To: 999 (also 483 and K2B)
From: K3J (Tony Hobday)
Subject: SONGS OF PRAISE
I would like to add my voice to those
of others who praise Chris, and those
who help him, in what must be quite
hard work running the 8-Bit Group,
producing the magazine and marketing
software of such a high standard at
bargain prices. I wish him continued
success in the future.
I do like the "atmosphere" of the
club. I am especially grateful to
483 (Daniel Shimmin) and K2B (Colin
Culpitt-Smith), who, although they
were not aware of it, helped me in
obtaining certain items of hardware
by providing contact names in the
club magazine.
It is so very much more friendly than
the former Beebug Group, but I suppose
a large group tends to be impersonal.
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Subject: Showpic (Picture of Ed's.)
Thanks STEPHAN RICHARDSON for the
pic. Did you know that the TV had a
"Hammer Horror" week also? It was nice
to see all four of you, honest. It was
a very good picture. It will be good
enough to show the police if these
partners in crime abscond with the
funds!!
EDITOR..... What funds?
From: 20G (Roy Dickens)
Subject: Acorn Risc 600 (comments)
Perhaps not first with the news (FRED
NEVIN 0E7) but you gave a very good
write up about the new machine. Your
comment about insufficient machines to
meet demand appears to be true.
Someone in a comp. mag. is complaining
already. Placed an order early and
still waiting! Maybe they wait for an
order or three then assemble a machine
or two! Reminds me of my brand new
ELECTRON (`200). I tried months before
I could purchase one. (They are `10
now by-the-way.)
To: 999 (all members)
From: K2F (John Davis)
Subject: Financial Tip
This has absolutely nothing to do
with computers, but the oodles of
money it could save you will mean you
have more to spend on discs from the
8BS PD pool.
You can still pay VAT on gas, and
maybe on electricity, at 8% next year
instead of the threatened 17½%, by
paying before April 1, 1995. The rate
you pay relates to the tax point,
which is the rate applying when they
get your money. You can pay any amount
in advance, but about a year ahead is
the most economic, remembering that
they now have your money to play with,
not you. All you have to do when you
send them any money is say when you
want it to be used for your bills -
i.e. from 1/4/95. Check with your
local office for details.
To: 999 & 19F (Theo Gray)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: Messaging system
The way that CTRL-f6 pushes text off
the right hand edge of the screen is
not actually a bug. I admit it's not
exactly satisfactory, but this (and a
lot of other problems with editing
messages) arise because of having to
handle teletext control codes.
The message editor cannot act like a
wordprocessor because it has to let
you put control codes in which cannot
be disturbed. This means that it is
almost impossible to arrange for the
word pushed off the right hand edge to
wrap around to the next line, because
all of the rest of the message would
also have to be reformatted and the
control codes would end up all over
the place.
However, the wrapping of the word at
the end of the line when the cursor
moves over to it is a bug and I have
fixed it in version 1.06 (I hope!)
I'm afraid you will have to keep on
using the insert lines facility when
you want to add to the middle of a
message - for the reason given above,
it is impossible to implement any kind
of continuous insert mode.
To: 999 & 483 (Daniel Shimmin)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: Narrow-mindedness?
I have to say that I feel this was a
bit unreasonable. It's not so much
that I disagree with the basic point
(that you should be careful talking
about things you aren't that sure of),
it's just that I feel that the
intentions of the people referred to
are being misrepresented.
The thing is, quite often you will
know a reasonable amount about
something, but there will inevitably
be gaps in your knowledge since you
can never know everything about
anything.
As an example, the author of the
Archimedes DFS reader presumably knows
quite a lot about the DFS, so it would
be unreasonable to expect him to
continually say things like, "It seems
to me that..." and "as far as I
know..." - if nothing else, this is
hardly going to give the user much
confidence in the program.
To me, when the author says that he
can't see why you would have 3.5 inch
discs in DFS format, this sounds like
he is only expressing an opinion
anyway, rather than claiming it to be
fact. Even if he had made this claim,
I feel it would still be excusable
since, as I said above, it would seem
unreasonable for him to have to assume
limitations on his knoweldge. After
all, if he took this to extremes, he
would have to allow for the fact that
there might be an unknown-to-him DFS
format which his program couldn't
handle.
Since no-one can ever be sure they
know all the relevant facts in a
situation, I consider that when anyone
makes a statement, even a factual one,
it simply HAS to be considered as
simply "to the best of their
knowledge" because it cannot possibly
be known with certainty, although the
probability of them being correct may
well be very high (as if someone says
that the sun will rise in the east
tomorrow, since this is very unlikely
to be false).
In any case, the author could well be
excused for not knowing that anyone
would have 3.5 inch DFS discs because
it IS a fact (as far as I know!) that
no Acorn machines were produced with
both a 3.5 inch drive and DFS as the
'standard' filing system. Although it
does come on disc with the Compact,
I did not see this mentioned when the
machine was launched and so someone
who has not stayed in the 8-bit field
would not have had the chance to find
out.
As for the people who made derisive
comments about the cursor being left
on in the 8BS menu, they should
perhaps have been more reasonable but
it seems fairly obvious (!) that they
were really saying "I think it's
stupid of you to leave the cursor on"
and so I would consider them to be
expressing a strongly-held opinion.
I hope no-one finds thes opinions
offensive - but a bit of controversy
is always enjoyable. Any more
opinions?
To: 999 & 483 (Daniel Shimmin)
From: 15A (Steven Flintham)
Subject: Archimedes matters
Newer option on copy:
If you have the verbose option on,
this does seem to tell you when it
doesn't copy the file (<file> has an
earlier datestamp). However, I really
can't say whether it would be a good
idea to have it on all the time - I
have never had cause to use it. I
would point out that this option's
usefulness seems linked to the setting
of the confirm, force and verbose
options - I would investigate, but the
permutations involved are slightly
mind-boggling. If you do have it on
all the time, all I can suggest is
that you do some extensive trials with
files of varying date stamps.
Archimedes PD libraries
Personally, I am using APDL at the
moment. I do not order very regularly,
but they have been very quick with the
orders I have sent. Prices (the last
time I ordered, which was a month or
so ago) were £1.50 per disc, with a
bonus disc for every 5 discs. A
catalogue disc costs £1.00, but you
can get one for 50p with an order and
if you send your old catalogue disc
back with an order it will be updated
free of charge. High-density discs are
available - two catalogue discs on one
disc, but at the same price as two
catalogue discs (apparently because
the extra cost of the disc balances
the saving on postage). They also sell
some software individually - prices
vary from 10p-50p per item, depending
largely on size. In addition, there is
a PC catalogue of PC software suitable
for the PC emulator. As a final bonus,
you can advertise free on the
catalogue disc. The address is:
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road
London
SE26 5RN
STOP PRESS! Since writing the above,
I sent an order off (Monday 25th July)
and it arrived this morning (Wednesday
27th July). I don't suppose they are
always this fast (it's not long
enough for a cheque to clear, and
they might not like to take chances
with larger orders) but it does
indicate the sort of service they
give. They have now taken over the
DataStream PD library as well. Prices
are still as given above.
I have in the past dealt with Arch
Angel PD. They charged £1.25 per disc
(although that was a year or so ago
and it may have increased by now) and
allowed any program to be ordered
individually using a clever catalogue
program. Individual program discs were
£1.65 each, the number of programs
obviously depening on how many fitted
on an 800K disc. There was a small
surcharge for postage. I don't know if
they had any facility for handling
high-density discs, but even if they
didn't they may well have now. I am
afraid I have no idea what the charge
is for a catalogue disc. The address
is:
Arch Angel
PO Box 41
Exeter
Devon
EX4 3EN
This information may be out of date as
I have not been in touch with Arch
Angel recently.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K5A (Robin Moffatt)
Subject: Messaging system
Would anyone like to have a go at
making the following additions to this
already brilliant system:
1) Message to ASCII transfer, to allow
viewing and printing of them in View
etc.
2) Viewing messages on a program
like the editor, so you could
just press P to print the one that is
currently being viewed
3) Automatic inserting of spaces, eg.
if you type a word and miss a letter
out you dont have to use CTRL-F6, you
can simply move the cursor back and
type the letter
To: 999 (all members)
From: K5A (Robin Moffatt)
Subject: RISC PC
Now that I am the proud owner of one
(boast boast!!) I thought I would make
further comments to my message in a
previous issue.
We got our machine (5MB, 210HD) for
abot `1500 from Desktop Projects. It
arrived in 5 days.
It comes with around 70MB of files on
the hard drive, which can be deleted.
A large percentage of them are JPEG
files nicked from a PC clipart CD.
They are all photographic quality and
come with a slideshow program to
display them all. Also with the
machine are bits of PD in the
"Distractions" directory, like Tetris
and Mines.
Instead of the Apps directory being in
ROM like in RISC OS 3.1, it is on the
hard-drive, allowing you to customize
what goes in it (The Apps directory is
accessed by an icon on the icon bar,
and when opened from there is
read-only.)
The configuration of the machine is
done by double-clicking on !Boot,
which runs the configure application.
Within !Boot is a directory to put
programs that you want to be
automaticaly loaded.
If you have VRAM (Video RAM) then up
to 16 million colours are available,
in numerous resolutions and screen
sizes.
The machine is powered by an ARM 610
running at 30MHZ. After using an A3000
with ARM 2 for 5 years, it seems
increadibly quick, and most
screen-redraws do not even slow the
machine down.
The floppy drive is a high density 3½"
one at the front of the machine, and
ca be covered up by a shutter, which
reveals the words "RISC PC 600" when
closed.
The desktop has got pretty icons and
textures, thanks to !NewLook, which is
in ROM. You can choose what textures
it uses, or define your own. The
pallete icon has gone, being replaced
with the mode changer icon.
If you are thinking of buying an Arc,
or upgrading a current one, then I
would strongly advise a RISC PC with
at least 1MB of VRAM, IF you want
lots of powerful features and a high
spec. machine, but if you don't, or
don't have the money then look at the
second-hand market where you can pick
up an A5000 for around `600. If you
are a bit weary of second-hand then
Beebug do some good prices on
"reconditned" machines. DO NOT get a
machine with-out RISC OS 3.1, because
you will find that companies do not,
-or soon will not- support it. ARM 3
is reccomended, but ARM 2/ARM 250 is
fine for most tasks, but can get a bit
tedious after a while.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6X
Subject: Anagrams
A few offerings using the letters of
"Eight Bit Software"
War! Foe get bits hit
I bow at tree-fights
It's bat-thief Gower
Was it tight before?
Feet grow, it's habit
Fig-hater bites two
Threat of wig-bites
G.I. feather, two bits
I breathe two gifts
Figaro the best wit
Gower fit, hit a best
Wet gas fire bit hot
I show a better gift
It beats white frog
Great wish to be fit
Eat bits of her twig
Tie few big throats
I fight wet boaster
Gets fit with a robe
I saw tot fight beer
It was right to beef
I bite frog's wet hat
Theatre of big wits
Wigs to fit the bear
What is bet? I forget
Toast with fig-beer
Gift to white bears
Threats to big wife
and now some that include someone with
putative (look it up!) blue blood!
"H.R.H. Sir Acorn Disc"
known to his underworld cronies as
"Horrid Chinscars"
but better known to you 'n' me as
"Chris Richardson"
C.R. fights torrid heat in
BASIC shower
Dr.E.H. Bairstowe can't fight
cirrhosis
however,
Boris Hirsch CAN fight dire
toe-warts
A carthorse first, with corgis
behind
Stitches after horrid crash in
W. Gobi
Cher's bid for Oscar win is
"Tight Heart"
ANY MORE OFFERS?