Acorn News Service Newsletter

Issue: 164 (8 August 2004)

Featured site this issue: http://www.chocky.org/unix/

General News

Acorn's domain name expires

Acorn's old domain name, acorn.co.uk, which was until recently owned but not used by Acorn spinoff Element 14, has finally expired and is now registered to a new owner.

Commercial News

The Fourth Dimension

APDL ProAction Software has acquired The Fourth Dimension as a games publishing label from CJE Micros. Details of some of the products now available are included below.

The company was originally launched in 1989 as a vehicle through which Holed Out, regarded at the time as the most technically advanced golf sim created for the BBC or Archimedes, could be launched.

VFM Range relaunched
The Fourth Dimension's Value For Money range was launched in 1997. The following titles will shortly become available once again: Holed Out Compendium, EType Compendium, EType 2, Apocalypse, Powerband, Virtual Golf (incorporating the extra courses), Black Angel, and Stereoworld. APDL ProAction have partnered up with Chronosoft, a renowned supplier of retro gaming, to take over the distribution of the individual 4D titles. The price for all Archimedes titles will be GBP4.99.
Nevryon & Technodream CD-ROM release
Nevryon & Technodream are now available together on a single CD-ROM. Taking inspiration from the classic R-Type game, Nevryon & Technodream offer entertaining romps through screens of aliens, all of whom want to kill you. Nevryon was originally released in 1990, and Technodream was intended for release late 1992 by The Fourth Dimension as Nevryon 2 (but it was ultimately released by Superior Software). This pack is priced at just GBP5.90 plus GBP1 postage within the UK.
StereoWorld CD-ROM release (limited edition)
StereoWorld, the comprehensive suite of stereographic games, illustrations and stereographic image creators, is now available on a single CD-ROM (instead of the six HD discs which were previously supplied). This release runs fine on the Iyonix PC and - for a limited period only - the boxes will include the PC version as well. This pack is priced at GBP7.90 plus GBP1 postage within the UK.

To order, call APDL on 020 8778 2659, e-mail <sales@apdl.co.uk> or write to APDL, 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RN. Note that payment MUST be made out to APDL.

RCI RISCubes to ship with new anti-virus and security bundle

R-Comp Interactive has enhanced its entire range of RISCube Microsoft computers / RISC OS emulators, with the inclusion of a suite of award winning commercial security software to minimise threats such as viruses and to block spam.

All orders placed after 1st August will include this software suite. There are no changes to machine prices.

<http://www.rcomp.co.uk/>

PD/Shareware News

New software summary

Form Filler, web form completion
A programme to fill in forms by sending the information from its buttons to the cursor. Ideal for online forms where they want the same info. Please note that it does not work with Oregano2.
<http://kevsoft.topcities.com/>

Updated software summary

Account2 v1.26
A freeware home accounts application. Recent changes: categories can now be stored with abbreviation tables for easier quick input; duplicated entries can be searched for and removed; the bug which prevented categories from being cancelled in the direct debit and payment reminder tables has been removed.
<http://www.ksedwards.ukgateway.net/account2/>
GnuPG v1.2.5
GnuPG is a complete and free replacement for PGP. The most important addition to this version is support for BZIP2 compression.
<http://www.sbellon.de/gnupg.html>
MakeAlias v4.3
An application which will create aliases of applications, files and directories. You can also create aliases of aliases. Re-fixed to handle long filenames.
<http://web.ukonline.co.uk/mripley/software.html>
ShortCut v3.50
Allows the user to create a shortcut to an application elsewhere on their hard disc.
<http://www.archez.co.uk/short350.zip>
TapirMail v1.01
Shareware (GBP5) POP3 e-mail client designed to complement the existing e-mail clients available for RISC OS. Its main difference is that it works entirely in memory and does not permanently download emails. This makes it ideal for people who want to read their e-mails on more than one machine, or who check their mail on the move. New in this version: support for e-mail signatures (individually for each account); graphical emoticon (smiley) support; optional Iyonix style Backspace/Delete keys; when saving, e-mail filenames are incremented numerically; bug fixes.
<http://www.flypig.co.uk/tapirmail/>
Thumbcat v3.7
Thumbcat is an image catalogue application. It will create an HTML version of a catalogue. Read-Only sources can be catalogued. Bug fixes.
<http://web.ukonline.co.uk/mripley/software.html>
VECstat v1.03
Monitors calls to system vectors with reason code display, for the entire machine or selected tasks. Entries have been added for the new RISC OS 5 vectors; FontV, PointerV, TimeShareV, LowPriorityEventV, FastTickerV, and GraphicsV.
<http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/>

Club News

Upcoming meetings

LAUG (Liverpool), 10th August
<http://www.italia.co.uk/laug/>
NKACC (Kent), 12th August
<http://nkacc.roundel.net/>
DARC (Derbyshire), 13th September
<http://www.darc-comp.org.uk/>
SASAUG (Surrey/Sussex), 13th August
<http://www.poppyfields.net/sasaug/>
WAUG (Wessex), 14th August
<http://www.mfraz.freeserve.co.uk/waug/>
ROUGOL (London), 16th August
<http://rougol.jellybaby.net/>
RONWUG (North West), 18th August
<http://www.ronwug.org/>
BARUG (Bristol), 25th August
<http://www.barug.co.uk/>
ICENI (Ipswich), 1st September - Networking & wireless
<http://www.btinternet.com/~icenicomputerclub/>
WROCC (Wakefield), 1st September
<http://www.wrocc.org.uk/>
EAUG (Essex), 14th September - Richard Brown, Oregano UK
<http://www.wattys.fsnet.co.uk/eaug/>

ANS Information

Contact ANS

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