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By the time this issue of BA U is out. Another roadshow week is planned for November 23 to For further information contact Atom Computers on EMCEE’S task will be to build on Acorn 1 r s strength in Irish primary schools and increase the company’s pre- sence in secondary schools, where the main competition comes from Apple Macintosh computers.

Apple Macs and Unix machines. Acorn first provided an Ethernet interface card for the Archimedes when the Unix- based R 1 40 derivative was launched three years ago. Now Atomw ide Ltd has joined in by releasing a pair of Ethernet cards: one is 3 6- bit version for the Archimedes” standard podule expansion bus. Which is why you should tune in to The Software Show, a minute programme covering all you need to know about choosing and using software for profit.

Aimed at both busi- ness and home users, there will be plenty of advice on choos- ing software for a variety of platforms.

Helpful case studies featur- ing companies and individuals making software choices will be included. The programme will also cover training,. The programme will feature an Archimedes in the studio, which wilt be running popular software, such as Pipe dr earn and Impression. There will also be a special competition to win the software featured. The programme will be shown on BBC 1 at British Summertime falls on this day. Alter- natively. Wat- ford Electronics has revealed details of a rival PC podule designed by prolific ex -Com- puter Concepts hardware expert.

Chris Honey. Apart from sharing the goal of providing a full -speed hardware-based PC environ- ment on the Are, it is interest- ing to note that the two competing designs differ in more than just minor details.

Chris Honey says his design route avoids the display limita- tions of the PC Emulator, which can only partially emu- late a full VGA screen. Other options include high density HD 1. Availability of the Watford card has yet to be confirmed, but managing director Nazir Jessa hinted that pricing would be very competitive with Aleph One’s PC cards, which are already on sale.

Most notable is the arrival of new education marketing manager, Peter Talbot, from Commodore see education column page Simon Wood- ward takes on some of departing Warwick Hirst s former respon- sibilities for valued added solutions, within a new profes- sional solutions operation, covering initiatives such the Pro- fessional DTP package.

Consumer division manager Bob Coates takes on wider responsibilities as general mana- ger of consumer and interna- tional markets. Corporate affairs manager. Brian Salter, also gets more responsibilities and is now head of publications and events organisation.

The reshuffle took place after the Computer Shopper Show last December, which was not regarded as a success for Acorn. Although it had a presence at the show, Acorn’s stand space was booked late and there was no time to capitalise on its presence. The upgrade features a motherboard which brings total memory up to 3Mb.

Extra 4Mb upgrades, giving a potential maximum of 16Mb. The old version used a sponge to attract the ink to the business end of the cartridge. Ink reservoir space has been saved by eliminating the sponge and the cartridge case is now trans- parent so you can see clearly when the ink is getting low.

The new cartridge has a typical life of about 1. Miss Brown was in a tangle. One group wanted to play the drums, but the music budget barely stretches to a tambourine. Another wanted to write its own music, but it all got rather messy. In the end, she got them all to sing a round song. This week. Miss Brown is using Notate. Now composing music is easy — notes, rests etc. Then the music can be played back immediately, and changes made to rhythm, tempo or pitch.

Next week Miss Brown is going to introduce “Music of the World’. African rhythms, marches, rap, pentatonic scales — Notate can do the lot. It’s even simple to move individual parts between tunes — ever heard the National anthem with a reggae percussion section? The computer can sound like anything from a cow bell to a trombone, from a melodic tom-tom to a hand clap. And up to eight of these Instruments” can be played at once. Miss Brown has a sound sampler attached to her Archimedes too, so she can record more of her own instruments.

Modern indexing techniques mean superfast searches every time. Squirrel understands days of the week, months of the year and recognises files from other popular packages. Queries may be made onto other popular computers such as an IBM or Macintosh, even remotely over telephone tines. One of the benefits of a computer network is the ability to send electronic messages.

But while electronic mail is useful, it does not have the advantages of a bulletin board. With H idtethu individual users may examine messages left by others and reply to them, or initiate discussion on various topics.

These can range from examination answers to plans for a school trip. Messages left on Bulletin can be replied to at any time and topics may be open in nil users, or restricted to closed user groups. A computer connected to an Econet network. Bible world is a minute journey pul together by the National Bible Society of Scotland in Edinburgh. It uses six A compu- ters. Intrepid young lime-travellers’ can recoil – struct a digitised picture from a ‘visit to Israel, test what they have learned from Bible characters, and set out on an adventure in Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s birth.

The A is also used hy the society in the administra- tion of Bible world, which includes keeping track of visi- tors, as well as developing new programs and ideas. Ovarian and Mpression DTP software, plus special fonts and graphics. Contact David Cochrane on open a window on he first board of messages. The user may then scroll the text up and down and read any messages, each of which has a date stamp, the name of the sender and the intended recipient.

Using standard desktop techni- ques. Bulletin supports up to 20 simultaneous boards’ or topics, although it is possible to extend this number if required. All files are encrypted and may only be read by Buitetia and a special utility provided for the system manager – [his allows closed user groups to be established on less sophisticated File- servers.

Knotting ley C of E primary school recently be Re- fined from a cash injection from Wakefield’s Education Business Partnership to buy the equipment. The Prime Art Display Kit utility allows pictures created using the primary an package to be displayed in sequence, making it ideal for classroom demonstrations. The rolling displays ore pro- duced by dropping saved pictures on to the screens directory and clicking on the icon.

It costs C 1 2 plus vat. Also, a new version of Pri- me An has a option for use in high-resolution mode 21, Other new features include support for a Concep[ Key- board. Contact Minerva on , and colleges in the Wakefield area in the form of matched funding. Money donated by local industry was matched pound-for-pound by the part- nership to enable the school to purchase the equipment.

Karen Range ley, the part- nership manager, and local haulage contractor Eddie Sto- bart arc pictured below with the Knotting ley headteacher Janet Taylor and some of her enthusiastic pupils. During his tour he was introduced to Acorn’s managing director Sam Wau- chope and r considerably Impressed by the power of the Acorn machines, suggested that it might be a good idea if they were, er r used in our schools.

After a short silence, Eggar’s guide informed him of Acorn’s contribution to educational hard- ware found in 35 percent of schools before moving the min- ister on. Talbot; 33, was national sales manager respon- sible for government and education business at Com- modore Business Machines.

A former teacher, he also spent a couple of years running Granada Business Centres in London. Acorn’s sales and marketing director, Mike Q’Riordan, said: ‘With Peter’s combination of experience of the education mar- ket, and of sales and marketing, 1 am sure he will bring to Acorn a wealth of benefits that will help us to continue our leading role within the education sector.

Over 45Q schools wiil be involved in the project for the submission of exam entries, managed by the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate and Campus , supplier of elec- tronic information services to education.

Most of the ‘spade work’ for the project was carried out on the Archimedes. The soft- ware was then ported over to PCs, on which the system will run, although there is the pos- sibility of linking into the UCLES project with an Archimedes machine.

FaxPack offers full background send and receive capability. Fax Pack then proceeds to diat and send the fax while you carry on using the computer. Receiving faxes is also completely automatic. FaxPack will answer the phone and store the fax away on your disc while you continue to use the computer. Once received the fax can be viewed on screen fusing a special anti-aliased display to improve on-screen readability] and printed.

Any portion of the fax image can be saved as a conventional sprite. Alternatively FaxPack can be made to automatically print on receipt of a fax.

J Since there is no need to print then re-scan a document, FaxPack saves time, paper a nd money when sending faxes. J Fa x Pa c k a 1 1 o ws e I e ctronic arch iving of fax messages and is one step towards the truly paperless office, J FaxPack usesyourstandardArchimedesprinter and so can print on plain paper rather than thermal paper, in addition FaxPack can be used as a data modem, to send and receive any Archimedes file or directory of files to other machines fitted with FaxPack.

Because of the baud rate of fax systems and the use of data compression FaxPack is faster than practically all conventional data modems and permits background data transfer. HOW many readers skip over the com ms column, thinking that it’s loo complex for them. Maybe they have watched the Him Wargames and imagine a whole sub-culture of boffins, hacking their way into hidden computer networks. Well, nowadays its not quite like that. Com ms come into many aspects of life, from the cashpoint machine to ord- ering in a high street book- store.

At the home computer level, playing online games is a favourite corn ms pastime. So, if you arc a computer novice, how do you get started? Well all you need is a modem, a computer and some suitable com ms software. A modem is simply the box which plugs into your phone line and your computer. It converts your data into strange noises, sends them down the phone line into a modem at the other end, which then converts the strange noises back into computer data.

The cornms software is sim- ply a package that lets you choose the data to convert into strange noises, and send them whizzing down the phone line. To get started, you don’t need to worry about speed and all that stuff – most systems that you dial up will adjust thdr speed to suit your modem. The only thing to remember is that the faster your modem, the cheaper your phone bill will be. Comms software can often be bought at the same time as your modem but be warned – there arc alot to choose from.

We will be looking at some over the coming months, to make your choice simpler. Based in Croydon, Arcade is probably the definitive’ bulletin board for the Archimedes, and con- tains many celebrity names in the user log.

Arcade can also provide any new Acorn press releases, often before the magazines pick them up. A special download section con- tains text-only files of news stories updated the day they are released. Arcade is run on a very friendly, dub- 1 ike basis and u set’s are always ready to help out newcomers, or anyone having problems with their systein.

In fact, every so often a number of users meet up for a drink, usually around the London area. Arcade arc found on OS I 22 1 2 or Word smith BB is designed to appeal to any scribes and other creative folk out there It seems to be the UK home of writers and photographers and offers many bulletins and forums for budding writers to share ideas and comments. The sysop is Marcus Harri- son. According to Graham, there’s lots of mes- sages.

It also supports Fidonet and World- net. However, this BB is cur- rently only available from 1 0. Running at all speeds from V2I up to V42bis and boasting Mbytes of online storage it caters for most machine types. II you know of any bulletin boards that you feel deserve our atten- tion. Although it is currently biased towards PC users. Acorn support may increase if lots of users log on.

Echo mail conferences also support worldwide Netmail and on-line games such as Trade wars. We woulei like to correct two errors that crept into our February column. The correct number for Silicon Village should be Apologies to all concerned!

Well now you can. The Powerhouse is on Use of the system will start at the beginning of March and allow access to over 20 countries, including the U5A, Japan and most of Europe. For more infor- mation, call freephone customer helpline on Carl Declerck has developed the first public domain host system for Arc users. The most important one is the ability to work in any colour mode supported by the Archimedes. Up until now, it only worked in Mode 13 and it was restricted by the rather chunky x graphics.

The new Arvo! Desktop installs itself on the menu bar like other Rise OS appli- cations, hut switches to lull screen when ran.

A number of new tools have been added and existing ones upgraded and refined. Upgrading from the old ver- sion of Arvo! AH prices exclude vat. Most of the best ray tracers are in fact in the public domain, a source of quality programs which is often overlooked by the aver- age computer owner. QRT Quick Ray Timer has been around for some time now and has been responsible for many of the demos circu- lating on bulletin boards and PD libraries.

It is fully Rise OS compatible and runs on the desktop alongside other appli- cations. Pictures are created by describing scenes in special script files, in a similar way to the origin ei I Render Bender program by Clares. MTV , on the other hand, is THIS month s special mention should go to S Gore ham who at the grand young age of 75 has recently turned his hand to computer graphics.

Rob Miller above is one that was pro- duced using a friend’s home- grown art package on an A computer. Certainly eio inspiring example! This is a presentation pEiek- age of the same ilk as Type – Studio reviewed 3;ist month.

Midnight Express will allow text to be placed in envelopes or around curves, but remain editable. Arm code has been used throughout, and the pack- age is said to be virtually instantaneous in operation. Predefined palettes are used for colour adjustment, remov- ing the need to fiddle around with colour sliders, as in Draw. Preset envelopes are also defined and they can be plEieed on the page for editing, A potentially impressive feature is the Eibility to tile or scale any sprite within an object, allowing complex backgrounds to be built up very quickly.

For more details, contact Dabhand on Replay looks better than QuickTime on the Apple Macintosh. For those who didn’t make it to the BETT show, both Replay and Quick- Time are software packages that enable moving video to be shown on the desktop, without the need for any additional hard- ware, Possible uses for such a system include training via multi- media technology using hard- ware such as compact discs.

NE9 5JJ. Or why not take out a subscrip- tion, which includes a free monthly disc? When we launched the Oak 16 Bit SCSI card and a range of hard disc drives in , they quickly became the market leader.

As with all our products, they were manufactured under a ‘Zero Defect 1 quality control regime and enjoyed an enviable reputation for both quality and reliability. Now we have turned our attention to the COST of our products so that they continue to be the best ail round value for money. Our new pricing structure has been made posable by our bulk buying power and our recent move to much larger premises to keep pace with the demand for all our SCSI products.

With several newcomers to the hard disc marketplace, the issue of performance has become a little clouded of la it-, so to set things straight. Oak SCSI software is Atom compatible, and allows ha rd discs to be partitioned into several logical partitions, which may be write protected if required. All our tape backup systems include DakTape. Backups are done on a tile by file basis with versatile control over backup criteria.

Automatic backups may be triggered at pre-detemtined times, and printouts of tape contents can be automatically generated. Restoring from tape is simple and intuitive Files and directories can simply be dragged from a tree viewer or directory viewers, either to disc, network or even directly into an application!

This advertisement could not hope to mention in detail all the SCSI products we manufacture, so for further details please write or telephone. Overall I have found that Acorn has been pretty good in its docu- mental ion. My suggestion is not about the actual text, but the way it is presented. Ei seems that there is no standard style in which infor- mation is published. It appears that a lot of Acorn-related merchandise is purchased though mail order, so eye-catching packaging is not really necessary.

Why not adopt the simple idea that many computer companies have of using a loose-leaf hinder? Compute r Concept s DTP package. Impression, uses one. Any upgrades to software would only need a few pages, or a file for prim- ing, rather than a new book, or some hastily printed sheets.

Since most DTP software supports various page sizes and formats, it is quite feasible that Public Domain and less expensive software instruc- tions can be provided as test files, which could be primed out if desired.

Already a lot of PD software is only docu- mented on disc. While such a system may not he immediately imple- mented, I hope publishers think about what they are producing.

Richard Broakes Dun vail t Swansea The packaging supplied with Impression is peril ops the best example of an updatable manual, although CC does not keep this standard throughout their range. The ideal situation would lie for nil software to be supplied in a stan cl nrcl box – The Fourth Dimension uses a multi-pur- pose box For all of its games.

The problem with having the entire tutorial on the disc is Hi at unfa mi liar users may not know where to start. But this method can be hit-and-miss if someone has re -stamped the file with a dif- ferent date to that of the version date of the module, as I have found out the hard way, I believe Sys merge also looks at i lie dale stamps – if this is so. I hen surely it must he used with caution? I would greatly appreciate it if you you tell me if this is possible.

Also, what has happened to your series on classic Beeb programs, Pieces of Eight? That was tme of the main rea- sons I purchased the magazine, and I was surprised when the February and March editions did not include it. When is it coming back? But if anybody has a special request for a specific program, then let us know. Although ii was secondhand, it hasn’t given me any prob- lems so far. On the other hand my friend bought an Amiga base unit with a hit of bundled soft- ware and 5I2K of memory for the same price.

He would buy a printer, bui is seated that ii would be incom- patible with his software. Archimedes games are usually fast load- ing.

Looking at the graphics side of the Amiga, you do have a lot of colours, but these are only used in ray tracing. Inci- dentally. The arguments for the Arc are numerous. This review gives the impres- sion that Spark and ArcFS are public domain programs, or perhaps Shareware. They arc not and I would not wish anybody to gain the idea that they are.

At the end of the review, while the correct information is given about Compression. Spark and ArcFS are not Shareware. Drives are supplied fuliy tested and ready to use with a 12 month warranty PLUS our money back guarantee if you are not fully satisfied.

It is aimed at the slightly more competent programmer, ah hough docs provide an easy to under- stand introduction to assem- bly code programming. Firstly, ensure that you compile your code to assemble at the address you want it io reload it. Susan Chapman from the Netherlands is trying to computerise her school library recoids using an Archimedes computer. She wonders if there is any suit- able database software that will allow her to keep book titles, authors, classification numbers and topics, and to update them as required.

Another primary consideration is easy use by young children. For your type of use I would recommend Flexijite by Minerva Software, Once set up. For more advanced use it will also allow y ou to create reports and search for entries when you do not know the exact spelling.

He repeatedly gets two error messages – either. Warning: text area font Trinity, Medium could not be loaded 4. When you fin- ish typing your text in. The second error is caused by Draw not being able lo find your fonts directory. Draw looks for Trin- ity. Medium by default so you should double click on Fonts, before you load Draw. He asks if there is an application to enable him to do this.

As such it will load your existing Maestro tunes and convert them to the new Rhapsody format. It not only contains support for Rise OS printer drivers, enabling you to print out your fin- ished tune, but also has a host of additional features not supported by Maestro, For a professional output you can get an additional package called Sen redraw which will produce printed results just like genuine manuscript shed music.

Carefully remove the power connectors adjacent to IC32, bend them at 90 degrees and replace them. Next, remove the shorting link from the lower half of S21 and connect Ihc two flying leads from the ATPL board to the vacant pins, ensuring that the wire marked El is to the right. It works on both hard and floppy discs and sup- ports any filing system. Q This sounds like a symptom of a flat bat- tery inside the computer.

He asks if there is a simple solution to avoid this, E! Every time you click on a new disc, its name is added to a list of disc names currently held inside the computer. This is kept until you either turn off the machine or dismount the disc. Mi s Coop only has a cassette recorder and wonders if there is any software avail- able on tape. B i A commonly asked ques- tion was that posed by D Green of Sunderland.

Arxe systems, d l- L19H, are actively work- ing on Spectrum and Atari emulators but admit that an Amiga one may be a little bit tricky. Still, vou never know! Please send your questions, whether technical or otherwise, to: Questions and Answers BBCAtornUser Brunswick Place London, m GDJ, We are happy to answer your queries on these pages, but regret that we are unable to send personal replies to questions sent in.

It is also useful if you could include full details of your machine. HP Will. Star LP8. LP8N series. I wish to order Prices 6ixjTub»Kt to notice. Please ch«k SUrtatrilrtywith the marnLfacturers betoxe ordering Goods, are not offered on a trial basis;. Now, as an additional service to new subscribers we are offering FREE monthly discs with every 12 month subscription to the magazine. Sin drive and ADFS. The 5. So, no matter which Acorn machine you have, you can take advantage of this fabu- lous offer now.

Discs are only sent from the beginning of a subscription period. Expiry Date. Includes Viewdata terminal. Master Operating System Oavid Atherton’S definitive reference work including the famous ‘differences between an eight-bit models’ seciion used by countless programmers to ensure compatibility across the toll eight- bit range.

AftflUTVisa jtceprec. Waste r 51 2 S ha rewa re C alia cti nrs Two collections of PC shareware, all tried and tested on the , includes WP’s, spreadsheets, databases, games etc. Two colleclions Oi Live discs each. No previous experience required. Good explanations 01 priming. Th sr jnty u you myaiir JiumMs rescue ship.

SCSI drives. Do not be baffled by products with ‘go faster stripes’ Remember A3K6 also allows for an extra internal card; giving a total of It is a custom made connector that does not rely on test clips and even has an LED to test for the correct fitting. Thursday 9am to 8pm, FREE customer car park. Hardware engineers must be la mi liar with I he Archimedes architecture and able to lollow a project from pence pi ion to production. Qualifications are not as essential as your ability to produce innovative solutions to challenging problems.

No soldering required. Fitting instructions supplied. A upgrades require a backplane and a Ian. Ideal lor school environment. The C-arri allows many a! The card is provided with all the software in ROM and is automatically loaded when he machine is turned on.

A luse is fined to the card to protecl Ihe A30QD from damage arising from accidental short circuit of the power output. The card is provided with an extensive manual explaining installation, all software commands, connector pm outs, hardware addresses and example programs. The kit is supplied with a disk, and the necessary cable to connect the two computers. Upto 4 disc drives can be connected, Fully Buffered Board. Supplied complete with necessary lead.

Using the latest surface- mount technology on a high quality tour layer circuit board we have reduced the overall size to a mere 53mm x 45mm. Mk El upgrade writ increase the speed of your micro by a factor of 3 to 5.

Accounts packs: Cashbook, Fina! It provides a fast and flexible means of capturing images Irom a video camera or recorder for display and manipulation on the Archimedes range of Micros. Off-air televison signals may also be digitised via a video recorder or TV tuner. Please write for further details. Working area 9″ x 8″. We have informed most of the software houses of this decision in order that they can ensure compatibility with our highly sophisticated and fully Acorn compatible DDFS.

It also has all the commands of the Acorn’s 1 DFS, plus the added features. Each disc has a reinforced hub ring. Supplied complete with selfstick labels and a Plastic Library Disc Box.

For ease of use, the switches are front mounted. These prices, coupled with the backup of one of the country’s largest distributors of BBC peripherals provides a superb deal. When using a BBC Micro, most people find themselves short of desk space. Your BBC Disc Drive and Monitor can ait occupy the same vertical footprint and still be comfortably situated, With She Watford Double Plinth, your Disc Drive is mounted vertically at one side, leaving a very valuable area directly in front of you for such useful items as spare discs, pen.

Follow the trend with a Watford pfinth. Turn to the 6th page of our advert for the Plinths. S, AH our 5. Alt you require is our special Compact Disc Drive cables designed by us. They are supplied complete with all cables and a Utilities Disc. The use of Cleaner Kir is a sensible precaution against losing valuable data. It is recommended to clean the drive head once a weak, it is very simple to use. Available in 3. Each computer has a status light dedicated to it.

II it is gneen you will get immediate aocess to the disk, and red means thal you are next in tine. The unit plugs directly into the disc drive socket on each computer and is powered by the mains, N,B. Mot lot use with ADFS. Antistatic helps avoid data corruption whilst in storage. The smoked top locks down. Dividers and adhesive litte strips are supplied for ellicient filing, of discs.

Supplied complete with integral power supply, cables and Utilities disc. DLC2- Holds 1 0 x 3. DLC3 – Holds 5 x 5. DLC4 – Holds 1 0 x 5. Its multi scan circuitry provides automatic adjustment for frequencies between 30 and 60KHz horizontal, and 50 and BQHz vertical, its 0.

Increases productivity in offices. A must for wondprocessor users. AH controls are located on the front panel for ease of use. Ideal tor BBC. BBC Master. Archimedes and Amiga. There are 2 versions to suit all requirements. The multimode software supplied, provides all Ihe new modes for the selected monitor type, including the now standard Computer Concepts modes.

With VGA monitor, you are no longer restricted to a tew modes. A WIMP application supplied on disc, allows new modes to be designed and existing modes to be modified for particular monitors.

They can be used as Aulo Sharers, Printer Buffers or bolh. ConQuest lakes this principal even further, by utilising the otherwise normally incompatible Sideways RAM facility by holding pictures in them. This handy little gadget solves the problem of where to store your mouse when it is having a rest.

Made of sturdy plastic, the WE Mouse House attaches to the side of your computer, monitor, disc drive or desk. It protects it from damage when not in use. Requires very tittle desk space. Mouse Cleaning Kit To obtain trouble free operation and prolong the life of your mouse, it requires regular cleaning.

It is totally insensitive to local lighting conditions and works with many different monitors. An LED indicates when valid video data is being produced.

A conveniently located switch is also lilted. This uses the lull graphics capacity of the BBC micro in modes 0, 1 or 2.

The video source may be a camera, video recorder or television, and is connected via the video output socket. The software supplied includes a sophisticated, fast screen dump rou tine. Images produced can be compressed, stored td disc, printed on an Epson compatible printer, directly used to generate graphics, analysed or scientific and educational use or converted to other formats e. Stow Scan TV or receiving a piclure from a remote camera using a modem. The output from the digitiser exactly matches the graphics capability in each mode, with up to 8 levels of grey in mode 2.

The unit connects into the User Port and automatically scans a complete picture in 1. HandSean is a compact unit which will allow photographs, diagrams, or any other documents to be digitised quickly and easily, to hen be used in a desk top publishing package, ari program, or even in your own Basic programs!

These useful devices have been available or faster and more expensive micros for some time, but only now is Watford Electronics able lo otter the BBC Micro computer. All necessary software has been included in the lirmware lo allow Ihe scanner lo read images directly into our Wapping Editor with little more than lha click of the mouse.

The digitised picture may Ihen be incorporated into your magazine, newsletter, report or any other document. The package includes a 64K ROM containing ALL he software needed to get into print fast: a very sophisticated graphics module, professional quality typesetting software, a word processor, a comprehensive font editor for designing your own typefaces, and a variety of printer dumps. A comprehensive page man uaf completes the package. The Support ROM contains routines to allow an area lo be rotated to any angle or distorted lo any four- sided shape.

Page Layout Section The Wapping Editor may be used lo create pages of any sue from an A6 to a full A3 page, If none cl the eighl default page types suit your purpose, the stand-alone page creation program may be used to create pages to your own requirement- By using proportionally spaced fonts and genuine microspacing it is possible to print over ISO characters; across an A4 page.

Text may be typeset, either justified or unjustified, in any font anywhere on the page. Simply select which lent and text document you wish to use, and pull out a rectangle on the page where you warn the text to be – it’s as simple as that! Multiple columns may be printed just as easily and a special ‘expand 1 feature may be used to expend the microspacing so that the docu ment exactly tits the space defined. Word-Processor The integral word processor is Ihe ideal tool lor producing your text documents, although text can of course be read in from any ol the other popular word processors such es View, Word wise etc.

The Font Editor The font ediior module will allow you to design your own typefaces or to modify the ones provided on the utility disc. This sophisticated editor has numerous functions designed to lake the ledium and frustration out of producing good looking, well balanced fonts. Each character may be individutly proport ton ally spaced and characters of any size Up to 16 x 16 pixels may be defined.

Pictures include maps, transport, people, media, sport, games etc. Two ‘ratio’ screens for use with hi-res and rotated A5 pages lo ensure images are not distorted when printed Cut, Music writing symbols in the form of pattern and brush for quick production of manuscripts are included together with slaves. There are two prepared hi -res pages layed out for printing labels, both single and double width.

Ready made label designs are included but these can be easily replaced with your own designs. A Mode 0 screen dump routine is also included. To pack such a targe amount of data onto Ihe discs the screens have been compressed and routines to compress and expand Mode 0 screens are included on both discs.

Using Ihe packing routine you can archive large numbers of screens onto a single disc. Also included are Ihree Mode 0 screens containing giant ‘headline’ fonts to cut and paste to create extra smooth headlines.

Features provided include facilities for zooming In on an image and inverting the image in X and Y directions, saving and printing of the sprite created. Interactive help is supplied using the ‘HELP application on! The mm scanning width can cope wifh both desktop scanning ol single sheets, photographs, diagrams, etc. Scanned image control can be freely adjusted in increment of 10 dels per jneh from 10G up to dpi resolution with 64 levels of grey scaling.

A buill in shading controller and manual brightness control achieve Optimum image clarify. All these features and facilities combine lo make Ihe Archi Page Scanner the fast and convenient way in which to add that extra impact, interest and clarity to documents, reports, instruction sheets, manuals, news letters, etc.

The package includes the most comprehensive utility software available for the Archimedes, a high quality hand held scanner, and all necessary documentation to get you going straight away, SCANNER The scanner is capable of scanning up to an amazing dote par inch DPI! The dot resolution may be swilched to , , or the maximum dpi- One of tour operating modes may be selected offering either pure monochrome scanning, or one of three grey revel modes.

The grey level modes use different size dilher patterns to represenl up to 16 shades of grey. There is also a dial to allow the “brightness'” to be adjusted over a wide range, in order to optimise the quality for any specific image. The scanner interface is a standard, single width, expansion card podule which plugs into the Archimedes’ backplane. The socket on the rear panel connects the scanner by 1.

The software is sup- plied in a 64Kbyte ROM located on the interface board. The scanner appears as a small icon on the desktop icon bar, and the software is retrieved from the ROM simply by clicking on that icon. As you scan a page, the image appears in the scanning window on ihe screen, scrolling up in real lime. The other facilities included in the software are.

Cropping and seating to any size including stretch- ing and squashing in X and Y direction separately. Colour tinting. X and Y flip, Edge detection which turns solid objects into outlines. Selective directional copying which allows features i. Scanned images may be saved as sprite files dr transferred directly into olher RiscOS applications DTP, Draw, Paint simpty by dragging the sprite tile into the application’s window. Sprites may also be generated using anti-aliasing.

This greatly improves picture quality and is particularly affective when scanning material wiih a range of grey tones, such as photographs. Images can be printed on any printer that is supported by a RiscQS printer driver, with optional settings lor portrait or landscape modes, image scale and positioning, [mages are printed using the full resolution of the printer and are not limited to the screen resolution. On-screen help is provided via Ihe RiscQS interactive help facility.

Calls are also provided in the ROM for users wishing lo write their own software, incorporating the use of the scanner. We also supply a purpose designed see-through slorage container with anti-static lining, allowing you to store up to 12 ROMs, prelecting them from mechanical and static damage.

It is a must for professionals and Hobbyists alike. This product is recommended as an ideal complement by Computer Concepts. Lisp and BCPL programs in any screen mode. Sideways RAM enables you to load sideways ROM images from disc, allowing you to have a large library of sideways ROMs subject to the copyright holder’s permission stored on disc.

The B32 simply plugs into the processor socket on you BBC micro – no flying leads to connect and no soldering. In addition, there are two sockets for sideways RAM. This extremely uselui little device aitows two units to be connected to the User Port simultaneously, and select between them simply by toggling a switch.

Using the B, up to 15 devices may be connected in a single high-speed data network. Commander is particularly good tor flight simulation and drawing programs. Following the success of this board, we have designed what probably represents the ultimate in expansion boards, Watford’s ROM.

This leaves free all the existing ROM sockets, which can still be used normally. It is designed to replace your existing cashbook system and will provide you with a computerised system complete lo trial balance. Enables you to keep records of names and addresses and then print, examine, serf and find them, all with special selection techniques. By utilising the powerful Wordwise Plus programming language, Word Aid provides a whole host of extra features, all accessed via a special new menu option.

Search and display in preview mode. All standard highlight sequences are also supported- A large range o printers are supported by drivers contained within the ROM the drivers can be downloaded and customised.

Other printers are readily supported by defining a Printer Driver using he built-in Printer Driver Generator. The lealures mentioned below are available to both the built in Printer Drivers and user defined drivers assuming the printe r supports the lealures.

NLQ control, Underline. Bold, Proportional Spacing, Microspacing, italic. LPI 6 , Set characters per inch numerically e. CPI 5 , Select printer font, Select printer ribbon colour.

Full printer setup, Send control codes. Ol course. View 1. The BBC 8 series and Master series of micros arc supported. A comprehensive manual is supplied.

All in all, a very professional product or the discerning user who wants power at their finger tips. Has VAT routines and footer messages lacilily. STOCK CONTROL – Allows you to enier stock received, stock out, summary of stock items and current holdings together with details of total cost, total stock to minimum level, units in slock ordering, quantity and supplier detail.

Available in 2 lull A4 versions, desk resting and shelf clamping. Paper Is held firmly by means of a plastic retaining ruler and a dip grip.

By hand or foot pedal. Batteries 2 x A A not included. These units are extremely handy. However, now that you have got it home and connected it to your BBG microcomputer, you are wondering how to make it perform these magical tasks. The manual seems to give no ciues, and when you type in the example programs, the computer throws the LPRINT statements back in your face. This book describes in plain, easy to understand English, how to use and make the most of your KP It describes in detail how to obtain the maximum in graphics capability from your printer and includes full indexes allowing you to cross Index the numerous commands.

Every command is explained in detail, with an accompanying BBC Basic program and an example of its use from Wordwise. Do you have to use both Acorn computers and PC’s? As a result school computer users are at a disadvantage whan moving inio ‘business’ computing. PCs and other commercial computers use MS-DOS as the operating system, so commands tor formatting, copying, backing up, priming and the modem are not Ihe same.

Even file names are written differently! And did you know teal there is one Acorn commancf which, if used in MS-DOS, wipes everything in the current directory? John Lockley, who has wide experience of writing and broadcasling. Price: E Electron, Master 1 28 or Master Compact, or Archimedes, then his is the book for you. It shows how to get Ihe best from your machine, and how to make il work for you. The general style and level of presentation means ihal bolh ihe expert and beginner alike wilt feel comfortable with Ihe quality and quantity o!

Subjects covered include the general used computers, hardware design and peripheral devices like printers, disc drives, etc, and Networking. Programming hints and lips and various disciplines for making a better program are- discussed in some detail, including debugging of specific errors.

Standard programs are covered, such as wordpnocessors, spreadsheets, databases, graphics, communications, elc. A book you will enjoy To use as a reference, or read from cover to cover, over and over. It explains all the principles required by the hardware and associaled software, and also example listings for inclusion into custom programs, The manual first details Ihe basic principles of the mouse and a simple program which uses these principles.

This information should be adequate or most applications. However, it is possible to improve the performance ol the mouse by expanding on ihe principles already used in the software. This is again fully explained and an example program given. It is possible to gain a full understanding of the mouse from this manual. For those not interested in exactly how the mouse functions, complete example programs are aiso included.

These may be typed directly into Ihe micro, without the need for any understanding of the hardware or software involved, enabling the mouse to be used lor custom applications. Beeb DOS provides a practical method of transferring information between these two micros. Beeb DOB is a collection o! Will only work on K Drsk Drives 8. Our micro plinths, have slots for maximum ventilation. The compuler slides neatly in the lower section allowing easy access to remove the lid.

Software switched. Sections of image can be loaded separately. Part programming. Edit data in memory. There is also a blank check facility. More than one file per ROM permitted.

The TEX erasers operate following the manufacturers specificalions to give the maximum possible working life by not erasing too fast. Our Kit 14 is Ideal for the purpose. Supplied wired up with mains plug ready for use. Can be screwed to tloor or wall if required.

Very uselul for tidying up all the mains leads from your peripherals. Up to four drives are supported by the IDE filing system 10 EPS, up to l wo drives can be attached to each expansion card, up to lour cards can be installed in a machine. An optional 20Mb or 40Mb hard disc can be supplied on the podule expansion card itself, wilh ils fast iransfer rate and power saving modes the drive is ideal for storing commonly used software such as the!

Fonts application. Once locked, the Configuration can not be changed until a secret password is used. By an innovative use of on-board memory, the card will remember its configuration, even if moved to another slot or even a different machine, this also includes the unique security features.

Software supplied in, On-board ROM. Wo soldering required. Simply plug info the ellcted space. These stunningly engineered, light weight but fast, 2. A novel feature of the hard cards is thai they can be easily removed and transported to another Archimedes, for example to make a hard disc backup, or to transfer saved files from work to home etc. Security of files on the hard disc is ensured by our unique security password lock, which allows files to be read only, but not overwritten or deleted – ideal for use in school applications where the integrity of your master software needs io be retained.

The cable is always being caught up in papers, tangled round equipmertf and other cables etc, and what about that cup of coffee spifled over your work! In use, there are no operating differences between the standard mouse and the new cordless mouse so all mouse funclions and mouse driven RISC software will be fully compatible, Pinpoint accuracy is ensured by a unique Accelerator button, which, when pressed, moves Ihe pointer by just a tiny amount or a large slow movement of the mouse, but by a large amount for a quick wiiz of the mouse.

Shop Hours: 9. Monday to Saturday. Thursdays 9am lo Spm. Free Customer’s Car Park. WAT: Uk customers please add Specifications of all products are given in good faith but are subject to Change without notice. Some items vary in their availability.

Watford Elecironics Terms and Conditions are available upon request. Please ring lor latest delivery situation. We have changed our name but not our service. Broad Oak Computers have been giving a superb service to Acorn Users for over a year. But we don’t just sell computers, we offer a complete service to the computer user and buyer which includes FREE local delivery and training, and full after sales support with a good choice of software always available.

Our superb training facilities offer courses for all levels of experience including complete beginners. Our new correspondence courses are perfect for those with a busy lifestyle. This is especially true for Ehc RiscOS machines which, unlit recently, were over- shadowed by the Beeb. The upgrades allow access to overlay key- boards, touch screens, modems and switches, but it is the utilities provided which are at the heart of the package.

One of the utilities pro- vided is ASP, switch interface software which allows disabled users to access Rise OS appli- cations, by using a single switch device. Big Fir offers an enlarged and visible pointer whereas Close up presents a small magnified window which can move around the screen. Flasher gives a more visible flashing caret and a cursor-homing device.

They both come with a built-in digitiser which will sample sounds with 8-bit resolution at 22KHz. Sound output is even more impressive. Four bit channels are provided which are capable of reproducing frequencies of up to 56KHz. These channels can be used to emulate eight 8-bit channels at 56KHz or 16 8-bit channels at 28KHz.

A new Motorola Digital Signal Processor chip is also believed to be included with both models – this is a microprocessor in its own right, working alongside the central processor. It is a bit device clocked at 27MHz that can be programmed to perform complex sound processing operations at high speed.

These could include sophisticated filtering and sound manipulation effects. No prices or details of availability are known, except that the cheaper of the two will come in at a price above that of the A, and that at least one of them is due in four months. The verdict was, to say the least, highly critical – much of the flak targetted at the Amiga A Which, as you might expect, provoked a number of enraged A owners to set the record straight I am a very proud owner of one and think this is a remarkable computer!

The A is the first computer I have bought, having arrived at this decision to buy one because my SEGA console is not what I want anymore – and I love it! It’s more compact than the bulky, slab-like , and looks more attractive! Granted, its arrival is a bit obsolete, but don’t knock ft until you’ve tried it! I totally resent the remarks made by some of your readers about its size and its seemingly “console” like approach. These comments come from a bunch of closed-minded misnomatics who cannot swallow the fact that the A is history and that the light isn’t in their ball court any more!

You lose, oh brainless ones! Long live the A Gary Entwistle Tonbridge Hmmm, I think ‘childish playground attitude’ is a bit strong there, Gary – we adopted an even handed response to the story in our news reporting and in these letters pages. But many A owners were somewhat peeved and said so in no uncertain terms.

Now, I don’t want to get drawn into a My-Amiga-is-better- than-your-Amiga type argument here, but hey! I’m sure the A has got a helluva lot going for it. As you say though, the err In particular I was surprised at Margaret Haedicke’s assessment that the A Is “mainly for games” and Mr Scott’s view that the A was unexpandable.

What utter rubbish! Please explain to me how a machine with exactly the same processor and graphic specifications as the A, but with the added advantage of a built-in hard drive interface and TV modulator, can in any way be described as a games machine?

The almost crazed and illogical ravings that I was forced to read in your magazine really made little sense. The authors were obviously just jealous that now people can go out and buy an A for the same price as an A and revel in the advantages of hard drive interface, portability and incredible reliability that the new machine offers.

Certainly to describe the A as a games machine or as inferior to the A is showing crassness not worthy of an Amiga owner! In my mind the A Is a worthy entry level machine offering a cheap and easy upgrade path to hard drive ownership whilst still having two expansion slots like the original A The A is the perfect machine for home and hobbyist use; I am only disappointed that it was not released several years ago.

Certainly no other computer can offer such power at such a low price. Stick with the Amiga and Commodore! The new range of Amigas and the new improved “The crazed and illogical ravings I was forced to read really made little sense graphics and sound which are on the way will certainly be something worth beating the PC owning world with! The main criticism levelled at the A is its alleged lack of expandability.

As such it’s seen as a games machine. Like so many new advances though, it’s a question of Time Will Tell. The quicker the A’s on the street, the better.

I, however, think it is an excellent move. The Big C has already announced that it intends to release new Amigas soon – as the A is just a taster of things to come. OK, so the A will be incompatible with a lot of hardware, but before people go jumping to conclusions and start asking where this leaves users who wish to expand their machines, consider the following The majority of people who will want to purchase the A are people who not only want to play games but also to use it to type out the odd letter.

The A Is a step forward for the Amiga and is perfectly designed hardware wise – if you want to load the Amiga with accelerators and the like then buy a machine that is designed to do that.

Maybe one of Commodore’s new machines will be a portable; the miniaturisation employed in the A sure makes this possible. Existing A owners must not despair, the A will ensure the future of the Amiga in the 90s and beyond. Philip Chung Cheltenham Yes, and in your last paragraph you hit the nail firmly on the head. Don’t think there’s much chance of a portable though. The A is quite simply a recased A Plus but with the bonus that you can now have a hard drive, for the price of an external drive and a half meg upgrade, just eighty pounds!

So you now don’t have to pay the ridiculous price of three hundred pounds for the simplest hard drive. Your average Amiga owner aspires to a hard drive and a few megs of extra memory at maximum. You can have all of these things on an A for a lot less dosh than an A, this is a fact.

The simple fact is that the A is here to stay and all the whingeing in the world from the techies who mourn the loss of their best friend will not bring back the over-sized A I had an A for three years and loved the machine but time moves on, and in my opinion the A is much more desirable than the chunky old faithful and also more reliable.

The simple fact is that the Real 3D images I now produce on an A look just as good as the ones produced on an A But now I can save them to my hard drive! It is just a pity that Amiga Shopper couldn’t take a positive attitude and welcome the A for what It is, the best cheap home computer on the market, which will ‘The A is much more desirable than the chunky old faithful” give you access to the wonders of DTP, 3D modelling, word processing and perhaps even the odd game at a reasonable price with great reliability.

Steve Summersklll Wakefield Fair enough. I honestly don’t think you can accuse us of taking a negative attitude though, Steve. Maybe we didn’t go over the top about the arrival of the A but then I don’t feel there’s a great deal to go over the top about. It’s a neat machine, sure – but nothing to knock your socks off. Now that’s not being negative – being negative is me printing in a national magazine “The A is a waste of space”.

Which it ain’t. Just because Commodore brings out the A and stops producing the A everyone seems to think It is the end of the Amiga. So many of the letters I have read gave me the impression that the writer was going to do a Lemming!! Total flops brought out by Commodore as the next step forward. You have to remember that with the bad you get the good. It is not technically superior. The A has not yet reached its peak, there are a good years left in the old girl yet.

You don’t think the third party developers are going to chuck all their A goodies and start producing Aonly goods, when there must be less than 10, As in the UK homes, if that. One other thing, why should A users worry whether the A is upgradable or not, if someone wants to buy an upgradable machine, then they won’t buy the A, which will show in the numbers sold, and make Commodore realise what a mistake it has made.

All you readers stop fretting, you already own a good, solid, upgradable machine, why worry about a machine you don’t like anyway? Also what is this obsession with chucking the Amiga and getting a PC? There’s one line of argument, ably presented in the next letter funnily enough, which claims that the A range was scrapped precisely because of its upgradability.

But it’s also got a lot to do with cheaper construction costs and greater reliability. Expandability will come for the A though because there’s always a demand for maximising what you’ve already got without splashing out on a brand new machine. That’s what propels the PC market and presumably that’s why a few readers thought the PC was a more future- proof option.

It’s got A owners everywhere paranoid that the third- party developers will just turn their backs on them as if the mighty A never existed. As for becoming obsolete, it is still an Amiga after all, with the same software base as the and , and that’s not going to change much for this new computer. Commodore’s marketing strategy is obvious; keep the games players with the A and force the hobbyists and “serious” users into buying a bigger, more expandable machine.

This has always been their game plan but the A proved to be just as expandable as any other Amiga. There are a wide variety of peripherals for the A; high power accelerators, bit graphics boards, 10Mb of RAM, anything a serious user would demand from a computing system. I think in the eyes of Commodore it became too easy to transform an A into a beast more powerful than the top-of-the- line Surface Mount Technology will take care of that, and then customers will have to get a bigger Amiga, or a big ugly PC.

Commodore will have to develop a more advanced middle-range machine if It doesn’t want to be alienated from the “serious market” of the PC and Macintosh, especially with the current pricing trend. Amigas are no longer the great bargain they used to be, and the new range will stand or fall on its own merits, not a cheap price tag.

This can be done, but the Amiga is going to have to evolve into a more powerful machine, sporting a as standard, and a and af least true bit graphics for the top of the range. As for existing Amiga owners, I say only this. Don’t worry about your computer becoming obsolete. It’s the A the third parties might not support.

Anyway, if your system does what you bought it for, what’s the problem? PB Stanley Stamford, Lines I think the Amiga is already alienated from the serious market if you define this as being anything other than video and bit graphics work. While Amigas are clearly capable of handling serious applications, they’re not perceived as anything more than souped-up consoles by the business user.

Yet with the A you have a machine that’ll give most Macs and PCs a run for their money. There’s one way this can be rectified and that’s for Commodore to start promoting it as a serious machine range.

Full stop. Gosh it Is a “nightmare” – that blue screen and nasty topaz font mocking my lower status in life. All those bugs! Oh, it’s so slow and horrible! Heck, I can barely show my face in public without being pointed out as a 1. But there’s little I can do to improve my predicament.

Looks like I’m stuck with this archaic 1. Frankly I’d rather Shopper devoted a little more space to telling me how to make use of what I’ve got rather than suggesting 1, different ways to spend money I haven’t got. I appreciate that Mr Smiddy did, in fact, devote his column to updating a previous program for 1. Please Inform your staff that many of us are operating on far less than what they consider to be the minimum requirement for an Amiga system.

Ade Rixon Warrington We try and draw a balance which is more heavily weighted to tips, advice and tutorials than new product reviews, but we can’t ignore advances. However, you’ll be pleased to know that next ish we’re bringing you a 32 page Amiga Answers Special designed to help you get more from your machine. The following might save your readers some trouble. At one point I found that the internal disk drive in my Amiga was scratching and destroying disks. I removed, cleaned and replaced the recording head.

Realignment was a bit of a fiddle but for a long time I kept having to repeat the realignment at frequent intervals, although there was no obvious fault. To cut a long story short, I discovered that the trouble was caused by magnetic interference from the monitor whether from the loudspeaker magnets or the tube field coils, I do not know.

The internal magnetic shield of the computer was not totally effective. The cure: a steel biscuit tin lid is now attached to the underside of the shelf which supports the monitor above the right hand side of the computer.

This has proved completely effective. H Owens Thanks there. H – send me your address and I’ll send you a fiver. One this month, five the next! Now can we leave poor Mark alone? I use several of the music programs and am finding this of great assistance in the line of business I have chosen following my retirement after 35 years in the police service. However, Jason omitted to mention probably the most pertinent point regarding PD houses.

He did not say that there is a positive chance that some of your readers who send their orders and their money to some of the PD houses who advertise In your magazine will not receive a reply, nor their disks, nor their money back. It goes without saying that many of the ‘houses’ give an excellent service and, in one instance, 6 disks arrived at my address within 36 hours of my posting the order.

However, unfortunately, there are those who do not supply the goods, nor do they return the cheque. They cash it instead! I have been defrauded three times. For various reasons I’m not prepared to name the ‘houses’ who have failed in their commitment and, in doing so, have indirectly discredited your magazine. Another point Jason failed to mention was the fact that there is an unnecessary amount of obscene and other unpleasant language used on some of the PD disks.

I don’t suppose I need to go into detail but I will refer to one particular music disk I bought. Being new to it all, and self-taught, I obviously make many mistakes when trying to run my software. On one of these disks, each time I do something wrong, a rather disgusting message flashes up saying ‘F Off, Lamer’ etc.

Is there any need for this? What sort of people are these faceless perverts who thrill to using this language, knowing full well that the persons most likely to be confronted with it are young persons and children?

I realise, of course, that there is nothing you can do about the way sick programmers write their materials, nor is there much you can do about the contents of disks sold by the PD houses. However, I would like to know what sort of scrutiny you subject your advertisers to before accepting their money for advertising.

Are any steps taken to check out the bona fides of would-be advertisers, or can anyone who might use a garden shed or a spare room in a lodging-house as a temporary address set up a business as, and advertise as, a PD house? I am sure most of your 45, readers would be delighted to know the answers of these questions.

JD Martin Hull Well, first of all, I’m sorry to hear you’ve been subjected to abuse and ripped off on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, in the first instance, we have to take adverts placed with us on the basis of trust. Other than the normal credit checks we can’t assess a company’s morality. It’s only when we receive complaints from individuals who’ve been mistreated that we prevent that company from appearing in our pages.

And then again, we can’t rely on isolated incidents – there has to be a number of complaints from people over a period of time so as to make sure we’re just not acting on someone’s private vendetta or a temporary mail order processing problem.

So I’m afraid it’s a difficult judgment to make – after all, what’s the alternative? Like all walks in life, there’s always a small minority who spoil it for everybody. So, I guess you just have to make sure you deal with reputable suppliers I own one of these machines and after reading the Diamond advert in your August edition on page I was feeling rather ill. Could you write some kind of soothing words to restore my lost faith in the machine, if not I might just do something drastic like get CD-I instead.

I have had my CDTV for just two months and am amazed by it. I am writing this letter on the machine at the same time as listening to a music CD. Try doing that on the CD-I unit! I have seen the first batch of releases on the machine and it really Is a joke. Now on to the writer of the advert. If he had taken time to actually use the CDTV and some research, he would know that the machine is not dead and that most of the owners are very pleased with the machine and that good software was starting to appear.

Sim City is absolutely amazing. It has four full sound tracks on ft. I have also had a look at the Trivial Pursuit game. This is one that interests me because of the size of it. It comprises of two CDs. That’s over a gigabyte of information! If I were the editor of your magazine I would drop the Diamond advert because It doesn’t do much for sales of your magazine. Diamond might be better off trying to beat that.

Bet it can’t Go on – join the Amiga’s liveliest letters pages! Did you buy Betamax when everybody bought VHS? Have you booked your summer holiday In Yugoslavia? I bet you’ve got CDTV. Well don’t worry we won’t take the mlcky anymore because your not the only person who ell for all the hype, but don’t panlck, Copfa nd os always Is here lo save the day. Now who was it who said that ads were boring? We’ll have the dosh for the re-run too lads!

Could you create the next bestseller? Thanks to packages such as Palace’s Shoot’em up Construction Kit and – more recently – Domark’s 3D Kit, Amiga owners have been able to churn out fast arcade games complete with fancy sprites, smooth scrolling and even solid 3D graphics with not a single opcode or status register in sight.

Although Europress has gone to great lengths to stress AMOS’ other uses, it doesn’t take a brain the size of a planet to realise the true nature of the beast. High speed hardware scrolling, copper rainbow effects, blitter objects and interrupt driven music are hardly the kind of facilities that your average spreadsheet programmer is ever going to need. There’s no doubting that arcade fanatics are certainly well served, but developers have sadly ignored the one type of game that arguably started the computer gaming craze in the first place – adventure games.

Shame on them! Loading up the two demo games that are bundled with Visionary one of which is a very p r. You are walking through the sand dunes. I 5 You are standing in a neadou, bg an old unnrfpn shark. They are quite simply of commercial quality and as a yardstick of the program’s capabilities, Visionary seems almost too good to be true. All this power comes at a price, however. Visionary is actually a BASIC-like programming language which has been specifically designed to handle the task of writing adventure games.

So what’s the point? I hear you ask. Sure, it could be argued that AMOS is just as qualified to handle adventure games, but what makes Visionary so special is that the heart of all adventure games, the parser, is built in to Visionary so you don’t have to worry about coding your own. As a result, your adventure games will boast a parser that would have turned even Infocom the masters of the adventure game genre green with envy.

Obviously Visionary allows you to modify it to suit your own particular needs, but it’s nice to This Dungeon Master clone serves as a perfect example of what is possible with Visionary.

It’s just a shame that it takes so much work to achieve this sort of result! Both of these programs are Shell-based, so you’re going to need a pretty good knowledge of AmigaDOS to get them running. To create an adventure, you must first produce a series of source files that are then passed to the Visionary compiler for compilation.

If no errors are found they usually are! Visionary programs don’t just consist of a single source file. Instead, each aspect of your game must be split into a strict series of separate files that define such things as the startup code, the map data and objects. Each of these files must follow strict filename conventions for the compiler to recognise them. If all the source files that are needed are not present, the Visionary compiler will take exception and throw your know that this all important routine is available ‘off the shelf so to speak.

Traditional adventures were completely text based – instead of relying upon fancy graphics, the adventure weaved a yarn through the quality of its descriptions. The player interacted with the game by typing in English sentences ‘attack editor with sharpened mouse’, for example. Parser – All adventure games that are played by entering English sentences via the keyboard Take apple’, for example share a common routine called a parser.

A parser is a routine which takes the string that the player enters and breaks it down into a series of commands and parameters that the game can act upon. In the example above, the parser would break the string ‘Take Apple’ down into one command and one parameter – ‘Take’ and ‘Apple’.

The most important of these two files is the. This file basically contains all the startup information required to get your adventure running plus a few global definitions that you may need to make. Once this has been processed, the compiler then reads in the rooms file which contains the code to control the map data and the player’s movement within your virtual world. GnU Visionary insists that the source code for your adventure game is split into a set of discrete source files. Here’s only a small section of the absolutely massive rooms file which Is required for the Visionary demo game including IF..

If the parser finds the word ‘Take’ for example, it would then check to see whether a parameter follows. If it doesn’t, you’ll be presented with a line that reads something like ‘Take what? If a parameter does follow though, the parser knows that because the player is trying to ‘take’ something, the parameter must contain the name of an object within the current room that can be picked up.

It then checks to see whether that object is there and whether it can be picked up and then acts accordingly.

Simple parsers are generally quite easy to write because the ‘commands’ that they accept follow a strict format. A decent parser however like the one in Visionary is far more flexible and will accept ‘Take the red apple’ or just ‘Take apple’ without batting an eyelid. Compiler – A compiler is a separate program that converts the ascii text file that you create your source code into a stand-alone program.

Although still not as fast as pure assembly language, compiled programs usually run considerably faster than their interpreted counterparts AmigaBASIC Is interpreted, for example. By defining discrete ‘views’, resolutions and screen modes can even be mixed a HAM picture in the top half of the screen and a medium resolution text region in the bottom half, for example. If you need to change any part of your graphics, Visionary also supports a number of generic drawing commands some of which put even AMOS in the shade!

Hot spots are also another powerful aspect of Visionary. Unlike a traditional graphic adventure, the player of your game can interact with objects using the mouse simply by setting up a series of hotspots. For example, if a scene contained an object such as a copy of Amiga Shopper, the player could examine the object simply by clicking on it. Your games aren’t just restricted to graphics. Having struggled through assembly language, Cobol, C and AMOS, I must admit that the thought of learning another language didn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm.

Aegis claims that Visionary is a tracks and graphics. Using its powerful screen buffers facility, it’s quite possible to create anything from a simple graphic adventure like Magnetic Scrolls’ The Pawn to even very straightforward language, but I’m afraid I’m not totally convinced.

Although its command set is fairly straightforward, the amount of work required to get a game off the ground is quite over the top. Many of the coding tasks could easily have been handled via some form of source code generator. It took me little more than a quarter of an hour to realise that some form of source code generator was needed, so I’m surprised that Aegis itself didn’t come to the same conclusion.

I have to say that I’m impressed with the power of Visionary. It isn’t the answer to everyone’s dreams, but coders will no doubt love it. If you can face learning another new programming language, perseverance will reap substantial reward. The results obtainable from Visionary are out of this world. It’s just a shame that so much work is involved! It’s just a shame that it isn’t more accessible for the average user.

Even if you have had a lot of experience at word processing, the transition to desktop publishing is not always an easy one. Word processing places certain restrictions on what you can and cannot do, it’s a bit like painting by numbers. Desktop publishing is all about freedom of expression – you are given the canvas, the brushes and the paint, the rest is up to you. Not everyone is suited to DTP, you have to have a degree of flair for design, or at the very least a desire to design, otherwise the frustration builds up as page after page comes out looking like a pair of dingo’s kidneys.

To desktop publish properly, with complete freedom I mean, you need various things. You need lots of memory – the more the better, but at least 3Mb. You need a hard drive because loading fonts, pictures and text from floppies tends to dampen the enthusiasm for design. And you need good software – which Is what this article is all about. The answer is to test the water first. Buy a budget DTP package that works almost exactly the same as a professional one.

There’s only one choice, PageSetter II. In fact that version 1. It’s nothing like it. It’s actually a black-and-white version of an earlier incarnation of Professional Page.

It supports the Compugraphic font format, and looks and operates almost exactly the same as Professional Page 1. And although various advanced features are missing, PageSetter II can actually do a few things that even Professional Page 3 can’t.

So if you are a beginner and are thinking about getting into desktop publishing, there is no better place to start than PageSetter II.

Professional Page has moved on to version 3. It’s time to take stock and look at ail three as they stand today. WORDS Publishing is all about getting a message across to whoever is reading your publication, so the PageStream supports Adobe Type 1 fonts as well as its own outline font format and Compugraphic fonts features of a DTP package relevant to putting words on the page are arguably the most important.

On top of these. Professional Page comes with its own ‘article editor’, called AE, which is basically a version of the TransWrite word processor with the printing features removed.

This hotlink between AE and Professional Page works well and means that you do not need to buy a separate word processor and spelling checker for preparing and editing text, but Professional Page itself has a simple built-in text editor should you wish to change text directly on the page; it works quite slowly, however.

PageStream does not come with a program with which to prepare text, so you will need a word processor if you don’t want to use PageStream’s built-in text editor which, like the one in Professional Page, works slowly. This text editor does include a spelling checker, but it is so slow that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to use it for anything but checking the spelling of very small sections of text.

For more info on this, check out last month’s issue of Amiga Shopper. Saxon Publisher doesn’t come with a text preparation program either. But it has a built-in text editor which, again, operates slowly. Like PageStream, you need to buy another package, only this time there’s no hotlink available.

Professional Page is clearly winning the text importing and editing battle, with PageStream running a close second. Professional Page works with only Compugraphic or Amiga bitmap fonts. The bitmap font support is there to speed up things for PostScript users – they would use the bitmap font on screen because it draws itself faster than the Compugraphic equivalent, but at output time it is the PostScript font of the same name built into the PostScript device, or downloaded to the PostScript file that gets used, which again is quicker than rendering a Compugraphic font.

Now there’s nothing particularly wrong with the Compugraphic font system except that there are relatively few commercial Compugraphic fonts available, and next to no shareware or PD Compugraphic fonts.

Professional Page is supplied with seven Compugraphic fonts, and Amiga bitmap fonts of the ‘classic 35’ found inside PostScript devices. Because printer output is handled by the SaxonScript Professional PostScript interpreter, which comes as part of the Saxon Publisher package, all of these fonts can be output to Amiga Preferences printers any printer for which there is a Preferences printer driver as well as PostScript devices.

On top of this, Saxon Publisher is able to use any Adobe Type 1 font, and a utility can convert the lower quality Adobe Type 3 fonts into the higher quality Adobe Type 1 format. Saxon Publisher produces a screen font ‘on the fly’ and does not require Adobe Binary Font ‘ABF’ files, which are bitmapped representations of the fonts for screen display purposes only. PageStream has its own format of outline font, plus it supports Compugraphic and Adobe Type 1 fonts.

It comes with 10 Compugraphic fonts and eight Soft- Logik outline fonts. Fonts-wise, then, we have a mixed bag. Saxon Publisher is probably leading, having the most flexible system, although it doesn’t currently support the Compugraphic format I’m told that version 2 will.

It Saxon Publisher’s font system is probably the best of the lot. The ones in this list are provided with the package, plus It will Import any PostScript font you throw at it certainly comes with the greatest number of fonts. Thanks to the new FontManager program that comes with Professional Page 3. PageStream actually comes with more fonts, so it’s probably got its nose in second place.

One aspect of outline fonts I haven’t discussed yet is the time it takes to draw them on the screen. In the past PageStream was extremely tardy in this area, particularly with Compugraphic fonts, but version 2.

Professional Page 3. But Saxon Publisher 1. The answer is academic because Saxon Publisher is faster than both, although it should be kept in mind that Professional Page’s Interruptible Refresh feature means that you don’t have to wait for the whole screen to refresh in order to carry on working. It is important that, when you have a complete change of mind, the DTP program enables you to change things quickly. Otherwise it would mean starting from scratch and typesetting the whole thing again.

That’s what style tags are for. For instance if I’ve got 30 chapter headings in mm m my document, all set in Times-Bold 16pt, picked out in red and left justified, and let’s say I decide to change them to Times-Boldltalic 18pt, turn them blue and right justify them, then it’s going to take ages to do each of them one at -— a time.

With a style tag set up for chapter headings I would simply alter the relevant attributes in a style tags requester, and then every bit of text “With the Pantone colour system, you get a reference book to select exact colours,” matter how small the difference, before you can put that piece of text on to the page. PageStream and Professional Page also enable you to save and load style tags. Of the three style systems, Saxon Publisher’s is by far the most comprehensive, including details of “things like outline, fill and drop shadow colour, plus ‘texture’, which is a special type of fill pattern.

I’ve had so many crashes and strange things happen while using them that I can’t help but wonder if Probably the best thing about Saxon Publisher is its text style tags system. Each style can have five slight variations below the words ‘Font to Edit’ , and note that individual styles can be flagged to be greeked or not in the document that had that tag applied to it would automatically change to the new requirements.

All three packages support style tags. PageStream and Professional Page let you set text the hard way, without style tags, if that’s what you want, but Saxon Publisher insists that every single piece of text you have in the document has an associated style tag.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it forces a ‘structured’ approach to your typesetting, but it also means you have to go through the style set-up process first, for every section of text that is set in a different style, no Like Saxon Publisher’s style tags, the Texture Definition feature is excellent, allowing a separate colour and line weight for outlined text, and the ability to fill text with special ‘bitmapped’ textures, which are things like radial and gradient this part of PageStream is fully working.

In any case the system is the worst of the three, although adequate. Lastly in this section about Words, a bit about colour. Unless you’ve used a PC for graphics work you won’t really understand how important this is. I spoke to a guy the other day who is writing a book on PC graphics file formats and conversion utilities; after just a couple of weeks work he’d unearthed about 80 different formats.

I’m telling you this so you understand SEE Fills and colours.. While this involves the cost of a separate printing plate for each Pantone colour used, it does mean that you get exactly the colour you ask for. However for the most part you should find CMYK plenty good enough for the majority of colour work, and all three packages support the selection of colours using this system adequately.

PageStream’s graphics formats support is impressive. Anything you import into PageStream is handled by a support program called a ‘driver’, so in order to recognise a new format of file all that needs to be written is a driver for it. OK, it’s a cliche, but before it became a cliche it was a fact. Now, we are lucky on the Amiga There’s no space in this article to explain what these names and letters mean, it’s enough to know that they are popular graphics formats on the PC, Mac and Atari ST.

You should also understand that while graphics in these formats can be imported into PageStream and displayed on the screen, you cannot alter them in any way. But there is one type of graphic that can be edited after importing, a structured drawing. And while ‘ungrouping’ and editing such graphics in PageStream gives you a by-the-seat-of-the-pants feeling, it’s an impressive feature.

The GEM Metafile structured drawing format is also supported, not sure if you can edit these though as I haven’t been able to find a GEM drawing to test. You don’t need me to tell you that this is an impressive list of graphics formats. But there’s a problem with the bitmaps – memory. PageStream insists on importing and storing the whole of the bitmap in memory, and if you use the same graphic more than once, it loads it and stores it in memory more than once.

So what? You see, even a smallish bit scan at dots per inch takes up about 2Mb or 3Mb of disk space. But this is in a compressed format, de-compressed it can double in size, or more. So for PageStream to import such a graphic it requires enough memory, after the graphic has de- compressed, to store it, and then a bit more to display a black-and-white representation on-screen.

With Mb of memory you’ve got no chance, with 9Mb you might get away with one bit picture and a bit of text. There’s a less memory-hungry way to do it – read the picture in a little bit at a time, and as you do so create say a four-colour version of it in memory for screen display purposes, but leave the picture itself on disk. After all, the desktop publishing program only needs the real colour information at printing time, at which point it can read it from disk.

There are further advantages to this method which affect the speed at which you can operate during the “If you want to use bit IFF ILBMs, you’ve got no chance unless you’ve got a seriously expanded Amiga,” page design process. This ‘leave it on the disk’ technique is the one Professional Page employs and means that dozens of large bit pictures can be included in a single document without having to own a 64Mb expansion board.

I have 7Mb in my B and have managed 20 bit pictures easily. This means you need Art Department Professional, which is arguably the most impressive piece of software ever written for the Amiga. It’s much, much more than a ‘graphics format converter’, and is a perfect DTP companion to Professional Page.

But it costs money, of course, and you need at least 4Mb of memory in order to start getting the best out of it. Although these can be re- scaled, they cannot be edited; for that you’ll need Professional Draw or Aegis Draw.

When Professional Draw 3 is released there will be a hotlink between it and Professional Page, which will in effect add a complete complement of structured drawing tools to Professional Page’s repertoire at the touch of a button, in the same way that the hotlink to the Article Editor gives Professional Page a full set of word processing features.

This is something Gold Disk needs to work on. I’ve left Saxon Publisher m last because it’s almost a carbon copy of Professional Page with respect to the way it handles graphics. Like Professional Page, Saxon Publisher leaves the actual bitmap file on disk and creates a quick four- colour representation for screen display purposes. This enables you, for example, to steal, sorry, borrow graphics from somebody else’s PostScript files, including those that include bit pictures.

Dunnalf take a longtime though. What one designer thinks is an absolute necessity, other designers will shrug their shoulders at, while there are features some designers use all the time which others have never heard of. It’s impossible in an article of this size to describe and discuss the design features of all three packages, so instead I’m going to concentrate on the bad points, the quirks of each package that will restrict the flow of the old creative juices.

The concept behind designing pages is simple – you draw some boxes on the page, you put some text or pictures into those boxes, then you jiggle them around a bit. And that, basically, is how all three packages work. It’s the ‘jiggling around’ which often thwarts newcomers to DTP, they expect the program to do it for them. And to a certain extent the program can do it for you. For instance if you want your text to be in three snaking columns newspaper style of equal width, with the same space or ‘gutter’ between them, then you shouldn’t have to calculate the widths and positions, draw and position the columns one by one, you should be able to tell the program the width of the page, the number of “PageStream gives you the gun, it’s up to you whether you pull the trigger” columns you want, the width of the gutters, and let the program draw them for you.

This was the first thing that struck me about Saxon Publisher, although it can create automatic column ‘guides’ on a page, you have to draw the real boxes yourself, over the top of these dotted lines. Then I spent half a day reading the manual and playing with the program trying to find out how to group a number of boxes together in order to move them so that their overall position changed on the page but their positions relative to each other remained the same.

What a waste of half a day that was. Saxon Publisher cannot group boxes together. Neither can it link boxes automatically. I mean, say your document is a manual spreading over 20 pages, each with three columns of text on it – 60 columns in all.

Saxon Publisher insists that you click on each box in the ‘chain’ one at a time in order to make the text flow into it from the previous column. The three features mentioned above, I consider to be part of the basic requirements of any DTP package. Saxon Publisher has some extremely advanced design features – like the ability to draw boxes of any shape and fill them with text or pictures, and like its “textures’ that provide easy ways to achieve radial and gradient fills – but I’m not sure how Saxon Industries can expect us to take Saxon Publisher seriously when it lacks basic design requirements.

The way it treats rotated boxes is confusing. For example, import a picture into a box and give the box a frame. Now rotate the box, and it is the contents which gets rotated, leaving the frame upright. If you want a rotated frame around your rotated graphic you’ll have to draw and position it by hand, an impossible task to do accurately given the limitations of screen display resolution. My pet hate is the system it uses for placing text and pictures on the page.

After importing a file Saxon Publisher puts its filename into a list in the toolbox, after have to stick to giving your text and picture files a maximum filename of 10 characters.

I can’t abide software which imposes working conditions. Saxon Publisher certainly gives the design freedom we require, it’s fast, and it’s stable when asked to do a big job. But despite the ‘advanced’ features it proclaims, it lacks real power. Soloct Gonlo A ». But it only recognises and displays the first 10 characters of the filename.

So if you’ve got two files called ‘Great- LongNamel. Txt’ and ‘GreatLong- Name2. As if that’s not bad enough, if your filenames are something like ‘txt.

Which is which? There is no way of telling without putting the file into a box on the page and having a look. The basic DTP requirements are all there, and of the three systems PageStream’s is probably the easiest to get accustomed to. One feature which DTP newcomers absolutely adore is the ability to type text directly on to the page, and then pull at the handles around that text to stretch it to fill a hole on the page. But that’s PageStream lor you. It gives you the gun, it’s up to you whether you pull the trigger or not.

PageStream’s big problem is that it has never been a fast program, and it has always felt a bit wobbly when asked to jump through hoops. Rescaling a greyscale or coloured bitmap, for instance, can take a minute or more to complete, and importing a very large bitmap – a bit one for instance – almost always ends in tears.

And it gets its aspect ratios wrong. However, when you import a bitmap into PageStream it scales it Still with me? In actual fact, to scale a bitmap to its correct aspect ratio in version 2. It doesn’t tell you this in the manual, I had to find out by trial and error. Whatever the answer, it involves you having to calculate it yourself, and yet there you are with a flaming computer in front of you and the program you’re running can’t do it for you.

Do not underestimate the importance of this bitmap scaling problem. Without the correct aspect ratio, circles will not print out as circles, but as squashed or elongated ellipses. On top of this, PageStream’s printed output of rotated, twisted or slanted bitmaps is diabolical, nowhere near good enough for professional quality work. All in all, PageStream’s bitmap graphics features leave an awful lot to be desired. There’s no doubting that PageStream has ncredible power, but to increase its speed it sometimes forsakes accuracy, and often ends up biting off far more than it can chew.

You cannot ask for more freedom than PageStream gives you, and I would certainly recommend it to home users and semi-professionals, but I cannot in all honesty recommend it for professional or ‘industrial’ use, where fast and top quality results are expected. Professional Page can’t slant or twist bitmap graphics, although it can rotate them, and re-scale them of course. One drawback is that Professional Page won’t let you import text or graphics into anything but rectangular bounding boxes.

PageStream can’t do this either, but Saxon Publisher can. Honestly, I’m sitting here racking my brain trying to find something else about Professional Page to complain about, and all I can think of is the fact that to use version 3 properly you need lots of memory 6Mb or more I’d say , and the fact that it no longer runs from floppies so a hard drive is required. The power of Professional Page’s Function Genies is phenomenal.

You must have read about these, and know that they are basically ARexx scripts that perform a collection of functions at the press of a button. It is difficult to pick on Professional Page because there are not many things which it does badly. In pre-Genie days there were stacks of things PageStream could do that Professional Page couldn’t, but the Genies have changed all that, and, indeed, turned the tables. Given enough memory, Professional Page is entirely stable, faster than PageStream and just a tad slower than Saxon Publisher, gives you incredible freedom and power on its own.

If you want a condensed version of my verdict on these three packages, take a glance at the above best buy box for a summary. To conclude, it has to be said that the latest version of PageStream is basically a ‘prettified’ version of its predecessor, with a few bug fixes and a slight improvement in operating speed, whereas version 3. O0 Citizen 32k printer buffer chip. Comes with diagnostic software and booklet.

Workbench, sound, timing, realtime clock. Electronic ROM selector switch for 1. Makes all your software compatible. Keyboard or mouse controlled. Does not overlap the – allows for accelerator 2. Buying directly from die U. S with your credit card offers you the same protection as it does in the U. The Grapevine Group has been successfully servicing the U. All our parts and chips are new and guaranteed for 90 days.

Demo mode. Lesson editor, various graph options, lessons supplied, high quality graphics, easy to use, printout of a Certificate or Diploma as proof of your ability. Suitable for beginners or advanced typists. See review in last months Amiga Shopper page Touch Typist is almost over qualified. Tremendous value for money, A fine piece of software. To improve your Typing skills look no further than Touch Typist. Amiga Shopper July Now you can check the location of phone numbers used in adverts or the phone numbers on your itemised phone bill.

Regular updates available. Shows title, summaiy of content, author, issue no, date, and page number. The speed of Shopper index has to be seen to be believed. Fast output to screen or printer. Ideal tool for children to explore words, eg. Send for our catalogue of these and other programs written by Sector Software. Klckslart V1.

With the Epson colour scanner and Star laser printer you have two devices which make it possible to import high quality images Into Amiga desktop publishing software, manipulate and output them at an equally high resolution. So, running software such as Art Department Professional and Professional Page or PageStream, It’s possible not only to produce top- notch grey scale print-outs but also proof colour work which can be sent to any PostScript typesetting bureau for final printing.

But before you Jump at the chance to enter the world of pro DTP there’s just a few questions you might like answering – not least the price. Let’s take a look at the Input side of things first of all What a superb piece of equipment this scanner isl In all of my days of reviewing, never have I come across an Kern of hardware so easy to set up, use, and which produces such good results.

This means that it can scan pictures up to x mm in size, in either straight black and white, grey scales, or It also means that you don’t have to bother dragging a scanning head across your original image. All you have to do is plonk the picture to be scanned on a tray, close the scanner’s lid and let the machine get on with it.

Before you get too excited, remember that a full colour A4 scan at the maximum resolution takes up about Mb. A Nineteen different resolutions are available with the scanner, ranging from 50 to dots per inch. Choosing a resolution always involves a trade off between detail required and space available. It also depends on the resolution of your output device and the scale at which the scanned image will be output.

For instance, if your printer has a resolution of dots per inch and you intend to print a picture in a box which measures 2 inches square, then if the original image is 4 inches square there is no point in scanning at a resolution higher than dpi. There are other things to watch out for, too, such as the resolution at which your original images have been printed.

Magazine pictures are printed using a process “Choosing a resolution involves a trade off between detail required and space available. Not only does it explain the basics of setting up and using the scanner, it contains plenty of handy tips on how best to scan a number of different types of images.

Well that’s the thing that makes this package such a boon. The scanner controller called screening. Dots of black, yellow, magenta and cyan are placed in close patterns to reproduce a full range of colours.

Scan a magazine picture too closely and this screening effect will be quite noticeable. The greater the number of dots per inch, the more the image looks smoothly drawn and the more difficult it is to discern that it is made up of dots. Font – The group of letters, numbers and special characters that comprise one variation of typeface, eg: 12pt Times, 12pt Times Bold, 12pt Times Italic. Sometimes mistakenly used in desktop publishing to refer to a type family.

The height of a font – the distance from the top of the highest ascender to the bottom of the lowest descender – is normally expressed in points. Printer driver – A program that sits inbetween any applications program producing output and the printer. It converts any codes describing text and graphics format into a form suitable for a specific printer. You need an awful lot of disk space to store this kind of image: not only Is it bit, but it’s A4 in size, taking up over 1.

Doubling the scanning resolution quadruples the memory requirements TOP W? There’s even the chance to run through a trial install so you can see how it works without actually writing anything to disk. It’s things like this that let you know you’re using a truly professional piece of software. The software can be used in two ways. The first is to make it a module complementing Art Department, in which case it is accessed with the program’s Load option.

Instead of a disk requester, the scanner screen appears, and the image produced by the scanner, which is plugged into the Amiga’s parallel port, is loaded into memory just as if it had been an image already recorded on disk.

The second method is to use the scanner controller program as a stand-alone application, the advantage being that aside from not needing to own Art Department scans are recorded direct to disk, so it’s possible to scan images larger than your available memory. The installation program that comes with the software is excellent. Once the software is installed, You’d be amazed at just how easy it is to grab an image. Full control of the scanner stages: ‘Preview’ and Fine Scan’.

The preview mode scans at a low resolution monochrome, using half- toning to achieve grey scales. Clicking on the sides of a rectangular border with the mouse enables you to select precisely the area of the image you are interested in.

Click on Scan when you’ve done so, then click on Accept if you’re happy with what you’ve chosen. At any time, you can step through each of the available resolutions and the software will tell you precisely how much memory the scanned image would take up in monochrome, grey scale and full colour. Once you have everything set up and have clicked on Accept, it’s time to scan for real. This screen operates in much the same manner as the preview one. You select whether you want a monochrome, grey scale or full colour image, and which resolution you require.

You will be told how much memory this will take up; if there isn’t enough the figure will be displayed in black irrelevant if you are scanning direct to disk. You may also select the scanner’s zoom option, which ranges from 50 to percent, although ASDG recommends you always scan at percent and use Art Department to zoom if you need to do so, since it Is capable of producing more intelligent results.

There are three further options which may be selected. The first is Using the scanner is simplicity itself. Go to the preview screen, which gives you a dithered grey scale interpretation of the image at a low resolution.

This enables you to crop the image. Memory requirements are given for different resolutions and numbers of colours. Once you’ve selected the area you’re interested in, move to the scan window, click on the button and the scanner does the rest fLKJASV is available from the screen – there’s no need whatsoever to touch the hardware except to place pictures on the bed.

Scanning is divided into two brightness, which is self-explanatory. Setting gamma correction will alter the balance of light and dark tones to produce the optimum scan for either a monitor or one of several types of printer. Selecting colour correction will do the same thing for the relationship between colours.

After that, a click on the Accept button sets things in motion. If you’re scanning direct to disk, first enter a filename in a Save requester. As with the hardware, the manual for the software is of an excellent standard. Because the program has been written specifically for this scanner, there is no guess work involved: the manual tells you exactly what you need to do to get the results you want. Not that there’s much need for a manual – you’ll be scanning within minutes of taking everything out of the box.

A Sure is. The images produced are of remarkable clarity. In fact, I only noticed one flaw: when colour scanning an original with black next to white, a fringing of colours occurred.

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Windows 10 1703 download iso itarget laserjet.

You may well find cheaper suppliers and less advanced products. The mix and match bodies and locations included add to the fun and flexibility. This will enable visitors to be admitted more easily and help avoid the queueing problems which resulted from Wembley safety regulations last year. Meanwhile, a large number of exhibitors from the Acorn marketplace have already booked space and early indi- cations are that the show will be bigger and better than ever Watch BAU for more details in the near future – meanwhile, make a note in your diary for October 1 6 to 1 8, Initial enquiries concerning stand space should be directed to Safesell Exhibitions.

Tel: Computer Concepts has turned its atten- tion to the colour printing market. Colou rDi reel print- outs seen by BAU were cer- tainly impressive. This provision also anticipates future Archimedes video chip developments. At a later date, com- puter Concepts plans to sell the printer driver separately. Norsafs European director, Tom Wood- ford, explained that ASOOOs were chosen because of their network- ing and multitasking abilities – which means anyone machine could take over the functions of another, guaranteeing reliability.

Archimedes are now controlling operations at four other indepen- dent local radio stations -two m the UK and two in Malaysia. It wilt appear on April 1. Contact Ace Computing on First is a Floptical 21Mb floppy disc drive. This is a conventional looking 3,51n drive which has ultra- thin magnetic data tracks enabling a much greater recording den- sity. Floptical packs have over KXXltpi.

A liny LED optical sensor is used to guide the heads along laser etched grooves. It remains compatible with all existing 3, Sin floppy disc media. This is a black and white solid state camera which stores up to 32 pictures digitally in on-board Ram.

Pic- tures are then downloaded to your machine via the serial port. The range is made up of DTS points out that its monitors operate a scanning range of 1 KHz, ideal for Archi- medes screen modes, including modes 12 and Other multi- scan monitors often scan between KHz, which is not suitable for lower re solu- tion screen modes.

The l Sin and larger models also sport a four-setting video pre-set to minimise the need 10 constantly re adjust the screen position when changing between certain screen modes. All the user has to do is type a word into a window and sug- gested synonyms are listed in grammatical groups. By the time this issue of BA U is out. Another roadshow week is planned for November 23 to For further information contact Atom Computers on EMCEE’S task will be to build on Acorn 1 r s strength in Irish primary schools and increase the company’s pre- sence in secondary schools, where the main competition comes from Apple Macintosh computers.

Aimed at both busi- ness and home users, there will be plenty of advice on choos- ing software for a variety of platforms. Helpful case studies featur- ing companies and individuals making software choices will be included. The programme will also cover training,. The programme will feature an Archimedes in the studio, which wilt be running popular software, such as Pipe dr earn and Impression.

There will also be a special competition to win the software featured. The programme will be shown on BBC 1 at British Summertime falls on this day. Alter- natively. Wat- ford Electronics has revealed details of a rival PC podule designed by prolific ex -Com- puter Concepts hardware expert. Chris Honey. Apart from sharing the goal of providing a full -speed hardware-based PC environ- ment on the Are, it is interest- ing to note that the two competing designs differ in more than just minor details.

Intel SX processor used by Aleph One. In other words, Wat- ford’s card could have an optional keyboard and monitor attached to it and two people could use a single machine at the same time – one using Rise OS and the other Dos. Chris Honey says his design route avoids the display limita- tions of the PC Emulator, which can only partially emu- late a full VGA screen. Other options include high density HD 1. Availability of the Watford card has yet to be confirmed, but managing director Nazir Jessa hinted that pricing would be very competitive with Aleph One’s PC cards, which are already on sale.

Corporate affairs manager. Brian Salter, also gets more responsibilities and is now head of publications and events organisation. The reshuffle took place after the Computer Shopper Show last December, which was not regarded as a success for Acorn.

Although it had a presence at the show, Acorn’s stand space was booked late and there was no time to capitalise on its presence. The upgrade features a motherboard which brings total memory up to 3Mb. Extra 4Mb upgrades, giving a potential maximum of 16Mb. The old version used a sponge to attract the ink to the business end of the cartridge.

Ink reservoir space has been saved by eliminating the sponge and the cartridge case is now trans- parent so you can see clearly when the ink is getting low. The new cartridge has a typical life of about 1. Miss Brown was in a tangle.

One group wanted to play the drums, but the music budget barely stretches to a tambourine. Another wanted to write its own music, but it all got rather messy.

In the end, she got them all to sing a round song. This week. Miss Brown is using Notate. Now composing music is easy — notes, rests etc. Then the music can be played back immediately, and changes made to rhythm, tempo or pitch.

The computer can sound like anything from a cow bell to a trombone, from a melodic tom-tom to a hand clap. And up to eight of these Instruments” can be played at once. Miss Brown has a sound sampler attached to her Archimedes too, so she can record more of her own instruments.

Including the human voice. So now three students are singing a barber shop quartet — the computer is humming the fourth pan. Whether you want to play percussion with seven year olds or think theory with seventeen year olds. Modern indexing techniques mean superfast searches every time. Squirrel understands days of the week, months of the year and recognises files from other popular packages. Queries may be made onto other popular computers such as an IBM or Macintosh, even remotely over telephone tines.

One of the benefits of a computer network is the ability to send electronic messages. But while electronic mail is useful, it does not have the advantages of a bulletin board. With H idtethu individual users may examine messages left by others and reply to them, or initiate discussion on various topics.

The rolling displays ore pro- duced by dropping saved pictures on to the screens directory and clicking on the icon. It costs C 1 2 plus vat. Also, a new version of Pri- me An has a option for use in high-resolution mode 21, Other new features include support for a Concep[ Key- board.

Contact Minerva on , and colleges in the Wakefield area in the form of matched funding. Money donated by local industry was matched pound-for-pound by the part- nership to enable the school to purchase the equipment. Karen Range ley, the part- nership manager, and local haulage contractor Eddie Sto- bart arc pictured below with the Knotting ley headteacher Janet Taylor and some of her enthusiastic pupils. During his tour he was introduced to Acorn’s managing director Sam Wau- chope and r considerably Impressed by the power of the Acorn machines, suggested that it might be a good idea if they were, er r used in our schools.

Acorn’s sales and marketing director, Mike Q’Riordan, said: ‘With Peter’s combination of experience of the education mar- ket, and of sales and marketing, 1 am sure he will bring to Acorn a wealth of benefits that will help us to continue our leading role within the education sector.

The soft- ware was then ported over to PCs, on which the system will run, although there is the pos- sibility of linking into the UCLES project with an Archimedes machine. FaxPack offers full background send and receive capability. Fax Pack then proceeds to diat and send the fax while you carry on using the computer. Receiving faxes is also completely automatic. FaxPack will answer the phone and store the fax away on your disc while you continue to use the computer.

Once received the fax can be viewed on screen fusing a special anti-aliased display to improve on-screen readability] and printed. Any portion of the fax image can be saved as a conventional sprite. Alternatively FaxPack can be made to automatically print on receipt of a fax. J Since there is no need to print then re-scan a document, FaxPack saves time, paper a nd money when sending faxes.

J Fa x Pa c k a 1 1 o ws e I e ctronic arch iving of fax messages and is one step towards the truly paperless office, J FaxPack usesyourstandardArchimedesprinter and so can print on plain paper rather than thermal paper, in addition FaxPack can be used as a data modem, to send and receive any Archimedes file or directory of files to other machines fitted with FaxPack.

Because of the baud rate of fax systems and the use of data compression FaxPack is faster than practically all conventional data modems and permits background data transfer.

HOW many readers skip over the com ms column, thinking that it’s loo complex for them. Maybe they have watched the Him Wargames and imagine a whole sub-culture of boffins, hacking their way into hidden computer networks.

Well, nowadays its not quite like that. Com ms come into many aspects of life, from the cashpoint machine to ord- ering in a high street book- store. At the home computer level, playing online games is a favourite corn ms pastime. So, if you arc a computer novice, how do you get started? Well all you need is a modem, a computer and some suitable com ms software. A modem is simply the box which plugs into your phone line and your computer.

It converts your data into strange noises, sends them down the phone line into a modem at the other end, which then converts the strange noises back into computer data. The cornms software is sim- ply a package that lets you choose the data to convert into strange noises, and send them whizzing down the phone line. To get started, you don’t need to worry about speed and all that stuff – most systems that you dial up will adjust thdr speed to suit your modem.

The only thing to remember is that the faster your modem, the cheaper your phone bill will be. Comms software can often be bought at the same time as your modem but be warned – there arc alot to choose from.

The latest area on Arcade is Virus watch This is a special area containing all the latest virus killers together with a run down of which viruses each will kill and any relevant information to help keep your discs virus free. Arcade can also provide any new Acorn press releases, often before the magazines pick them up. A special download section con- tains text-only files of news stories updated the day they are released.

Arcade is run on a very friendly, dub- 1 ike basis and u set’s are always ready to help out newcomers, or anyone having problems with their systein.

The sysop is Marcus Harri- son. According to Graham, there’s lots of mes- sages. It also supports Fidonet and World- net. However, this BB is cur- rently only available from 1 0. Running at all speeds from V2I up to V42bis and boasting Mbytes of online storage it caters for most machine types. II you know of any bulletin boards that you feel deserve our atten- tion.

Although it is currently biased towards PC users. Acorn support may increase if lots of users log on. Echo mail conferences also support worldwide Netmail and on-line games such as Trade wars. We woulei like to correct two errors that crept into our February column.

The correct number for Silicon Village should be Apologies to all concerned! Well now you can. The Powerhouse is on Use of the system will start at the beginning of March and allow access to over 20 countries, including the U5A, Japan and most of Europe. For more infor- mation, call freephone customer helpline on Carl Declerck has developed the first public domain host system for Arc users. The most important one is the ability to work in any colour mode supported by the Archimedes.

Up until now, it only worked in Mode 13 and it was restricted by the rather chunky x graphics. The new Arvo! Desktop installs itself on the menu bar like other Rise OS appli- cations, hut switches to lull screen when ran.

Pictures are created by describing scenes in special script files, in a similar way to the origin ei I Render Bender program by Clares. MTV , on the other hand, is THIS month s special mention should go to S Gore ham who at the grand young age of 75 has recently turned his hand to computer graphics.

The ship also a popular public domain ray tracer Eind has similar fea- tures to QRT. You may also be able to obtain the programs from bulletin boards such eis Arcade featured in this month’s com ms page. Next month, this column will take a quick took at some of the painting pack- Eiges that are available in the public domain. Rob Miller above is one that was pro- duced using a friend’s home- grown art package on an A computer. Certainly eio inspiring example! This is a presentation pEiek- age of the same ilk as Type – Studio reviewed 3;ist month.

The Vision image size is pixels by lines with 1 28 effective grey scales using ETT Error Transfer Technique A manual on disc, software and a lead are included in this package. There is a Vision Digitiser to suit any Archimedes. The Vision Black and White Digitiser is in stock now and a available in colour upgrade June, with a discount to existing users. NE9 5JJ. Or why not take out a subscrip- tion, which includes a free monthly disc? When we launched the Oak 16 Bit SCSI card and a range of hard disc drives in , they quickly became the market leader.

Not only have we addressed the question of price but we have taken steps to enhance our reputation for quality and reliability by introducing the Quantum hard disc mechanism and the low noise Papst fan into our lew cost Worm Winnie Range of hard disc drives. With several newcomers to the hard disc marketplace, the issue of performance has become a little clouded of la it-, so to set things straight.

Oak SCSI software is Atom compatible, and allows ha rd discs to be partitioned into several logical partitions, which may be write protected if required. All our tape backup systems include DakTape. Backups are done on a tile by file basis with versatile control over backup criteria.

Ei seems that there is no standard style in which infor- mation is published. It appears that a lot of Acorn-related merchandise is purchased though mail order, so eye-catching packaging is not really necessary. Why not adopt the simple idea that many computer companies have of using a loose-leaf hinder?

Compute r Concept s DTP package. Impression, uses one. Any upgrades to software would only need a few pages, or a file for prim- ing, rather than a new book, or some hastily printed sheets. Since most DTP software supports various page sizes and formats, it is quite feasible that Public Domain and less expensive software instruc- tions can be provided as test files, which could be primed out if desired.

Already a lot of PD software is only docu- mented on disc. While such a system may not he immediately imple- mented, I hope publishers think about what they are producing.

Richard Broakes Dun vail t Swansea The packaging supplied with Impression is peril ops the best example of an updatable manual, although CC does not keep this standard throughout their range.

The ideal situation would lie for nil software to be supplied in a stan cl nrcl box – The Fourth Dimension uses a multi-pur- pose box For all of its games.

When is it coming back? But if anybody has a special request for a specific program, then let us know. Although ii was secondhand, it hasn’t given me any prob- lems so far. On the other hand my friend bought an Amiga base unit with a hit of bundled soft- ware and 5I2K of memory for the same price. He would buy a printer, bui is seated that ii would be incom- patible with his software. Archimedes games are usually fast load- ing. Looking at the graphics side of the Amiga, you do have a lot of colours, but these are only used in ray tracing.

Inci- dentally. The arguments for the Arc are numerous. This review gives the impres- sion that Spark and ArcFS are public domain programs, or perhaps Shareware. They arc not and I would not wish anybody to gain the idea that they are.

Susan Chapman from the Netherlands is trying to computerise her school library recoids using an Archimedes computer. She wonders if there is any suit- able database software that will allow her to keep book titles, authors, classification numbers and topics, and to update them as required.

When you fin- ish typing your text in. The second error is caused by Draw not being able lo find your fonts directory. Draw looks for Trin- ity. Medium by default so you should double click on Fonts, before you load Draw.

He asks if there is an application to enable him to do this. As such it will load your existing Maestro tunes and convert them to the new Rhapsody format. It not only contains support for Rise OS printer drivers, enabling you to print out your fin- ished tune, but also has a host of additional features not supported by Maestro, For a professional output you can get an additional package called Sen redraw which will produce printed results just like genuine manuscript shed music.

It works on both hard and floppy discs and sup- ports any filing system. Q This sounds like a symptom of a flat bat- tery inside the computer. He asks if there is a simple solution to avoid this, E! Every time you click on a new disc, its name is added to a list of disc names currently held inside the computer. This is kept until you either turn off the machine or dismount the disc. Mi s Coop only has a cassette recorder and wonders if there is any software avail- able on tape.

B i A commonly asked ques- tion was that posed by D Green of Sunderland. Arxe systems, d l- L19H, are actively work- ing on Spectrum and Atari emulators but admit that an Amiga one may be a little bit tricky. Still, vou never know! Please send your questions, whether technical or otherwise, to: Questions and Answers BBCAtornUser Brunswick Place London, m GDJ, We are happy to answer your queries on these pages, but regret that we are unable to send personal replies to questions sent in.

Good explanations 01 priming. Th sr jnty u you myaiir JiumMs rescue ship. SCSI drives. Do not be baffled by products with ‘go faster stripes’ Remember A3K6 also allows for an extra internal card; giving a total of It is a custom made connector that does not rely on test clips and even has an LED to test for the correct fitting.

Thursday 9am to 8pm, FREE customer car park. Hardware engineers must be la mi liar with I he Archimedes architecture and able to lollow a project from pence pi ion to production.

Qualifications are not as essential as your ability to produce innovative solutions to challenging problems. No soldering required. Fitting instructions supplied. A upgrades require a backplane and a Ian.

Ideal lor school environment. The C-arri allows many a! The card is provided with all the software in ROM and is automatically loaded when he machine is turned on. A luse is fined to the card to protecl Ihe A30QD from damage arising from accidental short circuit of the power output. The card is provided with an extensive manual explaining installation, all software commands, connector pm outs, hardware addresses and example programs.

The kit is supplied with a disk, and the necessary cable to connect the two computers. Upto 4 disc drives can be connected, Fully Buffered Board. Supplied complete with necessary lead. Using the latest surface- mount technology on a high quality tour layer circuit board we have reduced the overall size to a mere 53mm x 45mm.

Mk El upgrade writ increase the speed of your micro by a factor of 3 to 5. Accounts packs: Cashbook, Fina! It provides a fast and flexible means of capturing images Irom a video camera or recorder for display and manipulation on the Archimedes range of Micros.

Off-air televison signals may also be digitised via a video recorder or TV tuner. Please write for further details. Working area 9″ x 8″. We have informed most of the software houses of this decision in order that they can ensure compatibility with our highly sophisticated and fully Acorn compatible DDFS.

It also has all the commands of the Acorn’s 1 DFS, plus the added features. Each disc has a reinforced hub ring. Supplied complete with selfstick labels and a Plastic Library Disc Box. For ease of use, the switches are front mounted. These prices, coupled with the backup of one of the country’s largest distributors of BBC peripherals provides a superb deal. When using a BBC Micro, most people find themselves short of desk space.

Your BBC Disc Drive and Monitor can ait occupy the same vertical footprint and still be comfortably situated, With She Watford Double Plinth, your Disc Drive is mounted vertically at one side, leaving a very valuable area directly in front of you for such useful items as spare discs, pen. Follow the trend with a Watford pfinth. Turn to the 6th page of our advert for the Plinths. S, AH our 5. Alt you require is our special Compact Disc Drive cables designed by us.

They are supplied complete with all cables and a Utilities Disc. The use of Cleaner Kir is a sensible precaution against losing valuable data. It is recommended to clean the drive head once a weak, it is very simple to use. Available in 3. Each computer has a status light dedicated to it. II it is gneen you will get immediate aocess to the disk, and red means thal you are next in tine.

The unit plugs directly into the disc drive socket on each computer and is powered by the mains, N,B. Mot lot use with ADFS. Antistatic helps avoid data corruption whilst in storage. The smoked top locks down. Of the three style systems, Saxon Publisher’s is by far the most comprehensive, including details of “things like outline, fill and drop shadow colour, plus ‘texture’, which is a special type of fill pattern.

Its Type Style and associated Texture Definition requesters contain a plethora of features, and it only falls down on tab positions, which can be only evenly-spaced – every half-inch for nstance. Professional Page’s style tag system is just a whisker behind Saxon’s, with the added benefit that separate Paragraph Tags can be set up and included as part of a Style Tag. I don’t trust PageStream’s style tags. I’ve had so many crashes and strange things happen while using them that I can’t help but wonder if Probably the best thing about Saxon Publisher is its text style tags system.

Each style can have five slight variations below the words ‘Font to Edit’ , and note that individual styles can be flagged to be greeked or not in the document that had that tag applied to it would automatically change to the new requirements. All three packages support style tags.

PageStream and Professional Page let you set text the hard way, without style tags, if that’s what you want, but Saxon Publisher insists that every single piece of text you have in the document has an associated style tag. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it forces a ‘structured’ approach to your typesetting, but it also means you have to go through the style set-up process first, for every section of text that is set in a different style, no Like Saxon Publisher’s style tags, the Texture Definition feature is excellent, allowing a separate colour and line weight for outlined text, and the ability to fill text with special ‘bitmapped’ textures, which are things like radial and gradient this part of PageStream is fully working.

However for the most part you should find CMYK plenty good enough for the majority of colour work, and all three packages support the selection of colours using this system adequately. PageStream’s graphics formats support is impressive. Anything you import into PageStream is handled by a support program called a ‘driver’, so in order to recognise a new format of file all that needs to be written is a driver for it.

OK, it’s a cliche, but before it became a cliche it was a fact. Now, we are lucky on the Amiga There’s no space in this article to explain what these names and letters mean, it’s enough to know that they are popular graphics formats on the PC, Mac and Atari ST. You should also understand that while graphics in these formats can be imported into PageStream and displayed on the screen, you cannot alter them in any way. But there is one type of graphic that can be edited after importing, a structured drawing.

And while ‘ungrouping’ and editing such graphics in PageStream gives you a by-the-seat-of-the-pants feeling, it’s an impressive feature. The GEM Metafile structured drawing format is also supported, not sure if you can edit these though as I haven’t been able to find a GEM drawing to test. You don’t need me to tell you that this is an impressive list of graphics formats.

But there’s a problem with the bitmaps – memory. PageStream insists on importing and storing the whole of the bitmap in memory, and if you use the same graphic more than once, it loads it and stores it in memory more than once.

Although these can be re- scaled, they cannot be edited; for that you’ll need Professional Draw or Aegis Draw. When Professional Draw 3 is released there will be a hotlink between it and Professional Page, which will in effect add a complete complement of structured drawing tools to Professional Page’s repertoire at the touch of a button, in the same way that the hotlink to the Article Editor gives Professional Page a full set of word processing features.

This enables you, for example, to steal, sorry, borrow graphics from somebody else’s PostScript files, including those that include bit pictures. Dunnalf take a longtime though. What one designer thinks is an absolute necessity, other designers will shrug their shoulders at, while there are features some designers use all the time which others have never heard of.

It’s impossible in an article of this size to describe and discuss the design features of all three packages, so instead I’m going to concentrate on the bad points, the quirks of each package that will restrict the flow of the old creative juices. The concept behind designing pages is simple – you draw some boxes on the page, you put some text or pictures into those boxes, then you jiggle them around a bit. And that, basically, is how all three packages work. It’s the ‘jiggling around’ which often thwarts newcomers to DTP, they expect the program to do it for them.

And to a certain extent the program can do it for you. For instance if you want your text to be in three snaking columns newspaper style of equal width, with the same space or ‘gutter’ between them, then you shouldn’t have to calculate the widths and positions, draw and position the columns one by one, you should be able to tell the program the width of the page, the number of “PageStream gives you the gun, it’s up to you whether you pull the trigger” columns you want, the width of the gutters, and let the program draw them for you.

Saxon Publisher cannot group boxes together. Neither can it link boxes automatically. I mean, say your document is a manual spreading over 20 pages, each with three columns of text on it – 60 columns in all.

After importing a file Saxon Publisher puts its filename into a list in the toolbox, after have to stick to giving your text and picture files a maximum filename of 10 characters.

Soloct Gonlo A ». But it only recognises and displays the first 10 characters of the filename. So if you’ve got two files called ‘Great- LongNamel. Txt’ and ‘GreatLong- Name2. As if that’s not bad enough, if your filenames are something like ‘txt. Which is which?

There is no way of telling without putting the file into a box on the page and having a look. The basic DTP requirements are all there, and of the three systems PageStream’s is probably the easiest to get accustomed to. One feature which DTP newcomers absolutely adore is the ability to type text directly on to the page, and then pull at the handles around that text to stretch it to fill a hole on the page. But that’s PageStream lor you. It gives you the gun, it’s up to you whether you pull the trigger or not.

There’s no doubting that PageStream has ncredible power, but to increase its speed it sometimes forsakes accuracy, and often ends up biting off far more than it can chew.

Professional Page can’t slant or twist bitmap graphics, although it can rotate them, and re-scale them of course. One drawback is that Professional Page won’t let you import text or graphics into anything but rectangular bounding boxes. PageStream can’t do this either, but Saxon Publisher can.

Honestly, I’m sitting here racking my brain trying to find something else about Professional Page to complain about, and all I can think of is the fact that to use version 3 properly you need lots of memory 6Mb or more I’d say , and the fact that it no longer runs from floppies so a hard drive is required. The power of Professional Page’s Function Genies is phenomenal. You must have read about these, and know that they are basically ARexx scripts that perform a collection of functions at the press of a button.

It is difficult to pick on Professional Page because there are not many things which it does badly. In pre-Genie days there were stacks of things PageStream could do that Professional Page couldn’t, but the Genies have changed all that, and, indeed, turned the tables. Given enough memory, Professional Page is entirely stable, faster than PageStream and just a tad slower than Saxon Publisher, gives you incredible freedom and power on its own.

O0 Citizen 32k printer buffer chip. Comes with diagnostic software and booklet. Workbench, sound, timing, realtime clock. Electronic ROM selector switch for 1. Makes all your software compatible.

Keyboard or mouse controlled. Does not overlap the – allows for accelerator 2. Buying directly from die U. S with your credit card offers you the same protection as it does in the U. The Grapevine Group has been successfully servicing the U. All our parts and chips are new and guaranteed for 90 days. Demo mode. Lesson editor, various graph options, lessons supplied, high quality graphics, easy to use, printout of a Certificate or Diploma as proof of your ability.

Suitable for beginners or advanced typists. See review in last months Amiga Shopper page Touch Typist is almost over qualified. Tremendous value for money, A fine piece of software. To improve your Typing skills look no further than Touch Typist. Amiga Shopper July Now you can check the location of phone numbers used in adverts or the phone numbers on your itemised phone bill.

A fast and functional product, STD Index could save you hundreds of pounds. CU Amiga October! Look no further, Amiga Shopper Index will provide answers in an instant, over 1 reviews, articles, letters news items are all cross referenced in a self loading database program. Now you can turn your pile of magazines into a complete reference work. Regular updates available. Shows title, summaiy of content, author, issue no, date, and page number. The speed of Shopper index has to be seen to be believed.

Fast output to screen or printer. Ideal tool for children to explore words, eg. Send for our catalogue of these and other programs written by Sector Software. Klckslart V1. With the Epson colour scanner and Star laser printer you have two devices which make it possible to import high quality images Into Amiga desktop publishing software, manipulate and output them at an equally high resolution.

So, running software such as Art Department Professional and Professional Page or PageStream, It’s possible not only to produce top- notch grey scale print-outs but also proof colour work which can be sent to any PostScript typesetting bureau for final printing. But before you Jump at the chance to enter the world of pro DTP there’s just a few questions you might like answering – not least the price. Let’s take a look at the Input side of things first of all What a superb piece of equipment this scanner isl In all of my days of reviewing, never have I come across an Kern of hardware so easy to set up, use, and which produces such good results.

Choosing a resolution always involves a trade off between detail required and space available. It also depends on the resolution of your output device and the scale at which the scanned image will be output. For instance, if your printer has a resolution of dots per inch and you intend to print a picture in a box which measures 2 inches square, then if the original image is 4 inches square there is no point in scanning at a resolution higher than dpi. There are other things to watch out for, too, such as the resolution at which your original images have been printed.

The scanner controller called screening. Dots of black, yellow, magenta and cyan are placed in close patterns to reproduce a full range of colours. Scan a magazine picture too closely and this screening effect will be quite noticeable.

The greater the number of dots per inch, the more the image looks smoothly drawn and the more difficult it is to discern that it is made up of dots. Font – The group of letters, numbers and special characters that comprise one variation of typeface, eg: 12pt Times, 12pt Times Bold, 12pt Times Italic. Sometimes mistakenly used in desktop publishing to refer to a type family.

It’s things like this that let you know you’re using a truly professional piece of software. The software can be used in two ways. The first is to make it a module complementing Art Department, in which case it is accessed with the program’s Load option. Instead of a disk requester, the scanner screen appears, and the image produced by the scanner, which is plugged into the Amiga’s parallel port, is loaded into memory just as if it had been an image already recorded on disk.

The installation program that comes with the software is excellent. Once the software is installed, You’d be amazed at just how easy it is to grab an image. Full control of the scanner stages: ‘Preview’ and Fine Scan’. The preview mode scans at a low resolution monochrome, using half- toning to achieve grey scales. Clicking on the sides of a rectangular border with the mouse enables you to select precisely the area of the image you are interested in.

This enables you to crop the image. Memory requirements are given for different resolutions and numbers of colours.

Once you’ve selected the area you’re interested in, move to the scan window, click on the button and the scanner does the rest fLKJASV is available from the screen – there’s no need whatsoever to touch the hardware except to place pictures on the bed.

Selecting colour correction will do the same thing for the relationship between colours. After that, a click on the Accept button sets things in motion. If you’re scanning direct to disk, first enter a filename in a Save requester.

As with the hardware, the manual for the software is of an excellent standard. Because the program has been written specifically for this scanner, there is no guess work involved: the manual tells you exactly what you need to do to get the results you want.

Not that there’s much need for a manual – you’ll be scanning within minutes of taking everything out of the box. A Sure is.

The images produced are of remarkable clarity. In fact, I only noticed one flaw: when colour scanning an original with black next to white, a fringing of colours occurred. Apart from this, I can recommend the scanner unreservedly to the serious Amiga desktop publisher.

Plug in the hardware, install the software and you’re away. The Star LaserPrinter 4 StarScript has PostScript compatibility and, although expensive, it is nevertheless good value when compared to its competitors. A Like all laser printers, the StarScript is a page printer. One page is printed at a time, not as a series of horizontal lines, but all at once. The printer uses its own memory to store an image of the page as it is sent by the computer. Once the whole image has been received, the printer puts it on to the paper using much the same mechanism as a photocopier.

The advantage is that laser printers don’t suffer from banding, the distortion in vertical spacing between lines caused by inaccuracies in the paper feed mechanism of line printers. Also, because laser printers use expensive toner cartridges instead of ribbons, their output tends to be much cleaner and even.

Neither are there any problems with wet ink smudging, as may be experienced by ink jet owners. The printer’s resolution is dots per inch. This isn’t bad, although the composite dots can be seen in text at a large point size. You may be surprised to find that the resolution is lower than some dot matrix and most ink jet printers, which, if used with the correct printer driver, can yield up to dots per inch.

A Paper is fed in from a tray at the side, which can be altered to accept several different sizes of paper: letter, legal, A4, executive and B5; along with the following kinds of envelopes: monarch, com, international DL and international C5.

Optional cassettes and a paper feeder are also available. A Finding the correct printer driver is always a problem with hard copy output from the Amiga. Star’s printer makes this a little easier by providing two emulations, selectable from the control panel or via escape codes. The first is an Epson FX emulation, provided primarily for compatibility with dot matrix printers. The chances are that you won’t bother with this, and will instead use Using the HP emulation, it is possible to output straight text, in which case one of the printer’s internal fonts is used.

In HP mode, these are fairly limited: there are two different sizes of Courier, a mono- spaced font, in either normal, bold or italic, and a font called Line printer which squeezes in more characters per inch than is fair to the average eye.

It’s possible to make use of other fonts, too. It is also possible, in Hewlett Grey scale prints look particularly attractive with the Star LaserPrinter. Of course, It takes a good while for a picture like this to print out, and if the original image is too dark then the results are going to be disappointing.

It’s best to convert a colour picture to grey scale and adjust the palette to avoid too dark prints the Hewlett Packard LaserJet IIP emulation. The problem, of course, is that the Amiga printer driver isn’t entirely compatible with the printer’s emulation – this is hardly surprising since the driver was written for an earlier version of the printer.

Nevertheless, the output is up to scratch in all but one department: an irritating margin being created around an A4 page. Packard emulation mode, to download fonts via software. Since most Amiga packages have difficulty in enabling the user to choose from a printer’s available selection of fonts anyway, the choice of extra fonts is largely academic. Graphical output is fine – monochrome or grey scale, that is.

It goes without saying that this is a black and white printer, with shades of grey being represented by variations in the density of black dots. The results, as you can see from the illustrations on this and the following page, are excellent, but sending graphic images to the printer is a time consuming business.

Normally PageStream. The difference is that PageStream will output to the highest resolution the printer is capable of, in this case dots per inch.

It was therefore easy to create an A4 page using any of the fonts that PageStream cared to offer me, and including structured clip art or bit-mapped pictures from, say, Deluxe Paint. This resulted in a very smart looking page being produced by the printer. Any of the fonts supplied with PageStream can be used because they are being sent as part of a large bit map – the printer need not know anything about them.

The printer can be used in this manner to produce professional looking documents, letters, reports and so on. The only problem is the over- large margins caused by the lack of a suitable printer driver.

This is a problem with most laser printers used with the Amiga. The Star LaserPrinter is more expensive than many, though, and so you would expect it to deal with the problem in some way.

It does. PostScript is the solution – or rather Star’s cloned Am. It offers a lot more to the printer as part of the PostScript file. This has the effect of greatly increasing the printing time, since the definition for every character in the font is sent to the printer, even if only a exceeds the printer’s memory. Using a PostScript printer gives you instant access to 35 high quality advantages than the seemingly simple ability to use more of an A4 page.

Once you have a page made up in PageStream, you can happily change the printer configuration from the HP driver to the supplied PostScript driver. The result, barring a few millimetres around the border, will be exactly the same.

Using “Using a PostScript printer gives you instant access to 35 high quality typefaces” PostScript gains you no extra resolution: the printer is still a dpi printer. The advantages are more subtle. With PostScript, a page isn’t sent as a bit map, but as a computer program which describes the page’s format in mathematical terms. All PostScript printers have a standard set of 35 typefaces.

If your page uses only these standard typefaces, then it will print out fairly quickly because the computer only has to tell the printer the name of the font, the size it is to be printed in, and which characters are to be printed in which order.

It’s almost as fast as printing in straight text mode, although the output is much more attractive. If your page uses fonts not known to the printer, then the font information is also sent u 1 Using one of the 35 buiit-in PostScript sorry, StarScript fonts rapidly produces attractive looking text.

Furthermore, a PostScript compatible software package will download to the printer any fonts that it doesn’t know about. Needless to say, these can be scaled to any size required – that’s the beauty of PostScript couple of characters are actually used on the page. A further problem is that the printer only has a limited amount of memory, so it can only store so many downloaded fonts in this way.

Programs such as PageStream are clever enough to instruct the printer to forget a font once it has been used so that room can be made for the next. This solution is fine when working from an Glory of Imperial Russian Army The Russian Army has succeeded in repelling the notorious Bonaparte from our sacred homeland Bonaparte’s army is in full retreat, pursued hy our valient boys.

Our man on the Moscoh 1 Road reports In addition, printing in any of these typefaces in any size will be much quicker than printing using equivalent bit-mapped representations. The advantage that PostScript offers in the graphics department is something called half-toning. Half-toning is very similar to dithering, except that, being much more sophisticated, it gives higher quality grey scale images. They are mar. This is an expensive process, so the ability to completely proof a PostScript page at home first could save lots of Here is a quick page produced in PageStream and output to the printer.

This one was printed using PostScript, but the same results are achieved using the HP LaserJet emulation application, but the process of printing a PostScript file created elsewhere may lead to problems if it money. A Not in this case. The manuals which come with the Star LaserPrinter are very good. The manuals explain the basics of setting the printer up, installing a toner cartridge which can be surprisingly tricky if you’ve never had to before and selecting an emulation.

They then go on to give an explanation of the laser printing mechanism, typographical terms and even how to define one’s own fonts for downloading to the printer. The various escape codes which the printer responds to are described in detail.

I can’t comment on the manual dealing with the PostScript aspects of the printer, because I wasn’t supplied with one. Make sure you get one, so that you get the most from the printer – PostScript compatibility is one of the printer’s most valuable features. Nevertheless, think very carefully before buying it. Do you really need PostScript compatibility?

Do you really need laser quality output? If the answer to the above two questions is yes, then it is a good buy. If not, then I’d recommend an ink jet or a cheaper, Hewlett Packard emulating laser printer instead. Overall rating It’s a good quality product delivering excellent results, but make sure you really need PostScript before shelling out this kind of cash.

Sinners: this icon will appear next to any questions which are ‘basic’ in content. Printers: this icon denotes a query about printers, printer drivers and so on. A General: this icon is used for any general Amiga-related queries.

Technical: any queries about programming will have Caution: be sure that you fully understand the answer before trying it out. Danger: the answer to this question could well invalidate your warranty – or you! Hardware: this icon is used to denote questions relating to general hardware. Video: this icon relates to any query about using your Amiga Music: this icon is for questions about MIDI, sampling, Programs: any program- specific queries have this icon this icon next to them.

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If It’s to do with the Amiga, we will help out. What we cannot do is offer this service over the telephone – do not phone us with your enquiries, but write to us at the address below. We also cannot enter into personal correspondence – all enquiries will be dealt with in the pages of the magazine. This does mean a bit of a delay In solving your problem, but you’ll just have to be a little patient and wait for It to appear In print.

You won’t get a personal reply even If you enclose an SAE with your letter, so please don’t bother. We will also be calling on the services of all our other contributors, so you won’t be able to catch us napping whatever the subject of your query.

Each panelist will be dealing with queries In their own specialist area s so It would help us greatly If, when writing, you label your query envelope with the name of the expert who can solve your particular problem. Below is a list of areas of expertise. It’s a list that we will add to and update every month, so you will know who to write to about any subjects not mentioned here.

Send your form and question to: Amiga Answers. Sorry, but we cannot personally reply to any questions – even if you include an SAE. Details of any other hardware which could help us to answer your question: Address: Now, use this space to describe your problem, Including as much relevant Information as possible.

Please continue on a separate sheet If necessary. AQ Kickstart version displayed at the ‘insert Workbench’ prompt 1. Do not take you machine apart just to look for this! Welcome once more to Amiga Answers, the section of the magazine where we endeavour to straighten out your hassles with that wonderful but occasionally stubborn machine, the Amiga.

Every month we devote more space and apply more resources than any other Amiga magazine to solving your problems. We receive something like queries a week, so the service is obviously appreciated. It’s my Job to co-ordinate the whole thing: sorting through the questions and sending them off to the relevant chappies for the kind of In- depth answers you’ve come to expect; and compiling them Into the lovingly crafted pages which you see before you.

I call on a wide variety of expertise to make sure you get the answers you need, which is why Amiga Answers is so successful. If it’s a question about video, then I’ll pass It on to Gary Whiteley, our professional videographer for whom the word ‘genlock’ means ‘mixing Amiga graphics with video for magical results’ and for whom the word ‘snipwirral’ means nothing at all. Programming queries are dealt with by Paul Overaa, who’s not afraid to code In any language, and who doubles as a MIDI maestro to solve your sequencing slip-ups.

Our hardware guru is Jolyon Ralph. This man knows just about everything about disks, both hard and floppy, and what he doesn’t know about memory he’s probably forgotten. Communication breakdowns are flxed-up by Phil Harris. All In all, a formidable team, supplemented by my own not inconsiderable Amiga suss. Let’s face it, If we can’t answer your question, it’s probably one of the Mysteries of the Universe.

This month we explain the mysteries of the Enhanced Chip Set, solve your printing problems and much, much more. Take a look. Don’t forget to keep sending us those problems – we love ’em! I would like to upgrade but am not sure exactly what I am getting with the so called ‘upgrade’ packs that are for sale.

Also can you tell me the difference between the various monitors that are available, what is multi-synch, RGB, and so on? The service cables shall be provided by the Employer who will terminate them on Distribution Boards provided by the Contractor. Similarly, the Contractor shall provide independent, protected and segregated routes up to the boundary of the construction site for the communications cables to enter the building.

The Contractor shall provide all required management, architectural, design, labour, travel, administration, equipment, earthwork, civil, structural, electrical, mechanical, building services and all other associated works and services to complete the design, construction and fitting out of the NSCC building.

The Contractor shall include all work required including reinstatement of disturbed areas within and surrounding the site of construction including areas where the Contractors work force, storage and other related activities have occurred. In respect of design of products offered under this bid, the bidder shall ensure that identical products in design have been in service for a minimum period of five 5 years.

If the offered products are manufactured under license, the service experience of products manufactured by the parent company shall not be counted as service experience of the licensee’s products. In the case of Computer Based and other electronic equipment the general system shall comply with this requirement whereas the devices used and architecture shall follow the latest models and standards. The Bidder shall provide adequate evidence of compliance to the above requirements to the satisfaction of the CAPC.

Bids that do not comply with the above requirements or with incomplete evidence of compliance may be rejected. This Chapter of the specification details the requirement for the Master Station and supporting equipment to be provided at each location.

The system and applications to be supplied shall be based on proven products that shall, as far as is possible, be configured to meet these functional requirements. The Contractor shall endeavour to meet the specified requirements using their standard software products. In this respect, it is important that the objectives of the requirements are met even though the solution may not entirely comply with the Specification. However, the Contractor shall develop new software to provide all specified functionality that cannot be achieved using the Contractors standard products.

The Bidder shall identify whether the offered solution is a deviation from the specified requirement or an alternative that meets the objectives of the specified requirement. System to be supplied shall be based on mature products that have evolved and been proven in comparable projects. In this context it is recognised that such a system will have standard functional features not specified herein but nevertheless important or essential for the implementation of a fully operational system.

Further to this, the Contractor shall be responsible for supplying, within the Contract price, all software, hardware, documentation and miscellaneous items required to implement a fully operational system whether or not those items are explicitly specified or requested.

Due to its pivotal role in the operational management of the power network the SCADA master station at the Control Centre must be secure against internal failures and external hazards. As defence against internal equipment failures the Master Station shall comprise a set of redundant hardware and software facilities as required to meet the availability requirements of this specification.

The design is required to ensure that failures of components or sub-systems are detected promptly and that previously redundant components are brought into operational use, without operator intervention, and without causing a degradation of functionality or performance.

The design shall be such that no single failure shall cause the loss or disruption to essential facilities. To provide a first level of defence against external, potentially common mode hazards, such as fire, redundant elements of the master station principally servers shall be capable of being located in physically segregated rooms within the Control Centre building s.

The control rooms will be the only common point of failure with respect to external hazards. As a defence against this it shall be possible to utilise any of the workstations located outside the control room as operational workstations including those associated with the maintenance and training facilities.

Communication and power cabling shall be physically segregated to support the segregation of redundant hardware and software facilities. For example cabling to workstations outside the control room should not run through the control room and cabling to each workstation within the control room should be segregated.

The System design and architecture shall have followed industry standard open systems concepts with regard to interconnections with other equipment conforming to open standards and system upgradeability, for hardware and software, as well as for data management.

In normal operation all subsystems and functions shall be available. However, certain subsystems shall be replicated such that no single failure shall cause loss of functionality and that the availability of the. The Contractor shall identify where subsystems need to be replicated to meet the specified requirements: The SCADA Master Station workstations need not be replicated provided the functionality previously available at a failed workstation is automatically available at a pre-defined workstation and by suitable access codes at other operator workstations.

Similarly for Master Station printers, if suitable diversity of printers on servers is provided and automatic reassignment, then duplication is not required. The system must be designed to allow a faulty item to be removed from service and to be replaced without the functionality of the system being affected.

The design shall be such as to avoid interruption of data acquisition because of faults. Under no circumstances shall it be possible for the system to lose data and be in an indeterminate state with respect to data validity. In the event of detection of a data transmission error or failure, indications and alarms from the previously successful scan shall continue to be displayed. Facilities shall be incorporated to indicate automatically to the operators that the relevant data has not been updated.

This is estimated to be some 50, data points. Any additional capacity required for internal management, etc shall be accounted for separately by the Contractor.

The expansion capability of SCADA Master Station system is required to match power system developments over its service life of some 15 years. The delivered systems shall be dimensioned according to the following: a b c A four-fold increase in the number of all database points both telemetered and nontelemetered.

A two-fold increase in the number of Outstations. The Master Station software including SCADA and applications databases and display facilities shall be dimensioned to accommodate a four fold increase in size of the power network elements nodes, generators, transformers, switches etc.

The introduction of an additional voltage level e. The above expansion shall be achieved without degradation to the availability or performance of the master station. The Bidder shall demonstrate in the sizing calculation to be provided with the offer that these expansion requirements are provided for and can be achieved without such degradation.

The Contractor shall demonstrate in the Factory Tests that these expansion requirements can be achieved without such degradation. No additional hardware or software shall be required to accommodate the expansion defined above for the Master Station. In addition, the Master Station shall be capable of expansion to support 2 additional operator workstations within the control room and a further 2, operator workstations to be located elsewhere via a remote connection.

The Bidder shall indicate if any additional hardware or software or licences, other than the workstations themselves, would be required in order to ensure that the performance of the system is not compromised by such an expansion in the number of workstations. It is a fundamental requirement that each system and individual items of equipment within them shall be designed for high reliability and that hardware and standard existing software used within the systems shall have been proven in service.

The construction of equipment and its installation shall be such that common mode risks from external hazards are minimised. The installation plan shall include the measures to be taken to prevent such contingencies and will be subject to approval. All existing Outstations that are to remain in service operate using the IEC protocol new Outstations shall communicate with the master stations using the IEC or protocols.

The data acquisition system shall send out polling requests for data in accordance with a preprogrammed routine so as to maintain the database updated with the latest data from all Outstations. Where a report by exception technique is used the data acquisition software shall initiate a full scan of an RTU to retrieve the actual state of the RTU under the following circumstances: a b c d e Master Station cold start RTU or SAS reset Restoration of communications Cyclically every 24 hours On request by the operator.

The facility to switch Outstations into or out-of-scan for maintenance or commissioning purposes shall be provided. It shall only be possible to switch Outstations by manual command from an appropriate display. The status of all Outstation communication shall be available for display at any of the Master Station Workstations. All operator actions required to enable and disable data acquisition in the manner outlined above shall be recorded in the events list. The system shall also maintain a separate list of all data points which have been manually taken ‘off scan’.

The data acquisition system shall monitor the performance of each communication channel. Statistics on the performance of each communication channel shall be available for display.

For each communication channel the data acquisition software shall detect loss of communication with an Outstation and raise an alarm. Where an alternate communication channel to the Outstation is available communication shall be switched automatically by the data acquisition software.

The data acquisition software shall continue to operate on the alternate communication channel until instructed to switch-over to the main link by the Operator. In the event of detection of a data transmission error or failure, indications and alarms from the previously successful scan shall continue to be displayed on the workstations.

Facilities shall be incorporated however to indicate automatically to the operators that the relevant data has not been updated. The SCADA system shall provide a comprehensive and flexible set of facilities for processing telemetered, manually entered, calculated and data from other systems accessible at the NSCC. The following requirements relate to specific types of data.

Where conversion of raw data to engineering units is required this shall be configurable on an individual point basis. The following conversion types shall therefore be provided for measured value scaling: a b No conversion – The value in raw counts is stored directly in the database unchanged. Unique pairs of A and B are provided for each analogue point requiring this conversion. Suppressed zero – For each value of this conversion type a database value is specified below which the converted value will be set to zero.

Each measured value shall have an associated ‘value out of range’ raw data value threshold. If this value is exceeded the last valid value shall be displayed and an out-of-range attribute shall mark the data item. It shall be possible to specify for each voltage, at database construction, a value in engineering units, below which the voltage shall be stored as zero.

The following sign conventions for real and reactive power flow shall be used universally throughout the SCADA system: a All active and reactive power flowing into a busbar shall be positive b Limits All limit values shall be in engineering units. It shall be possible for the alarm limits to be amended on-line by the Operator.

Amendments to the active limits shall generate a message indicating the changes made to the limit values within the event list. For monopolar measured values, alarm supervision shall be between two adjustable alarm limits.

For bipolar measured values alarm supervision shall be between four adjustable alarm limits. When enabled the scanned measured value shall be continuously checked against assigned limit values. When disabled no limit checking shall apply to the selected measured value. All limit violations shall be annunciated as an alarm to the operator and recorded on the event list.

To ensure that items whose values are varying just above and just below alarm limits do not generate a constant stream of alarms, the system shall not consider a value to have returned within a set of limits until it has done so by a predefined and operator adjustable margin. To avoid annunciation of certain transitory conditions it shall also be possible to delay the annunciation of an alarm for a defined period. This period shall be a system wide parameter, based on the number 1 or more of consecutive scans for which the transgression is true, and shall be amendable on-line by the Operator.

A time-delay filter shall be provided to ensure that any transient limit-transgressions do not result in transient changes to the displayed or annunciated alarm state. Whenever a measurement returns within limits from a limit violation, an event shall be recorded in the event list. All active and reactive power flowing out of a busbar shall be negative. Acknowledged limit alarms associated with the measured value shall not generate an additional alarm, but shall be removed from the alarm list when the measured value returns within limits.

Unacknowledged limit alarms shall be annunciated again measured value returns within limits. Manual Overrides Facilities shall be provided for overriding measured values with fixed values entered via the User Interface. All measurements shall be eligible for overriding. The System shall only permit the application of overrides for measured values by users with the appropriate area of authority.

Overridden values shall not be updated by values telemetered from Outstations or calculated by the system for values which are scan inhibited. The appearance of values on displays shall be different when an override has been applied. On removal of an override the value shall be marked suspect until the value has been updated from the telemetered source or recalculated. Overrides shall be enterable and removable wherever the value is displayed subject to appropriate user function authority.

All status changes shall be processed immediately. Single Points In general this category encompasses alarm and status indications. Two forms of alarms shall be supported, these being fleeting momentary signal e. Double Points Double point indications shall be used to indicate the status of circuit breaker and switch position Open or Closed and other devices where a higher integrity is required than is possible with single point indication. An output must be obtained from each of the two positions e.

In many cases the indication wiring and interposing relays are existing and have been implemented as single point status signals. The system shall also be able to process these as switch position but without the validity logic. Transitory conditions that generate intermediate signals as may occur with disconnects, shall not result in an alarm signal until a predetermined period has elapsed to allow the device to reach its final position.

The ability to differentiate between authorised status changes, such as occur due to commands initiated by the operator, and unauthorised changes such as occur from other actions, e. Status changes arising from operator issued commands shall not be treated as an alarm condition.

Manual Overrides Facilities shall be provided for overriding digital point values with fixed values entered via the user Interface. All digital points shall be eligible for overriding.

The appearance of digital points on displays shall be modified when an override has been applied. On removal of an override the digital point shall be marked suspect until the value has been updated from the telemetered source or recalculated.

Overrides shall be enterable and removable wherever the digital point is displayed subject to appropriate user function authority. The construction of these derived data values shall be operator orientated and not require the use of the tools used for database management and manipulation.

The definition of a derived measured value shall permit the prioritisation of elements within a calculation. A derived measured value shall be processed in the same way as any other measurement, e. And be available in one line and tabular displays. The performance requirements for the processing of derived values are specified in Clause 2.

A facility shall be provided for setting up and synchronising the stored values such that there is consistency with the actual measuring device. The arrangement should be such as to ensure the integrity of the data after temporary loss of the SCADA or communications.

It is anticipated that the storage will be achieved by use of the historical data processing and storage facilities and may include some pre-processing such as totalisation by period, day, area, etc.

The SCADA system shall be able to report the daily, monthly and annual energy figures by substation, area, region and for the total system. Where master-follower equipment is installed the process shall identify whether a slave tap changer is out of step with the master. This condition shall be annunciated as an alarm. There would normally be an out of step indication as well derived directly from the AVR system.

The alarm generated by the tap position processor shall be used to determine whether there is a fault on the tap position indication circuitry. These attributes shall be propagated with the status or value of each data item. The quality attributes required as a minimum are given in the following sub-clauses. A normal data item is defined as one which is active, up-to-date and uninhibited.

A lack of any other quality attribute can be used to indicate this state. The event inhibit attribute is applied when the data item is active and up-to-date but no event or alarm is to be annunciated or recorded even if a limit is transgressed or a change of status is detected. The system shall provide facilities to enable the user, with appropriate functional authority, to set or clear the event inhibit attribute on-line. Data shall be marked suspect if the item is active but the updating of its value or status is discontinued for any reason other than an applied override.

An item shall remain suspect until a valid update is received. The overridden attribute shall apply when the value of a data item has been manually replaced. The override feature shall be separate from the facility to change manually-dressed non-telemetered and non-derived data items.

The value-out-of-range attribute shall mark a measured value as exceeding the metering range of the measuring device. A derived item shall have its suspect, overridden or value-out-of-range attribute s set if any of its constituent elements has the corresponding attribute s set.

Controls may be individual or part of a user definable sequence. Only one valid control order may be sent at any time to a given Outstation. However, control orders may be sent to different Outstations at the same time. If equipment is selected which is unsuitable for remote control or if the wrong control initiation is attempted, e.

If equipment suitable for remote control is selected, but the device is selected to local control at the substation, then the command shall be blocked and an appropriate message given to the operator. Facilities shall be provided to inhibit control of any plant item suitable for supervisory control. Any plant item so inhibited shall have suitable identification on the displays. It shall not be possible to control an item where an applied tag is specified as an interlock.

In communicating commands to the Outstations, the following conditions must be satisfied: a b Initiation of a command shall involve a select before operate procedure.

This should be confirmed to the Master Station from the appropriate Outstation. The transmission of a command signal, e. Successful completion of a control shall be indicated by update of its new telemetered state and the presentation of a confirmatory message. A change of state resulting from a successful control shall not generate an audible annunciation.

Failure of a control shall be indicated by de-selection of the plant item and the presentation of an informative message. The failed control shall generate an alarm and initiate audible annunciation. The system shall also cancel controls automatically, such as when: a A control check-back failure occurs at any stage b c d A control is not executed within a predetermined time of selection There is a failure of a main computer resulting in a restart or changeover to a standby computer.

Errors occur in the control protocol sequences. Cancellation shall return the plant item to a state in which a new operation may be selected. The Telecommand Log shall identify the user, time and date of the occurrence of each entry. An alarm is defined as an annunciated event, requiring acknowledgement by an operator. Typically, alarms may be generated from any of sources a, c, e and selected instances of i above.

The actual events to be defined as alarms shall be user configurable. Certain exceptions to the normal interpretation of events shall apply: A state change [source a events] normally expected to result from a supervisory control action [source b events] shall only be interpreted by the system as an alarm when the associated control command has not been issued.

Where binary coding of transformer tap positions is employed, single bit state changes shall be evaluated by the system in the context of a coded group of bits for the purpose of registering an event. Illegal values shall be alarmed. Where analogue transducers are used to provide transformer tap position indications, the signal shall be processed to give a discrete integer value output corresponding to the tap position and changes between these discrete values shall be handled as an event.

Event description text shall be appended to each item in the event list and be available for printing. Many events will arise from initiating conditions that have two well defined states and, in the majority of cases, it will be required that the transitions between both states are recorded as events.

However, whether or not a transition is recorded as an event shall be user configurable. In the case of double point status indications e. In the case of double point indications, a further event shall be derived from any incongruent condition arising between the independent contacts e. This situation shall also give rise to an alarm and the representation of the corresponding device upon diagram displays as being in an ‘undefined’ state. Date and time from the event message time stamp Location description e.

When an event list is first called up for display in a list window, the most recent page of entries shall be presented. The list shall be updated automatically with new entries as they enter the system. The operator shall be able to page through the lists in either direction, but each new page displayed shall retain some lines from the previous page, to provide visual continuity.

In addition to the paging mechanism, there shall be a facility to jump immediately to an approximate position within the list, including either end of the list. It shall be possible to use the jump and page controls at will, to achieve rapid location of any portion of a list.

If page 1 most recent entries of a list is displayed, it shall be paged automatically, so that it always displays the most recent entries. When the page is full the system shall refresh the display to ensure that the latest events are shown. A search and sort facility shall be available to the operator, whereby he shall be able to produce a reduced list, filtered and sorted according to certain criteria.

The criteria shall be entered through a pro forma mask that the operator shall be able to call up, as required. The search and sort facility shall be very flexible, incorporating features such as variable length character string searches and the use of wildcard characters. It shall also be possible to save a number of search criteria for quick access and use in the future. An operator shall be able to send the search output to a printer or a disc file, upon operator request.

Event list shall be sized to accommodate at least 10 events and shall automatically archive any overflow on a first in first out basis. Additionally, it shall be possible to generate an audible annunciation for selected alarms by setting attributes in the database.

A list of substations and SCADA system groups with unacknowledged alarms shall be available to the operator. Alarms shall be displayed on Acknowledged and Unacknowledged alarm lists. The alarm lists shall be displayed in chronological order with the most recent alarm first with the occurrence of new alarms handled in the same manner as events.

Each alarm entry shall include the time and date of occurrence, location, and device or other identifier, action, status, value and normal limits.

The search and sort facility shall be very flexible, incorporating features such as variable. A display shall also be provided which identifies all substations with unacknowledged alarms. It shall be possible to navigate directly to the substation unacknowledged alarm page from this display. Alarm list shall be sized to accommodate Alarms and shall automatically archive any overflow on a first in first out basis.

All alarms shall be brought to the attention of the operators. The alarm sequence shall be as follows: a At the onset of the alarm condition the alarm will be entered into the alarm window, and into the Unacknowledged alarm list where displayed.

Its priority shall be highlighted with the use of colour. Flashing shall not be used in the alarm lists. Any device being displayed on a one line diagram to which the alarm is associated shall flash.

The alarm message will be acknowledged by the operator. If the alarm is fleeting it shall disappear from the alarm lists. If the alarm is persistent it shall be displayed on the Acknowledged alarm list. Symbols on the one line diagrams shall cease flashing when the alarm is acknowledged. The acknowledgement shall be logged in the event list. Reset of alarm condition shall be treated in the same manner as the onset except that on acknowledgement the onset and reset messages shall be removed from the alarm list.

Where the reset condition occurs before the onset has been acknowledged, the message for both conditions shall remain in the alarm list and device symbols shall flash at half the rate of the alarm conditions. The presence of an unacknowledged alarm which has reset shall be indicated by colour in the alarm list. The operator shall have the facility to accept alarms individually, on a page basis and from diagrams on a device basis.

Silencing alarms shall not inhibit the annunciation of further alarms or constitute an acknowledgement of the alarm. The software shall support two forms of alarm suppression manual and automatic. This facility is intended for use in cases where faulty signals generate repetitive nuisance events and alarms.

For manual suppression, it shall be possible for the operator to suppress the processing of individual alarm. Each suppression command shall be recorded on the event list. The system shall support the automatic suppression of nuisance alarms.

A nuisance alarm shall be defined by the occurrence of a user definable number of changes of state within a user definable period. An alarm shall be generated indicating that the event has been automatically been suppressed. When the number of changes of state fall below the user defined threshold then the SCADA software shall remove the automatic suppression of the alarm. An alarm reset shall be generated indicating the removal of the automatic suppressed condition.

All suppressed alarms either manually by the operator or automatically shall be displayed on a list suppressed alarm list. Events where a time stamp is applied to a signal on receipt by the Master Station b. Events that are time stamped on occurrence by the Outstation. The sequence of events processor shall maintain a chronological list of events that can be viewed on a station, circuit or system basis.

The process shall also group the data on an event basis, e. The data shall be readily available to include in reports. A first in first out log of values and events shall be maintained such that following predefined alarm conditions the values of measurements and status received from the entire telemetry system for the previous 5 minutes and the values for the following 10 minutes shall be stored and made available in a disturbance monitoring record.

The total pre event and post event storage times shall be readily adjustable using simple user instructions. The initiating of such recording shall also be possible from logical rules and calculated values. The records shall be available for inclusion in reports and shall be readily viewable by Operators at their workstations. It shall be possible to alter the duration of the pre and post event recording by simple Operator settings.

The Bidder may offer a system that records all data samples and provides facilities to construct such reports. It is not intended that they should define in detail the methods of presenting information to the operator and the means of operator interaction with the system. Rather, the main functional requirements and principles of operation have been defined and it is required that the Contractor shall develop his design accordingly, incorporating all additional detail necessary to furnish a comprehensive and fully functional interface for interaction with the system.

The design of the User Interface shall be based on standard software packages.

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