Ovation

Hello,

I’ve come across my very old boxed copy of Ovation v1.35s along with the extras, clipart and work discs. As I believe Rick Murray has released the source and 32-bitted it, would there be an interest for the ADF images I’ve just created to back them up for prosperity?

On that topic does anyone know the status of Impression I, II, Style, Publisher, Publisher Plus and ArtWorks 1.50 to 1.70? Again I’ve pulled my original boxed copies out and imaged the discs for safe keeping. I believe Ovation Pro is still being sold commerially by Dave Pilling (but one wonders how many copies have shifted since 2004!).

Just as an aside does anyone know the difference between Publisher and Publisher+? My Publ+ has different version numbering to Publ and pre-dates it by about 6 months?

Thanks,

Matt

As I believe Rick Murray has released the source and 32-bitted it,

David Pilling generously released the source, and I fixed some page zero issues and tweaked it to look better on modern machines (no more MODE 12 icons!). :-)
Didn’t need much to 32 bit it, most of it is written in C, so just recompiling it took care of 99% of that.

would there be an interest for the ADF images I’ve just created to back them up for prosperity?

Is there anything there that A isn’t available elsewhere, and B is useful on 32 bit machines?

The fonts are here: https://www.davidpilling.com/ovationpro/fontup.html
The sources and latest executable is on my blog, and I’m sure people have copies.

There was an enhanced screen modes module. Kind of useless on RISC OS 5, kind of unnecessary now we’re not stuck doing DTP with a television as a monitor…
[seriously, my first DVD player output RGB on the SCART and I used to plug it into the AKF12; it wasn’t until I had a PC with built in DVD player that Fly Away Home looked anything near as beautiful as it did on my monitor]

Were there any example documents or style sheets? Label templates? Any useful resources that I’ve lost over the years? If so, could you zip them up for me for including with Ovation?

now we’re not stuck doing DTP with a television as a monitor…

Stuck with? I love my 4K TV as a monitor. Never used it as anything else, in fact.

(On the other hand, I remember this: https://www.deviantart.com/coshipi/art/Grey-lives-poorly-lived-62875820 )

Stuck with? I love my 4K TV as a monitor.

Oh, I’m talking about the days when televisions looked like televisions, and not Star Trek props. When you had four channels and if you were lucky a fuzzy fifth. The days when a button press brought up pages of information that looked incredibly like the screen of a BBC Micro, with a large choice of pages to look at – all simpler to use and faster than any amount of Red Button rubbish.

On that topic does anyone know the status of Impression I, II, Style, Publisher, Publisher Plus

The latter three, at least, have all been subsumed into Impression X, which is being developed (slowly) and sold by Richard Keefe. So I’d suggest still very much commercial.

and ArtWorks 1.50 to 1.70?

MW-Software? Martin is still developing and selling ArtWorks 2, which is effectively ArtWorks 1 with upgrades and additional modules plugged in. Again, I’d suggest very much commercial.

I believe Ovation Pro is still being sold commerially by Dave Pilling (but one wonders how many copies have shifted since 2004!).

No idea about new copies, but upgrades for OS and hardware changes, as well as bug fixes, are a regular thing for those of us with legit copies.

Just as an aside does anyone know the difference between Publisher and Publisher+?

The colour stuff, I think. Impression X is now basically Publisher+, and the others have been dropped as variants.

I’m talking about the days when televisions looked like televisions

You don’t say! 8~) Hence my memory of a green screen monitor, alongside which a colour telly would have looked like the Bee’s Knees!

Hey Rick! I’ve emailed you a Google Drive link.

I keep my AKF-11 around in my home office/shed even though the LOPT has died on it just because I like the look of it!

I use my AKF-53 for 90s consoles from a MegaDrive to the PS1/N64 generation. Even though PS2’s and original XBoxes were designed for CRTs, they really do not look as good on 14" 4:3 monitors.

When you had four channels

Four channels?¹ I think the Beeb micro actually predates four channels.

¹ I remember those full colour video time filler items bright speed boats on wonderfully blue water on that brand new BBC2 thing. Colour only available at my mates house cos they had money and could afford a colour TV.

Thanks. Got that.

Munged the file link to be a direct download ( https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=[FILEID] ) because, well, NetSurf… ;-)

ADFimager didn’t recognise the files as valid ADF files. Not to worry, I fired up !A310Emu and that coped just fire. The transfer utility made it a simple draggy-droppy out of the emulator to save files.

Just “fixed” the character selector tool. Not sure what exactly it offers over !Chars of the day, but given it allocated “only” 4K for the font catalogue, and didn’t bother to bounds-check, it would stiff when the icon clicked upon if you have a number of fonts (I don’t, but I have enough to overrun the menu defs array). I put “fixed” in quotes because I just added a 1, in other words a “DIM 14096”. ;-) I ought to do it properly, but after Chris Wraight’s modifications, !Chars is quite nice. Not that there’s any protocol for communicating character set information with a font, or for dealing with Unicode fonts with a non-UTF8 alphabet option (I hacked my !Chars as Ovation in UTF8 mode will cope, but it’s because the high bit gibberish makes sense to FontManager).

Useful to have some clipart. :-)

Note that the borders appear to have changed. Your disc has a group of sprites with numerical names. Mine has a file called “borders” with all of those (and more) within.

I see you have a release notes file. It’s a shame there was no version-to-version list of changes. But, then, Beebug/RISC Developments never ever notified me of any updates. I guess that wasn’t really “done” back in those days (plus they never seemed to take their DTP product that seriously, which is a great shame). It does make it problematic, though, to know what’s different from one version to the next.

Thanks again for this.

on that brand new BBC2 thing.

My God, I know Acorn was ahead of its time, but ’64!?!? That not only predates the Beeb, it predates me! :-P

I think the Beeb micro actually predates four channels.

Only just. Channel 4 launched in the afternoon of 2nd November 1982, with CountDown. I know. I watched it. I would have been… eight?

By the time I became a boarder (85-90), Channel 4 was known as “the channel to put the TV on after lights out to see Charlotte Rampling naked”, because they got a reputation for doing “arty” stuff where “arty” meant “in French” or “with boobies” or “in French with boobies”. I think their remit was winding up the sort of people that would watch BBC 2. Actually the super-soft-porn movies were nothing compared to the crap that Brookside got away with.

Even though PS2’s and original XBoxes were designed for CRTs, they really do not look as good on 14" 4:3 monitors.

Probably because if you’re using a European PAL PS2, it’ll have a 50Hz output, but the monitor’s refresh time (usually quoted in microseconds or somesuch) works out at being 60Hz.

I run my PS2 though a TV to VGA adaptor (https://www.heyrick.co.uk/blog/index.php?diary=20180124, half way down) and with that I can switch between 60Hz and 75Hz. I think one of the monitors does 85Hz as well. It’s all rubbish really, the panel itself is clocked at 60Hz regardless of the input. But sometimes 75Hz can look sharper, especially with a computer display, but composite video might be better running at 60Hz so there’s only one conversion to make things less jittery. The device does a pretty good job of mapping a low resolution analogue signal to VGA, I watch the satellite receiver on the PC’s monitor (1440×900) and it looks pretty good for an anamorphic 720×576 input. The PS2, however, is best used on the Pi’s monitor (1280×1024) because it works better with square screens. The widescreen option (if supported by the game) was… a bit rubbish.

but ’64!?!?

1. Launched in 1964 but from memory no one our family knew in Sheffield has one.
2. We moved in the summer of 66 and I saw my new mates colour TV – I think his dad got it to watch some sporting event but claimed it was educational.

On computer terms my first display was a TV with an RGB input.

Probably because if you’re using a European PAL PS2, it’ll have a 50Hz output

Although it’s actually capable of outputting 60 Hz too, if the game supports it. The only one I’m aware of is Phantasy Star Universe, but there are probably others.

When I got my Beeb I rented a Sony 14" ‘cube’ colour TV from Rumbelows to use as the monitor. The Atom I had previously was connected to a green screen monitor. After a few years I got my first colour monitor and returned the Sony – no burn-in on the screen to give away its usage. Currently running an ARMX6 on a 27" Viewsonic at 2560 × 1440.