Hi folks, Developer News 06/12/96 Hardware Test Suites now on WWW Site ------------------------------------ The hardware test suites for all machines Archimedes 300 -> Risc PC are now available on http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/reference/hwtest/ ; this will enable you to soak systems for reliability and test individual areas of functionality when building systems up from parts. Make sure you read the ReadMe.txt file in the hwtest directory, as some of the tests can have undesirable results if you don't go in forearmed!! Freeway API Spec to be released on WWW Site ------------------------------------------- The API details for the Freeway module have been abstracted from the Functional Specification and are to be made publicly available as of next week; you may use the features of this module as you wish, although remember that you will need a binary distribution licence should you wish to bundle the module with your product (eg for product designed to run on RISC OS 3.1). When the spec becomes available (sometime in the next couple of days), you will be able to find it as http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/docs/api/ and this is also where future API docs will be placed. We intend to publish a number of further API specs in the future; in the networking domain the obvious exception is the DCI4 spec, although this is still freely available from Developer Support to developers who can demonstrate that they have a genuine need for it. Internet 5.xx ------------- A softloadable copy of !Internet release 5 (as shipped with RISC OS 3.7), and compatible with RISC OS 3.1, 3.5 and 3.6, is currently in an advanced state of development; this release will be made available shortly as a free upgrade (in the manner of the current !Internet 4.xx), and will also contain a compatible version of !InetSetup. Rates of licensing for commercial bundling of this stack are very reasonable; if you have an Internet-based product and are interested in licensing our stack and drivers to ship with it, please contact me. A new Telephone System ---------------------- It has been brought to our attention that problems are starting to arise regarding routing of your telephone calls by our Reception, hence I'm able to supply you with details of the appropriate direct lines to ring. If you need to make a query about purchasing some items from us, or availability / stock etc, you need to contact our Sales department on +44 (0)1223 577879 Developer Support is available for technical queries on +44 (0)1223 577877 As ever, email queries should be addressed to isvquery@art.acorn.co.uk unless stated otherwise. Allocation Requests ------------------- Please don't send requests for filetype, SWI chunk, etc allocations to me; they are now handled by Pineapple Software (allocate@pinesoft.demon.co.uk). If !Allocate (in http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/devtools ) doesn't have an interface to allocate the resource you need, please send plaintext details of the resource for which you need an allocation to the pinesoft address above. Toolbox Help ------------ For users of !StrongHlp, we now have a set of help files detailing the Toolbox and its veneers; this set contains documentation for the vast majority of the Toolbox calls as detailed in the manuals, along with some extra bits lifted directly from the header files. The documentation is, admittedly, incomplete; it has been put together by Neil Bingham (one of our software engineers) in his spare time and is also intended for internal use. If you would like to take a look at it, you can find it as http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/devtools/toolboxhelp.arc and if you need to get !StrongHlp this can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.pvv.unit.no/pub/arm/Programs/ You need to make sure that you are using StrongHlp 2.03 (earlier versions don't work with this file set), and that the original C help files (written by Gareth Boden) are not loaded first (they will take priority over Neil's set, as some pages have the same names). Cheers, Dave