Acorn News Service Newsletter

Issue: 258 (31 January 2010)

Featured site this issue: http://rephial.org/

General News

New mailing list for RISC OS users in the Bristol area

Two RISC OS enthusiasts in Bristol are investigating scope for starting a new Bristol RISC OS user group. The previous group closed down in 2006 but the shared source initiative of RISC OS Open Ltd may be generating a need once more. The first stage is the setting up of a mailing list for RISC OS users in Bristol and the surrounding area, which you can join here:
<http://riscository.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/bru-list_riscository.co.uk>

RISC OS South West Show

The RISC OS South West Show 2010, organised by RISCOS Ltd., will take place at the Webbington Hotel, Loxton, on Saturday, 20th February 2010.

The event will be open from 10am to 3.30pm and will feature the usual exhibitors and a few new ones. This year there will be a small entrance fee of GBP3 for adults.

<http://www.riscos.com/>

Commercial News

Official RISC OS release for the IYONIX

RISC OS 5.16 for the IYONIX pc is now available from the RISC OS Open web site.

This new official release includes a large number of bug fixes and improvements which have been contributed by the developer community since the previous official release back in April 2009. It has been tested by both Castle Technology and RISC OS Open.

It can be downloaded in two flavours:

softload - for testing
flash programmer - to program it into the flash of your machine

<https://www.riscosopen.org/>

Free copy of VirtualRPC in Use

VirtualAcorn, in association with Archive Magazine, have made available an updated version of the popular 'VirtualRPC in Use' booklet. It can be downloaded free of charge from the VirtualAcorn web site: <http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/>

'VirtualRPC in Use' contains a large collection of articles published by Archive magazine over the last few years. In total there are 15 major articles running to over 80 pages. 'VirtualRPC in Use' is the most popular in the Archive booklet series. The free version, available from the VirtualAcorn web site, has been thoroughly updated to reflect any changes since the articles were originally published.

Multi-display support for RISC OS on RISCubes

R-Comp Interactive now offer multi-monitor support when running RISC OS on RISCube computer systems. By expanding your RISC OS desktop over two screens, you can easily have multiple documents open in different programs, dragging and dropping data between them.

RCI's multi-display technology is available to old and new customers alike. Most existing machines can be updated to support the new technology. The technology is compatible with almost all of the current range.

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

PD/Shareware News

New software summary

Snow, Rain and Random, screensavers
Two new screensavers for RISC OS 4 and above, based upon snow and rain respectively. To go alongside Snow and Rain screensavers, 7th software have also released a screensaver randomizer.
<http://www.7thsoftware.com/software.htm>
SuperChain, board game
A board game for between 2 and 8 human or computer players. It is distantly based on games such as Chain and Atoms.
<http://pond.org.uk/superchain/>
UnTardis, reverse the effects of Iyonix time-travel
Most Iyonix users will by now be aware of the Iyonix bug that was discovered at the start of the year and that had the unfortunate effect of setting the real-time clock to 2012. Several fixes quickly appeared to restore the clock to its correct value on start-up, but any files that were saved from 1st January until the fix was applied will have datestamps showing the year as 2012. UnTardis will scan a hard drive or directory, looking for files dated 2012 and will restore the year to 2010 when it finds them.
<http://www.alanwrigley.com/untardis/>

Updated software summary

BgrndCtrl v2.11
A random backdrop selector which can be configured with a list of pictures to display and will choose one at random when a configured time interval has passed. Adds support for improvements to the RISC OS 6 Pinboard, and now ensures that it displays each configured image before repeating itself.
<http://www.blastzone.demon.co.uk/software.html#bgrndctrl>
Fat32Fs v1.27
DOS/FAT32 filingsystem for the the Iyonix that allows use of USB drives greater than 2GB. This fixes a minor bug whereby it can fail to correctly extend a directory when adding subdirectories.
<http://jeffd.drobe.co.uk/>
FFmpeg v1.04
A versatile, open-source, multi-platform video and audio converter. This release includes build 20821 of FFmpeg for StrongARM Risc PC and newer RISC OS platforms. Through the use of FFmpeg, it is now possible to play a large number of audio-visual formats for which there are no native RISC OS players. This release includes enhancements to the front-end's conversion panel allowing you to scale the video frame size with clipping and padding.
<http://www.users.on.net/~belles/software/ffmpeg/>
GCCSDK GCC 4.1.1 release 2
The latest release of the GCC software development kit. The highlights of this release are: the use of shared libraries; AsAsm, now with improved ObjAsm syntax compatibility; possibility to create RISC OS modules without the need to use the SharedCLibrary; and bug fixes.
<http://www.riscos.info/index.php/GCC_for_RISC_OS>
GedText v1.11
Creates a human readable text file from a Gedcom (family history) file, optionally with formatting information included. The main changes in this release, apart from a number of bug fixes, are: lines containing unrecognised tags are now indented according to their level number; and NATU (naturalisation), CENS (census), and WILL tags are now understood although some of their sub-tags may be left in their "raw" form.
<http://www.rural-life.org.uk/gedtext/>
MakeDraw v2.30
MakeDraw is a library of routines for RISC OS BBC BASIC which allows DrawFiles to be created directly from BASIC programmes. The new version includes Drawfile types 'text area' and 'sprite'.
<http://www.svrsig.org/software/MakeDraw.htm>
MBBack v8
Backdrop randomizer. Bug fix.
<http://www.starfighter.acornarcade.com/mysite/utilities.htm#mbback>
Powerbase v9.70
A flat-file database with table-validation. Shareware, GBP10.
<http://www.boulsworth.co.uk/pbase/>
SuperDoku v1.23
An advanced Sudoku generating and solving program. Fixes a bug which caused some Comparison and Futoshiki puzzles to be created which had more than one possible solution. Shareware, GBP5.
<http://sinenomine.co.uk/software/>

Club News

Upcoming meetings

WROCC (Wakefield), 3rd February - AGM (members only)
<http://www.wrocc.org.uk/>
SASAUG (Sussex & Surrey), 8th February
<http://www.sasaug.org.uk/>
RONE (North East), 11th February - Web pages using StrongEd Infuse & Lua
<http://www.cjemicros.f2s.com/public/HouseFindMap.gif>
ROUGOL (London), 15th February - Drag n Drop magazine, Paul Stewart
<http://www.rougol.org.uk/>
RONWUG (North West), 17th February - BBC BASIC
<http://www.ronwug.org/>
RISC OS South West Show 2010, 20th February
<http://www.riscos.com/>
WROCC (Wakefield), 3rd March - Simply CAD? Use Draw!
<http://www.wrocc.org.uk/>
ROUGOL (London), 15th March
<http://www.rougol.org.uk/>
WROCC (Wakefield), 7th April - Toolbox for beginners
<http://www.wrocc.org.uk/>
ROUGOL (London), 19 April - Acorn and ARM, Sophie Wilson
<http://www.rougol.org.uk/>
Wakefield RISC OS Computer Show, 24th April
<http://www.wakefieldshow.org.uk/>

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