Hi folks... Acorn Developer News 17/04/97 The contents of this missive are somewhat Earth-shattering, so I hope it's gone to everyone who needs to see it!! Feel free to forward it around as necessary within your organisation, but please be sure to keep it complete, unabridged and with the original headers attached. A7000+ ------ Acorn is shortly to release a new version of the A7000; this machine has been designated the A7000+. The system comprises: A7000 case, PSU and floppy 42MHz ARM7500FE (as used in NetStation) 8Mb 60ns EDO DRAM as standard Standard A7000 (PS/2) kbd+mouse 1.2Gb IDE HD (except for the Network version) 8x speed IDE CD ROM drive (optional) Only EDO SIMMs can be fitted to this machine; tests for fast page mode have been disabled. Launch of the system to the general public will be at the Wakefield show in mid-May; shipment of Network, HD and HD+CD ROM versions should commence around the end of May. Pricing is expected to be of the same order as existing A7000s. The A7000+ will run RISC OS 3.71; this has the same hard disc distribution as that for the StrongARM Risc PC, and no API changes in the ROM over and above 3.70. The only changes in ROM are there to support the facilities of the 7500FE (such as the FPA11 cell). To this end, the softloadable ROM image of RISC OS 3.71 is only available by exception rather than being uploaded to the Developer site. In "feel", the performance of the system is roughly equivalent to that of a Risc PC 600 fitted with 1Mb VRAM. A7000+ can support screen modes which require 1Mb VRAM on earlier systems. If Cirrus Logic deliver the new version on time, full PostScript copy of the ARM7500FE datasheet will become available via ftp.acorn.co.uk:/pub/documents/ around the end of April. When it arrives, I'll announce where it is in a future missive. NetStation (is that a light further down the tunnel?) ---------- ...and so the saga continues. Following a couple of weeks of assorted discussions, hacking, testing, wading through mountains of functional specs and writing reasonably high hills of stuff myself, I now *finally* have a rough cut of Application Note 300, "Porting RISC OS Software to NetStation". You can find it as http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/reference/nc/porting.arc (as a Spark-archived Style document) and as http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/reference/nc/porting.ps (PostScript). There's a few things worth noting about this document: 1. It's unashamedly a rough cut; some bits are missing and other bits could do with a lot of fleshing out, but what's there is likely to be of at least some use. 2. It will be refined continually over the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled and expect to see lots of updates to it logged in http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/ChangeLog.txt ; mini-missives may drop into your incoming email streams every so often when something important is added. 3. This appnote is the first (perhaps the first of many?) externally-tangible collaborative effort between ART's and Xemplar's Developer Support organisations; Stuart Payne, Stephen Borrill and I have had several discussions about what should go in it, and Stuart has written the "Look and Feel" section (which may eventually metasize into an NCOS Style Guide, as my bit may eventually metasize into an NC OS PRM). Thanks for all the help, guys! An Invitation from Acorn User ----------------------------- Acorn User are compiling a "Green Pages" document, similar in style to the old Acorn Product Directory. This document, once complete, will be included in the box with every new Acorn machine shipped. If you are interested in having your products appear in this, entries should be submitted as plaintext to aueditor@idg.co.uk ; Acorn User are charging UKL 25 per entry for this service. An Announcement from ESP ------------------------ Andy Pierson recently sent me the following info, which he'd like to make known to all developers: > ====================================================================== > ESP are soon to release a new MIDI module and MIDI Support module > with drivers for all RiscOS MIDI hardware. The new MIDI code provides > support for the following: > Full implementation of MIDI Ports 0-3 > Use of multiple cards allowing for > 16 channel MIDI > PC MIDI Input > Software MIDI devices e.g. ESP's MIDI Synthesiser > Faster data transfer > Built in software MIDI Thru > Advanced mapping facilities > Serial port driver for sound modules > Data filters > MIDI Time code support > Any information on particular uses of MIDI and facilities that > would be useful to implement would be most helpful. > The first version of the MIDI module will support the full range of > current MIDI SWI's, however, it is intended to reduct this set to the > main Tx and Rx calls and to thus optimise the code. It would therefore > be useful to know which MIDI SWI's are used by MIDI developers so that > the backwards compatibility can be maintained. > ========================================================================= Therefore if you use any MIDI SWIs in your code or have ideas on extra facilities you'd like to see implemented, please send details to Andy directly (andy@exsoftpr.demon.co.uk). PCA --- As some of you may know, Clares have developed an ingenious protocol called PCA (details on http://www.stcoll.ac.uk/clares/support/PCA.html ; this allows compliant applications to have shared read-write access to a single copy of user data, which both cuts down on memory consumption and introduces the concept of the "mini-tool" which only needs to support one or two operations on the user data. We're interested in knowing here at Acorn who supports PCA, who would like to support it but hasn't got round to doing so yet, and what the general feeling is about it; if you have any thoughts which you'd like to make us aware of, please drop me a line at isvquery@acorn.co.uk . Cheers, Dave