Archive Nov/Dec 2024 out now! Check out the contents.

Welcome to the new issue of Archive, the magazine for RISC OS users, Volume 27 Issue 3 (November/December 2024). The digital edition has now been dispatched, and the printed version will be dropping through letterboxes around the world shortly. Not a subscriber? It’s not too late to subscribe now and get the latest issue!

In this issue, Compo gets a brief reintroduction to RISC OS users, followed by a full article from Jim Lesurf on plotting graphs via CompoScript. Chris Hall tells us about a little known feature of Draw, and also discusses OLE support in RISC OS. Rob Sprowson has a report from the RISC OS eXperience show in The Netherlands. Andy Marks sits down with none other than Acorn’s Paul Fellows, the team lead on Arthur and then RISC OS. How do you find things on RISC OS? John Harrison tells us how he does it. David Lodge is cracking and bypassing protection on RISC OS Elite, purely for sport you understand. Andrew Oyston takes on two classic shooters, whilst David Pilling tries to figure out how to get files backed up onto non-Acorn systems. Gavin Smith checks out the latest projects in the world of 8-bit Acorn in Acorn Retro, and Richard Swetman is back with a superb BASIC program to type in, perfect for the Christmas period. We also have news, letters and emails, a list of software updates to check out, plus the RISC OS calendar. Phew!

Thank you to everyone who made this issue happen. The next issue will be out at the end of January 2025 with a final deadline of 20th January for any news and other contributions.

6 issue print subscriptions cost £42 (UK) or £62 (rest of world). Digital subscriptions cost £35. The print subscriptions include the digital edition free of charge. It’s quick and easy to subscribe – payments can be accepted by bank transfer, PayPal and cheque. Full details at https://www.archivemag.co.uk/subscriptions.html or contact gavin@archivemag.co.uk for more information.

If you haven’t already received your digital edition, please email me at gavin@archivemag.co.uk. There were 12 bounces this time, a number of which were old Plusnet addresses which haven’t been updated.

Printed edition is on its way to 18 countries around the world. It’s not too late to grab your copy! 6 issue print subscriptions cost £42 (UK) or £62 (rest of world). Digital subscriptions cost £35. The print subscriptions include the digital edition free of charge. Details at https://www.archivemag.co.uk/subscriptions.html.

Just out of interest have you tried to use a website to translate the mag- I did ask if it would work with Gag.de to English – fell on Stony ground :-(

Just out of interest have you tried to use a website to translate the mag

I like the idea of it, but I’m pretty sure the result would be terrible. The news items and show reports would be fine. But the tutorials and technical articles would be a mess, I’d imagine. Archive does have readers in many different non-English speaking countries, but often it’s just a handful in each. This means that you’d have to find someone willing to proofread in each language that had been translated. I don’t think it’s practical to do it well.

27:3 arrived today, postmarked 12 December.

Either a typo or Archive has moved into the future – Gavin must have a Tardis! :-)

I can rule out both the typo and the Tardis. The Post Office is no longer trustworthy as you cannot rely on its arithmetic.

postmarked 12 December

’tain’t a postmark. It’s their seemingly arbitrary “post by” date that Royal Mail put on the labels when you generate postage on their Click & Drop site.

The Post Office is no longer trustworthy

Tell me about it. A friend in the UK took a parcel to be sent to me. The person behind the counter said “there’s a less expensive option” because Royal Mail wanted nearly forty quid for what cost half that last year. The parcel was sent via Evri International.
So, it’s probably not a big surprise that the tracking information says “Error”. That’s it, just “Error”.
He went to the PO yesterday and was like “yeah, says the same for us; call them but don’t expect an answer”.

Shameful.

It’s their seemingly arbitrary “post by” date

Maybe better to think of it as an expiry date for the postage label.

Shameful.

It almost feels like a deliberate, managed decline.

Maybe better to think of it as an expiry date for the postage label.

Same thing, no? Strange that they give you just a few days to use postage purchased online, but a stamp doesn’t usually expire at all (ignoring the recent barcode stamp switchover). Doesn’t bother me as Archive is usually in the post to subscribers within a couple of hours of receiving each issue from the printers, but still odd.