Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/products/volume_03/issue_06

Text File | 1995-02-21 | 11KB | 206 lines

•   A3000 5.25“ interfaces − It is possible to fit some of the 5.25”
interfaces that were designed for the A300/400 series machines into an
A3000, but the mechanical arrangement is never ideal. Watford and Dudley
Micro Supplies now do interfaces specifically for the A3000. I have not
yet seen the Watford one. The Dudley Micros one is OK except that it
consists of an external plasic box with cables coming out between the
back plate and top plate of the computer which might cause the cables to
be cut into by the metal backplate.
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•   A3000 Analogue Port/User Port − Schools, amongst others, will be
pleased to hear that Morley Electronics are now selling a minipodule for
the A3000 which includes a user port and an analogue port manufactured
to Acorn’s specification and fully compatible with the old BBC Micro in
terms of the OSBYTE commands. What is more, it has a connector for I2C
devices which opens up all sorts of possibilities for interfacing to
various other devices. The price is £69 + VAT or £72 through Archive.
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•   A3000 external 3.5“ drive from Morley Electronics. These are now
available from stock at the Archive price of £125. They are not, as we
first thought, dual drives. It consists of an interface and a single
3.5” drive in a dual box. You take the internal drive out of the
computer, install the interface instead of it and put the drive into the
external box making it into the dual drive as shown in Morley’s advert!
Sorry for the confusion but this arrangement is better, if you think
about it, since it gets away altogether from the Amigastyle sideentry
drive. A question was raised about preserving the warranty, but since
the drives are supplied to Morley by Acorn I don’t see that there should
be any problem.
3.6
•   A3000 memory prices falling − We have arranged a special price for
Archive subscribers for memory upgrades for the A3000. The 1M and 3M
upgrades are £125 and £350 respectively including VAT and carriage. (The
make of ram depends on what supplies we can get at the time − could be
Computerware, Morley or Watford, but at that price, who’s complaining?!)
Note though that this is a limited offer, while stocks last. There are
strong rumours of a rise (yes, a rise!) in the price of ram over the
next few months.
3.6
•   Acorn Midi Software updates − Acorn have improved and added features
to the software on their three Midi products: A3000 user port & midi
podule, A300/400 midi podule and the midi addon to the I/O podule. The
new software will be going into all the podules currently in production
but the new ROMs and manuals are available for existing owners as
upgrades with product codes AKA 54, AKA55 and AKA56 respectively at
prices of “around £10, £15 and £12 respectively”.
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•   I/O podule software improved − If you buy the AKA56 upgrade to the
software for the midi addon to I/O, you will find that the new ROM
contains improved code for the I/O itself. If you have experienced
problems with the I/O card, such as problems with interrupt handling,
this ROM at “around £12” should solve the problem.
3.6
•   Another ARM3 board − A third manufacturer is producing ARM3 upgrades −
Watford Electronics. The good news is that at £349 +VAT, the price is
somewhat lower than Aleph One’s price of £599 +VAT. The board is similar
to the one produced by Aleph One and again needs the MEMC1a upgrade
fitting to A310’s and old A440’s, but Watford will supply the MEMC1a
upgrade with the ARM3 for £49 +VAT. The bad news is that, as with Gnome
Computers’ ARM3 board, they are not yet available in quantity. Aleph One
do not seem to have the same supply problem but no doubt the cheaper
versions will become more numerous.
3.6
•   Archimedes First Steps − At last, a beginners’ book about the
Archimedes. £9.95 from Dabhand Computing (£9 through Archive). See the
review on page 17 for details
3.6
•   Best of Archive BBS downloads − Shareware 19 is now available. It
features some of the best programs downloaded from the Archive BBS. It
includes the following: home accounts application, hypertext based
application, scientific calculator, dustbin, two file utilities,
disassembler, RS423 downloader, othello, space invaders, a text
adventure, and little desktop demo. Thanks, Karen!
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•   Best of SID downloads − Shareware 20 is now available  It is the first
of a series of discs of the best programs that can be downloaded Acorn’s
SID database. Thanks to Phil Colmer!
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It contains four demos, two games (battleship & solitaire), Arcterm
3.11, FormEd, DFStoADFS, ModeExtend, Sparkplug, Trash, VDUsaver,
keyboard=mouse utility, plus four C utilities. At least two more ‘Best
of SID’ discs will follow shortly. STOP PRESS Sharewares 21 & 22 ready −
No spare space here, so see page 60 for details!
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•   Faster and cheaper ARM3’s from Aleph One − (perhaps that should read
“faster OR cheaper”). ARM3’s are now available at 30MHz, instead of
20MHz as earlier versions, at the same price of £595 + VAT. (£650
through Archive) While stocks last, the 20MHz version will be available
at £495 +VAT from Aleph One. If you want your 20MHz version upgrading to
30MHz, Aleph One will replace the chip and the clock for you for £50
+VAT (thus making a 20MHz chip available for someone else!) Don’t get
too excited though − you will find that upgrading from 20 to 30 MHz does
not give a further 50% speed increase. From figures which Aleph One gave
me, it looks more like about 28% in mode 0 or 25% in mode 27. If you are
not sure what speed your chip is, the crystal on the p.c.b. is 40MHz for
the 20MHz chip and 60 for the 30MHz chip. Also, the chips that are
capable of running up to 30MHz are black as opposed to the slower
versions which are grey with a purple middle. Electronics experts
amongst you may be tempted to try speeding your chips above the quoted
rates and you will probably find that they will still work. However, at
higher temperatures they may begin to malfunction, so you trade off
speed against reliability.
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(For the PCminded among you, the Norton index rises from 1.0 on an 8MHz
ARM2 to 3.2 on a 20MHz ARM3.)
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Sadly, the ARM3’s are not compatible with the Acorn f.p.u. This is not
bad design on Aleph One’s part but just because of the different pinouts
of the ARM2 and ARM3. So, if you want speed increase for doing calcula
tions, you have to choose which is going to be better for the sort of
work you are doing. In order to help you judge which will be best, Aleph
One provide a program speed testing service. You can send them a typical
program on a disc and they will run it with and without the ram cache on
the ARM3 so that you can judge the likely speed increase. In order to
help Aleph One provide that service without too much hassle on their
part, they lay down certain specifications about the program to be
tested. If you are interested, send them an S.A.E. for a specification
sheet.
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•   Confusion over Confusion − Confusion from Cambridge International
Software is the same program as Fireball II as reviewed by Dave Bilsby
last month, page 41. It is available now through Archive for £10.
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•   Modem prices down − We’ve managed to do a better deal on the two
modems we sell. The SM2400 modems is down from £235 to £210 and the
WS3000 V22bis from £350 to £310. Modem cables, which were proving very
difficult to get hold of, are no problem now because we are getting them
made locally using better quality cabling and sockets at the same price
of £10.
3.6
•   Outlines Fonts − Ian Copestake Software are due to release sets of
outline fonts for use with RISCOS. Symbol sets for mathematics and
languages will be included. See the advertisement on page 48 for more
details.
3.6
•   PD software − A couple of new sources of Archimedes PD software have
come to our notice. The first is Sandie the Walrus, alias Alexander Goh,
who has just published his first PD disc. It contains FWPlus file
converter, RISCOS application maker, Babyblues, Battleships, ChangeFSI
(from Acorn), scientific calculator, Projector (from Ace), horizontal
text scroller, Settype, Solitaire, StickyBD, Soundtracker and Wanda.
This first disc is available now from Sandie the Walrus, 12 Mornington
Road, Radlett, Herts, WD7 7BL.
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Also, Peter Sykes has set up a huge catalogue of PD software: 38
straight Archimedes discs at £2.50 each plus 15 PC emulator PD discs at
£3 each. Send an S.A.E. for a list to: Peter Sykes, 96 Lanehouse Road,
Thornaby, Cleveland, TS17 8EA.
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•   Pipedrivers from Ian Copestake Software enhance your ability to
control a printer from Pipedream and make scientific and foreign
language wordprocessing a possibility. They provide symbol sets and
different typefaces for a range of printers. Contact Ian for further
details.
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•   TEX for the Archimedes − Donald E Knuth’s text formatting program TEX
is now available on the Archimedes, including the A3000. It allows
complex mathematical and scientific texts to be tpeset and printed on a
range of printers. TEX is available from TooLs GmbH for £99 (£69 for
education).  The also have various typefaces available for different
printers. Send to TooLs GmbH for details.
3.6
•   Trivial Pursuit − Domark have now released their Trivial Pursuit game,
£29.95 (£27 through Archive). It’s the real thing with TP board and
animated question master. See review on page 41.
3.6
•   Watford ram prices down − The price of the ram upgrades for the A300
series have gone down to £285 and £499 (+VAT) for the 2M and 4M upgrades
respectively. (Note that the 2M board is not directly upgradable to 4M.)
The price of their A3000 boards has also fallen to £129 and £349 (+VAT)
for +1M and +3M respectively. (But see the special offer price on page
2.)
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Important note: In the next few months, the price of ram is very likely
to be going back up again due, so I am lead to believe, to surcharges
levied by the E.E.C. on Japanese imports. If you are waiting for the
prices to go down further before you buy your upgrades, you may get
caught out. I cannot make any guarantees that they won’t drop further,
but I would very much doubt it. This applies to all memory upgrades.
3.6
•   Z88 A Dabhand Guide − £14.95 from Dabs Press (£14 through Archive).
See the review on page 60. (In case you are wondering why we deal with
Z88 when we say we are a ‘pure’ Archimedes magazine, it is because we
consider the Z88 to be a peripheral to the Archimedes!)
3.6
Products to come
3.6
•   DTP packages from Beebug and Clares. Beebug are saying that their
“Ovation” should be ready in two to three weeks (i.e. third week in
March at the latest) and Clares say their “Tempest” will happen at the
beginning of April.
3.6
•   Hypercards abound − another new “hypermedia” system has been announced
by Relational Engineering. InterLink at £99.95 inclusive allows you to
combine text and images in a card format, different cards being linked
by clicking on the relevant part of the visible card. For more details,
see the advert on page 5.
3.6
•   Tabs − a new 3D design tool with a difference, from TAP Consortium, is
due for launch in May. It provides a 2D edit window and a 3D view,
continuously updated. The new idea is that, having created your object,
the computer ‘unfolds’ it to provide you with a 2D sheet from which you
can make up a model of the object in cardboard or whatever. Like Arcol,
their 256 colour art package, Tabs will be fully networkable and will be
sold either on a oneoff basis or with a site licence.
3.6