HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bsalter@acorn.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Subject: Acorn News Release - Hants School Chooses Acorn - again!
Date: 18 Nov 92 11:04:43 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

Hants School Chooses Acorn - Again!

A Hampshire school has just bought a large number of Acorn computers with a
view to giving a substantial boost to its IT facilities. 

Perin's Community School at Alresford near Winchester has just taken
delivery of 32 Acorn A3020 computers which they will use in various
locations around the school, including a purpose built IT suite which  is to
be opened by the Chairman of Hampshire County Council, Mr Dudley Keep, at
12.15 on Thursday 19th November. 

The school has a strong track record in IT for education, having been
actively involved  with the Sunday Times over three years ago in making a
video about the use of IT in schools.  It also came third in this year's
GCSE results-league of 90-odd secondary schools in Hampshire, this being
attributed to the strong emphasis placed on cross-curricula work, supported
by a number of IT projects.

Perin's School already owns over 30 Acorn Archimedes computers which it
plans to upgrade with Acorn's latest operating system, RISC OS 3.1. These,
together with the new computers will be used both in classrooms and in IT
suites throughout the school.

The Acorn A3020, which was only launched in the autumn, represents the very
latest in computer technology. It is a 32-bit RISC computer driven by an ARM
250 RISC chip, which itself was only unveiled in the summer. Acorn already
accounts for over half of all sales of computers into Education in the UK.

Perin's Head of IT, Margaret Goodwin, explained that he chose Acorn's new
computers for a number of reasons. "Not only have IT advisors in the area
been recommending Acorn's machines to us, but they are also extremely
popular with the teachers in the school because they are so user-friendly.
Also, because these computers are at the forefront of technological
development we felt it would be short sighted to go for other platforms that
are already being left behind in their speed of operation, versatility and
in ease of use."

ENDS

_______________________________________________________________________________

aglover@acorn.co.uk, moderator of comp.sys.acorn.announce. Submissions to
announce-request@acorn.co.uk, other related mail to announcer@acorn.co.uk.
From: Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Subject: Additions and/or replacements on the Newcastle Info Server
Date: 23 Nov 92 13:43:19 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

New software:

backthrow - by Gunnar Zoetl. Description:
this is !backthrow 0.1, a little DDE utility that does some useful
things using the DDE throwback feature. It comes in C source only.
(It may appear on comp.sources.acorn somewhere in the future, I have
submitted it about a month ago, but there was no reaction yet from
the moderators side)

cuboid - by Pete Williams. Description:
The application - spinning a cuboid. The Euler equations for a spinning
cuboid are solved and demonstrated graphically. Double click on the spin
application icon. The cuboid will appear and will be at rest. To induce
rotation about its centre of gravity simply move the mouse or press the ->
or <- keys. This will simulate a torque about the axis.


decaof - by Andy Duplain. Description:
Here is a freely distributable copy of "decaof", which is an
imitation of the decaof program distributed with the Acorn DDE.


sprites - by Owen Smith. Description:
These icons are public domain. This is NOT a 3D window tool set. It is a set
of replacement application and filetype icons. I designed them to overcome
several shortcomings in the standard RISC OS sprite set:
 * The standard set are not international eg. many of the file type sprites
   have words or letters in them.
 * The standard set have the now defunct Archimedes 'A' logo in many of
   them, particularly the file type icons.




 
To retrieve a file from the archive, send a message to 
info-server@newcastle.ac.uk with the following content:

line-limit 1000
request: sources
topic: archimedes filename
request: end

where filename is replaced by the name of the file that you want.
A filename of 'index' will send you the latest index file.
A filename of 'tail_index' will send you the list of the last 50 files added
to the archive.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SOFTWARE IS VIRUS FREE BEFORE SENDING IT TO ME


--

E-mail address:  Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Computing Science Department, University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (telephone +44 091-2228155,fax 2228232) 

_______________________________________________________________________________

aglover@acorn.co.uk, moderator of comp.sys.acorn.announce. Submissions to
announce-request@acorn.co.uk, other related mail to announcer@acorn.co.uk.
From: Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Subject: Additions and/or replacements on the Newcastle Info Server
Date: 16 Nov 92 11:21:49 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

nspark (1.2.10) has been replaced by the latest version.

New software:

blackhole -  by Robin. A sophisticated dustbin utility.



 
To retrieve a file from the archive, send a message to 
info-server@newcastle.ac.uk with the following content:

line-limit 1000
request: sources
topic: archimedes filename
request: end

where filename is replaced by the name of the file that you want.
A filename of 'index' will send you the latest index file.
A filename of 'tail_index' will send you the list of the last 50 files added
to the archive.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SOFTWARE IS VIRUS FREE BEFORE SENDING IT TO ME


--

E-mail address:  Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Computing Science Department, University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (telephone +44 091-2228155,fax 2228232) 

_______________________________________________________________________________

aglover@acorn.co.uk, moderator of comp.sys.acorn.announce. Submissions to
announce-request@acorn.co.uk, other related mail to announcer@acorn.co.uk.
From: Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Subject: Additions and/or replacements on the Newcastle Info Server
Date: 18 Nov 92 11:07:01 GMT
Followup-To: Additions and/or replacements on the Newcastle Info Server
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

spatience and blackhole have been replaced by the latest versions.

New software:

datatoaof - by Paul Fidler. Description:

The program allows you to encapsulate any file within an AOF file that can
then be linked into your program. This will allow you to include data,
sprites, templates, drawfiles etc. inside the !RunImage file of your
application, where they're safe from prying eyes.
 
hextris - by Mads Meisner-Jensen. Description:

Hextris is a desktop game ala Tetris, but much harder!
Hextris includes the following main features:
* Fully multitasking game in RISCOS desktop.
* Handwritten in ARM assembler, taking very little processor time.
* Compact program (approximately 16KB).
* User customisable. Settings can be saved.
* Control by keyboard or mouse.
* Adaptive to mode changes.
* Optimised redrawing.
* Permanent highscore table.

inout - by R.J. Boakes. Description:

        !In-Out (Release version 2)- a MIDI Utility
        RISC OS 2&3 Wimp utility to send incoming data
        to the out port a la Thru, but bending the data first.



 
To retrieve a file from the archive, send a message to 
info-server@newcastle.ac.uk with the following content:

line-limit 1000
request: sources
topic: archimedes filename
request: end

where filename is replaced by the name of the file that you want.
A filename of 'index' will send you the latest index file.
A filename of 'tail_index' will send you the list of the last 50 files added
to the archive.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SOFTWARE IS VIRUS FREE BEFORE SENDING IT TO ME


--

E-mail address:  Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Computing Science Department, University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (telephone +44 091-2228155,fax 2228232) 

_______________________________________________________________________________

aglover@acorn.co.uk, moderator of comp.sys.acorn.announce. Submissions to
announce-request@acorn.co.uk, other related mail to announcer@acorn.co.uk.
From: hore@black.ox.ac.uk (Peter J Hore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Anybody used HCCS drives?
Date: 19 Nov 92 10:01:52 GMT
Organization: Oxford University Computing Service, 13 Banbury Rd, Oxford, U
Originator: hore@black

Does anybody have any experience with HCCS hard drives - in particular the
30 Mb (with User Port which I'm not fussed about)? There have been rather
too many horror stories, especially with RO3.1 compatability, that it seemed
a good idea to check first!

If anyone has any other drives they would like to review/praise/(sell even?)
I would be very interested. If there is sufficient feedback, I'll try to
compile replies into some sort of summary report. Perhaps a regular hardware
review FAQ is in order?

Please mail to: hodgkin@uk.ac.ox.physchem

Articles posted from here tend to disappear, hence I'm posting from an
alternative account.


Many thanks,

Paul Hodgkinson
From: ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Computer Concepts
Date: 17 Nov 1992 10:06:33 -0000
Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK.
NNTP-Posting-Host: oak49.doc.ic.ac.uk

In article <1992Nov16.160243.21369@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:
>In article <1e887pINNfpe@oak22.doc.ic.ac.uk> ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
>>
>>The only thing that really annoys me about CC is their insistence on
>>finding the worst possible protection method for their products (ie.
>>dongles and crappy printer cables). 
>
>I agree about the printer cable, but not about dongles. What other
>technique do you suggest that they use to protect their investment?
>Copy protection? Awful. Embedded name/number? Ineffective. Through
>the use of dongles, they have probably sold 3? times as many copies
>of Impression as they would have done otherwise, which is how they
>have been able to continue improving it, as well as providing technical
>support which most people seem to find acceptable.
>

Yes but dongles are a very short sighted method of protection. Imagine
if every company started using them, how usable would your desktop be
then? Suppose you were producing a book (or similar) using Impression
(say) and Artworks (say) and importing data from a database (let's say
this uses a dongle too) and a spredsheet (yet another dongle) and
perhapse a graph drawing package.

If all these required their own incompatable dongles you'd be stuffed.
The short answer is you can only really have one dongle at a time, and
changing them is not a viable solution as (a) it takes time, and (b)
that's no answer if you want to multitask 2 apps which need them.

It's all very well *if* CC are the only company to use them, *and*
they produce dongles that cover more than one of their products (as I
understand they've done with Artworks). 

But this doesn't address the real problem with them. CC's Impression
dongle is badly made and doesn't have correct fittings on it, the
consequence of which is that the one on the back of my computer
doesn't hold my printer cable fully. Plus it adds extra strain on the
connections, and makes the back of my computer need twice the
clearence it would otherwise need (about half a foot !).

Yes I agree that all other options are even worse, but that doesn't
stop dongles being an annoying answer to a problem. But as I say it's
not a real answer because now no other company can use the same method
without annoying virtually the entire Arc world even more.

What would be more useful would be if a large number of software
manufacturers (and Acorn) got together and produced a univerasal, non
retsrictive but yet usable method of protection (and yes it can be
done, it's just nobody want's to put the effort in).

Ian

-- 
                            E-mail : ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk
 ___           __       Snail mail : Department of Computing, Huxley Building,
  /  _   _    /_/ _   / _ _   _  _   Imperial College, 180 Queens Gate,
_/_ (_|_| )  /   (_|_(_| ) )_|/_)    London. SW7 2BZ. England.
From: A.G.Catchpole@bradford.ac.uk (AG CATCHPOLE)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Comms/Kermit software needed
Date: 21 Nov 92 22:50:01 GMT
Organization: University of Bradford, UK
Originator: 92079460@muser
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]


-- 
--------------- Adrian Catchpole <A.G.Catchpole@uk.ac.bradford> ---------------
1st year ug Comp.Sci.  Dept. of Computing, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK
From: gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: The new Acorn Machine
Date: 17 Nov 92 08:32:10 GMT

In <1992Nov16.133719.27313@infodev.cam.ac.uk> nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nicko van Someren) writes:

>It may be that RISCiX comes with too much but the price that Acorn set
>for RISCiX is very good value for what to you get.  An R260 is only
>500 quid more than an A540 and comes with not only a full BSD4.3 with
>TCP/IP, NFS, and X but also X.desktop, both the Athena and Motif
>widgets and libraries, FORTRAN, PASCAL and C compilers, assembler and
>a good sized set of useful tools including gnuemacs.  I once totted up
>how much a similar setup from SCO would cost for a 486 (and face it
>you need a good 486 to catch an R260, a 386 is not good enough).  SCO
>unix gives you very little in the basic setup.  The full set will cost
>you the best part of 2800 pounds retail in the UK.  If you just want
>SCO with NFS, X, a C compiler and the various widget libraries it
>still costs over 1400 pounds.

I think that is fair enough - but...

... an A540 is a bit pricy to start with - thinking of it another
way an A540 is around #1000 more than an A5000 so that makes an
R260 #1500 more than an A5000.  Perhaps a lot of this is more
due for the need for pricing to catch up with the release of
the A5000.

Is there also a compulsary subscription to some Granada Microcare
service thing as well in the price? (or is that extra?)

I think a lot of these comments have just been seriously overshadowed,
by Suns Sparc Classic adverts over the weekend.  They were quoting
around #3500 per Sparc classic in a 12 pack (!!!) - and thats as far
as I can see with a 200Meg hard drive, 16Mb of ram and a
15" colour monitor.

What is there in the Full SCO which isn't in the list you gave - 
by the time you have C, X, and NFS that would probably be enough
for a lot of purposes.

I agree that RISCiX is probably giving too much - and hence being
too expensive - but X is free to them is it not - just requiring
the appropriate porting (I dont know how much work that is),
similarly a lot of people dont need X.desktop - its probably
nice to have - but its not something which should affect the
basic price.

<stuff deleted>

>The RISCiX kernel binary kit is available to RISCiX license holders on
>request and it even comes with template code to show you how to write
>both block and stream device drivers.  The fact is most 3rd parties
>dont care about RISCiX.

Interestingly the Morley SCSI card has the option to make
a RISCiX partition - but of course you cant do anything with it.
If a lot of users had RISCiX (which would imply
it would be cheap enough for people to buy) then I would
have thought that 3rd parties would get more interested.

>Nicko

Dave

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- David Alan Gilbert - gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk - G7FHJ@GB7NWP                -
------(Programmers don't sleep - they just park their heads)-------------------
From: CDLatham@cen.ex.ac.uk (C.D.Latham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Replay Harrier @ Newcastle
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:02:01 GMT
	<6051@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk>
Organization: Computer Unit. - University of Exeter. UK

In article <6051@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane) writes:

> The Replay demo is now available via anonymous ftp from uts.mcc.ac.uk in the
> file pub/riscos/replay_harrier

Thanks for doing this.  Downloading such a large file from Newcastle
is tedious to say the least.

Any chance you can find the space to put on a couple of full-length
Replay films?  Icedance is probably the prettiest and Shuttle the most
spectacular.  It doesn't worry me, but I find that the Harrier film
offends some sensitive people due to its military nature.

--
Christopher.
From: r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: The new Acorn Machine
Date: 20 Nov 92 10:49:24 GMT
Organization: University of the West of England, Bristol

In article <1992Nov18.113400.22875@opal.comlab.ox.ac.uk> as@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Andrew Stevens) writes:

>I'd say Acorn would be better off sticking with their strengths
>and developing the RISC OS line to really compete with Commodore
>and the PC's in the home edu market.  Who'd even *notice* a
>me-too UNIX machine from Acorn?

You could be right.  However, one field they appear to  be having some
success in is the X market, with A5000s running X connected either to
a mainframe or an R260 subnet.  In education you quite often don't
need the power of a workstation if you have lots of mainframe resources
to hand in any case.  I understand that Acorns package (A5000, TCPIP, X)
can work out cheaper than many dumb X terminals, and give you a RISCOS
machine as a bonus.

Cheers

Bob


-- 
  Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
         -- Probug Software Developments --
162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: ser638@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it (Cristian Ghezzi)
Subject: MIDI card
Organization: C.d.C-Politecnico di Milano
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 09:51:32 GMT
Keywords: MIDI

I need a MIDI card for my A310.
I know that The Serial Port sold a "Sampler and MIDI card" once
upon a time, but I can't find any more adverts in the mags.
I have faxed them two times but didn't get a reply.

I think that buying a sampler and a MIDI card at the same time may
be a good idea, but I never read a review of that board so I don't
know anything about the quality.

Do you know anything about The Serial Port's podule?
Is it still in production? Is it good value for money?
How can I buy one, if not from them?

Thank you.

Cristian Ghezzi, ser638@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it
(Have you seen the MARS program in the November Risc User Disc?)
From: r_voisey@pepper.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Computer Concepts
Date: 18 Nov 92 23:29:47 GMT
Reply-To: r_voisey@csd.bristol-poly.ac.uk
Organization: The University of the West of England (The Magic Roundabout)

In article <1earl6INN7fb@bnsgd245.bnr.co.uk>, rap@nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com (Richard Porter) writes:

|> My
|> impression was that they used their customers to test their products.

Yes, probably..  doesn't everybody?

Bob

-- 
  Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
         -- Probug Software Developments --
162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Network solutions for ARC: Ethernet/SLIP on RISCos? KA9Q? DNET?
Organization: Lotus Development Ireland
Distribution: comp
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 17:40:18 GMT

Tin cans and a piece of buttered string?  Er, sorry..  Got carried away..

Scenario:

I've got a PC talking to "the net" via SLIP.
I've got an Amiga talking to the PC via SLIP.
I've got an Archie talking to none of them.

Now the PC has an ethernet card, but it's not currently supported by
the UNIX I'm running (386BSD) so it's not really an option for now
(though in the long term the idea is write one, stick an ethernet card
in both the Amiga and the ARC and leave the internet SLIP link as the
only serial stuff in the picture).  What I'd like in the Archie in the
short term is some sort of SLIP solution that runs under RISCos.  I'm
also interested in finding out about any halfway decent ethernet cards
so that I can go to Phase II at some point (hopefully SOON).

Thanks for any help and/or advice.  Oh, the ARC is an A540.

					Jordan
From: coxjp@cs.man.ac.uk (Jonathan Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Using custom screen modes with RO3.1
Date: 18 Nov 92 12:36:12 GMT
	<721651305.10977@minster.york.ac.uk> <Bxt3Ix.G0t@newcastle.ac.uk>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester
In-reply-to: A.M.Wall@newcastle.ac.uk's message of 16 Nov 92 11:20:56 GMT

In article <Bxt3Ix.G0t@newcastle.ac.uk> A.M.Wall@newcastle.ac.uk (A.M.Wall) writes:
>In article <721651305.10977@minster.york.ac.uk> mhw@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
>>In article <10959@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk> gpalmer@cs.strath.ac.uk (Gary J Palmer IE91) writes:
>>>
>>>Does anyone know if the overscan modes supplied with Impression II work
>>>under RiscOS3.1, as I use them by default :-)
>>
>>I'm still using mode 66 with no problems whatsoever; it's a bit bigger
>
>But isn't mode 66 identical to the mode 39 provided with RO3?
>

Impression's modes 65 and 66 are different to the RO3 'wide' modes; they are
about 10% bigger.  They all work fine however.

Jon.


--
Jonathan Cox.                              Email coxjp@cs.man.ac.uk
IT 301, Department of Computer Science,
University of Manchester,                  Tel: (+44) (0)61-275-6270
Manchester.  M13 9PL.  England.            Fax: (+44) (0)61-275-6280
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: blekken@fwi.uva.nl (Erwin 'Yaaah' Blekkenhorst (I88))
Subject: Re: BR Journey Planner. Also for Acorn?
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Distribution: comp.sys.acorn
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 14:51:04 GMT

eduard@cvi.ns.nl (Eduard Tulp) writes:

>Recently, British Rail introduced the BR Journey Planner. The BR Journey
[Lots of stuff deleted...]

>Eduard Tulp

I know you are co-author of the dutch version of the Journy Planner, which
has been around for years now. If there are plans to do a RISC-OS version
of the british Journey Planner, why not the dutch one too?
Although it works great under the PC-Emulator, a real RISC-OS version
would be even greater (and faster)!

Cheers,

Erwin

-- 
  _____ ____
   /     /__)  ------------------------------------ x
  /--   / \    Erwin Blekkenhorst                   x University Of Amsterdam
 /___  /___)   blekken@fwi.uva.nl                   x
From: pdenize@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Solution: 3D button problem
Date: 16 Nov 92 14:22:28 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand


I have found that the 3D buttons are the cause of these hangs that people are
talking about.

Changing the button type from Click/Drag to Release get around this problem.

Paul Denize

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Denize                                Internet: PDenize@Waikato.ac.nz
Department of Computer Science
University of Waikato                         phone: ++64 7 8562-889
Hamilton                                                          Ext 8743
NEW ZEALAND                                   fax  : ++64 7 8560-135
--------------------------------------------------------------------------