If your Archimedes was one supplied with a 0.2 or 0.3 operating system, you should by now have received your Arthur 1.2 upgrade. If you have not, and you sent off the machine registration form at least a month ago, then you should write to Acorn at the address below giving your full name and address, and the serial number of your machine. Because all readers should now be using 1.2, we have not made any attempt in this issue to check that our programs will run correctly on earlier operating systems, though as usual we have included a note where any program requires special machine settings.
Most readers will by now also have received the ArcWriter word processor which Acorn are mailing free of charge to all currently registered users. If you have not received yours by the time that you read this, you should hang on for a further 10 days or so, and then write to Acorn at the address below, again giving full name, address and machine serial number.
Acorn ComputersCustomer Services, Fulbourn Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge CB1 4JN.
As you may be aware, the serial port on the Archimedes still does not function correctly, even with the O.S. 1.2 upgrade. In fact on O.S. 1.2 the problems are even worse, as Ian Burley reports in our Comms article this month. In their defence Acorn argue that the problems all arise from bugs in the 6551 serial chip which they are using. You will be pleased to hear though, that they have come up with a "fix" which solves the most obvious of the problems. This comes in the form of a relocatable module, and Acorn will be supplying this on future Welcome discs, and will be offering an upgrade to present users. In the mean time we are providing a copy of the fix on this month's magazine disc (it is too large to go into the magazine itself). This month's disc also contains a data file for the Welcome Music Editor [compatible with Maestro] which plays part of Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No.1 [Anitra's Dance].
RISC User's sister magazine BEEBUG is running a series of 4 or 5 articles on programming in "C". The series, which offers a down-to-earth approach to programmers familiar with Basic, begins in the March issue of that magazine. Although space does not permit us to reproduce these articles in RISC User, we feel that they will be of interest to many of our readers. We are therefore offering to supply copies of the articles to RISC User members for a small supplementary payment. Please see the leaflet accompanying this issue for further details. Starting next month we shall also be including the "C" articles on the RISC User magazine disc.