Dear Foundation member, News from RISCOS Ltd No. 8 19th April 2000 =============== First Foundation CD ------------------- This has been shipped to all current members. If you want a second copy they are available for £15 each. The second issue of the Foundation Risc User CD will go out in late May. RISC OS Manuals CD ------------------ If you ordered a copy of this CD then it was usually shipped in the same package as the Foundation CD. We had a number of Credit Cards declined, in that case we usually wait a week before trying to charge the card again, and your order will not be shipped until your Credit Card or Cheque clears. We give up trying if your Credit Card is declined a second time. Membership renewals.... ----------------------- Just a reminder that we are extending the membership of everyone who joined in February, March, and April 1999 up until May 2000. Therefore if you joined on or before 31st May 1999 your date for renewal of Foundation membership will be 31st May 1999. This will bring everyone up to an identical level of items from the Foundation. Renewal forms will start going out in May and we will be offering Standing Order and Automatic Credit Card payments in the future. RISCOS Ltd Web Site ------------------- We have now moved over to a new server with some new features. 1. There is now a search page at http://www.riscos.com/search.htm 2. The sites have been split into several URL's so there is now http://foundation.riscos.com as well as http://developer.riscos.com other sites will follow over the next few months. Ron - RISC OS on netBook ------------------------ The response to the interest form has been fantastic. Nearly 100 replies in the first 2 weeks. Over 150 to date. In order to progress the project at the fastest possible speed the next stage will probably be to ask people if they are prepared to make an initial 50% downpayment e.g approx £50 for a copy of Ron. Advance payers would then get a reduction off the final price of Ron and for a select few there will be a opportunities to become beta testers, in a couple of months. This will be proper beta testing, and you will be required to submit proper reports on particular areas. You will also have to have your own netBook as we won't be able to provide free machines - sorry! Remember we won't be asking for deposits for a machine that doesn't exist yet. You can buy a netBook from dealers such as CJE Micros already, and get used to its size and EPOC features and then get ready to be able to run RISC OS apps on it in about 6-9 months time. £50 is not much more than a meal out for 4 people, so we hope that everyone who has expressed an interest in Ron will see this as the perfect way of showing their support for the future of RISC OS. A final decision on this will be announced in May. If you would like to support the netBook project by an advance payment then please let us know by sending an email to mailto:ron@riscos.com If you haven't already expressed an interest in Ron then please fill in the form which can be downloaded from the Web Site and post it back to us. Sharing a modem between a PC and RISC OS ---------------------------------------- One of the few good features of Windows is it's built in ability to share an external modem connection with other machines that are on the same local network. It is a unfortunate fact that not everyone uses solely Risc PC's or other Acorn kit at home, and once you have two machines in use you have to decide who gets to use the phone line if you use them both for the Internet. Luckily you don't have to have two modems and two phone lines. The following example shows how to make use of a PC running Windows95, 98 or 2000 with a modem connected to it and a RISC OS machine to both access the internet at the same time through the same modem. Hardware needed a) a modem connected to the PC. b) an ethernet card in the PC c) an ethernet card in the RISC OS machine d) a crossover ethernet cable (available from Maplin Part No. SZ62S or from your local RISC OS dealer) if you have a 10 base T network. Setup The crucial feature that enables the two machines to share one modem is the Internet Sharing option in Windows. The technical setup is that the Windows machine is set up with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 under Windows 2000. The netmask must be set to 255.255.255.0 If the RISC OS machine is then set to an IP address of 192.168.1.x and also to a netmask of 255.255.255.0 with the Gateway set as the address of the Windows machine you will be able to browse on the RISC OS machine at the same time as the PC over the one phone line. The setting up of the Windows Configuration if you are not familiar with Windows Setup will be covered in a future article of the Foundation Risc User magazine. NB If you are running Acorn Browse it is also possible to set-up the RISC OS machine as a proxy server and get the PC to access that. RISC OS beta testing -------------------- If you are NOT currently a Registered Developer or a Semi-Commercial Developer but are interested in some proper beta testing of future features of RISC OS 4 then please contact mailto:admin@riscos.com with details of your experience and the machines you have. You will naturally have to have a copy of RISC OS 4. We need people who like to tax software to the limit, and who knows if you are keen enough there might be a full time job for you. Vacancies at RISCOS Ltd ----------------------- We have vacancies for both full time and summer placements to work across the range of products we are developing. If you have previously applied then please don't despair if you haven't heard from us as we will be having interviews after the Wakefield Show at the end of May. If you have skills that might be of interest to us then please let me know. Mailing lists ------------- A key aim of the Foundation was to be able to keep you all up to date with the activities of all the companies in the RISC OS Community. To that end we have decided to make the list of Foundation Members and RISC OS 4 users available to the hardware and software partners of RISCOS Ltd. This data is not being sold, it is being given freely to promote the RISC OS cause. We know that some people prefer not to have Spam eMail or Junk mail sent to them so this is a formal request that if you fall into that category and do not wish to be contacted by other companies in the RISC OS Community to let us know by sending an email to mailto:nojunk@riscos.com or by sending a written request to No Junk, RISCOS Ltd, 3 Clarendon Road, Cardiff, CF23 9JD If we do not hear from you before May 20th we will assume that you are happy for your contact details to be passed on. Forthcoming Events ------------------ ***** Wakefield 2000 Show **** ------------------------------ RISCOS Ltd will be at the Wakefield 2000 Show on May 20th and 21st. Details of the Show can be obtained from http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/wakefield/ ***** BigBenClub Dutch RiscOS Expo 2000 **** -------------------------------------------- If you want excuse for a weekend in Holland then the Dutch BigBen Club Show could be the perfect answer. It is being held at the Hotel Mercure in Nieuwegein which is a few kilometres outside Utrecht. The date is Saturday 17th June. Nearly everyone speaks English so booking hotels is easy. There are a wide varied of businesses in the Netherlands who use RISC OS so why not pop over. Full details can be found at http://alpha.nedernet.nl/~bigben/shows/expo00.html Its in Dutch but you can probably guess most of the words. ***** ACORN SOUTHEAST SHOW **** ------------------------------- (Supporting RISC OS users in SE England) The Acorn Southeast Show will once again be taking place, on Saturday 1st July at The Alban Arena, St. Albans city centre, Herts. The show is supported by the Welwyn Hatfield Computer Club. St. Albans is ideally situated near M1, M25 and A1(M) motorways and is only 20 minutes by train from central London. There are a number of car parks dotted behind and around The Alban Arena; which is situated in the city centre. There is also a free bus shuttle service operating between both St. Albans train stations and the show. The first shuttle leaves the train station at 9.30am and the last leaves the show at 5pm. A number of both big and small RISC OS companies will be there. Games Arcade - Play the latest games for the Acorn Charity Bring & Buy Theatre programme ----------------- A full theatre programme will be announced in due course. Opening times ------------- The show opens at 10am and closes at 4.30pm. Entrance prices --------------- Adults................. 3 GBP ARM Club/Foundation members.. 2 GBP Children under 16 FREE (accompanied by adult) (Pay at door) For information about the show: ------------------------------- Phone/Fax: (01935) 413170 E-mail: acornshow@argonet.co.uk WWW: http://www.argonet.co.uk/acornshow Show organiser: John Stonier Technical Support Help Line --------------------------- A reminder that times of the support line to 5.00 p.m until 8.30 p.m The RISC OS 4 Helpline is on 029 2049 2326 or email you query to mailto:support@riscos.com Enquiries for the Foundation and General Sales 029 2049 2324 from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm Monday - Saturday. Fax for all enquiries 029 2044 0071 Please quote your Foundation Membership Number on all enquiries Replying to queries from this Newsletter ---------------------------------------- If you are responding to a specific query in this newsletter please use the appropriate mailto: address to reply rather than replying to the sender of this email. Also don't reply to the general foundation or admin email addresses as your enquiry may not get dealt with promptly. We try to reply to all enquiries within 5 days. But at peak times it may take longer to reply. regards -- Paul Middleton RISCOS Ltd -----------------------------------------------------------------------