The magazine for members of

Sib2Draw

Ron’s Adventures with Windows at Work

Customised RISC OS Machines

Issue 51 — Autumn 2004 The Real World

What always amazes me about the “DVD player?”, “Where is the next RISC OS world is it’s inability to RISC OS laptop?” etc. Just supply understand economics. the money and all is possible. Time and time again one reads on news and user groups of someone Some of these things may come putting forward a splendid idea about, given time, but the RISC (for them), for somebody else OS world is never going to catch (never themselves), miraculously up with the world of Windows. to come up with some amazing new software or an all singing all RISC OS companies are not going dancing machine, costing next to to get rich relying on the nothing. Some basic lessons on enthusiasts’ market, they have to demand and supply would be supply machines to the business useful. world. Here the power/processor speed of the machine is not the However you will be pleased to main consideration but perhaps know I will not be including it’s ease of use and reliability. The economic lessons in this new A75 produced by Stuart Tyrell magazine. It is marvellous that is a good example of this. software writers like Martin Würthner (Artworks) and RISC OS’ strengths are its GUI hardware companies like Castle and its non-reliance on hard drives and MicroDigital still manage to - long may it continue. produce anything at all. Quite regularly on the newsgroups I read people moaning, “Where is an up Andrew Wyver to date browser”, “flash player”,

All opinions expressed in Eureka are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Club or it’s committee members and officers.

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 1 4 RISC

A short round up of some of the news of happenings over the last couple of months in the RISC OS world.

6 Sib2Draw

The Editor looks at one of the best unsung pieces of software for use on RISC OS.

13 Ron’s Adventures with Windows at Work

The ins and outs of working (or not) with WindowsTM at Ron Briscoe’s workplace

21 Free For All

Andy Burgess looks at Antispam, PERL and WebJames

24 Double Cross Puzzle by Roger King

Your regular chance to test your way with words

26 RISC OS Variations

Machines from this year’s Wakefield Show

28 Winning Games with Logic Part 7

Barry Aulton deals with game design

35 New Membership Card

Our Chairman introduces the new membership card design

2 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 36 Site Seeing: Languages

Sue Clamp explores some foreign lanuage sites on the web.

42 Double Cross Puzzle solution

43 Arm Arena

Andrew Weston continues to look at new developments and re-releases for the RISC OS platform

49 RISC OS Rhymes

Another poetic masterpiece from Alan Wickham’s amazing mechanical RISC OS Wizard

52 Club Contacts

Who you need and where to send

The new ‘solder it yourself’ portable Risc PC

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 3 Castle shatters RISC OS World

Earlier in June Castle (CTL) were in dispute with Risc OS Ltd (ROL) about licensing and licensing fees from RISC OS. CTL claimed that they had bought RISC OS ‘lock stock and barrel’ from Pace and that ROL now owe the licensing fees they were formeely paying Pace. Both sides issued statements basically explaning why they were in the right. Meanwhile developers like Stuart Tyroll and Virtual Acorn had been forced to suspend trading in products using RISC OS 4 after CTL informed them that it was cancelling ROL’s licence to supply RISC OS 4. However at a shareholders meeting in July all the parties concerned seem to have come to some agreement though the details of this are unclear at the the time of going to press.

Audio capture software CD Burn for Iyonix Sales and support of CDBurn AudioIn, a new application have been taken over by author developed by Christian Ludlum, Steffen Huber. hubersn Software records a WAV file from “any has been founded “to give a new available audio channel”. The home to CD Burn”. software is for use in Castle’s Previously distributed by Warm Iyonix and is available to Iyonix Silence Software all enquiries users from the Castle disc regarding CDBurn should be update site. directed to hubersn Software. An audio input socket is The software is Iyonix provided in the Iyonix by the compatible and also allows for on-board AC97 chip. multitasking CD writing.

4 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 32bit RiScript being For up to the developed minute RISC OS Paul Reuvers of X-Ample has announced the development of a news 32bit version of RiScript, the major PDF (portable Document Format) viewer and producer for the RISC OS platform. The new visit version should now support path clipping of objects (a major failing of the old version), allowing greater ease in transforming and Artworks files into PDF format. www..co.uk X-Ample has taken over development of the package from Cerilica.

New RISC OS Web Design SmartGroup

There is a new smartgroup specifically devoted to the subject of designing on Risc Os computers. In the first two weeks of it’s existence subjects discussed include W3C validation, use of Risc Os art packages for web graphics, and putting sound on web pages.

The group’s is and its email address is [email protected]

Midlands Show Articles required for Eureka Remember that everyone who Like a phoenix the Midlands show contributes an article to the is reborn this year at the National magazine will have their Motorcycle Museum on Saturday membership extended, free of 4th December. See the Ad on page charge, for every issue in which 25 of this magazine. their work appears.

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 5 Sib2Draw

Walter Lo Nigro Nationality Italian Age 41

Walter Lo Nigro has a background of choral conducting and is currently choir master and conductor at the Tartini Music Conservatory in Trieste. Perhaps more importantly he has also developed Sib2Draw, a sophisticated music graphic software package for RISC OS.

The screen display was almost WYSIWYG and was the best effort Around 1992 the Finn brothers at the time to replace music developed a music scoring manuscript paper and the pencil. program that was by far the most One of it’s most useful features advanced and straightforward on was that it could export output in the market - Sibelius 7. It was the form of draw files to enable designed to take advantage of the further manipulation of the score speed of the current ARM and to allow the inclusion of processors that Acorn used in musical examples into desktop their computers and was streets publishing programs such as ahead of similar programs for the . The similar programs PC and Mac. for PC could only export bitmap

6 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 files which do not give the from Sibelius 7 the program first scalability of vector files. However of all has to be ‘hooked’ to the on the collapse of Acorn in 1999 Sibelius score which has to be the Finn brothers announced that open on the desktop so that the they would cease development on various styles and settings can be Sibelius 7 and brought out a PC extracted from the Sibelius 7 version just called Sibelius. This score. This is done from the Icon program has now become one of bar icon which gives you various the leading music scoring options on how the output is to be programs in the PC world and is assembled in Sib2Draw (Fig. 1). quickly becoming the de facto The score can then be imported . standard. Once the score is in Sib2Draw Sibelius 7 though is still an you are presented with the first extremely useful music program page of the score (Fig. 2). albeit lacking some of the bells Manipulation of the score is then and whistles of the PC version. done through the various menu However it still has some useful options that follow:- advantages over the PC version, one being the drawfile export. In Enter order to take advantage of this and to add features that Sibelius 7 The usual draw shapes can be lacks Walter Lo Nigro developed used with the addition of any Sib2Draw polygon along with some musical ones like staves, hairpins and slurs (Fig. 3). Slurs in Sib2Draw can be manipulated much more freely Sib2Draw is a graphics program than in Sibelius 7 enabling slur which is designed to take output shapes to be produced that are in the form of drawfiles from impossible in Sibelius 7 (see Sibelius 7 and convert them to below). Sib2Draw format so that further manipulation can take place.

Text can be entered in all the In order to import the music score styles of Sibelius 7 and extra

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 7 Fig. 1

Fig. 2

8 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 styles can be generated. Also text can be entered to follow a path. A recent addition to the program is the symbols library (Fig. 4) into which the user can add other symbol fonts and edit the existing symbols to make new ones.

Edit (Fig. 5)

The usual Draw type editing operations can be carried out plus the additions of being able to lock objects to the page so they cannot be moved or altered, cut and paste Fig. 3 to a clipboard, skew objects, add white borders and/or boxes to

Fig. 4 Fig. 5

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 9 Fig. 6 objects and the useful facility The magnifier gives a magnified using the Ossia function to make view of part of the page in a new staves and all objects (notes, window. The usual editing expression marks, slurs etc.) into operations can be carried out in small staves. Sibelius 7 can do this window. this but imperfectly as text size is not altered and slurs become Various grids can be used with the separated from the notes leaving a usual locking options and you can lot of tidying up to be done. view what is on the clip board and any erasers that have been used. As a Sib2Draw file can be a multi page file, at the bottom of the edit Undo/Redo menu is the ability to add or delete pages. Multiple undo and redos are available. View

10 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Format program and is the only vector drawing program for RISC OS to This allows you to change page allow multi page documents. size, stave size, margins, guttering, stave line thickness and page Unconventional modern music numbering. scores can be set directly without having to use Sibelius 7 see (Fig. 7) a copy of a page from Lucanio Berio’s score Circles. The There are a number of features original is hand drawn. that at the moment can only be accessed via the keyboard. These Musical examples can be easily include editing symbols, aligning used in DTP work. objects and selecting locked objects. Disadvantages

Various options are available for No manual or help files at the printing (Fig. 6) including several moment. booklet layouts Keyboard short-cuts are not Sib2Draw allows direct import by documented and some of these drag and drop of Draw, sprite and functions are not available JPEG files. Text at the moment through the menus. cannot be imported directly only via a draw file.

Output can be saved in Sib2Draw Next release version will be 2.09 format or as Draw files which includes support for object cloning (i.e. to have one or more ‘virtual’ instances of an object on a page without really copying it, Advantages sparing a lot on memory etc).

Sib2Draw allows further Next planned version should be manipulation of Sibelius 7 files. 2.10+, and should include full DTP support, i.e. text effects, nested The program can be used as a super/subscript, formatting of conventional vector drawing formulas, flowing text stories in

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 11 Mar.

2 bongos 3 Tablas 3 Tom-tom

Timpani ( ) w 3 Triagoli Hi-hat 3 susp. cymb. 3 Tam-tam 3 Gencerros

Lujon ( ) ( )

Bells w

III

table

w 3 Triagoli 3 susp. cymb. 1 Tom-tom Hi-hat ( ) ( ) Vibroph. motor off

tomb. basso 2 bongos snare drum 3 tom-tom 2 Congas foot ped. b.d.

Xyloph.

III. "N(O)W" WORDS COPYRIGHT 1931 BY E. E. CUMMINGS REPRINTED FROM POEMS 1923 - 1954 BY E. E. CUMMINGS

Fig. 7 frames, embedded objects in text, rulers etc. Current price is 100 euros + p&p Next it is intended to introduce dynamic instrumental part Demo & PayPal payment directly extraction and editing i.e. extract a available from Walter Lo Nigro’s part from full score in Sib2Draw, web-site. edit it and have edits reflected in the main score or vice versa. This Email [email protected] is possibly a first for any music typesetting program.

Possibly MIDI support, at a later stage.

12 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Ron's Adventures with Windows at Work.

d o o r i s f l u n g o p e n a n d t w o strangers appear. “Hello lads One day, a while ago, I what can I do you for?” had just returned quip I. This falls on to my den having u n r e c e p t i v e decided that my ground as the work load had obviously seni- d i m i n i s h e d or of the two sufficiently gives me a to enable me stony look to switch on and grates t h e f i l t e r out, "Factory c o f f e e m a - two mainten- c h i n e a n d ance den?” I a w a i t t h e rise from my promised de- chair and go out- livery of some side, yes the notice d e l i c i o u s W e s t on the door still says I n d i a n s t y l e b r e a d ‘Maint Fact2’. I affirm pudding. (For the benefit of that by some mischance they

anyone thinking of sending me have found the secret location of begging letters I am not a rich the den. eccentric but am employed as a maintenance pipefitter/plumber, A word or two of explanation so don't bother.) Suddenly the den here. Although the den is

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 13 nominally mine, owing to underling, “Here will have to do.” management skulduggery I have I point out that the only reason to share it with two toolroom that there is bare wall showing at fitters, who work shift about, and that spot is because the toolroom the maintenance multi-skilled fitters’ coat locker needs the space who rotate across the factory site to enable the locker door to open. on a fortnightly basis. This “They can shift it then,” is the only means that the den contains reply. Bearing a self-satisfied three workbenches, assorted smirk stone face signals to his cupboard and shelving units, a sidekick and they exit the den. sink unit, four chairs and the After much debate and normal maintenance den fixtures measurement I decided to alter my i.e. fridge, microwave, toaster, six drawer free standing unit so as hifi unit and my filter coffee to slide it under my workbench, maker, so not a lot of room for thus creating sufficient space for a much else. computer workstation. This done we inform our head of department I am mentally debating whether or who passes on the message to the not to phone the security up and IT wallah’s that we require the report two suspicious characters computer to be fitted on a who are obviously casing the joint workstation. Does this make any when stone face speaks again. “We difference? If you have not already are from I.T. come to install your fallen asleep read on. PC.” The penny drops, for ages now people who can be bothered A couple of weeks pass and once to turn up at the company’s again the den door is wrenched monthly team brief sessions have open and stone face enters been reporting that the followed by his underling pushing maintenance/toolroom are going a trolley bearing several things but to be inflicted with computers for nowhere in sight is anything an undisclosed reason. “Is that a resembling a computer real PC or a Windows ‘Start up workstation. “No workstation?” today and come back tomorrow say I. “I think that the unit is when the desktop is visible’ PC?” better fixed to the wall.” ripostes ask I. This is ignored as stone face stone face “Why hasn't the locker prowls round the den, finally been moved? Well you will have to stopping by the only piece of move it later when we have visible wall and raps out to his finished.” I decide to make some

14 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 fresh coffee and watch the around the wall plugs until they proceedings. are a nice tight fit. After screwing the frame to the wall The underling unloads the the underling gives it a gentle trolley, including a two tier wall pull and it promptly comes away frame unit. He then proceeds to from the wall complete with wall place it on the wall and move it plugs. up and down until stone face is satisfied that anyone looking at When their brains have the monitor screen will get recovered from this little setback severe neck ache. Whilst this is our intrepid pair decide to use going on I am passing an firmer fixings. The ones they interested eye over the rest of the choose are known as ‘Parabolts’ gear, old 14 inch monitor, a no and I just know that I and the by longer needed old computer and now returned other members of some rather nice gear for fixing the den are in for some real the frame to the wall. Wait what entertainment. is this? The wall plugs they have got are not suitable for the job A short time later the intrepid and the screws are both pair return with said ‘Parabolts’ undersized in diameter and and find the first problem the length. selected items will not go through the holes in the frame, After borrowing a set of steps the this remedied our duo open out underling proceeds to drill the the holes in the wall and bang wall, remarking on how easy it is the fixings in through the frame. with a new masonry drill and the Much grunting later the power of their new DeWalt underling has succeeded in driller. I ignore this as I have tightening the nuts up enough to already swapped their unused satisfy stoneface, a cursory spare battery for one of our glance shows me that the totally used ones. The drilling underling has screwed the nuts soon done, the wall plugs are down so far that they are inserted. They are too loose. No actually binding on the problem, stone face fumbles unthreaded shank of the about in their commodious parabolts. This means that the toolbox and produces a roll of parabolts have been pulled insulation tape. This is wrapped almost out of the wall.

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 15 The underling then places the later he pronounces himself monitor on the top shelf and the satisfied and informs us that we computer on the lower shelf, have limited access, no internet, plugging in all the relevant no games, no screensavers in fact cables as he goes along. This all we are restricted to the one done the monitor and that the computer has are switched on. We wait and been put in for, he exits with a wait until at last the desktop smirk. appears, but there is a problem and we are told that we cannot I leave the resident Windross connect to the server. expert to see what he can do with the computer and wander over to The intrepid duo engage in the main shop with a desire to jargonese away from the find out more about the computer. This is fortunate as mysterious program. My boss the without warning the two top Engineering Services manager, fixings give up on their tenuous (note that we no longer have hold on the brickwork and the Works/Maintenance Engineers, I frame tips forward spilling the leave the results to your own computer and monitor to the imagination.) is very proud of his floor via the edge of the fitters latest toy. “Cost 50k and is the workbench. There is a satisfying bees knees. Every single machine crash, bang, flash and all the is entered in its data base along power in the den goes off. In the with available spares and ensuing darkness the toolroom suppliers, its got costings, fitter drops an extremely large salaries, machine downtime and and heavy object with sharp much, much more. “What's our edges on the computer. Exit role in this amazing piece of dynamic duo bearing extremely technology?” ask I. “Oh you will damaged goods. find out about that during your training” says he returning to his computer which I notice is doing comparisons on time taken to A month later the underling effect repairs on one type of returns alone pushing a machine. computer workstation bearing a computer, monitor, printer and Returning to the den I find that ancillaries. A couple of hours the Windows expert has retrieved

16 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Excel, Word, Powerpoint et al I click on the icon and activity but more importantly has found starts, some time later an error and re-installed several desktop box comes up on screen ‘The games, these will keep the multi- data base is too large and will be skilled quiet at least. I inform the curtailed.’ More activity ensues den of my conversation with the and wonder of wonders the boss and observations of what he program window opens. This was doing. This causes some window itself contains several disquiet but I am not bothered buttons with fancy but totally for I have every faith in our meaningless graphics on them. I management. Two days later the click on one that looks like a cog software is installed or rather being bashed with a spanner. access to it enabled. At the same This turns out to be a waste of time all of our other programs time as all I get is a window are removed including the most informing me ‘This part of the eye burning desktop that we program is unavailable for now.’ could collectively devise. This suits me for after only an hour on this machine my nerves are shredded and I feel in need of a strong cup of coffee.

Whilst waiting for our Refreshed I return to the fray comprehensive training we are and find out several interesting invited to ‘play’ with the things, like, I am (unfortunately) program. Always willing to try on the database as a user, that anything new, no matter how none of the services distasteful, I switch the (air/steam/water/waste) have computer on. After a long delay been entered into the database, and much ‘Windows is loading’ meaning that I can't type out an screen parking I am invited to end of shift report as the input my password. “What's the program will not accept non password?” ask I. “They are all existent service locations. I also taped to the side of the monitor.” find that certain assets that I is the answer. “All?” think I, and personally maintain are four passwords later up comes according to the program in the dreaded program icon, I note fixed positions whereas in that all the other programs have actuality they move about the been recovered again. company a fair bit, meaning the

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 17 program will not accept the Now although we had location, (it is on a computer supposedly split into groups of don't forget and thus cannot be six, my group which was also the wrong), and that the input last, actually comprised of seven. number of said asset cannot be “Not that bad thinks I, there are at the location I say it is. six computers in the room that we will be using, so only two After a few days everyone agrees people will have to share.” This that the program is a bag of nails shows how naive even I, an written by different people who experienced man of the factory did not communicate with any world, can be. other programmer whatsoever. For light relief I try Word, this is The day of the training session a big mistake as I am used to dawns and our group sidle into much superior products and the the IT Work Centre. (Honestly experience leaves me feeling that is what was written on the sorry for anyone who has to use door.) There are as reported six a Windows machine on a regular computers already pre-started basis. Within a short period of along with our manager, his two time the computer is only used underlings and a nervous looking for playing games and printing young man. I choose to occupy out the local pirate lists of one of the computers at the back available CDs. and am immediately joined by the spare man and the rest of the group choose a computer each. This is a mistake as the tutor has We are beginning to think that decided that because no one has the management have forgotten been practising with the software all about it when it is announced he has rather a lot to get through that we are to be ‘Trained’. This in two hours and so we will we are told will consist of being double up. This meant of course split into groups of six and that yours truly ended up sharing reporting for training in the IT with two others, one on the training centre on specific days keyboard another on the mouse where we will be given a whole and me reading the instructions. two hours instruction in the use “Right!” Says the tutor. “Who has of the new toy by an expert any experience of computers?” provided by the software house. This falls on deaf ears because

18 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 we are all applying the well of shift reports we are saved. A known maxim that you should knock on the den door heralds never volunteer for anything bar the ingress of a friendly face. overtime. The boss leaves his two “Time for your regular portable underlings to assist the tutor and appliance testing. How about a we begin. I soon find out that the coffee first?” After coffee he two lads I am with genuinely proceeds to test all of our gear, know nothing about computers everything passes except the at all so I have to show one how computer plus two of the leads to use the mouse and the other supplied by the IT ghouls. He what key to press when required. impounds the two leads and This slows down my reading slaps a big red ‘Do not use P.A.T somewhat for I have found out failure’ notice on the computer. that my user manual is in fact an We ring up the boss to tell him advanced users manual for we need to have our computer administrators only. I changed. appropriate this for further study. Three days later the computer is taken away and yet another and After two hours of filling in ‘End much better model is installed in of shift reports’ and conducting its place. However stone face searches under asset, user, work extracts his revenge by disabling issue, tradesmen and location etc everything he can think of. We we are given time off for good have no floppy drive, no CD behaviour and return gratefully player, no USB and even the to work. Despite all this intensive sound out is disabled. In fact we training no one seems at all keen cannot even alter the desktop. to continue the good work by further practice. In fact no one Despite all this our resident PC can even be bothered to play expert manages to retrieve all the games and the computer sits in usual bits except for the games solitary silence. and we convince the management that the fitters should have access to the machine, tool and product Just as the threat of disciplinary drawings. The clinching factor in action is forcing desultory our argument was that any of attempts to practice writing end our company’s customers could

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 19 download any of the drawings, on the ‘little X button’ and only even commercially sensitive typed very verbose end of shift ones, via the intranet. This I reports with one finger, leading suspect caused more than a few to an insufficient time for ripples in the IT department. everybody to input said reports. The third and most relevant And now? The PC sits forlornly factor is that the Engineering unloved and unused on its Services manager has been workstation due to several made redundant and his reasons, The main one being responsibilities have been split that due to security demands the between his underlings and they I.T. Department keep changing find it much more productive to our passwords and neglect to return to the old paper based tell us and we don’t bother to system of work records. This I ask. The second reason is that, am afraid is due to the fact that being used to the RISC OS way a certain cunning person found of doing things I found that out that one could alter other when I clicked on the window people’s end of shift reports if close button the application they were to do a search shut down and removed itself involving ‘Trades’ and then click from the . This of on another tradesmans number course meant that the app had and told the rest of the to be restarted again with all of department. the aforementioned delays. Everyone quickly started to click The future? Who knows?

20 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Free for all

parties. AntiSpam has some excellent help (but one needs I was pleased to find out that !StrongHelp), and this, combined rebooting my A7000, and with a usefully published rules file restarting AntiSpam, it seemed to on the Internet by Bryn Evans on have started where it had finished, the comp.sys.acorn.apps (subject but I was wrong in thinking this “AntiSpam Rules OK”) gave me a

was the case - all of that email was decent starting block to start somehow lost! When you start an eradicating my mail. I used his AntiSpam session be prepared to suggestion of accepting from keep going, as so far as I can see, friends, and deleting the rest, there’s no way of gracefully basically following his rules to the stopping it once it’s started! I letter. didn’t really care - most of it was probably junk anyway!! I set up my rules file along the the following format (the Colon before I had left my email for a couple of the equals means use this part of weeks, and found to my horror I the header, the star (*) indicates a had 2042 messages, of which only wildcard, and a pipe a comment, 43 I wanted to keep. I deleted these blank lines are allowed): through WebMail, as it was quick- er, and while I enjoyed myself do- From people I want to receive ing that, I came up with a method- email from ology to delete mails. This method may not work for everyone, but Accept From: = *BBCShop* Accept would work for me, as I only From: = Brave*New*World* wanted to see emails from certain With subjects I’m interested in -

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 21 I’m potty about planes, but also modem running at only 46K. I want to get bounced mails. should really do my email cleaning more frequently - this was about 3 Accept Subject: = *aviation* Accept weeks’ worth of un-picked-up Subject: = *failure* Accept Subject: rubbish. It would have taken = *returned* longer for Voyager to pick up all of | this, and I wouldn’t have known The following I presume to only what it was doing; AntiSpam did allow replies to yourself. tell me it was on email 10 of 3034, it had deleted 3, accepted 3 and Accept In-Reply-To: = *ajburgess@* defaulted 3 etc. | Kill other email The only thing I’ve got against Delete Content-Type: = *text/html* AntiSpam is it doesn’t seem to Delete Content-Type: = *text/plain* have a stop-running facility. If you Delete Content-Type: = have thousands of junk emails to *multipart/alternative* weed though it would be nice to chip-away at them without having And not do anything with emails to do one sitting to avoid losing greater than 30K (I presume email! again) Although it is a lot of work to set Defer Length >3000 up the rules file and my other niggle aside, I think that Mr Evans’ rule file was far more AntiSpam does at least give one detailed than what I’ve written the ability to weed out the rubbish above and it may be worth a emails, and once I’ve refined my squint. I initially followed Mr rules file to what I want, it know it Evan’s suggestion of deferring will be a very useful addition to “mulitpart/alternative” contents, my Acorn software. If only I had but it seemed to leave too many something faster - like an Iyonix!! emails I didn’t want, and I’m about to delete “text/plain” documents as I seemed to have a few of these I didn’t want. It took me three hours for AntiSpam to process my 3000 odd emails - I’m only on an old A7000+ with a 56K

22 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 or know HTML before embarking on learning PERL, and RISC OS courses in this are available on (though Paul’s website (though currently the RiscPC version worked on my only lessons 1 to 3 are complete). A7000+) Paul’s PERL Lesson 6(!) in the Academy hand-holds you through I’ve been interested in learning setting up WebJames and PERL ‘server side’ programming, but as (even though there are no lessons usual was loathed to have to 3 to 5), and once this is done, you wind up my PC and study can start writing PERL programs something on Windoze. I am a straightaway. I used the humble member of Paul Vigay’s RISC OS !Edit to create my PERL Academy programs, and bought a PC-style learning-to-program with PERL and so was very keen to learn book, skipping the long winded PERL when I discovered that and unnecessarily complex links were available to it from his installation instructions for the Academy. Unfortunately, due to PC Apache server! I did hit a pressures outside of his website, I problem creating a program couldn’t partake of a course from without changing the file type to his website, as the course is as PERL it didn’t run in WebJames yet incomplete, but I did find till I had. I also hit a problem links to PERL, and a piece of when I used the command software called WebJames (both ‘PRINT’ instead of ‘print’ - took free, and both work on RISC OS), me a while to “twig” the which sets up a pseudo web command had to be in lower server on your RISC OS Machine, case! and allows PERL to run. It was great to be using such a PERL is a simple, though slightly widespread language on my cryptic language derived from the favourite computer platform. . It stands for Practical Extraction Report !Organiser I’ve still got to try to Language and it basically creates find time to play with Organizer HTML (HyperText Markup a bit more, and test drive some Language) web pages ‘on-the-fly’ new software..... through a program. You need to

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 23 E E I E O A L B P S Y R L A O I E U O M N O Y E R M U F K T R E E K C W O U P

X R S W N © P A A A H A D

Place the 39 letters shown below into the grid to make valid words

A E O S A F O S A H P T B I P U B K R U B L R X C L S Y E L S Y E M S Z Answer on page 42 E M S

24 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 RISC OS RISC OS

2004 2004 MIDLANDS RISCOS SHOW

at CASTLE CASTLE The National Motorcycle Museum Solihull Nr Birmingham Saturday 4th December 2004 Adults £3, Arm Club members £2 Doors open 10am - 4.30pm Children under 14 (with an adult) FREE !

IYONIX

M42 N pc. North RISC OS M6 Junction 4 A452

pc.

M6 IYONIX A452 A446

Nuneaton NEC Junction 6 A452 B4102 A45 A45 Birmingham B4104 National A452 B4102 Motorcycle Merlden IYONIX Museum Coventry B 4104 pc. The Manor Hotel M42 B4102 A 452

Windmill Village Hotel pc.

Solihull Balsall Common & Kenilworth IYONIX

by public transport or by road

voL vo volvo National Motorcycle Museum 60450

A free coach service from Birmingham International rail station to and from The National Motorcycle Museum is available. Birmingham International Airport is also only 10 minutes away and you could catch the monorail to the train station to use the free bus from there.

For further details: Tel. 07010 709 849 - Fax. 07020 954 018 - EMail. [email protected] Web page: http://www.armclub.org.uk - ftp site: ftp://ftp.armclub.org.uk

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 25 26 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 27 Winning Games with Logic Part 7

Not sure where to start this one. good idea is prototyping e.g. as What can I contribute to computer shown in Fig 1. However it may games? Yes I have played a few, suffice to plan something out on but so has everyone else. Design? paper first however crude, Well I could go a bundle on design sketches, story plots etc. techniques but I haven’t known anyone stick to one. If you are The last time I tried to get a team writing a game alone, you only together to write games was a

need to communicate with disaster! One graphics designer yourself. This shouldn’t be too wanted to do a ‘beatemup’, another much of a problem, (if it is go see suggested a wedding game? The a shrink!) If however there are 2 or other programmer suggested that more of you, you can end up everyone else do nothing till he writing different games! writes a graphics engine. Yet another graphics designer was a Designing games is more of an art skateboarding fiend and suggested form than a science. It is a good as such. (A week later he sat on top idea to catalogue different ideas, of Mt. Blanc and decided he didn’t e.g. character descriptions, want to design games! He later interface techniques, sound effects, changed his mind again and went animation sequences depending on to work for Walt Disney ) the game. Brainstorming sessions - a free exchange of original ideas is Thus, this time I will stick to the often a good idea to generate logic bit! To clear the air for later I creative characters and stories. will attempt to define a few things, However sessions do need to be such as what are ‘intelligence’ and kept reasonably focused, with ‘intelligent behaviour’, but see also no­one dominating them. Another Eureka 46. If you have ever

28 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Establish Scope,Resources- Costs,feasibility,schedule.

REVIEW

Build Prototype to Establish Requirements

Technical Review

Plan Revision Review

Revise Resources,Costs Schedule & Justify Ok

Development Begins

This commences with a feasibility study of each viable alternative . The ideas that are deemed viable are then progressed to design & development stage . This is purely as an aid to the feasibility study itself . A very simple prototype for each alternative need only be implemented . For each one the required resources & cost benefit estimates are revised . All viable alternatives are then compared using agreed feasibility criteria . The ones that still seem viable proceed to the true game development phase .

Fig. 1

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 29 argued with someone only to find College Pennslyvania was quizzed that there was just one word that by a Quaker professor. “Warren” you disagreed over you’ll the professor asked , “what is thee understand! going to be?” “I don’t know,” said McCulloch. “And what is thee One of the problems the A.I going to do?” persisted the community (who disagree over professor. almost everything,) has is jargon; having to modify or refine the Still uncertain, McCulloch replied: meaning of words to make them “I have no idea, but there is one precise enough to be used as a question I would like to answer: basis for discussion. Take the What is a number, that a man may word ‘LIFE’ for instance. Before know it, and a man that he may you decide if there is life on Mars, know a number?” it is best to agree on what life is. A definition of life appeared in the “Friend,” said the kindly professor ALIFE conference notes. It was with a smile, “Thee will be busy as followed by an article entitled - “Is long as thee lives.” The Romantic Novel Alive?” and another that concluded that McCulloch and the mathematician humans beings were not alive, but Walter Pitts in 1942 suggested that the earth’s Biosphere is. This may computers and the brain may disappoint some of you, but the function in similar ways. Neurons alternative is somewhat in the brain may be thought of as subjective. You may argue - devices for manipulating binary “Humans are alive - coz we have numbers. self consciousness. There is nothing like that on Mars - thus This cybernetic (from the Greek Mars is a dead planet.” word for steersman) or neural- modelling approach to machine The different approaches in A.I. intelligence was dubbed the stems from their different ‘bottom up’ approach. The idea backgrounds. By the early 1900’s being to start with simple analogs scientists had realised that biology of primitive creatures containing a had much to teach engineers. One few neurons and work up from of them was the philosopher - there to the human level or scientist Warren McCulloch who beyond. The goal was to create as a freshman at Haverford devices that could observe the

30 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 environment and apply feedback Just to get us in the mood I will to modify their behaviour as it tell you a story. Once upon a time was believed living organisms did. there were three brick laying However at the time the analogy robots Dumbo, Fatso and with living organisms was not Einstein. “Who’s been eating my particularly useful. Warren porridge?” says Dumbo. No that's McCulloch once noted, “If you not right! well you’ll get the idea want a sweetheart in spring, don’t from Fig. 2. Note - this story has a get an amoeba and wait for it to moral, namely Fig. 3 :- “It ain’t evolve”. However, I don’t know if what you do it’s the way that you anyone has noticed, but do it” computers are a tad faster these days and some A.I pioneers e.g. You may have decided that John Koza are attempting to do intelligent behaviour requires just that! For example, in 2000 reasoning. However primitive Lipson and Pollack at Brandeis animals have no central nervous University Massachusetts used a systems but still have a complex computer to evolve 200 robot behaviour and are well adapted to designs starting completely from their environment. Thus scratch. Using a simulation roboticists decided that initially program, they scored the robots their robots need to be designed (i.e. used a fitness function, see along the lines of such creatures. Eureka 45) by how fast they could OK over to a book :- move across the floor, replaced low fitness (slow) robot designs “Intelligent behaviour in animals with ones of higher fitness, and stems from the costs and benefits mutated all the remaining robots that accrue to different aspects of again. After several hundred behaviour. The forces of evolution generations, they then built some by natural selection tend towards of the most successful robots out the behavioural strategy and of moulded plastic. These evolved tactics that will best enable the robots that walk like inchworms, animal to adapt to the current crabs, and other real animals, yet circumstances. It does not much look like nothing on earth! matter how the optimal strategy is achieved. What matters is the So what are the requirements for behavioural outcome. This is intelligence for a robot or virtual judged by evolution in relation to creature? the particular circumstances

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 31 dumbo

dumbo

fatso fatso

einstein einstein

Are you all seated comfortably. No ? Then I will begin. Once upon a time there were 3 robots. Dumbo, Fatso & Einstein. They were all set to work moving bricks. ( Why, cos its me telling this story) Dumbo sets out but oh dear! disaster , Dumbo falls over when the brick is grasped. Fatso sets out successfully cos it is big, heavy & fat. Fatso is just a heavier Dumbo. Einstein however sets out & uses its free arm as a counterweight

It is intelligent behaviour of the robot to raise a counterbalance when it picks up the brick even if it is an automatic response. Intelligent behaviour requires the mechanical capacity i.e. to have the counterbalance & the environmental circumstances. Neither of the other robots can do this however big their onboard computers.

Fig. 2 pertaining to each species. If we think otherwise we may find Intelligent behaviour is that which ourselves in the ridiculous comes up with the right answer, situation of judging a poorer irrespective of how that answer is solution to a problem to be more arrived at. intelligent because it involves

32 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 I Ain't got no Body 1) Intelligence requires a body. A computer with no body - that cannot control its environment is incapable of intelligent behaviour.

2) Only the consequences of intelligent behaviour can be called intelligent by virtue of its effect on the environment. bomb 3) Intelligent Behaviour requires some judgemen in relation to some criterion of intelligence. To build sandcastles, In nature, a species must survive. In a comput or not game we must make some judgement as to wh to build sandcastles constitutes intelligent behaviour e.g. winning that - is the ? the game.

Fig. 3 reasoning, than a better solution feed, the cost would be high, but if that does not.” (Ref. 1) it stopped grooming the cost may be less so. An animal that desired Suppose we consider that each to do both, but did not have the activity that an animal does has a time, (e.g. if predators are near) survival value to it. Animals are would sacrifice less in terms of able to allocate priorities to fitness, if it spent its time feeding. activities in a general way. This However the animal’s environment problem can be approached by can change. Suppose it now takes considering a measure of cost to longer for the animal to feed, since an animal of abstaining from each it is now having to obtain food activity in its natural repertoire. from another food source. The For example if an animal did not animal can :-

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 33 A) Take the same time feeding and sausages (so far so good!) settle for less food. You can put your hands down now! B) Take more time feeding and 2 apples + 2 oranges = ? 4 thus have less time for other pieces of fruit ? activities that must then be squashed into the remaining time. You have probably realised by now that there is something C) Compromise between the two. more than mere addition involved such as should the Houston and McFarland found quantities be added in the first that the extent to which an animal place! Needless to say there is resists squashing can be much controversy here and represented using one parameter whole PHD’s that can be “RESILIENCE” which in summarised “ADDEMUP” and economic terms equates to others “*”. “inelasticity”. In the case when an animal insists on its normal So where are we? We are going amount of food, the ‘resilience’ of to look at action selection feeding is relatively high. Feeding methods and virtual creatures. has then ousted the other activities To do this we will need to be able from the time available. Resilience to add etc. affects the importance of an activity. During periods when time If you can’t, don’t worry. Your is a budget constraint, activities average pigeon is no Einstein with a low resilience will tend to either, but it still can make basic be ignored. In such times some decisions. activities may disappear from an animal’s repertoire We may call Meanwhile if you are stuck for a such an activity a luxury one. technique you can Email me [email protected]. But how can such quantities as “motivation”, “fatigue” and Ref 1 Intelligent Behaviour in “resilience” that we are having Animals and Robots, 1994 to define in the first place be D Mc Farland. T Bosser MIT press - combined? Complex Adaptive Systems Now hands up who can count! 1 sausage + 2 sausages = 3

34 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 It has been brought to our of the magazine. Please fill in attention that most of the your own name and membership Membership Cards in circulation at number (from the old card, or the moment have an increasing address label) and cherish in a array of old and defunct safe place! information on them, not least the old Freepost address that is no If you’ve lost your membership longer supported/ working. number, or can’t find an inserted card, please contact Toby on Therefore we’ve had a new batch [email protected] or printed. You should find your own via the address on the back page. blank card included with this issue

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 35 Site Seeing: Languages

Learning another language can be repertoire, I thought this would be extremely useful as well as fun, so a good starting point for my in the online information age, I research. I came across decided to investigate what freely available resources there would be fairly quickly. (Fig.1) I on the , which was happy to discover that the are accessible to our RISC OS sound files used on the site to aid browsers! correct pronunciation are MP3’s

Unilang.com is a fantastic which played perfectly on my resource for anyone interested in machine. many of the exercises learning a language. They list free also worked without problem and online courses in many languages, the categorised vocabulary lists, from Afrikaans to Turkish. These with sound files could be useful for are simple, text-based lessons, the beginner. Some basic grammar supported, in some cases, by audio rules are also simply explained on files, which again worked fine the site. More complex grammar here. In addition, there are and further exercises can be discussion groups where you can accessed by paying a subscription. learn a language as part of a small It wasn’t all plain sailing though, as “class”. Again there is a wide many of the exercises I clicked on choice of languages here and I just produced a blank page and I dipped into an Esperanto forum to only managed to get as far as the find that it was still active. Unilang beginnings of the Flash-based can be found at exercises. Also on the site was a . link to the very useful German <-> English Dictionary at As German has always been a bit of a weak point in my language I have to say that my Spanish is

36 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Fig. 1 rather better than my German, online course. One section I tried and I was curious when I came out was the one based on upon businessspanish.com dialogues. Each part of the (fig.2) The site’s name is rather dialogue had an audio file (MP3 misleading as the information again) so that you could repeat here could easily be used by the sentence. This was followed anyone learning the language. by comprehension exercises There are daily ‘lessons’, verb using new vocabulary. Clicking and vocabulary lists, dialogues on verbs in the daily verb lists and a grammar section, as well brings up a page showing the as a very useful travel Spanish conjugation of that verb in every section included in this free tense. Impressive stuff!

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 37 Taking a slightly different angle is useful site can be found at Webspañol, (fig.3) which has a number of Spanish language resources, including a Spanish test, idioms, riddles and an audio I thought that finding a site to pronunciation guide. This really learn French would be relatively

Fig. 2

38 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 39 easy, but the first two sites I Encouraging their readers to visited proved to be disappointing. “think different” is the Learn The sound files on “Fast and Dutch site at Friendly French for Fun” wouldn’t work (the links to WAV versions of (Fig. 5). Here you learn the the files lead nowhere!) and language working your way through lessons based in the was a rather dry, but fictitious ‘Crossroads Café’. nevertheless comprehensive, text “Crossroads Café is de juiste only site. That’s fine if all you plaats om Nederlands te leren”! want is an online book, but by Using pictures with speech now I was getting used to sites bubbles, you can click on the that provided at least just a bit Dutch version to hear it spoken more than that, in the form of and also reveal the translation in audio pronunciation guides. the picture alongside . Eventually I found what I was looking for; a good beginner’s site OK, so what if even Dutch isn’t with audio files at different enough for you? What about Latvian? “Learning Latvian (Fig. 4). On-line” (Fig. 6) will lead you

Fig.5

40 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 through the first simple steps to crossword, which requires learning Latvian, although Internet Explorer, but they eventually, if you want to write have thoughtfully added a PDF the language on your computer file of this resource to download you may run into problems with and print out. So if you want to fonts that display the Latvian add a few words of Latvian to character set. The first part of the your knowledge of foreign course is very straightforward languages, head for though and every part of it works on my Risc PC, except the ‘active’ .

Fig. 6

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 41 B E Z E L I E O M A P L E B P S O Y E R S L B A Y O U I P I X E L U O M N O Y E C R U M B S U L F A K T R F E E K S C H W A O R U M P S O © E X T R A S W N S P E A K A A H Y A R D S

42 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 ARM Arena

This is the first ARM Arena least one development this column under our new Editor month that the arrival of the Andrew Wyver and I hope this Iyonix has made possible. column will be able to announce Future possibilities include at least as many developments RISC OS Select on the Omega during Andrew’s time here as it with faster XScale processors if did under Peter Jenning's Microdigital (the Omega’s stewardship. developers) can sort out their

Some interesting developments ARMTwister technology that is from Wakefield included the intended to permit 26bit code commitment to on going (e.g. RISC OS 4/Select) to run development of RISC OS 5 and on the latest fully 32bit ARM- the expansion of its hardware based processors. This would and also news of the Omega potentially bring the benefits of from Microdigital and the latest full support for RISC OS enhancements to RISC OS 4 in 4-compatible games and the the form of RISC OS greater speed to support future Select/Adjust. games-related software released for RISC OS. The relevance to games players is that with all this activity in On with the news... the market it can only encourage any potential games authors or converters to try their hand on the latest RISC OS As reported last month the Unix technology. Indeed there is at Porting Project has released a

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 43 conversion of the Linux PC http://www.eliteclub.co.uk . emulator, DOSbox. This is intended to emulate PCs from the 286/386 chip era which is, roughly-speaking, around the is the application early 1990s. The arrival of this designed to allow code written program opens up a wide range for 26bit ARM chips (i.e. all of games titles which are listed those on RISC OS machines on the DOSbox web-page before the Iyonix) to run on the (http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/co Iyonix. It has just received an mp_list.php?letter=a). As usual overhaul and the new version, with the Unix Porting Project, Aemulor Pro incorporates support is only available to support for many features of subscribers to the scheme so, for older RISC OS machines that example, any requests for were lacking in Aemulor. This updates made to the Linux goes beyond full sound support version of DOSbox to be ported but also includes features such to the RISC OS version could as support for low-colour only be addressed to the screenmodes, support for the developers through the channels old-style video and memory as a subscriber. handling chips that some games accessed directly and even It should be noted however that, support for the ARM 3 despite there being controls to processor. This signifies a optimise the running speed, broadening of objectives for the DOSbox is only really suitable development team aiming to for the Iyonix. On the other account for programs written as hand, without the Iyonix this at least as far back as 1991 as conversion may well have not well as enable more recent been embarked upon. One final software that perhaps was point of interest to RISC OS developed for RISC OS 4 but has users is that the sequel to the not been converted for the classic 8-bit BBC Micro game Iyonix to run. Thus, amongst Elite, Elite 2: Frontier, which the most notable beneficiaries of was never converted for Acorn this widening of remit include machines is compatible with the games-players! DOSbox and can be downloaded as shareware from A full list of compatible

44 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 software, including games is virtue of a ‘hidden’ track on one available on the Aemulor of the game’s floppy discs. By website. At the point of writing, enabling A310em’s disc reading the developers are working on emulation to take account of support for screen resolutions this, Jan extended the accuracy and monitor refresh rates that of the program. are no longer found on modern monitor models. Aemulor Pro It will be interesting to chart the costs £99 for new users and £49 progress of both programs in as an upgrade for owners of terms of their success in Aemulor. It can be ordered running older games whilst from the website or from your bearing in mind the different usual Acorn/RISC OS dealer. objectives of each package.

One difference between Aemulor and A310em (discussed in detail in last Last month, this column month’s column) is that brought news that the range of A310em aims to provide as full games owned by the successor an emulation of the whole to the Eclipse had been machine as possible rather than reclassified as freeware and prioritize on allowing old code were to be released to download to run. This, in the long run, from Acorn Arcade in due might be of more benefit to course. Most of these games those who want to play games were written by Tom ‘Berty’ from the launch of the Cooper who was a one man Archimedes to the early 1990s workhorse in the early 1990s (or later games with backwards and the 3D walkabout game compatibility built-in) as Darkwood has just been made A310em is intended to support available. as far as is practical the idiosyncratic features of these Darkwood is a mix of problem machines. As an example, the solving and exploration which developer of A310em, Jan de alternates between 3D Boer, recently provided support landscapes and room-to-room for the old 4th Dimension space movement. The game made use game, Black Angel, which uses of the enhanced graphics a copy-protection mechanism by capabilities of the RiscPC whilst

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 45 maintaining compatibility with A310em (as presumably they older machines. The objective is would on older machines). The to communicate with other game other downsides to the game are characters to discover the that some of the controls have to emerging story of the game and be worked out and some of the the quest the player has to make. characters are poorly drawn. The Much of the dialogue is quite latter is minor however and witty and in-depth and the the could even be regarded as one of background scenery detailed and the quirks of the game. high quality. The story doesn't become clear initially and it is On the whole though, necessary to perform a few Darkwood really pushed helpful tasks in your local village gaming forward for RISC OS first merely to get the hang of and being freely available is a the game and to set things up for bonus for all RISC OS gamers later on. (indeed the game is reported to run under Aemulor Pro). The game is now supposed to be compatible with all machines Other Berty games have been from RISC OS 2 to Select uploaded to Acorn Arcade for although there is a bug which convenience of locating them. causes the game to crash when These are: Lemmings, the firing indoors under RISC OS Lemmings variant and Son of Select. The only solution I could Gyrinus, a platformer. Both find was to save the game and games have high quality and transfer the saved-game file into varied Tracker-style music A310em in which I had characteristic of early Berty previously installed the game. games and much depth. Indeed On moving outdoors again I Tracker music has a great transferred a saved-game file out nostalgia feel and did progress to the desktop again to play the much further than the RISC OS game under Select. It is a shame Tracker-creation programmes this bug couldn't be ironed-out catered for. It would be nice to as, apart from the see this extremely efficient and inconvenience, several of the compact music form return to graphics options have to be de- the RISC OS scene. Further selected to get the game to run Eclipse and Tom Cooper releases at a reasonable speed under are being worked on or sought

46 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 as I write. Keep ’em peeled! Acorn-special issue featured a CD full of games from the publisher Gremlin (whose copyright is now owned by a successor company) of A new magazine designed to which three were BBC Micro titles. capitalise on the current interest in RISC OS emulators exists for many retro-gaming is currently being sold of the other platforms covered also at newsagents up and down the on the CD so this magazine should county. Named Retrogamer, issue 3 be good value all round. The issue was an Acorn special which also includes a description of the mentions Acorn machines up until most popular Acorn series of games the RiscPC. Hopefully this is ever, Repton written by RISC OS indicative of some of the games Ltd’s Richard Hallas. Could there which they will seek to re-release on have been an Acorn special without cover-discs for example. The Repton?

DOSbox Unix Porting Project email: [email protected] Website:

Aemulor Website: Compatibility:

A310em Website: 4th Dimension Telephone: 01903 523222 Website:

Acorn Arcade downloads

Retrogamer Telephone: 01625 855086 Website:

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 47 Eureka CD Offer... £5

Special price (Post free)

On the CD you get:

• Every issue of Eureka to date.

• With illustrations in full colour...

...as you’ve never seen them before.

• A complete index to help you find anything you want.

• Plus the contents of all the magazine discs.

• And a bonus of extra software previously sold by the Club.

Order now, post free, from: CD Offer, The ARM Club, Merton Court, 38 Knoll Road, Sidcup, Kent DA14 4QU

Or buy at our stall at the Midlands Show

48 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Another poetic masterpiece from Alan Wickham’s amazing mechanical RISC OS wizard

I have discovered, when clearing out some old files, that my machine has written another bit of verse. It has not been too well recently and seems to be feeling its age. Please find below a copy - it might be of some interest to readers.

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 49 50 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004

Alan Wickham’s RiscPC

Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 51 Club contacts

Email: General queries [email protected] Membership queries [email protected] Members’ technical help [email protected] Product sales [email protected] Magazine [email protected] Software [email protected]

The ARM Club, Merton Court, 38 Knoll Road Sidcup, Kent DA14 4QU

Telephone (higher rates): General queries 07010 709849 Technical help line 07010 708098 Fax: 07020 954018

Web site: http://www.armclub.org.uk/

Published by The ARM Club

• Chairman & Membership Secretary: Toby Smith • Treasurer: Simon Burrows • Secretary: Chris Price • Product Development & Internet Officer: Tom Hughes • Show Organisation & Product Sales: Ralph Sillett • Technical Support Co-ordinator: David Ruck • Technical Support: Matthew Cook • Special Projects: Mark Smith

Editor: Andrew Wyver © 2004 The ARM Club. All rights reserved

52 Eureka 51 — Autumn 2004 Benefits of membership

The national club for all users of 32 bit and Pocket Books

• The Club’s magazine, ‘Eureka’, written by members, is published and sent free of charge four times a year.

• Free software to accompany articles in Eureka is available on the Club’s FTP site or can be sent to members on disc.

• Free Technical Help Service. We will do our best to solve any problems which you may have, by email, letter, telephone or fax.

• Special discounts for Club members from well-known companies.

• Regional open days and shows are regularly organised by the Club. Other events can be arranged on request.

• Special offers at shows and open days.

• Regional contact lists of other members, available on request.

• Opportunities to get involved in the running of the Club itself.

• School and Affiliate Membership available on request.

• Joining pack includes an extra copy of a recent issue of the magazine and software.

Annual membership £15 Europe £19 and rest of the world £22 The ARM Club, Merton Court, 38 Knoll Road, Sidcup, Kent DA14 4QU Email: [email protected] Tel: 07010 709849 (Flextel)