BARUG NewsJune 2002
Last month's meeting......was treated to a talk by David Ruck (better known to comp.sys.acorn newgroup readers as 'Druck'). The Vice-Chairman writes:"Our thanks go to David Ruck for the talk he gave to the group in May. His explanations of the origins of !DiscKnight and his insight into the way RISC OS manages its hard drives were most illuminating. His views on the RISC OS scene as a whole were enlightening and it was useful for us to hear the opinions of one so close to the working end of our little world. The obvious pleasure with which he told us about all the holidays he has been on with The ARM Club must surely encourage us to widen our horizons when we are considering future meetings! Korea is nice at this time of year!" Thanks again, David: I'm sorry I missed the evening! David was in touch again after the meeting with the following request: David invites anyone who wants to purchase DiscKnight on line or by post, the details are: http://www.armclub.org.uk/products/discknight His free software such as !WorkSpace can be found at: http://www.armclub.org.uk/free
This month's meeting...Turning now to this month's meeting, the guest speakers on 26th June will be Kate and David Crennell, of Fortran Friends. Many members will have seen demonstrated at Acorn Shows their specialist programme to generate the regular mathematical shapes called polyhedra, and they will also be demonstrating their programmes to teach the art of bell-ringing. The programming language FORTRAN is of course one of the oldest around, but refuses to lie down and die, despite being written off many times!
Other stuff...Following on from Chris Hornby's visit a few weeks ago, and the subsequent announcement of not one but two USB podules at the Wakefield Show, I emailed to Chris about delivery of podules and progress on the USB drivers for digital cameras and got the following reply:"Well, the podules should be around for early July and I believe Castle already have podules available. Our camera drivers are initially for Canon and similar cameras with Olympus and other "storage class" devices soon after. We will be selling drivers and cards. (Drivers for the) RS portable should be no problem." Thanks for the information, Chris: I'm sure there are a lot of users out there who are really looking forward to being able to use USB devices. For my own part, I'm impatiently waiting for the RiscStation portable to appear, as I'm due to go on an overseas sports tour in August and would love to be able to write the tour report AND load my own digital photos onto a RISC OS portable rather than a PC....... Readers of Archive magazine will have seen the adverts enclosed with earlier issues for Paul Beverley's new magazine 'Living with Technology'. This isn't specifically a RISC OS magazine, but it is an attempt to bring simple explanantions of new technology to non-technical readers. I work as a professional engineer in the field of communications, and I certainly have difficulty in keeping up with technology advances, for example in the field of mobile phones, so that such a magazine - if well put together and free of manufacturer's hype - would certainly be of use to me in fields in which I have little knowledge. For any member who wishes to have a look at Issue 1, Jack Evans has received a couple of copies which he promises to bring to the next meeting, so ask to see them and support Paul's latest venture if you find the specimen copies to your liking. In case anyone missed their announcement, Cerilica has dropped the price of the Vantage graphics package: The Wakefield show saw the launch of Vantage's on-CD electronic manual format. The CD now contains three PDF full manuals, each optimised for on-screen viewing and printing through commercial and freeware applications such as Cerilica's RiScript, !PDF and Adobe's Acrobat. This change in product format has allowed the base price of Vantage to drop significantly from the previous 241.50ukp to 177.50ukp (UK, including package, postage and VAT). For those who prefer to read a physical manual, the option to purchase the comprehensive 230+ page item is still available at 25.00ukp (UK, fully inclusive). Cerilica's ordering and product pages now reflect the product's change in format and price change with a new downloadable order form in PDF, Drawfile and plain text formats (see later item). Orders may be placed directly by phone, e.mail and post with comprehensive credit and debit card facilities available. Cerilica Vantage web page: http://www.cerilica.com/vantage/ See you at the next meeting!
Finally......the newsletter is YOUR newsletter. If you have suggestions for items to be included, or items to sell/items wanted, or need advice, please email me or contact me by phone (office phone 0117 913 1216).Steve |