Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/magazine/volume_07/issue_12

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 262KB | 5,286 lines

Customer Service Survey
7.12
As part of our continuing efforts to improve and develop the services we
give you, we are asking if you will help us by taking part in another
Customer Service Survey. I would be most grateful if you could spend a
short while completing the enclosed questionnaire about Norwich Computer
Services and Archive. (Even if you do not intend re-subscribing to
Archive, we would value your response to the questionnaire.)
7.12
I hope that those of you who responded to our survey last year, will
feel that you have benefited from the changes/improvements made as a
result of the questionnaire comments. We appreciate your support −
thanks, in anticipation, for your contribution! Certainly, if the growth
in subscription is anything to go by, Archive is more appreciated now
than it was this time last year.
7.12
Happy reading!
7.12
Products Available
7.12
•  Archive mousemats − We are having some top quality Archive mousemats
made for us. They will have antistatic plastic tops with non-slip rubber
base − none of your flimsy cloth-top mousemats these! The rather
tasteful design features the Archive logo and the Norwich Computer
Services logo and the cost is £5 each including p&p.
7.12
(These shouldn’t really be in Products Available because they aren’t
going to be ready until the end of September. Still, you can place your
orders with confidence − they aren’t vapourware. Paul Beverley, MD of
Norwich Computer Services, assured our Archive reporter, “The software
is virtually finished − just one or two bugs to be ironed out − we have
to make sure, of course, that there are no viruses on it. Also, we’re
waiting for the manuals to be printed.”)
7.12
•  Archive PD discs − It was in July 1988 (yes, six years ago!) that
Archive launched its first disc of PD software. At that stage, the PD
discs were a first in the Archimedes world and we feel they performed a
very useful function in the early days of Archimedes computers and
software. However, we have reached a point where Archive PD, by and
large, has outlived its usefulness.
7.12
We have decided to transfer all our PD material over to APDL (address in
Factfile). So if you want any of the programs and applications we have
published in the past, please contact APDL. However, there are a number
of programs that are still very popular and things like the Archive data
for the Arcscan database are being maintained as a set of Archive PD
discs. (We are dropping the Shareware and Careware names altogether.)
The discs still available at £2 each are:
7.12
•  Archive Utils 1 − (was Careware 18) − VIDC enhancer software (2
versions), iconbar mode number display, modes for Sony CPD-1402, modes
for Acorn AKF18, various modes and modules for NEC 3D, mode creation and
editing for pre-A5000s with AKF18.
7.12
•  Archive Utils 2 − (was Careware 19) − !CGM −>Draw, !Draw−>CGM,
!Draw−>EPS, !AiEps −>Draw !Draw−>Meta, !DXF−>CGM, !Translator, !Creator
(sprites to GIF, TIFF, AIM, PBM), utility to output drawfiles on
SketchMate A4 plotter.
7.12
•  Archive Utils 3 − (was Shareware 7) − Disc database of Archive
magazine plus ArcScan data files for Archive magazine.
7.12
•  Archive Utils 4 − (was Shareware 51) − JPEG utilities 1 − !ChangeFSI,
version 0.90a; !FYEO, 1.02; !Jewel, 0.04; !JFIF, 26th June 1993;
!JPEGinst to install !JPEGit, 1.11A, i.e. the PD version; !JView, 0.07;
djpeg (Keith Sloan’s implementation), 18 Nov 1991; JPEG-FAQ − a text
file pulled off Usenet and headed “JPEG image compression: Frequently
Asked Questions”.
7.12
•  Archive Utils 5 − (was Shareware 52) − JPEG utilities 2 − !FYEO2 (see
June JPEG column) sample NASA images plus a ‘thumbnails’ file with
postage stamp-sized previews of the other available files.
7.12
•  Archive Utils 6 − Hard drive utilities including SyQuest 105Mb fix
for A5000/Risc PC.
7.12
•  Archive Utils 7 − Acorn’s new printer drivers !Printers 1.22.
7.12
•  Barcode generator − Kang Software have produced a RISC OS application
that generates drawfiles of barcodes in a variety of formats: EAN-13,
EAN-8, ISSN, ISBN and BIC. Within these formats, there is also a variety
of other options. The software costs £85 (no VAT) which compares very
favourably with PC equivalents costing of the order of £150 +VAT.
7.12
•  Betsi − Another winner from 4Mation. This time it is a historical
adventure aimed at 7 − 12 year-olds studying the Tudor period. Betsi is
a dog who, having been evicted from the royal hunting kennels for being
too soft, is looking for someone to provide her with a comfortable home
where she will be loved. During her travels, she meets all manner of
folk from different backgrounds, sees the interiors of various
buildings, hears some of the things that people were concerned about at
that time, and welcomes opportunities to be a good citizen.
7.12
Betsi costs £34.50 +VAT (or £38 through Archive). A site licence costs
£69 +VAT (or £75 through Archive).
7.12
•  CC takes over − Computer Concepts have taken over distribution of all
Wild Vision products so that WV can concentrate on development work. One
effect of this is a reduction in the discount given to dealers. This has
had to be reflected in a reduction in Archive members’ discounts on WV
products.
7.12
•  Celtic clipart 2 − Glyn Howells has produced a second disc of celtic
clipart including borders, panels, chains, crosses and motifs. As with
disc 1, this costs £10.99 inclusive, or you can get both of them
together for £18.99. (There is no VAT as Glyn is not VAT registered.)
They are available from: Glyn Howells, Sicar Uchaf, Brongest, C N Emlyn,
Dyfed, SA38 9ET.
7.12
•  Flashback − We gave details of US Gold’s new game last month (page 4)
but forgot to tell you the price. Flashback costs £27.99 or £26 through
Archive. (See the review on page 27.)
7.12
•  Goldilocks − This is a Genesis application from Oak Solutions
“designed to introduce young children to IT skills through a
professionally produced audio CD and high quality visual interpretation
of the traditional fairy tale.” While the child is using the program,
its use of the various options is recorded so that the teacher can see
how the child is progressing. Goldilocks comes on floppy discs with an
audio CD and a pack of photocopiable resources and costs £40 +VAT from
Oak Solutions or £44 through Archive.
7.12
•  Impression manual extras − If you are an Impression user who makes
frequent use of the manual, H B Humpidge has just the thing for you! The
pack includes a quick reference guide with keyboard shortcuts (arranged
by function), a printed keystrip, a set of divider cards for the manual,
some self-adhesive binder strips, about 50 sheets of paper to put your
own notes in the manual, two thick card ends to help preserve the
integrity of the manual and a pack of ring reinforcements for those
pages that get over-used and fall out − he seems to have thought of
everything! This comes in three forms: Impression II £6, Impression
Publisher £7.50 and a special version for those who have upgraded from
Impression II to Publisher £6. These are all available from H B
Humpidge, 2A Kingsley Park Grove, Sheffield, S11 9HL. If you just want
the quick reference guide and the keystrip, they are available for
£1.50.
7.12
•  I/O card alternative − Risc PC owners, in particular, will be pleased
to hear that there is now an alternative to Acorn’s dual-width I/O card
in single-width format. Paul Fray Ltd have produced a card which
provides all the functionality of the Acorn card, except the Midi add-
on. So it provides user port, analogue port and 1MHz bus. Advantages of
this newer card, apart from it taking up only one slot, are that it has
an improved interface that makes it work more reliably with faster
systems and it has a socket to take a user-programmed EPROM (128Kb × 8).
These cards are available from Paul Fray Ltd for £129 +VAT or £144
through Archive.
7.12
•  Izzy & Lizzy in The Playground − Topologika have released a version
of their popular Freddy Teddy title, ‘The Playground’. The idea is that
it allows the program to be used with older children as Izzy and Lizzy
are trendy young children (Izzy looks to me as if he’s wearing ‘Cats’!)
as opposed to the teddy bear which appeals to younger children. If you
already have The Playground, you can obtain Izzy and Lizzy from
Topologika by sending them £10 +VAT + £1 p&p (£12.75) and quoting the
serial number of your copy of The Playground. Otherwise, you can buy The
Playground in a combined format for £25 +VAT + £2.50 p&p (£31.88) from
Topologika or £29 through Archive.
7.12
•  JPEG Disc number 2 − I said in the JPEG Column last month that the
new JPEG Shareware disc was number 51. Actually, that was the number of
the first JPEG Shareware disc the new one is, yes, you’ve guessed it,
number 52! It contains FYEO2 (as mentioned in the June JPEG column, p19)
plus some of the best of the NASA images sent in by Philip Draper plus
added a ‘thumbnails’ file with postage stamp-sized previews of Philip’s
other files. (Actually, we have just scrapped the Archive Shareware
discs, so this has become Archive Utils disc 5.)
7.12
•  MacFS − MacFS is a filing system for RISC OS 3.1 or later which will
read and write Mac SuperDrive (1.44Mb) floppies, external hard discs,
magneto-opticals and SyQuests. It costs £99 +VAT from Computer Concepts
or £108 through Archive.
7.12
•  PD on CD-ROM − The Datafile have produced a CD-ROM containing 265 Mb
of PD, freeware and shareware material, clipart, games, utilities,
music, graphics, magazines, games demos, languages, !Earthmap,
Gutenburg, classic demos and educational software. PD-CD costs £30
inclusive from The Datafile or £28 through Archive.
7.12
•  Professional full-colour scanning service − We mentioned last month
that T-J Reproductions were providing a full Acorn disc-to-print bureau
facility and now have full-colour drum-scanning facilities.
Unfortunately, we quoted their fax number instead of their phone number.
The corrected version is (hopefully!) in the Factfile at the back of the
magazine.
7.12
Because of the huge files produced by these high resolution colour
scans, T-J are looking into offering a file replacement service. What
they would do would be to scan the image at low resolution (and send you
a copy) as well as at high resolution (which they would store for later
use). You could then prepare your document with the low-res image, send
it to T-J who would then substitute the hi-res image. This is similar to
OPI except that OPI will only work with Impression Publisher whereas
this service would be available to users of Style as well. If you are
interested, get in touch with T-J and tell them to what extent you might
use the service. That will help them to gauge whether it is going to be
worth the setting-up costs.
7.12
•  Scanlight Professional − CC have dropped the price of their greyscale
A4 flatbed scanner to £499 +VAT. However, they are not giving any dealer
discount anymore so they will no longer be available through NCS.
7.12
•  Supersound expansion system − In Archive 7.7 p39, David Lenthal gave
details of Audio Dynamics’ 16-bit digital audio SuperSound Expansion
System. The SSES1600 provides 128 instruments + 49 percussion sounds,
Midi in, out and thru, and software which plays Midi files and sample
files. The board also has line output on two phono sockets and a 3.5mm
stereo socket plus headphone output on ¼“ jack socket. SSES1600 costs
£299 +VAT from Audio Dynamics or £335 inclusive through Archive.
7.12
•  “Technology for Secondary Mathematics” − There will be a day
conference for maths teachers at Oundle School, Peterborough on Monday
3rd October 1994. It will cover Macs and PCs as well as Acorns but it is
presented “in association with Acorn Computers Ltd and Mathematics in
Education and Industry”. Details from Douglas Butler, Head of
Mathematics, Oundle School, Oundle, Peterborough, PE8 4EN (0832-273444).
7.12
•  The Acorn Companion, written by Geoff Love, is a guide to using Acorn
computers and software. It is aimed at “the average classroom teacher or
non-specialist IT coordinator who needs to know enough to use the
computer, solve any problems they encounter and keep things running
smoothly but doesn’t want to spend every waking hour pawing through
jargon-filled manuals.” It costs £9 inclusive from NW SEMERC.
7.12
•  The Time Machine − The latest desktop adventure game from Gordon Key
is The Time Machine. This is a game for all Acorn machines with 2Mb or
more, has five discs, 3Mb+ of sprites, 80 sampled sounds plus music. It
seems to be a sequel to Haunted House. At least, you are the same
employee of Acorn Antiques but the action starts as you leave the shop
to break out of the boredom, go for a long walk, decide you need a leak
and espy a blue portaloo in the distance... The Time Machine costs
£25.95 from 4th Dimension or £24 through Archive.
7.12
•  Tiles French Supplement − Brain Games have released a supplement to
their Tiles program which gives 223 French crosswords to play on their
Tiles package. The supplement requires Tiles version 3.29 or later.
Tiles and the French Tiles Supplement each cost £19.75 (no VAT) to which
you add £4.50 per machine for site licences for each package.
7.12
Review software received...
7.12
We have received review copies of the following: •Barcode (b/u),
•Beethoven Browser Egmont (e), •Goldilocks (e), •MouseTrap (u), •The
Time Machine (g), •Tiles + French Supplement (e).
7.12
e=Education, b=Business, bk=Book, g=Game, h=Hardware, l=Language,
u=Utility, a=Art.
7.12
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.  A
7.12
Government Health Warning − Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health.
7.12
Last month I mentioned the Alpha courses which are being run at churches
all over the UK. Here are some comments from people who have been on the
courses...
7.12
Lee Duckett is a Mercury Telecoms engineer who went to do a job at Holy
Trinity Brompton (the church where the Alpha courses first started). He
began chatting to the girl on the reception desk, who suggested he might
like to try Alpha.
7.12
He came to the first night and said later, “I couldn’t believe it. It
wasn’t at all what I expected. All the people looked normal. I thought
they would be people who would speak funnily, wearing pairs of glasses
with little bandages on − anorak jobs, and stamp collectors.”
7.12
Lee was impressed by the leader of his discussion group. “I thought,
‘He’s got what I’m missing. He’s got something − something I want.’”
During the course, he gave his life to Jesus Christ and he said later:
“My life has completely changed. I now look at this world through
different eyes. I feel love for everyone and an inner peace that I never
imagined could exist.”
7.12
Bruce Streather is a London solicitor whose wife, Geraldine, had been a
Christian for 10 years when he went to an Alpha supper party. (These are
held at the end of every course as an opportunity for participants to
invite their friends to hear a light-hearted talk on the subject
“Christianity: Boring, Untrue and Irrelevant?”) He got talking to Nicky
Gumbel who gave the talk and agreed to go on the next Alpha course.
7.12
“The more I did the course, the better I enjoyed it,” he said. “I was
struck by all the evidence, but I wasn’t really convinced. I thought at
least it was making sense and I could understand why people actually
believed it.”
7.12
At the seventh talk on ‘How can I resist evil?’, he became struck by a
thought which would not go away. “I suddenly thought,” he said, “that if
there is an evil influence about, is it the biggest step in the world to
believe that there is a good spiritual influence? That means there is a
God... and Jesus... and Christianity... and the penny dropped.”
7.12
Soon after that, he said a prayer in bed at night: “I confessed what I’d
done wrong, I repented of it and turned away from it and I asked Jesus
to come into my life.”
7.12
Hundreds of people all over the country are going on Alpha courses and
having similar experiences. It’s wonderful to see the sense of relief
and excitement on people’s faces when they have had a real encounter
with the Living God. People go on one course and then bring their
friends on the next... and they bring their friends... It’s no wonder
these courses are spreading like wild fire!
7.12
For more information about Alpha, or to see if there is one in your
area, ring HTB on 071-581-8255 or the Alpha Helpline on 0603-765073.
7.12
(If you  have been touched by God in a new way through an Alpha course,
do write and let us know.)
7.12
Paul Beverley
7.12
P.B.
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Fact-File
7.12
(The numbers in italic are fax numbers)
7.12
4th Dimension    P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742-700661) (0742-781091)
7.12
4Mation    14 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32
8PA. (0271-25353) (0271-22974)
7.12
Abacus Training    29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2
6QA.
7.12
Acorn Computers Ltd    Acorn House, Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge, CB4
4AE.
7.12
  (0223-254254) (0223-254262)
7.12
APDL    39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London, SE26 5RN.
7.12
Apricote Studios (p11)   2 Purls Bridge Farm, Manea, Cambridgeshire,
PE15 0ND.
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  (0354-680432)
7.12
Arnor Ltd    611 Lincoln Road, Peterborough, PE1 3HA. (0733-68909)
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  (0733-67299)
7.12
Audio Dynamics    10 Durnford Close, Norden, Rochdale OL12 7RX. (0706-
868803) (0706-868803)
7.12
Brain Games    Swinegate, Hessle, North Humberside, HU13 9LH. (0482-
649288) (0482-641136)
7.12
Colton Software (p24)   2 Signet Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge, CB5 8LA.
(0223-311881) (0223-312010)
7.12
Computer Concepts (pp32/36)   Gaddesden Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts,
HP2 6EX. (0442-63933) (0442-231632)
7.12
Dabs Press   22 Warwick Street, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 7HN. (061-
773-8632) (061-773-8290)
7.12
Dalriada Data Technology (p35)  145 Albion Street, Kenilworth,
Warkwickshire, CV8 2FY. (0926-53901)
7.12
Datafile   71 Anson Road, Locking, Weston-super-Mare, Avon, BS24 7DQ.
(0934-823005)
7.12
Eastmond Publishing   33 West Street, Oundle, Peterborough, PE8 4EJ.
7.12
ESM   Duke Street, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, PE13 2AE. (0945-63441)
7.12
Gremlin Graphics Ltd   Carver House, 2-4 Carver Street, Sheffield, S1
4FS. (0742-753423) (0742-768581)
7.12
Hodge Electronic Services    16 Mold Road, Mynydd Isa, Clwyd, CH7 6TD.
(0352-755331)
7.12
Humpidge (p9)  2A Kingsley Park Grove, Sheffield S11 9HL.
7.12
Kang Software    Location Works, 1 Charlotte Street, London W1P 1HD.
(071-637-7766) (071-637-2727)
7.12
LOOKsystems (pp12/23/40/41)  47 Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, Norwich, NR5
9AY. (0603-748253) (0603-740203)
7.12
Mijas Software (p20)   Winchester Road, Micheldever, Winchester, SO21
3DJ. (0962-774352)
7.12
Northwest SEMERC   Fitton Hill CDC, Rosary Road, Oldham, OL8 2QE. (061-
627-4469)
7.12
Oak Solutions (p31)   Dial House, 12 Chapel Street, Halton, Leeds, LS15
7RN (0532-326992) (0532-326993)
7.12
Paul Fray Ltd    4 Flint Lane, Ely Road, Waterbeach, Cambridge CB5 9QZ.
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  (0223-441134) (0223-441017)
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Quantum Software (p7)  35 Pinewood Park, Deans, Livingston, EH54 8NN.
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  (0506-411162 after 6)
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Silicon Vision Ltd   Signal House, Lyon Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA1
2AG.
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  (081-422-3556) (081-427-5169)
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Simon Glass Software (p20)   P.O.Box 834, Landbeach, Cambridge, CB4 4DG.
7.12
Stallion Software Ltd (p8)  Arundel House, Arundel Road, Camden, Bath,
BA1 5JX. (0225-339090)
7.12
T-J Reproductions    Unit D, Canada House, Blackburn Road, West
Hampstead, London NW6 1RZ. (071-372-4430) (071-372-0515)
7.12
Topologika    Islington Wharf, Church Hill, Penryn, Falmouth, Cornwall,
TR10 8AT. (0326-377771) (0326-377771)
7.12
Utopia Software (p39)   92 Queenhythe Road, Jacobs Well, Guildford, GU4
7NX.
7.12
Archive Monthly Program Disc Contents
7.12
•  Thumbnail creation − Quantum Software have provided a copy of
Executor (the playback-only version of Keystroke) which has the ability
to produce, from a directory of JPEG or TIFF* files, a multi-sprite file
− in effect, making a !Paint ‘thumbnail’ file.
7.12
•  Risc PC compatibility list from Keith Hodge.
7.12
•  Risc PC palette restorer and mode selection (see H & T page 42).
7.12
•  Drawfile rendering program from Hugh Eagle’s article on page 71.
7.12
•  Files from Gerald Fitton’s PipelineZ article.
7.12
Special Offers on Archive Subscriptions
7.12
This is the final issue of the 7th volume of Archive magazine and a
large proportion of our members are due to renew their subscription this
month so we’re running some special promotions this month:
7.12
• Free Archive Mousemat (worth £5) − All those who renew their
subscriptions before 30th September 1994 will receive one of our new
high-specification mousemat − see page 2 for details. This offer is
available to anyone, regardless of when your renewal date is.
7.12
(N.B. We will not actually be sending out the free mouse mats until
after 30th September. This will enable us to get the right number of
mats printed once we see what the take-up is for the offer.)
7.12
• Renew early and save £3 − We’ve held the price of the magazine at £19
for the last two years and will continue to do so until the end of 1994.
So this is advance warning that, from issue 8.4 onwards, the new Archive
price will be £22 a year. If you would like to beat the price increase
and renew in advance, regardless of when your subscription expires, you
should send in your renewal before the end of the year. Renewals
received after 1st January 1995 will be at the new price of £22.
7.12
• £10 voucher for any Archive member who gets a friend or colleague to
subscribe to Archive. See the special order form on the back of this
month’s Price List for details.
7.12
Christmas Card Competition
7.12
Acorn Computers are running a Christmas card design competition and the
prize is... a Risc PC ! The theme is “A World of Opportunities” and your
job is to design a card using that theme. All entries must be original
work and should be produced using an Acorn computer and submitted as a
Drawfile plus an A4 hard copy. Entries have to be in by 10th October
1994 so that Acorn can judge the best one and get it printed to use for
their corporate card for Christmas 1994.
7.12
The terms and conditions are as follows:
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1)  All entries must be received by second post 10th October 1994.
7.12
2)  The prize will be an Acorn Risc PC 600 2Mb HD210.
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3)  The winning entry will be chosen on 24th October 1994 at Acorn
House.
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4)  The prize winner will be announced at Acorn World 94 (October 28th-
30th 1994).
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5)  Photographs and other promotional material may be requested of the
prize winner.
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6)  All designs must be original.
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7)  Only one entry per person or per group.
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8)  Designs cannot be returned.
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9)  The competition is open to all UK residents, except employees and
contractors of Acorn Computer Group plc, ARM Ltd and their subsidiaries,
agents, dealers or anyone connected with the competition.
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10)  Entries must be submitted in Drawfile format and A4 hard copy.
7.12
11)  Acorn Computer Group plc and its subsidiaries shall have the right
to reproduce all designs for future use and applicants shall, if
requested, sign an appropriate for of authorization.
7.12
Keystroke − Archive Special Offer
7.12
Stuart Halliday of Quantum Software is doing a special offer on
Keystroke for Archive subscribers. The normal price is £29.95 but he is
prepared to offer it at £19 (through Archive) for a period of two
months. This is the latest version of Keystoke as detailed in last
month’s magazine on page 19, i.e. Keystroke 3, not an earlier version.
The offer lasts until the November issue of Archive is sent out from
NCS. To take advantage of this offer, just send in your order in the
normal way but simply do so at £19 instead of £29.95.
7.12
There is also a site licence version which is normally £90. This is
available for the offer period at £70 through Archive.
7.12
(Keystroke is one of those applications which you don’t know you need
until try it out. Then, once you start using it, you see more and more
ways in which you can use it to increase your keyboard productivity.
What I will say is that, if you buy Keystroke to enhance your keyboard
productivity and you really feel it does not do so, write to me
explaining why, send back your copy and we’ll refund your money. Ed.)
7.12
Personal Accounts − Archive Special Offer
7.12
Following the excellent review which Mick Burrell gave Personal Accounts
last month (page 65) we have arranged a special deal with Apricote
Studios for Archive subscribers only. The full price is £49.95 and the
special Archive price is £35. The only difference is that, to save
costs, it will not come in a presentation case − which is only designed
to make it look pretty on the saleroom counter. The offer lasts for two
months, i.e. until the November issue of Archive is sent out from NCS.
To take advantage of this offer, just send in your order for Personal
Accounts to NCS in the normal way but simply do so at £35 instead of
£49.95.
7.12
In his conclusion, Mick Burrell said, “This is a program which has
‘developed’ through use into an excellent bank account control system.
If you tried to find a home or club banking program which was either
more capable or easier to use, I doubt you would succeed on either
count.”
7.12
Quantum
7.12
New
7.12
Stallion
7.12
New
7.12
Advanced Basic Column
7.12
Paul Hobbs
7.12
Moving memory blocks
7.12
It is quite often useful to be able to move blocks of memory from one
location to another, for example when inserting or deleting characters
from the buffer of a text editor. At first glance, RISC OS appears not
to have a call to achieve this, although it must be a technique that is
needed by RISC OS itself. This apparent lack has probably resulted in
countless hours of coding by third parties...
7.12
In fact, RISC OS provides the SWI Wimp_TransferBlock which is normally
used as part of the RAM data transfer protocol to move blocks of memory
from the workspace of one application to another. What the PRMs don’t
tell you is that the source and destination task handles can be the same
which means you can use it to move memory in the current task’s
workspace. In addition, the memory block to move does not have to lie on
a word boundary (i.e. it is byte-aligned) and the source and destination
blocks can overlap.
7.12
Disadvantages? It can only be used in a wimp program (because a task
handle is required) and it is probably a little slower than a word-
aligned memory moving routine although much faster than the usual FOR
... NEXT loop.
7.12
The documentation for the call is as follows:
7.12
    r0  Handle of source task
7.12
    r1   Pointer to source data
7.12
    r2   Handle of destination task
7.12
    r3   Pointer to destination buffer
7.12
    r4   Length of buffer (number of bytes to move)
7.12
Assuming the task handle is mytask% and the buffer is 256 bytes long and
at location loc%, the following code will remove n% bytes at offset
pos%:
7.12
SYS “Wimp_TransferBlock”,mytask%,loc%+ pos%+n%,mytask%,loc%+pos%,256-
pos%
7.12
and to insert n% bytes at offset pos%:
7.12
SYS “Wimp_TransferBlock”,mytask%,loc%+ pos%,mytask%,loc%+pos%+n%,256-
pos%
7.12
You must be very careful to ensure that the buffer is large enough to
contain all the data after the memory move as otherwise Basic workspace
could be overwritten leading to all sorts of problems! The memory
claiming routines given in Archive 7.7 p23 can be used to claim and
extend private blocks of memory.
7.12
Making SWI calls
7.12
How are you supposed to know how to call a particular SWI? Well, you can
look them up in the PRM (or the documentation for third party modules),
find another program that uses them or buy StrongED from Stallion
Software which includes extensive help on the subject.
7.12
One vital piece of information that you need to know is how to interpret
the information the PRMs or documentation give you. Data is passed to
the SYS command via the ARM registers R0, R1, R2, etc, so if the
documentation says the SWI needs a window handle in R0 and an icon
handle in R1, the command would be:
7.12
SYS “SomeSWI”,window_handle%,icon_handle%
7.12
If the SWI requires (say) the address of a data block in R1 but nothing
particular in R0 then the command would be:
7.12
SYS “SomeSWI”,,address%
7.12
Note the double commas after the SWI name − this means we are not
passing any data in R0. Without the extra comma, the address would be
passed in R0 not R1. Finally, if you are told that data is returned in
certain registers, you can use the TO keyword. Assuming the SWI needs a
window and icon handle in R0 and R1 and returns data in R3 the command
would be:
7.12
SYS “SomeSWI”,window_handle%,icon_handle% TO ,,,data%
7.12
After the ‘TO’, the data for R0, R1, etc, follows, separated by commas −
it is easier to write the command as:
7.12
SYS “SomeSWI”,window_handle%,icon_handle% TO R0,R1,R2,data%
7.12
and discard the values returned in R0, R1 and R2. Of course, if you are
told that a string is returned in R3 then you must use data$ (or
similar) to hold the returned value.
7.12
Printing again
7.12
I have received a letter from Byron Blessed of Solihull School who asks
if it is possible to set up the printer module without loading !Printers
first as this is very slow over a network. I don’t have any experience
of networks, but I would imagine that this is a common problem that
somebody might have already solved (I hope!).
7.12
A quick look in the PRMs uncovered the SWI “PDriver_SetDriver” described
on page 3-656 and associated information on page 3-668. PDriver_
SetDriver requires two 256 byte data blocks which correspond to the
choices set up with !Printers and I assume that !Printers makes this
call to set up the module.
7.12
Therefore, it should be possible to write a simple Basic program to set
up the data blocks and make the SWI call instead of using !Printers. So,
am I on the right track? Has anybody written a small program to do this
as there is at least one other person who would be interested (although
it would doubtless be of general interest as !Printers loads slowly even
from a hard disc).
7.12
And finally..
7.12
If you have any suggestions for topics that could be covered in future
issues, I would be pleased to hear from you. My address is Paul Hobbs,
Rheinpfalzstrasse 2, 85049 Ingolstadt, Germany.  A
7.12
Dates for Your Diary...
7.12
Music Open Evening
7.12
Tuesday 4th October 1994
7.12
NCS and Sibelius Software have teamed up for a Music Open Evening, with
guest speaker John Rutter.
7.12
John Rutter is a well-known composer and choral conductor... and also a
dedicated Sibelius/Acorn user and Archive subscriber. Amongst other
things, he will be telling us about the impact of the computer on his
composing. This evening event will be held in the King of Hearts (Centre
for People and the Arts) in Norwich.
7.12
We are inviting anyone interested in the use of the computer for
processing/printing music, to discover the powerful combination of
Sibelius with the Acorn computer: music teachers; university and college
lecturers/students; choral directors and choir members; local amateur
and professional musicians, and so on.
7.12
Entrance will be by ticket only but we’ll give more details in next
month’s Archive.
7.12
Acorn World 94
7.12
Friday 28th to Sunday 30th October 1994
7.12
Acorn World 94 is being held at Wembley, London again this Autumn. Watch
this space for more information, as it becomes available.
7.12
NCS Open Day
7.12
Saturday 12 November 1994
7.12
The next NCS Open Day will be held at Eaton (CNS) School in Norwich.
Once again, a wide range of companies will be displaying the latest
computer technology, peripherals and software for Acorn computers.
7.12
Centre-stage, of course, will be the Risc PC and by then we should have
the PC Card available to demonstrate and sell ! (?!)
7.12
Apricote Studios
7.12
New
7.12
LOOKSystems
7.12
From 7.10 page 9
7.12
LOOKSystems
7.12
From 7.5 page 40
7.12
LOOKSystems
7.12
From 7.5 page 41
7.12
Online Media and the Digital Superhighway
7.12
Steve Bruntlett
7.12
Steve Bruntlett assesses the launch of a new company and the
implications for interactive multimedia.
7.12
After a long time developing one of the best computers available, it’s
good to see Acorn receiving some high profile attention in the general
computing press. Firstly it was the development of ARM Ltd, set up
jointly with Apple, to develop and produce a set of world-beating RISC
chips, ARM 250, 300, 600, 700 etc. Then there was the well-received Risc
PC and now it’s the development of another Acorn-based company, Online
Media which was launched on July 6th.
7.12
The new company has been well-covered in the Innovation column in the
Sunday Times for a couple of weeks. They have been reporting on the
partnership of Online Media with Cambridge Cable which is to run trials
in September using the first ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) system in
Britain to develop home-based interactive video. If links with Oracle
and Bell in America go ahead, it will be the first international system
as well. ATM is used to send vast quantities of multimedia data, such as
video, down fibre optic cabling at very high speeds − all part of the
digital superhighway that President Clinton is known to have commented
on from time to time.
7.12
Online Media is working with several partner companies to develop
affordable interactive multimedia products and services for the huge
market emerging from the development of the information superhighway.
These include: Olivetti, Advanced RISC Machines Ltd, Advanced
Telecommunications Modules Ltd, BNR/Northern Telecom, News
International, MAI, Anglia Television, Oracle and Cambridge Cable.
7.12
From an education and home use point of view, the involvement of Anglia
Television seems particularly exciting as they will be responsible for
providing regional news bulletins, current affairs, weather forecasts
and educational CD-ROM programmes covering science, history and
geography. Buying individual copies of CD-ROMs may be shortly be a thing
of the past with the trend towards access to libraries of vast
quantities of information becoming available in a variety of interactive
multimedia formats.
7.12
So what are Acorn up to this time? According to the press releases from
Acorn and Online Media, the main product seems to be a TV set-top box
(STB) powered by four(!) ARM chips which will allow users in the trial
around Cambridge access to video on demand i.e. to select a video or
other forms of multimedia material whenever they want to see or use
them. The STB will not only allow large numbers of users to watch the
same video all at different stages and at the same time but, more
importantly, will open up a wide range of interactive services.
7.12
The more mundane uses of this may be used for teleshopping but more
excitingly, it could be used for interactive community links through
teleconferencing. It could be used for home banking, interactive
education and training, access to expert systems, (virtual reality test
drives or visits to holiday locations? − the whole ‘try before you buy’
bit), home security and connection to Internet and Mosaic for starters.
To explain this in a bit more detail and perhaps a bit more clearly for
those of us who are still trying to figure out exactly what the digital
superhighway is or might be, it may be worth including part of one of
Online Media’s information sheets, so here it is.
7.12
“Hot and cold running information − The advent of the Online Media STB,
and the MPEG datastreams it handles, can be compared with the arrival of
mains water to a house. Before, you could get water from the stream, but
you were reliant on an intermittent supply, and the quality was variable
− you took what you were given, when you were given it. Then you bought
a bucket, so you could collect the water when you wanted and save it for
later, but it was only a small quantity. Substitute broadcast video for
the stream, and cassette video for the bucket and you have the situation
as it is today.
7.12
Tomorrow you get mains water − as much as you want, when you want it,
and you can control it exactly. The advent of MPEG digital data
compression services and the STB to control them means that now our
homes will have access to good quality video and digital audio down our
existing telephone or cable connection, as much as we want and when we
want it. Using a normal TV remote-control, you can ask for any film or
computer game to be played on your television, or any recording to be
played through your audio system, whenever you want it.
7.12
Furthermore, it’s not just a one-way process (and this is where the
water supply analogy starts to break down)! The STB is fully
interactive. Wherever in the world there is something that can be
digitised − film, audio, still pictures, data, software, even realtime
video − you will see it, hear it and interrogate it, fully
interactively.”
7.12
All this has phenomenal implications for all aspects of society such as
control of, and access and to, material, subscription costs, effects on
traditional providers of software, video and audio services. What
happens to record and video shops, for example, or libraries for that
matter. Do we actually want or need all this information anyway? Some of
it probably not, but much of it will be useful to the home and
educational user and this is probably where the digital superhighway
will have most impact, i.e. on the area between home and school which by
the end of the century will become increasingly blurred. Some children
will have better individual access at home to the teaching and learning
materials available on this kind of system than they will at school,
witness the phenomenal growth of Internet.
7.12
Schools will have to develop a changing role to ride the move from
teaching to learning and also examine their role as facilitators rather
than as information providers. Learning will develop through much more
interactive structures than school can offer unless education starts
using these kind of systems very quickly. But that would seem to require
some serious funding... unless we believe the claims of Peter Talbot...
7.12
Peter Talbot, General Manager UK Education at Acorn Computers comments:
“Acorn has announced its plans to realise the enormous potential of
interactive multimedia and we believe Acorn is in the strongest position
to ensure that education gets the best from this innovative technology.
Acorn has undertaken the challenge to work with Online Media to develop
a complementary environment and systems which will allow schools to use
their current multimedia solutions with future products.” This has
implications for home users as well, who seem to be being promised an
integrated interactive multimedia solution compatible with existing
equipment.
7.12
The BBC have just had their mandate renewed until the next century but
by the end of this century, television as we know it today will have
changed out of all recognition. It will be much more interactive with
‘users’ rather than ‘viewers’ who will determine their own schedules
rather than relying on set output, and will have rather more educational
material available than at present. These are indeed exciting times − I
just wish I lived in Cambridge!  A
7.12
Small Ads
7.12
(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)
7.12
•  2Mb SIMM for RISC PC, £50 o.n.o. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  A3000, 2Mb RAM, RISC OS 3.11, ext 3½“ and 5¼” disc drives. Colour
monitor. All boxed with manuals etc, ex cond. £450 o.n.o. Phone 0533-
882528.
7.12
•  A3000, RISC OS 3.1, 4Mb, 100Mb HCCS hard card, colour monitor and
stand, PD software. Ex cond. £800 o.n.o. Phone [phone] after 6pm.
7.12
•  A310, 4Mb RAM, MEMC1a, ARM3 (33MHz), RISC OS 3.1, 47Mb HD, Taxan 775
monitor, loadsa software, inc PC Emulator, £800 o.n.o. Phone John 0328-
864177.
7.12
•  A310, 4Mb, ARM3, RISC OS 3.1, 40Mb IDE hard disc (with ICS
interface), colour monitor, fan quietener, some software, plus PD
software, Beebug 5¼“ disc interface + 40 track drive, DFS reader and 50
5¼” discs. All for £525 o.n.o. +p&p. Phone Derby 0332-557751 evenings.
7.12
•  A310, monitor, 2Mb RAM, twin floppies, Watford digitiser and
Lingenuity colour converter, memory expansion will take RISC OS 3.1.
£395 o.n.o. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  A310, OS3.1, 4Mb, ARM3, MEMC + 20M HD, HiFi Audio, VIDC enhancer, 4
layer back plane, Acorn I/O podule, external disc interface, Taxan
770+LR multisync, Kaga KP-810 printer, leads, manuals, software £600
+p&p. Phone [phone]. Sensible offers considered.
7.12
•  A310 (RISC OS 3.1), 4Mb RAM, 2nd internal 3½“ disc drive, DFS buffer/
podule, PAL TV converter for £385 o.n.o. Cub 3000 colour monitor (built
in stereo sound) £185 o.n.o. OKI wide carriage DM printer tractor/sheet/
envelope feed £65 o.n.o. Phone [phone] after 6pm.
7.12
•  A4000, 4Mb RAM, 80Mb hard disc, multisync monitor, Home Office
(EasiWriter, Desktop Database), Educational (ArcVenture), Games
(Populous, Lotus 2, etc), etc. £750 ono. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  A410, 4Mb RAM, 35MHz ARM3, RISC OS 3.1, 47Mb HD, colour monitor, Oak
SCSI board, 5¼“ FD interface, all cables, manuals and boxes, loads of PD
software and games. Bargain only £750, no offers. Phone [phone]
(office hours).
7.12
•  A410, monitor, 20Mb hard disc, RISC OS 3.1, £475 o.n.o. Phone 0452-
417697.
7.12
•  A410/1, 4Mb, ARM3, RISC OS 3.10, External 40Mb IDE disc, Acorn
multisync (AKF18), Epson MX80 (9 pin). £750 o.n.o. Also available:
Amstrad SM2400 modem, 5¼“ drive and interface card, Graphbox
Professional, 1st Word Plus, Logistix. Phone [phone] after 7 pm.
7.12
•  A4 Model II, 4Mb RAM, 60Mb HD, PC Em., RemoteFS (serial + parallel),
boxed £900. Phone [phone] (office hours) or [phone]
(evenings) before 20/08/94 and ask for Paul Hobbs.
7.12
•  A5000, 100Mb hard disc, 4Mb RAM. m/sync monitor, as new, with over
£1000 of original software inc. Lemmings, Populous, 1st Word Plus. £975
o.n.o. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  A5000, 4Mb, 100Mb HD, std res monitor £800. 100Mb Mac style external
SCSI HD £200. Contact Leslie Wiggins on 0332-204040 day or 0602-272282
eves.
7.12
•  A5000, 4Mb, 120Mb HD, hi-res monitor,  RISC OS 3.11,  Advance
(unlicensed), PC Emulator, fonts and other software,  VGC,  £900 o.n.o.
Tel: Charlie or Debbie on 0484 517612.
7.12
•  A5000, 4Mb, 40Mb HD, Eizo multiscan, RISC OS 3.11, Learning Curve
software, all manuals. £1050 o.n.o. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  A5000, 4Mb, 405Mb hard disc, RISC OS 3.1, AKF18 monitor £900. Phone
0704-534156 eves.
7.12
•  A5000 fan silencer, £15. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  A5000 Learning Curve, 4Mb RAM, 120Mb HD, lots of software. £800 for
quick sale. Phone Howard Bailey on 0202-394057.
7.12
•  A5000, RISC OS 3.1, 4Mb, 40Mb HD, msync monitor, Learning Curve, also
Draw Plus, Powerbase and lots software, £950 o.n.o. Canon BJ-300, £200
o.n.o. All ex cond. Scanlight Video, as new, £190 o.n.o. Buy the whole
lot for £1300. Phone John, evenings or weekends on 081-504-0802.
7.12
•  A5000, RISC OS 3.11, AKF18, 40Mb HD, 4Mb RAM, £800. Phone Garry on
091-3771-489.
7.12
•  A540 without monitor, 8Mb RAM, 120Mb hard disc, £975. Acorn colour
monitor £100. Fax Pack £125. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  Acorn Risc PC, 10Mb DRAM, 210Mb HD, 14“ SVGA (AKF60), Impression
Publisher, S-Base2 Developer, RISC OS 3 PRMs, PD software, discs,
manuals, etc, 1 month old, immac cond, £2,000 o.v.n.o. Phone Craig on
0633-894533 anytime.
7.12
•  Conner CP3044 40Mb IDE drive ex A5000, offers around £70. Home Office
pack unused, offers around £80. Phone [phone].
7.12
•  Econet interfaces £15 each, Filestore E015 £125, AppFS software £50.
Contact Hill 0953-605566 (0953-850948 eves).
7.12
•  Eizo 9070S 16“ Multiscan 0.28mm dot pitch with warranty, H-scan
frequency 20-50kHz, V-scan 50-80Hz, TTL or analogue RGB inputs. Offers
to Derby 0332-701969.
7.12
•  HCCS Colour Vision Digitiser for A400 series, brand new £75. Ian 061-
476-0229.
7.12
•  System Delta Plus, £35. Please call 0924-862602 and ask for Peter.
7.12
Charity Sales
7.12
The following items are available for sale in aid of charity. PLEASE do
not just send money − ring us on 0603-766592 to check if the items are
still available. Thank you.
7.12
Software: First Word Plus £5, Genesis £3, Genesis Plus £10, PC Emulator
1.7 £10, Leading Edge Midi Tracker £9, Bubble Fair £2, Spellmaster
(disc) £5, Ancient Egypt clipart £2, Blaston £2, Pysanki £2, Blowpipe
£2, Zelanites £2, Rotor £2, Man United Europe £3, Apocalypse £3,
DrawBender £10, Equasor £9, Impression Businnes Supplement £9, First
Impression tutorial book and discs £9, Good Impression ideas book and
discs £9, Party, Wedding & Anniversary clipart £9.
7.12
Hardware: Floppy discs as new £15 per 50, A3000 1Mb RAM £20, WE external
disc interface (for A400/1 and earlier) £5, Quest trackerball £12.
7.12
(If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes computers that
you could donate in aid of charity, please send it to the Archive
office. If you have larger items where post would be expensive, just
send us details of the item(s) and how the purchaser can get hold of
them.)  A
7.12
Gothic & Medieval Font Collection Pack II
7.12
Richard Hallas
7.12
About a year ago, the Datafile published a collection of period fonts
and clipart by designer Tony Nash. The popularity of the first pack has
prompted the publication of a second collection, Pack Two, which has a
price tag of £40, all inclusive. (The first pack was reviewed in Archive
6.12, p. 78.)
7.12
Packaging
7.12
The pack consists of three discs, a manual, a single-user licence and a
laminated reference card for one of the fonts, presented together in a
plastic wallet with a colour-photocopied cover. The overall appearance
is very similar to that of the first pack and, as with the first pack,
the manual is interestingly presented, making imaginative use of the
various fonts and clips to be found on the discs. It just seems a pity
that it couldn’t have been colour-printed, given the colourful nature of
the clipart.
7.12
The first disc (which is contained in an envelope, the opening of which
commits you to the licensing conditions) is the most important of the
three, as it contains all the outline fonts. It also contains a copy of
the public domain adaptation of !Chars, !NewChars2, and a few pieces of
Celtic decoration and tile patterns.
7.12
Disc two contains more Celtic drawfiles − this time a directory of
border designs and another of highly ornate, colourful capital letters.
Disc three contains some more borders and a few assorted saints’ heads
and other drawings. There is also a directory of ten files, each of
which illustrates the complete character set of one of the outline
fonts.
7.12
Outline fonts
7.12
The pack contains six basic font families with between one and three
members each, making a total of eleven faces in all. All have
commendably full character sets and contain full hinting, although they
are RISC OS 2 fonts, i.e. without kerning data, but still useable on
RISC OS 3. The quality of the designs and drawing is generally very
good, and many of the fonts are very detailed indeed − although this
does mean that you have to use them at relatively large point sizes.
7.12
The Abbey fonts are black letter designs, but the ‘Highlite’ weight has
an open upper half, which produces a very striking and attractive
effect.
7.12
Amadeus is an extremely florid and attractive face based on an alphabet
which was reputedly used in the Papal Chancery in the 16th century. For
owners of the first Medieval and Gothic pack, this is an outline font
version of one of the draw-format fonts provided in that collection, but
greatly extended and far more useful.
7.12
Bede has three members: regular, bold and tooled. They are basically of
an uncial design, and the tooled face is particularly attractive.
7.12
El-Cid also has three faces: regular, tooled and swash, and is based on
a Spanish gothic script hand. Again, the tooled face is very attractive
but it is the swash face which is particularly interesting. It provides
a total of 18 swashes which can be added simply by entering the
character code on the numeric keypad. This is a nice idea which works
well, and a reference card showing the swashes and codes is provided.
7.12
Kells is based on text in the Book of Kells, and is intended to be used
in conjunction with the Celtic draw-format capitals provided on disc 2.
7.12
Scriptoria has a particularly hand-drawn feel, and is based on body-text
lettering of early manuscripts.
7.12
Altogether, these fonts are very good quality and provide a good range
of styles.
7.12
Clipart
7.12
The clipart in this pack follows along the same lines of that in the
first pack. There is a significant number of border designs, along with
other intricate designs which could conceivably be used as parts of
borders or on their own. In fact, some of the fonts provide unusual
bullets and other abstract designs which could in themselves be used as
borders or for the purpose of breaking up sections of text.
7.12
Several attractive repeating tile patterns are provided, both on their
own and sometimes as part of other pictures. The remainder of the
clipart consists of knots and other fairly abstract designs, a few
saints’ heads and faces and a few assorted monks. The clipart seems well
drawn, and is very authentic-looking. It would have been very easy for
the designer of the clipart to use the computer to make geometric shapes
such as knots, tiles and repeating patterns look very mathematically
precise, but this has been avoided. The small degree of unevenness which
has been introduced into the drawings adds a more authenticly human
quality.
7.12
As with the first pack, many of the drawfiles contain a large number of
shapes, and you are expected to ungroup some of the pictures and use the
parts you want. Although slightly inconvenient, this is a good approach
for two reasons. Firstly, it means that space is not wasted on the discs
by unnecessary duplication, and secondly, it shows the elements in use,
which is far better than just providing lots of components and expecting
you to know exactly what to do with them all.
7.12
Conclusions
7.12
If you liked the first pack, you’ll love the second. It’s basically more
of the same, but better quality. Whilst the first pack had possibly a
greater emphasis on the clipart than the fonts, the reverse is probably
true with the second. The fonts are well-made and interesting, and many
of them are quite unlike anything else currently available (particularly
Abbey Highlite). Also, there are almost twice as many of them compared
with the first pack (11 rather than 6). I did feel that the ten font
printout files were rather a waste of space (ten because El-Cid Swash is
not included among them) and could more usefully have been included
printed in the manual. Aside from that, though, I have few criticisms,
and recommend this interesting package.  A
7.12
Multimedia Column
7.12
PR and multimedia
7.12
Many organisations are becoming increasingly aware of their public image
− this is even the case now with Schools. With the increasing choice
available to parents, it is vitally important that schools project a
good image. The relative cheapness of DTP has led to many schools
producing glossy brochures which they distribute to the parents. What
has this to do with multimedia? Well, I was asked to come up with some
ideas to help a local primary school to promote its image and
immediately thought of multimedia.
7.12
What about the cost?
7.12
With budget restrictions within all schools, the cost was going to be a
big factor. In a small rural primary school of only 120 pupils, whatever
I did was going to have to involve little or no expense. There were a
number of times during the next few months when many of the parents were
coming to school and the obvious solution was to produce a self-
scrolling display of school activities. The school has an A3000 and an
A5000 with a CD-ROM, plus a selection of BBC Masters. They also have
Genesis along with an Oak Recorder. After talking it over with the Head,
we decided that the pupils should select what they wanted to go into the
display but overall editorial control was to be retained by the Head!
7.12
Collecting the resources
7.12
The pupils were challenged to design pictures under various headings and
also a School logo. They could either use Splosh or pencil and paper.
Text was also written by the pupils and saved as Edit files. I then took
a video camera into School and, using my own A5000 along with an HCCS
Vision Digitiser and !ChangeFSI, I was able to produce a good number of
static images. Photographs were also scanned in, along with some of the
pupils’ work.
7.12
The storyboard
7.12
Once all the resources were collected, along with one or two pieces of
commercial clipart, we constructed a rough outline of how the display
would scroll. We wanted to include as many pictures of the children as
possible but also certain ‘ads’ that the Head wished to get over to the
parents. It then became an easy job to assemble the resources into the
multimedia program and add appropriate sound samples onto the pages and
set up the scrolling display. It was set up on the A5000 in the main
entrance hall − but then we realised that we needed to attract the
parents’ attention as they came in. After a little thought, we realised
that using CD-ROM to play an audio disc would provide the answer.
7.12
The proof
7.12
The final version was put on display at three parents’ evenings and many
people commented on a very professional-looking display. The governors
were also impressed and released £400 for extra hardware and software
for future displays to be done ‘in house’. One parent even asked the
school how it was done and what sort of PC his company would have to get
to run it on! I have since shown this to a number of schools and all
have been impressed.
7.12
The decision to use Genesis was driven by the fact that the school had a
copy, but since then I have converted it to both Magpie and CableNews.
The monthly disc contains a Magpie version but all three versions are
available through the Swap Shop.
7.12
The Swap Shop
7.12
I have been inundated with requests for items from the swap shop over
the past two months with many favourable comments on the column and I
just like to say thank you to those who have written. I have had letters
from afar away as Germany, New Zealand and Australia, and I hope to set
up some sort of distribution of the swap shop items in Australia so that
overseas readers will be able to use the local contact and save the
expense of writing to England.
7.12
This month has also seen a number of firsts. Christopher Jarman has sent
me three rather nice Optima examples aimed at middle primary children −
these will be added to the catalogue. I have also had an advance copy of
a Key Author file which isn’t quite finished yet but which will be added
to the catalogue in the next few months.
7.12
I also have an apology to make. I announced in the last column that Man
in Space was ready, when in fact, I still had a few bits to finish as I
was writing the article, but due to my own stupidity I couldn’t get the
database within the application to work properly. I have now solved the
problem and have sent out copies to all the people who requested them. I
have also finished the Advanced WIMP Tutor in Genesis format and the
Magpie version should be ready by the time you read this. Paint Tutor is
also now finished and all the above have been added to the catalogue.
7.12
I have also updated the catalogue, but to make it easier for me, the
catalogue will, in future, only be available in Magpie format − a reader
is supplied with it so that anyone can read it.
7.12
Hints and tips
7.12
•  Genesis Professional − One reader wrote to complain that he was
getting repeated crashes when trying to replicate frames. I must admit,
I was unaware of the problem, so I went back and tested it out. The gist
of it is this: if you open a blank page and pull out a frame and then
replicate it, the program crashes. Now when you first pull out a frame,
by default it is a WORD frame, and if you try and replicate it the crash
occurs as Genesis will not allow you to replicate this type of frame.
The cure is simple, just convert the WORD frame into a TEXT frame by
clicking in the frame itself, then you can copy it as many times as you
like.
7.12
•  Magpie − Some months ago, I issued a challenge to Magpie users about
making a scrolling binder with continuous music. I got no replies to
this challenge, but my solution was a bit of a cheat. Using my CD-ROM, I
set up an audio CD running and then loaded in the Magpie scrolling demo
which had no sound effects! I’m sure there is a better solution so I
will keep the prizes until someone comes up with a better one!
7.12
The End Bit
7.12
If you have questions about Genesis, Magpie, Key Author or any
multimedia program, or if you would like a copy of the Swap Shop
catalogue, write to Paul Hooper, 11 Rochford Road, Martham, Great
Yarmouth Norfolk NR29 4RL. (0493-748474)  A
7.12
Humpidge
7.12
New
7.12
Mijas and Simon Glass from 7.11
7.12
Any chance of Simon Glas being on top and not having his lightening fork
cut off!
7.12
Using a Notebook PC with an Archimedes
7.12
Stuart Bell
7.12
About a year ago, I was approached to act as a newspaper reporter for
one week a year, reporting for the Methodist Recorder on the annual
Methodist Church Conference which meets in different locations across
the country every June. My particular task would be to produce the
Conference Digest, a 12-page ‘pull out’ published about three weeks
after the Conference ends and which details every decision made by the
Conference. As those twelve pages are tabloid newspaper size, and as my
job would be to record decisions rather than debates, this was clearly
an information-processing task, rather than a journalistic one. As such,
it was a clear candidate for some careful use of technology to minimise
the work involved and, in particular, the amount of time the task would
take outside the actual week of the Conference. This article charts my
investigation of the technological solutions to the problem, and my
experiences in using ‘the solution’.
7.12
Option 1: An A4 notebook
7.12
Clearly, with unlimited resources, this would have been the ideal
solution. Using familiar software, and transferring material between it
and my A310 via floppy discs, Impression II would have provided all I
needed. But resources aren’t unlimited, and I could neither afford an
A4, nor expect one to be purchased for me for one week’s use a year.
Ahh!
7.12
Option 2: A Mac or PC laptop
7.12
A visit to the printers of the newspaper revealed that they use a
mixture of PC-compatible and Apple Quadra machines, and that they could
accept ASCII text on 720Kb PC format discs with no difficulty. A PC or
Mac laptop seemed to be the obvious alternatives. But, again, the cost
seemed rather high for the use envisaged, and I didn’t want to have to
face the steep learning curve of running full-blown WP software on
either platform. I knew too, from all the comments in Archive, how
unfriendly Windows 3.1 and System 7 are, compared with RISC OS! It was
becoming clearer that what I wanted was a ‘text acquisition’ machine,
not a high-powered laptop. Furthermore, battery life on full-sized
laptops seemed to be less than ideal.
7.12
Option 3: A palmtop
7.12
The availability of the Acorn-badged Psion 3 offered an obvious
solution, but one that was soon rejected because the keyboard size is
not really ideal for heavy text-bashing. Also, I didn’t need the ultra-
compact size which it offers. The same could be said of a range of
palmtops on the market. I was tempted by the Psion MC400 which Tord
Eriksson discussed in Archive 6.11, p.59, but rejected it as being too
non-standard, and hence limiting the options for software to run on it.
It could well have provided an alternative solution to my problem,
however, and Tord certainly liked it!
7.12
Likewise, the Amstrad NC100 was considered, but rejected because of
limited storage facilities without expensive PCMCIA cards. The NC200
with a 720Kb floppy disc was better in that respect, but rather
expensive for a Z80A-based machine with the same problems of being tied
to software supplied by the manufacturer.
7.12
After three months of investigating the market and considering the job
in hand, I’d come to the conclusion that I wanted a machine no larger,
and preferably rather smaller, than a standard laptop, costing no more
than about £400, with a reasonable battery life, PC or Mac compatibility
to keep the software options open, and with some form of disc or non-
volatile storage to keep my valuable text safe.
7.12
Option 4: A PC sub-notebook
7.12
Early in my search, I’d noticed the Olivetti Quaderno, an A5-sized (i.e.
8“ × 6” × 1“) PC compatible machine with an 8086 processor, 1Mb of
memory, a 20Mb hard disc, and a slightly squashed keyboard. At the time,
its cost of £800 put it out of consideration. However, largely because
of its relatively limited CPU power (forget Windows 3 or serious DTP)
and small keyboard, it was never a commercial success, and was soon
reduced to £400 at your local Dixons. When a small advert in a PC
magazine listed a stock clearance at less than £300 + VAT, the solution
to my problem seemed obvious. The final order, with leather case, spare
battery, P&P and VAT came to £402.38 − stage one of the project
completed!
7.12
Stage two was to identify how to use the machine in conjunction with my
Archimedes, on which any text-preparation before and after the
Conference would be done. Impression II would be used to produce printed
output in newspaper-like columns to tell me how ‘long’ my text was, and
it would produce the ASCII text on a DOS format disc for the printers.
(Supplying PostScript file images of the whole pull-out ready for
typesetting would be the most direct method of producing the Digest, but
also the most adventurous, and potentially most traumatic!) The two
issues which I had to address may well be applicable to other Archive
readers, so I’ll discuss them in relatively general terms.
7.12
PC<−>Archimedes communication
7.12
The obvious methods are disc and serial links. The former was not
possible for me, as the Quaderno does not have a floppy disc drive. With
the machine came a serial link and some software to run on a desktop PC
to make the Quaderno’s disc look like an extra disc for the desktop
machine. The latter would not be much help and the serial lead needed an
adaptor to make it usable. As so often, Archive came to the rescue. Tord
Eriksson’s article referred to an earlier one by Richard Oldman (6.1
p.57) which described an adaptor which worked first time with the
Quaderno – thank you, gentlemen!
7.12
As regards serial software, to send binary program files from the
Archimedes to the Quaderno, I wrote very simple file transfer programs
in Basic on the Acorn, and the excellent QBasic on the Quaderno. After a
few problems, 100Kb+ files transferred faultlessly. To recover text
typed on the Quaderno back onto the Archimedes, I use an ancient version
of ArcTerm, and the CTTY facility (change the ‘console’ device to the
serial port) under DOS on the Quaderno. It’s basic, but it works!
7.12
Once the text files are on the Acorn machine, they need converting from
DOS-style text files to Acorn ones (and, of course, the ASCII files for
the printers need a reverse conversion). John Winters’ excellent
!Convert utility (again, thanks to Archive) accomplishes the task
simply. If anyone wants a copy of my inelegant Basic routines, drop me a
line: Stuart Bell, 23 Ryecroft Drive, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 2AW.
7.12
PC text editors
7.12
The Quaderno’s display is both small and not back-lit. 80 columns are
legible in the right lighting conditions but I knew that such an
environment could not be guaranteed. Enter B-Edit, a shareware product
designed for visually impaired users, which offers large-character
displays on any PC screen. I use 53 columns per line, but up to 12-per-
line is possible. It’s a pretty clever text editor, allowing
manipulation on up to two files at once, with a spelling checker, and a
good range of editing functions. It’s no WordPerfect or Wordstar, power-
wise, but more than enough for my needs. Also, the author in the USA
responded by return to a problem that I encountered. Registration is
$29.00. If you’d like a trial copy, drop me a line.
7.12
Conclusions
7.12
Despite what the PC magazines may imply, you don’t need a ’486 running
at 100MHz with 32Mb of memory and a huge hard disc to run simple laptop
applications. The trailing edge of PC technology may offer a cost
effective solution. Despite the unpleasant nature of DOS, it’s arguable
that it’s actually better when run on the kind of simple 1Mb machine for
which the first versions were designed than in its latest incarnations
which demand all sorts of memory management tricks, and still don’t make
use of the power of the latest 80x86 processors.
7.12
Secondly, Archimedes machines and PC compatibles can work well together,
with a little effort. After all, ASCII data is ASCII data, whatever
machine it was produced on. Exotic Ethernet connections running at many
megabits per second may be essential for high volume everyday use, but
the traditional serial link works fine for non-demanding applications.
Indeed, I run mine at 1200 baud so I can read the text as it is
transferred!
7.12
Finally, with PC compatible laptops and notebooks falling in price, we
urgently need a new lower cost Acorn of that type. The latest generation
of machines are sub-A4 in size, and cost less than £1000. Since ARM3s
are supposed to be so cheap, why don’t Acorn produce an A5-sized
portable Archimedes, rather like the Quaderno which, after all, was made
by Acorn’s parent company, Olivetti.  A
7.12
Would the person who sent me an article about using an NC100 please
contact the office − we have mislaid your name. Sorry!! Ed.
7.12
LOOKSystems
7.12
New
7.12
Disc Rescue
7.12
Colton
7.12
From 7.11 page 31
7.12
PD Column
7.12
David Holden
7.12
Libraries merge
7.12
One of the reasons why there has been a long gap since this column last
appeared is because APDL has recently ‘taken over’ the Data Stream. For
new readers (or those with short memories − it would be understandable
in view of the long delay since I last wrote) I actually run APDL, and
trying to merge the two libraries has been such an enormous undertaking
that I haven’t had much time for anything else.
7.12
If you are a regular Data Stream customer, you can still order discs
from the ‘old’ catalogue but please send them to the APDL address which
you will find at the end of this article.
7.12
I have previously remarked on the demise of libraries and a couple of
years ago the numbers were diminishing rapidly. Since that time some new
ones have appeared and the situation is looking more healthy.
7.12
So far, PD and Shareware for Acorn computers has tended to follow a
different path from those in the Amiga and PC worlds. The large numbers
of small libraries which abounded for the Amiga a few years ago have
almost entirely disappeared to be replaced by a couple of major players
and a few smaller ones run by dealers. These ‘dealer libraries’ almost
invariably just sell repackaged material obtained from the major
libraries. Because these all ‘pool’ their material, there isn’t much
variety for customers and the authors have very little influence. There
are some very good programs available but I would hesitate to call the
situation healthy.
7.12
The PC Shareware scene has been transformed by CD ROMs. Glancing through
PC magazines from a couple of years ago, you would see pages of adverts
from Shareware libraries. The majority of these have now vanished. I
must admit that I don’t mourn the passing of most of them. People who
have a serious interest in PC Shareware, now tend to buy their programs
on CD ROM. Assuming that you have a suitable drive (and you can buy one
for just over £100 for a PC) this is a very cheap way of getting a lot
of programs for a comparatively small outlay, especially if you don’t
mind obsolescent versions because out of date Shareware compilations are
quite cheap. This has obviously reduced the turnover in individual discs
for most libraries but the larger ones now sell CDs to compensate.
7.12
I don’t think that the future for Acorn PD libraries will be in either
of these directions. My experience of Archimedes authors is that they
are far too individual to allow a few large libraries to dominate as has
happened with the Amiga. Many are now writing major Shareware
applications and therefore insist upon controlling distribution of their
programs to ensure that obsolete versions are removed from circulation
as quickly as possible.
7.12
It will probably be a very long time before we see CD ROMs of PD and
Shareware for the Archimedes, although ‘a long time’ in computer terms
can be a misnomer. If you remove all the real rubbish and ‘ported’
artwork, I doubt if it would be possible to find enough good material to
fill two complete CDs. In fact, because of its very much smaller user
base, I think it extremely unlikely that Acorn Shareware and PD could
even begin to approach the scale attained with the PC. Combine this with
the extraordinary high price of drives for Acorn computers (although I
expect this to change soon) and there is little likelihood of PD
programs appearing on CD in the immediate future. However, if major
software houses start producing large programs on CD (especially games,
as with the PC) at sensible prices, the use of CDs will increase and
this could alter very rapidly.
7.12
I say ‘at sensible prices’ because, so far, the prices of those few
which have been released have been extortionate. I know that the people
who produce them will complain about the high cost of production,
economies of scale, etc, but the fact remains that most seem to cost
£80-£100. Looking through catalogues of CDs for the PC, I can’t find
any, including a few multi-disc sets, that cost even half this. If CDs
are to become popular on Acorn machines, they must be sold at sensible
prices, otherwise, no-one will buy the drives (at whatever price). If
this means that the people who produce them must make little or no
profit at this stage to stimulate the market, I hope they will have the
wit to do so.
7.12
The introduction of the Risc PC (which brings its own headaches for
libraries) adds new impetus to the possible move towards CDs. Acorn have
made it clear that they regard the future for their computers to be in
‘multimedia’. I hope this doesn’t mean that they will forget the
thousands of enthusiasts that have supported Acorn since the days of the
Atom. Without them there wouldn’t be an Acorn Computers today and it is
these same enthusiasts who both create and support the PD and Shareware
network.
7.12
These rapid changes make it very difficult to predict what is likely to
happen. What seems to be emerging is that there will soon be only a
handful of major libraries, say three or four, and lots of smaller ones.
7.12
This will probably be a healthy development. We need large libraries to
provide support for authors and a general ‘baseline’. It is only the
large libraries that can afford to invest in new equipment and all the
other things necessary to provide a ‘professional’ service to both
authors and customers. Briefly pausing to tap out a few rough figures on
a calculator, it would seem that I have well over £6000 worth of
computer hardware within reach as I’m writing this, plus still more in
another room, and a very large part of that is dedicated to running APDL
rather than for my personal use.
7.12
What would be very bad is for a small number of libraries to dominate
and ‘squeeze out’ the others, either by accident or design, as has
happened with the Amiga. However, I don’t think this is very likely. All
of the the major libraries are very disparate, and are run by single
individuals or small groups so they all have their own ‘identity’. There
is comparatively little direct interchange of material between
libraries. Personally, I think this is a good thing. Most authors prefer
to communicate directly rather than send a program to one library which
will then circulate it to all the others. This keeps libraries and
authors in direct contact. Because the Acorn world is comparatively
small, this works well. It simply wouldn’t be possible with PC
libraries.
7.12
Another reason that I think this is a good thing is because it still
leaves plenty of space for small libraries. If there are a few larger
ones to provide stability and a repository for the collected works of PD
authors, the fact that smaller libraries come and go (as they tend to
do) won’t have a major impact. If this means that some of the newcomers
grow to such an extent that one or more of the larger libraries get
knocked off their perches, that too may be healthy.
7.12
Another competition
7.12
It had always been my intention to run another PD/Shareware competition
but general lack of spare time has delayed it somewhat. Hopefully, by
the time this appears in print, I shall have sorted out the majority of
the Data Stream discs and transferred most of my software over to my new
Risc PC, so I think it’s about due, and if I wait until I’m sure I have
the time it will probably never happen.
7.12
I will be offering prizes for the best new work or major upgrade of an
existing PD or Shareware program. I don’t know exactly what the prizes
will be or how many − that will depend upon the number and quality of
the entries, but I have over £200 set aside for this purpose and I will
add to this amount if I consider the entries warrant it so it will
certainly be worthwhile.
7.12
Don’t just send me your program(s). If you are interested, send a blank
disc with a self-addressed label and a stamp for return postage to me at
the address at the end of this article. I will return your disc with a
copy of the entry conditions plus a lot of useful information about the
sort of things I will be looking for. Without this, you might find your
program disqualified or you might waste a lot of time changing things
that I regard as unacceptable.
7.12
As before, I will leave the ‘closing date’ flexible to allow people
whose programs are still just in the idea stage to put them into
practice.
7.12
Desktop ‘sillies’
7.12
I’m sure that most of you will have seen some of these at one time or
another, from the ‘original’ Wanda to the amusing Great Train Robbery.
So far, I have always tended to concentrate on more serious matters in
this column but, for a change, I have decided to offer something a
little more light-hearted. I have therefore put together a special disc
of a selection of programs that do all manner of strange and amusing
things to relieve the tedium of running all those heavyweight
applications. Things that pop up, zoom about, eat your windows, and
generally brighten your day and all of which are guaranteed to do
absolutely nothing useful.
7.12
For a copy of this disc send £1 or four first class stamps to me at: 39
Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London, SE26 5RN.  A
7.12
Flashback
7.12
Ron Page
7.12
Ron is a student at Eaton (City of Norwich) School and has been on ‘Work
Experience’ at NCS for the last fortnight. One of his ‘experiences’ has
been to write a review of an Acorn game...
7.12
The history
7.12
In late 1993, US Gold released a Delphine game on the Sega Megadrive
which was to change the standard of animation, atmosphere and depth of
play on all gaming platforms. That game was Flashback. Now after one
year and five different conversions, this classic piece of gaming art
has made the it to the Acorn Archimedes series.
7.12
As a PC owner(!), I was expecting a good solid conversion seeing as this
is a Delphine games but nothing could have prepared me for what I was to
find. This conversion is absolutely stonking − it is of the same
standard as the PC version, possibly better!
7.12
Is it live? Or is it Flashback?
7.12
As mentioned before, one of the reasons for Flashback selling bucket-
loads on every other platform was the animation, at 24 frames per second
− the same quality as the majority of cartoons. Couple this with the
incredibly moody graphics and an overwhelming sense of realism and you
get one of the most graphically pleasing games. One other aspect that
made a subtle but substantial difference is the minute detail, such as
the shells (which are 2 pixels by one pixel in size) being ejected by
the gun when fired, the flickering monitors... I could go on about this
all day!
7.12
The cinematic sequences have made it through the conversion process
along with a few new ones to boot! Unfortunately, there has to be a
price. There is a really annoying glitch at the end of the sequence when
the screen colours go weird for a second − still, the sequences can be
turned off so it isn’t that bad.
7.12
Ooer! This is spooky!
7.12
In the later Lucasfilm games on the PC, such as X-Wing, and the new
Delphine games, a sonic system is used to change the tempo and style
depending on the situation. For example, when you come across a guard,
the music becomes distinctly heavy. Incidentally, this system is called
iMUSE by Lucasfilm, who pioneered this system in Monkey Island 2, I
believe.
7.12
The echoing of your gun and all sound effects sound as though they have
be sampled and then modified, leading to a tremendous sense of reality.
There are only a few games that I can think of that can top this and
that would be those VR machines that cost £15,000 and which can be found
in an arcade in a large city!
7.12
This is all fine, but how does it play?
7.12
A game can look like a dream, but no-one wants a game that plays like a
heavily drugged donkey, I’m pleased to say that this game is more
addictive than most types of illegal drugs, so prepare to become a very
lonely person!
7.12
The control method is awkward at first but once you get used to it, it
is actually quite good and instinctive. (But why the space bar is used
only to draw the gun, instead of firing it, escapes me.) One problem
with this game being so ‘in depth’ is that, for very minor parts of the
game, it tends to get repetitive, tedious and in some cases frustrating.
However, as I said, this only occurs in very small doses.
7.12
Conclusions please
7.12
If you buy only two games a year, make sure that this is one of them
(the other being Sensible Soccer). This is one of the best games
available on any machine not just the Archimedes! However this is ‘just
another platform game’... but a Ferrari is ‘just a car’, right? Now, if
you don’t want to look like a donkey on steroids, pick up the ’phone and
dial 0603 766592 (This is the number for NCS, but you know that anyhow!)
and say in a frenzy “I’m not a donkey! Send me Flashback for the
ridiculously low price of £26!” Or failing that, US Gold sell it for
£27.99.
7.12
What can it run on?
7.12
Flashback will run on any Archimedes under RISC OS with 740Kb of free
RAM and around 2.5Mb of hard drive space (although it can be run from
floppies!) a high density disc drive† and, of course, it must be
interfacing with a human or any other sentient life form!  A
7.12
†US Gold say that you can return the high density discs and they will
replace them with 800Kb discs.
7.12
Games Column
7.12
Dave Floyd
7.12
Welcome to another saunter around the Archimedes games world. I was very
interested to see in the August edition of Archimedes World, that Mike
Williams appeared to share much the same view on the future of the
Archimedes software industry, following the Risc PC’s release, as I
expressed in my last column. Only time will tell, but I sincerely hope
that we are both wrong.
7.12
I was also interested to receive a couple of letters which picked up on
my point about the Acorn press praising every Archimedes games release
and tried to make a connection between that and advertising revenue.
What a cynical bunch you are! I’m shocked and, if I may quote Michael
Dobbs, “You may very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
7.12
I feel that a far more likely cause is lack of time spent on what many
see as just games reviews. In two recent reviews in other magazines, the
reviewers proudly announced they had spent three and four hours,
respectively, playing the games before writing. Forgive me if I’m not
impressed. Three or four hours may have been sufficient back in the days
of Space Invaders, but nowadays it is barely enough to scratch the
surface of any self-respecting release.
7.12
My last two games reviews for Archive, Diggers and Lemmings 2, were each
preceded by at least thirty hours of playing. I am sure that most others
who write reviews for Archive are equally diligent, if not more so,
because of the voluntary nature of the task and long may it continue to
be so.
7.12
Special offers
7.12
There can surely not be an Archimedes games player left who is unaware
that this summer has seen a plethora of special offers on games
originally released a couple of years ago. I am also sure that many,
like myself, saw this as an ideal opportunity to fill in some gaps in
their games collections. Sim City and Heimdall were the two that
particularly appealed to me.
7.12
Sim City
7.12
So much has been written on Sim City that it would be superfluous to go
into too much detail here, but basically you play the part of a newly-
elected mayor. Depending on the scenario you choose, this could be of a
small town that wants to be big or of a specific city with existing or
imminent problems to be solved. You can build, bulldoze and try
different strategies to reach your specified goals, and if you finish
all the provided scenarios you can then create your own. It’s great fun
and, if used in conjunction with the teacher’s guide that comes with it,
it could also have some educational value. The only real down side to
this game is the user interface which, for those of us used to RISC OS,
is about as intuitive as Windows File Manager. Fortunately, the game is
good enough to make perseverance worthwhile.
7.12
Heimdall
7.12
Heimdall is a game that I would have bought on release, if I had not
been put off by playing the demo that appeared on a magazine cover disc.
For anybody else who made this mistake I can only say, buy it now. The
game is of the role-playing type and, along with your selection of
warriors, druids, wizards and others, you must explore many different
lands in order to find certain treasures of the gods which have been
scattered around three worlds. Much exploration will have to be done and
many foes overcome with your trusty sword before this game is finished.
Me? I’m still stuck in the first world but the fact that it is taking up
a much needed 4Mb of my 20Mb hard disc at present is probably the best
testament I can give to Heimdall.
7.12
Premier Manager
7.12
Finally, having taken the plunge and mothballed my copy of League
Division One, which I converted over from the BBC B, in favour of
Premier Manager from Gremlin (£24 through Archive), I thought I would
finish up by giving my initial impressions of the first football
management game to be released on the Archimedes. The package consists
of one disc, a code wheel which provides protection against piracy and
an all-formats-except-Acorn manual along with a four-page addendum sheet
in English and German which notes the differences. The addendum sheet
contains at least one spelling and one factual error in the same
sentence as each other. There may be more but I can’t read German.
7.12
Inattention to detail is not confined to the addendum sheet, either.
Once into the game, the mis-spelling of Yeovil Town was another which I
feel should have been noticed by somebody before release. The manual
states that all cup competitions are played to their real-world rules.
Why then are the European and Cup Winners Cup finals played over two
legs in the game? Football purists who claim the game was better in the
sixties will be pleased, however, to see that the League Cup final has
also reverted to its original two-legged format. Play-offs are a feature
of each of the leagues, even the Conference, which are once again
incorrect and, to rub salt into the wounds, the play-off matches are
decided wrongly. Of the four teams who qualify for the play-offs, the
first games should be 1st v 4th and 2nd v 3rd. In Premier Manager, 1st
plays 2nd and 3rd plays 4th. Setting aside the Conference play-offs,
which could be termed a ‘feature’ of the game, all these other errors
are shoddy and should have no place in a final release version.
7.12
Another final point is that the quality of teams appears to bear no
relation to their results against each other. In both divisions that I
have played in so far, the teams at the bottom are far stronger than
those at the top. This was really brought home in my first season of
playing, in which the League Cup Final was contested between Crewe and
Port Vale. The FA Cup Final that year, the crowning point of the
domestic season, was held between those renowned footballing giants,
Telford United and Northampton Town. (It could be the first final in
living memory to have tickets freely available on the gate, assuming you
had been unfortunate enough to miss the ticket touts en route, trying to
sell you one for half price!)
7.12
But this is not real life. It is a game, and if you can put the above
into that context, and assume that Gremlin have got it right and that we
are all involved in some kind of virtual reality, it is actually quite
absorbing and wholly time-consuming − if football games are your kind of
thing. You can play it inside a desktop window or allow it to single-
task with instant access to the desktop when you need it. It will run in
any screen mode that suits your monitor configuration but 256 colours
are recommended.
7.12
The ideas behind the game are excellent and you are involved in all
aspects of running the club from playing staff to financial dealings
such as pitch advertising and bank loans. I would have liked the
coaching staff side to have been more personalised and to have been able
to see the league tables from all six divisions rather than just the one
my team was involved in, but these are amongst the reasons that
Championship Manager is widely regarded as the best on other formats.
Realistic it certainly is not, but neither was Football Manager, and
that was the best selling football management game ever. It is also
difficult, and it will certainly take some time to win every trophy on
offer, although I do not consider this to be a bad thing.
7.12
I do like good football management games, and I am totally absorbed by
this one, in spite of everything. That the errors and inconsistencies
listed earlier do not completely ruin Premier Manager are a tribute to
its design − I just find it a pity that it was released like this and
would strongly urge Gremlin to release a rectified version quickly and
offer a free or cheap upgrade to existing users. Alternatively, perhaps
they would be good enough to convert and release version 2, as has been
seen on other formats for a long while now, maybe offering an upgrade
path. If not, then maybe somebody would be good enough to convert
Championship Manager for us or release a home-grown football management
sim, thereby creating some much needed competition into the marketplace.
7.12
Any comments relating to this column, or any other games-related subject
should please be sent to Dave Floyd, c/o PO Box 2795, London NW10
9AY.  A
7.12
Pocket Book Column
7.12
Travel notes
7.12
The Pocket Book has been to the Aeolian Island of Lipari, off Sicily,
and back, and has proved an excellent travelling companion and talking
point. I can particularly record that the “fiendish Solitaire” I
mentioned last time (as a game picked up from the “3-Lib” collection of
shareware software originally designed for the Psion-3) filled many
boring moments in trains and waiting rooms and even distracted me from
wondering where John had got to and whether he would be back before the
train left. I have only succeeded in getting it out once in all the many
times I have played it, and would like to thank its maker, Dave
(Florish? − he gives no address and asks no licence fee) for hours of
entertainment.
7.12
I also gained the satisfaction I expected from another piece of software
from the “3-Lib” collection, John Whiting’s Outline, which cleverly
enables the user not only to make an ordered set of headings, but also
to write associated notes; to have this quite sophisticated thinking aid
in one’s pocket is immensely valuable. He has also applied some of the
Outline techniques to the structuring of joblists in a piece of software
called ToDo, much more complex than the facility in Schedule. This would
have saved me many mini-breakdowns in my working life, though it comes
too late for me now that I’m retired.
7.12
A hardware problem
7.12
We continued, as reported earlier, to have problems with intermittent
functioning of the printer (the BJ-10SX) which we acquired to connect to
the PocketBook. Finally, we have made a mental link with another
problem: the fact that when the Pocket Book is theoretically connected
to a power supply to conserve batteries, the little green light which
shows that mains power is on keeps going out. Jiggling the lead at the
Pocket Book socket temporarily restores power, but unless this is done
frequently, particularly in a slightly unstable situation, the light
soon goes out again.
7.12
Since I frequently use the Pocket Book on my knee while sitting in bed −
my favourite place of work − such instability is something I need the
hardware to be able to cope with. Our suspicion is that the problem with
the printer is a similar one: that the lead which links Pocket Book to
printer does not sit securely at one or other end. This problem needs to
be addressed by the hardware manufacturers; meanwhile, any advice or
shared experience would be welcome.
7.12
Dunce’s corner
7.12
John of the far side of the bed wants to stand in the DC this month. He
writes: “We keep an old Amstrad portable in the Aeolian Isles.
Accordingly, we wanted to be able to use the A-link to back-up files
between the Pocket Book and the Amstrad. A source close to Psion let us
have RFM, a program which has been written to enable the Psion drives to
be addressed as MS-DOS drives from the host Amstrad. ‘Psion have not,
and may not release this program’, means Psion neither supports nor
maintains this program, and you will get a thick ear if you ask them
about it.
7.12
We shall be getting a Risc PC by next column so I can report on RFM as
soon as DR-DOS comes, but if anyone within easy reach of Victoria
Station has experience with PCs and serial ports, I should like to try
out this useful little program.”
7.12
Endnote
7.12
Is it midsummer torpor, or the fact that I mentioned I was going to be
away? This month, the whole short column has been written by either my
partner or myself, because there have been no letters. Please start them
flowing again; there must be lots more Pocket Book problems and
pleasures out there to communicate.  A
7.12
Oak
7.12
From 7.10 page 16
7.12
CC
7.12
From 7.11 page 8
7.12
Dalriada
7.12
From 7.10 page 15
7.12
GridPro − Grid Processor Program
7.12
Peter Jennings
7.12
GridPro, the grid processor from 4Mation, was inspired by the pleas of a
lace-maker who wanted a dot lattice for designing her patterns. This did
not seem a likely subject for software which would sell in commercial
quantities until it was realised that it could form the basis for a grid
designer with far wider applications.
7.12
Everyone has used a grid at some time or another, whether compiling a
table, drawing a graph, working with a spreadsheet or just doing a
crossword. If you make your own grids, or need to buy specialised and
perhaps expensive designs, GridPro could well interest you. It can also
be used for designing repeating patterns, tessellations, tiled sprites
and polar grids, which make it particularly useful to schools. The
resulting files can be printed out, on any size paper, or exported into
other applications and documents.
7.12
GridPro (version 1.00) costs £37.50 +VAT (or £41 inclusive from
Archive). The price is double with a site licence or extra copies of the
single disc can be supplied at £10 +VAT each. The program has a
registration number and needs to be initialised by entering the user’s
name before it can be run or copied to hard disc. Unfortunately for hard
disc users, it has the irritating extra protection that makes it
necessary to find and insert the original floppy disc every time the
program is run, which is something I feel could sometimes be more of a
deterrent to purchasers than to pirates.
7.12
There are more than 80 sample files giving you various types of grids
and patterns, which are easily customised and which will probably fill
most requirements. The 20-page manual explains how to edit them. This
section of the manual, in tutorial style, comes immediately after the
brief introduction but it is advisable at least to skim through the rest
of the pages before studying it, to get to know the unfamiliar icons
used in the toolbox and windows.
7.12
Line grid
7.12
For the most common type of grid, the line grid, GridPro provides
horizontal and vertical “major” lines and similar pairs of “minor” lines
which can be used to make subdivisions. The lines can be set to any
spacings, thicknesses or colours and either vertical or horizontal lines
can be turned off. Colours can be set to “none” and this will eliminate
the minor lines when they are not needed. Logarithmic grids can be
created by clicking on a button and entering a cycle value to specify
how many times the log scale is to be repeated.
7.12
A grid can be dragged to size and this can be done without altering the
spacing between the lines so as to give the required number of boxes of
the chosen dimensions. It can also be dragged to anywhere on screen or,
more precisely positioned by changing the parameters shown in a window.
7.12
Chequer
7.12
A “chequer” grid is similar in appearance to a line grid except that
alternate rectangles have a fill colour which can, however, be set to
“none”. Apart from this, the main difference from a line grid is that
the number and size of rectangles are adjusted rather than the lines
which form them. The number and the size can each be set to be the same
horizontally and vertically to keep the grid and/or the boxes square,
making it simple to change the configuration to that of a chess board,
for example.
7.12
Crosswords, one of the commonest uses of grids, cannot be made directly
as there is no facility to colour individual squares. This could be done
in a program such as Chameleon or, if a sprite is acceptable, you can
use Paint to snapshot a squared grid and then to fill in the black
areas.
7.12
Dot lattice and polar
7.12
Other types of grids on offer may be less familiar. A dot lattice is
composed of rows of dots which can have their size, colour and spacing
adjusted. The arrangement can be rectangular or skewed at any angle from
20 to 70 degrees.
7.12
Polar grids are the most complex. They can take the form of a complete
circle or a sector of one, with interior rings and/or spokes and
optionally with a “hollow” centre.
7.12
Modulo circles
7.12
Thirty-five sets of six modulo circles are also supplied, as both
separate files and in a Vector-type library which can be loaded into a
tessellation window. These have different numbers of points marked round
the circumference and can be used for modulo arithmetic or just for
creating patterns. One set, called Clockface, has twelve points with the
appropriate numerals marked in. The manual has a page of suggestions for
using modulo circles, tessellations and dot lattices. There is also a
directory containing a set of calendar blanks, a diary page and a sample
table ruling.
7.12
Designing
7.12
Designing your own grid is basically a matter of clicking on a toolbox
icon to choose the required type and then changing the default settings
in a pair of windows, Design and Size/Position, in the same way that the
example files are edited. The options vary according to the type of grid
and can look a little confusing at first. For example, with line grids
there are four different sets of lines − major and minor lines both
horizontal and vertical − which can all be adjusted separately. The
manual shows how to change the parameters but it took me some time to
work out the best way to make my own designs.
7.12
I wanted to get single lines of square boxes, both horizontal and
vertical, to fit together for an interlocking word game. It was easy to
do this by dragging the example matrix of 1cm squares into a single line
(using <select> so that the spaces between the lines, forming the square
boxes, do not change size or shape) but I eventually worked out how to
design it from the beginning from scratch.
7.12
This can be done by setting the major lines to 1cm (that is the space
between them) both horizontally and vertically and ignoring settings for
the minor lines except to change their colour to “none”. You then toggle
from the Design window to the Size/Position window and set either the
vertical or horizontal size to the number of boxes required in that
dimension. The size for the other dimension must be 1cm. For example,
setting the vertical size to 10cm and the horizontal to 1cm will give
you a vertical line of 10 square boxes. This all takes about a minute
and is much easier to understand when doing it on the computer than just
reading about it!
7.12
In practice, you can simply load the 1cm square example file and just
make the changes needed in the Size/Position window in a few seconds but
doing it all from the start at least once does make it clear how the
program works.
7.12
Tiles and tessellations
7.12
Tiled sprites and tessellations are somewhat different and the manual
could be a little more detailed on making them. You begin by dragging
the sprite to be tiled or the drawfile to be tessellated into a window.
You then have to open a menu and confirm the choice of graphic by
clicking on its name before it can be used. The instructions then fail
to say how to make the graphic into a repeating pattern, but it is again
done by increasing the size, this time both vertically and horizontally.
This is logical enough once you have discovered how the program works
but is not very apparent to newcomers.
7.12
Worth having
7.12
This is a very versatile program, aimed for use in education from
primary schools to colleges and for anyone else who uses grids of almost
any type. If you want to make your own grids, simply and quickly, you
will find GridPro well worth having and frequent users may wonder how
they managed without it.
7.12
GridPro costs £37.50 +VAT from 4Mation (£41 through Archive) for a
single user or £75 +VAT (£41 through Archive) for a site licence.  A
7.12
CC
7.12
From 7.11 page 13
7.12
The Internet, Fidonet and Schools
7.12
Doug Weller
7.12
Email isn’t new to schools; schools in the US, Canada and Australia/New
Zealand have been using the Internet and Fidonet for years for
communications.
7.12
At the moment, Campus 2000 is the main network British schools use for
electronic communications. The Internet isn’t new to UK schools, but up
until now, only a handful of schools have been using it, many through
the Chatback Trust which has been funding about 40 schools with special
needs departments. This is set to change soon. Within months, if not
weeks, Campus 2000, the BBC and Edex (The Educational Exchange) will be
vying with each other, and more traditional providers such as Demon, to
provide Internet services for schools.
7.12
Why use the Internet?
7.12
We’ve already used the Internet to exchange diaries with 125 schools
around the world. Next school year we will be working with schools in
the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Latvia and Russia, with
children in (at least) Years 2 to 6. We will be writing joint stories,
exchanging data on acid rain and the weather, discussing different
landscape features, doing joint reading projects, and other activities
still to be planned. Through the Chatback Trust, our less able children
will be engaged in projects specifically tailored to their needs.
7.12
All of this will be done using only Email. We also hope to be able to
use some of the more sophisticated research facilities, for instance, to
get up-to-the-minute earthquake information. Unfortunately, at the
moment, the software required for some of the more exciting Internet
explorations (e.g. Mosaic) isn’t available for the Archimedes.
7.12
How can my school get onto the Net?
7.12
There are a variety of ways that schools can access the Internet.
Probably the simplest is the way we started, via a Fidonet BBS which
allows its users access to the Internet. An increasing number of BBSs
are offering Internet Email and newsgroups. These can be accessed using
any Archimedes comms software, but the best method is to become a point
(i.e. a mini bulletin board) using the free software which is already
available for the Archimedes, !Binkley and !Fidomail.
7.12
More direct access to the Internet is available from providers such as
those mentioned above, but of course these cost more. Schools with
special needs departments could consider asking the Chatback Trust to
sponsor them. This would mean Chatback paying a bursary for phone bills
in return for the school’s special needs pupils being involved in
various projects using Email.
7.12
Once on the Internet, there are a variety of newsgroups and mailing
lists for teachers. These will probably be the subject of a future
article. Right now though, if you have access to Internet newsgroups,
either through direct access to the Internet or a Fido BBS hooked up to
the Internet, look for the newsgroup uk.education.teachers. (If your
local bulletin board doesn’t take it, ask the Sysop!). This particular
newsgroup has been set up as a helpline for teachers wanting to use the
Internet, and I will be regularly posting information about mailing
lists, suggested projects, etc.
7.12
How about Fidonet?
7.12
Paul Welbank’s StarNet BBS at Eaton (City of Norwich) School acts as a
support centre for schools using FidoNet as a low cost medium for inter-
school communication. Several schools run Fidonet points from StarNet.
StarNet provides advice, help and often software to schools wanting to
join Fidonet.
7.12
They have originated the UKSCH_* clutch of Fidonet conferences,
including High-School Chat and 6th Form Chat (both of which are highly
actively used by school-age kids), Junior and Teacher Chat; all of which
are UK backboned.
7.12
They have also been researching and developing software for making the
‘pupil interface’ to email systems manageable. The current project has
produced a system capable of connecting all users on a school Acorn
Econet or Ethernet network. It runs up to sixteen simultaneous users and
can interface them to local email and conferences, Fidonet and, soon,
Internet.
7.12
They have recently achieved a ‘first’, I think, in establishing a direct
fido link between two large secondary schools. Pete Bradbury’s 100
station network in Stantonbury Campus school is linked with our school’s
60 station net. StarNet BBS can be contacted at 0603-507216, 2:2501/405.
7.12
If you want more information specifically on using the Internet, my
email address is dweller@ramtops. demon.co.uk, or via Fido netmail,
2:2501/405.16. Or you can phone me on 021-708-1254.  A
7.12
Talking Rhymes
7.12
Paul Hooper + Class H, Martham First School!
7.12
According to the credits, this suite of programs was written by Brian
and Maddy Kerslake whilst stuck in traffic on the way back from the 1993
NCS Open Day. If that’s what it takes to produce a first class set of
programs then please may we have more NCS Open Days on very busy holiday
weekends out in the middle of rural Norfolk!
7.12
All the programs were tested on an A4000, an A5000 and a Risc PC and
worked fine, but you do need at least 2Mb, so on the A4000 space was a
little tight.
7.12
The review copy came in a neat little box and contained four discs with
a rhyme on each. The manual is an A5 booklet which not only has full
instructions but also gives hints on how to use the rhymes in the
classroom. Also included is a set of photocopy masters which can be
coloured in or cut up as jigsaws. Volume one contains Little Miss
Muffet, Humpty Dumpty, Georgie Porgie and Little Jack Horner but an
extra four rhymes are listed on the outside of the box and will be
available later in the year.
7.12
Getting started
7.12
Each rhyme had to be registered before it could be run but was easily
installed on a hard disc. Jotter font is provided and has to be
installed in your font directory. The normal double click on the icon
produces a blank screen for a few seconds and then a loading screen. The
program is not multi-tasking and will take over the whole machine. The
program checks if a printer driver is present and, if not, gives you the
opportunity to load one. Then you are presented with a picture that has
been split horizontally into four pieces and mixed up. Using a drop and
drag technique you must reassemble the picture. Now a nice touch here is
that it doesn’t matter which button you use on the mouse, they all work
the same − so young children who sometimes have difficulty hitting the
right button can use this program without difficulty.
7.12
Once the picture is correct, you then get a voice in a cartoon style,
reciting the rhyme. Although this is not synthesised speech, it does
sound slightly disjointed as it is made up of a series of one word sound
samples. Then comes the best bit − the picture is then animated so that
Humpty Dumpty does fall off the wall and the Kings men turn up to try
and put him together again − complete with a pot of glue! The cartoon
characters are delightful with lots of humour in the animations − Little
Miss Muffet’s tonsils have to be seen to be believed!
7.12
Certainly, the animations became the main talking point in the
playground and because they are so detailed, each pupil had seen
something different and wanted to come back and check out what they had
missed the first couple of times round. At the same time as the
animation, a music only version of the rhyme is played allowing the
pupils to sing along with the animation.
7.12
Yet more
7.12
Even if this was all the program was capable of doing, it would still be
a good buy. Yet there is so much more. Instead of using the picture, you
can have the words of the rhyme instead, or the words superimposed on
the picture. The picture can be split into six vertical stripes or a six
by four box grid. All pictures can be printed out, even the jigsaw ones.
The animations can be run backwards causing much hilarity. The sound can
be adjusted and all the icons can be configured on or off. When the
words are switched on, the voice speaks the words. The number of
different features available explains why the voice sounds a little
disjointed − there was no room left on the 800Kb disc. In fact, it is
surprising that they have got so much on to one disc.
7.12
Conclusions
7.12
This program certainly deserves a place in any Primary School, as it
will certainly give encouragement to reading. The measure of any good
program is that children want to talk about it and use it again and
again. Using this criteria, the programs were definitely a hit at
Martham School. The cost is a very reasonable at £44 for all four rhymes
through Archive, and there are site licences are available through
Topologika.
7.12
Now where can we send Brian in rural Norfolk to get him to devise yet
another brilliant program? I wonder if he’s heard of
Whissonsett........?  A
7.12
At last, quality artwork for use with Impression and other DTP packages.
Fully compatible with all Archimedes computers, all clip art is supplied
in sprite format. Volume One has 68 full size sprites and 29 system
icons, compressed with ArcFS. Themes covered include: Animals, Borders,
Christmas, Furniture and Transport. Send £10 (+50p p&p) for your copy or
75p for a thumbnail printout of the contents. This is redeemable against
purchase of Volume One.
7.12
QUALITY ARTWORK AT A SENSIBLE PRICE
7.12
User Feedback
7.12
What do the users of Talking Rhymes think about it? Two of the pupils of
Martham First School give their views:
7.12
l liked it because I like the music and pictures. Russell.
7.12
I liked it because I liked trying to work out how to move the bits
around. Kirsty.
7.12
One of the King’s men, glue-pot in hand!
7.12
Hints and Tips
7.12
•  Boot structure on the Risc PC − How many of you have got to grips
with the Boot application on the Risc PC? It’s a little bit messy on
first glance − and even on second and all subsequent glances! However,
it is also very powerful and practical. The following is brief guide to
its contents and what they are used for and goes a little beyond the
discussion in chapter 11 of the User Guide.
7.12
As many of you have discovered, the !Boot application simply runs the
configure utility, enabling you to select various hardware and desktop
options. It has also done an awful lot of work by the time you get to
the desktop, setting up system variables, configuring your preferences
and booting and running several applications, modules and obey files.
Those of you with stronger stomachs may have shift-double-clicked on it
and will have been faced with a bewildering array of nested directories
and files, many of which are named !Boot or Boot, !Configure or
Configure, and all of these are sufficiently dotted with references to
each other to ensure that all who enter are reduced to quivering
technophobes.
7.12
Please note that if you are going to make changes to the insides of
!Boot, you would be wise to take a copy of it first. If you do find that
the contents of !Boot.Choices.Boot are irretrievably messy, you can run
the application !ResetBoot in $.Diversions.Tools which will restore
!Boot to its factory settings. Also, I would recommend keeping a copy of
the RISC OS applications contained in $.Apps if you intend to make any
changes to them − as you do not get a copy of them on floppy disc, as
you did with previous versions of RISC OS.
7.12
Apart from the usual application baggage of !Run, !Boot, !Sprites and
!Help, there are two directories that are of interest (Resources and
Choices) and two that aren’t (Library and Utils.)
7.12
Resources contains the applications that RISC OS needs, but which
needn’t concern the user most of the time, these being !System, !Scrap
and !Fonts. The !Configure application that gets run automatically by
!Boot is also here.
7.12
Choices contains nothing but a directory called Boot and it is here that
the interesting stuff resides.
7.12
The obey file PreDesktop gets run first and sets up aliases and system
variables. Its most interesting job is to control which applications
appear when the Apps icon on the iconbar is clicked. In the following
discussion, ‘Apps’ refers to the directory viewer opened by clicking on
the ‘Apps’ icon on the icon bar, whilst ‘$.Apps’ refers to the directory
called ‘Apps’ in the root of the hard disc. As you will see, they are
not the same.
7.12
By default the contents of $.Apps all appear in the Apps resource. The
easiest way to have one of your own applications accessible through Apps
icon is to copy it into $.Apps. Note that any applications deleted or
moved from $.Apps will no longer appear in Apps after a reset, and
cannot be retrieved. Apps only contains a ‘facade’ for the real
applications which are stored elsewhere. If you have a whole suite of
applications you would like to appear in Apps, and you don’t want them
messed up with the contents of $.Apps, you can ask PreDesktop to add
them from any other directory. Near the end of the file PreDesktop is
the line
7.12
AddApp Boot:^.Apps.!*
7.12
which will place any application in $.Apps into the Apps. If you want to
add to this a single application stored elsewhere, you can add a line
something like
7.12
AddApp Boot:^.MyApps.Impression.!Style
7.12
or to add all the applications in a given directory add a line like
7.12
AddApp Boot:^.MyApps.UsefulApps.!*
7.12
The directory PreDesk contains things which need to be run before the
desktop starts. This is intended for use by applications which need
software, modules or drivers in place prior to the desktop but you may
find you are required to place things there manually when installing
certain new hardware and software products.
7.12
The file Desktop is where the !Boot system filer_boots anything that may
be needed by the operating system, and some of the essentials for the
user. Desktop also causes any applications or obey files contained in
the directory Tasks to be run. Inside Tasks is where applications may
place files they want to be run within the desktop but before the user
gets started. It already contains !ROMPatch and a file called Configure.
If you create a Desktop Boot file from the task manager icon, this is
where it is saved (see page 139 in the User Guide). You can also store
your own goodies here. For instance, if you are using an IDE 105Mb
removable drive in your Risc PC, you may want to place the !SyQuest
Application in the Tasks directory so that it is always present on the
iconbar when you start.
7.12
There is a drawback with placing applications in Tasks that install
themselves on the icon bar. If you choose to create a desktop boot file,
you may find you get a duplicate copy of your favourite application next
time you reset the computer. The best way is to try it and see. !Syquest
doesn’t suffer from this problem.
7.12
You may have tried putting your best backdrop on the pinboard and saving
the desktop to have it appear every time you use your Risc PC, only to
find that RISC OS has decided to put one of its bland wallpapers up in
its place. This is because the ...Tasks.!Boot file containing the state
of the desktop (and therefore your pretty picture) gets run before the
file Configure (simply because the files are run alphabetically). Then
the Configure file simply pastes up the textured background choices you
make from the !Configure utility and thus overwrites your true
preference for a backdrop. You can overcome this either by running
!Configure (by double-clicking on the !Boot application), selecting
‘none’ for background texture in the ‘screen’ options and clicking on
the ‘set’ icon. You could try renaming either !Boot or Configure, so
that they swap positions, but this is not the way to do it because
changing either the desktop boot, or running !Configure, will create the
same problem again.  David Webb, NCS.
7.12
•  Changing ChangeFSI − It is possible to modify !ChangeFSI v0.95 to
enable non-Risc PC owners to create high/true colour sprites.
7.12
!ChangeFSI v0.95 allows Risc PC owners to create 16bpp (32,000) or 32bpp
(16,000,000) sprites, but it will not work on non-Risc PC machines − an
error message comes up if you try and create one! However, a little
modification of the !ChangeFSI Basic file gets over this problem.
7.12
Open up the !ChangeFSI application and look for a blue Basic file called
ChangeFSI. Load this file into !Edit and 21 lines down you will see a
line:
7.12
SYS “OS_SWINumberFromString”,, “OS_SpriteOp” TO spop%
7.12
insert an ‘X’ at the start of the “OS_Spriteop” word so that it reads:
7.12
SYS “OS_SWINumberFromString”,, “XOS_SpriteOp” TO spop%
7.12
and 531 lines down (you may wish to use !Edit’s F5 key short cut here!)
you will see:
7.12
SYS“Wimp_ReadPixTrans”,&100,sar%,n$,,,, ifactors%,pixtrans%
7.12
insert a ‘X’ at the start of the “Wimp_Read...” word so that it reads:
7.12
SYS“XWimp_ReadPixTrans”,&100,sar%,n$,,,, ifactors%,pixtrans%
7.12
Resave the file!
7.12
Now when you enter a 32,000 colour display mode (or set !ChangeFSI’s
output option) and drag a suitable JPEG/TIFF, etc image to !ChangeFSI,
the error will not occur, but a seemingly ‘blank’ white window will
appear. The image is really there − it just can’t be seen! Save this
‘blank’ image and you will have created your very own high-colour
sprite!  Stuart Halliday, Quantum Software.
7.12
•  Replacement mice − With the Acorn mouse costing £40* and both the
Clares and Watford mice costing £30, the survival of our school mice has
been of some concern to me. The oldest mice for the A310s have caused
most problems as they have weak leads and a little stretching breaks the
wires inside the cable. They also go out of adjustment causing the
pointer to stall or go off in the wrong direction. The A3000 mice have
far fewer problems but, after a lot of use, they too can have cable
breaks and one has failed electronically. So far, the A3020 type have
not failed − but perhaps they have not been in use long enough.
7.12
(*We still have a few cut-price Acorn mice at £20. Ed.)
7.12
Repairing mice myself was a time-consuming business and replacement
leads were costly too; one from Archive is £11 or £13 depending on the
mouse-type. I have used a company called CSL to repair all the A310
mice. They are reliable and quick and have a fixed charge of £15 plus
VAT, which includes a new cable. This is strong and thick and definitely
child-proof, if a bit clumsy. Meanwhile, I have kept my eyes open for a
cheap replacement. There are numerous compatible Atari and Amiga mice,
usually selling for about £10 at shows, but they only have two buttons.
Similarly, there are PC mice at a slightly higher price, but the 3-
button variety are for the serial port.
7.12
Thankfully, the latest Maplin catalogue has a cheap 3-button Amiga
mouse. A little investigation worked out the connections and then a bit
of delicate soldering to a 9-pin miniature DIN plug, also from Maplin,
produced a fully working replacement. The mouse is neat and fits well in
the hand. It has a coated steel ball and membrane switches rather than
microswitches. These could be replaced, but the feel is good anyway. A
possible bonus is that the sensitivity is about twice that of the Acorn
mouse, i.e. it moves twice as far on screen for a given movement across
the mat.
7.12
For anyone who needs a replacement, I can recommend this route if you
are a competent solderer with a fine iron. The connections and parts are
shown below. Although the wire colours in my mouse were in a convenient
resistor-code order, you should confirm this before soldering.
7.12
Parts from Maplin Electronics:
7.12
RT51F − Amiga Mouse − £10.95
7.12
JX19V − Min DIN Line Plug 9W − 98p.
7.12
(Prices are inc VAT.)
7.12
Mouse plug connections
7.12
  Pin  Function  Colour
7.12
  9  menu  white
7.12
  8  adjust  grey
7.12
  7  select  black
7.12
  6  yb  blue
7.12
  5  ya  green
7.12
  4  xa  yellow
7.12
  3  xb  orange
7.12
  2  +5v  red
7.12
  1  0v  brown
7.12
Keyboard socket (or rear of plug)
7.12
Steve Drain, Portland.
7.12
(If you have never soldered a mini-DIN plug before, be warned − it is a
VERY fiddly job! Ed.)
7.12
CSL’s address is: 15 Spencer Road, New Milton, Hants, BH25 6BZ.
7.12
•  Resetting the palette on the Risc PC − One of our subscribers happily
ran one of the alternative palette files, such as those given for
Artworks and Impression, only to realise that on RISC OS 3.5 there is no
palette icon with which to alter it, or, more importantly, to reset to
default. We’ve not been able to find any easy way to reset the palette
other than to take a default palette from a pre-RISC OS 3.5 computer and
double-click on it on the Risc PC. This does the job so, for those of
you who do not have the luxury of another machine, a default palette is
included on the program disc.  David Webb, NCS
7.12
•  RISC OS 3 Laser Direct driver problems − If you look at last month’s
Archive carefully, you will see a small printing problem with the new
RISC OS 3 LD drivers from CC. Take page 50 for example and look at line
8 which starts, “Star to average”. As you will probably be able to see,
there is a distortion of the text which looks like a missing line or
lines of dots on the printout. Having once identified it, you will
probably be able to see it on many of the pages of the magazine at about
the same position!!!!
7.12
CC know about the problem and say that they are looking into it. There
is, however, a temporary solution. To stop it, you have to switch off
the half-toning of text. To do this, shift-click on the !Printers icon
on the iconbar and set the options as shown opposite to “Graphics only”.
7.12
The only slight snag with this is that it reveals another (even worse)
bug. If, with half-toning on graphics only, you print something
sideways, it goes completely AWOL and prints the text at the wrong
spacing and in totally the wrong place!  Ed.
7.12
(Stop Press − CC say that they have a beta-release of version 2.65 which
they are going to send me. It seems to have fixed the problems but, of
course, you can never be sure until it is thoroughly tested.  Ed.)
7.12
•  Selecting modes in Basic on the Risc PC − We recently had an enquiry
regarding the effects of the MODE command in Basic on the Risc PC.
Unlike previous machines, the mode can be set using a mode definition
string rather than just a number. The idea is that this gives access to
the whole range of modes available to the Risc PC. If the specific
machine on which the software is running does not support the mode
requested, the closest mode which is available will be selected.
7.12
The mode description string takes the form “Xn Ym Ck” where n is the
desired X resolution, m is the desired Y resolution, and k sets the
number of colours – 2, 4, 16, 256, 32K, 16M are all valid colour
specifiers. For example MODE “X800 Y600 C16” will choose a mode similar
to mode 31 on earlier machines. Note also that the resolutions given in
the string are the required resolutions in Pixels, not logical units as
used by the Basic MOVE/DRAW/PLOT commands for example. More on this
later.
7.12
The mode can be specified either by number or by string. Most of the old
modes are supported, and with some calculation, the new modes are also
accessible by number. The easiest way to find the number is to enter the
mode using the mode string, and then “PRINT MODE” which will display the
current mode number.
7.12
Unfortunately, for users who have worked their way up from earlier
machines, the new system has some strange effects. The new method makes
more sense than the old system which was based on the BBC Micro system
of TTL rgb colours, but you do need to be aware of the changes. When a
mode is chosen by number and the mode has 2, 4 or 16 colours, then the
palette is redefined to be the same as that offered on the BBC,
including, for 16 colour modes, the flashing colours. This is identical
to the operation of earlier RISC OS machines.
7.12
If the mode string is used, however, there are some differences.
Firstly, using the string has the same result as a “*wimpmode” command
being issued rather than a “*mode”. The effect is that (a) the desktop
mode will have changed, and (b) the palette will be redefined to match
the desktop palette for that number of colours, including clearing the
screen to a mid-grey background, and selecting black text on a white
background. Secondly, the computer gets to choose what it thinks is the
best mode for the job. As noted above, MODE “X800 Y600 C16” gives you
the same size and colours as mode 31, however the two are not identical.
MODE 31 specifies a particular mode whereas the string specifies general
requirements for the mode. In this case, where mode 31 has a refresh
rate of 56Hz, the mode string selects a mode which has a refresh rate of
75Hz, considerably reducing the flicker. The important point here is
that, by passing a string, the choice of mode is more independent,
allowing the computer to choose the mode it can support that is closest
to the mode requested.
7.12
If you need to use a limited number of colours, the best method to use
is the mode string, followed by a redefinition of the palette if needed,
using VDU 19,n,16,r,g,b. Individual colours can be chosen as normal
using GCOL a,c. The more “official” method, especially for high colour
modes is to use the mode string and the SWI ColourTrans_SetG-COL since
that will choose the closest colour in the palette defined. (For best
results, you may still wish to change the palette in low colour modes
for particular tasks). An example is shown below in procedural form
which you may find useful. The procedure will work on earlier machines
as well.
7.12
REM PROCsetcolour
7.12
REM r%, g%, b% set the amounts of red green
7.12
REM and blue for the desired colour,
7.12
REM Colourtrans will be used to pick
7.12
REM the closest colour and set it.
7.12
REM effect% is a standard GCOL effect field
7.12
REM Use SWI number for speed :
7.12
REM ColourTrans_SetGCOL = &40743
7.12
:
7.12
DEF PROCsetcolour(r%,g%,b%,effect%)
7.12
LOCAL colour%
7.12
colour%=(b%<<24)+(g%<<16)+(r%<<8)
7.12
SYS &40743,colour%,,,0,effect%
7.12
ENDPROC
7.12
Finally, let me deal with the OS and pixel units conversions mentioned
earlier. Unlike PCs where locations of pixels tend to be addressed
directly, Acorn has always had a level of indirection - the “logical
resolution”. This had two main advantages in the past, firstly that the
logical resolution did not change with mode, so a line across the middle
of the screen would still appear in the middle even if you changed the
number of pixels on the screen. Secondly, the display worked in the same
way as a mathematical graph, with the origin at the bottom left corner
of the screen, y increasing upwards. If absolute pixels are used, the
top left is the origin, and y decreases downwards.
7.12
The first of these two advantages no longer holds. Because of the
dramatic increase in resolutions and the need to fit more onto the
screen mean, the logical resolutions for different modes are no longer
identical. Consider the table on page 525 of the Risc PC User Guide:
Mode 12 is 640×256 pixels but has a logical resolution of 1280×1024.
Incidentally, this was the standard logical resolution for all modes on
the BBC and earlier Archimedes. Mode 27 at 640×480 only has a logical
resolution of 1280×960 i.e. although mode 27 is “higher resolution”, you
actually get less of a page on the screen than you do in mode 12! (You
will have to take my word for the logical resolutions − they have been
taken out of the Risc PC manual, but appeared in earlier versions if you
have access to those – page 221 of the joint User & Applications guide
for RISC OS 3.)
7.12
This has been used to good effect on the Risc PC, allowing large area
desktops such as the X1600 Y600 mode which has four times the area of
the X800 Y600, but only double the number of pixels.
7.12
This means that you do not know what the logical resolution of a mode is
when you choose it, so to make your software as mode independent as
possible, you need to check the actual and logical resolutions using the
SWI OS_ReadModeVariables and set up appropriate scaling factors. If you
do not have the PRMs, you can assume that for rectangular pixel modes
2*X converts a pixel to the correct logical position, and 4*Y gives the
appropriate scaling for the vertical. In square pixel modes, use 2*X and
2*Y for the scaling. If the actual Y resolution is less than half of the
actual X resolution then it is probably safe to assume a rectangular
pixel mode, otherwise assume square pixel.
7.12
On the monthly program disc is a program called “setcolour” which
includes the above procedure. As a demonstration, the program goes
through 2, 4, 16, 256, 32K and 16M colours and displays a slice from the
colour cube. (You may find the program fails to display the higher depth
modes if you do not have any VRAM). Simply double click on it, once it
has finished the first colour square, press a key to move on to the next
higher colour depth. You may need to reset your desktop mode after it
has finished. SetColourN is similar but only uses 2, 4, 16 and 256
colours referenced by number to demonstrate the difference between
desktop and default “BBC” palettes. This version will also work on pre-
Risc PC machines.  Matthew Hunter, NCS.
7.12
•  Sound Boots? − For those of you seeking to boost the sound output of
your computer, may I suggest you take a quick trip to your local branch
of Boots the Chemist. In the music department, you should find a pair of
Boots’ own brand ZX200CD microspeakers for a mere £14.99. These come in
rather a naff cardboard box, but do have a volume control on the front
of each speaker plus a PBS button which enhances the bass sound. They
require four LR6 batteries (about another £3) but as they have auto
power switch off, these last a fair time. The supplied lead plugs
directly into the headphone socket on an Acorn computer.
7.12
The difference is stunning and, certainly in a noisy classroom, they
would be a great help. Even in the home environment, they can make a lot
of difference.  Paul Hooper, Martham, Norfolk.
7.12
• Thumbnail creation − Quantum Software have provided Archive
subscribers with a copy of Executor (the playback-only version of
Keystroke). It has been supplied as seen, with no warranty, etc, for use
by Archive magazine subscribers only, to demonstrate some of the
abilities of Keystroke.
7.12
The application has the ability to produce, from a directory of JPEG or
TIFF files, a multi-sprite file − in effect, making a !Paint ‘thumbnail’
file.
7.12
These thumbnail sprite files are very useful for displaying your bit-map
images quickly and, whilst it isn’t as good as a professional thumbnail
application, they cost money. Because Paint and this copy of Executor
come free, this is an definite advantage!  Stuart Halliday, Quantum
Software.
7.12
N.B. Quantum are also offering Keystroke at a special price of £19 to
Archive subscribers for a limited period. For details, see page 5.  A
7.12
Second Impressions of the Risc PC
7.12
Martin Angove
7.12
My Risc PC finally arrived on the 1st June, so I’ve had some time to
assess the thing for myself after all the hype in the Acorn press. It
was about time I had a new computer − my trusty old A310 (4Mb, 130Mb
IDE, Laser Direct, Vision Digitiser and Watford Handscanner) was
beginning to show its age (six years old in July) with various symptoms
for which no-one seems to be able to suggest a cure.
7.12
I ordered, from my local Acorn dealer Uniqueway, a 5Mb model with VRAM
upgraded to 2Mb, and a 17“ monitor. Unfortunately, they forgot to order
the extra VRAM, so I’m running with 1Mb at the moment. When I got it
home I started to unpack the thing on the kitchen table rather than
clearing the space where it would eventually end up. I was a little
surprised at first that the monitor had its own mains plug (rather than
plugging into the monitor socket on the Risc PC), but after hunting for
a two-way adaptor, I got it all switched on. I suppose I will eventually
buy an IEC to IEC lead so that the two-way adaptor can return to its
rightful home.
7.12
To avoid disturbing the rest of the family, I issued a *Speaker Off
command so that the beeps (and later the Replay music) wouldn’t annoy
him. It didn’t work. This was my first clue that, even though the
machine superficially looks similar to the current RISC OS 3.1 machines,
things are different deeper down. To save you from my burbling on, I’ve
set my other observations out as a sort of list.
7.12
The case
7.12
Yes, it does look pretty, and is certainly easy to get into, but the lid
is a pain to put back on straight − you have to press hard on about
three places at once. (You can actually push each of the three points
along the front of the lid clicking it into place one bit at a time.
Ed.) The flap over the drive bays, which makes the machine look so good
when it is closed, is not quite big enough to close with a floppy disc
partially inserted in the drive. I do this quite a lot with document
discs − they are in the drive while I’m working, and then if I have to
go off to do something else I press the eject button and leave the disc
sticking out of the drive − just in case. Actually, the door is big
enough to close with the disc in this state, but you’ll need a small
screwdriver to push the disc back a bit so that you can open it again
later!
7.12
The keyboard
7.12
It is good that the keyboard is a more-or-less standard item. It
shouldn’t cost too much to replace if it ever goes wrong − it looks like
a fairly standard PC keyboard with a PS/2 style plug. On the other hand,
I don’t like Caps Lock where Control should be − I very rarely use Caps
Lock, but use Control all the time. Where it used to be it was quite
easy to use one hand to (for example) type <ctrl-U> to delete the text
in a writeable icon or <ctrl-I> to insert a frame in Impression II. Even
a single-handed <ctrl-shift-I> was just about possible, in order to do
the same in Publisher, but now both operations result in severe cramp
unless I use two hands. I also preferred the larger left-hand Shift key
− I keep hitting ‘\’ now!
7.12
(This keyboard change is why I’m only half looking forward to changing
to Risc PC. I use <ctrl-A>, <ctrl-S> and <ctrl-D> with alarming
regularity when I’m editing text. Does anyone have a module that will
exchange the use of <ctrl> and <capslock>? Ed.)
7.12
The monitor
7.12
I ordered the AKF85 monitor with my Risc PC, and I’m glad that I did.
Desktop Publishing is immeasurably easier in 256 colours at 1024×768
resolution than in the old 16-colour 1056×256 mode 16 I used on my A310.
I’ve only had two problems with this monitor. Firstly, its serial number
comes from Phillips, not Acorn, so doesn’t fit neatly into the box
provided on the registration slip, and secondly, juggling the screen
controls to get as near a perfect picture as possible can be quite time-
consuming since they all affect each other. It also displays TV modes
(old numbers 0 to 15) in ‘letterbox’ format, but this is not usually a
problem except with games (which often use mode 13).
7.12
Manufacturing problems
7.12
Acorn machines used to be manufactured by a company which is quite local
to where I live, AB Electronics. Whether it was their fault or Acorn’s
for not anticipating demand for new machines I don’t know, but there
have always been problems with supply when a new machine was launched.
Given that Acorn are no longer using AB Electronics, I tentatively
expected fewer problems, until I had to wait three (or was it four?)
weeks for my machine.
7.12
Whoever manufactures the machine, they seriously need to do something
about their Quality Assurance. I had been using my machine for a couple
of hours before I noticed that the floppy drive icon was missing. Closer
investigation revealed that the Power-On-Self-Test routine failed to
recognise the floppy, so assumed there wasn’t one. There obviously was
(I could see it!) so I took the lid off to have a closer look. It
transpired that the power wasn’t connected to the drive. It was then a
relatively easy task to remove the backplane and plug the connector in.
This raised a second point. There is only one 3½“ style power connector,
although there are two 5¼” style ones, one of which is attached to the
IDE disc.
7.12
I telephoned Uniqueway to let them know, and they said that of the six
(I think) machines they’d delivered up until then, three had had
problems − their IDE hard drives weren’t attached.
7.12
Design
7.12
Talking about the IDE drive, I thought the easiest way to transfer
things from my A310 to the Risc PC would be to transplant the A310’s IDE
drive into the Risc PC. No such luck! The cable in the Risc PC only has
one connector, and the one in the A310 (which does have two) is
permanently attached to the IDE interface card. I suppose I could have
put the Risc PC’s drive into the A310, but I didn’t feel like chancing
it. How do I expand the Risc PC if I want to add another IDE drive? I
suppose I’ll have to buy another cable.
7.12
(Yes, you need an IDE cable with three connectors on it to replace the
one you get which has two. There is a spare power cable coiled up under
the floppy drive. You may find some mechanical problems fitting a second
drive though. NCS can supply all the bits you need or a complete kit
including hard drive. Ed.)
7.12
One final point about the hardware − if you look carefully you will see
that there is space for another speaker to be fixed in the front of the
case. Yet again, Acorn have supplied the machine with a tinny little
excuse for a speaker, and in mono to boot! At least the sound output
from the 3.5 mm socket is of better quality than used to be the case −
maybe they’ve heard Ray Maidstone’s Hifi upgrades, and incorporated a
better filter. (Yup! Ed.)
7.12
Supplied software
7.12
I, too, regret that Paint, Draw and Edit are no longer supplied in ROM
(although at least the three basic fonts still are). This obviously
makes it easier to update them when required, but does use more memory.
As a result, my 5Mb machine (4Mb main and 1Mb VRAM) has little advantage
in terms of memory use over the A310 − any extra memory I may have soon
gets eaten up by these programs which have in effect doubled or tripled
in size.
7.12
Draw and Edit seem pretty much identical to the versions supplied with
RISC OS 3.1, although Draw has obviously been updated to take advantage
of the new 32 thousand and 16 million colour screen modes. What
surprises me is that Paint hasn’t been updated in a similar fashion.
7.12
Granted, Paint was never the world’s most powerful bitmap editing
package, but it did have its uses. I can’t see why it wasn’t possible to
enable it to edit sprites with large numbers of colours. One of my main
uses for Paint is to crop images before transferring them to Impression
or Draw to save space. Not being able to use, for example, a small part
of a 24-bit sprite converted from one of the JPEGs on the hard disc is a
bit limiting. On top of that, Paint won’t even display 256 colour (16
greys) sprites from my Vision digitiser properly unless I’m using a 256
colour mode!
7.12
The other slight disappointment − sorry to the guys at Uniqueway who
wrote it − is the Replay player. This application seems to sit uneasily
on the gleaming new hardware. The most perplexing thing is that this
package, which can play movies at 25 frames per second with stereo sound
on an A5000, still needs to freeze all other tasks to do the same on a
machine that is said to be twice as fast. At least when it’s only
reproducing sound it is able to multitask. Dig a little deeper, and you
will find that it seems to be possible to get Replay movies to do all
sorts of funny things − pretending to be film, moving about the screen,
zooming or whatever. It is not as easy as all that − you have to fiddle
with some of the supplied utilities which are written in Basic.
7.12
On the subject of the hard disc, I was also a little worried that Acorn
had not seen fit to include the supplied utilities etc on floppy as
well, or even to provide a utility to back-up the hard disc. Even cheap
PC clone vendors are starting to realise that very occasionally
accidents do happen, and it’s very reassuring to know that your valuable
applications are sitting on a floppy, just waiting to be copied back to
the hard disc in an emergency. I spent quite some time working out how
best to fit them onto floppies, and then copying them.
7.12
Compatibility
7.12
I was not pleased by the amount of software I had that didn’t seem to
work properly on the new hardware and OS. Among the more important (to
me, at any rate), Drawbender from Ian Copestake crashes every time (an
update is promised as soon as they can get hold of a Risc PC); ArcFS
(version 1) works, but seems to affect some other applications − an
upgrade is recommended for users of both version 1 and version 2; the PC
Emulator needs an upgrade, costing £9 plus VAT (my current version is
1.6); Laser Direct needs an upgrade which I hope will also fix the bug
in the current version that prevents it printing ☓ (w­circumflex) and Ŷ
(y­circumflex) from the internal fonts; Translator by John Kortink gets
confused and hangs the machine if you’re using a 32 thousand or 16
million colour mode.
7.12
This last point brings out an important addition to RISC OS 3.5. If your
machine hangs (an application gets stuck in a loop, mouse clicks won’t
work and so on) just press <alt-break>. This will, nine times out of
ten, bring up a dialogue box enabling you to stop the process in
question and continue. This answers one of the main criticisms of a co-
operative multitasking system; that you have no control over a process
independent of the process itself.
7.12
Having said all that, it is pleasing just how many things do work!
Perversely, it seems as though the programs that are presented most
professionally (see some of the list above) have problems, whereas
programs you’d expect to fail, don’t. In this last category, I include
such gems as the Digital Symphony player and tunes (although Trackers
and Teq Music as used on some games seem to have problems), various game
demos from cover discs (Spheres of Chaos, Flashback etc.) and PD
utilities such as William Tunstall-Pedoe’s excellent Supergram (I
recommend upgrading to the much-enhanced version 2), and Panorama
(produces drawfile world maps). PD utilities often cut compatibility
corners because some programmers are just plain lazy. The Vision
digitiser is an excellent example of a cheap and cheerful product that
needed no upgrading to work on the new hardware, although it still needs
to be in mode 15.
7.12
On the other hand
7.12
Don’t think I’m not pleased with my new machine! I’m glad that I waited
for it. This time last year I was wondering if I should try to scrape
the money together for an A5000, as my A310 was starting to do some
funny things. Fortunately, I held off, saved up, and have been well
rewarded. All I need now is yet more money so that I can buy a 24-bit A4
colour scanner, colour laser printer, CD-ROM, 21“ monitor, Syquest
removable − the list goes on!  A
7.12
Comment Column
7.12
•  Acorn success story − We have received news of another Acorn success
story. Congratulations to Archive member Philip Foster and the
production team of StreetWise, the parish community magazine of St
Matthew’s Church, Cambridge. StreetWise has won joint first prize in the
National Parish Magazine Competition, awarded at a special ceremony
during the General Synod at York in July.
7.12
Ruth Geldhill of the Daily Telegraph, who was one of the judges,
commented on Radio Five Live that the quality of both the production and
the journalism had impressed her. The Rev Philip Foster of St Matthew’s
Church and one of the editorial team of five said, “We used Acorn
equipment from the second edition and have never looked back. We now
produce the entire magazine in-house and present our Printers with
positive film so that they can go direct to plate. What further
encouraged us was the discovery that our co-winners (“Newslink” from St
Faith’s church in Crosby) were also Acorn users. A real double first for
Acorn and Computer Concepts’ Impression DTP software.”
7.12
StreetWise is delivered to each of the 1700 households in the parish
each quarter and it has nearly completed four years in circulation. You
can get in touch with Philip Foster on 0223-63545 (fax 512304) for
further details of the equipment and production process used for
StreetWise. If you would like a sample copy of the magazine, please send
Philip £1 in money or stamps as the magazines are a little postage-
hungry!
7.12
•  “Don’t sign for it!” − (Vera Cooke, NCS, writes...) We have had a
couple of problems lately with carriers (and have tried one or two
different ones). If you receive a parcel from NCS, please examine it
carefully BEFORE signing for it. If it looks as if it might possibly
have been damaged in transit, put something like “Packaging appears
damaged” and then sign near what you have written and not in the box
where they ask you to sign. The point is that if you sign to say that
the goods are accepted, the insurers refuse to pay out if you then try
to say later on that the goods were damaged.
7.12
•  “Sign it!” − (Vera Cooke, NCS, writes...) When you receive a Risc PC,
please be sure to fill in and send the warranty card. If you don’t do so
within the specified time, you will not be entitled to the one year on-
site warranty. Also, if a computer is going to go wrong then after it
has been shaken about twice by carriers (Acorn−−>NCS−−>you) is the most
obvious time for it to go wrong, so it’s important to get that warranty
card off a.s.a.p. to avoid delay in the event of something going wrong.
7.12
•  Impression Publisher is here at last. Has it been worth the wait?
Indubitably yes! There are so many extra features − some are cosmetic,
others make life simpler and there are many, many others which are major
enhancements to what was already a powerful piece of software.
7.12
I gather there is going to be a full review in a future issue of Archive
but, in the meantime, here are a few initial comments (mostly
cautionary, and aimed at those who are familiar with Impression II).
7.12
− Not surprisingly, with so many extras, the size of the basic program
has virtually doubled. With Impression, it was Computer Concept’s claim
that useful documents could be produced on a machine with just 1Mb of
memory. Now, inevitably, the recommendation is for a minimum of 2Mb and
if you use it for producing books or other lengthy documents, 4Mb is
essential (and 8Mb desirable).
7.12
− Once you have learnt the keyboard shortcuts, they speed up work more
than a little. But a large number have been changed between Impression
II and Publisher. Refer to the manual or my quick reference card. (Plug,
plug! See Products Available on page 4.)
7.12
− With early versions of Impression, I managed to crash it quite often,
but by version 2.19, it only occurred rarely. With Publisher, the
sequence seems to have started over again, so make regular backups,
preferably to files with different names.  Barry Humpidge, Sheffield.
7.12
(I have a decidedly vested interest in knowing if this last comment is
true! We haven’t heard many bug reports yet. Ed.)
7.12
•  PC Dilemma − (Ed writes...) If Archive claims to cover “anything to
do with Acorn’s range of computers”, does this mean we should now be
dealing with Windows, DOS, etc? We have, in the past had articles about
using the PC Emulator and various comments about the relative merits of
Macs, PCs and, in particular, Risc PCs.
7.12
What I am inclined to do is only to cover the areas of interface between
the PC and the RISC OS world. If people want articles specifically about
“using Windows” or such-like, wouldn’t it be more sensible to get them
from the (ubiquitous) PC magazines? How much coverage do you think we
should be giving to “things PC” in Archive? Perhaps people would write
and let us know their views (on the questionnaire, perhaps).
7.12
Is there anyone who would like to have a go at fielding the questions,
suggestions, etc about the use of the PC second processors on the
Risc PC and do a couple of issues of a “Risc PC−PC Column” − or however
many it takes?  Ed.
7.12
•  Protext 6 − Users of Arnor’s Protext 5 word processor, one of the few
major Archimedes programs which is not multi-tasking, are still waiting
for the RISC OS compliant Acorn version of Protext 6 which was promised
for “early 1994”. PC and Atari versions were issued last year but Arnor
still do not have a release date for Acorn machines. They say they hope
it will be available in September or October, so perhaps it will be
running on RISC PCs at the next Acorn World show.  Peter Jennings, St
Albans.
7.12
•  Puzzles, please − In Personal Computer World, there is a monthly
prize competition (normally far too easy) and a maths/computer article
by Mike Mudge (usually far too difficult for me). Any chance of
something similar, preferably of a degree of difficulty half-way between
these two?  R W Newmark, Sunderland. Any offers, anyone? Ed.
7.12
•  Risc PC and the future − As would be expected, there has been a lot
said about the Risc PC in a very short space of time. Since I have had
my machine for a week now, I thought I might as well get my oar in too.
First impressions are very favourable, but although the ARM 610 is
noticeably faster than the 30MHz ARM3 in my A540, it is VIDC20 and the
improved efficiency of the video system which is the more significant
factor.
7.12
I am running in 1600×600 in 256 colours and 75Hz refresh rate. This is
excellent for spreadsheets and gives a nice steady image with the large
expanses of white in Impression Publisher. These areas are prone to show
flicker at rates slower than 60Hz.
7.12
I think that the limit of 2Mb of video RAM is sensible since, although
higher resolution and greater colour depth are theoretically possible
with more VRAM, I suspect that correspondingly low refresh rates would
make it impracticable. Still, VIDC enhancers have been known in the past
and I dare say that someone out there needs (wants?) 1600×1200 in 32 bit
colour and 70Hz.
7.12
If I am honest, as far as my business is concerned, I’m not sure I
really need a Risc PC. My A540 can do most things I require and it is
the larger monitor and bigger capacity drives which have helped the most
rather than processing speed. I am a bit faster printing with the
Risc PC but software upgrades from Computer Concepts, such as a RISC OS
3 Laser Direct which can print rotated text, certainly improved the A540
system.
7.12
I can’t help thinking that the IT industry is at a bit of a watershed
though. The vast majority of business machines are sold to people who
have very limited needs, and they will not just upgrade for the sake of
it. How likely is it that Pentium processing power will really be needed
by the hundreds of thousands of secretaries doing wordprocessing plus
the odd bit of graphics in Windows? If that’s the case, the growth in
the number of desktop computers could well tail off with people buying
new to replace worn out rather than new to give vitally needed
additional functionality. Acorn’s move into telecommunications might
turn out to be a shrewd move. (See page 13.)
7.12
I must at this point mention the efficiency of Granada Microcare. I had
only had my new machine a few hours when the monitor refused to come
back from an auto-blank. Although the fault seemed to clear itself after
a phone call to Microcare, they still came out and swapped it for a new
one. This was in under six hours from the time the first call was made
on the Friday morning.
7.12
Since the Risc PC has cost me over £2,000 of my own money, do I think I
have got value for money? Despite what I said in the first few
paragraphs, I think the answer is yes, since I did need a second machine
for the business. Also, I get a lot of pleasure from being different
from my colleagues in my computer habits and enjoy being able to tell
them that they make do with boring Ford Cortinas while I have the
equivalent of a Ferrari. I also enjoy the knots they get themselves into
when the Windows Drivers don’t work or a machine with 16Mb of RAM says
there is no room to run a wordprocessor and crashes amidst a flurry of
gobbledegook or the salesman tells them that a site licence for
Microsoft Office is £10,000 +VAT. Hilarious!
7.12
Looking at the component count on the Risc PC circuit board, and the
overall design, I would be surprised if the manufacturing costs are more
than a fraction of the retail price − probably similar to those of the
A4000. Hard disc prices have fallen enormously since the launch of the
A5000 and the use of standardised components such as a PC keyboard
coupled with bulk buying must have helped.
7.12
Whereas the PC clone manufacturers are squeezed on their margins and
must sell enormous quantities, Acorn have greater freedom to design a
system which probably has higher margins and can therefore survive on
fewer sales. But before you all rush to complain that they should slash
prices, think things through. If they reduce the profit margin by 50%,
they will have to sell twice as many machines just to stand still. Such
a strategy is very dangerous as it could bankrupt the company if it
doesn’t work. (And from a dealer’s point of view, we only get a very
small margin, so would we survive on the reduced profit of the reduced
prices? Ed.)
7.12
Apple found that reducing prices did increase sales but not
profitability. Personally, I am happy to pay a premium for superior
design and I don’t want too many PC converts because I will lose my
exclusivity. It’s not half as much fun owning a Ferrari if everyone has
got one.
7.12
I actually wonder if it would be possible to manufacture a PC clone
version of Risc PC which could be sold competitively in the PC market,
i.e. under £1,000 − heresy perhaps but commercial sense if it were
possible. From a marketing perspective, Acorn seem to be doing the right
thing. They phase out a machine which is relatively expensive to
manufacture and replace it with a better machine which could be less
expensive. However, they keep the price of this machine as high as
reasonably sustainable while all the “propeller heads” such as myself
want one to satisfy their technological lust. They even make supply a
little difficult to start with so that there is a real feeling of demand
but not so bad that the enthusiasts give up. They then sell as many
machines as they can make for a while with the highest margins. Then
they design and launch a cut-down lesser version (cf the A3000 after the
A310/A400 series and the A3000/4000 after the A5000) so that the masses
and, in particular, the volume education sales who couldn’t afford a
Risc PC, can be satisfied. At the same time, they reduce the price of
the original machine to entice a few of the customers at the lower end
to go up market and buy a more expensive and more profitable machine.
They then launch a new flagship and the cycle is repeated.
7.12
The only flaw in this analysis is that Risc PC is so expandable, it is
difficult to see how the new flagship could be significantly different
yet still maintaining software compatibility. Perhaps a 64-bit machine
or a multi-(RISC)processor machine?
7.12
(The next real goal in my mind is the technology to run and edit full-
screen, full-motion digital video of better than VHS quality without
needing to break the bank for storage space.)
7.12
The interesting question is whether or not the next down-market machine
will be similar to Risc PC with a coprocessor slot and built-in
processor upgrade strategy. The more probable alternative is to use an
integrated chip design like ARM250, perhaps ARM750 or ARM850. An ARM750
would presumably out-perform the current Risc PC and so there must be
some inherent limitation to a new low spec machine or it would severely
hit sales of the higher spec machines. If a fictitious ARM 750 machine
sold at a similar price to the current A30x0 series, and had a
coprocessor slot, it would make a fairly cost-effective IBM clone in its
own right at current prices.
7.12
My guess though is that the replacement for the A3000/A4000 series will
have an integrated processor such as an ARM750 but it will be fixed to
the circuit board and therefore not easily upgradable. I also think that
there will probably be no coprocessor slot. This will be a shame, given
the potential to get in at the home user with a low budget who needs PC
compatibility or the school likewise, but I think that’s what they will
choose in order to maintain product differentiation.
7.12
What I would then do is produce a variant of this machine without a hard
or floppy disc but with Ethernet on the main circuit board and boot
software in ROM so that it could be used exclusively as a network
station. A high performance machine to go on a network at around £699
including monitor would allow schools to start thinking about providing
the pupil machine ratio which is necessary for IT to become an everyday
tool in all subjects.
7.12
Anyway, all this is sheer speculation and perhaps totally up the creek
but then half the fun of owning an Acorn machine is guessing the next
development. In my view, it’s far more interesting than being
constrained by a system with more inertia in its operating system than
planet Earth.  Ian Lynch, Tamworth.
7.12
•  Scanner controls  − In the recent colour scanning articles (Archive
7.7 and 7.10), I blethered on about the importance of scanners having a
brightness control. Two snippets have since come in on this point.
Firstly, users of OCR packages (e.g. Sleuth) are finding that, by
adjusting the control to optimise the quality of the monochrome scan,
they can improve the accuracy of the subsequent character recognition
process. This may need some trial and error to give consistently good
results.
7.12
Secondly, users of David Pilling’s ImageMaster application, with certain
scanners, may find that, when BW (monochrome) is selected for scanning −
for OCR work for instance − the brightness control has no effect. If
this proves to be the case with your scanner, the contrast control
should be used to achieve the same result. Jim Nottingham, York.
7.12
•  SCSI card compatibility − As the range of SCSI devices available for
the Archimedes/Risc PC widens, it is becoming increasingly clear that,
at present, there is no ‘universal’ SCSI interface card. By this, I mean
that, typically, Card A will drive Scanner B but not Hard Drive C, while
Card D will drive Scanner B but not CD ROM drive E, and so on.
7.12
What I would like to do is to put together a database of which SCSI
cards will drive which peripherals satisfactorily, with a view to making
this available through Archive for general benefit. In this, could I
invite the help of everyone who has a SCSI card driving one or more
internal or external devices. I would be very grateful if you could find
the time to drop me a line (no ‘phone calls please), giving me the
details of your installation and how well it works or otherwise. Please
could you include the following data:
7.12
− Computer model number, e.g. A410/1.
7.12
− Make + model of SCSI card, e.g. Morley cached.
7.12
− Version number of the SCSI software, e.g. V1.10. (To find out which
version you have, press <f12>, then type *Devices <Return> and read the
number against “Device 7” under the column headed “Revision”.) (I tried
this on my Oak card with no success but *HELP SCSI did the trick. Ed.)
7.12
− Make, model number and other details of your SCSI devices (again,
press <f12>, type *Devices <return> and read off the details against the
relevant device number, eg “Syquest internal 105Mb removable drive,
Revision F7P”). (Oak users, run !SCSIForm and do a (S)can. Ed.)
7.12
− Name and version of software drivers for the device(s), where
applicable. (For example, to read the version of CDFS, press <f12> and
type *Help CDFS <return>. The answer will look something like “Module
is: CDFS 2.13 23 Nov 1992”.)
7.12
− Whether the device works or does not work correctly with the SCSI
card. If not, how does the problem show up?
7.12
Ease or difficulty in connecting up. For example, are the connectors
standard (“Centronics”).
7.12
Please do not hesitate to add any other info outside this list which you
feel might be useful. Thanks in anticipation.  Jim Nottingham, 16
Westfield Close, Pocklington, York YO4 2EY.
7.12
•  “What ever happened to PIPP?” − So said Richard Rymarz in his review
of Small Steps (Archive 7.10 p47). Well, I can tell you that PIPP
(Primary Integrated Project Planner) is indeed alive and well in the
form of ‘Harmony’ from On Target Solutions, 80 Headcorn Drive,
Canterbury, CT2 7TX. Both Acorn and PC versions are available, allowing
the whole of the National Curriculum to be searched for keywords as well
as linked to classroom based activities.  Dave Walsh, Herne Bay.
7.12
•  Wot!? No Acorn machines?? − (Steve Turnbull of Acorn Computing writes
in response to comments about Archive being the only ‘true’ Acorn
magazine, i.e. the only one that is produced only on Acorn computers.)
At the Acorn User Show in Harrogate, Mike Cook and I did a question and
answer session and one of the questions was Why don’t you use Acorn
machines to produce your magazine? What follows is a little bit more
than what I said then.
7.12
Until the advent of the Risc PC, the answer was quite simple: The
machine is not up to it. But, I hear you cry, what about Acorn User?
Well, although they designed the pages on an Archimedes, it was mostly
just mono − the pictures were added afterwards by a bureau.
7.12
At Europress Publications, we produce everything up to and including the
final colour separated films in-house. The only thing we don’t do is
print. And to do that, you need a machine with 24-bit colour display and
software with the power of QuarkXPress, Illustrator and PhotoShop.
7.12
For Acorn, the software finally exists and so do the machines... but
it’s too late for us.
7.12
Europress produces thirteen magazine titles per month using an
established network of over sixty Macs. Each magazine, apart from the
editorial staff, has one dedicated art editor and shares advert setting
art editors. When the production of one magazine is running late and
needs help, the other art editors pitch in by loading the page templates
across the network and laying out pages. This involves a great deal of
data transfer and it requires that every art editor uses the same
software.
7.12
If the Acorn art editor was using an Acorn machine to work, what would
happen if he fell behind in production? He’d be in deep trouble. No one
could help and, in our environment, where three magazine are produced
every week, that must not happen. In addition, to be cost effective, he
must be able to help others − which would be tricky.
7.12
Acorn themselves are sensibly not trying to target established Mac
publishing networks, and no company in its right mind is going to dump
all its Macs just to buy Acorn machines − it’s not financially sane.
Instead, Acorn are promoting their systems at the droves of small
printers who don’t yet use a computer and think they should.
7.12
As it happens, our advert setter does have a 10Mb Risc PC because 90% of
our adverts are supplied in Acorn format. In fact, he’s taken his A5000
home so he can learn to use the software properly.
7.12
And just to clear up another misconception: All the Acorn Editors
produce their copy and pictures on Acorn machines − we don’t use Macs
and why should we? We don’t do layouts, we have Art Editors for that.
7.12
When I queried Steve about this last paragraph, he explained further...
7.12
The Acorn and Mac systems aren’t integrated. The Acorn adverts are
PostScripted on the Risc PC and transferred by disc to the Mac. Until
now, it’s been by PC disc (yuck), usually compressed by Spark. We now
use MacFS and we’re bringing in a couple of SyQuest drives which will
make it much easier.
7.12
Editorial is written in Impression with styles (headlines, italics,
listings and so on) saved out as text with styles then converted using
ImpQuark to text with XPress codes. Sprites are sent as TIFF using
purpose-written converter, no frills or options − it just turns sprites
of any colour depth into compressed TIFFs, singly or in batch. The
resultant files are then put on Mac disc and put through to the sub-
editor and appropriate art editor. Mark Moxon (Acorn User) is also now
doing layouts in Impression − not for printing − just as ideas for his
Art Editor.  Steve Turnbull, Editor, Acorn Computing.
7.12
All I can say is, I’ll never complain about difficulties in the
production of Archive again!
7.12
I explained last month (7.10 p17) how Archive is produced but I didn’t
give any idea of timescales. I usually finish editing all the articles
on a Friday (although it sometimes spills over into Monday morning).
During the course of Monday, I paste up the articles and print out the
camera-ready copy which goes to the printers by 6.00 a.m. Tuesday
morning. The following Monday afternoon, 6,000 finished Archive
magazines are delivered to the office. On Tuesday morning, the stuffing
team come to stuff and frank the envelopes and, by lunchtime, the
magazines are on their way to you.  A
7.12
Risc PC Column
7.12
Keith Hodge
7.12
First my apologies if some of the material in the column seems a little
dated this month, this is because I have submitted it to Paul some weeks
ahead of my normal date. By the time you read this, my wife and I should
be lying in the sun on the Atlantic coast of France.
7.12
Monitors
7.12
My 17“ Acorn monitor has arrived − I do not know how I managed to work
on A3 engineering drawings in landscape format before it arrived. The
level of detail and the clarity of the display have to be seen to be
believed. It is also so much less strain on the eyes and, with the new
machine, the speed of redraw is quite remarkable, a speed increase of
over 600% with a 193 Kb drawfile in 1024×768.
7.12
Software compatibility
7.12
In view of the full statement from CC in the June issue, there is no
need to detail CC’s products. However, it is worth noting that there are
delays with some of the upgrades and I have received two reports that
Artworks V1.50 will not install, giving a “internal error 13.6760” from
the installer.
7.12
I am told that one of the reasons that games and music software are
falling over, is due to some early (all?) versions of the SoundTracker
module being incompatible with the Risc PC.
7.12
Following on from this, the complaint from the programmers is that Acorn
released their new machine and only then the technical documents that
explain it. Non-mainstream programmers therefore spend months waiting to
find out why their programs do not work.
7.12
So how about it, Acorn? Why not release the OS extension notes as a
readme file as soon as the machines are out (or before)? This will allow
all the programmers who produce the software ideas (some of which have
ended up in RISC OS 3.5), to stop the loud complaints coming from some
subscribers, who say that over 59% of their software does not run!
7.12
On a positive note, Solent Computer Products have updated and improved
the Soundlab software that accompanies the Oak Recorder 2 hardware.
Upgrades are available by returning your master disc + £5 + a stamped
addressed envelope.
7.12
Hardware news
7.12
If real improvements in performance are to be achieved we need a SCSI-2
interface now! I wonder who will be the first to market one? I am
delaying my scanner purchase until these are released.
7.12
The Alpha / ex-Arxe SCSI card (from the Serial Port) does not work, but
the good news is that it is hoped to produce replacement PALs for this.
Oak SCSI cards are reported to work well. Can people please advise me
how they are getting on with other devices (scanners, tape-streamers,
etc) on SCSI cards, as their experiences may save other people much
heartache.
7.12
Floppy drives
7.12
The situation here is really unsatisfactory, as there is no way to use a
second drive on the machine, other than by filling up an expansion slot
with an adaptor card (and as yet, none are available), as there is no
drive select hardware on the pcb. This is madness! Even a 10-bob Amstrad
will allow that. Acorn need to do something about this now. Many people
(myself included) receive work on different size media and need to add a
5¼“ second drive.
7.12
Readers’ comments
7.12
From Herbert...
7.12
(1) If you move the “images” directory away from the top level of the
hard disc then !SlideShow stops working. What sort of programming is
that? The images are still in the same place relative to SlideShow$Path.
7.12
(2) I got LOOKsystems !FontDir to run at boot time by placing the
directory containing the font partition in !Boot.Resources. Since that
directory contains the !Fonts directory, I called it !LookFonts and
changed the name of the relevant sprite in !Sprites22. I then placed
!FontDir in the previously mentioned Tasks directory and away it went!
7.12
(3) Paint still cannot locally fill using a transparency mask.
7.12
(4) The CLib time bug (Archive 7.6 p38) seems to have been fixed.
7.12
(5) The restart button which follows a Shutdown request does a proper
cold boot. Under 3.1 it did a warm boot which caused problems for my
boot sequence.
7.12
(6) I am glad that Acorn have produced the User Guide as one volume,
rather than the 3.1 version which is two manuals in one volume with
separate indexes. I always found that confusing.
7.12
(7) The new boot system is very interesting but also very complicated. I
haven’t got fully to the bottom of it yet, but I have observed that one
can live without a desktop boot file. I have effectively achieved
exactly the same boot configuration as I had under 3.1 without producing
a single boot file. The answer is to observe that any file or
application which needs to be run at boot time should be placed in
$.!Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks. Examples include !Printers and the alarm
database file. Leave the !Alarm application where it is. Applications
which need to be “Filer_Booted” can be placed in !Boot.Resources (e.g.
!CCShared).
7.12
(8) The switched monitor outlet is a great improvement, especially with
the front mounted on/off switch.
7.12
(9) Although, as mentioned previously there is now a !Fonts directory on
disc, the main fonts are still stored in ROM.
7.12
(10) I have found the cause of the problem with !ArcTrack under RISC OS
3.5. The next release will incorporate a fix. Registered users will be
contacted.
7.12
From Arthur Taylor...
7.12
Arthur comments that he has managed to modify the monitor script file
for his AKF85 so as to allow 1600×1200 in 16 colours with 1Mb of VRAM,
and that it works well, (can we have a copy please, Arthur, for the
column’s PD disc?). Also, he says that the Marconi tracker ball works
fine.
7.12
Requests for help
7.12
From Herbert...
7.12
The release note says that the Risc PC will only work with a serial
mouse. Presumably, this means that my new mouse is a serial one. Why? I
would like to use my optical mouse which I adapted (by changing the
connector) from an Atari, but I dare not plug it in. It cannot be to
allow people to use PC mice, since there are plenty of bus mice
available for the PC. Using a serial port for a mouse is a botch caused
by the lack of a mouse port on most PCs.
7.12
I observe that it is possible to configure the mouse type and that one
option is a Mouse Systems mouse. I have an optical mouse from that
company on my PC at work and it is very nice (I fell in love with
optical mice when we got our first SPARCstation at work and now insist
on having one on every machine I use.) Unfortunately, it has a 9-way D-
Type connector. Is the Risc PC’s mouse port connector a standard? Is it
possible to order a 3-button optical mouse from Mouse Systems which will
plug straight in? Basically, I want to know everything about Risc PC
mice. (Can anybody do an article on this?)
7.12
Lastly from myself − is there anyone at Acorn who would like to supply
some feedback from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, about anything in the
column? I would like to see problems sorted out quickly.
7.12
Question of the month
7.12
How many people have realised that there is a fan in the machine? It was
only upon reading comment on this in a letter from Steve Waters, that I
realised there must be one fitted. Acorn have been listening! It is very
quiet. The question is, where is the filter ? And how often should it be
changed ?
7.12
Gripe of the month
7.12
It is impossible to copy computer hardware today given the very high
level of silicon integration used, so why don’t Acorn provide a copy of
the circuit diagram and PCB layout with each machine?
7.12
Tailpiece
7.12
One of the reasons that the number of classroom whiz-kid programmers is
falling, is probably the lack of a Windows 3.1 style, Visual Basic for
the machine, i.e. one where you do not have to use SYS calls to produce
windows. How about it Acorn? And yes, I know it is easy in C but there
are plenty of large, worthwhile programs out there, written in Basic.
The more people there are writing programs for the machine, the more
machines get sold.
7.12
Thanks to all the people who have contacted me by snail mail, and those
who have sent mail by Packet Radio. As a part-time columnist, it would
make my life much easier if people could send their letters on disc, in
almost any format (except Impression) as it saves me a lot of time
entering it in the column. In return, if a stamped addressed label is
enclosed, I will return the disc with any required PD software (as
available), which is Risc PC compatible.
7.12
As usual, I can be contacted by letter at the HES address on the back
page, by telephone after 7p.m. or by Packet Radio from anywhere in the
world, as GW4NEI@GB7OAR.#16.GBR.EU.  A
7.12
Acorn and the National Curriculum
7.12
Ian Lynch
7.12
Anyone who works in education will realise that there is a major
revision of the National Curriculum in progress under the direction of
Ron Dearing, Chairman of the School’s Curriculum and Assessment
Authority (SCAA). In this article, I am going to raise some issues about
the proposed revision to the Information Technology component but first
a little background for the uninitiated.
7.12
Each subject in the National Curriculum has a programme of study which
lays out what should be taught and a set of criteria, called attainment
targets, against which the subject should be assessed. The attainment
targets are divided into ten levels which supposedly cover ages 5 to 16
across the full ability range. The curriculum is further divided into
four key stages. Key stages 1 and 2 are for primary schools and 3 and 4
for secondary.
7.12
You might think that this seems fairly straight forward and, in many
ways it is, but the controversy begins when you try to interpret the
precise meanings of the statements at each level. Take for example the
two statements “Pupils use computer models of increasing complexity and
are beginning to assess the validity of these models” and “Pupils can
apply their knowledge to compare two or more software packages
critically in terms of their suitability for specific uses.” Which of
these statements would you think is aimed at the middle ability GCSE
candidate and which at the most able candidate at the end of year 11? To
me, there would be certainly some doubt if I did not know in advance. In
fact, the first statement is level 6 and the second is level 10 i.e. the
highest level.
7.12
The aim of the Dearing Report is to simplify the curriculum because the
original had too many criteria, and teachers were getting bogged down
trying to assess every child against every statement. It is true that
the number of criteria has been reduced, but might this create more
problems than it solves? After all, I could reduce the previous sentence
to the word “is” but that would not be very helpful.
7.12
Whilst all subjects suffer from variation due to interpretation, well-
established subjects such as mathematics, science and English have a
fairly long heritage from which teachers make judgements about how they
interpret level statements. Previous examinations, which cover all
children of all abilities, provide exemplars of how syllabuses should be
interpreted, at least as far as the degree of difficulty is concerned
and so judgements made by teachers are likely to be within a reasonably
narrow spread. Information technology has no such heritage and,
furthermore, it changes rapidly with teacher qualification that is far
more variable (non-existent?) than in, say, mathematics or English. Yet
few people complain about unqualified IT teaching and, in my experience,
are impressed just to see a young person at a keyboard.
7.12
To illustrate the variation in standards, let me mention a couple of
cases which I have come across while inspecting schools. The first was a
business studies lesson where 16 year old students were wordprocessing
with Pendown from Longman Logotron. Impression was available on the
machines, which were relatively new, and I was given the distinct
feeling that it was teacher-security rather than the appropriateness of
the software which dictated the application used. Pupils towards the end
of a course were padding out indents with spaces and were unaware of the
spellcheck on the main menu.
7.12
One could argue about the merits of using Acorn machines and software
for business studies at the end of key stage 4, but it strikes me that
this is a complete red herring. In this situation, teaching good
practice, in terms of the skills involved and having up-to-date
facilities at the right level for age and development, is far more
important. Sticking a 486 PC with WinWord in this environment would make
no difference and would probably have made matters worse. While the
debate in this area is focussed on machine politics, we are unlikely to
see a change to real quality of application and it is a sad fact that an
outsider coming into this situation might be inclined to believe that
this mode of teaching and learning is a consequence of using “toys”
instead of “real business machines”. In my experience, situations such
as this are not particularly rare.
7.12
At the other end of the scale, I saw a young pupil working in a library
without supervision scanning and animating images using Iota’s colour
scanner and image animator. (I have never seen examples of this type of
work done on a Nimbus or an IBM compatible but this is not to say that
it never does.)
7.12
We have to ask why it is that variation in IT standards are tolerated to
a degree which would be unacceptable in, say, English or mathematics. I
think the main reason is technophobia and ignorance amongst most of the
general adult population. Most adults have experience of English and
maths because they learnt these themselves at school and things haven’t
changed that drastically. Specific skills and knowledge in IT are often
viewed with disdain − “you only need to be able to use it”. Contrast
this with English, where study of literature and grammar beyond simple
communication is thought to be important or with mathematics, where all
sorts of specific processes such as algebra and trigonometry, which most
people never ever use, are viewed as essential.
7.12
It is because IT changes so rapidly that some of the underlying
technicalities need to be understood if we want to produce children and
adults educated for change rather than trained in a specific skill which
will soon become redundant. Surely, we want more open attitudes to
change rather than a reinforcement of the attitudes of most of the
present generation of adults. A more open-minded approach amongst
managers in industry and commerce would have seen the dangers of a
Microsoft monopoly with most new users adopting the IBM compatible path
for reasons of fear rather than because it was the most appropriate
solution to their particular needs.
7.12
So, how is this related to the proposed National Curriculum revision?
There are several points.
7.12
1.   The revised attainment targets seriously under-emphasise the
technology component of information technology. This is rather like
ignoring numeracy in mathematics or grammar in English.
7.12
2.   There is no recognition of the importance of the technology itself
in determining the degree of difficulty involved in specific activities.
We all know that it is easier to do some things on a Risc PC than it
would be on a BBC B.
7.12
3.   There is no direct linkage between levels in the proposed IT
attainment targets and those in more established subjects such as
English, mathematics and science which every pupil has to study and
which will provide the contexts for much of the IT application.
7.12
4.   The suggestion is that 45 hours per year will be used to teach IT
skills and knowledge and 45 hours for practice in other subject areas.
Imagine a proposal that English or mathematics should be taught in this
way.
7.12
So what is the solution?
7.12
There is probably not a perfect one, but at least let’s go for
consistency of standards expected in comparison with other subjects.
Consider, for example, the level 4 English proposal, “handwriting is
fluent, joined and legible”. There is no mention of the equivalent IT
skills of keyboarding or document layout conventions. There is the
mathematics proposal, “They understand and use simple vocabulary
associated with probability such as fair, certain and likely” but no
mention of IT vocabulary such as file, directory, graphical user
interface (GUI), filetype etc. At level 4, the IT order expresses a need
for “precision in framing questions” which is, in my view, a
considerably higher level skill than those mentioned in the other
subjects but one which is probably more acceptable to adults than
understanding that lots of colours results in big files and therefore
more expensive machines.
7.12
Specific IT lessons should be used to teach the specialist technical
bits such as filetypes, operating systems and the latest goings-on in IT
developments where appropriate. This implies the need for some
specialist IT teachers who really know their subject and who are willing
to read the micropress regularly and keep up to date. The generic tools
such as document processing, spreadsheets, databases, data-logging and
control, graphics and music should be taught and practised in
appropriate subjects. Calculators and slide rules have previously been
taught by maths teachers so why not spreadsheets? English teachers
should be prepared to teach wordprocessing − after all everyone else is
expected to teach English!
7.12
Is this scenario realistic? Perhaps not currently in all schools. There
is usually insufficient access to machines and appropriate software and,
quite frankly, even if this were not the case, the majority of teachers
are not sufficiently confident with IT to deliver an improved IT
curriculum. However, reducing standards and specifying attainment
targets vaguely is not a good long term solution because, as technology
advances, the gap between the minimalists and the innovators will become
wider and wider.  A
7.12
PipeLineZ
7.12
Gerald Fitton
7.12
During the years I have been writing for Archive, I have been asked on
many occasions for a tutorial explaining how to design a structure for a
large set of interdependent documents. Of course, this is a big subject
and there is no way in which I can deal with all of its aspects within a
single article. What I have decided to do this month is to tackle one
type of application which is relatively popular and use it to explain
one of the most common problems which arises when a set of
interdependent documents is ‘badly designed’.
7.12
Naturally, I shall not only explain how the problem arises but describe
the recommended solution. I have decided to use PipeDream for my example
application (you’ll see why later) but, like so many of my articles for
Archive, you will be able to apply the principles I describe much more
widely, for example to Fireworkz, and maybe to other spreadsheets as
well. Let me take this opportunity to recognise yet again the existence
of readers of this column who don’t have any of Colton Software’s
products. I welcome your letters as well as those from users of
PipeDream or Fireworkz.
7.12
Mailshot
7.12
Before I start on this major topic perhaps the editor of Archive might
allow me a (not very!) subtly disguised ‘free ad’ for our PipeLine and
ZLine User Groups.
7.12
Colton Software are sending out a mailshot to all registered users of
PipeDream with a special offer price for an upgrade from PipeDream to
Fireworkz. Included in the mailshot is an ‘Orange Leaflet’ of ours
(Abacus Training) in which we refer to the User Groups we run for users
of PipeDream and Fireworkz. Although I think the leaflet does make it
clear that we are independent of Colton Software and that all we do is
run the User Groups, many people who receive that mailshot ask us to
supply the upgrade from PipeDream to Fireworkz. We can’t do this. The
upgrade is available only direct from Colton Software.
7.12
The ‘Free Ad’
7.12
Let me try to clarify the situation. As well as writing the PipeLineZ
articles for Archive, my wife, Jill, and I run the two user groups
called PipeLine and ZLine. For their annual subscription (a modest
amount which I shall delicately avoid mentioning in this ‘free ad’) our
members receive four PipeLine or ZLine discs each year and as much free
technical help with the use of PipeDream or Fireworkz as they need.
7.12
Colton Software regard the fact that an “Independent User Group exists”
as a plus point for their products and one manifestation of this is that
they give us a ‘free ad’ by enclosing the Orange Leaflet with their
mailshot.
7.12
This Orange Leaflet should not be interpreted in any way as proof of an
‘interdependent link’ between our two organisations. We are totally
independent of Colton Software. For example, sometimes our public
comment about their products (in Archive and on our quarterly discs) are
not to their liking. Nevertheless, they do respect our right to make
such unfavourable comments (provided they are accurate). They put their
side of the story to us and we try to report the true situation as
objectively as we can to our readership (in Archive) and to our User
Group members. We like to think that feedback from our members and
Archive readers (through us to Colton Software) does help with product
development.
7.12
Introduction
7.12
Now to the major topic, interdependent documents. If you have the
Archive monthly disc, it will save you some time in that you won’t have
to create the documents of the example. If you don’t take the monthly
disc, you should be able to create the files from the screenshots which
I include in this article.
7.12
All the files on the Archive monthly disc (and in this article’s
screenshots) are in PipeDream format. There are three good reasons why I
have not used Fireworkz. Firstly, PipeDream files can be loaded into
Fireworkz whereas the reverse is not true. If you have Fireworkz then
drag the PipeDream files over the Fireworkz icon (installed on the
iconbar) and the ‘PipeDream loader’ built into Fireworkz will convert
the files to Fireworkz format. Secondly, as far as I can determine from
my correspondence, there are many more PipeDream readers of this column
than Fireworkz users! I’ll let you know when (and if) this situation
changes. The final reason is that, because of a few (known) bugs in
Fireworkz, some of the formulae inherent in the ‘method’ I am
recommending don’t work in version 1.07 of Fireworkz (but will work in
V 1.08 − or so I’ve been told). This last remark about Fireworkz bugs
applies particularly to the use of set_value(,) with Names (which I
recommend in the final part of this article).
7.12
Unwanted dependent documents
7.12
In some applications, you can generate what I am going to refer to as “a
long chain of unwanted dependent documents”. As the application grows,
the chain grows unwieldy because all the files in the chain are loaded
one after the other when, perhaps, you want to work on only the most
recent document.
7.12
The set_value(,) function can be used to ‘unlink’ the chain without
destroying the (occasionally wanted) dependency. Using Named variables
further simplifies many applications which use dependent documents.
7.12
For my example, I’ve chosen a simple accounts application where each
month’s transactions are kept in a separate document. First I’ll explain
how the basic application works, then I’ll go on to demonstrate how the
chain of dependent documents becomes unwieldy and, then we’ll see how
set_value(,) can help by ‘unlinking’ the chain.
7.12
Finally, we shall see how the use of Names for variables further
simplifies the creation of new documents which have to be added to the
‘unlinked’ chain.
7.12
Monthly transactions
7.12
If you have the Archive monthly disc, double-click on the file
[Acc_9301] to load it. If you don’t have the monthly disc then you
should create the file from the screen shot opposite − and the
description I have given below. You will see that it represents a set of
transactions for January 1993. The slot [Acc_9301]D5 contains the
formula D4+B5-C5. The value brought forward from the previous month is
held in slot [Acc_9301]D4, credits are added to that amount and debits
are subtracted from it (line by line) to find the current balance and,
finally, in slot [Acc_9301]D8, the amount to be carried forward to next
month’s accounts.
7.12
This formula has been replicated down the column from D5 to D8 by
marking D5D8 and using the command <ctrl-BRD> (Block Replicate Down) so
that, for example, the formula in [Acc_9301]D7 is D6+B7-C7.
7.12
In the form in which I’ve included it, the file [Acc_9301] contains only
three transactions, two credits and one debit but you can extend it
quite simply. Place the caret anywhere in the last row and tap <F7> to
insert a new row, make your credit or debit entry and, finally,
replicate the formula in the “Balance” column through to the line you
have just created.
7.12
Usually you would save the file (with its extra row) at this point but,
in this case, don’t do that or my next exercise won’t work properly!
Save it without the extra row if you must or, better, use the original.
7.12
Brought forward
7.12
Delete the modified file [Acc_9301] from your screen (decline to save it
by clicking on the ‘No’ box) and then double-click on the file
[Acc_9302] (the transactions for February 1992) (or, if you don’t have
the monthly disc, create it from the instructions below). You will find
that [Acc_9302] and [Acc_9301] are both loaded so that your screen will
look like the screenshot [Screen1] above. The reason why [Acc_9301] is
loaded is because slot [Acc_9302]D4 contains the formula [Acc_9301]D8.
Provided that you have not modified my version of [Acc_9301] (on the
Archive monthly disc) then this formula will bring forward the balance
from January 1993 into the February 1993 document.
7.12
There are at least two difficulties which arise when you use this
strategy of entering the slot reference of the previous “Carried
Forward” file, [Acc_9301]D8, into the “Brought Forward” slot,
[Acc_9302]D4, of the current month’s document.
7.12
The first difficulty arises if you don’t have both [Acc_9301] and
[Acc_9302] loaded and you want to add to or delete rows from the earlier
document. If you have [Acc_9302] loaded and add a row to [Acc_9301] then
you will find that the slot reference in [Acc_9302]D4 will change to
match the extended [Acc_9301]. However, it is all too easy to forget
that you need both files loaded. If you don’t have them both loaded when
you add a row to the earlier document then, when you do load the later
document, it will look for the amount to bring forward in the slot where
it used to be instead of where it now is. The consequence will be that
you’ll have the wrong answer!
7.12
Yes! Before you start writing to me, I do know that a method of avoiding
the ‘loss’ (some would say ‘corruption’) of slot references in this
fashion is to use Names in the earlier document for the slots used by
the later document. Some of the examples I have received from you use
this method of ‘non-local’ Names − I don’t recommend it. I shall explain
how I use Names (and give my explanation of why ‘non-local’ Names are
not a good idea) later in this article!
7.12
The second difficulty is one about which I get much correspondence. To
understand why I get so many letters on this topic, I’d like you to
imagine the situation in December 1993. When you load [Acc_9312] (not
provided on the Archive disc) then it will call up [Acc_9311], which in
turn will call up [Acc_9310], and so on until either all the monthly
sheets have been loaded into memory or (as has happened to those of my
correspondents with large monthly files going back over many years) you
don’t have any memory left to use!
7.12
The automatic loading all these earlier files is what I mean when I
refer to a “chain of unwanted dependent documents”. As a document
becomes older, the likelihood of you wanting to change it is reduced. If
you don’t need to change it then it is ‘unwanted’ − at least as far as
the screen display is concerned. One way of ‘breaking the chain’ is to
‘snapshot’ a “Brought Forward” value with <ctrl-BSS> (Block SnapShot).
This method of ‘unlinking’ the earlier dependent documents from later
ones seems to be the favourite solution adopted by the majority of my
correspondents. Of course, it requires a personal judgement about the
likelihood of wanting to change an earlier ‘unlinked’ document against
the desirability of keeping it (and all earlier ones in the chain)
‘alive’.
7.12
I’d like to suggest to you what I believe to be a much better
alternative.
7.12
Carried forward
7.12
You might regard the use of the formula [Acc_9301]D8 in slot
[Acc_9302]D4 as a function which creates a ‘backwards chain’ of
dependency.
7.12
Let me try to convince you that chaining backwards is not consistent
with the nature of the application we’re considering. The application is
one in which amendments to an earlier document need to be ‘chained’ in
the forward direction whereas additions to the most recent document have
no effect on earlier documents. Chaining backwards, loading earlier
documents into memory, is a waste of time and effort! What we need is a
set of documents which ‘chain forwards’. To put it another way, we want
to ‘push’ the “Carry Forward” balance from the earlier document into the
“Brought Forward” slot of the later document rather than drag the value
from the earlier document into the “Brought Forward” slot of the later
document. If we can find a way of doing this, we don’t need to have the
earlier documents in memory unless they need amendment. If they do need
amendment then we want that amendment to ‘ripple forwards’ through the
‘chain’.
7.12
This is where the function set_value(,) comes in useful. It can be used
to ‘push’ the “Carried Forward” balance into the “Brought Forward” slot
of the next document in exactly the way we want. This is the strategy I
have adopted in dealing with the [Acc_94##] series (on the monthly
Archive disc and shown in the screenshot, [Screen2], above.
7.12
If you load the file [Acc_9403] from the Archive monthly disc and look
at the “Brought Forward” balance in slot [Acc_9403]D4 you will find that
it does not contain a formula but a value. The document [Acc_9403]
contains no reference to earlier documents so it does not ‘pull’ on the
next link in the “chain of unwanted dependent documents” uselessly
dragging them into memory in the way I’ve described in the previous
section.
7.12
So how do we know that the “Brought Forward” balance is correct? How did
it get there? One way would be to use <ctrl-BSS> (Block SnapShot) and
another would be to copy the “Carry Forward” (from the previous month’s
transactions) manually into the “Brought Forward” slot. Either of these
methods are unsatisfactory if there is a chance that you might want to
make an amendment to an earlier document. Amendments to earlier
documents won’t ripple through a ‘snapshot’ and it’s too easy to make a
mistake!
7.12
If you have the Archive monthly disc then load [Acc_9402]. If not then
look at the screenshot [Screen2] and look at slot [Acc_9402]D12. You
will find the formula (in the formula line) set_value([Acc_9403]D4,D8).
It is this set_value(,) function which ‘pushes’ the “Carried Forward”
value from [Acc_9302]D8 into the “Brought Forward” slot of the
March 1994 document. If you make an amendment to the earlier document
you will find the the amendment is ‘chained’ through to the later
document. Try adding rows to the February 1994 document and you will see
that the set_value(,) formula in what was [Acc_9402]D12 adjusts to the
enlarged sheet.
7.12
Now delete the earlier [Acc_9402] document from the screen. You can
continue to work on the March 1994 document and ultimately save it with
all the additions you have just made.
7.12
To see how the ‘chain’ works, delete both the February 1994 and
March 1994 documents from the screen and then double click on [Acc_9401]
(the January 1994 file on the Archive monthly disc). That file and all
subsequent files (February and March 1994) will be loaded. Make an
amendment to the January 1994 file, save it and then delete it from the
screen.
7.12
Using the 1994 chain of documents
7.12
For most of your work, you will not need the earlier documents loaded;
probably you will need only the most recent document. You will make your
changes to it and then save it.
7.12
Now and again, you will need to change an earlier document either to
amend a value which has been entered incorrectly or to add an item which
has been forgotten. If you load that earlier document then all
subsequent documents in the chain will be loaded because the
set_value(,) function from slot D12 will drive the “Carried Forward”
value into the next sheet. When you make your amendments to an early
document, the consequences of those changes will ‘ripple through’ all
later documents.
7.12
When you have finished with the early document, you can save it and then
delete it from the screen. In fact, you can work through all the chained
documents in chronological order saving the new versions and then
deleting it from the screen.
7.12
If you run out of memory, you can ‘unlink’ the chain by tricking the
package into believing that a particular file can’t be found. For
example, if you change the name of the file [Acc_9404] to, say,
[Acc_9404a] (use the RISC OS feature Rename) and then double-click on
[Acc_9401] you will find that the chain is broken when [Acc_9404] can’t
be found. You can make your amendments to the earliest file and then go
through the process of saving the chain of files and deleting them from
the screen.
7.12
Restore the renamed file to its original name and then load the file
whose position in the chain is just prior to that one. The new values
will ripple through the rest of the files in the chain.
7.12
Using names
7.12
The process of creating a new document (in PipeDream at least) is made
easier if you use Names. But first, a word of warning for Fireworkz
users. Several of my correspondents who have Fireworkz have tried using
the technique which I describe below with near disastrous consequences.
Fireworkz V 1.07 sometimes (but not always) gives the wrong answer but
it never gives an error message. This is potentially dangerous,
particularly for an accounts application. You have been warned! I have
been told that in V 1.08 this known bug will be rectified. Version 1.08
will be released at the same time as the new database, Recordz
(scheduled for September 1994). Either use PipeDream or wait for version
1.08.
7.12
I have used PipeDream Names in the [Acc_95##] series shown in the
screenshot [Screen3] overleaf. If you have the Archive monthly disc then
double-click on [Acc_9501] and you will find that the 1995 series will
load and can be used in exactly the same way as you have seen when you
used the [Acc_94##] series.
7.12
Have a look at the contents of slot [Acc_9502]D12 (as shown in the
screenshot). You will see that the formula set_value([Acc_9503]D4,D8)
(using slots) has been replaced by set_value([Acc_9503]bf,cf). Two
Names, bf and cf (Brought Forward & Carried Forward) are used in the
formula instead. The Name cf is ‘local’ to the [Acc_9502] sheet whereas
the Name [Acc_9503]bf is what I am calling ‘non-local’.
7.12
Now let’s have a look at the Names which have been defined in
[Acc_9502], what I am calling ‘local’ Names. These are shown in the
screenshot [Screen4]. If you have the disc then place the pointer on the
italic f which is just to the left of the cross and tick boxes (in the
same line as the formula line) and click once. At the bottom of the pop-
up menu you will find the option “Edit name”. Run the pointer through
“Edit name” and you will see that within [Acc_9502] only two names have
been defined, bf and cf which are both ‘local’. By looking at the
definitions (as if you were going to edit them) you will see that the
Name bf refers to D4 and the Name cf refers to D8 − both of these slots
are within the current sheet. There are no definitions which refer to
slots in other sheets. At the risk of boring you, I shall repeat that I
believe it is bad practice to define ‘non-local’ Names.
7.12
Now let’s see how many Names we have in the whole chain of three
documents. These are shown in the screenshot below. Once again, click on
the italic f but this time run the pointer through “Names”. You will
find that six Names have been defined, two we know about (bf and cf) but
the other four are Names which have been defined (locally) in the other
two documents.
7.12
On the Archive disc, I have included a blank file called [Acc_95xx]
(also shown in the screenshot below) which can be used as a template for
the whole [Acc_95xx] series. In it, the local Names bf and cf have been
defined. Defining the two Names bf and cf in the template document makes
it easier to create the next document. If you have the disc, double-
click on the file [Acc_95xx] to load it, change the formula in the slot
[Acc_95xx]D12 from its present value to set_value([Acc_9505]bf,cf) and
then save the file as [Acc_9504].
7.12
Next you will need to ‘push’ the “Carried Forward” value from the
previous document, [Acc_9503] into your new [Acc_9504] file. To do this
you double click on [Acc_9503] to load it − then delete it from the
screen! You will find that the “Brought Forward” value in [Acc_9504] has
taken the correct value ‘pushed’ into it from the file [Acc_9503] which
you loaded and then removed from the screen and memory.
7.12
To summarise
7.12
When you have a long ‘chain’ of dependent documents, you should consider
whether you want to ‘drag’ or ‘push’ values from one member of the
‘chain’ to another. I suggest that for an application such as this one
you need to ‘push’ rather than ‘drag’ slot values from one sheet to the
next in the ‘chain’. When you have decided that the correct strategy is
to ‘push’, you need to use the set_value(,) function in the (often
unwanted) ‘dependent’ document to ‘push’ the value (or values) you want
to carry forward to the next document.
7.12
Names can be used for single slots or for ranges of slots. Generally, it
is better practice to define Names in such a way that the definition is
‘local’. That is to say the definition does not refer to (and thus call
into memory and onto the screen) another document. If you define a Name
in one document you can always use it in another document − we have done
this in the 1995 ‘chain’ of documents − but if you define a Name in one
document which refers to a slot in a different document (what I call a
‘non-local’ definition) then you have a ‘link’ that you may not want.
7.12
Finally
7.12
If you have an application which you think may be simplified by the use
of set_value(,) or Names but can’t quite work out how to do it, please
ask me. I will be able to work on your problem and send you the solution
much more easily if you provide a disc-based example of what you are
doing together with some note (in a [ReadMe] file) indicating exactly
what you are trying to achieve.
7.12
Thanks for all your letters − we’ve been on holiday recently so please
accept my apologies for the delay in replying to some of them.  A
7.12
Elementary PipeDream
7.12
Mike Tomkinson
7.12
I like PipeDream − I always have. It may not be as fashionable as once
it was and it now has many rivals as an integrated package − notably
Advance. I graduated to PipeDream 4 via its predecessors even using the
original View Professional on the Master. There have only been very rare
occasions when I have been unable to get PipeDream to perform as I
wanted it to do. Recent price reductions have meant that many users are
coming to PipeDream 4 afresh.
7.12
Its unique user interface is perhaps not the easiest to understand. That
is not to be too critical of it. The new user cannot be overly critical
of a package which has simply been overtaken in style by newer packages,
particularly as many newer packages are not as functional. Thus, while
the spreadsheet part of Advance looks more modern, it is not as powerful
as the spreadsheet aspects of PipeDream. There is also a distinct trade-
off in useability and the user’s ability to get the most out of more
powerful software.
7.12
The manual and tutorial supplied with PipeDream 4 also show its age.
Like most manuals, what you want and need to know is in there but the
function you actually need is never explained in quite enough detail −
especially for the beginner. Try using Lookups or Macros with the manual
as your only reference.
7.12
For this and other good reasons, PipeDream has attracted a dedicated
band of devotees, many of whom have subscribed to PipeLine − the
PipeDream disc-based user group led by Gerald Fitton as part of Abacus
Training. Here, for a small fee, PipeDream users have been able to turn
for help and advice over the years.
7.12
This review is concerned with a group of three new discs published by
PipeLine and called ‘Elementary PipeDream’. The three discs cost £17 inc
VAT. The files on the discs not only cover the various functions of
PipeDream (e.g. PipeDream as a word processor) but also its desktop
operation like saving files, opening files and so on.
7.12
It does this via a tutorial approach based on a number of drawfiles
which are annotated screen shots of actual operations. These are
incorporated into a series of lessons on PipeDream which appears on
screen as a PipeDream file. The user scrolls through the document,
learning as they go. This approach, while not new, at least attempts to
overcome the problems associated with cryptic messages like “to save
drag the icon to a directory filer” which can completely baffle a
newcomer. A picture is certainly worth a thousand words.
7.12
The files on two of the three discs are compressed and need expanding
via Sparkplug onto new floppies before use. This is a distinct weakness
and I personally would not have liked to use the package without the
benefit of a hard disc. Disc swapping is not my idea of a productive use
of time and I estimate that you would need approximately eighteen 800Kb
discs to decompress the whole package. The third disc contains files
which form exercises and the answers to the exercises.
7.12
The files are a disc-based substitute for a book written by Ernie
Cobbold. However, this book is not published in the normal sense of
being able to order a copy from your local W.H.Smiths but is available
as a series of desktop published notes.
7.12
The subject matter is certainly comprehensive for a package which styles
itself as elementary − wonder what the author would consider ‘advanced’?
The topics are covered in the order wordprocessing, spreadsheet and
database. Charts (or graphs) are covered in the spreadsheet section.
Certainly, PipeDream functions best as a spreadsheet followed by word
processor and, lagging a long way behind, as a database.
7.12
However, it is the integrated nature of PipeDream that is its strength
and it is here that the Elementary PipeDream package is perhaps weakest
by concentrating on the separate aspects of the program.
7.12
In use, Elementary PipeDream needs committing to paper via a good
printer. The beginner would end up with too many open windows on the
desktop to be able to use the tutorial on-line. The distribution of what
eventually needs decompression and printing, preferably via a hard disc,
can really only be justified on the grounds of cost and I do not know
what Ernie Cobbold would charge for a full set of his work DTPed.
7.12
It would certainly be worth the asking price if it were in the region of
the cost of these three discs, given the number of discs subsequently
required and the fact that a good printer would then be required to make
the files easily useable.
7.12
Conclusion
7.12
If you are new to PipeDream and/or new to RISC OS, or a teacher
introducing pupils (or other staff) to PipeDream, I can thoroughly
recommend this package. It will save you hours after you have
decompressed it all and produced a set of printouts. However, this is
not a job for the faint-hearted and really requires a hard disc and a
quality printer.
7.12
Elementary PipeDream costs £17 inc VAT from Abacus Training.  A
7.12
Quo Vadis − Using Multimedia
7.12
David Cartwright
7.12
(Continuing the theme we started some months ago, we have another
article in the “I use my computer for... ” series. Many thanks to David
for an interesting and honest article. Ed.)
7.12
Since I first started taking an interest in computers, it was always the
potential of computer graphics to show the unimaginable which fascinated
me. Even back in the early 80’s, the simple ability to manipulate shapes
on screen using the BBC Micro revealed the potential of the powerful
tools we have today. Until recently, the programs and ideas I have
developed on my humble A3000 were merely for my own entertainment. So I
was full of enthusiasm when I was asked by a friend to assist in
producing an “alternative” church service aimed at today’s younger
people, using a technological culture with which they could identify.
7.12
The vision
7.12
We gave the Palm Sunday service the name “Quo Vadis”. (Latin: Where are
you going?) The aims of the service were clear and challenging and were
being prayed about some nine months before the event. We proposed to use
enlightening computer visuals and videos to show our audience the
relevance of Christ’s teachings today and illustrate the miracle of
God’s creation by using technology. To achieve this aim required
consideration of the content of the service and the use, motives and
impact of the technology. For my part (not being an active Christian at
the time) I was to provide all the visuals needed for the service.
7.12
Collecting images
7.12
Many months in advance, we started collecting the photos and imagery
that we would use. This involved taking an original photo of, say, a
landscape or sunset and videoing it using a standard compact video
camera. This signal was then fed through a genlock card on an Amiga so
that we could superimpose text over the image. The final image on the
screen was then photographed using a 35mm SLR camera onto slide film to
give us a set of slides to show on the night. Videos were collected and
edited into a film that we wanted to show using two HQ Nicam videos that
both had active heads − the type that stay dead-still when paused so
that we could make perfect cuts from scene to scene with no ripple or
distortion.
7.12
Enter the Archimedes
7.12
The trusty Archimedes was connected to the video camera via a Pineapple
16-bit real-time digitiser. We used this to digitise some of the
pictures we needed onto the Archimedes, cleaning them up with Translator
and storing them on my tiny 20Mb IDE hard drive to use as computer slide
shows. Another piece of vital hardware was the Pineapple RGB to PAL
encoder to generate the video signals we needed from the Archimedes. On
the night, the images looked like perfect broadcast quality pictures
even at the low mode 13 resolution of 320×256 pixels. This is because
the video projector has the effect of diffusing the image slightly
taking the roughness out of the image without loss of focus or clarity.
7.12
Controlling the displays
7.12
Having filled up most of the hard disc with pictures, we had to turn our
attention to software and how we would control things on the night.
After a long period of experimentation, we developed a collection of
small demo programs that performed various nice effects on the pictures
in real time. These included fade out to black, fade in, white out,
colour cycle, zoom in/out and video feedback. We also put together some
Basic programs which loaded approximately eight mode 15 pictures into my
2Mb of memory and replayed them at various rates from one every minute
up to about four per second. Finally, we used some simple but colourful
wave and kaleidoscope routines which produced nice patterns by the use
of cycling the colour palette.
7.12
Equipped with a graphics tablet and pen stylus, we aimed to select these
effects just by clicking on them. This would be preferable to using the
keyboard as it would be difficult to see the keys in low light and
mistakes might happen. The graphics tablet, by contrast, had a large
illuminated grid of effects that we could select easily. It was at this
stage that we came across the first major stumbling block. Some of the
routines took 20 seconds to load the pictures and we couldn’t just leave
the screen blank for that amount of time. We had to find another way of
mixing the software together. The solution appeared to be to rewrite all
of our effects in machine code.
7.12
Some hairy machine code
7.12
We altered all the routines to run as machine code interrupts, updating
a small part of the screen every 1/50s. That way, you could still
perform an effect on a picture whilst loading other effects or other
pictures. This was by no means an easy thing to do as changing every
pixel on the screen takes more than 1/50s. Indeed, realistically, you
could only hold up the computer on interrupts for about 1/100s,
otherwise you would just be continuously interrupting the foreground
program which would stop completely.
7.12
The way to solve the problem was to break down the task into smaller
chunks. Our routines had to update just one in every sixteen pixels on
the screen each time the interrupt occurred. It then took sixteen
interrupt cycles for one update of the screen, but each single cycle was
scattered within the step between pixels so that the update looked
smooth and continuous to the human eye. This eventually worked better
than we had hoped for but it took so long to amend all the routines that
I was still preparing software on the night before the service.
7.12
The service
7.12
For the service itself, we had hired a four-channel video mixer and a
video projector, projecting onto an eight foot screen. Other hardware
brought on the night by all those who helped, included numerous TV’s,
two high-specification music keyboards, a 16-channel sound mixer, reverb
unit, amp and speakers − not to mention the two slide projectors
controlled by a BBC B. We mixed video from two video recorders, along
with text from an Amiga, live video from a camera of the person speaking
and the visuals from the Archimedes.
7.12
The 20 minutes before the service started were the longest of my life.
As people started coming in, we were all very nervous about whether it
would work. However, after quite a few last minute prayers, everything
went smoothly and the congregation loved it. The service started with
lively music whilst people entered and sat down. Then after a short
introduction and a prayer, we played our video showing the beauty of
God’s universe (a computer animated tour edited from clips such as
NASA’s Voyager space probe simulations). We followed this with prayers
of intercession and thanks and a bible reading. Then we had a live
singing session to some verses including a beautiful recomposition of
‘Great is the Lord’, created using soft drums and pan pipe sounds by one
of our talented musicians on his Korg WFD01 keyboard.
7.12
Our main sermon about the relevance of Christ was enhanced by placing
the image of the preacher on the large screen whilst over-laying
pleasing and subtle effects behind her on the screen as she spoke.
Finally, we had a beautiful slideshow of galaxy pictures displayed
whilst a group gave a powerful combined reading from the back of the
hall.
7.12
Do technology and Christianity mix?
7.12
All the time, we aimed to enhance the service and not doing anything
that would distract from it. In the end, I think we achieved what we set
out to do. Certainly, we brought the younger members of the community
(over 70 of them) back into the church and taught them something of the
relevance of God’s creation and how he is still with us today. The whole
service was one of enlightenment and beauty both to the people and to
me. Looking back on it, I cannot believe that we could have accomplished
what we did without guidance and help from God − we are all complete
amateurs in this. We had very little in the way of skill or experience
in multimedia but what we did worked and felt right.
7.12
Where do we go from here?
7.12
So where are we going in the future? Well, spiritually, the church is
behind us all the way and we will be running another service on October
2nd. Several other churches have showed an interest in either running a
joint service or just seeking our assistance to help them put on a
similar service. In all our efforts, we are trying to make sure that the
technology is just an aid to the service not a dictator. As such, we’ve
tried to keep our visuals as varied and spontaneous as possible to
assist us in whichever direction the service may take.
7.12
The latest technology?
7.12
On the technology side, we’ll probably use old BBC Micros (as we have
several of them) for displaying text. The Amiga was unreliable and kept
falling over and its text fonts were too small and difficult to read on
the screen. If we use Beebs, we can send VDU commands down the serial
port and display the Archimedes outline fonts on the old monochrome mode
0 screen. I’ve upgraded the A3000 to 4Mb and ARM3 now so that we can
cope with the visual effects that we wish to do. The only other main
factors are the cost of hiring the video projector and mixer (over £250)
and the necessity to be original and not copy other people’s visuals.
7.12
To this end, I’d like to make an appeal for help to anyone out there,
Christian or not. If you have either some artwork or a graphical demo
that is your own work and you think may be relevant to the service and
you would like to see it shown, please send it to me on a disc to the
address given below. I’m also interested to hear any advice or opinions
that any readers may have on this subject, so please don’t hesitate to
write to me.
7.12
If nothing else, our service made two converts to Christianity − my
friend and I were confirmed at our church on July 10th.
7.12
If you have ideas, comments, questions, graphics or suggestions, please
write to me, David Cartwright at: 53 Bowshaw, Dronfield, Sheffield, S18
6GB.  A
7.12
Basic WIMP Programming on the Acorn
7.12
Dave Floyd
7.12
Basic WIMP Programming on the Acorn by Alan Senior is a 464 page book,
complete with disc, which aims to teach the reader how to create multi-
tasking WIMP-based programs using the Basic programming language as
supplied with the Archimedes. It is published by Dabs Press and costs
£14.95 (£17 through Archive).
7.12
The cover
7.12
BWP (as I shall call it) is perfect bound, and although the point has
been made before, I must say that this kind of binding is not really
suitable for this kind of book as it will not lie flat on the desk.
Although perfect binding is cheaper and looks better on the shelf, I
feel that the extra user-friendliness gained by ring binding is worth
the added expense.
7.12
Overview
7.12
The assumption is made by the author that the reader is already
conversant with Basic V and with the RISC OS operating system at a user
level, such as running applications and the effects of the different
mouse buttons, etc. The book also does not attempt to replace the BBC
Basic Guide or the PRM, although more help than normal is given in these
directions within its pages.
7.12
Coffee time
7.12
It does not take long before you realise that BWP has a different
outlook on teaching to many of its competitors. Most books that attempt
to teach any computer-related subject try to involve the reader at as
early a stage as possible by getting them to run, type in or modify
small programs, and forcing a kind of interaction between the reader,
the book and the computer. BWP is different.
7.12
My advice would be to make a large pot of coffee, find a quiet room and
make yourself comfortable. Depending on how fast a reader you are, it
could be some time before you reach that stage. If I have made it sound
like a daunting prospect, it was not intentional. From the basic ideas
behind multitasking and the WIMP front end through to error-handling and
debugging, the author has used a patient and informative style. Even
those who know much of the information contained in the first 120 pages
should find it an interesting read. Also, by understanding the
principles of what you are trying to do, in advance, it makes it far
easier to understand what is happening and why, when the time comes to
study the sample programs and, later, create your own.
7.12
Bare bones
7.12
Detailed study of the example applications is next on the agenda, and
here lies the real advantages behind the philosophy of this book. With
the exception of the first one, which is almost as basic as one could
get, all further examples are based around a skeleton application
(!BareBones), to which the necessary code has been added. Although each
example demonstrates different aspects of WIMP programming, they all
follow the same basic format, so are easy to follow and understand.
7.12
A comprehensive procedure/function library is also included, which means
that once you have understood the examples and are ready to write your
own programs, it becomes (almost) as easy as painting by numbers to
create the user interface and standard functions such as save boxes etc,
thus saving you time to concentrate on the individual purposes of your
program.
7.12
The programs and procedure/function library supplied are copyright, but
permission is given to use them in either PD or commercial software so
long as acknowledgement of their use is made. The style which the
acknowledgement must take is stipulated within the book. I think this is
a very fair and sensible attitude for both the author and Dabs Press to
have taken. The library is also included on the disc in two formats, one
which you should use for programming, and the other with full REM
statements and notation for browsing and reference.
7.12
Utilities
7.12
Also on the disc, and detailed within the book, are some utility
programs. The Basic <−> Text converters will only really be of use to
those who have not upgraded to RISC OS 3, but the others will be of use
to everyone. The SWI converter, for example, converts SWI calls from
names to numbers and vice versa, and the menu viewer, takes the menu
templates that you create and displays them on screen so that you can
quickly check you have made no mistakes in your design.
7.12
And there’s more
7.12
The final section comprises one of the most detailed and worthwhile
collection of appendices that I have encountered. The 175 pages contain
the variables used by the library functions, the interdependence of
library procedures and functions to each other, a REMed listing of the
procedure library, Basic V extensions and SYS calls. Certainly, the
Basic V extensions will be of use to anybody who learned programming on
a BBC, as an easy reference to the extra facilities available. The
section on SYS calls provides a subset of what is already available in
the PRM, and for those who will not be programming enough to justify the
cost, it should be detailed enough to see them through without too many
problems. Contents and index sections are also included, and these match
the high standards set by previous Dabs Press publications.
7.12
Improvements?
7.12
One thing I would have liked to see included is an extra section setting
out the steps to creating a new application not included on the disc.
This could take the form of an ordered exercise in which you would be
forced to do the thinking, in small steps so that you could check that
things were going according to plan. A further section would detail the
steps you should have taken, thereby enabling you to put right any
errors you had made before continuing.
7.12
Although this sounds very much like school textbook territory where, on
completing a chapter, you have to answer questions on it, I feel it
would have been a nice touch, enabling the reader to check whether he or
she had really assimilated as much information as they thought they had.
This is, however, a small point and should not detract from what is the
best WIMP programming tutorial that I have come across.
7.12
Also, in the appendix relating to SYS calls, there is an alphabetical
list, cross-referencing the appropriate page numbers in the PRM where
they can be found. The PRM in question, however, is the RISC OS 2
release. I would have expected to see page numbers quoted for both that
and the RISC OS 3 version. I suspect the reason for the omission is that
the book was printed before details of the RISC OS 3 PRM were known, but
perhaps the information could have been included as an extra file on the
disc.
7.12
Conclusion
7.12
Skeleton programs and procedure libraries are by no means a new idea and
have been available for a while from the public domain and magazine
cover discs and listings. None, however, have been documented and
explained to the extent that BWP achieves. For anybody who wants to
learn how to write multitasking WIMP-based programs, I can
wholeheartedly recommend this book − I only wish something like this had
been available six years ago.  A
7.12
Drawfile Display in Basic
7.12
Hugh Eagle
7.12
Until recently, displaying drawfiles on the screen was a fairly complex
programming task, but Acorn have recently revolutionised the
programmer’s life by releasing a module for rendering drawfiles.
7.12
Although the module (called DrawFile !) is not public domain, Acorn have
made it freely available. It was included, together with a demonstration
program from Acorn (written in C), on the monthly program disc for
Archive volume 7.7 and Paul will include it again on this month’s disc
if there is room. The module can also be obtained from PD libraries − if
by no other means, you can get a copy by ordering version 1.13 of my
program PickAPic which contains the module!
7.12
A drawfile consists of a short header section, containing information
such as the size of the bounding box, followed by a sequence of draw
objects such as lines, curves, text and sprites. Until now, your program
would have to work laboriously through the file, object by object,
reading the descriptions of the objects one by one, working out scaling
factors and colour translations, and calling the appropriate operating
system routines to display each one. This would involve many lines of
code.
7.12
However, with the DrawFile module loaded, the following code is all that
is required if you want to prompt for the name of a suitable file, then
clear the screen and display it. As well as cutting out reams of code,
the program also runs much more quickly than an equivalent Basic
program.
7.12
INPUT “Please type in full pathname of drawfile: ”FileName$
7.12
SYS “OS_File”,5,FileName$ TO ,,,,FileLength%
7.12
DIM DrawFile% FileLength%
7.12
OSCLI(“Load ”+FileName$+“ ”+STR$~DrawFile%)
7.12
REM Leave desktop and clear screen
7.12
MODE 15
7.12
REM Clear background to white (most draw
7.12
REM files will look odd on black background)
7.12
GCOL 191 TINT 192:CLG
7.12
SYS “DrawFile_Render”,0,DrawFile%, FileLength%,0,0
7.12
It could hardly be simpler, could it? Of course, nothing in real life is
quite that simple. Since the drawfile is displayed at its pre-defined
size and position relative to the bottom left-hand corner of the screen,
the picture could easily be too big and overflow the edges or even be
off the screen entirely. The first stage in refining the program is
therefore to define a procedure that will adjust the magnification and
positioning of the picture:
7.12
DEF PROCRenderDrawFile(Drawfile%, FileLength%,OriginX%,OriginY%
7.12
,Scale,TransfMatrix%)
7.12
REM Render drawfile with origin at OriginX%, REM OriginY% (screen units)
scaled by a
7.12
REM factor of Scale TransfMatrix%
7.12
REM is a reserved block of 24 bytes
7.12
!TransfMatrix%=Scale*&10000
7.12
TransfMatrix%!4=0
7.12
TransfMatrix%!8=0
7.12
TransfMatrix%!12=Scale*&10000
7.12
TransfMatrix%!16=OriginX%*256
7.12
TransfMatrix%!20=OriginY%*256
7.12
SYS “DrawFile_Render”,0,DrawFile%,FileLength%,TransfMatrix%,0
7.12
ENDPROC
7.12
This procedure will move the origin of the drawfile from the bottom left
corner of the screen to (OriginX%, OriginY%) and magnify it by the
factor Scale. The only additional feature introduced here is the use of
a “transformation matrix” of the form:
7.12
the significant numbers in which are defined by the contents of the six-
word (i.e. 24 byte) block at TransfMatrix% (space for which must be
reserved by a DIM statement earlier in the program). I’m afraid there
isn’t room here for a detailed explanation of matrix arithmetic but, in
fact, these six numbers are capable of defining any combination of
rotation, translation or stretching that you desire. However, all we are
interested in here is the simple transformation of moving the origin and
magnifying the drawing in both the x and y directions by the same
factor, Scale. To achieve this, the elements of the matrix are defined
as follows:
7.12
  a = Scale * &10000
7.12
  b = 0
7.12
  c = 0
7.12
  d = Scale * &10000
7.12
  e = OriginX% * &100
7.12
  f = OriginY% * &100
7.12
The next stage is to define the following procedure to scale the drawing
automatically to fit a given rectangle and to centre the drawing inside
it:
7.12
DEF PROCRenderDrawfileCentredInRectangle(
DrawFile%,FileLength%,RectLowX%, RectLowY%,RectHighX%,RectHighY%,
TransfMatrix%,BBoxCoords%)
7.12
REM TransfMatrix% is a reserved block of
7.12
REM 24 bytes and BBoxCoords% is a reserved
7.12
REM block of 16 bytes
7.12
LOCAL BBoxLowX,BBoxLowY,BBoxHighX,BBoxHighY
7.12
LOCAL XScale,YScale,Scale,OriginX%,OriginY%
7.12
REM Get the bounding box coordinates
7.12
REM (assuming the drawing is at its
7.12
REM defined position and scale...
7.12
REM i.e. it is untransformed).
7.12
SYS “DrawFile_BBox”,0,DrawFile%,FileLength%, 0,BBoxCoords%
7.12
BBoxLowX=!BBoxCoords%/&100
7.12
BBoxLowY=BBoxCoords%!4/&100
7.12
BBoxHighX=BBoxCoords%!8/&100
7.12
BBoxHighY=BBoxCoords%!12/&100
7.12
XScale=(RectHighX%-RectLowX%)/(BBoxHighX-BBoxLowX)
7.12
YScale=(RectHighY%-RectLowY%)/(BBoxHighY-BBoxLowY)
7.12
REM The next line maintains the original proportions
7.12
IF XScale>YScale THEN Scale=YScale ELSE Scale=XScale
7.12
REM Omit the next line if you want to allow
7.12
REM small pictures to be magnified to fill
7.12
REM the rectangle.
7.12
IF Scale>1 THEN Scale=1
7.12
OriginX%=(RectLowX%+RectHighX%)/2-(BBoxHighX +BBoxLowX)*Scale/2
7.12
OriginY%=(RectLowY%+RectHighY%)/2-(BBoxHighY +BBoxLowY)*Scale/2
7.12
PROCRenderDrawFile(Drawfile%,FileLength%,
OriginX%,OriginY%,Scale,TransfMatrix%)
7.12
ENDPROC
7.12
If these two procedures are preceded by a few lines of code such as the
following, we have the beginnings of a useful program:
7.12
DIM TransfMatrix% 23
7.12
DIM BBoxCoords% 15
7.12
INPUT “Please type in full pathname of drawfile: ” FileName$
7.12
SYS “OS_File”,5,FileName$ TO ,,,,FileLength%
7.12
DIM DrawFile% FileLength%
7.12
OSCLI(“Load ”+FileName$+“ ”+STR$~DrawFile%)
7.12
PRINT “Please type in the coordinates of the bounding box”
7.12
PRINT “LowX, LowY, HighX, HighY”
7.12
PRINT “for example type 200,200,600,600 including the commas”
7.12
PRINT “then type <Return>”
7.12
INPUT RectLowX%,RectLowY%,RectHighX%, RectHighY%
7.12
MODE 15
7.12
GCOL 191 TINT 192:CLG
7.12
GCOL 23
7.12
RECTANGLE RectLowX%,RectLowY%,(RectHighX%
7.12
-RectLowX%),(RectHighY%-RectLowY%)
7.12
PROCRenderDrawfileCentredInRectangle(DrawFile%,FileLength%,RectLowX%,
RectLowY%,RectHighX%,RectHighY%, TransfMatrix%,BBoxCoords%)
7.12
END
7.12
To make this program into a self-contained package, all that is
necessary is to call it !RunImage and place it inside an application
directory along with the DrawFile module and a !Run file reading simply:
7.12
RMLoad <Obey$Dir>.DrawFile
7.12
Run <Obey$Dir>.!RunImage
7.12
Conclusion
7.12
I hope that readers find this article interesting. If there is any
demand, I shall follow it up with one on the rather more demanding
subject of displaying ArtWorks files.  A
7.12
Acorn’s technical description of the SWI’s in the DrawFile module reads
as follows:
7.12
DrawFile_Render
7.12
Entry:  R0  =  flags:
7.12
  bit 0:  =  render bounding boxes (as dotted red rectangles)
7.12
  bit 1:  =  do not render the objects themselves
7.12
  R1  -> drawfile data
7.12
  R2  =  size of drawfile in bytes
7.12
  R3  -> transformation matrix
7.12
  =  0 <=> use identity
7.12
  R4  -> clipping rectangle in OS units
7.12
  =  0 <=> no clipping rectangle set up
7.12
Exit:  All registers preserved
7.12
Use:  This SWI renders a drawfile at a given screen position where that
position is defined as screen position 0, 0 with the x- and y-
translations as specified in the transformation matrix. Hence to render
a non-rotated 1:1 drawfile at (x, y) (screen coordinates in OS units)
the transformation matrix is
7.12
The effects of calling the module with the matrix not of the form
7.12
(which is a translation and a magnification) should not be relied on.
7.12
The clipping rectangle is typically a redraw rectangle returned by the
Wimp on a redraw window request.
7.12
If R4 = 0, the whole drawfile is rendered. If non-zero, only objects
which intersect the clipping rectangle are rendered. If R3 = 0, unit
transformation matrix is assumed (i.e. the drawfile is rendered with its
bottom left corner at screen coordinates (0, 0).
7.12
Altering the transformation matrix can allow you to alter the scale of
the diagram. For example, you can use the following transformation
matrix to render your diagram at a scale of 2:1:
7.12
and the following to render your diagram at half scale:
7.12
DrawFile_BBox
7.12
Entry:  R0  =  flags (must be 0)
7.12
  R1  -> drawfile data
7.12
  R2  =  size of drawfile in bytes
7.12
  R3  -> transformation matrix
7.12
  =  0 <=> use identity
7.12
  R4  -> 4-word buffer to hold the bound-
7.12
  ing box of the drawfile   (x0, y0, x1, y1) in
7.12
  draw units
7.12
Exit:  All registers preserved. Buffer pointed at by R4 holds the
bounding box of the drawfile (x0, y0, x1, y1) in draw units.
7.12
Use:  This SWI is used to determine the bounding box (in draw units) of
the given drawfile, as if it were plotted with the transformation given.
7.12
DrawFile_DeclareFonts
7.12
Entry:  R0  =  flags
7.12
  bit 0: do not download font (passed to PDriver_DeclareFont)
7.12
  R1  -> drawfile data
7.12
  R2  =  size of drawfile in bytes
7.12
Exit:  All registers preserved. All fonts used by the document have been
declared.
7.12
Use:  If a printer requires font declarations, this SWI must be called
for each drawfile to be printed, between the calls to PDriver_SelectJob
and PDriver_ DrawPage.
7.12
All fonts are declared as “kerned”, since this includes the non-kerned
case.
7.12
Other information
7.12
The SWI chunk number of the DrawFile module is 0x45540 and its error
base is 0x20C00.  A
7.12
Technical Details of the DrawFile module:
7.12
Language Column
7.12
David Wild
7.12
After I sent in the last Language Column about S-Base (Archive 7.7 p26),
I wrote to Longman Logotron pointing out that the manuals tended to
contradict one another, and also pointing out that there were no
instructions on how to do the “tweaking” that I mentioned. I have had a
letter from them in which they say that my comments were useful, and
that they would be borne in mind as and when the manual came to be
rewritten.
7.12
A large part of the problem is that, when programmers are enthusiasts
and there is no direct customer (as there would be with a bespoke
application), they tend to assume that other people are enthusiasts too
and write the documentation accordingly.
7.12
A similar problem arises with sales literature from such programmers
which can contain such things as “written in machine code”. While this
can be of interest for enthusiasts, it should not be of any concern at
all to people in offices and workshops wanting to use a program to help
in their work. I suspect that it is a hangover from the days of small
machines such as the BBC where a “machine code game” probably was a
better game, not because machine code programmers were better, but
because the code made better use of the limited amount of memory.
Nowadays, with the use of compiled programs rather than interpreted
Basic, this is largely irrelevant. The danger is that mention of the
language in which the program is written tends to make people think that
they need to have technical knowledge to be able to use it.
7.12
One of the problems that Acorn faces is that too big a proportion of its
users are enthusiasts, making others think of it as an enthusiasts’
machine rather than one which can be of use to ordinary clerks,
engineers and accountants. Enthusiasts are needed: one good thing about
using an IBM compatible is that help is easily available, often by just
shouting in the office! Acorn programs are often much simpler to use,
but this seems to be a closely guarded secret. If there is such a thing
as a best language, which I doubt, it is almost certainly going to be in
the area of programmer productivity rather than program quality. Indeed,
it will often be the quality of the compiler which will force a
decision. Some years ago I was working with a PC project management
program which turned out to have been written in compiled Basic. When I
asked someone I knew at the software house, he told me that, at the time
they started selling the program, the Basic compiler was the only one
which was virtually certain to provide correct code, although they would
have preferred one with better data structures.
7.12
When you think that a large part of ChangeFSI is written in interpreted
Basic, you realise that, although it is not often a good idea to use the
interpreted version for distributed programs, there is little or nothing
that cannot be done in any of the languages available to us. I have a
copy of Almanac and would endorse the criticisms by the reviewer in the
latest Archive 7.11 p70 but, in spite of the boast in some of their
sales literature about using machine code, it is unlikely that this is
the reason for the problems which are more likely to have come from lack
of thought about what the user really needs.
7.12
An unfortunate feature of trying to be a good programmer is that no-one
will ever know about your achievements so long as you succeed, whereas
it will soon become obvious if you have been a bad programmer. Even if
you were to break the rules and disassemble a program you would be
unlikely to find out about the programmer’s skill; partly because you
wouldn’t know what problems were met and also that, as in almost any
area, once a solution has been found it becomes “obvious”, even though
many people have been trying for a long time to find it.
7.12
Wandering around Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford recently, I came across
a copy of “Code Complete” by Steve McConnell of Microsoft. In it, he
presents ways of improving the standards of commercial programs so that
they are no longer “buggy, late and over budget”. He gives examples in
‘C’, Pascal and Basic but points out that his lessons can be extended to
any procedural language.
7.12
I would like to suggest that every programmer should have a copy but,
with it costing £29.95, it isn’t really possible. All the same, I would
suggest that every establishment employing programmers ought to have a
copy and that individual programmers should try to read it. There are
certainly some changes that I shall make in my own program construction
and I suspect that everyone could benefit from the lessons learned.
7.12
A recent issue of Archimedes World brought a copy of the PD program Zap
with various extensions for programming in specific languages. One thing
offered is the ability to have different parts of the program, such as
variables, key and reserved words, and comments in different colours. I
looked at the C and assembler examples and my first impression was that
they were a little bit messy and overpowering. You can, though, alter
the colours yourself and I think that the ability to have comments in a
different colour could be very valuable, especially if you have
“commented out” part of the program.  A
7.12
Payroll Manager (3.0)
7.12
Dave Wilcox
7.12
The aim of Payroll Manager, from Silicon Vision, is to reduce the time
and effort involved in maintaining a company’s payroll. I thought at
first that the software was going to have a long learning curve and be
very intricate to set up. I am not usually involved in the accounting
side of the business, so I set up the software, initially, with a
fictitious company, but this was unneccesary − I could easily have used
the real data from the start.
7.12
The package
7.12
The program comes on one disc with a 20 page A5 manual with no elaborate
packaging. There are two main parts to the program, !Data and
!Payroll94, but also included are the usual !System and !Sysmerge files,
and a text file with any late dditions not yet documented.
7.12
The first job is to enter the name and address of the company, followed
by the details of each employee. This can be done in one file for all
staff, or one file per department. The number of employees that the
system can handle is only limited by the available storage space and, as
a guide, the following figures are quoted:
7.12
800Kb floppy  48 Employees
7.12
1.6Mb floppy  100 Employees
7.12
40Mb hard drive  2400 Employees
7.12
This will give storage space for the full 52 weeks pay period for the
stated numbers of employees.
7.12
Once the software is initialised by telling it whether pay is weekly or
monthly and the necessary information relating to NI and PAYE, you are
almost up and running. All that remains is to enter the requested
details for each employee. This will include entering details of payroll
figures to date, stoppages etc. Your new payroll is now ready to use.
7.12
Each time you use it, you enter the pay date, hours worked and the rates
applicable to these hours. There is space provided for three rates of
pay, bonus payment, SSP, holiday pay and SMP. Calculation control
requires entry of the employee’s PAYE code, and weekly or monthly pay
should be indicated along with the appropriate NI tables. Total earnings
will then be calculated by the software using the appropriate data and
settings for each employee. A separate section takes into account
further deductions or allowances to be made, e.g. private pension scheme
contributions etc, and a running total is kept of pay and stoppages
received to date.
7.12
From the menu, it is easy to (a) search for any employee in any tax
period; (b) save repetitively entered data as a template for future use;
(c) write-protect records and (d) print out either pay advice,
worksheets or breakdowns to the printer or to the screen.
7.12
The printout of the worksheet will show a full year’s deduction sheet
for the selected employee and will let you print out a P60/P14 at the
end of year. The printout of the breakdown will inform you exactly what
notes and coins are required to enable you to make up all pay packets
for the period. If you require hard copy of this information, the
software assumes that you are using an IBM proprinter emulation. This is
in order that the IBM font can print out the neccessary stationery lines
onto blank paper, saving on the purchase of special stationery. If you
cannot emulate an IBM proprinter, the data can still be printed minus
the lining.
7.12
This software is also capable of handling payment to contractors,
commissions and royalties and directors’ remuneration. Data can be
exported as CSV files for inclusion in reports or spreadsheets. It is
possible to use this program as a stand-alone package or in conjuction
with book-keeping software − it really does appear to cover every
eventuality.
7.12
Conclusion
7.12
There are two major oversights with this program from my point of view.
The first is the lack of password protection on entry which is needed to
provide security for the information contained therein. I also feel that
the printer routine would benefit from more versatility. In particular,
it should be able to use the RISC OS drivers.
7.12
The initial cost of this program is £99.95 inc VAT followed by a charge
of £25 inc VATper annum to upgrade for the following financial year.
This upgrade will incorporate any variations in tax rates and such-like
as the result of budget changes, etc. Is the time saved worth £25 per
annum to you? I think it should be. Please also remember that the Data
Protection Act requires you to be registered!
7.12
Despite the two minor gripes, the conclusion has to be that Payroll
Manager does an admirable job of running a payroll, with a remarkably
short learning curve. The small amount of setting up time is soon
recovered with regular use. For a package designed for business use, the
cost of initial purchase and upgrade seem reasonable and this would soon
be recouped in saved time and effort.  A
7.12
An Eye For Spelling
7.12
Paul Cross
7.12
“A spelling and handwriting aid based on letter patterns” is how the A5
ring-bound documentation describes the program. This does not sound very
interesting but it describes the program accurately and it would be a
mistake to dismiss it because of a lack of gimmicks and pretty pictures.
7.12
Along with the documentation is one floppy disc which contains the main
program and other directories and utilities. The program is designed to
run on all Acorn systems and sets the screen mode to mode 12. This is a
pity if you have one of the later machines with better screen
resolution. It runs on the latest machine, the Risc PC 600, albeit in
the letter box mode.
7.12
Introduction
7.12
Spelling is one of the subjects in the ‘Back to Basics’ campaign that
stirs much controversy and discussion in staff rooms across the country.
It is also something of concern to many parents and employers as it
underpins the important communication skill of writing.
7.12
Some people work on the theory that as long as you throw at the children
as many spelling lists as possible, something will stick. In my view,
this just does not work!
7.12
Those children, and for that matter adults, who cannot spell, see words
as a whole and generally do not see or understand that words are
patterns of letters that exist in certain combinations.
7.12
This is where the computer can assist the teacher. By using a program
that stores structured lists of words grouped by letter patterns, the
teacher can plan structured support for a child’s learning programme.
7.12
An Eye For Spelling is just such a program. It is based on a programme
of study devised by Charles Cripps, a well respected guru on the
teaching of spelling. It is designed for children aged 5 to 11 but can
also be used by older children with Special Educational Needs. It
presupposes that the child has some level of reading ability. There are
three banks of words graded and selected as words likely to be used and
useful in both reading and writing.
7.12
An excellent program
7.12
As you read this you may think to yourself that this is all very dry and
boring. Well, I have been using the program with a small group of
children who have problems with spelling, and, in a short space of time,
there has been an amazing improvement in three areas. Firstly, they have
been motivated to consider spelling to be important; secondly, they have
begun to recognise that words belong to families that can be identified
by groups of letters; and thirdly, their handwriting has improved.
7.12
How the program works
7.12
After the program has been initialised by entering your name and
address, you can make as many copies as you like for a single site. The
licence also allows teachers to make copies for use at home to prepare
school work. All of this comes at the very reasonable price of £37.50
+VAT from ESM, or even better, £38 inclusive from Archive.
7.12
Once the program is loaded from floppy or hard disc, an ‘eye’ icon
appears on the iconbar. If you click on this, the introductory screen
appears. You work through a series of screen selecting the level and
letter pattern to be used. You can even select which hand the child
writes with, as this will change the way the work is written on the
screen to suit the handedness of the child.
7.12
The program then takes you through the ‘look − cover − write − check’
routine to aid the learning of the words. The handbook explains this in
great detail, with illustrations on the way to help.
7.12
Extra features
7.12
There are two extra features that add to the usefulness of the program.
Firstly, as the program ‘writes’ the word for you in a joined style of
writing, and you can print out word lists, this gives a worksheet that
the children can use away from the computer. Secondly, even though the
word lists are very comprehensive and well structured, it is useful to
make up your own. The facility to do this is built into the program.
7.12
Conclusions
7.12
For the busy teacher in the classroom, this program is a must. It is the
best ‘aid to learning spellings’ I have seen, and is excellent value for
money. It motivates those children who have difficulty with their
spelling and is efficient in the limited computer time available to each
individual child. It gets my star rating for programs I have seen
recently.  A
7.12
Autograph
7.12
Colin Jeavons
7.12
In recent months, a number of leaflets have appeared in schools
extolling the virtues of this piece of software, and the obvious
questions are: ‘What is it?’ and ‘Is it as good as it is claimed to be?’
7.12
Essentially, Autograph is a teaching package designed to help in the
understanding and illustration of many aspects of mathematics seen at
both GCSE and A-level. It covers a very wide range of topics and every
time that you delve into it, you find a new idea and ask why no-one has
thought of this before. Is it as good as it is claimed to be? Yes, with
one proviso that I will come back to later on.
7.12
Autograph comes on two discs, one for the program and one for data, and
very extensive documentation. The documentation for this software must
rank among the best and comes in three separate parts. At the most
basic, there is a small booklet that gives examples that have been tried
in the classroom with very clear instructions of precisely what steps to
follow. This is always a help for a teacher approaching a new piece of
software for the first time. For the more technically minded, there is a
56 page reference manual giving detailed information on setting up the
program, interchange of data between the individual applications, ideas
for setting up a mathematics laboratory and much more. Finally, there is
a very readable 350 page book giving information, ideas and suggestions
about using the various programs. There are reputed to be over 1000
screen shots in these books and they do ensure that the documentation is
very readable. Incidentally, all of this work was published using
Ovation DTP and it is a reminder of how powerful that package can be.
7.12
What is in the package?
7.12
The application is divided into four main areas and within each area
there are up to eight different programs. The four main areas are: Graph
Plotter, Graphic Calculator, Pure Mathematics Programs and Statistics /
Data Handling.
7.12
The Pure Mathematics section illustrates the diversity of ideas that are
present: Algebra, Trigonometry, Transformations, Matrices, Maclaurin
Series, Sequences, Combinations and Tables.
7.12
In the Statistics section, the ideas range from a simulation of tossing
two dice to an illustration of the Central Limit Theorem and Confidence
Intervals for sample means. The A-level statistics programs, involving a
comparison of Binomial, Poisson and Normal distributions as well as the
Central Limit Theorem, are particularly useful and enable the students
to obtain a real appreciation of these topics.
7.12
Many of the ideas have been seen before on the old MEI suite of programs
and a few still have the look and feel of BBC programs, but they still
work and have been extensively trialled in schools. At the other end of
the scale are the brand new Graph Plotter and Graphic Calculator suite
of programs and it is with these that the best is seen, as well as a
problem.
7.12
The Graph Plotter is powerful, very versatile and will do anything that
you can think of and much more! Expressions can be entered in many
forms: Cartesian, parametric, polar, implicit, composite functions,
families, differential equations and it is claimed that almost any
expression up to, and including, college level will be accepted. Having
plotted the expression there is a wide choice of options and only a few
of them can be mentioned in this review. The gradient function, both 1st
or 2nd gradient, can be plotted either using the same axes or on a
different set by adopting the twin screen mode. Likewise, the integral
function can be drawn from any starting point.
7.12
Whilst much of mathematics teaching involves a logical progression of
ideas with proof and reasoning being of paramount importance, there must
also be room for intuition and a sense of ‘seeing’ that an idea is true.
A simple illustration of this would be to draw the graph of y=1/x and
then ask for the integral to be drawn. The simultaneous plotting of y=1/
x and y=logex would do much to emphasise their interconnection and to
clarify this traditional problem. Equally useful is the ability to
conduct numerical integration to find areas underneath curves, volumes
of revolution, arc length, surface areas of revolution and so on.
7.12
I could write much more about the many other features that are available
but these are all well documented in the program description manual. It
is, however, this wealth of additional features and the manner in which
they have been catered for that causes the concern that I mentioned at
the start of this review. Autograph is designed as a teaching tool and,
as such, it takes over the desktop when being used (although a return to
the original desktop setting is only one keypress away); at first this
seems strange but one soon gets used to it. Having taken over the screen
it does not, unfortunately, use the normal conventions of menu control
using the mouse. Rather, the various options are initially selected by
moving a cursor around the screen and then further selected by following
the instructions and prompts that occur. To the unfamiliar user, this
can be a daunting prospect since there are so many possibilities.
7.12
The teaching program does need to be carefully thought out so that the
students can obtain the maximum benefit otherwise there is a danger that
some, especially the weaker ones will become lost. This point has been
recognised and, in most cases, sensible default values or actions take
place by pressing either <return> or <space>.
7.12
Would I use this in my own school? For certain applications I already do
and I will continue to expand my use of it in the future. At present, I
use it for differential equations, sixth form statistics and the Newton-
Raphson method. For standard graph plotting to beyond A-level, I would
use the simpler graph drawing program produced by Graham Howlett at
Charterhouse. In terms of being user-friendly this cannot be beaten.
7.12
As far as I am aware, Autograph is unique in the field of software for
Acorn machines. It contains a wealth of useful ideas and, provided staff
and students are confident with its layout, it should find a place in
the teaching programme of many schools.
7.12
Autograph costs £90 inclusive (no VAT) from Eastmond Publishing. A site
licence costs £180.  A
7.12
Birds of War
7.12
Christopher Jarman
7.12
As an afficionado of flight simulators, I was expecting the ultimate
when I loaded up Birds of War. In many ways, my expectations have been
fulfilled. It is a game covering a large field or more correctly, four
historical eras. It is pretty well essential to load the seven floppies
onto hard disc, and to carry out some extra installations for maps etc.
Minimal instructions for this are given in the “Pilot’s Brief”,
otherwise the manual is quite comprehensive and easy to follow.
7.12
The game begins with a clipboard showing a roster of pilots’ names. You
choose a name to make the first flight. Subsequently, these can be
invented and added to with callsigns or nicknames. You are then offered
a choice of eras in which to fly. The 1920s, 1945, 1960s or the 1990s.
On selecting your era, an appropriate jolly burst of period music brings
a feeling of those times to the game! (This assumes you have 4Mb of RAM.
Less than this, and there may be a little trouble always getting full
sound.) There follows an interesting and quite complex chain of
briefings, intelligence, controls, arming and aircraft selection before
you then go for take-off.
7.12
A vast array of choices
7.12
Each era contains a choice of six battlefronts or campaigns and a choice
of eight different aircraft. (There was a bug in the Malta campaign in
1945 causing the computer to seize up. Fourth Dimension say this has now
been eradicated, but you have to return all seven discs to them to have
it fixed.) The choice of weaponry and control over the difficulty levels
of the game seems almost infinite! For example, there will be no need
for cheats in Birds of War because John Whigham has built in the ability
to choose infinite ammo, infinite fuel and invulnerability if you wish.
Also, the level of enemy pilot competence can be selected from rookie to
veteran.
7.12
The selection of eras is inspired because there are three distinct kinds
of nostalgia catered for, plus a perfect contemporary feel about flying
a stealth bomber in the Gulf for the 90s.
7.12
There is so much to think about in the way of weaponry, decoys, radar
and the amusing briefings, that it would be spoiling the fun to
elaborate too much in a review. Enough to say that with so much choice I
don’t yet see an end to it in the next few weeks. In fact, after a month
I am still selecting invulnerability and rookie enemy pilots in order to
survive the learning period! You may choose accelerated time or fast
accelerated time; and minimum, medium, maximum or auto-setting for
detail. You can fly with or without clouds, with or without a graduated
horizon or shadows. When you are killed or shot down you get an amusing
epitaph or sometimes a telling off from your CO for bending a valuable
aircraft!
7.12
For those who like a competitive game, I’m afraid that there are no
scores other than the count of planes shot down or campaigns survived.
There is no graduated promotion to Marshall of the RAF. As far as I can
tell, players remain as humble flight lieutenants all their lives. As
life expectancy is very short I am hardly surprised. I have not survived
one mission or even managed to land yet.
7.12
Suggestions for the future
7.12
I have one minor and one major comment to make. Firstly, it takes rather
a long time to get flying again after being shot down. One has to click
back through choosing a new pilot by name, and the first briefing, and
then a new aircraft, and on to the airfield or carrier. I think there
should be a short cut for the beginner who is constantly crashing.
7.12
Secondly, I believe that while Birds of War is terrific and well worth
the money, it must be remembered by programmers that flight simulators
are quite different from all other games. They appeal to a sense of
exploration and a sense of place. Therefore maps are absolutely
essential. The great and lasting value of Chocks Away is in its maps and
charts. Quite apart from the action, it is enormous fun just to fly
around a well-mapped landscape, under bridges, to land on strange
airfields, and to work out where you are. Remember, more of us were
navigators in our day than pilots! Birds of War only has maps for eras 1
and 2, and these lack detail compared with Chocks Away. The radar and
waypoint systems provided for navigation are fine as far as they go, in
eras 3 and 4, but maps are needed. There is mention of electronic maps
in the Pilot’s Brief booklet, but try as I might, I could not locate
them. I would be prepared to sacrifice quite a lot of choices of timing,
clouds, decoys etc to have really detailed maps in a new update.
7.12
Conclusions
7.12
A satisfyingly complex flight simulator which may take months to
complete. The different cockpit designs alone are worth the price. It
contains an immense range of choices for the fussiest of pilots but
could possibly do with more interesting landscape maps for the
navigators !
7.12
Overall, it is excellent value for money. Birds of War costs £34.95 from
Fourth Dimension, or £32 through Archive.  A
7.12
This article disappeared somewhere between Christopher and the Editor
so, since it was written, he has had more time to comment on it. He
adds...
7.12
(Seven months later, I have given up on this game as being too difficult
and gone back to Chocks Away. Some games have an indefinable
‘playability’ − I am not sure whether Birds of War has it yet, even
though it appears to have everything else... or perhaps I am just
getting too old for it!)  A
7.12