but since using the Computer Concepts HP Turbo Driver, I
find that these settings are ignored. Can anybody help please?  Andrew
Hextall, 119 School lane, Bushey, Herts, WD2 1BY.
7.6
•  Red Boxes − I used the Red Box system on the old BBC Micro but cannot
find out if there is any way of getting them working on the Archimedes.
Can anyone help, please?  Tim Hill, 29 Risborough Road, Stoke
Mandeville, Aylesbury, HP22 5UP.
7.6
•  Teletext adaptor − The Morley Teletext adaptor has now been
discontinued but we still get an occasional enquiry. A company called
Ground Control used to do a teletext adaptor but we have been
unsuccessful at getting in touch with them. Does anyone know where we
could get a teletext adaptor? Ed.
7.6
Help Offered
7.6
•  AI CD-ROM − Lambda Publications have a few copies of Issue 1 of the AI
CD-ROM as reviewed in Archive 7.5 p42. As Issue 2 is now available, they
are prepared to offer the Issue 1 CD-ROMs to schools for only £25. Send
Lambda a cheque with order and quote your Archive subscription number.
7.6
•  Dog & Cat clipart − I would like to thank all those people who
responded to my request for clipart. The response confirms the
camaraderie and mutual help which exists between Archimedes users.  R E
Clark, Gloucestershire.
7.6
•  Free computer language − Lambda Publications have made a very generous
offer to Archive subscribers. They are keen, in their own words, “to
change the face of educational computing”! In particular, they want to
see Scheme used more to teach programming. To that end, they are
offering to any Archive subscriber a free copy of EdScheme (reviewed in
Archive 4.3 p48 and mentioned in Archive 6.9 p22) to anyone buying a
copy of “The Schemer’s Guide” from them. Just send them £17.50 for the
book (they don’t even charge for p&p!) and quote your Archive
subscription number and they will send you both the book and a copy of
EdScheme.  A
7.6
Small Ads
7.6
(Small ads for Archimedes and related products are free for subscribers
but we reserve the right to publish all, part or none of the material
you send, as we think fit. i.e. some people don’t know what ‘small’
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)
7.6
•  A3000, no monitor just a stand, 2Mb RAM, games and software − £200.
SyQuest removable 42Mb hard drive with four cartridges £450. WS 4000
modem, Beebug Hearsay £100. RISC OS 2 PRM £30. Z88 with case, 288Kb ram,
SpellMaster, zBase, PC link, Archimedes leads, mains adaptor, manual
£200. Euclid, Mogul, Splice and Tween, £40. Phone [phone].
7.6
•  A3000, RISC OS 3.1, monitor, 4Mb RAM, external SCSI controller + 45Mb
drive, £500. Phone Bradford 0274-580693.
7.6
•  A410/1, 4Mb, ARM3, 40Mb HD, RISC OS 3.11, Philips CM8833 colour
monitor, FaxPack v2.01, Scanlight 256, Laser Direct LBP-8, Impression
2.19. Consider any offer and donate 10% of to Archive charity! Call
Frode on ([phone]am-5pm or ([phone]pm to 5am. This
is Miami Beach USA so please remember the 5 hour time difference!
7.6
•  A5000 4Mb/120Mb HD, monitor, software inc Artworks, Impression, C, PC
Emulator, ISO Pascal, Beebug scanner, books and mags £1200 o.n.o.. CC
Laser Direct expansion card £200 o.n.o. Phone [phone].
7.6
•  A540, 8Mb RAM, 100Mb SCSI hard disc, CD ROM drive, RISC OS 3.1, Taxan
770+, Econet, Watford Digitiser, Hyperactive Junior genlock board,
Desktop C and Assembler, PRM, loads of software with full documentation.
£2,000. Bedford 0234-750770.
7.6
•  Acorn DTP £30, PRM2 £25, System Delta+ £30, Interdictor £8. Phone 071-
703-5675.
7.6
•  Acorn Pocket Book with manuals and Schedule, £120. Phone Coventry
0203-418064.
7.6
•  Archimedes A410/1, 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.1, 40Mb HD, 3½“ FD, twin 5¼” FD,
with Taxan 770+ multisync monitor, manuals, boxed, immaculate condition,
offers. Phone Wigan 0942-717454.
7.6
•  Canon BJ10e printer + CSF + 5 black cartridges, £220. PCATS graphics
enhancer with manual, £100. Phone [phone] after 6pm or weekends.
7.6
•  Ground Control 4Mb upgrade with 35MHz ARM3 board and MEMC1a for A305/
310. Plugs in − no soldering, £250. CC ROM podule with RAM chips and
battery backup, £35. Acorn ANSI C v 3, £50. System Delta+ £25. Phone
051-606-0289.
7.6
•  I/O podule (Acorn AKA10) with analogue, user, 1MHz bus ports, semi-
upgraded to Midi, £30. Phone [phone].
7.6
•  PRES A3K6 disc interface for A3000, £25. Cumana CS354 3½“ disc drive
with PSU, £50. Cumana CS400S 5¼” 40/80 disc drive with PSU, £30. Ground
control, A3000 2Mb upgrade (upgradable to 4Mb) £25. All with manuals,
all ex. cond., all o.n.o. Phone Ian on 051-678-9879.
7.6
•  Risc Developments Hard disc companion £20. Serial Port Investigator 2
£10, Games: Conqueror, Nevryon, Superior Golf, Zarch £6 each or all 4
for £20. CC ROMS (for ROM/RAM podule): InterChart £10, InterSheet £15,
SpellMaster £20. Phone [phone] (eves).
7.6
•  RISC OS 2 PRMs (with index cover), Basic user guide, Assembly Language
(Dabs), Operating System (Dabs), C (Dabs) all with support discs.
ArcScanIII, DT-Talk, I-APL with manual and tutorial. As new £55. Phone
Mick Magennis 0742-471049.
7.6
•  SJ MDFS fileserver for Econet with 20Mb hard disc and matching
tapestreamer and 35Mb tapes, £500. Continued manufacturers support still
available. Phone [phone].
7.6
•  Wanted: A410/1, 440 or 310 base unit, in reasonable condition.
Specification and OS not critical. Please phone Edward Downes on 0242-
263805(work) or 0242-528571(eves).
7.6
•  Wanted: Acorn Computing magazine (+ discs if poss) March 1993 issue
i.e. Vol. 11 No1. Phone [phone].
7.6
•  Wanted: Morley Teletext adaptor. Model for BBC B might be acceptable.
Phone Tony Cowley on 0473-780298.  A
7.6
Charity Sales − None this month as we are selling it all at the Open Day
on March 12th! If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes
computers that you could donate for charity, please send it to the
Archive office a.s.a.p. Thanks.
7.6
Make your own
7.6
‘Bucky Ball’
7.6
using the
7.6
PD libraries
7.6
from
7.6
‘Fortran Friends’
7.6
Easier Fortran77
7.6
on the
7.6
Archimedes
7.6
For information on the Public Domain library for the Archimedes,
‘Fortran Friends’ which includes a Desktop Development Environment and
libraries for graphics and Wimp utilities etc, send an electronic mail
message via JANET: [e-mail]
7.6
Now available as ‘Shareware Disc 44’ from:
7.6
Norwich Computer Services, 96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD.
7.6
Fortran on the Archimedes
7.6
Kate Crennell
7.6
As a practising scientist, I have used Fortran for many years on
mainframe computers. I believe the Archimedes is potentially very useful
for scientific research computing in the Universities and Higher
Education Institutes, especially since the Floating Point Accelerator is
now available. Unfortunately, the scientific market is relatively small
and makes difficult demands on the operating system. Apparently, Acorn
have taken the sensible business approach and decided that they cannot
afford to support Fortran on the Archimedes.
7.6
Fortran77 (release 2) is now marketed by Intelligent Interfaces at £99
+VAT. For more details, see the recent article in ‘Acorn User’ February
’94 p33. Intelligent Interfaces are also just completing the
documentation for a new product, a window-based ‘Front End development
system’ for use with this Fortran77 compiler.
7.6
I have set up a self-help user group known as ‘Fortran Friends’. Our aim
is to communicate any news of interest to Fortran users, including
listing accessible software libraries, and to accumulate a public domain
library of routines which we can all afford to use. Further
contributions are welcome at any time.
7.6
Join us today in lobbying Acorn for a ‘Fortran90’ compiler, which has
many new statements including matrix manipulation and has Fortran77 as a
subset.
7.6
‘Fortran Friends’ have so far produced two discs, which have been
compressed into one, now sold by Archive as their Shareware 44, since I
prefer programming to copying discs.
7.6
Disc 1 contains a Desktop Development Environment for Fortran77, which
greatly simplifies the compilation and linking stages of program
development. In addition, there are fast Binary input/output routines,
graphics, SpriteOp and Wimp low level libraries with extensive
documentation and test examples. As well as the low level graphics
library, there are higher level routines in Fortran which allow the
saving of the picture as a drawfile, draw a simple x/y graph, 2D contour
lines and a 3D surface. There is only the source on this disc, so you
need a copy of the Fortran77 compiler to see their output. The two large
sample applications, SphereRot and WimpPoly, are given in both source
and executable form with a few examples of datafiles.
7.6
The disc is intended for scientists, already familiar with Fortran, who
wish to embed the graphics into their own scientific programs. The
example source code is mainly intended as an illustration of how to use
the graphics libraries, not to form complete packages.
7.6
Disc 2 contains the complete !WimpPoly, a fully RISC OS (version 2 or 3)
compliant application, which draws two views of a polyhedron − a 3D
solid shaded one or a planar net. There are datafiles for drawing over
140 polyhedra and drawfiles illustrating all the polyhedra.
7.6
I hope that WimpPoly will prove useful to both research scientists who
write in Fortran and science and mathematics teachers in schools who are
interested in polyhedra. Models of the polyhedra can easily be made by
printing the planar net on stiff paper; they make decorative additions
to any classroom or office. There has been increased interest in the
truncated icosahedron lately, because this is the shape of the recently
discovered form of carbon, Buckminster Fullerene, more familiarly known
as a ‘Bucky Ball’. The data comes from the public domain and I am asking
anyone with co-ordinates of an interesting polyhedron to contribute them
to the library.
7.6
Interested academics can contact me via the Joint Academic Network,
JANET, where my full address is [e-mail] or the
abbreviated form (within the UK only) KMC@UK. AC.RL.ISISE.
7.6
There is now a Higher Education Software Archive, (Hensa) with many
useful programs for the Archimedes. For details, send a message to:
[e-mail].  A
7.6
Hints and Tips
7.6
•  A4 battery life − Many A4 users may have noticed that the charge of
the A4 battery becomes shorter after each recharge. Apparently, if the
battery is not discharged completely it does not run for the full
capacity upon recharge. One solution is to unplug the battery manager
from the command line and leave the computer on until the red light
stops blinking. The battery will then be fully discharged and can then
be recharged as normal.
7.6
I now leave the battery manager unplugged permanently. I just have to
make sure I save everything regularly. When the red light flashes to
indicate the battery being flat, I have a couple of minutes to save the
latest alterations and shutdown.  Awie Bosman, South Africa.
7.6
•  Beware the old module! − I have discovered that some older (slightly
badly-behaved) applications load their own modules in their Run file.
Presumably this is because RISC OS 2 didn’t have all the modules in ROM
and an application needing a module newer than the RISC OS 2 one would
need to load it itself − if it was too lazy to use SysMerge, that is. If
you have RISC OS 3, these applications can have the disconcerting effect
of replacing a RISC OS 3 ROM module with an older version of the same
module.
7.6
I came across this when trying to run Almanac − I got the error message
“Module .....$.!System.FPEmulator not found”. Looking into System
confirmed that there was no such module under this pathname, and several
minutes of panic ensued while I played ‘hunt the module’. Finally, a
hard reset seemed to restore Almanac to perfect behaviour, the module
was restored and I was so relieved that I forgot about the problem for
some weeks.
7.6
The problem recurred but this time, Ovation would not run either, giving
a similar message. I realised that, in RISC OS 3, FPEmulator is in ROM,
so something must have happened to the ROM module. On checking *Help
ROMModules, I found FPEmulator was “Dormant”. Trying to *RMReinit it had
no effect. Then I remembered that I had been playing CIS’s Mah Jong.
Sure enough, in the application directory was a copy of FPEmulator and
in the Run file was the line “RMLoad <obey$dir> FPEmulator”. Inspecting
this module showed it to be version 2.60 (the ROM module is 2.87).
7.6
In the Almanac Run file is the line “RMEnsure FPEmulator 2.70 Error You
need FPEmulator 2.70 or later”. So, Mah Jong had been quietly loading an
old module without this being at all obvious until another application
wanted the ROM version. Deleting the line from Mah Jong’s Run file cured
the bug but Mah Jong seems to get along only intermittently with the new
FPEmulator, unpredictably throwing up “invalid floating point operation”
errors. (Should it do this? What about “backwards compatibility”?)
Putting “RMKill FPEmulator” followed by “RMReinit FPEmulator” at the end
of Mah Jong’s Run file doesn’t have any effect, but running the same two
lines in a separate Obey file does work. Does anyone know why?
7.6
The moral would seem to be to inspect the directories of applications
you have been using if your modules start misbehaving. They may be
loading all sorts of things you don’t want.  Peter Young, Cheltenham.
7.6
•  Computer hang-ups − There’s a hint in Computer Concepts’ Turbo Drivers
manual which suggests that if the printer should ‘stall’, selecting
<f12> followed by <return> will re-start the printer.
7.6
Quite by chance, I found that doing the same thing can occasionally
clear a computer hang-up. Specifically, it may work when you can still
move the mouse pointer but clicking on an icon, etc has no effect.
7.6
The beauty of this is that, rather than having to perform a soft or hard
reset to clear the hang-up and thus losing any unsaved work, you are
returned to the desktop as it was before selecting <f12> <return>, i.e.
all windows and documents are restored.  Jim Nottingham, York.
7.6
•  !FontEd under RISC OS 3.1 − Ronald Alpiar’s problem of invisible
coordinates in last month’s Help!!! (7.5 p8), apparently only occurs in
256 colour modes. In 16 colours they reappear.
7.6
(I think this could be linked with an obscure problem which one of our
subscribers has reported to Risc Developments. When using Ovation in
certain 256-colour screen modes, inverted text, i.e. white on black,
becomes black on black! Risc Developments say they have a partial
solution and are working further on the problem. Ed.)
7.6
•  Keystroke hints − I’ve just started using Keystroke myself, in
earnest, and, quite frankly, it is brilliant! It will save me huge
amounts of time with all the text editing I do from day to day. For
example, contributors often say, “Press the menu button to do such and
such” instead of “Press <menu>... ”. I now click on “the” and press
<alt-f6> and the change is made at a stroke! It is done by making the
key insert the text |D<60>\S-⇨\\⇦\<62>|D. The <60> and <62> have to be
used to create the triangle brackets which, as a beginner to Keystroke,
confused me for a while.
7.6
I find Impression’s <shift-ctrl-Q> useful for inverting charactres (sic)
− a very common typing error! However, I sometimes need to change “to
boldly go” into “boldly to go” (yuk!) so I produced a key, <alt-Q>, to
invert adjacent words by using |D\S-⇨\|V − simple but effective − just
put the cursor somewhere in the first word and click <alt-Q>.
7.6
I often have to delete a comma when someone has put one in the, wrong
place. So <alt-\> generates the string \S-⇨\\⇦\|? which moves to the
beginning of the next word, back one space and then deletes one
character. This has the effect of deleting the final character of the
word in which you have just clicked, so it could also be used to change
a plural to a singular. The only time this falls down, of course, is
when the next word is separated by an extra character like a bracket or
somesuch.
7.6
These special keys may seem a little unnecessary but to someone who does
as much editing as I do every day, they can save quite a bit of time.
7.6
Finally, in the days of programmable function keys on the old BBC Micro,
I used to use |[ to generate an <escape>. This seems to work OK with
Keystroke and avoids having to use \ESCAPE\ in a text string. I remember
it because the [ is like an E for escape.  Ed.
7.6
(There are a huge number of time-saving tricks that could be done with
Keystroke, so do send in your own Keystroke hints & tips. Ed.)
7.6
•  Resultz and Continental numbers − I have just discovered a feature
offered by Resultz which should delight Continental spreadsheet users.
The sixth number format in the list offered by the style editor, which
looks so strange with its character combinations “,.” and “.,” actually
is used to replace the English way of writing numbers with the
Continental one, so that a number like 3,500.50 will appear instead as
3.500,50!  Jochen Konietzko, Köln.
7.6
•  RISC OS !NewLook − Now that everybody has had a chance to play with
the new look desktop as distributed at Acorn World 93 (and numerous
other sources), we would be interested to hear what you think of it. Do
you use it? If not why not? Does it do everything it should? How does it
compare to other user environments (e.g. Windows 3.1, NeXT)? What would
your ideal RISC OS 4 desktop look like? Please write to Archive with
your comments.
7.6
•  Schedule and Spell (Pocket Book) − There seems to be no mention at all
of Spell in any of the manuals, except for a section in the User Guide
on how to spell-check in Write. The Schedule release note says that
“this replaces the Spell application supplied with your Pocket Book”,
but does not tell you that you shouldn’t delete Spell before installing
Schedule. If you do this, as I did, you find, somewhat oddly, that you
can check spelling in Write but that you can’t save to the global
dictionary − you can’t, of course, use Spell as a free-standing
application because it isn’t on the Desktop. If you reinstall Spell,
from whichever drive you have Schedule in, all works as it should,
though you have to learn how to use Spell from the Help facility, which
is very good.
7.6
Nowhere seems to make it plain, however, that to use document
dictionaries, you have to enable this from the Setup/Install menu in
Spell. Incidentally, document dictionaries are not kept in the WRD
directory with “the same name and in the same directory as the document,
but with the file extension D$S”, as the manual says, but in a separate
D$S directory with the same name as the document.  Peter Young,
Cheltenham.
7.6
•  Style − Changing date and time formats − Impression Style allows the
current date or time to be inserted into a document. By default,
Impression Style enters ‘25th January 1994’ for the date and ‘6:52:13
am’ for the time. Both formats may be changed quite easily. You can have
several different date and time formats stored and swap from one to the
other while you work.
7.6
The date is inserted in one of three ways.
7.6
•  By pressing <ctrl-shift-D>
7.6
•  By clicking on the insert icon on the tool bar and clicking on Current
date
7.6
•  From the menu: Utilities−>Insert−>Current date
7.6
The time is inserted in one of two ways
7.6
•  By clicking on the insert icon on the tool bar and clicking on Current
time
7.6
•  From the menu: Utilities−>Insert−>Current time
7.6
The format used for the time and the date is stored in special system
variables called Style$TimeFormat and Style$DateFormat. These variables
are not mentioned in the printed manual and are given wrongly in the
early versions of the on-line help as Impression$TimeFormat and
Impression$DateFormat. If the user does not set these variables, the
!Run file sets them automatically.
7.6
To set the variables, find your RISC OS 3 User Guide and find the
section on System Variables. This gives a table explaining (not very
well!) how to set the time and date variables. There isn’t space here
for a tutorial but the Impression Style defaults are written
%z12:%mi:%se %pm for the time which appears as ‘7:27:07 am’ and for the
date, %zdy%st %mo %ce%yr which appears as ‘25th January 1994’.
7.6
You can reset the two system variables temporarily as follows: press
<f12> and type, for example, Set Style$TimeFormat %z24:%mi then press
<return> twice to return you to the desktop. Now insert the time in an
Impression Style document and you should get the current time in the
format ‘7:30’ instead of ‘7:30:01 am’.
7.6
The “time” doesn’t have to be confined to the time − you can add the
date to the time format just as you can add the time to the date format.
So you could use the “time” and the “date” as two different versions of
the date.
7.6
When writing letters I like <ctrl-shift-D> to give me ‘25th January
1994’ but when I am writing notes from the telephone, which I do a lot,
I like to date and time stamp them so I prefer ‘7:36 Tue 25 Jan 94’.
This means that you can have a keyboard shortcut for entering the time
combined with, or instead of, the date.
7.6
To do this, you just need two Obey files. Load !Edit from the Apps icon.
From the Edit menu, choose Misc−>Set Type and then delete the offered
Text and enter Obey and press <return>. Into the edit window type:
7.6
Set Style$DateFormat “%z24:%mi %W3 %zdy %m3 %yr ”
7.6
Press <return> and save the file to disc calling it DateTime. After you
have double-clicked on this file icon, you should see the current time
and date in the format ‘7:36 Tue 25 Jan 94’.
7.6
You now need another similar file to restore the default. Create another
Obey file in Edit and this time it should say simply:
7.6
Set Style$DateFormat “”
7.6
When Impression Style sees that the variable is set to null, it uses the
format in the !Run file. Save this file, preferably as something
meaningful like DateDeflt.
7.6
Now store the two files on your Pinboard so that you can double-click on
whichever format you want.
7.6
If you want to change the format automatically, as Style loads on start-
up, put a line in your !Boot file, after Style is loaded, to set the
system variables mentioned above. If you want to change the default
format permanently, you can amend the !Run file in Style though this is
not normally recommended and you should always keep a backup copy of the
original !Run file. If you don’t know where to find the !Run file, or
how to alter it, it’s probably best not to do it!  Paul Lewis, London
W3.
7.6
•  Style − Saving files as documents − Impression Style allows files to
be saved as documents rather than directories. The advantage is that a
document takes up far less space than a directory. If you store files
compressed, perhaps as a backup, a file can be compressed much more
efficiently than a directory.
7.6
There is no utility to go through your entire hard disc to convert all
those space-hungry directories into files, but you can convert them as
you use each directory quite simply. Load a number of the old-type
Impression documents − Style will warn you that the document is in an
old format and may warn you about things it can’t convert or find.
Remember that instead of clicking on OK to these warnings, you can just
press <return>.
7.6
You can load up to sixteen documents, memory permitting. Click in the
top document and press <ctrl-shift-Y>. That toggles the file save
routine to save the document as a file rather than as a directory. Press
<f3> then <return> to save it. Although its name still begins with a
‘!’, it is now a file and not a directory and will have the Style icon
instead of the old ‘I’ icon.
7.6
Now press <ctrl-f2> to remove the document from memory and then go
through the stack of documents in the same way. It’s not automatic but
it is quite quick. How much you save will depend on your disc filing
system but I saved about 14Kb per document. Documents can be stored as
files but long documents might be best left in the old format,
especially ones that are so long that you have to load and edit chapters
separately to fit them in memory.
7.6
If you have a backup of your hard disc (and if you don’t, start one
now!) you may find that RISC OS will not overwrite a directory with a
document of the same name. The answer is to alter a system variable
called Copy$Options. To do that, press <f12> and enter Set Copy$Options
F then press <return> twice. That should force RISC OS to overwrite the
directory with a file when you backup. There is more on these options
for copying in the User Manual under *Copy.  Paul Lewis, London W3.
7.6
•  Tables (again) − I often have to make up tables and have always been
frustrated by the fact that wordprocessors work essentially in lines
while data for tables usually comes in the form of columns. It would be
great to be able to pour the data into the WP side by side.
7.6
The only way around it that I have found within Impression is to
generate sufficient side by side columns. If you want a master page to
do this, make one with the requisite number of columns and then unlink
them by cutting and pasting them back with the same co-ordinates and
dimensions.
7.6
An easier way, particularly for numerical tables but also for text, is
to assemble the tables in a spreadsheet which will accept column data
and then transfer the finished arrangement back to the WP in the form of
a CSV file of the block of data.
7.6
I use Schema which is particularly amenable in that CSV files of data
can be input just by dragging them onto a marker and columns (data
separated by returns) will load as columns. It is not necessary to do
any more than ensure that the sheet is large enough to take the longest
line/column. If the basic CSV input filter is set on Impression, all the
commas will be converted to tabs and you get an instant table by
applying a suitable table style. The input filter, CSV+, in the Business
Supplement will automatically generate tables for the non-table literate
− in a somewhat complicated way!  Bob de Vekey, Watford.
7.6
•  Time errors (continued) − Further to Matthew Hunter’s item on time
errors (7.4 p51), the situation is actually significantly more complex
than described. The CLib time commands will not give the correct answer
if the cumulative effect of TimeZone and DST (e.g. BST) is negative.
Setting TimeZone to zero is not going to be a valid solution if you
don’t live in the UK.
7.6
I encountered this problem some time ago during the development of
ArcTrack. The problem is particularly acute in this case since the
program needs to know both UTC (for the orbital mathematics) and Local
Time (to display to the user). I will attempt below to describe the
solution which I developed. It may not be the simplest general solution
but it solved my particular problem.
7.6
This first code fragment determines the difference between local time
and UTC in seconds. It will be necessary to make a new copy of swi.h for
RISC OS 3 if this has not already been done. The SWI_List program
provided with the compiler will achieve this.
7.6
#include “os.h”
7.6
#include “swi.h”
7.6
int utc_offset ()
7.6
{temp ;
7.6
  os_swi2r (Territory_ReadCurrentTimeZone, 0, 0, (int*) NULL, &temp);
7.6
  return temp / 100; /* Output of SWI is in centiseconds */
7.6
}
7.6
The secret of extracting the correct current value of UTC time is to use
os_word 14, thus:
7.6
#include “os.h”
7.6
double utc_time () /* Would be significantly simpler if long ints were
64 bits */
7.6
{{ unsigned int a, b; }
7.6
  double un_int = 4294967295.0;
7.6
  struct five_byte now = {3 , 0};
7.6
  os_word (14, (void*) &now);  /* Determine current UTC time */
7.6
  return((double) temp.a + (double) temp.b * un_int) /100.0;
7.6
}
7.6
The value returned is the number of seconds since 1st January 1900. Of
course, this is not the same as the time_t values returned by the CLib
‘time’ function. To convert to time_t values, you could assume
(correctly) that they are unsigned integers representing the number of
seconds since 1st January 1970. Just remember that, under ANSI C, this
simple representation is not guaranteed and Acorn are perfectly entitled
to change it in future compiler releases.  R C Simpson,  Farnborough.
7.6
•  Writing extensions to PC Discs − Some people have had difficulty
writing to PC discs and giving a file an appropriate extension that a PC
will be able to read − the infamous README.TXT file, for example.
RISC OS 3 gives desktop access to DOS discs but it makes the discs
appear as a standard RISC OS disc. The only way to tell that it is
different is to check the size using free or current format from the
floppy disc iconbar menu.
7.6
The problem arises due to the different way in which RISC OS and DOS use
directory specifiers. DOS uses the ‘/’ character to specify a
subdirectory whereas RISC OS uses the full stop. The DOS path “SOME/DIR/
STRUCT” would be “SOME.DIR.STRUCT” within RISC OS . Therefore, if you
try to write the file README.TXT to a RISC OS disc, what you are
actually trying to do is save the file TXT into a directory called
README − which probably does not exist.
7.6
To write a file with an extension, use the ‘/’ character, e.g. README/
TXT. This can be a little confusing because, if you write the file to an
Acorn formatted disc, the ‘/’ character will be part of the filename but
if you write to a DOS disc, the file will be saved as ‘README’ with an
extension of TXT. The screenshot below shows the RISC OS directory
display and the PC Emulator directory showing that the file does appear
with an extension.
7.6
Many save boxes will only allow you to use names of up to 10 characters
− this therefore limits you to a six character filename (with a four
character extension “/XXX”). However, the DOS filer within RISC OS will
allow you to rename a file to eight characters, giving a total of
twelve.
7.6
It should also be noted that if you copy a file from a DOS disc to a
RISC OS disc and back again, the extension may change. This is again due
to the name length restrictions. README2.TXT would be copied as README2/
TX for RISC OS . When copied back to DOS, the file would therefore be
README2.TX.  Matthew Hunter, NCS.  A
7.6
Database
7.6
Publications
7.6
New
7.6
  16-bit Digital Audio for Archimedes − Part 1
7.6
David Lenthall
7.6
Since the Archimedes was first released, I have been waiting for some
professional musical applications, to match what is available on most of
the other computing platforms. For example, SoundTools on the Mac (16-
bit sampling h/w and s/w) or SoundBlaster on the PC (Midi synthesizer).
There was Armadillo’s A616 16-bit sampling card for the Archimedes a
couple of years ago, though it was expensive, hogged the machine (RAM
and processing time) and consequently never really sold. Now, like the
proverbial bus, along come three 16-bit audio cards all at once, with a
fourth one also in sight.
7.6
Before looking at these new products, I want to go over some of the
theory and possibilities, so that we are better armed to judge how these
products shape up in the light of a potential purchaser’s specific
requirements. To give some idea of where we are headed, the products
which I will cover next month, fall into two categories − audio samplers
and wavetable synthesizers, with two offerings in each category. But
first the theory.
7.6
Audio sampling
7.6
To get a representation of sound into a computer, the electrical
‘analogue’ of sound which is used in consumer audio equipment must first
be converted to digital form. This task is performed by an Analogue to
Digital (A-D) converter. The term “sampling” is used because the output
of an A-D converter is a series of samples of the instantaneous value of
an audio waveform. The waveform shown below has been sampled at 26
regularly spaced intervals. For this example, the output of the A-D
would be the following series of numbers: 0, 10, 13, 15, 14, 11, 7, 8,
9, 6, −4, −7, −6, −3, −6, −13, −14, −10, 5, 8, 9, 12, 10, 9, 4, −9.
7.6
The reverse process, Digital to Analogue conversion, would convert this
sequence of numbers to produce the output shown below. It is necessary
to feed the digital data to the D-A converter at the same rate as the
original sampling frequency, otherwise the output will be transposed in
pitch, compared to the original. The original waveform is shown by the
dotted line, and it is immediately apparent that the output of the D-A
is different to the original signal, as it is now a stepped waveform.
Things can be improved a bit by passing the output signal through a low
pass filter, to smooth the corners, so to speak. It can also be seen
that the output is very slightly delayed (by half the width of a
sampling step).
7.6
There are two main factors determining picture quality on a screen: the
use of a higher resolution in both pixel size and the number of colours
assignable to each pixel. When dealing with sound, the factors become
sampling frequency and word size. So, we can improve the audio fidelity
by:
7.6
a) taking the samples at closer intervals, i.e. using a higher sampling
frequency (analogous to using smaller pixels).
7.6
Without delving into the maths, there is a law (Nyquist’s theorem) which
states that the sampling frequency should be at least twice as high as
the highest frequency which is to be captured. The CD standard uses a
sampling frequency of 44.1kHz, which gives a maximum theoretical audio
bandwidth of 0 − 22.05kHz, though more realistically this would be
0 − 20kHz, at best.
7.6
b) using a larger word size for each sample, i.e. more bits per sample
(analogous to a larger colour palette).
7.6
8-bit sampling means that there are 256 (28) possible values which can
be assigned to each sample. This would give a dynamic range of 48dB. 16-
bit sampling gives 65536 (216) possible values, which corresponds to a
dynamic range of 96dB. Incidentally, in the example illustrated above,
the range −15 to +15 roughly equates to 5-bit sampling (25 = 32) and
would provide poor audio fidelity.
7.6
Although both of these steps improve the quality of the process, the
down side in each case is the greater requirement for RAM. Sample twice
as often and there are twice as many samples to be stored, and each 16-
bit sample requires two bytes as opposed to one byte for an 8-bit
sample. Taking stereo samples will also double the requirement − each
stereo 16-bit sample requires four bytes of storage. CD standard
sampling requires 2 × 2 × 44100 = 176,400 bytes/s.
7.6
The normal DAT standard (16-bit, 48kHz) requires 192,000 bytes/sec,
whereas the low bandwidth DAT standard (16-bit, 32kHz) requires 128,000
bytes/s.
7.6
It is useful to be able to sample at a number of different rates so that
the user can trade off quality against RAM requirements. For example:
7.6
  •  44.1 or 48kHz/16-bit for high quality, but hungry on RAM,
7.6
  •  11kHz/8-bit for telephone quality speech, but economical on RAM,
7.6
  •  22kHz/16-bit as a happy compromise.
7.6
If you want to sample instrument-type sounds to be played by Midi
commands (i.e. at various pitches), then variable rate sample playback
is required so that the sound can be transposed precisely in semitone
steps and preferably over a wide range.
7.6
Summarising in Hi-Fi terms, the sampling rate determines the frequency
range and the sample word size determines the dynamic range.
7.6
An important aspect of the hardware design is to restrict the upper
frequency of any signals allowed into the A-D stage so as to prevent an
effect known as aliasing, which manifests itself by producing
harmonically unrelated frequencies, i.e. a horrid noise. A low pass
‘aliasing’ filter performs this task, and its cutoff frequency should
vary proportionately with the sampling frequency, to filter out any
frequencies higher than the nyquist frequency (half the sampling
frequency).
7.6
A matching low pass filter is also used at the output of the D-A
converter, to ensure that none of the sampling frequency components
appear in the output signal.
7.6
Direct to disc recording
7.6
So far, we’ve covered the processes of capture and playback but, with CD
standard sampling requiring over 170kb/sec, 1Mb of RAM is only
sufficient for just under 6 seconds of stereo sound. As RAM is a limited
quantity, it makes sense to consider the idea of sampling direct to (and
playing back from) hard disc. This means that the length of a sample is
limited only by the free disc space, e.g. a 105Mb syquest cartridge
could hold about ten minutes of stereo sound − much more useable. A
rough guideline is 10Mb per minute of CD quality stereo.
7.6
Hard disc recording is revolutionising working practices in professional
recording studios, replacing both analogue and digital tape mediums for
editing operations, primarily because of the benefits of random access
(tape is, by nature, serial) and zero generation loss within the digital
medium.
7.6
Hard disc recording software mimics the user interface of a multitrack
tape recorder, providing 2, 4 or 8 tracks of audio − similar to the
Arrange modes found in many Midi sequencers. All the elements of a
composition can be saved to hard disc as separate ‘soundfiles’. The
software, by means of a ‘playlist’, enables you to specify which (and
when) soundfiles are to be played − a sample sequencer, basically.
7.6
Digital in and out
7.6
Many CD players have a digital output socket and most DAT recorders have
both digital input and output sockets. The most common interface
standard used is the Sony/Philips Digital Interface (S/PDIF). This uses
phono (2-wire) connectors and thus carries a serial data stream.
7.6
The provision of S/PDIF connectors on an A-D-A card enables digital
sound to be captured directly into the computer (e.g. from a CD player)
without having to pass through the A-D stage, and thereby ensuring
optimum sound quality.
7.6
Although DAT recorders are not exactly household items, anyone working
professionally with audio will almost certainly be able to lay their
hands on one, even if they don’t personally own one. In conjunction with
a S/PDIF connector and suitable software, a DAT recorder can be used as
a tape streamer for hard disc backup. A 2 hour DAT tape costs under £10
and can hold over 1Gb of data!
7.6
Private sample RAM
7.6
This refers to RAM present on the A-D-A card which can be loaded up with
sound samples (from disc or the analogue input). The advantage is that
samples can then be played from this RAM without putting any load on the
ARM processor or disc system. The disadvantage is that because any such
RAM is not directly visible to the ARM processor, samples cannot be
edited whilst in this private RAM. To perform any editing on the
sample(s), you would have to load it into main user RAM, and then
transfer it into the private sample RAM once editing was completed.
7.6
Wavetable synthesis
7.6
Most modern synthesizers use a variation on the technique of wavetable
synthesis, whereby a selection of different wavetables (samples) are
provided as a tone palette. These wavetables can be combined in various
ways (superimposition, cross fading, etc) and processed to produce new
sounds (voices).
7.6
The wavetables can be in ROM or private RAM, or even in main user RAM or
on disc, though the former two are preferable for the reason mentioned
above. ROM may not seem an obvious choice as its contents are fixed,
though it can be a cost-effective way of providing a wide range of
sounds which are always available. Even better if the sounds are General
Midi (GM) compatible.
7.6
GM compatibility is a Midi standard aimed at multimedia applications. It
applies to sound generators (synthesizers) and is therefore a possible
option for the two synthesizer cards looked at later, whereas it is not
applicable to the purely sampling cards. The GM protocol dictates what
sounds should be available, and their respective voice numbers, so that
whatever brand of GM device you are using, you can be sure that Midi
voice number 1 will always be an acoustic grand piano, and that voice
number 14 will always be a xylophone, etc. GM specifies a total of 128
voices, plus a further 47 drum sounds. The drum sounds are accessed via
Midi channel 10. To make a legitimate claim of GM compatibility, a sound
generator should also have a minimum of 24-note polyphony, i.e. it
should be capable of playing at least 24 notes simultaneously.
7.6
Another term associated with synthesizers is ‘multi-timbral’. This
refers to the number of different sounds (timbres, not notes) which can
be played simultaneously. For GM compatibility, 16-part multitimbrality
is required.
7.6
Given the large amount of disc space required for music in sample form,
the alternative use of GM standard MidiFiles with a GM standard
synthesizer for applications requiring musical output makes a lot of
sense, as MidiFiles are of a much smaller size.
7.6
Digital signal processing (DSP)
7.6
This involves applying algorithmic processes to digital sound (or video)
data, transforming it in all sorts of ways. Some of the possible effects
relevant to sound data are:
7.6
• Delay/echo − In the real world, an echo is the result of a reflected
sound wave, and is heard as a distinct repetition of the original sound
which may then repeat in a series of decaying reflections.
7.6
• Reverberation − This is the myriad secondary reflections which bounce
between hard surfaces in an enclosed space and is perceived as a
blurring and extension of the sound. If you stand in a bathroom and clap
your hands once, reverberation is the ringing sound which follows the
slap of your hands. Emulation of this effect is quite difficult as there
are possibly thousands of separate closely spaced echoes, diffusing into
one another, to deal with.
7.6
• Pitch transposition − This is accomplished by using a different
sampling frequency on playback from that used when the sample was
recorded. Play back twice as fast and the output will be transposed up
by an octave, although the sample will then last only half as long as
the original. The more advanced algorithms repeat or omit sections
within the waveform to reinstate the original duration.
7.6
• Time stretching − This is the inverse of the more advanced form of
pitch transposition, in that the duration of a sample is changed whilst
retaining the original pitch.
7.6
• Vibrato − This is pitch modulation, and is achieved by cyclically
varying the sample playback rate about its nominal value.
7.6
• Chorus − This produces an ensemble effect, whereby a solitary
instrument can be made to sound like more. When two or more musicians
play the same musical phrase on similar instruments, their precise
timing will vary. This is one of the reasons for the richness of real
music compared to raw electronic music. A chorus effect is used
therefore to partly overcome this shortcoming with electronically
generated sounds.
7.6
• Phasing/flanging − These are similar to chorus except that it has a
slower ‘movement’ to it. Difficult to describe in words, the effect
became popular in the 60’s as a ‘psychedelic’ treatment. (The drum
treatment on “Itchycoo Park” is a fine example.) Flanging is generally a
deeper effect than phasing.
7.6
• Level compression/expansion − This is a process which affects the
dynamic range of a piece of audio. Often a threshold value can be
specified, above or below which no change occurs.
7.6
• Digital filtering − Filtering involves affecting the spectral content
of an audio signal. The main advantage of digital filters over their
analogue counterparts is that they can be designed to have
mathematically perfect characteristics, such as a precise cutoff
frequency with sheer slopes, which does not affect frequencies
immediately adjacent to the target frequency. Also, the characteristics
of the filter are entirely dependent on the particular algorithm used,
and thus are programmable.
7.6
Some of these operations are fairly processor-intensive and could not be
performed by the ARM processor in real time, let alone whilst
maintaining a responsive WIMP interface. Cue the DSP chip.
7.6
The DSP chip
7.6
A DSP chip is essentially a microprocessor whose command set has been
optimised for signal processing applications and which has a high degree
of internal parallelism. They generally pack a fair bit of punch,
50MIPs+ not being uncommon. They also have a larger word size than most
general-purpose processors − 56 bits being common, though some having 96
bit registers.
7.6
They enable the type of effects I have just mentioned to be applied to
the digital sound data, in real-time, whilst recording or replaying a
sample. With some clever programming, they can even produce a number of
such effects simultaneously.
7.6
This real-time processing ability allows the use of non-destructive
editing in HD recording software.
7.6
Low level software
7.6
So far, I have outlined the main theoretical and hardware aspects,
though the potential of any hardware add-on is largely dependent on its
system firmware. Areas of low-level software support which I consider to
be highly desirable in the context of an A-D-A card, are:
7.6
• Facility to sample (record) direct to hard disc.
7.6
• Facility to play samples direct from a hard disc.
7.6
• Interception of Midi SWIs, both incoming and those being sent out by,
for example, a sequencer, to activate (play) samples direct from hard
disc or from private sample RAM if available on the card.
7.6
I have described these features as low-level software because, ideally,
they would each need to operate as background tasks, without
unacceptably degrading the general WIMP performance.
7.6
Application software
7.6
The following is a list of some typical applications which are made
possible by an A-D-A card:
7.6
• Replay and other multimedia applications requiring soundfile playback
with higher quality than is possible using the internal sound system −
somewhat akin to upgrading your telephone to CD quality.
7.6
• Sample editor (e.g. AudioWorks). As well as the cut & paste, trim and
normalise type operations, this may also include facilities for applying
DSP-type effects. It would be handy if it could be used to create Replay
format sound files.
7.6
• Integrated HD recorder/Midi sequencer, i.e. a sequencer which is
capable of concurrently running two or four tracks of digital audio, in
addition to its usual 16, 32 or whatever, tracks of Midi data.
7.6
• Wavetable synthesis management, providing librarian facilities for
sounds designed by the user, as well as the means to design the sounds
in the first place.
7.6
Rounding off
7.6
This month I’ve covered most of the relevant theory and, hopefully,
whetted your appetite a little as to the possibilities. If there are any
relevant aspects which are still unclear, please write to me via the
Archive address, and I will answer your queries as best I can. Next
month I’ll give a preview assessment of four of the up-and-coming
products that fall into the 16-bit audio category.  A
7.6
Oak PCB
7.6
Bevis Peters
7.6
Oak PCB is a CAD package for the design and layout of printed circuit
boards. It comes with three discs: the OakPCB program, a copy of
DrawPrint and DrawPlot, two libraries of pre-made circuit symbols and a
Helvetiplt font. The manual is a well laid out 58 page stapled A5
booklet, including a thorough index.
7.6
The program
7.6
When I first ran the program (by double clicking on the OakPCB icon)
after my usual !Boot sequence, the whole machine crashed. I finally
tracked this down to a “free RAM” display program, and without that it
started up fine. It installs itself on the iconbar, taking up 352Kb of
memory initially, with a configuration menu available which allows
various preferences to be set, for instance the size of the PCB to be
made, the grid size and colour, etc.
7.6
Clicking the iconbar icon opens up three windows; the main PCB display
window, a tools window showing the various items that can be placed on
the PCB design, and a Layers window which shows which layer is currently
being worked on.
7.6
PCBs are often made with multiple layers for the wiring, and OakPCB
allows for this, with four layers available for the laying of wire
tracks. The other layers are a “silk” layer − used for writing
information, i.e. component values, manufacturers name, a “drill” layer
for marking the drill holes and a “solder resist” layer for laying down
areas which do not want to be covered in solder in flow soldering.
Obviously, only one layer can be worked on at a time but any combination
can be viewed and all are colour coordinated to distinguish between
them. This does need a minimum 16-colour mode.
7.6
By clicking on one of the tools in the tools window, that item can be
placed on the PCB. A comprehensive set of tools is available, including
solder pads, tracks, through PCB holes, text and “silk” layer drawing
aids. Each tool has its own associated menu which allows various aspects
of the tool to be changed, such as the diameter of holes, the number of
pins and width of a SIL/DIL socket, the track width and the font and
direction of written text. Obviously, some tools are only used on
certain layers, e.g. text is only used on the silk layer. The
documentation suggests that the included Helvetiplt font is used, and
that is a good option since it is very fine. Anti-aliasing is not used,
although the fonts can be drawn as either an outline or filled solid,
and in any direction. Be warned, however, that some fonts cause dire
errors along the lines of “No RGB value set for font” − not fatal, but a
terrible hassle.
7.6
Some Draw-like tools are available for drawing on the silk layer − open/
closed lines, boxes and circles.
7.6
Items can be selected by clicking with the “select” tool set in much the
same way as in Draw. Selected items can be grouped, moved and rotated
through 90°, although not resized. Grouped items can be given a name, so
a schematic for a 741 op-amp can be designed and then called “741” for
referencing.
7.6
The manual includes a run-through of a PCB design − a Darlington pair −
which is informative and easy to follow. It covers all the points in
enough detail to be useful without being tedious. I used the program to
design a PCB for a voltage regulator quite happily, and found correcting
mistakes very simple.
7.6
Files can be saved as either OakPCB files, full colour drawfiles or CSV
hole position files, which is basically a list of all the drill hole
positions relative to some chosen point.
7.6
The files can only be printed with the included print/plot program. For
driving a plotter, the need for this is more apparent, but with my
BJ10e, I achieved the same results by just printing the equivalent
drawfile. Their program does allow the position of the printing to be
set more accurately, however.
7.6
The two libraries − !PCBlib and !Schemlib − contain dozens of pre-made
components for easy placing on PCB designs.
7.6
Overall, I found the program easy to use, although I did not actually
build the PCB I designed. Having never used any other commercial PCB
design package, I cannot compare it in performance, but for the small
electronics business, or just the active hobbyist, OakPCB is worth
getting as an alternative to hand design.
7.6
OakPCB has recently been reduced in price. It now costs £70 +VAT from
Oak Solutions or £77 through Archive.  A
7.6
TechWriter Update
7.6
Brian Cowan
7.6
My recent review of TechWriter seems to have attracted much
correspondence.
7.6
Text beside a graphic
7.6
Interested readers will recall that my main criticism concerned the
difficulty of running text around graphics. Since TechWriter is
fundamentally a word processor (i.e. text-based rather than page-based),
all graphic objects are embedded in the text and they will therefore
move with the text if anything is added above. So, text will be expected
to remain beside a graphic even when the text above is edited. This is
in contrast to a local frame in Impression where the frame is fixed on
the page and text really does flow around the frame.
7.6
Since the text beside a graphic in TechWriter is fixed, it can be
incorporated into the graphic object itself. In fact, one of the
TechWriter calculus example files does this. The clever point which I
missed, but which a number of readers wrote in to tell me, is that a
figure “caption” is not limited to one line. This can be the text beside
a graphic and it can be as big as you like. So there really is no
problem.
7.6
Save as Draw
7.6
In the review, I explained about the facility to save an area of a
TechWriter document as a drawfile. This is useful for a number of
applications, although it would be better if saved as a tagged drawfile
containing the original Techwriter information. One particular use for
saving as Draw is to export equations. You could therefore use
TechWriter as a superior sort of Equasor to create equations for
Impression documents or whatever.
7.6
New facilities
7.6
My review in Archive 7.3 was really of TechWriter version 1, with a
preview of what version 2 would provide. Currently, version 2.01 is
shipping and that has some more facilities added. Background printing is
provided and more commands have been added to the button bar. A useful
hint concerning the button bars is to have Acorn’s interactive help
application running. Then it will tell you what the buttons do if you
forget what the icons mean. Icon Technology have also implemented OLE in
this version, although it is not guaranteed to be perfect in this
version. That allows the editing of, say drawfiles, simply by clicking
on the frame in the TechWriter document − this is most useful.
7.6
The other new facility is that you can now save your document directly
as a PostScript file, although in this form it can’t, of course, be
loaded back into TechWriter.
7.6
Future facilities − my wish list
7.6
My main wish is for the facility to output files in TEX format. This can
happen if Icon Technology can be persuaded that it is needed. So come on
all you people out there, either write to Icon Technology or let me
know. My other wish, which would make TechWriter really compatible with
the big outside world, is the facility for both import and export of
text in RTF (Rich Text Format). This would enable the movement of
documents from one platform to another.  A
7.6
Keyboard Options
7.6
Brian Cowan
7.6
The lifetime of a computer is usually determined by its mechanical parts
− except for the obsolescence factor. There is no long-term hope for a
dead hard disc but the adept might well attempt to breathe new life into
an old keyboard. On one occasion I did ‘repair’ a keyboard upon which I
had spilled a cup of coffee. However another time, I attempted to clean
a rather grubby keyboard and I tried using some contact cleaner.
Disaster! My present inclination is to leave well alone. So what options
are there when a new keyboard is needed? Obviously an Acorn ‘spare’ can
be purchased (£125 through Archive) but this is an opportunity for a
change.
7.6
Ergo keyboard
7.6
Castle Technology have produced a PC-style replacement keyboard at an
attractive price. It is called Ergo presumably because of its ergonomic
design which claims to reduce the instances of Repetitive Strain Injury
(RSI). The keyboard has a wide leading edge to support the wrists and
the rows of keys are stepped and curved for easy finger access. At
first, I missed the bumps which the Acorn keyboards have on the F and J
keys to locate the fingers when touch typing but then I noticed the
discrete raised bars on those keys of the Ergo keyboard.
7.6
PC origins
7.6
This keyboard is clearly a standard PC keyboard which has been modified
by the addition of a small circuit board to interface to an Archimedes
computer. Also a reset button has been added and a socket for the mouse.
The keyboard claims a minimum design life of 30 million operations,
substantially more than Acorn keyboards.
7.6
The key layout follows the conventions of a PC. That will be familiar to
A4 users and it is likely that future Acorn computers will use PC
keyboards, so the Ergo keyboard is a step in the right direction.
7.6
Keyboard feel
7.6
Keyboard preference is a rather personal thing. I have never objected to
the Archimedes ones, even the rather ‘spongey’ feel of the A5000 one,
but real IBM keyboards I hate. They tend to be noisy and clumsy, and one
tends to bash them quite hard. My favourite is the keyboard attached to
DEC VT220 computer terminals. These are strong but require minimal
finger force and they also have a simulated click. However I am happy to
report that, in my view, the Ergo keyboard is almost as good. It
requires a slightly greater finger force and it has a real click. One
plus is that the lock keys have LEDs to indicate their state.
7.6
Mouse emulation
7.6
Another clever feature is emulation of the mouse action from the
keyboard. Initially, I was a little disappointed that in implementing
this, Castle did not follow the convention adopted by Acorn in the A4
portable. However, it actually makes more sense to use the keys in the
numeric keypad. Not only are up, down, left and right provided, but
using keys 7, 9, 1 and 3, you have diagonal motion as well. Then 0 gives
<select>, 5 gives <menu> and the dot gives <adjust>. What is more, other
keys can control the mouse speed and the step size. This is one of the
best mouse emulations I have seen − comparing with the A4 and IBM’s
‘wobbly key’ mouse.
7.6
Power-on
7.6
The power-on configuration options are supported whereby various CMOS
RAM settings can be altered. Thus apart from power-on [Delete] resetting
all the CMOS settings, [0] sets standard monitor, [1] sets multi-sync
monitor, [2] sets high res. mono., [3] sets VGA, [4] sets super VGA and
[5] sets LCD. These are useful to know if you want to reset the CMOS RAM
when you can’t get a picture! Castle also supply a range of foreign
language keyboard modules and these, as well as the in-built keyboard
country settings, can be activated at switch-on.
7.6
A3000 version
7.6
There is also a version of this keyboard available for the A3000. This
requires the insertion of a small circuit board under the Econet PCB.
The computer is then able to sense whether the external keyboard is
connected or not, rather as in the A4 portable.
7.6
A4
7.6
I used the Ergo keyboard with my A4 and it worked perfectly, although of
course the mouse (if used) must be connected to the keyboard and not
directly to the A4. I was surprised that the keyboard worked so well,
since I had been led to believe that you must use a PC keyboard with the
A4. However, it transpires that the A4 was designed to accept either an
Archimedes or a PC external keyboard. It senses which type is connected
and it acts accordingly. The problem that some people have reported with
Archimedes keyboards, where the mouse can ‘drop’ objects while dragging
them, happens because the computer’s polling of the keyboard can be a
bit slow. But I found no problems.
7.6
Serial Port interface
7.6
The Serial Port manufacture a PC keyboard interface which allows the
connection of a keyboard of your choice. The interface alone costs in
the region of £100, so can hardly be considered a bargain. The advantage
of that product is that it allows for the connection of a wide range of
joysticks etc. If you are a serious keyboard user, i.e. a really busy
typist, then you might wish to buy a super luxury keyboard, in which
case, the Serial Port adaptor is for you.
7.6
Other options
7.6
I understand that there are some other keyboard adaptor products under
development from other companies. We should soon see an interface which
allows a PC keyboard to be switched either to an Archimedes or to a real
PC. If you have to have a PC then this will save some desk space. It
sounds as if these adaptors will cost in the region of £50, which would
make them an attractive option even without a real PC.
7.6
Conclusion
7.6
The Ergo keyboard is a very well-made product which should last a long
time. I have been using one for about a month and I am very happy with
it. It has a robust feel and it is a delight to use. At £99 +carriage
+VAT (£128.08) for the standard model or £129 +carriage +VAT (£163.33)
for the A3000 version it is good value.  A
7.6
Brian was so positive towards these new keyboards, we have done a
special deal with Castle Technology. As an introductory offer we can
sell the standard version at £105 inc VAT (normal Archive price £120)
and the A3000 version at £129 inc VAT (normal price £155).
7.6
Using RISC OS 3.1
7.6
Hugh Eagle
7.6
Star LC-10 printer driver
7.6
Rex Palmer has written in response to Mick Day’s hint in Archive 6.12
pp56-57 about using the Star LC-10. “It is, in fact, very easy to use
the ‘top bit set’ characters (called IBM set #2 by Star) contrary to the
information given in the manual. The simplest way to achieve this (and
to get all the standard characters) is to use the USA character set
(switches 2-2, 2-3, 2-4 ON) and to set switch 1-7 OFF. The £ sign, for
instance, is then character 156.
7.6
“The printer drivers supplied with RISC OS 3 no longer include the star
LC-10. The Read_Me files suggest that the nearest one should be the
Epson EX-800. This may be so for the LC10C, but the dear old monochrome
version does not support the “escape-$” codes, so the driver is not
suitable. I have written a driver for the “old” LC-10 which also matches
as many of the Acorn ‘top bit set’ characters as is possible, for the
draft printing modes.” Rex’s driver is included on the monthly disc.
7.6
RISC OS 3 Style Guide
7.6
The man I was talking to on the Apple stand at the BETT Show pointed
towards the Acorn stand and said: “Of course, we wish we had their
hardware, but their software cannot stand comparison with ours.” When I
asked him what he meant, he explained that Macintosh applications always
worked in the same way, with consistent menu structures, keyboard
shortcuts, and so on.
7.6
I don’t know enough about Macs to comment on this but, interestingly,
the January edition of Computer Shopper (which is not exactly a magazine
noted for Acorn fanaticism) contained the following statement: “The
truth is that, at the moment, no-one has succeeded in creating a good,
stable and logical operating environment (except perhaps Acorn’s RISC
OS... )” !
7.6
Wherever the truth lies, one thing I am sure of is that the standard of
useability of applications is vital to the success of a computer
platform, and a crucial part of this is the degree of consistency in
“look and feel” between different programs. Of course, complete
consistency is an impossible dream. Indeed, it is not totally desirable
because, unless developers occasionally branch out, the standard will
fossilise. If, for instance, the suppliers of Archimedes software had
stuck religiously to the RISC OS 2 standards, we would never have had 3-
dimensional icons, button bars or drag and drop. A degree of change is
therefore necessary, even if it leads to unfortunate situations such as
we have today where the standard applications supplied in the RISC OS 3
ROMs fail by a long way to match up to the current guidelines. However,
it is important that someone sets the standards, and that is exactly
what Acorn is seeking to do in the RISC OS 3 Style Guide which has
recently been published as an appendix to the Programmer’s Reference
Manual.
7.6
The stated aim of the Guide is to help developers produce applications
that make the computer easy and pleasant to use (Users with varying
levels of experience and different requirements should find applications
easy “to learn, to re-learn and to use productively.”) It describes in
quite extensive detail how this should be done, covering areas like how
to make it clear to users what options and actions are available
(through the design of dialogue boxes, menu structures, etc), how to
make messages clear and unambiguous, how to provide feedback, how to
make programs co-operate and share data with others in the multitasking
environment and, most importantly, how to make them behave in a
consistent manner. In all these matters, the Guide deals with principles
of design: it does not go into technical details or tell you how
actually to implement the design – these matters are left to the PRM
itself and the various programming language manuals.
7.6
What has changed?
7.6
There is much in the Guide that has not changed since RISC OS 2. The
main changes are in the following areas:
7.6
–  the 3D option for icons and “window components” (as in the NewLook
that Acorn were distributing at Acorn World 93)
7.6
–  cut and paste (like Impression) rather than the old style of cutting,
copying and moving selections as used by Edit, etc.; apparently the old
method, with the cursor independent of the marked block, confuses many
users
7.6
–  the introduction of drag and drop as a method of copying and moving
(as has now been implemented in Impression Style)
7.6
–  a new method of selecting fonts whereby the selection of bold or
italics are separated from the choice of the font itself (thus if a
selection contains some text in Trinity and some in Homerton and the
“italic” attribute is selected, the text will be changed to the Italic
and oblique versions of the respective fonts). (This is how Macs have
operated since day one! Ed.)
7.6
–  inclusion of a “Selection” button in standard Save boxes for the user
to choose whether to save the whole file or just the selection. (The
purpose of this change is partly to overcome past confusion caused by
some programs having a Save option in the Selection menu whereas others
had a Selection option in the Save menu!)
7.6
–  choosing RGB values in 100ths rather than 256ths
7.6
–  iconisation of windows on the Pinboard
7.6
–  the use of high resolution sprites
7.6
–  some changes in the way keystrokes work when dialogue boxes are active
7.6
Points of detail
7.6
Amongst the details, I noted the following bits of good advice which
many software houses might do well to observe:
7.6
–  applications should not allow document windows to be closed without
the document first being saved, even if the document is still held in
memory: it is too easy, otherwise, for the user to forget that the
document has not been saved and to lose it by switching off the computer
7.6
–  closing the window of a document that has not been saved must lead to
a dialogue that offers a Save option (as well as Discard and Cancel); I
wish that DeskEdit would do this!
7.6
–  applications (including games) that run outside the desktop should do
as much as possible on the desktop using standard conventions, including
things such as redefining keys and loading saved data, before taking
over the whole screen. They should also allow the user to return to the
desktop by pressing either <escape> or <f12>. Saving the state of play
should be done from the desktop by dragging to a directory display in
the usual way
7.6
–  dialogue boxes should not have a Close icon: it is not clear to a user
whether any settings chosen will be implemented if he clicks on a Close
icon, so a better way of cancelling a dialogue box is via a Cancel
action button
7.6
–  dialogue box choices should never be implemented until OK or some
other appropriately worded button has been clicked on (as the Guide
points out some of the dialogues in the Configure application disobey
this rule!)
7.6
–  where an application offers a facility via a keyboard shortcut which
is on Acorn’s list of standard shortcuts, it must use the standard
combination. An example is the use of <f3> for save, and I see that
Impression Style no longer uses <ctrl-f3> and has now come into line
with the standard. Where a standard action is not offered, the related
key combination can be used for something else. Thus, for example,
Impression does not have an Undo facility so is allowed to use <f8> for
another purpose.
7.6
–  an application should only grab a file type if they are not currently
set (i.e. it should only define Alias$@RunType_ttt, etc. if they have
not already been defined)
7.6
–  applications should never automatically redefine sprites in the Wimp
pool; this is yobbish, anti-social behaviour!
7.6
–  shared resources which are not eligible for inclusion in the System
application should be held, not within an individual application’s
directory structure, but inside a separate shared resource application
directory (whose name has been registered with Acorn). This must be a
good way of avoiding the proliferation of duplicated modules such as has
been happening with Computer Concepts’ RMStore directories.
7.6
Curiosities, quibbles and criticisms
7.6
The Guide says that release notes held in a separate file from the
applications !Help file should not be held within the application
directory. Why? Where should they be held? Is it intended that !App
should be held in a directory called App alongside its ReadMe file?
Surely not?
7.6
The Guide also says that an application’s !Boot file should not be
executed from within the !Run file. Again I would like to understand
why.
7.6
There is quite a lot of sensible advice about the wording used in
dialogue boxes: as well as recommending the avoidance of jargon, the
Guide also advises that action buttons should contain specific active
verbs like “Save”, “Print” or “Proceed” instead of non-specific and more
easily misunderstood words like “Yes” and “No”. Unfortunately, the
standard operating system call for popping up a message and asking for a
Yes or No answer (the SWI call “Wimp_ReportError”) only offers buttons
that say “OK” or “Cancel”. Since designing a box with your own words in
the action buttons requires rather more effort, I fear that many
programmers will, like me, continue to depart from the guidelines!
7.6
One area where I had been hoping to find a change, but was disappointed,
is the way in which the filename in a Save box is treated. If the file
has not yet been saved, the Guide prescribes that the writable icon in
the Save box must contain the default document name (e.g. “Textfile” or
“Untitled”) when the Save box is opened. This means that if I type in a
filename, then realise that the destination directory display is not
open so I move the pointer away to open it (causing the Save box to
close), when I reopen the Save box I have to type in the filename again.
This irritating feature has wasted a lot of my time in the years since I
first used RISC OS 2!
7.6
The biggest omission in my opinion is the complete lack of any
requirement for on-line Help. There is an assumption that applications
will contain “help text”, which must be placed, along with other textual
messages in a separate Messages file (to aid translation into different
languages). However, the only other references I can find are to !Help
files, which are stated to be optional! In the Windows world the on-line
context-sensitive hypertext help facilities of the major applications
(which are considerably aided by Windows’ standard Help facility) are
tremendously helpful, and I can scarcely imagine doing without them.
They are supported by data files which run sometimes to several
megabytes − even in compressed form! Perhaps this is the problem for
Acorn: because applications have to be usable on floppy-disc only
machines, such extensive help is not thought to be a realistic
proposition, even as an option. Whatever the reason, I think it is sad
that so many applications (even from leading suppliers, and even
programs bundled by Acorn) ignore this facility. It is especially a
shame because the on-line !Help application is such a good idea and is
so easy for the programmer to use.
7.6
Another curious omission is any reference in the Guide to sprite
dragging. Is this, perhaps, because even the Filer does not use this
facility? Whatever the reason, it seems very strange that such an
obvious stylistic feature (and, what is more, one where RISC OS is in
the lead) has been ignored, when great attention has been paid to things
like the size and spacing of buttons in dialogue boxes!
7.6
Conclusion
7.6
There is a lot that is included in the Guide’s 120-odd pages. Although
it is not directly relevant to non-programmers, there is plenty to
interest any user. It is written in a very readable style, is admirably
thought-provoking and I would encourage anyone who can get access to it
to read it.
7.6
The RISC OS Style Guide is available (and in stock) through Archive for
£10 inc p&p.  A
7.6
Acorn User Spring Show ’94
7.6
Paul Beverley
7.6
There is a certain air of expectancy about the Spring Acorn User Show.
It seems to me that quite a lot of companies are aiming to launch new
products at this show − more than last year. We’ll do a round-up of some
of them in Archive next month but this time we’ll give you the basic
information about the show itself.
7.6
When, where and how much?
7.6
The Acorn User Spring Show ’94 will take place at the Harrogate
International Centre from 22nd to 24th April and it will be open from 10
a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Tickets cost £5 for adults and £2.50 for under
16s. There is a family ticket (2 adults plus 2 U16s) for £13. However,
if you book tickets in advance, they will be £4, £2 and £10
respectively. For advance tickets ring 0737-814713 or write to Safesell
Exhibitions Ltd.
7.6
What?
7.6
There will, of course, be the usual array of stands where you can talk
to, and even buy from, your friendly Acorn companies but there will also
be a range of supporting events. These include a free theatre programme,
competitions, ‘surprise features’(!) and celebrity visits.
7.6
In the run-up to the Show, a competition is going to take place in which
schools can demonstrate the effective use of IT by creating a story-book
with mixed text and graphics. The winners’ entries will be on display at
the Show.
7.6
Who?
7.6
Acorn Computers themselves are supporting the show with a large stand
and your own Norwich Computer Services (Archive magazine) will, of
course, be there on stand 119! Other companies who will be taking stands
include:
7.6
Acorn Computing magazine
7.6
Acorn User magazine
7.6
Archimedes World magazine
7.6
Cambridge Software House
7.6
Castle Technology
7.6
Clares Micro Supplies
7.6
Colton Software
7.6
Computer Concepts
7.6
Digital Services
7.6
Fourth Dimension
7.6
Gamesware
7.6
Ian Copestake
7.6
Icon Technology
7.6
Illusions Disk magazine
7.6
Integrex Systems
7.6
Irlam Instruments
7.6
Krisialis Software
7.6
Lindis Technology
7.6
Longman Logotron
7.6
Oak Solutions
7.6
Oregan Software
7.6
Quill Marketing
7.6
Risc Developments
7.6
Sherston Software
7.6
Silicon Village
7.6
Simtec Electronics
7.6
Spacetech
7.6
Stallion Software
7.6
The ARM Club
7.6
The Datafile
7.6
Topologika
7.6
Vertical Twist
7.6
Wyddfa Software
7.6
Next month, I’ll give more details of some of the exciting new products
that will be on display at Acorn User Spring Show ’94.  A
7.6
Education Column
7.6
Solly Ezra
7.6
I would like to begin with many thanks to those who have so far
responded to my comments in Archive 7.4 p28. The consistent emotion in
all the letters has been one of anger.
7.6
Janet Handcock of the Perse School in Cambridge says, “For respondents
from higher education and industry to comment on the irrelevance of
Acorn, when they have no in-depth knowledge of the machines or what the
teachers do with them, is outrageous!”
7.6
Christopher Price of Merton Court School refers to a series of bald and
unproven assertions based on scant evidence. He also agrees that there
is no ‘industry standard’.
7.6
Torben Steeg, University of Manchester, Department of Education, has
written to endorse my views. He says, “I think the most significant
issue is the one about fitness of purpose. The choice of a machine for
education should be made on educational grounds. One of the criteria
might relate to life after school, but even here the focus should be on
the kinds of things that students might do, not on particular platforms.
Apart from anything else, the frame of mind that sees the platform as
important will, logically, also see the package as important and here,
despite the claims of Microsoft, there is no standard even in the PC
world”.
7.6
Torben also informs us that, based on the information he has received,
he gathers that the Hong Kong stock exchange and Rolls Royce use
Archimedes computers. I agree with him that we should gather some more
examples on the use of Archimedes and Macintoshes in an attempt to break
the myth of the ‘standard’ and allow the focus of decision-making to
return to educational issues.
7.6
Whose side are you on?
7.6
I am taking sides in this issue − I am on the side of the pupils. It
matters not whether the pupil is using a computer of a particular brand
or is using a particular ‘platform’. What is vitally important is the
software available for use on that computer. The humble BBC computer
with its limited RAM did serve the pupil in school wonderfully well. The
software that was originally available for it was innovative and set the
trends. Initially, there was a plethora of games but soon there came
some admirable software that was educational in the very best sense of
the term. Further, the BBC computer was very easily adapted to control
various bits of apparatus in the science laboratory and then in other
areas of education.
7.6
Since those days, we have come a very long way. The National Curriculum
recognised the place of IT (information Technology) in the total
education of the child and thus made provision for it.
7.6
I quote from the National Curriculum:
7.6
Pupils should be able to use IT to:
7.6
Communicate and handle information.
7.6
Design, develop, explore and evaluate models of real or imaginary
situations.
7.6
Measure and control physical variables and movement.
7.6
They should be able to make informed judgements about the application
and importance of IT, and its effect on the quality of life.
7.6
The tools and resources we choose must therefore help us achieve those
aims. It is not the purpose of education to give pupils specific
training in the use of particular machines, tools or gadgets − that is
the purpose of vocational institutions, training colleges and
apprenticeships. Our aim as educators is to develop, both specific and
broad, that are transferable. To equip the child with abilities to think
logically and clearly, to be able to analyse, deduce and arrive at
balanced conclusions.
7.6
Educational Computing and Technology
7.6
Lisa Hughes, in the January issue of ECT, has written what I consider to
be a very balanced article in which she examines the issues raised in
the debate of the so-called ‘industry standards’. While Lisa seems to be
sitting on the fence with respect to platforms, she is very clearly on
the side of the pupils and teachers. She draws a distinction between
training and education and goes on to emphasize the fact that its the
software that counts.
7.6
If you are in education, you should also subscribe to ECT since it is a
magazine that has very clearly stated educational aims.
7.6
I would also recommend to you pages 284 to 289 of the January issue of
Personal Computer World.
7.6
Please do take the trouble to write to me at 35, Edgefield Avenue,
Barking, Essex IG11 9JL.  A
7.6
 JPEG Column
7.6
Stuart Bell
7.6
!Replay vs. MPEG
7.6
In January, I raised the question of whether Acorn’s development and
support of the technically-excellent !Replay full motion video system
would leave Acorn users at a disadvantage when the rest of the PC world
seems to be going for the MPEG standard. The advantage of !Replay is
that it can be replayed without any special hardware provision, whereas
MPEG decompression is too computationally complex to be performed only
by software.
7.6
After making those comments, I read both a review of, and advertisements
for, ReelMagic, a £400 (inc VAT) board for the PC that will decompress
in real time MPEG sequences with up to 32K colours at up to 1024×768
resolution. Most significantly, it is compatible with the new VideoCD
standard for storing games and movies on CDs. Currently, the maximum
run-time is 72 minutes. The compatibility, of course, is due to the use
of MPEG compression. When VideoCD gives full motion video of that
quality, and decompression boards have plummeted in price as most PC
products do when they become commodity items, will Acorn users be
looking enviously at the low cost of VideoCD discs, made possible by the
scale of the market?
7.6
Also, in January’s Computer Shopper (which, given the PC-obsessive
nature of PCW, is now the only true multi-platform magazine) I read that
Commodore have announced an MPEG board for the latest Amiga, using a
single-chip MPEG decoder and costing $250 in the USA. This just
underlines my point about industry standards – it’s a brave or a foolish
company which ignores them. I also note a recent advert for an MPEG
real-time compression board for PCs – Video MakerTM – from a French
manufacturer. The board also decompresses MPEG files. Perhaps the fact
that no price is quoted suggests the worse, but it does demonstrate that
single-board MPEG solutions are possible.
7.6
Is !Replay a technically-excellent but commercially out-gunned blind-
alley? We shall see – but perhaps only when it’s too late. For a
detailed but highly readable description of how MPEG works, don’t miss
the February issue of PCW − which seems to be sold on MPEG to judge by
its 1994 awards.
7.6
!ArcJpeg
7.6
Tim Twell wrote into the Archive office to report on a JPEG application
which he had downloaded from Usenet. It’s a freeware application called
!ArcJpeg which forms a front-end for the usual JPEG routines. He
comments, “The application seems to work, although it hangs badly saving
to the default IDE drive if you haven’t got one.” Thanks for the
warning, Tim!
7.6
Fractal TransformTM
7.6
Stuart Halliday sent into the Archive office information which he had
received about yet another image compression system for PC-compatibles,
Fractal TransformTM. Essentially, it stores images as the complex
formulæ of the fractals which would produce those images (I think!).
Hence, compression is a complex procedure, but the compression ratio is
very high, because the formulæ are much smaller than the data into which
they are expanded. Hardware is required for the real-time compression of
moving images, but ‘486/50s are capable of software decompression at up
to 30fps at 320×200 pixels. Compression ratios of 40:1 up to 180:1 for
still images, and disc requirements of 1.5Mb a minute for video images
are quoted. The system is like !Replay, in that it is asymetric with
software-only decompression. Typical prices for the bottom end software-
only still systems are £500 a time, with the top-of-the-range
compression board and software working out at £9,500!
7.6
It’s tempting to say that the arrival of 600Mb CDs will make data
compression redundant – but who five years ago would have predicted
that, even with the 1Gb hard discs that are relatively cheap today,
people would still want to use data compression techniques to increase
their disc capacity? As Murphy’s Law ought to say, data expands to
exceed the space available. With JPEG, MPEG, !Replay and Fractal
TransformTM offering compression ratios of 10:1 upwards (and consequent
savings in disc data transfer rates), I can never see disc capacities
being so large as to make data compression unnecessary.
7.6
Impression and JPEG
7.6
After my reference last time to the use of JPEG files in Impression
Style and Publisher, Computer Concepts got in contact again. (I’ve
always found them very helpful, even when I’ve not been wearing my
columnist’s “hat”.) They pointed out that the new Level 2 PostScript
printer driver implementation includes support for JPEG files. That is,
they can be printed out directly without needing to be decompressed
first. Now all we need is the same facility for other printer drivers,
starting with CC’s HP Turbo Drivers.
7.6
Another free disc!
7.6
With the help of various correspondents over the past few months, I’ve
now assembled quite a reasonable selection of JPEG files. I’ve put the
best (by my entirely subjective judgement) onto a disc, together with
the !FYEO decompression application. If you’d like a copy, please send a
blank formatted 800Kb disc in a jiffy bag, with a return label and
return stamp, indicating that you’d like the JPEG disc (as opposed to
the MPEG disc I offered last time), to me at 23 Ryecroft Drive, Horsham,
RH12 2AW. As before, no label or stamp, no disc! If you’ve never used
JPEG before, here’s an ideal introduction. To compress files into JPEG
format you will, of course, need the JPEG shareware disc (Shareware 51).
7.6
Memory speeds and performance
7.6
Last time, I commented that when using high-resolution 256 colour video
modes, the 8MHz memory speed of A300 and A400 series computers seems to
degrade overall performance to about 40% of that offered by the 12MHz
memory speed of the A5000. (The ARM250 powered A30x0 and A4000 series
are not directly comparable – but I’d be interested to receive any
comparative timings, please.) In response to my aside that when 4Mb
upgrades for A310s first became available, there was some talk of 12MHz
speed-up kits being feasible, Kevin Moore wrote to report on his
experiences: “I have succeeded in doing this on my A440, though not to
12MHz, but to 10.66MHz, mainly because you still require 8MHz for some
of the peripherals, so you have to swap the clock between 8MHz and
10.66MHz when the machine accesses the disc or printer... ...The result
was that a process which, in mode 12, took 73s at 8MHz, took 52s at
10.66MHz. In mode 28, it took 205s and 99s respectively. When you
introduce a 35MHz ARM3, the same test takes 24s and 20s respectively in
mode 12, and 53s and 23s in mode 28.”  Thanks for the information,
Kevin. By my calculations, with or without an ARM3, the performance in
mode 28 shows a 50 − 60% gain. Quite an improvement!
7.6
MPEG demo-disc
7.6
Requests for the MPEG demo disc are now arriving most days. If you want
a copy of that, or of the new JPEG disc, please indicate which you want
when you write. The original JPEG disc (Shareware 51) is still available
from the Archive office.
7.6
With more and more correspondents passing on their experiences, there
may well be an MPEG column again next month. Do keep writing – and
sending me any interesting JPEG applications or images which you may
encounter or produce!  A
7.6
PipeLineZ
7.6
Gerald Fitton
7.6
I have been asked to write a further article about Charts in PipeDream
and to include instructions which will enable you to draw charts using
non-consecutive rows of data. Your wish is my command! However, first a
few words about Fireworkz.
7.6
Fireworkz
7.6
There are still quite a few bugs in Fireworkz version 1.07. Some of
these are a bit ‘nasty’ in that you get the wrong answer but no error
message and nothing obviously wrong. The most worrying of these seems to
be associated with the set_value(,) function. If you use set_value(,),
make sure that your spreadsheet also includes an if(,,) function to
check if the spreadsheet is making a mistake. For example, if you have a
rectangular block of numbers, you can add the rows, add the columns and
then, using the if function, check that the sum of the added rows equals
the sum of the added columns. I recollect writing an article in Archive
about using if(,,) for checking a spreadsheet when PipeDream 4 was
causing a similar amount of consternation.
7.6
I must say that I’m surprised that version 1.08 hasn’t appeared yet but
I’m assured that it will soon. Make sure that your purchase is
registered and keep asking about your free upgrade!
7.6
Using the files on the monthly disc
7.6
Now to the Charts tutorial... Suitable files will be found on the
monthly disc together with a [ReadMe] file of the tutorial. If you use
the Archive disc then, apart from the [ReadMe] file, do not attempt to
load and run any of the other files in the PipeLineZ directory from the
master disc! This is because Colton Software’s hot linked graphics
operates by saving copies of chart files back to disc. The original file
I have included will be over written. For that reason I strongly suggest
that you work with back up copies of the files rather than the
originals.
7.6
Outline fonts
7.6
To use the PipeDream Charts facility, you will also need outline fonts.
In particular the Homerton (and maybe the Trinity) fonts must be loaded
(if in doubt, click on the !Fonts application) before you load PipeDream
to the iconbar. PipeDream cannot add fonts to its ‘private’ font list
after it (i.e. PipeDream) has been loaded to the iconbar.
7.6
If you send me a Charts application for inclusion in PipeLine, please
use only Homerton and Trinity .
7.6
General
7.6
In this tutorial, I am going to explain how you can draw multiple bar
charts using data which is not in consecutive rows. Although I shall
concentrate on bar charts, the principles can be used to draw multiple
line graphs using data which is not in consecutive rows.
7.6
Before I start, let me acknowledge that the inspiration for this article
was a problem sent to me by Peter Paddisson. It is his [Stats] file
which I am using as the data for this tutorial. I believe that the file
is the monthly rainfall somewhere in the UK, measured in inches and the
original data he sent me runs from 1888 to about 1990.
7.6
The statistics
7.6
If you have the monthly disc, double click on [Stats]. If you don’t have
the monthly disc, the picture above shows the file.
7.6
You will see that the month names are in row 2, the year names are in
column A (note that these year names are not numbers but text strings)
and the data is in the block B3M12. Peter has calculated an average in
column N.
7.6
The easiest chart
7.6
Mark the block A2M3 and then execute <ctrl-CHN> (CHart New). You will
find yourself with a chart which looks much like [Chart1888], (shown
overleaf − the only difference being that in the chart you have just
produced, all the bars are red whereas, in [Chart1888], the colours of
the bars cycle through a set of nine colours. You can ‘convert’ your
chart to one of many colours by executing the following sequence. Click
<menu> on the chart (not on the data) and a menu called Chart will pop-
up. Run the pointer through Gallery and click on Bar. In the version of
PipeDream which I have (V 4.13), there are seven types of bar chart
presented, a top row of three and a bottom row of four. Click on the
third from the left (the right most) of the bar chart types in the top
row and your bar chart will turn into one having nine differently
coloured bars.
7.6
Separated rows
7.6
Now how do you draw a bar chart for the 1889 data without including one
for the 1888 data?
7.6
Mark the block [Stats]B2M2 which contains Jan to Dec. Be careful; make
sure that you do not include either A2 or N2. I find the easiest way of
marking the block B2M2 to click <select> in B2 and click <adjust> in M2.
7.6
Execute <ctrl-CHN> to create a new chart. You will see a pop-up message
box which reminds you that there is no numeric data in the marked block.
Although there is no numeric data, you must choose to continue by
clicking on the Yes box.
7.6
Place the pointer in the new chart and click <menu>. Select
Gallery − Bar and then select the third type of bar chart from the first
row of bar charts. That is the one which gives the multi-colour bars.
Finally, click on the OK box.
7.6
Mark the block [Stats]A5M5 (note that the year is included in the slot
A5) and then execute <ctrl-CHA> (CHart Add) to add the data to the
(blank) chart. You will observe that the legend (contained as text in
slot A5) shows in the chart as year 1890.
7.6
Two sets of data on one chart
7.6
You can add a second set of data to a bar chart but, personally, I don’t
really like the result. I prefer the multiple line graph of [1888_1889]
above. The method of creating a line graph with multiple lines, adding
as many as you like, is fairly straightforward.
7.6
Mark the block B2M2 and execute <ctrl-CHN>. Click on Yes to proceed even
though there is no numeric data in the marked block. When the box
containing the Chart appears click <menu> − Bar − Line. Turn off the 3D
button, ensure that the first type of line chart has been selected (the
one at the top left) and click on OK.
7.6
Now you can mark any row such as the 1889 results in A4M4 and execute
<ctrl-CHA> to draw the line graph for that year’s data.
7.6
If you mark a block such as A6M9 to include three year’s data then you
will draw three lines at once (all in different colours)!
7.6
In conclusion
7.6
If you do have any problems with creating the Chart you want, then, like
Peter, please send me a disc file of typical data and an indication of
the many things you’ve tried that didn’t work. It does save me
considerable time and allows me to send you back a reply which uses your
data and a chart in the format you want.  A
7.6
Genesis/Magpie Column
7.6
Paul Hooper
7.6
Optima Resources
7.6
In my review of Optima (Archive 6.9 p58) I mentioned the resource packs
that would accompany this package. These packs are complete in
themselves and you do not require Optima to run them but access to
Optima will enable you to alter them. The packages are ‘Hairy Maclary’,
‘Scattercat’, ‘Our World in Space’ and ‘Words and Pictures’ and I have
now had a chance to run all four of them with three different groups of
children. All the packs come with the minimum packaging of a plastic bag
and an A5 pamphlet manual and most packs come with two copies of the
program, one on a single HD disc for the newer machines and also on two
800Kb discs for the rest.
7.6
Hairy Maclary and Scattercat
7.6
Both of these are based on the excellent books by Lynley Dodd and the
pack includes the relevant hardback book. Each Optima page includes a
scanned picture from the book and the text from the facing book page.
Each sentence is a sound sample and can be activated by clicking on the
sentence. The voice is a little soft in a noisy classroom but could be
replaced by another if you have Optima.
7.6
Using the programs with reception and year 1 pupils (5 − 6 year olds) in
pairs, it was interesting to watch how they used them. Most decided to
read the book and then have their reading confirmed by clicking on the
sentences. Difficult words were clicked on to hear the word and many
were disappointed that they got the whole sentence. Yet the fascination
of the computer speaking the story kept them enthralled. I also took
this to my local playgroup with pre-readers. They adopted a completely
different strategy, following the pages on the screen along with the
book and letting the computer do the reading.
7.6
Both packs are available from NW SEMERC priced at £18 including the hard
copy of the book and represent excellent value for money. (Add £3 p&p
+VAT to those prices.)
7.6
Our World in Space
7.6
This is an update of the space program on the Optima examples disc, but
it has grown to 1100Kb. It now includes not only ‘Our Solar System’ but
also man in space, the stars, the discovery of space and a quiz. The
layout and graphics are excellent and the presentation of information is
stimulating and encourages you to explore more. Sound samples are used
sparingly but to good effect, with the famous “The Eagle has landed”
phrase, along with some demonstrations of the Doppler effect.
7.6
The group of eight and nine year olds that tried it had to be prised
loose from the computer and then went on to explore the topic in books.
Again, it is good value for money at £15 with plenty of space left on
the disc to expand the program. (Add £3 p&p +VAT from NW SEMERC.)
7.6
Words and Pictures
7.6
This program is about basic word recognition. The first part presents
you with a picture and the written word along with a sound sample.
Having worked through the word list, you are then presented with three
pictures, a written word and the sound sample and you have to select the
correct picture. The basic idea sounds quite good but the implementation
leaves a lot to be desired. The word list seems to have been selected on
a fairly arbitrary basis to match the pictures available. The sound
samples are occasionally unclear, and are played before the page is
opened, so that you get the sound ‘ball’ when on screen is a picture of
an apple! Then the page with the ball picture opens.
7.6
If you are trying to encourage written word recognition, it seems rather
pointless to play the sample of the word and present the child with a
choice of three pictures. All that happens is the child listens to the
word and then selects the correct picture without looking at the written
word. Although this is again reasonably priced at £15, it would be a lot
easier to make up your own application based around your own reading
scheme. (Add £3 p&p +VAT.)
7.6
The future of Genesis
7.6
Having just returned from a hectic day at BETT, I thought I would try
and set out what is happening to Genesis. Genesis Plus is to be replaced
by Genesis Project, Genesis 2 will become Genesis Professional and new
version of Genesis for the Apple Macintosh will join the PC version.
There is also to be a top-end version called Genesis SDK which will
include cross-platform capability to produce applications on all three
machines.
7.6
So far as I can gather, the availability schedule is:
7.6
  Genesis Project:  Mid March
7.6
  Genesis Professional:  Mid March
7.6
  Genesis SDK:  Summer
7.6
  Genesis for Windows:  Out Now
7.6
  Genesis for Mac:  Summer
7.6
I had an opportunity to play with Professional, and noted that the user
interface had been improved and you now have the ability to define
master pages and also frame styles. Text can be in any colour on 3D
buttons and frames. Re-ordering of frames on a page has been made easier
but perhaps the biggest enhancement is the turbo-loading system which
will enhance the speed of page loading. More data types can be imported
into Genesis − Artworks is now supported along with Replay and even BMP
files from the PC. There will be upgrade paths for existing users with a
charge of about £60 to upgrade from Genesis 2 to Professional.
7.6
Professional does certainly bring Genesis up-to-date with a much
friendlier feel and as soon as I can get hold of a copy, I will do a
review.
7.6
(If anyone wants a copy of Genesis Professional (£120 +VAT = £141) at a
reduced cost, we have some copies of Genesis II on special offer at £55
which can be upgraded to Professional for £60 +VAT = £70.50. So by
buying one of these now, you save £15.50 overall, pay out only £55
initially, have a copy of Genesis II to work on and are able to pay the
rest from next year’s budget! We only have five copies left, so please
ring the Archive office if you want to book one of them. Ed.)
7.6
The future of Magpie
7.6
Magpie already includes the ability to use Replay but from what I
gathered around the Longman stand, I think there will be a new version
of Magpie released sometime around the middle of the year. I don’t have
any details but I don’t think it is too late to influence the upgrade.
So if there is anything you would like to see Longman incorporate, you
should write to them straight away.
7.6
Hints and tips
7.6
One of the problems with third party hardware is that it doesn’t always
conform to a set standard. HCCS’s Vision digitiser produces excellent
results that can be imported straight into Genesis but if you try to
load the same sprite into Magpie, the colours are wrong. The problem is
that HCCS use a non-standard palette to achieve the results. To overcome
this, load the sprite into Paint and go to the Edit option. If you open
the submenu, you will see that the palette option is ticked. Click on
this to remove the tick and then save the resulting sprite straight into
Magpie. The colours won’t be completely correct but they will be a lot
nearer than before.
7.6
Both Magpie and Genesis can be made reactive to user input and the use
of these features can make an application more rewarding. In one of the
applications I have written, I required the user to click on a box and
then be rewarded the user in some way. On a Magpie page, you set up the
box was set up and, over the top, create a text frame with ‘Well Done!’
in it. Then change to the button tool and click on the text frame and
select ‘Hide and reveal on Mouse click.’ Save the page and then, when
you click on the box, the reward will pop up. The Magpie application on
this month’s disc is taken from WIMP Tutor and demonstrates this well.
7.6
With the added flexibility of Genesis, much more is possible, including
a fully interactive quiz. GenLib contains a button called ‘Radio3’
which, when dropped onto a page, provides three radio type icons which
have a word frame associated with them. Write your question at the top
of the page and alter the word frames to three alternative answers. Next
create a frame after the answers, indicating which answer is correct as
in the picture below. Save your page and then call up the script file
and alter the three Correct/Wrong frames so that they are called Right,
Mis1 and Mis2 instead of the date. Also, alter FGCOL to the same colour
as your background. In this example, it will be FGCOL 1. Now add the
following five lines to the three frames labelled Button 1-3 just before
the END FRAME command:
7.6
ON SELECT BEGIN
7.6
SET FGCOL OF “Right” TO 11
7.6
SET FGCOL OF “Mis1” TO 1
7.6
SET FGCOL OF “Mis2” TO 1
7.6
END
7.6
In this case, the answer is correct and the frame Right has the text
turned from FGCOL 1 (grey) to FGCOL 11 (red). You will need to alter the
values of FGCOL for the other two frames. An example of a Genesis
interactive quiz is on this month’s disc.
7.6
A challenge for Genesis
7.6
Following on from the above, I would like to see if anyone can solve a
problem that it took me a few months to crack. Taking the above quiz
page, can you place a box on each of the pages that keeps a running
total of the score that you have got in the quiz? A score box on one
page is easy, but how do you keep the variable from page to page? I
suppose I should offer some sort of prize, but as a poor hard up
student... (Would half a dozen Archive mugs be any good as an incentive?
Ed.)
7.6
The Swap Shop
7.6
We have added another three applications to the Swap Shop, all
historical. One is on the Black Death of 1340s, one on the Great Fire of
London and one on the Plague of 1665. These are complete applications
with many good graphics and sound effects. All are Genesis format at the
moment but will be converted to Magpie fairly soon. If you require a
copy of the latest catalogue just send me a blank disc along with the
return postage. By the time you read this, I hope to have sent out a
copy of the new catalogue to all the people who have sent me
applications in the past year.
7.6
The End Bit
7.6
If you have any queries or questions about either program or if you just
want to send me examples of your applications then send them to: Paul
Hooper, 11 Rochford Road, Martham, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, NR29 4RL.
(0493-748474)  A
7.6
ArtWorks Column
7.6
Trevor Sutton
7.6
I am pleased to say that, as was hoped, this column is written using
Impression Style and I am finding it to be a pleasant improvement on
previous Impressions. As an ArtWorker, I suppose it was inevitable that
I should like the tool bar. However, I must avoid the temptation to
write a review, perhaps just mentioning Style’s relationship with AW.
7.6
Style & ArtWorks
7.6
As with the later versions of Impression, Style accepts AW files and the
familiar WYSIWYG knob appears as an icon, allowing access to a menu
offering different qualities of displayed image. I am not feeling the
benefit of this at the moment as my old AKF18 has broken and I am using
an AKF17 which becomes unbearable after a while. I don’t care what
people say about the AKF18, I want mine back!
7.6
What is interesting − and perhaps news to some people − is that
drawfiles can be anti-aliased from Style. TIFF images can also be
loaded.
7.6
Perhaps the most useful feature is the facility known as OLE − Object
Linking & Embedding. What this means for an AW drawing is that holding
down <ctrl> and double-clicking on the drawing in a Style document will
load it into AW. It can then be saved back into the frame by clicking on
OK in the save window of AW.
7.6
One thing which needs examination is the quality of printout from any AW
files which include sprites. As described below, there seems to be a
problem with the current version of AW as Steve Ellacott describes and I
have subsequently tested.
7.6
Sprites, printing and AW
7.6
The reproduction of small sprites on a 300dpi laser printer (using HP
Laserjet emulation, although my printer is actually a Brother) is very
poor when printed from AW 1.12 with the default settings. Our church
logo contains a fairly detailed monochrome sprite which is scaled to a
small size. Although one cannot expect very good reproduction at 300dpi,
all other applications (including Impression) produce reasonable
results. However, the output from AW is disastrous. The problem appears
to be that the mapping to the target printer resolution (from the
separations submenu on the Print dialogue box) is hopelessly
conservative. My experiments so far indicate that the best results can
be obtained by setting this to be 3 to 4 times the actual resolution but
not an exact multiple. If it is an exact multiple, or if it is too high,
lines appear on the image. 1000 seems to be a good starting point for a
300 dpi printer. However, the best choice is probably dependent on the
actual sprite and the scaling involved, so experimentation is likely to
be required. I enclose some printouts of my experiments.
7.6
While experimenting with this I also uncovered another bug. If the AW
window does not have the input focus (e.g. if you have just finished a
print), but you try to change the “Print This Ink” icon, an
unrecoverable error occurs.
7.6
Thanks Steve. This is another of the irritating little problems which
committed bug hunters have found.
7.6
The problem of printing sprites from AW is altogether more serious and I
have experimented after getting similarly poor results.
7.6
The problem is, I feel, that the aspect ratio of a sprite cannot be
maintained in vector graphic programs like Draw and AW without using the
magnify option in Draw or the Scale option in AW. This becomes very
fiddly when you want the sprite to fit into a particular space. In
Impression, you would simply make a frame and fit to that frame
retaining the aspect ratio.
7.6
I tried several prints to a Canon BJ-10SX and the results from
Impression were far better than those from AW which showed white
horizontal and vertical lines when the sprite was reduced in size. (I
remember when Ovation did this !)
7.6
The very worst results were achieved (if achievement it be) when the
sprite was loaded into Draw and subsequently saved as a drawfile. This
is a recommendation from certain software applications.
7.6
Well, I suppose I should send this information to CC, but one would hope
that they just might read the column. Instead, I make a plea for some
research. Please, try out prints from AW containing sprites, some
resized and saved as drawfiles printed to different printers and perhaps
even using Turbo Drivers. I believe that this is a problem with AW and
not the printer drivers.
7.6
Let me know how you get on − maybe the next version will have it sorted.
7.6
Well, that’s the technical stuff out of the way. I was delighted with
the response to Mike Charlton’s contribution on tessellation. His love
of the isometric grid and his desperation with AW prompted the following
response from Richard Lyszkowski...
7.6
Isometric grid for AW
7.6
I was most interested to read your article in Archive 7.2 p23, regarding
the absence of an isometric grid facility in AW. I too found that
absence frustrating but got round it, to some extent, by creating an
isometric grid of my own and placing it in a background layer. Isometric
drawings could then be created using the grid as a guide. The main
problem was the slowness of redrawing the grid and the continual need to
go to 4000% enlargement to ensure accuracy. I have sent in a copy of my
AW grid which could go on the Archive monthly disc.
7.6
Your article, however, prompted further thought on the matter. My
problem was: how can I retain the grid lock and obtain an isometric grid
too?
7.6
This simple example shows how it can be done:
7.6
1) Open an AW window and view and lock the grid.
7.6
2) Draw a square with edges parallel to the edges of the AW window.
7.6
3) Draw its top-left to bottom-right diagonal.
7.6
4) Group the square and diagonal.
7.6
5) Choose the Rotate tool and rotate the square through 45° about its
centre.
7.6
6) Choose the Scale tool and change the aspect ratio to 57.735%. (The
‘exact’ % value would be given by 100 divided by the square root of 3.)
7.6
7) Scale the object by 1.224744871. (The ‘exact’ value is the square
root of 1.5) The effect of this scaling is to make the isometric grid
spacing the same that of the original square grid.
7.6
8) Further rotations through 60°, 90° or −30° may be desirable,
depending on how your original was created.
7.6
I have included some simple examples in a drawfile (on the monthly disc)
to show the results of some of my experiments (with Draw).
Interestingly, the Draw version of the isometric grid, appears to be
more accurate than the AW version, despite the acceptance of more
significant figures by the latter application! No doubt someone can
explain. (Has some accuracy been sacrificed in the quest for speed?)
7.6
The process is also easier to carry out in Draw, though obviously
unnecessary in that application.
7.6
I have included a couple of fairly boring doodles which I made with the
assistance of the grid. As you will doubtless notice, the AW files were
the results of my efforts in October, 1992 − I’ve progressed somewhat
since then, but confess to still finding Draw much easier to use than
AW.
7.6
Some final thoughts relating to the square-to-isometric transformation.
It means that M.C.Escher drawings will now be possible... provided, that
is, you think that my suggestion should be passed on! And yes, it would
be better if AW already had an isometric grid facility. Wouldn’t it be
good to be able to generate any regular grid system, to which a grid
lock could be applied? Imagine all the tessellations which would then be
possible!
7.6
Thanks Richard. I welcome these mathematical applications of AW. I am a
bit of a chaos man myself and I’ve just found a way of converting
recursive, basic procedures into drawfiles. Drop these into AW, colour
them in and send them to the Royal Academy! Richard’s files are
available on the Archive monthly disc.
7.6
Coda
7.6
Mike has promised me some Celtic Knot Artworking and I promise an
interesting article soon from a friend who has used AW in drawing from
life. A glass of water on the computer bench, sketched by mouse and
subsequently manipulated. Now that’s art!  A
7.6
Richard Hallas
7.6
This month’s DTP Column takes the form of a detailed look at Computer
Concepts’ WordWorks package and a shorter comparison with Risc
Developments’ Desktop Thesaurus.
7.6
WordWorks
7.6
WordWorks is a new multi-purpose hypertext system from Computer
Concepts. Its main use is as a dictionary and thesaurus package but, in
fact, it has a much wider scope than just these two applications. Its
launch has been rather overshadowed by the fact that it is bundled free
with Impression Style (and Publisher, when it appears). However, it is
available separately as a stand-alone product, and in this review, I
want to look at it on its own merits and in comparison with Risc
Developments’ Desktop Thesaurus, which itself has recently undergone a
fairly major upgrade.
7.6
The package
7.6
When you buy it as a separate package, you get WordWorks in a very
attractive cardboard box presented in just the same style as a Collins
dictionary – even down to the name ‘Collins’ emblazoned on the lid. The
implication is, therefore, that it is just a dictionary and thesaurus,
as stated on the box. However, it has the potential to be a lot more
than this, and even now it acts as a very comprehensive help system for
Impression Style and, indeed, itself.
7.6
The box contains four discs, a registration card and an eight-page
manual which is very nicely presented but hardly necessary, as the
software is both easy to use and self-documenting. Use as a help system
is a primary purpose of WordWorks: Impression Style and WordWorks both
have a ‘Help’ item at the bottom of their main menus, leading to various
choices. The help file supplied with WordWorks contains full
instructions on its use, along with electronic copies of the printed
text in the real Collins Gem Dictionary and Thesaurus. In fact, it’s all
very much more detailed than the printed manual.
7.6
The installation process is simple: just insert a disc, double-click on
!Install, and follow the instructions − very straightforward and
friendly. Although you can designate the location of WordWorks, the bulk
of the application is actually stored in the !System directory: the
WordWorks application is actually just a front to the more general
HyperView application (which is what you see if you look deep inside
!System). I found this approach a little confusing, but also, the
version of the program I received for review, version 1.04, adds an
‘information i’ icon to the iconbar rather than the WordWorks dictionary
icon shown in the filer window and in the manual − but that’s only a
small point.
7.6
In use
7.6
Once this initial confusion has passed, WordWorks is a doddle to use. If
you’re using it from Impression, then to load it you have to do no more
than choose ‘Thesaurus’ from the spelling menu, or choose one of the
help options. Otherwise, double-click on the icon as normal. A window
opens showing the hypertext files currently in use: this will normally
be the Collins GEM Thesaurus and Dictionary, but if you have chosen a
help option, it will be the appropriate page of a help file instead.
7.6
The top of the window contains an area into which you can type a word or
phrase. WordWorks will intelligently try to remove the ending from the
word or phrase and attempt to look up the root word. If it can’t find a
root word, WordWorks will use ‘inverted dictionaries’ to find out if the
word occurs in the dictionary or thesaurus, and will present a list of
records in which the word appears. If you are using Impression, simply
highlighting a word or phrase in your text will send it to WordWorks
automatically. Actually, I personally find this a bit of a nuisance: as
soon as you make any kind of selection in Impression, it’s immediately
transferred to WordWorks (if its window is open). It’s possible to turn
this feature off but then you have to type in the words by hand. I’d
like the ability to send a word to WordWorks simply by pressing a hot
key − but again, it’s a fairly minor point.
7.6
Once a find is displayed in the WordWorks window, it is possible to
highlight a word and then double-click on it with <select> to look it up
in WordWorks, or double-click on it with <adjust> to transfer it to
whatever application has input focus. (The Replace button has the same
effect.) If that happens to be Impression, everything happens instantly
and intelligently, with any selected region being replaced by the
word(s) appropriately capitalised. With other applications, the solution
is a little less satisfactory: WordWorks effectively types out the text
for you, and you can see it appearing character by character at the
caret. A direct transfer would have been better but, presumably, this
must not have been possible.
7.6
A related irritation is that WordWorks will not accept a text file
dragged to it as input. For programs such as Edit or Ovation which do
not communicate with it directly, it would be nice to be able to
highlight a word and save it as a selection into WordWorks. However, if
you try this, WordWorks simply ignores the file, and you have to type in
your word or phrase manually.
7.6
Presentation
7.6
The above niggles are slightly annoying if you are trying to use
WordWorks with any program other than Impression but, in all other
respects, WordWorks operates very quickly and intuitively, and it
searches through its multiple dictionaries with commendable speed. The
presentation of the main window is very good, and looks just like a
printed dictionary. Multiple outline fonts are used just as in the
printed Collins counterparts, and it is possible to set the heading and
body fonts which WordWorks uses, along with the font size.
7.6
It is possible to resize the windows up to full screen size, and the
text will reformat itself to fit. You can have multiple views open at
once, and saving your choices will record the position and size of the
windows. You can even save out entire entries along with their styles,
in the format used by Impression.
7.6
Although the Collins dictionaries themselves do not make use of
‘hotlinks’ (you can click on any word in the window and WordWorks will
try to look it up) the help files all do. Hotlinks take the form of
coloured text which, when double-clicked, will take you to the relevant
page. Again this is extremely fast and easy to use, and the ‘Back’
button at the top of the window makes it very easy to return to the page
from which you came. (There is also a History menu, which lists the last
32 entries you viewed, and browse buttons which let you move backwards
and forwards through the file a page at a time.)
7.6
To summarise, then, it is important to remember that WordWorks is not
just a dictionary and thesaurus, but a full-blown hypertext system with
hotlinks. As such, it is extremely powerful − more so than it first
appears. For instance, the entry on WordWorks’ hyper dictionaries in the
Glossary informs us that the files may contain not only text with
hotlinks but also graphics, sound and movie clips. In fact, the program
is not yet capable of incorporating these, but it will be at some future
stage. This has very important implications − it potentially makes
WordWorks the ideal retrieval system for CD-ROM, and the potential is
obviously there for some very exciting applications indeed. (I’d dearly
like to see the PRM in WordWorks format, for example.) (And what about
the NIV Bible? Ed.)
7.6
Considering that every owner of the new versions of Impression (and in
practice that should mean virtually every Impression user) will get a
free copy of WordWorks, and the fact that WordWorks retails separately,
it seems likely that WordWorks will become a standard information
retrieval system on RISC OS. It is to be hoped that other manufacturers
will support it, as I think it is potentially the best such system I
have seen, although without reference to a version which can incorporate
graphics and sound, it is difficult to make the conclusion for certain
at this stage.
7.6
Incidentally, Computer Concepts is looking at the possibility of doing
foreign-language versions of the WordWorks dictionaries which could be
of interest to many users. WordWorks is excellent value if bought alone,
but considering it is free with the Impression upgrade (which is
cheaper), there is little excuse not to get a copy. I sincerely hope
that applications from publishers other than Computer Concepts will make
use of its facilities in future.
7.6
Desktop Thesaurus
7.6
Version 1.23 of the Desktop Thesaurus has just appeared, and I thought
it would be useful to have a look at it alongside WordWorks to see how
they compare. This product is, of course, a dedicated thesaurus, and a
much simpler program overall than WordWorks. It has been reviewed before
in various magazines, but to present a brief resumé, a single window
contains a word list on the left and a list of ‘finds’ on the right,
with an area at the bottom for you to enter words.
7.6
The major new addition to version 1.23 is that it now shows antonyms as
well as synonyms. The program contains 17½ thousand keywords and nearly
200,000 synonyms and antonyms. In the finds portion of the window, the
synonyms are listed with blue labels next to them stating whether they
are nouns, verbs, etc., and now the same window also shows the antonyms
listed after the synonyms, and with red rather than blue labels.
7.6
In use, the thesaurus is very straightforward: it is directly supported
by several applications, namely Ovation, EasiWriter, TechWriter and
Wordz. Pressing a hot key in any of these applications will call up the
thesaurus for the word at the caret, or you can simply type in a word as
normal. Happily, unlike WordWorks, it is possible to save a selected
word from a text editor into the thesaurus so you don’t have to type it
again. Transferring text back into an application, though, works just
like WordWorks: the thesaurus types it for you at the caret. The fact
that both programs use this method rather implies that a more direct
transfer method is not possible.
7.6
Apart from the addition of antonyms, the Desktop Thesaurus works just as
before. Clicking on a word in the finds window looks it up, and you can
scroll through the list of available words on the left until you find
the one you want. A ‘Previous’ button steps back through the words you
have found so far, and a ‘Root’ button takes you back to your initial
word.
7.6
Conclusions
7.6
I have always found the Desktop Thesaurus very convenient and easy to
use, and the addition of antonyms is certainly worth having. WordWorks
is every bit as good in its rôle of thesaurus, but it does not display
any antonyms. In fact, for a straight thesaurus package, I slightly
prefer Desktop Thesaurus to WordWorks: its display is a bit easier to
use at a glance (with the helpful labels to the left of the synonyms and
antonyms), and it operates on the hot key method which I prefer.
However, there is, of course, no associated dictionary with meanings,
and the text included is not from an ‘official’ reference book.
7.6
As an overall product, WordWorks itself is of course first class, and I
think it has a great many potential uses above and beyond its current
scope of dictionary, thesaurus and help system. I certainly enjoy having
an electronic dictionary available at my fingertips, and I hope that its
potential for presenting all kinds of references, including
illustrations, is exploited to the full in the future.
7.6
Before WordWorks came out, I had expected to be looking at two similar
products, but in fact they are completely different. Desktop Thesaurus
is just a thesaurus, but a particularly easy-to-use one, whereas
WordWorks (the name says it all) is a hypertext system to beat off all
comers. If I had to choose between the two I would go for WordWorks but,
as a thesaurus, Desktop Thesaurus is extremely convenient to use, is
directly supported by several applications, and I wouldn’t want to be
without it. Its new antonym display is also handy. I’m just glad I’ve
got both!
7.6
Information
7.6
WordWorks costs £39 +VAT from Computer Concepts (£43 through Archive).
It is also bundled free with Impression Style (£99 +VAT or £107 through
Archive), and the Impression to Impression Style upgrade (£29 +VAT from
CC). Desktop Thesaurus costs £19 +£1.70 p&p +VAT from Risc Developments
or £23 through Archive.  A
7.6
DTP Column
7.6
Mijas
7.6
New
7.6
PD Column
7.6
David Holden
7.6
Licenceware
7.6
You may have seen references to this ‘new’ method of selling software,
often linked with PD libraries as if it were a modified form of
Shareware. Don’t be fooled − Licenceware has nothing to do with PD or
Shareware. Indeed, the very concept is the antithesis of the Shareware
principle.
7.6
The basic idea of Shareware is that potential users should not be caught
in the trap set by all commercial software. There is no way that you can
seriously evaluate ‘normal’ software until you have parted with your
money. This usually means that unless you are prepared to repeat the
exercise (and part with more money) with every similar program that is
available, you become committed to the first one that you try. If you
subsequently discover that it doesn’t suit your purpose or has features
that make it of little use, or you simply don’t like it, it is most
unlikely that the company that sold it to you will give you your money
back!
7.6
With Shareware, you don’t pay a penny until you are satisfied that the
program is what you want. This has far-reaching consequences I shall
enlarge upon at another time, but the most obvious is that if there are
several programs that just might be suitable, you can try them all, at
negligible cost, and only pay for the one you actually want.
7.6
Back to Licenceware... The idea of this is that instead of the ‘try
before you buy’ principle of Shareware, the program is distributed by a
‘licensed’ Library who then pay a percentage of the price to the author.
I may be missing something but that sounds exactly like commercial
software to me. There are certain advantages − the program will be sold
at a very low price because the distribution costs are so low and
because it will normally be a simple disc with no fancy packaging and
advertising overhead − but really it is just budget commercial software.
The only connection with PD or Shareware is that it is normally
distributed through the same network but, as with most software, it’s
‘pay now, try later’.
7.6
Please don’t misunderstand my position, I have nothing against
Licenceware. In fact, I’m very much in favour of it. It’s a good method
of distributing low cost software, but I do object to it being linked
with Shareware as if it were a variation on that system − which it
clearly is not.
7.6
The origins
7.6
Licenceware, in its present form, started with Amiga and Atari PD
libraries. The main reason for this is that the owners of these machines
are not so sophisticated as Archimedes users (no correspondence from
irate Amiga/ST owners on this, please) and often ‘forget’ to register
for Shareware programs, especially games. The method is therefore a good
way of ensuring that the programmer receives some reward for his work.
7.6
It has never gained a foothold in the PC world where there is so much
excellent Shareware. The people who seem most eager to sing the praises
of Licenceware would appear to be ‘failed’ Shareware authors. I accept
there is some justification for Licenceware where games programs are
concerned because registrations are often rather thin, but I’m not so
sure that it is a good thing for more serious programs.
7.6
“Shareware doesn’t work”
7.6
This is something I have been told by people who have been unsuccessful
with Shareware that they have written and who, perhaps, are now trying
to jump on the Licenceware bandwagon. They don’t seem to realise that
there are major corporations who exist upon Shareware − companies like
Magee Enterprises, Trius and many others, most of whom are larger than
any producing Archimedes software.
7.6
Since Shareware is ‘try before you buy’, this means that if users don’t
like what they are ‘trying’, they won’t ‘buy’, i.e. they won’t register.
When Shareware programs don’t seem to produce much in the way of
registrations it may not be that users are too dishonest to register,
but just that they didn’t like the program. If authors cripple certain
functions in an effort to ‘force’ users to register, this only makes the
situation worse.
7.6
Good documentation and a straightforward user interface are vital
because you must convince the potential user in the shortest possible
time that your program is worthwhile. A commercial program has the
immense advantage that the user has already paid for it and will be
reluctant to give up and admit that it was a bad purchase. Even more
than with other types of software, a moderately competent Shareware
program that is simple to use and with good documentation will get more
registrations than a really powerful program which is not so easy to
‘get into’.
7.6
CIA World Map
7.6
This, with John Kortink’s desktop viewing program, was reviewed in
Archive 7.4 p31 and several people have asked me if I could supply a
copy. As there is obviously a lot of interest, I have decided to make it
this month’s special offer, despite its huge size. When de-arc’ed, it
takes about 14Mb of hard disc space. The version reviewed requires even
more than this because of the installation method used but I have
written my own installation program so it does not need any extra space.
This also permits you to install only part of the data if you don’t have
enough room for the full program.
7.6
This is a fairly massive amount of data and can be supplied on six 1.6Mb
discs or eleven 800Kb discs. My ‘special offer’ price to Archive readers
will be £7.50 for the 1.6Mb version or £9 on 800Kb discs.
7.6
As regular readers will be aware, I usually insist that these offers are
for the period covered by that issue of the magazine only and I will not
accept requests for ‘back issues’. However, because not everyone will be
interested in the CIA World Map and because the offer I made in the
January issue has proved quite popular, I shall extend it for the period
of this issue as well. Another reason for this extension is because, as
you may remember, this offer was for either two 800Kb discs or one 1.6Mb
disc containing versions of all six winning programs in the APDL/Archive
competition. As all ‘profits’ go towards extra payments for other worthy
entries and prizes for the next competition, I am quite happy to extend
it.
7.6
A special thanks to the many people who sent more than the £2 requested
for these discs and asked that I add the surplus to this fund. You can
contact me at 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London, SE26 5RN.  A
7.6
ArcSimp − Electronic Simulation
7.6
Ian Williamson
7.6
This article is about an unusual application: a simulation program for
the Acorn Archimedes, written by Mijas Software. It is available in two
basic versions: analogue and digital, and also as mixed analogue/
digital. It is available at two levels of size and complexity:
Education/Hobby and Professional.
7.6
ArcSimp Analogue can be used to simulate physical phenomena, mechanical
and electrical, and thus enable the study of control systems,
demonstrate the laws of mechanics, and display mathematical functions.
ArcSimp Digital can be used to study logic gates and simple digital
controls. With suitable I/O hardware ArcSimp can be used to control
models and other systems and display external events.
7.6
As an electronics engineer, I believe there is a very great need for
good, or indeed any, circuit analysis programs to run on the Archimedes.
(I used to use a very good program, Analyser II, which could run on a
BBC Model B, but that was not supported, or translated to the
Archimedes, as Number One Systems have shifted their allegiance to the
PC.) Thus I have been on the lookout for suitable electronic circuit
analysis programs for some time, and I am interested to see whether
Richard Torrens’ Electronic CAD series evolves beyond PCB layout. (In
the meantime, we have received a review by Bevis Peters of OakLogic, a
digital simulation program. I’ll publish it next month. Ed.)
7.6
Having said that, I should point out at this stage that ArcSimp is
neither an analysis nor synthesis program for electronic circuits. It
does not start at the component level (transistors, resistors,
capacitors etc), but starts at the “black box” level (gain blocks,
gates, integrators etc) and calculates the behaviour of the model in the
time domain, not the frequency domain. Whilst it may be considered that
the model is somewhat idealised, that is to some extent true of even the
most powerful analysis programs (e.g. Super-Compact, Spice), and the
skill of the modeller is to construct a sufficiently realistic model by
incorporating stray parasitics, non-linearities etc. Nevertheless,
ArcSimp is a very powerful and flexible simulation program that can give
a valuable insight into what is happening in a system, and I regard it
as an important addition to the Archimedes applications.
7.6
Versions reviewed
7.6
Educational/Hobby Digital Gate Simulator, version 3.01, 1st Nov 1993.
This is the Digital Only version: maximum number of functions/gates 50.
7.6
Professional Analogue Simulator, version 3.01, 1st Nov 1993. This is the
most comprehensive version. Supposedly, the Professional version has no
limit to the number of function blocks/gates other than the computer
memory but according to the Info menu, the limit was set at 60 functions
and 30 graphics − this limit can be changed by editing the last line of
the !Run file. The Digital Gate option had been added, and the User
Function option was available.
7.6
Educational/Hobby Analogue Simulator, version 3.05, 30th Dec 1993. This
version supports maximum number of 50 functions and 30 graphics. The
Digital Gate option had been added. This copy was sent to me by Mijas
after I had made a number of criticisms of version 3.01, and it
incorporated some of my suggestions.
7.6
ArcSimp is RISC OS compliant and runs under RISC OS2 or 3 on any
Archimedes with 1Mb of RAM, although it was run on an A420 with ARM 3
and 4Mb RAM for the purposes of this review. As it happens, my
Archimedes is also fitted with the new Acorn FPA chip, but with the
simple models I ran, I was not able to determine whether this made any
difference to the running of ArcSimp, which has 64 bit floating point
accuracy and uses a well-proven integration algorithm.
7.6
Functional blocks available
7.6
The Digital version has two and three input AND, NAND, OR, NOR and XOR
gates, and a NOT gate. CMOS and TTL gate types are provided: you can
select either type for the whole simulation from the iconbar menu but
you cannot mix types within a simulation. I think the digital gate types
should be extended to include ECL. Furthermore, I think you should be
able to mix gate types, because that can happen in a real system, but it
would mean that you would have to select the gate type for every gate,
so perhaps that ought to be a feature of the Professional version. Any
of the ArcSimp analogue blocks can be included and a number of these are
provided: sine and random function generators, summer, delay, time
constant. Two types of input and output blocks are provided: Boolean
function, type boolf, which change between logic 0 and logic 1, and true
input and output blocks which read and write data and thus enable
communication with other programs and the real world.
7.6
The Analogue version has 36 functions − too many to list here. Input and
output function are also provided to enable communication with other
programs. The list of available functions will be extended as requested
by users who will receive a free upgrade when their suggestion is
incorporated. My suggestions are…:
7.6
Attenuator: basically a gain block with gain less than 1. Incidentally,
it would be useful to have the option to define some of the amplitude
parameters in dBs rather than numerical values. Peak Envelope Detector
and Phase Sensitive Detector: these would be useful for plotting the
amplitude and phase versus frequency of a system (Bode plot). Phase
Shifter: phase angle of sine waves can be advanced or retarded by a
phase shifter. This is similar to Delay function except that the delay
can only be positive − if you try a negative delay, you will get an
error message. Frequency Discriminator: output signal proportional to
the frequency of a sine wave. This is the converse of function Vsine.
This block would be useful to model an FM receiver.
7.6
I think the logic gates are idealised: they are quite adequate for an
educational application to illustrate the operation of logic systems,
but logic gates in the real world respond after a finite delay time and
have an output rise time. Fortunately, Mijas have been working on this
but it will be limited to the Professional version.
7.6
With a little ingenuity, most of the above functions could be realised
by combining a number of existing function blocks, which leads me to my
next suggestion. I think it would be useful if a group of functions/
gates could be enclosed in a dotted box, given a suitable name, saved
and then merged into another simulation. This could save a lot of time
in constructing complex models. [After I had written this review, Mijas
sent me a beta version of an enhanced ArcSimp which enabled simulation
models to be merged.]
7.6
It would be particularly useful to be able to represent such a group by
a “black box” with the same number of ports and add it to a library of
functions, i.e. the ArcSimp Tools window. The problem with this
suggestion is that four copies of the black box would have to be added
to the !ArcSimp.Sprites file to enable it to be rotated. Alternatively,
the Rotate option could be disabled for that black box: that is a
restriction I would willingly accept.
7.6
The User Function of the Professional version enables users who have
copies of Acorn’s Desktop C and FormEd, and are fluent in C to add their
own functions. I am not, and am not able to comment on this option, but
I have been inspired to buy a book on C.
7.6
Starting ArcSimp
7.6
Load ArcSimp in the usual way. When you click on the icon on the
iconbar, this opens the ArcSimp scrollable simulation window and Tools
window, together a licence message which lists the purchaser’s name and
address, and the Registration Number. This seems to me to be a good
method of making software piracy more difficult (or at least conspicuous
every time the program is run) without imposing the dreadful
inconvenience of a dongle.
7.6
A new simulation model can be created by dragging functional blocks from
the Tools window and connected as described later, or an existing
simulation can be found in a Workfile Directory, e.g.
<ArcSimp$Dir>.examples.bessel (see below). Simulation files are loaded
by dragging the green file icon onto the ArcSimp icon on the iconbar,
nothing happens if you drag the simulation file icon onto the simulation
window. I found that a little confusing as that is what I would have
done intuitively. Alternatively, you can double click on any simulation
file, but this is confusing because it always creates a new copy of the
ArcSimp program.
7.6
Constructing a simulation model
7.6
A new simulation model can be constructed by dragging functional blocks
from the Tools window into the ArcSimp window. A functional block can be
repositioned by dragging it around the window with the mouse whilst
holding down <adjust>. If you use <select>, the functional block will be
copied rather than moved.
7.6
Each function block has ‘blobs’ to represent the input or output ports,
and these function blocks are connected to one another by clicking with
<select> from an ‘output blob’ and dragging an orange dotted ‘Rubber-
band’ all the way to an ‘input blob’. When you let go, a solid black
connection line appears, made up of rectilinear segments. The connection
line can also be drawn backwards, i.e. from input to output. If you let
go before a connection is made, the partly completed line will remain
dotted, and you can either start again, or click on the unfinished end
and start another segment of the connection. This is a sensible feature
and enables you to work around and avoid other blocks, or make a
feedback connection.
7.6
ArcSimp enables you to rotate a function block in order to produce a
tidy diagram. To do this, you have to click with <menu> on top of the
function block and then click on “Rotate” with either <select> or
<adjust>; if you use <adjust> the Menu will still cover the function
block but “Rotate” and other options will be greyed out. I found it
irritating not being able to see the block as it rotated (it rotates
clockwise by the way), especially when having to repeat the whole
process to turn the icon by 180 or 270°. I would have preferred to be
able to highlight the block and then carry out the operation using
<select> or <adjust> in the usual way. [This has now been dramatically
improved.]
7.6
The manual points out that blocks can be rotated after connections have
been made and that they stay connected, but warns that they can get a
bit tangled! I suppose some problems should be expected since it is
difficult to anticipate all the possible combinations and the connection
path has to be pinned down somehow, but I it needs a rather more
prominent warning in the manual than “get a bit tangled!” If you do get
your diagram into a tangle, just draw a new connection path using a
better route and it will automatically replace the old one − this is a
very convenient feature.
7.6
Running the simulation
7.6
The parameters for a function block are set by clicking <menu> over its
icon, highlighting Data and moving onto the submenu, which is a window
appropriate to the type of function or gate. It has a number of writable
icons which enable you to change its name and select various parameters
and values, e.g. amplitude, phase, frequency, gain, time constant etc.
These parameters can be set whilst you are constructing the simulation
model, or changed later. I have even been able to change parameters
while the model is running, although I could find no mention of that in
the manual. The manual does indicate that you can pause a simulation,
save it and restart from the point at which it was paused in order to be
able to introduce a number of disturbances without having to wait for
the stabilisation period that some simulations may need.
7.6
When you start the simulation, ArcSimp checks that the data you have
entered is suitable, allocates a system number to all the function
blocks and then works out the order in which function blocks will be
called. It follows an information path from the output of one block to
the input of the next and gives appropriate messages if there are any
errors present, e.g. “Sort error at function block <name> input n”, “No
path to function block <name>”.
7.6
When the simulation is accepted as valid, ArcSimp displays the Run Data
submenu. This submenu enables you to give a title and change some of the
run time parameters. There are six coloured bands, which are actually
writable icons, into which you write the name of the parameter that you
wish to display in that colour.
7.6
Simulations can also be run in real time, but only if they would
normally run faster than real time. It is possible that other programs
will slow ArcSimp down and prevent it from running in real time. If that
happens, the real time indicator flickers or is extinguished, so stop
and quit any unwanted tasks. Real time operation is only likely to be
required if ArcSimp is controlling an external system.
7.6
Graphics
7.6
A Graphics window can be opened from the ArcSimp main menu. A two
dimensional representation of a physical object can be drawn by dragging
objects from a graphics Tools window and creates a working diagram of
the real world. Connections can be made from any connection point to any
other object, the x and y positions of parts of this diagram can be
linked to the numerical output of the simulation. A few interesting
examples are included. This option is not available on the Digital only
version.
7.6
Documentation
7.6
The documentation, presented in A5 format, is clear and concise. There
are different manuals for the analogue and digital versions. The manual
for the analogue version is the more comprehensive, and includes half
page detailed definition of all 36 functions provided. The manual for
the digital version is a little brief − it is adequate for the gates
provided but gives no information about the analogue blocks.
7.6
Conclusions
7.6
Despite the niggles mentioned in this review, it should come as no
surprise that I am very impressed with ArcSimp. It was listed in the
education category under ‘Review software received’ in Archive, and will
fill this role admirably provided care is taken to avoid getting tangled
diagrams. ArcSimp will also be useful to the practising electronics
engineer to model systems, but not for circuit analysis. What about it,
Mijas?
7.6
ArcSimp is available from Mijas in a number of different versions at
prices that I regard as very good value for money.
7.6
Education/Hobby − Analogue  £35
7.6
Education/Hobby − Digital  £35
7.6
Education/Hobby − Analogue/digital  £55
7.6
Professional − Analogue  £85
7.6
Professional − Analogue/digital  £105
7.6
My view is that the Digital-only version is likely to be the least
useful, since the analogue version has many more functions which can be
used to simulate a vast range of physical phenomena. It is well worth
paying an extra £20 for the analogue/digital version. Furthermore, I
suspect that if you buy the Education/Hobby version and start using it
seriously, you will want to upgrade to the Professional version before
long.
7.6
Post Script
7.6
My experience whilst doing this review is that Mijas are very receptive
to suggestions and, if improvements are possible, they are made quickly.
For example, I sent a draft copy of this review to Mijas, and I was very
pleased to receive a copy of ArcSimp version 3.10 beta that implements
many of the suggestions I had made. As this review is long enough
already, I will not describe the changes here, except to say that my
major criticisms concerning the connection paths and the rotation of
function blocks have been addressed, and the merging of simulation
models is now possible. In the short time I have had to examine them, my
impression is that all the improvements appear to be very well thought
out, and greatly enhance ArcSimp. If Paul can spare the space in a
future issue, I would happily write a follow-up review to describe these
improvements, and maybe even write (or coordinate) an occasional series
describing the use of ArcSimp.  A
7.6
PCB Layout Software
7.6
Richard Torrens
7.6
I have already written (in Archive 7.4 p21) about circuit diagrams but
PCB layout is a different kettle of fish. Although there are obvious
ties (indeed a 1 to 1 correspondence) between a circuit diagram and the
actual copper layout, the latter is never confined merely to horizontal
and vertical lines. Diagonal lines are very common. Also, whereas a line
may be straight on paper, in copper it has to negotiate other
components, so it may twist and turn across the board. Vector would be
fine for small boards, but will get progressively more difficult to
handle as the complexity increases. I have not actually used Vector for
layout yet because of the complexity and because I have been happily
using LinTrack.
7.6
LinTrack is an example of a simple program, dedicated to a single job
and it does that job well although it is not much good at any other
jobs. LinTrack started life on the BBC, so it had to be simple.
Unfortunately, it did not develop and, because of the lack of major
maintenance, it now looks ‘long in the tooth’. I have an Archimedes
version, running as an application from the desktop, but it is single-
tasking. LinTrack was written for Linear Graphics who made pen plotters,
so naturally it outputs only to a pen plotter − a severe limitation.
Although I have a plotter, my problems with LinTrack started with RISC
OS 3.1: plotting is now effectively impossible because, for some reason,
there is a pause of perhaps ¼ second after every pass of the pen. This
increases the plotting times so that a plot which used to take 2 hours
can now take 6 hours. It is not practical to keep an ink pen unclogged
for this duration! I am now on the look out for another program to take
over.
7.6
As far as commercial board production is concerned, there is no problem
since Peter Ward of Linear Graphics supplied me with a program they had
written for the DOS version of LinTrack to generate a Gerber format
file. Gerber is the file format preferred by commercial photo-plotting
bureaux. I had to modify the program supplied by Linear Graphics, but
using it as a model and armed with a DOS PD program called GCPrevue, I
wrote a new Basic program to do the conversion. It works well.
7.6
GCPrevue is a DOS program for examining Gerber and HPGL files and it
works under the PC Emulator, albeit slowly.
7.6
Another reason why I have been slow in changing from LinTrack is that I
have a lot of data in LinTrack format so a prerequisite of a new program
is that I should be able to transfer LinTrack data across.
7.6
Design rules
7.6
This brings us neatly into the area of design rules. The more a computer
program has to do, the more rules it must have to do it. An auto-routing
designer will need many more rules than an elementary program. On the
other hand, if I am doing a computer-assisted design, I do not want the
computer to dictate to me. I am the designer and I resent the computer
programmer telling me what I can and cannot do or making decisions as to
what looks good and what does not. By all means have design preferences,
but I should be able to switch them off if I wish. A demo program which
tells me “you can’t do that” gets thrown away. Design rules are useful
to computers, computer programmers and beginners learning about PCB
layout. They are not useful to a skilled designer who knows when to
break them.
7.6
Here are a couple of common design rules: (1) “Tracks must be orthogonal
or diagonal (horizontal, vertical or 45°).” This is not true − tracks
can be at any angle I care to put them. They can also be round,
straight, areas or lines. All will work most of the time. It is a useful
rule, certainly for the less-skilled layout artists, to keep tracks
orthogonal since nothing looks worse than higgledy-piggledy tracks.
However, orthogonality is a rule for the computer’s benefit, not for the
user and it must be optional.
7.6
(2) “Tracks must start on a pad.” This is not true either − some designs
may look better is this if so, but some boards just can’t be made like
this. A lot of my design would not be possible with this rule, so the
software is a non-starter if I cannot turn this off.
7.6
There are many other design rules that a package may have but these are
only likely to become visible as the program gets used. My question is −
can I break the rules? Lintrack is a ‘manual’ package, virtually without
rules, so I can do what I want except that the program is simple so it
has few abilities. This means that, as well as not having rules to
break, I also have to work around the things it won’t do.
7.6
Output options
7.6
Any software must be able to interface to the real world. There are
essentially two occasions that output is required; one is for prototype
purposes when a life-size master is required for contact printing onto
photo-sensitive board and the second is for commercial production of
boards. I shall consider DIY boards first.
7.6
Pen plotter − Early programs often output to a pen plotter. A latex-
based black ink (Staedtler 747-TL9) is used in a tungsten-carbide tipped
plotter pen, plotting onto polyester film. This can give a good output
but may take many hours in plotting. The plotter has to be attended
whilst it is running as this ink clogs in the pen very quickly. The
software must be correctly written − too much time off the paper, not
plotting, causes clogging. Also, putting the pen down onto an already
plotted area can cause the ink to chip off, again clogging the pen.
Plotters are time-consuming and temperamental and, speaking as one who
has used a pen plotter for many years, are to be avoided.
7.6
Dot matrix printer − This is not a method I have ever used but a new
ribbon can give a good enough output onto printer paper. The trick is to
oil the paper after printing: the paper becomes translucent after oiling
and can be used for a 1:1 contact print.
7.6
Inkjet printers − The main trouble I suspect, is paper stretch as a PCB
is likely to use a lot of dense ink. Dense ink means wet, crinkly,
stretched paper. Paper is a poor medium because it changes size with
humidity. (Some inkjets can output onto acetate. Has anyone tried that
for PCB layout? Ed.)
7.6
Laser printer − This is much the best method nowadays. Lasers give a
dense, near-photographic quality print and are ideal. A laser will print
onto polyester film which is ideal. Lasers do tend to stretch some
printing media because of the heat involved in fusing the toner but this
is a small problem.
7.6
PostScript files on disc can be sent to a commercial bureau. This seems
to be the cheapest option. However, for highly accurate work, the PCB
photoplotting bureaux I have talked to (who cannot use PostScript yet)
claim that laser printing is not accurate enough for some of the work
they have to do.
7.6
Gerber files can be sent on disc to a photo-plotting bureau. Photo-
plotters are immensely accurate and this will give the finest quality of
finished artwork. There are not many Gerber file converters available
but I have one for LinTrack files and if anyone wants a copy, please
send me a disc.
7.6
HPGL files can also be sent to a photo-plotting bureau. Most photo-
plotters can accept HPGL input as easily as Gerber files. However, few
programs give an accurate HPGL file: the file that they give is almost
certainly designed for an ink plotter where the ink spreads. Send one of
these files to a plotter bureau and you are likely to get a photographic
master riddled with holes although it was perfectly acceptable on a pen
plotter. HPGL also takes a long time to plot, compared to a Gerber file
so is not liked.
7.6
The contenders
7.6
The programs I know about and hope to be looking at are: Draw, LinTrack,
OakPCB, ArcPCB, CadMust, Vector, an unpublished program by Mike Harrison
and RiscCAD.
7.6
To do a proper in-depth review of six or seven programs is virtually
impossible since it would require the reviewer to use the programs
fully. This is one of the problems with reviews: if the package is
sophisticated, the reviewer needs to review the package whilst learning
it so that he can give not only a beginner’s viewpoint but also that of
an experienced user. This is a tall order but is the direction I hope to
follow, though I am restricted by the fact that I need to produce
products to sell so my design work has to be productive.
7.6
LinTrack I know very well − perhaps too well as this will inevitably
lend a bias to my comments. OakPCB I have been using for six months.
ArcPCB I do not know very well so shall tend to omit it. CadMust has
just arrived on my desk, looking very glossy and exciting. Vector is not
a PCB layout program but it appears to be better than some of the
‘dedicated’ PCB layout programs. The offering by Mike Harrison is one
written for his own use, not for public consumption, which he has given
me. If I like it, maybe he can be convinced to release it for general
use. His objection is that it lacks documentation, is not RISC OS
compliant and, being written for his own use, has an individual and
idiosyncratic user interface. However, I don’t find this off-putting as
this is also a fault with some of the commercial competition. RiscCAD I
add as I have just found out that the author is an electronic designer,
very much into PCB layout.
7.6
LinTrack
7.6
LinTrack is a simple, manual style routing program based on the ‘pads &
tapes’ manual design methods. Anything you can do with pads and tapes,
you can do with LinTrack. The limitation is that it only has eight pad
sizes, six round (50, 75, 100, 125, 150 and 200mil) and two elongated
pads, 50×100mil and 75×150mil. It also has eight track widths: 15, 25,
50, 75, 10, 125, 150 and 200mil. All tracks are straight (as the file
format only specifies start point, end point and parameters such as
layer, width, etc.) The program is not Desktop compliant as it pre-dates
RISC OS. Layout and editing are all simple, mouse or keyboard controlled
and even a rank beginner will find it easy to use.
7.6
The problem with LinTrack, apart from the limitations of its simplicity,
are due to its output options which are “anything you want as long as
it’s a plotter”. There is now also an option to transport LinTrack files
to Vector, but more of this next month.
7.6
Draw
7.6
I include Draw in this list only because you all have it. You could use
Draw, but it would be very difficult to use for anything but the
simplest boards. I have already discussed Draw’s shortcomings but these
are not totally insuperable. OakPCB is a Draw-style program and so is
Vector. If I were writing a CAD program, I would not use Draw as a
standard. It is a drawing program, not a design program (or presumably
Acorn would have called it Design). However, Draw is free with the
computer which, if I were a programmer, would not make me think that it
is the standard I have to follow. Rather, I would see it as the standard
I have to surpass if I am to sell programs. Vector uses Draw as a
starting point and improves it a lot.
7.6
OakPCB
7.6
I purchased this as an upgrade from LinTrack. If it had been as good as
I required, I would not now be doing this series, for in writing this
series, I am really trying to find a satisfactory solution to my own
requirements. OakPCB is Draw-based and I have already detailed the
problems with such programs. Draw-type programs are fine for simple,
orthogonal files (without diagonals) but this does not include PCBs with
a lot of tracks.
7.6
I do not propose to go into details of OakPCB’s shortcomings. Rather I
would like to tell you the story of my dealings with Oak.
7.6
(At this point, I wave the editor’s magic delete button over Richard’s
extensive comments about his dealings with Oak Solutions − sorry,
Richard! I have been acting as ‘pig-in-the-middle’ and feel that an
airing of their disagreements would not really be of benefit to anyone.
Richard is convinced that OakPCB, without modification, is not going to
meet his needs and Oak Solutions are equally convinced that their
product could do the job if Richard were prepared to work in a different
way. They say they have a large number of satisfied users, so if you are
using OakPCB for ‘non-trivial’ PCB manufacture − say 25 components or
more − and could give us your view, do let us know. Ed.)
7.6
Enough said about Oak. I don’t intend to go into any detail unless
feedback indicates that this is what you want. Suffice it to say that I
am now busy transferring all my work out of OakPCB into Vector. Keep an
eye on the ‘for sale’ ads if you want a second hand copy of OakPCB!
7.6
(We have just received a brief review of OakPCB from Bevis Peters to
whom we sent the original review copy some time ago. I will publish it
below in the hope that Bevis’ views will contribute to the debate. Ed.)
7.6
ArcPCB
7.6
I have a copy of ArcPCB (1.4) which we bought several years ago. It
looked OK − but I saw no reason to change from LinTrack then. Any
comments I make will be based on an old version − which did not seem
fair to Silicon Vision. I therefore wrote to them as soon as I knew Paul
was going to publish my ramblings, pointing this out and asking them if
they would like me to mention their latest version.
7.6
They have not answered my letter but simply sent me a printed sheet
telling me how I could buy an upgrade to my existing version. Nor did
they answer the two telephone messages I left. However, Paul managed to
get a response from Dr Yunas Nadiadi, Silicon Vision’s MD, who wrote to
say that they were “not interested in releasing ArcPCB v5.1 for review
at this stage” − although he did not give any reason for his decision.
Dr Nadiadi knows that we would like to try his product and report to the
Archive readers, so I hope that he will soon feel able to release a copy
for review. (Or is there anyone out there using ArcPCB v5.1 who would
like to give us their comments? Ed.)
7.6
CADMust
7.6
I had a demo disc of this when it first came out but I could not get
into the program. Since then they have upgraded and enhanced it, so it
was with some excitement that I opened the impressive-looking package.
USArc have obviously put a lot of trouble into preparing CADMust. It is
full of facilities and probably has all the bells and whistles that
anyone can imagine or ever want.
7.6
I spent three days trying to get into and use the program but without
success. I’m only a poor electronic designer who’s been designing and
producing PCBs for 25 years and am now trying to run my own business and
produce simple analogue circuit boards which would have been relatively
easy (if time consuming) by means of tape and pad layout. I’m so
unsophisticated that I cannot find out how to use CADMust. I cannot even
find out whether I can put a pad on one layer only: the manual doesn’t
say. I’ve even tried placing a pad and printing it but all I get is a
blank sheet of paper.
7.6
Now this is really frustrating − I want to use this program. I need a
program, OakPCB is not for me. I want CADMust to work out. I’ve spoken
to Wouter Kolkman at Lindis (the UK agents) who has tried to be really
helpful. I’ve also spoken on previous occasions to USArc in the
Netherlands − they too are very helpful.
7.6
What I’m trying to do is not complicated, so surely any good program
should be able to do a simple double-sided board, without any through-
plating. Surely it must be simple to do a simple board? Even a
complicated program must allow you to do simple task, mustn’t it?
7.6
The manual is (probably) very comprehensive but I do not understand the
methods that CADMust uses for its work. I do not understand why I need
to do things the way they say, rather than the way I want and I don’t
understand the philosophy behind CADMust. I know that most users of
software want to use it without understanding anything about it but it
is surely true that someone who understands a tool (be it a screwdriver,
a computer or a software package) can use it better and be more
inventive with it than someone who does not understand it.
7.6
USArc’s manual is possibly good for someone who has been trained on a
similar package and has been a computer PCB designer for many years. But
is there a similar package anywhere? Are not skilled computer layout
artists already using their favourite package? USArc must attract new,
inexperienced learners to their software by making is easy to use and
making the manual easy to read.
7.6
Vector
7.6
I have now taken the plunge and purchased a copy of Vector. It does the
job of PCB design (for which it was never intended) so well that next
month’s column is devoted to Vector for PCB work. One measure of a good
program could be how well it does a job for which it was not
designed...  A
7.6
Relational Database Design − Part 2
7.6
Keith Underdown
7.6
Last month, I began the development of a Data Model to describe a
relational database holding names and addresses. We concluded that there
are at least three entities that we need to use to describe all the
information that we hold in an Address Book. The Entity-Relationship
Diagram that I used to describe that model is shown below:
7.6
The conventions used in this diagram are repeated in the box at the end
of the article for new readers.
7.6
In this article, I want to look at List in more detail in order to see
how to resolve the “many-to-many” relationships that it has with Person
and Household.
7.6
What is a List?
7.6
We need two many-to-many relationships to describe what we want to do −
to allow a Person or Household to be involved in more than one List and
a List to involve more than one Person or Household. How can we
eliminate these complications and thus eliminate the arbitrary
restrictions that we would otherwise have to have? For the moment, I
will look only at the relationship between Household and List. The
relationship between Person and List − and any other many-to-many
relationship − can be resolved in the same way.
7.6
What is a List − what does it consist of? It is fairly easy to see that
a List has Members. We can say that:
7.6
“A Household may be a Member of none, one or many Lists.” and “A List
has many Members.”
7.6
This can be modelled as in the next diagram:
7.6
This can be read as:
7.6
A List has none or many List Members
7.6
A List Member belongs to one and only one List
7.6
A List Member refers to one and only one Household
7.6
A Household may be none or many List Members
7.6
There is now no restriction on the number of Lists in which a Household
can be included and no restriction on the number of Lists we can create
(apart from the size of our disc). We need to say that a List can have
no members because, obviously, we need to be able to create a List
before we can put any members in it. On the other hand, both the
relevant List and Household must exist before we can create a List
Member.
7.6
Resolving many-to-many relationships
7.6
This is a general technique for resolving many-to-many relationships.
Break the relationship and put a new entity between the original pair.
Then put a zero-to-many crowsfoot at the new entity end of the
relationship and a one-to-one or zero-to-one crowsfoot at the ends next
to the two original entities, depending on the optionality of the many-
to-many relationship. It is sometimes difficult to work out what the new
box actually represents but it should always be possible. There will be
more examples as we go along.
7.6
Applying this technique to both kinds of List we can refine of our model
still further, although we still have not got to the stage when we can
implement our database. Our Entity-Relationship Diagram now looks like
this:
7.6
We now need to consider what information we need to hold in each entity
− to define its attributes. In database terms, we must decide what
fields we need to have in each table and how we should hold the data.
7.6
Let us take List first of all. It is easy to deal with and will cover an
absolutely essential point that will apply to all other entities.
7.6
What do we need to know about a list? Simply, what it is for − so we
need a description. Thus we need:
7.6
List Attributes:
7.6
List Description: A free format description of what the list is to be
used for.
7.6
  Field Type: String.
7.6
In order to go any further, we need to understand how we use fields in
tables to indicate that there is a relationship between them.
7.6
Unique identifier
7.6
The answer lies in something that I have not seen discussed in any
article in the Archimedes press and that is not covered adequately in
the SQuirreL manual. It is this:
7.6
Every Entity must have a field which uniquely identifies every instance
of the entity.
7.6
In other words, every entity must have an attribute that can be used to
differentiate between the various members of the population. If we turn
to Household for a moment, it should be obvious that we will need a
Surname field. However, it will not be unique. My address book has three
Underdown Households in it. In order to avoid ambiguity, we need
something to act as the “Unique Identifier” or “Primary Key”. Sometimes
there is an attribute that naturally fulfils this purpose but more often
than not, an arbitrary key needs to be assigned. It must be determined
when an entry is created and never changed during the lifetime of the
entity.
7.6
If we were building a database of elements then a natural key would be
Atomic Number (12 => Carbon) or Chemical Symbol (C => Carbon). Sorting
on Atomic Number is important and Primary Keys are often the primary
index into the table so that would be the one to use here. What are we
going to use for our Lists and Households?
7.6
The answer is that we need to invent an arbitrary identifier that is
guaranteed to be unique. Here we come to the two features of the recent
upgrade to SQuirreL that make it worth getting. It introduces the
ability to label a field as unique − it will not save a record if the
value of such afield already occurs in another entry. Secondly, it
offers the ability to generate a default value that is one more than the
current highest in the table (Serial). I was not going to bother
upgrading until I read in Digital Services’ literature that these
facilities would become available. None of the articles about the
release in the press thought this important enough to mention! Even
Digital Services themselves say only that it is useful for counting the
records in a table! It is central to implementing a truly relational
database.
7.6
Every table must have at least one field that is unique. A suitable way
of generating this in SQuirreL is to use the Default Serial trick. Note
that if you import records from another package, perhaps using CSV, then
you must ensure that the Unique Identifier is supplied. SQuirreL does
not supply the default in this case.
7.6
List thus becomes:
7.6
List Identifier: A arbitrary identifier.
7.6
  Field Type: Integer (serial, unique).
7.6
List Description:   A free format description of what the list is to be
used for.
7.6
  Field Type: String.
7.6
SQuirreL (and other Archimedes databases) has an advantage over
mainframe databases in its ability to handle complex objects like
application files and variable length text fields. List Description here
could be a variable length string.
7.6
There is another attribute required by List in order to be able to
distinguish between Person-based lists and Household-based lists. This
is List Type − in this case it could be a Boolean field but that might
turn out to be restrictive, so integer or string would be better.
Another alternative would be to use a list of allowed values in
SQuirreL’s validation dialogue. We have, in fact, identified another
entity − List Type − that we use to decide what kind of List we are
dealing with. This is an instance of a special kind of entity called a
classifying entity. Its relationship with List is as follows:
7.6
In this case, we would be justified in using a validation list with just
two values because a new value would imply a change to our Data Model.
This would automatically require other changes to the database
structures and so could not be done by our users. A single character
string taking the values “P” and “H” would be better than an integer as
its meaning would be more obvious. There will not be a table in our
database corresponding to this entity, it is implied by the validation
rules.
7.6
We have fully defined List. It has three attributes: List Identifier,
List Type and List Description. The order is not particularly important
but it is conventional to put the Unique Identifier and references to
classifying entities first.
7.6
We will take Household List Member next as it will help us to understand
how we implement a relationship. (Incidentally, a relational database is
so-called, not because it contains relationships, but because tables are
an implementation of a mathematical concept called a “relation”.)
7.6
I will refer to the entity as List Member for the moment, to stand for
both types.
7.6
What does the entity do for us? It tells us that Household (or Person )
X is a member of List Y so it must contain a reference to both a
Household or Person instance and a List instance.
7.6
Foreign keys
7.6
The only reliable way to refer to a given instance of any entity is to
use its unique identifier. This suggests that List Member will have two
attributes: one for each relationship involving it. This is a general
rule: where an entity is involved in a 1(or 0)-to-many relationship at
the “many” end, it will have an attribute holding the unique identifier
of the entity at the other end of the relationship. This type of field
is known as a foreign key.
7.6
List Member thus becomes:
7.6
List Identifier: The identifier of the List to which the member belongs.
7.6
  Field Type: Integer (the same as the List Identifier in List).
However, this time it must be neither unique nor serial. If it were
unique, every List could only have one member and serial is not a
sensible default. I have not investigated SQuirreL’s ability to default
to a system variable but this could be a useful technique. Setting the
variable to the appropriate value would give a default that identified
the list you were setting up.
7.6
Member Identifier: The identifier of the Household or Person that is a
member of the List implied by List Identifier. Whether a Household or
Person is meant is implied by the List Type of List. This means that
Person List Members and Household List Members could both be held in the
same table but only if the two unique identifier fields have the same
type. Because this would probably complicate its use in queries and
reports, I would recommend that we keep them separate. Again, this field
is not unique as this would constrain each Person or Household to be a
member of only one List.
7.6
Compound keys
7.6
We have defined List Member but we seem to have broken our cardinal rule
− it has no unique field to act as its unique identifier. The answer to
this is that the combination of List Identifier and Member Identifier
will be unique. A Household can only be a member of a given List once.
In this case, we have to regard both fields as giving the unique
identifier. The entity is said to have a compound key formed from these
two attributes. SQuirreL does not allow us to specify this but that will
not prevent us from using it.
7.6
Summary
7.6
We have now explored and, I hope, understood the key concept in a
relational database − the way in which relationships are implemented. On
the way, we have discovered two important rules: how to resolve a many-
to-many relationship and how to avoid ambiguity between similar entries
in a table by ensuring that every table has a field that acts as a
Unique Identifier.
7.6
We have fully defined five of our entities but we have not yet defined
the two most obvious − Person and Household. We will define them next
time. More entities will appear as we delve deeper! Although an Address
Book looks like a simple example, it is not. This should not surprise us
as we are trying to develop hard and fast rules to handle ideas that
have grown up over the centuries.
7.6
Our Entity-Relationship Diagram now looks as shown on the previous page.
7.6
I would glad to hear from anybody who has any comments on these articles
and the general subject of database design. My address is: 619 Liverpool
Rd., Ainsdale, Southport, PR8 3NG.  A
7.6
Data Modelling Definitions & Conventions
7.6
Entity: an object of interest to the problem under discussion.
Represented by a rectangle in an Entity-Relationship Diagram. Equates to
a table in a database.
7.6
Attribute: a property of an entity. Equates to a field in a table.
7.6
Relationship: a way in which entities are connected together that helps
us to understand the problem more clearly. Represented by a line
terminated at each end by a “crowsfoot” that indicates whether the
relationship is mandatory or not (optionality) and how many instances of
the entity at that end will be involved in the relationship
(cardinality).
7.6
The inner symbol indicates the optionality: a bar indicates that every
instance of the entity will be involved in the relationship at least
once and a circle indicates that the entity can exist without being
involved in the relationship. The outer symbol indicates the cardinality
− a bar indicates that the entity will be involved in, at most, one such
relationship and a trident indicates that it may be involved in an
indeterminate number.
7.6
Computer Concepts
7.6
From 7.5 page 16
7.6
Colton
7.6
From 7.5 page 10
7.6