News from RISCOS Ltd No. 22 August 28th 2002 ================ RISCOS Ltd AGM 2002 ------------------- This year we have decided to make the RISCOS Ltd AGM an Open Meeting for the General Public as well as Shareholders. It will be held at the Quy Mill Hotel, Newmarket Road, Stow Cum Quy, Cambridge, on Friday 27th September 2002 at 1.30 p.m for 2.00 p.m Anyone wishing to attend should request an Invitation before 20th September 2002 to ensure that adequate accomodation is available. If you want to ask any questions at the AGM please submit them in advance of the Meeting so that suitable information can be made available. RISC OS Promotional Brochure ---------------------------- We have produced a new Promotional Brochure for RISC OS which is aimed at potential Licensees of RISC OS. It is available for download in a number of formats from the main RISCOS Ltd web site. http://www.riscos.com/brochure/index.htm It is important to point out that it is a generic brochure showing features that are available in different versions of RISC OS, not specifically those that are featured in RISC OS 4 or RISC OS Select. RISCOS Ltd 3rd Annual Report 2002 --------------------------------- The RISCOS Ltd 3rd Annual Report covering the period 1st February 2001 - 31st January 2002 has now been released. http://www.riscos.com/news/news_items/PR280802.htm Select memberships reach 835 ---------------------------- The excellent news is that we have now reached 835 subscribers to the RISC OS Select Scheme. It would be fantastic to reach 1000 by the end of September, so if you have been putting off joining the scheme, please don't wait any longer. Remember that new subscribers joining the scheme after 31st December this year will have to pay £155 to join. RISC OS Select for MicroDigital Mico ------------------------------------ The MicroDigital Mico machines are now supported via RISC OS Select. Appropriate downloads are available from the Select Web Site. Re-vitalised CDs ---------------- If you have heavily used data CD's that are getting lots of small surface scratches or you have a favourite Audio CD that has been dropped and accidentally scratched then there is now a rescue service available that claims to be able to restore even heavily scratched discs. Total Disc Repair Ltd trading under the name of FUCD is Britain's first professional repair lab. For a fraction of a disc's replacement cost they offer an efficient processing service for most forms of audio, computer and video discs. They can restore over 99% of scratches and surface defects on CD, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-ROM, DVD and Playstation discs. The service costs from just £2.99 per disc plus £2.50 postage and £3.50 insurance. http://www.fucd.co.uk/ Interview with Paul F Johnson for My RISC OS web Site --------------------------------------------------- I short while ago I responded to a request for an Interview with Paul F Johnson for the My RISC OS web site. For those of you who may have missed it on the web site here is a copy. PFJ: Paul, how long have you been involved with the RISC OS market as either boss of RISCOS Ltd or any other guise? PM: I have been involved with the RISC OS market since January 1990. i.e just over twelve years. I started Uniqueway with my brother Simon in April 1990, initially as an Acorn ISV. We first developed a Teletext subtitle preparation system, and then in 1991 we were invited to become Acorn Dealers for South Wales. We then worked with Acorn on the development of the Acorn Replay system and produced the high quality movies found on just about every CD that featured Replay movies. We were Xemplar Education agents for 2 years and then I became the leader of the team negotiating with Acorn from September 1998 onwards to take over development and marketing of RISC OS for the desktop market. Eventually this led to my becoming the MD of RISCOS Ltd in January 1999. PFJ: In that time, what would you consider to be the most significant change to the RISC OS market? PM: There have been a number of significant changes at various stages in Acorn's history. Acorn had some very amazing engineers who, long before Apple used the phrase, definitely "Thought Differently." Acorn always had people with some great ideas, but more often than not they were unable to capitalise on those ideas, simply because it seemed they were restricted by Olivetti who controlled the purse strings. Acorn didn't seem to be able to focus on the commercially viable projects that would bring in revenue, rather than the Blue Sky projects that didn't. The usual problem was that Acorn simply did not have the money to fully develop the ideas that they came up with into commercial products. That may seem a strange thing to say, but Acorn were not really a major player in the desktop market and many of their ideas were too far ahead of their time. There were many other much larger companies vying for a place in the PC market and when even Olivetti themselves couldn't make it as a major PC supplier then what hope did Acorn have? So the most significant change for me came when Acorn were finally freed of the ties with Olivetti and went public as a PLC. That gave them the funding to potentially exploit the opportunities that were available at that time. The problem was that they were then just beginning to face a major challenge by the Wintel camp on their dominance of the Education market which proved impossible to counter. However going public was the eventual demise of the company as it enabled the corporate sharks to dismember the company in 1999 for the value of the shares it held in ARM. PFJ: Given the advances in processor technology, how important would you say it is that we are able to make use of the likes of the X-Scale, ARM 9s and the such as a computing platform? PM: The choice of processor is always dependent on the target market for the final product. ARM processors have traditionally been aimed at low cost, low power devices. Acorn were the only people that used the ARM processor as a desktop computer, because RISC OS was the only Operating System that could effectively function on the 8 MHz-50 MHz processors that were common before the advent of the 200 MHz StrongARM. RISC OS still provides a very responsive system on a 233 MHz StrongARM and for most people, the only things they would probably like to change on their Risc PCs would be built-in support for more, faster hard drives, and bigger screen modes. Acorn grouped the Risc PC under their Workstations division and a Risc PC does make a very good general purpose workstation. However RISC OS is very much tied to the ARM processor and should not try to be something that it is not. i.e if you want to manipulate large maths intensive spreadsheets then a PC processor will be much better at the job. If you want a low power computer then you use an ARM chip. Any new faster processor such as the XScale would be nice but the price and availability of those chips have to be appropriate as well. With the pace of current processor developments there is every possibility that a 64 bit ARM processor may become available in the next couple of years, thus making the current discussions on 32 bit versions of RISC OS, and which processor to use, irrelevant. In the meantime the StrongARM SA1110 processor still offers 26 bit processor modes and significant speed advantages over the current SA110, without needing the change to a 32 bit version of RISC OS. By the way, it is very interesting to note that Microsoft have decided that Pocket PC 2002 (a.k.a Windows CE) will now be available solely on the ARM platform. There is no doubt that on identical hardware that RISC OS will be much more responsive that Windows, so all we need now is the appropriate hardware and a manufacturer who wants to use RISC OS to justify future development of RISC OS for new processors. PFJ: If you could make one major change to the current operating system, what would it be? PM: The one change I would like to make would be to implement Universal Cut and Paste / Drag and Drop between any writable icon. PFJ: Would you say that the long term survival of the platform lies in the embedded systems rather than it's current desktop market? PM: RISC OS has always relied on products outside the desktop market to justify its existence. Currently many more RISC OS desktop machines are sold that end up "embedded" than are actually used as desktop machines. The desktop market is the visible face of RISC OS, but without the other markets then the RISC OS market would not be viable. As far as the UK is concerned we have to accept that we do not have the political clout to force the Government to change its relationship with Microsoft and hence the dominance of the PC platform. I had the chance to talk with one of the UK e-envoys recently and asked him about the Government's attitude towards different operating systems. He stated that the Government had a policy to ensure that their services could be accessed by any operating system and that their web sites should not be tied to any specific OS. As regards any other support for specific Operating Systems it seems that the Government are officially agnostic. However in the Education market the promotion of Interactive Learning Systems, which are only available on PC or Mac systems, and the discounts that Microsoft give to schools make their position almost unassailable whilst schools have dedicated computer rooms. If the Government plan of one computer per child was ever to reach reality then RISC OS might once again have a chance to compete for the provision of basic computing services. The Ron project (RISC OS on netBook) for example would enable the provision of a portable computer with a vast back catalogue of education software, at cost much lower than a normal PC portable could match. £500 seems to be the magic price that schools are looking for in order to make the "One per child" goal achievable. PFJ: Would say that one of the main strengths of RISC OS hardware has also been it's biggest weakness in that the amount of backwards compatibility has meant that for the large part of the time, people have not required to upgrade their machines as most software will run fine (if not a tad slowly) on an A5000 that will also work on a RPC (assuming they've not made any use of the likes of >OS 3.5 specific parts of the OS such as dynamic areas) PM: For the Education market backwards compatibility was considered essential as schools were used to expecting that Acorn computers would last at least 5 - 7 years and that as new models came out that they would be compatible with existing software. Whilst the growth potential of schools and the home market was still enormous Acorn were happy to still maintain that compatibility as they didn't want to alienate their major customers. However the net result was that schools didn't need to upgrade software and the long life of the hardware also meant that schools didn't need to upgrade their hardware. If schools had been forced to upgrade to Risc PCs in 1995 then we wouldn't have been left with a legacy of schools still using RISC OS 3 computers here in 2002 and Acorn might still be around. PFJ: Is it fair to say that from various corners, the Select scheme has come in for a lot of critisism. PM: It is interesting to note that virtually all the people who have criticised the Select Scheme have done so without being subscribers, so their complaints are rather hollow. You yourself Paul fall into that category. The vast majority of the subscribers to the scheme have been very happy with it, and they are the ones that count. PFJ: Two of the large critisisms has been the delay over a version of the Microdigital and RiscStation ranges. Roy has stated that there is a version for the RiscStation in development, can you say if the same applies for the Mico and what the main delay has been over the CDs? PM: Again the criticism seems to be rather one sided. I believe that there are only three people who have contacted us wanting to know when there will be a RiscStation compatible version of Select, and only one enquiring about a Mico version. The RiscStation version exists but needs more work before it can really be used as a publicly released product. We are awaiting information from Simtec to enable that to happen. The Mico version may follow at some stage. The CD was held back until the Installer was fully developed to ensure that the upgrade from RISC OS 4.0x to Select was a smooth as possible. PFJ: Can you counter the comment made that vital information for developers such as changes to the !Boot structure should have been made available to all developers, not just those subscribed to Select? There have been instances of software breaking due to the disappearance of PreDesk. PM: Unfortunately we are running a business not a charity. Preparing any form of documentation is an expensive process. Acorn didn't used to give away PRMs. If you wanted to learn about RISC OS you had to buy the Manuals. They didn't give them away for free, unless you were one of the small group of "key" developers. We offer a slightly better deal in that you will get the OS and the manuals by joining Select. If you had joined Select yourself Paul, you would have known that PreDesk has not disappeared. It has been relocated to allow for multiple user setups. Any application which has obeyed the long established guidelines for writing their choices to does not have any problems. Only those that mistakenly write explicitly to Boot.Choices have problems with the new Select Boot sequence. PFJ: How damaging has the announcements of the likes of the Evolution and Omega been on the sales of current desktop machines and confidence as a whole? PM: Back in 1998 Senior Acorn Managers vowed that they would never again pre-announce a product because of the bad publicity over the delays to Phoebe. Before then, Acorn had always been very secretive about new products. Apart from "key" developers, the first time that most dealers and developers got to hear about a new product was on the day it was put on sale. That way there were no false hopes raised and users could not be disappointed by delays between a product being announced and the time when it was actually available on sale. I can understand the desire of manufacturers to want to announce a new product as soon as possible in order to steal a march on their competitors. However there comes a point when a very early announcement of a new product can have a negative effect on potential customers, who feel let down by excessive delays and lack of news about product availability. Ultimately delays will have a negative effect on the company concerned and will inevitably make its customers much more wary about wanting to wait for future products. In a niche market such as ours it is very important to keep user confidence by releasing products on schedule as we have always done at RISCOS Ltd. It is very unfortunate for everyone that some other companies have been unable to deliver products in a timely manner and I hope that those delays do not have a long term effect on the market. PFJ: What is the state of play over updates to the Acorn C package? The last that was publically told (at MAUG last year) was there was to be a large update around November. PM: For reasons outside our control there has not been any progress on that. We have had discussions with ARM over the work that they are doing with their new development tools to see if they can be used for future RISC OS projects, but I can't give any more details at present. PFJ: Will the PRM for RISC OS 4 be made a publically available document (for purchase) and if it is, can you give us an indication on when it will be available? PM: Yes it will be. We do not have a timescale for that at present though as there is still a lot of work in order to fully document the code for public release. PFJ: Would you care to comment over the reports which have been made (on usenet, iconbar and foundation newsletters) that VirtualAcorn is shipping OS 3.1 illegally? Surely a product such as VA will help bring people back to the fold (there have been many instances of this happening and a rise in the price of second hand RISC OS machines since VA hit the streets)? PM: VirtualAcorn claim to have an Agreement with Pace which as far as we are concerned is contrary to our exclusive Agreement for the sale and development of RISC OS in the desktop market. However since Virtual Acorn claim to have an Agreement with Pace it is ultimately up to Pace to confirm or deny that claim. The fact that they have made no comment as yet, should not be taken to imply that the VirtualAcorn claim to have an Agreement is correct. I do not believe that Virtual Acorn is helping the RISC OS hardware developers sell more products. It may bring more people into using RISC OS 3.11, but at present I very much doubt that anyone who used to have an A5000, and has then moved over to using a PC will be tempted back to buy a RISC OS computer because of Virtual Acorn. I very much doubt that an existing PC user who discovers RISC OS for the first time will then go out and buy a RISC OS computer. I would also point out that any profit that Virtual Acorn is making is solely going into the pockets of those running VA it is not furthering future development of RISC OS, or encouraging people to buy a new RISC OS computer. PFJ: In your opinion, what would be the most productive way end users can support and maintain the platform? PM: The obvious form of support is to buy our products and those of the other companies that are supporting RISC OS development, rather than those that are encouraging software piracy. PFJ: Is RON still an ongoing project (as opposed to a suspended project) and if it is, then when will we be able to see it? PM: Yes, Ron is still ongoing, but the requirement from the original funder has changed. We are currently waiting to see what Psion are going to do with their next product release before a decision is taken as to whether a full desktop release of Ron is viable. At present I would have to say that it is unlikely that a full version of RISC OS will become available for the current Psion netBook. That is not to say that future Psion products could not be supported. PFJ: Finally, do you believe that the key to the future of the market is for all developers (both hardware and software) to get along and work together rather than the clash of personalities we currently have? PM: In any market, clashes of personalities are inevitably destructive. However the RISC OS market as it currently stands is essentially an enthusiasts market, which means that nearly all the companies involved are very small and consequently there is much rivalry between certain companies. I would very much like to see more co-operation between developers, but it really needs a much larger organisation than current exists within any of the current companies in order to make greater all round co-operation between everyone a reality. It also needs an end to the destructive attitude of certain people on the newsgroups and web sites who have personal grudges against specific companies and/or individuals. Large organisations don't want to deal with a sector where specific companies have followings of people who waste everyone's time by constantly complaining and arguing over everything. They want to deal with a market where they see a co-operative supporting environment which enables them to get their products to market in the shortest time and with the least amount of hassle. Pace News --------- 8 JUL 2002 - PACE MICRO TECHNOLOGY PLC - Results for the year ended 1st June 2002 HIGHLIGHTS * Results reflect turbulence in the broadcasting market and difficult trading environment faced by global digital TV operators; * Unit sales declined by 19% to 2.2m units; * Turnover of 351.8m (2001:523.6m); * Profit before tax, amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items of 13.1m (2001:44.3m); * Diluted earnings per share before amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items of 2.9p (2001 as restated: 13.5p); * Diluted loss per share after amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items of 16.1p (2001: earnings per share of 11.1p) * Maintained final dividend of 0.70p making total dividend for year of 1.10p (2001:1.05p); * Restructuring process underway, resulting in further cost and overhead reductions; * Entry into US market place secured with Time Warner Cable shipments; * Successful launch of free-to-view products into UK and growth in Continental European retail markets. Commenting on the results, Malcolm Miller, Chief Executive stated: Turbulent conditions in the broadcasting market have caused delay and disappointment. We have taken appropriate steps to ensure that we manage an efficient and tightly run business whilst maintaining key relationships and continuing to lead in digital television technology. For the longer term Pace is well positioned for growth as and when the market allows. Preliminary Announcement Over the previous three years Pace succeeded in growing revenues and profits. The financial period under review, however, reflects the turbulence in the broadcasting industry and the difficult trading environment faced by digital TV operators globally. Whilst the year started well, the second half reflected the decline in the global demand for home gateways (set-top boxes) and lower selling prices. The Group has addressed the challenging commercial market place and, as announced on 15 April 2002, commenced the implementation of a restructuring process to reduce the overall cost base of the business while maintaining vital technological investment. Results and Dividend Profit before tax, amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items fell to 13.1m (2001: 44.3m) on turnover down 33% to 352m. There was a loss before tax and after amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items of 29.5m (2001: profit 38.1m). Diluted earnings per share were 2.9p (2001: as restated: 13.5p) before amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items and were a loss per share of 16.1p (2001: as restated: earnings per share of 11.1p) after amortisation of goodwill and exceptional items. The exceptional items are all described below. The Board proposes a final dividend of 0.70p (2001: 0.70p) making a total dividend for the year of 1.10p (2001: 1.05p). Exceptional Items Following the announced restructuring and subsequent employee consultation, the Group is in the process of reducing its workforce by approximately 20%. We expect to reduce overheads for the coming financial year by a similar percentage. We have made a provision of 4.9m to cover the cost of asset write-offs and redundancy payments. The Board has also reviewed the carrying value of the goodwill in VegaStream and concluded that it would be prudent to write-off the balance of 17.5m. VegaStream will continue to operate at a lower level of activity, while we track the development of the market for digital IP voice. As a result of the fall in the Companys share price it has become unlikely that the Pace Micro Technology Employee Benefits Trust will be able to pay back the loan made to it by the Company to buy shares in the market for the fulfilment of employee options. A provision of 17.5m has been set up to recognise this issue. Trading and Financial Review Unit sales of Pace digital gateways fell 19% to 2.2m (2001: 2.7m). The fall in unit volume was largely concentrated in the UK, as NTL Group Limited (ntl) and Telewest substantially reduced their roll out of digital gateways in the second half of the financial year. Following a short suspension in deliveries to ntl, shipments re-commenced in May 2002 to fulfil a 300,000 unit order by May 2003. Pace continues to be the only company shipping in volume to the UK cable operators. BSkyB continued to require product, but at a lower level than in previous years as their analogue to digital conversion was completed. Recent negotiations have resulted in a substantial commitment to purchase Digiboxes over the next 12 months and significant revisions to the contractual terms under which Pace supplies the Sky+ personal video recorder to the end of 2004. Paces Digital Television Adapter (DTVA) for free-to-view digital terrestrial television was launched with much interest and 53,000 units were sold following its retail launch at the end of March. In the same period ITV Digital and Omne Communications Ltd went into administration at a combined cost to the Group of 1.7m. We are convinced that investment in the USA, the worlds largest market for our products, is to the long-term benefit of our Group. Therefore we are pleased to report that the Group shipped over 250,000 gateways to Time Warner Cable, delivered mostly in the last quarter of the financial year. As it will take time for these products to be installed with cable subscribers, the Group expects a much lower level of US shipments in the first half of the forthcoming year. As Pace works to establish itself in the US market, start-up losses of 11m were incurred. Elsewhere shipments were below expectations as operators generally lacked the funding to commence significant roll out of digital gateways. IPTV (digital TV over Broadband) shipments made slow progress around the world but did make a positive contribution to income. VegaStream has continued a low level of shipments of its Voice over Internet Protocol gateways. This business is still at the start-up stage, although there are signs that its market is beginning to grow. Xcom, acquired by the Group in February 2001, exceeded initial expectations, shipping a wider range of products into more territories. We are especially pleased with the new low-cost free-to-view products they have added to our UK range. Overall the Xcom team, now responsible for Paces business in Continental Europe and Asia, shipped products to over 24 countries, most importantly into France, Italy, North Africa, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries. The Groups gross margin, before exceptional items, increased to 22.7% (2001: 20.1%). The increase in margin percentage arose from integration services, development fees, licensing revenues and an increase in sales of higher margin DSL and VoIP products, offset by lower margins in the USA. The Group continued its policy of providing for all currently known, and potential, claims relating to the alleged use of the intellectual property of others. We were able once again to release part of the overall provision, following the successful conclusion to certain negotiations. In the last year the level of releases exceeded new provisions by 0.3m. There are still a small number of unresolved matters outstanding; without any admission of liability the Group has provided against these claims and the estimated cost of litigation. Having taken legal advice, the Board considers that there are defences available and claims against third parties that should mitigate the amounts being sought. Overheads, net of other income and before amortisation of goodwill, rose to 66.1m (2001: 61.0m), an increase totally attributable to the USA. Expenditure on development increased to 36.9m (2001: 33.7m). Selling, general and other administrative expenses were 29.2m (2001: 27.3m). Actions are already underway to reduce these costs in line with the Board s expectations for business going forward. Net assets, excluding goodwill, decreased to 65.7m (2001 as restated: 91.0m). Within net current assets of 65.0m (2001 as restated: 76.6m), net borrowings were 18.7m (2001: net cash 27.5m). The change in the cash balance came from increased finished goods stocks and from paying the first instalment of the Xcom earn-out which was 8.1m. Currently Pace is net cash positive and has 40m in existing committed credit lines. The debt collection period was 12 weeks (prior year-end: 8 weeks). The debtors included an amount of 4m that was uninsured. Stocks at the year-end amounted to 46.7m (2001: 39.7m), comprising 15.8m of raw materials and WIP and 30.9m of finished goods. Of the finished goods 23.7m relating to ntl is valued at cost, under the Boards assumption that ntl will continue to take product according to its existing agreement. As previously announced shipments to ntl have recommenced and since the year end this ntl related stock has reduced to 19m. The stock turnover rate reduced to 8 times at year-end (prior year-end: 13 times). Board Changes Mike McTighe was appointed to the Board as a non-executive director on 3 June 2001. Neil Gaydon, president of Pace Americas, has been with the Group since 1995 and joined the Board on 12 June 2002. Outlook Under pressure from financial markets and with less access to capital, operators are looking for ways to lower costs and increase income. One of Paces strengths is its ability to develop both new low cost solutions and also more complex gateways that increase ARPU (average revenue per unit) and reduce churn (customer returns). The new DTVA and Sky+ are examples. Pace and BSkyB are expecting an increased rate of Sky+ shipments. As has been previously announced, the commercial agreement between the parties is that for the majority of next year the Group will invoice an amount on shipment that is below product cost and will receive a share of future subscriptions. Whilst expected to be profitable over the longer term, this will have a negative impact of 8m on pre-tax profits for the next financial year. In subsequent years Pace and BSkyB have agreed usual trading terms under which Pace will recognise full revenue at the time of shipment. In the year just started we expect the Groups UK revenues to fall further, reflecting the difficult trading conditions. In the USA, Europe and Asia business will grow slowly. Turnover in the 2002/3 financial year is expected to be at a lower level in the first half than the second half of the year just ended, but is expected to improve in the second half to levels higher than the equivalent period as regions outside the UK develop. The impact of the continued investment in the USA and the investment in the Sky+ programme, even though expected to be profitable in the medium-term, is expected to cause the Group to be loss making in the first half of next year. The results for the year as a whole will depend as always on the appetite of the operators for product and our success in launching new products. For the longer term, the Board believes that due to its strong core technologies and its commercial position as one of the top five global players, Pace is well positioned to exploit all opportunities in the digital TV market. For more details please see the PACE website at http://www.pace.co.uk Forthcoming Shows ----------------- The next RISC OS Show is planned to be the RISC OS South East Show being organised by SASAUG in association with Fillin on Saturday 2nd November at Guildford College. http://www.fillin.co.uk/seshow/ User Group Meetings ------------------- I visited the Derbyshire Acorn Group on Monday 10th June. For the first time ever the drive up through the Midlands along the M5 was so quiet that I arrived at the venue nearly two hours early and had time to do a bit of sight seeing and have a meal before the meeting. I then travelled to the Essex Acorn User Group on Tuesday 9th July for another well attended meeting to demonstrate the latest features of the Select Scheme. My next stops will be at the Bottisham Acorn User Group on Tuesday 10th September and then at the Ipswich User Group on Wednesday 10th October. If other User Groups would like a visit please contact me mailto:paul@riscos.com MicroDigital Omega ------------------ On Thursday 18th July I travelled to Bradford along with the representatives of various magazines and web sites to have a presentation by David Atkins and David Prosser of the MicroDigital Omega. There will be a full review of the event in the next Foundation Risc User magazine. Having waited a long time to see fully examine a working machine I was very pleasantly surprised with the design. I had taken along a number of tests on floppy and CD to try out but due to the fact that the demonstration machine didn't have a working CD or floppy I was unable to run the tests. I had taken along an IDE connected Compact Flash card which contained the latest build of the RISC OS Select Scheme as an alternative, but when we plugged that into the machine it wasn't recognised, so I don't have any test results to report yet. MicroDigital expect to be able to let us have a development machine sometime during September to investigate its performance and how well it works with the Select scheme. We also anticipate producing some new high quality Acorn Replay movies specifically to show off the performance of the Omega. MicroDigital haven't give a shipping date for machines yet, but if all goes well, there should be quite a lot of new hardware for you all to choose to spend your money on by Christmas this year. Alternative Ovation Pro web site. --------------------------------- The "official alternative" OvationPro site run by Chris Johnson is moving. The new URL which must be used from now on is http://www.bulldog.u-net.com/ovationpro/ or http://www.chris-johnson.org.uk/ovationpro/ For those unaware of this site, it houses a large range of third party Applets, Resources, Templates, etc for use with David Pilling's DTP package Ovation Pro. Chris hopes to give the site a major makeover later this year, so if any users of Ovation Pro have anything they are willing to put on the site then please let him know. Alternatively, if you have similar resources on your own site, let him have details and he will link to it. DrawWorks Select Upgrade now available at a price ------------------------------------------------- APDL has announced the availability of a new version of DrawWorks - DrawWorks Select that can be used with RISC OS Select. At the moment it is only available as an upgrade for users of DrawWorks Millennium, and the cost depends upon which version you have. The bad news is that the cost is up to £24, which I feel is excessive for an upgrade that should not have been necessary in the first place if iSV/APDL had followed the rules and not assumed that !Draw would always remain a ROM resident application. Of course the price charge could be more to do with the fact that due to their inclusion of a picture on the original CDs that was somewhat derogatory to me (and also included the Castle Technology logo and a picture from Acorn User, without the owner's permission) APDL are being forced to replace all copies of the DrawWorks 3rd Millennium CDs anyway and they seem to have decided that the users should be forced to pay for the replacement instead of providing a free upgrade. UK Draft Legislation on Copyright Changes ----------------------------------------- http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/eucd/ukimpl/critique_uk_impl.html The UK Patent Office published its consultation paper on the implementation of the European Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) on 7 August 2002, thus opening its consultation period on the directive. Responses to this paper must be submitted to the Patent Office by 31 October 2002. This paper is a critique of the proposed implementation; it highlights flaws in the proposal, and makes recommendations for their solution. It is intended to be useful both to those writing responses to the Patent Office, and to those who merely want to know how the implementation of the directive is likely to affect them. The proposed UK implementation (hereinafter referred to as the Proposal1) of the European Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC)2(the Directive) will bring about various changes in UK Copyright Law, the most significant of which concern the use of technological measures to protect copyrighted works, and the circumvention of those measures. This document analyses the Proposal, identifies flaws in the implementation and proposes solutions to them; in doing so it only considers solutions that are compliant with the Directive itself. Membership Renewals ------------------- As previously announced new Foundation membership fees are now applicable as follows:- European Community countries £35.00 + VAT = £41.13 Non-EC countries in Europe will be £35.00 (No VAT) Zone 1 Postal Countries, such as South Africa £37 (No VAT) Zone 2 Postal Countries, such as Australia £39 (No VAT) UK subscriptions £33 + VAT = £38.78 Lapsed members -------------- If your Foundation Membership has lapsed more than 6 months ago then we have a special offer to help you decide to re-join. For only £40 (UK) or £42 (Europe) or £45 (Overseas Zone 1) or £48 (Overseas Zone 2) you can re-join the Foundation for 12 months and also receive the latest Foundation Risc User CD Issue 8 PLUS a further 4 issues. If your membership has only recently lapsed then you can re-subscribe at the standard rates. Please contact mailto:foundation@riscos.com if you wish to renew your subscription. RISC OS 4 upgrades ------------------ We offered a number of special deals to celebrate the 3rd Anniversary of the launch of RISC OS 4 in July. The response has been very good but we have been contacted by quite a few people who missed the original announcement on the offers due to holidays. Anyone who really was on holiday and missed the offer can still purchase at the special prices listed below as long as we receive orders on or before 1st September 2002. Thereafter the prices will return to their previous amounts. Offer 1. -------- RISC OS 4 Upgrade (full pack with bundled applications) UK £ 85 EC £ 87 Zone 1 £ 75 Zone 2 £ 77 Offer 2. -------- RISC OS 4 ROM only upgrade (for existing RISC OS 4 Users) UK £ 80 EC £ 82 Zone 1 £ 71 Zone 2 £ 73 Offer 3. -------- RISC OS 4 Upgrade and 1 Year RISC OS Select subscription UK £ 175 EC £ 177 Zone 1 £ 154 Zone 2 £ 156 All the above prices include VAT (for UK and EC) and delivery. Orders for RISC OS 4 and the Select Scheme should be sent to mailto:sales@riscos.com RISC OS Select -------------- The price for new subscriptions to the RISC OS Select Scheme will be increased to £155 (£150 for Foundation members) as from 1st January 2003. All existing subscribers will be able to renew at the current price of £105 (£99 for Foundation members). i.e if you join the scheme at any time before 31st December 2002 then your 2nd year subscription will cost just £105 (£99 for Foundation members). New features for the Foundation Web Site ---------------------------------------- A common request whilst talking to people at Exhibitions and User Groups has been the request for a source of historical documents about Acorn. I am in the process of collating the Acorn "Apps" promotional flyers and hope to make them available for download as PDF files and Drawfiles over the next few months. If anyone has very old Acorn brochures that they would like added to the archive please let me know. RISC OS Users Survey 2002 ------------------------- The Web site survey that I had planned to open in July has been delayed due to developments behind the scenes that required more urgent attention. The survey will probably now go on lone later in September. 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 --------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©2002 RISCOS Ltd. RISC OS is a trademark of Pace Micro Technology plc. 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