Re: R-Comp releasePDF Suite Pro at Birmingham Show
Richard Porter
write:
> R-Comp is pleased to announce an enhanced version of its popular
> PDF Suite package. The PDF Suite (as existing users know), allows
> almost any RISC OS application to generate electronic PDF documents
> which can be read on almost any computer platform.
What about reading the latest PDF documents?
--
Richard Porter
rich@ / www. richardporter.me.uk
"You can't have Windows without pains."
Steve Fryatt
<slrnhhhng...@compsoc.dur.ac.uk>:
> R-Comp is pleased to announce an enhanced version of its popular PDF Suite
> package. The PDF Suite (as existing users know), allows almost any RISC
> OS application to generate electronic PDF documents which can be read on
> almost any computer platform. The PDF files can be emailed, or given out
> on disc, and solve most document compatibility issues faced by RISC OS
> users living in a multi-platform world.
>
> The new edition, known as PDF Suite Pro, updates the main !PDFmaker
> software, and includes the new PostScript 3 driver for RISC OS. Combined,
> this gives users the ability to create highly accurate electronic
> documents suitable for professional use (eg. professional print or online
> distribution).
I'm sure that users of the (free) PrintPDF will join me in saying "welcome
to the PostScript 3 party".
;-)
I'll also be at Birmingham, with copies of PrintPDF on CD for those who want
to bung (most of) a fiver to charity in exchange for one.
--
Steve Fryatt - Leeds, England
Chris Hughes
Richard Porter <dontu...@address.uk.invalid> wrote:
> The date being 4 Dec 2009, R-Comp <rc...@rcomp.demon.co.uk> decided to
> write:
>> R-Comp is pleased to announce an enhanced version of its popular
>> PDF Suite package. The PDF Suite (as existing users know), allows
>> almost any RISC OS application to generate electronic PDF documents
>> which can be read on almost any computer platform.
> What about reading the latest PDF documents?
Since this is a PDF generator not a reader, I don't think so.
The authors of RiScript or !PDF need to be asked if they will be
developing their products further, alternatively Artworks 2, or GView
could be used.
Alternatively if you have a PC or your network or run VRPC then you
could run Uniprint/Uniserve to open the PDF automatically in Adobe
Reader on the PC side.
--
Chris Hughes
Steve Fryatt
<7e05dbc4...@o2.co.uk>:
> The authors of RiScript or !PDF need to be asked if they will be
> developing their products further, alternatively Artworks 2, or GView
> could be used.
Given that !PDF is open source and based on xpdf, it would be possible for
someone else -- with enough time -- to do the update. The latest version of
xpdf seems happy with recent PDFs, so this might be worth investigating.
Peter Naulls
> On 5 Dec, Chris Hughes wrote in message
> <7e05dbc4...@o2.co.uk>:
>
>> The authors of RiScript or !PDF need to be asked if they will be
>> developing their products further, alternatively Artworks 2, or GView
>> could be used.
>
> Given that !PDF is open source and based on xpdf, it would be possible for
> someone else -- with enough time -- to do the update. The latest version of
> xpdf seems happy with recent PDFs, so this might be worth investigating.
Already partly done:
http://www.riscos.info/pipermail/gcc/2009-November/004972.html
Alexander Ausserstorfer
[snip]
> I'll also be at Birmingham, with copies of PrintPDF on CD for those who want
> to bung (most of) a fiver to charity in exchange for one.
Is a "floppy" disc (3,5") not enough?
Alex'
Rob Kendrick
Alexander Ausserstorfer <bavari...@chiemgau-net.de> wrote:
> > I'll also be at Birmingham, with copies of PrintPDF on CD for those
> > who want to bung (most of) a fiver to charity in exchange for one.
>
> Is a "floppy" disc (3,5") not enough?
Do people still use these? For years now, whenever I've bought a box
of floppies, half of them don't work, and writing 1.6MB of data to them
takes almost as long as burning 1.6MB to a CD, which is significantly
more reliable and a lot faster to read from.
B.
Russell Hafter News
<20091207091...@trite.i.flarn.net.i.flarn.net>,
Rob Kendrick <nn...@rjek.com> wrote:
> Do people still use these? For years now, whenever I've
> bought a box of floppies, half of them don't work, and
> writing 1.6MB of data to them takes almost as long as
> burning 1.6MB to a CD, which is significantly more
> reliable and a lot faster to read from.
I thought that I was one of the last people on the planet to
use them, and I three most of mine out around 18 months ago.
But for some reason, they always seemed far more reliable on
RISC OS than under Windows.
--
Russell
http://www.russell-hafter-holidays.co.uk
Russell Hafter Holidays E-mail to enquiries at our domain
Need a hotel? <http://www.hrs.com/?client=en__blue&customerId=416873103>
Rob Kendrick
Russell Hafter News <see...@walkingingermany.invalid> wrote:
> But for some reason, they always seemed far more reliable on
> RISC OS than under Windows.
If anything, I bet this is more to do with the quality of drive put
into RISC OS boxes verses Windows boxes, and not the OS itself.
It's difficult for OSes to make floppy discs spontaneously develop bad
sectors all over their surface as soon as you remove the shrink wrap :)
B.
Martin Bazley
Sure it's nothing to do with FileCore's facility to 'map out' defects?
I know most of my floppies have been treated in that way at least ten
times!
--
__<^>__
/ _ _ \ I don't have a problem with God; it's his fan club I can't stand.
( ( |_| ) )
\_> <_/ ======================= Martin Bazley ==========================
Martin Bazley
> On Sun, 6 Dec 2009 22:25:02 -0800 (PST)
And a lot more expensive, and wasteful, and not reusable. And frankly,
with some of the experiences I've had with blank CDs, I wouldn't be too
hasty to claim an advantage in reliability...
--
__<^>__ Red sky in the morning: Shepherd's warning
/ _ _ \ Red sky at night: Shepherd's delight
( ( |_| ) ) Mince and potatoes: Shepherd's pie
Rob Kendrick
Martin Bazley <martin...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Sure it's nothing to do with FileCore's facility to 'map out' defects?
> I know most of my floppies have been treated in that way at least ten
> times!
FAT has this functionality, too.
B.
Rob Kendrick
Martin Bazley <martin...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> > Do people still use these? For years now, whenever I've bought a
> > box of floppies, half of them don't work, and writing 1.6MB of data
> > to them takes almost as long as burning 1.6MB to a CD, which is
> > significantly more reliable and a lot faster to read from.
> >
> And a lot more expensive, and wasteful, and not reusable. And
> frankly, with some of the experiences I've had with blank CDs, I
> wouldn't be too hasty to claim an advantage in reliability...
You can buy CD-RWs for 0.25p each. I don't think I've ever had a CD-R
or -RW fail on the shelf (I still routinely dip into ones I wrote ten
years ago), where I've had floppies die after a year or so.
B.
David Holden
On 7-Dec-2009, Russell Hafter News <see...@walkingingermany.invalid>
wrote:
> I thought that I was one of the last people on the planet to
> use them, and I three most of mine out around 18 months ago.
>
> But for some reason, they always seemed far more reliable on
> RISC OS than under Windows.
I've never particularly noticed this but *if* it's true then one possible
explanation might be that a PC format floppy has 18 x 512 byte sectors
whereas an Acorn disc has 10 x 1K sectors. Although the total useful
capacity per track is less the gaps between the sectors are about 20%
smaller on the PC disc. So *perhaps* when they age or haven't been used for
a long time they suffer from speed variation and the larger Acorn gaps are
more tolerant of this.
--
David Holden - APDL - <http://www.apdl.co.uk>
Russell Hafter News
Bazley <martin...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> The following bytes were arranged on 7 Dec 2009 by Rob
> Kendrick :
> > On Sun, 6 Dec 2009 22:25:02 -0800 (PST) Alexander
> > Ausserstorfer <bavari...@chiemgau-net.de> wrote:
> > > > I'll also be at Birmingham, with copies of PrintPDF
> > > > on CD for those who want to bung (most of) a fiver
> > > > to charity in exchange for one.
> > > Is a "floppy" disc (3,5") not enough?
> > Do people still use these? For years now, whenever
> > I've bought a box of floppies, half of them don't work,
> > and writing 1.6MB of data to them takes almost as long
> > as burning 1.6MB to a CD, which is significantly more
> > reliable and a lot faster to read from.
> And a lot more expensive, and wasteful, and not reusable.
> And frankly, with some of the experiences I've had with
> blank CDs, I wouldn't be too hasty to claim an advantage
> in reliability...
I take the point about being wasteful of non-renewable
resources certainly.
But these days I would only use a CD for something that I
wanted to hang on to for some considerable time.
These days I usually use USB sticks stuck into the PC.
These seem to have dropped so much in price these days that
I often get given them at trade fairs now, whereas in the
past it was always CDs with "interesting" (maybe, maybe not)
data on.
I have more of these than I can use now, and it is *much*
easier to write to these than to a CD under windows, as no
special software is needed.
druck
> But for some reason, they always seemed far more reliable on
> RISC OS than under Windows.
I was always able to rescue floppies at work that peoples PC's couldn't
read. I'd pop them in the Risc PC (yes we had them at work) and it would
read the contents with no problems.
The issue was as soon as the PC came across and iffy sector it would
give up and not touch it again, where as ADFS on RISC OS would retry
automatically 3 times (you can hear the head stepping) which was usually
enough. If that didn't work, a few presses of the manual retry button on
the filer copy box would do it.
---druck
Richard Russell
> The issue was as soon as the PC came across and iffy sector it would
> give up and not touch it again
Not true. Windows PCs do multiple retries (including re-seeking to
track 0 and back) before giving up. I still use 3.5" floppies
routinely for short-term backups of small files, and I find them
fairly reliable - but they were purchased several years ago when you
could obtain 'quality' diskettes from the likes of TDK.
Richard.
http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/
Steve Fryatt
<d8296b74-2286-4157...@x15g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>:
No, the discs I sell now carry about 20MBytes of data.
And try sourcing floppy discs at a sensible price these days, too.
Steve Fryatt
<a23308c6...@blueyonder.co.uk>:
> The following bytes were arranged on 7 Dec 2009 by Rob Kendrick :
>
> > On Sun, 6 Dec 2009 22:25:02 -0800 (PST) Alexander Ausserstorfer
> > <bavari...@chiemgau-net.de> wrote:
> >
> > > > I'll also be at Birmingham, with copies of PrintPDF on CD for those
> > > > who want to bung (most of) a fiver to charity in exchange for one.
> > >
> > > Is a "floppy" disc (3,5") not enough?
> >
> > Do people still use these? For years now, whenever I've bought a box of
> > floppies, half of them don't work, and writing 1.6MB of data to them
> > takes almost as long as burning 1.6MB to a CD, which is significantly
> > more reliable and a lot faster to read from.
> >
> And a lot more expensive, and wasteful, and not reusable.
The latter, yes. I'm not sure about the second, but I'm going to have to
disagree about the first.
The CDs I had at Birmingham, complete with thin 'jewel' cases, cost 25p each
from Staples. An admittedly very quick Google has just failed to find any
3.5" floppy discs for less than 36p each, and that's only if I buy in
quantities that would keep me going for years.
Oh, and I would need 13 floppies to take the data on the CD.
David Holden
On 7-Dec-2009, Steve Fryatt <ne...@stevefryatt.org.uk> wrote:
> And try sourcing floppy discs at a sensible price these days, too.
Well if anybody wants some cheap they could try asking me. I've still got
quite a few left from the days when I used to get through several hundred a
week.
David Holden
On 7-Dec-2009, Martin Bazley <martin...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> And a lot more expensive, and wasteful, and not reusable.
Well I use CDR/W a lot for transferring stuff between machines. They get
reused dozens of times. I don't think I've ever worn one out, normally they
just seem to mysteriously vanish and I get a new one (about 12p) out of the
packet.
> And frankly, with some of the experiences I've had with blank
> CDs I wouldn't be too hasty to claim an advantage in reliability...
When duplicating RISC World I would usually got a couple per 1000 that
didn't verify. Most of the time this was caused by a physical defect on the
CD that could be seen. Quite often if I breathed on it it would wipe off and
the CD would then verify OK.
Floppies can last a very long time if they're 'refreshed'. They do lose
their data and suffer corruption due to 'print through' after a few years
but if they're reformatted and the data put back they usually seem as good
as new.
Obviously for a disc in regular use physical wear will eventually take its
toll
OTOH I've got some master CDR discs I made for APDL clip art CDs in the mid
90's and they're still OK. I've also just found a backup CD dated 1997 and
that's fine.
Martin Bazley
> On Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:08:19 GMT
Obviously you're better at buying them than I am, then. I burned a set
of Philips CD-Rs about two years ago, and they're all b0rked now
(without my having done anything in the meantime).
--
__<^>__ "Your pet, our passion." - Purina
/ _ _ \ "Your potential, our passion." - Microsoft, a few months later
( ( |_| ) )
druck
> On Dec 7, 10:27�pm, druck <n...@druck.org.uk> wrote:
>> The issue was as soon as the PC came across and iffy sector it would
>> give up and not touch it again
> Not true. Windows PCs do multiple retries (including re-seeking to
> track 0 and back) before giving up.
Well they didn't back then in the days of NT4, which is what I was
talking about. Whether they do these days or not is academic, unless
you can find a machine with a floppy.
---druck
--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
32 bit Conversions Page - http://www.armclub.org.uk/32bit/
Erving
Rob Kendrick <nn...@rjek.com> wrote:
> You can buy CD-RWs for 0.25p each.
> B.
Where can you buy CDs for a quarter of a penny each?!
Erving
Rob Kendrick
Anywhere that sells them in bulk.
B.
David Holden
I'm very glad I don't have to rely on your maths. Out by a factor of around
100 :-))
Graham Thurlwell
> On Sun, 6 Dec 2009 22:25:02 -0800 (PST)
> Alexander Ausserstorfer <bavari...@chiemgau-net.de> wrote:
<snip>
>> Is a "floppy" disc (3,5") not enough?
> Do people still use these?
I find them handy for transferring small files (particularly those
that make up my website) between my own little network and the Omega.
As yet, I haven't got round to linking the two networks and for files
smaller than 1.4 meg there just isn't any point messing-on burning a
CD.
To haul this somewhat back to the original topic, R-Comp still
distribute some stuff on floppies - NetFetch is an example - although
I think that they do alternative distribution methods for people who
don't have a floppy drive. The current version of HTMLEdit Studio is
also on CD. I think that where something would multiple floppies they
prefer CDs.
I haven't bought the CD drive for the A9 as I've networked it to my
A7000+ - if a program is installed from CD I'll just put the disc in
the latter and share it. Installation from floppy is done simply by
drag-and-dropping to the A9 - anything that'd need direct access to
the install floppy from the machine it's being installed on probabably
won't work on the A9 anyway!
--
Graham Thurlwell
Jades' First Encounters Site
http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
Rob Kendrick
"David Holden" <Spa...@apdl.co.uk> wrote:
> > > Where can you buy CDs for a quarter of a penny each?!
> >
> > Anywhere that sells them in bulk.
> >
> > Try here:
> > <http://www.svp.co.uk/technology/consumables/blank-cdr/cdrw-re-recordable/sky-4-12x-branded-cd-rw-in-packs-of-50-sky002_spindle-tub-of-50.html>
>
> I'm very glad I don't have to rely on your maths. Out by a factor of
> around 100 :-))
Simply an example; 50 is hardly bulk.
B.
Richard Porter
write:
> You can buy CD-RWs for 0.25p each.
I can't imagine that a CD-RW for a farthing would be very reliable!
--
Richard Porter
rich@ / www. richardporter.me.uk
"You can't have Windows without pains."
John Sandford
Richard Porter <dontu...@address.uk.invalid> wrote:
> The date being 7 Dec 2009, Rob Kendrick <nn...@rjek.com> decided to
> write:
>> You can buy CD-RWs for 0.25p each.
> I can't imagine that a CD-RW for a farthing would be very reliable!
I think I remember there where 240 1d to a pound so 0.25p would be
around 2.4 farthings so perhaps this would buy a better quality ;-)
John
--
John Sandford West Herts UK
Hemel Hempstead RISC OS User Group email info @ hhrug.org