The magazine for members of VirtualA5000 Acorn on a PC Getting on the Internet with RISC OS and Linux Fill your own Phoebe case Designer from Cerilica Issue 42 — Summer 2002 Free Membership And More s you may have seen from the That will make DiscKnight — that Alate announcement slipped into essential item of software that our last issue, we are now rewarding everyone should have — an even all contributors to Eureka with a free bigger bargain than it is already! extension to their membership. Are you interested? If so what can The details have now been decided by you contribute? the Club’s Committee. Starting with our first issue of the year (Spring First of all, don’t worry if you have 2002) every contribution in Eureka never had anything published before. will earn the writer three months’ It’s part of the Editor’s job to provide extension of their membership. That any help or advice you may need and means our regular contributors will to give the article a final polish if virtually have free life membership necessary. from now on as we won’t be too strict about an odd issue missed or if we At present, we still need someone to have to hold over a contribution when help us bring back the once regular space is scarce. Site Seeing look at the internet. For this you would just browse through There’s a little extra bonus too. Every whichever net pages caught your contributor will be offered a £5 interest and, every three months, send discount from any item of Club in an article about them and continue software for each contribution they your free membership. make. Obviously, the Club’s range of software is not wide enough for Or perhaps you have a better idea for anyone to want to take advantage of either a series or just a one-off article that for every issue but the discount you can do. will be there any time it is needed. Peter Jennings All opinions expressed in Eureka are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Club or its Committee members and officers. CONTENTS 26 ARM Arena 4 Virtual Acorn What's happening on the games How to get your Acorn programs scene and where to get some old working on a Windows PC favourites. 11 The Midlands RISC OS Show 33 Computer WordSquare Our regular word challenge. This time to find the computer terms. 34 Presenter Textease grows again and gets a Presentation Editor which can also be used as a stand alone. News of the sixth appearance of the Midlands Show coming to 39 Odd Ode: Sad Birmingham in November. The tragic tale of a computer owner. 12 Insignia Creating decorated text files with 40 Show Time a range of styles and effects. Where to find the RISC OS shows in Wakefield and The 16 Fitting into a Phoebe Netherlands . All you need to know if you want to put RISC OS into one of those 42 RISC OS & Linux: Part 3 evocative yellow cases. Getting onto the Internet Ð with all the programs you need. 24 Going flat screen How a flat screen monitor 63 The Omegus Family designed for a Windows PC can Joining RISC OS Select brings it be used with your RISC OS problems to our disfunctional computer (as well or on its own). cartoon family. 2 Eureka 40 — Winter 2001 Notice Please note that, because of frequent delivery failures by the Post Office, we have had to discontinue the Club’s freepost address which we used for many years. If you write, please You’re in the (Monopoly) money with address your letter to one of the games featured in ARM Arena The ARM Club this issue. Merton Court 38 Knoll Road 64 Gill’s stylish journal Sidcup Kindly advice for the spod who Kent wants to stay in style. DA14 4QU 71 You asked — we answered Or, better still, for The latest selection of questions prompt delivery and sent by members and answered reply you can email any by our Technical Help team. general queries to [email protected] 79 Computer WordSquare answers or use any of the other Did you find them all? Compare email addresses shown your list with the answers here. every issue in Club Contacts on page 80. 80 Club Contacts The names and addresses for the Club services you may need. Eureka 40 — Winter 2001 3 Living With A PC: Virtual Acorn mong a mist of controversy At The RISC OS 2001 Show Aaron AVirtual Acorn (A 3QD Timbrell was selling a RISC OS Company) brings, in my opinion, Emulators CD ROM containing a probably the most important collection of RISC OS emulators for development in the RISC OS Windows PCs. This excellent community for the last couple of compilation CD not only contained years. the emulator software but instructions Matthew Cook tries out the software that gives you an Acorn on your Windows PC and finds it a useful accessory in the wait for new RISC OS hardware. Virtual A5000 is the first product on how to configure and get the best coming under the Virtual Acorn out of the emulators included. There umbrella, bringing a supported RISC was much public interest and OS 3.11 emulator to the Windows throughout the show a crowd was environment for RISC OS enthusiasts constantly gathered around a and new users alike. Windows PC demonstrating the software. Its predecessor was Red Squirrel, a freeware RISC OS emulator released During the show I took the in 2001 by Graeme Barnes. Red opportunity to investigate the Squirrel was met with a mixed developments. Red Squirrel was reception, especially when people being run on a Pentium 4 PC running realised this was able to run RISC OS Windows XP and it proved quite 4 (although this is against the reliable. Performance seemed similar licensing terms of RISCOS Ltd). to an ARM 610 machine, although These discussions still remain active that was just my personal opinion on UseNET and in other public without having the opportunity for forums. benchmarking. 4 Eureka 42 Ð Summer 2002 a laptop and I wanted to keep it as a working piece of my Acorn Computers collection. I can now reliably run RISC OS 3.11 on my laptop in 1024x768 with 16MB of memory. By the end of the first day Aaron had Portable RISC OS Computing is now sold out of the CD- ROMs. again a viable option for me. I took the opportunity to test Red During this review I have tested Squirrel on my Sony VAIO laptop, a Virtual A5000 on various Pentium III machine running at combinations of PC hardware; firstly 650MHz with 256MB of RAM. I was my Sony VAIO laptop, Pentium III very impressed with the performance 650Mhz, 256MB of RAM, NeoMagic after getting some advice on tweaking 6MB Graphics card, running the emulator and the Windows Windows 2000, Windows XP and operating system. Red Squirrel has Red Hat Linux 7.1 (Running WINE). proved very useful for supporting I also tested Virtual A5000 on two DiscKnight and other Club products Windows desktop PCs running when taking technical support calls Windows 2000, one with an ATI Rage while away from a desktop RISC OS Pro 32MB graphics card and another machine. with an Nvida Riva TNT II. I was very pleased when Virtual You may have guessed two of the Acorn announced the release of most important requirements for Virtual A5000 in November 2001. running Virtual A5000 are processor My Acorn A4 is getting very tired as speed and graphics card performance. Eureka 42 Ð Summer 2002 5 As with all new Windows PC The Virtual A5000 team recommend: software, I used a package that analyses the installer process. The • 300Mhz Pentium/Celeron Virtual A5000 installer cleanly placed processor. the application on my hard disc where • Windows 98 or later with Direct X I asked it, worked first time and V8.0 helpfully placed an icon on my • 32MB of RAM. desktop. Furthermore it repeatedly • 500MB of free hard drive space. installed in this tidy fashion on the • Not essential: three button mouse other test machines. (almost all scroll mice have three buttons). Running Virtual A5000 brought the • 4MB Graphics card with hardware machine into full screen mode with 2D acceleration and DirectX support. the friendly RISC OS 16384K banner in the top left corner. However at this I would suggest to get good point my laptop crawled and took two performance out of the software, you minutes to reach the desktop. will want to run with a Pentium III Drawing on my experience from Red 500MHz or above, the best graphics Squirrel, I restarted into the card you can afford and the latest windowed mode — you can toggle version of Direct X. between both modes of operation with ALT + Enter — the desktop was One of the most grumbled about then reached in a little over 20 problems facing Windows PC owners seconds. The important point to note is software management. There is not is when using Virtual Acorn with a the friendly dragging of applications less powerful graphics card is to off CD-ROM and placing them in a match the screen resolution on your neat hierarchy on your hard disc. Windows desktop, with the settings in Windows software generally comes Virtual Acorn. with an installer, waiting to scatter .dll files all over your hard disc. Virtual Operation is then identical to a normal A5000’s installer was a pleasant RISC OS machine with one surprise.