Titanium gains 256 colour mode support

Elesar Ltd has made available a new release candidate ROM1 for Titanium-based systems, this being number five – known amongst family and friends as RC5 – and while there are a number of changes in the update, the headline feature is that it brings with it support for 256 colour screen modes. Anybody thinking in practical terms, and who therefore uses their computer for practical things, might miss one of the key points of this – and that key point is FUN! While a ‘true colour’ screen mode might be…

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Cyborg gets new implants, making it v2.20

Thankfully, though, that doesn’t turn it into a dodgy 1993 sequel1 Launched earlier this year at Wakefield by AMCOG Games, Cyborg is an arcade action game by Tony Bartram in which you take on the role of a cyborg treasure hunter, seeking out ancient treasure in Castle CyberDroid – and Tony has just pushed out Cyborg Second Edition, an update to the game that brings it up to version 2.20.

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News nybble: Jan Vibe’s animated clock updated

Not content with revisiting some of Jan Vibe’s old graphics programs and turning them into videos on YouTube, Richard Ashbery has gone to work updating another program by the prolific Danish developer, whose many and varied graphical ditties appeared regularly in the pages of Acorn User. This time, it’s Jan’s animated clock, updated for modern hardware and (widescreen) displays. The program runs full screen, and presents the user with a clock face showing the time – updated each second, keeping it in line with the current time according to the…

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Font Directory Pro version 3.21 released

Following the release of a new version of Font Directory Pro in March, having taken over development of the product from LOOKsystems, Elesar Ltd has made available a maintenance update free of charge to those people using version 3.20 of the software. Font Directory Pro is a boon for those RISC OS users with a hefty font collection, being designed to make managing those fonts – and therefore finding the right one amongst them – much, much easier. The software is actually a suite of six applications – Fonts, Viewer,…

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GoLinux update gives Linux booting a boost

Reduced inertia to get you going. Elesar‘s GoLinux application allows a Titanium-based computer to boot from the RISC OS desktop straight into Linux1 – Debian (Jessie) – effectively  making those systems equipped with the software dual OS machines. This can be hugely useful, because even the most ardent of RISC OS users would have to admit there are many shortcomings in the software available for the platform – so being able to switch from RISC OS to Linux, all in the same box – allows a lot more software to…

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Free gaming from AMCOG with Mutant Penguin

You’ve heard of ‘Four from Toyah’, right? Well this is free from Tony! Hot on the heels of the new AMCOG Development Kit and Cyborg, a game written with it by Tony Bartram, AMCOG Games has released yet another game – this one being the first free game from AMCOG, which can be downloaded via !Store. Mutant Penguin sets the player as a penguin that is, well, mutated slightly from your normal, everyday penguin: It’s not made of chocolate (bizarre, yes, I know). Worse than that, it’s not the only…

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AMCOG releases tool for writing games

For when playing just isn’t enough. In the period leading up to the recent Wakefield Show, Tony Bartram of AMCOG Games was working on a system to aid those developing RISC OS games. The fruit of that labour is the AMCOG Development Kit, which was first sold on CD at the show, and is now available to buy from !Store for a mere £14.99. The driving principle behind the kit is to make writing games on RISC OS much simpler, and it includes a core library providing functions in BBC…

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Cyborg – now available from AMCOG Games

No late 1980s dodgy scripting, directing and special effects involved – thankfully!1 First launched and sold on CD at the recent Wakefield Show, Cyborg is a new release from AMCOG Games, and for those unable to attend the show, it is now available from !Store for £9.99. In the game, you play a cyborg treasure hunter who has travelled to Castle CyberDroid in search of ancient treasure – and your objective is to find all of the items of treasure that can be found on each level, then head to…

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StrongHelp 2.90 released with three claws

Oops, sorry, I meant released under a three clause licence. Silly me. Fred Graute has released a new version of StrongHelp with some changes not only to the software, but also to the licence under which it is available – now the three-clause BSD licence. The software is designed to be a simple hypertext system, and considering its original release was at least twenty four years ago it has certainly proven the test of time, and remains a popular method of distributing manuals with RISC OS software.

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