Risc PC DIY  -  Upgrade your Risc PC

by Nobilangelo Ceramalus

This archive contains a special twelve-page RISC User supplement for you to print out. The supplement consists of two articles concerning do-it-yourself upgrades to expand your RiscPC to a high specification:

Build Your Own Rocket Ship: learn how to create your own extendible case pins so that you can keep on adding slices without having to buy a new set of bolts every time.

Whistling for Power: if your power supply is under stress, or you need to add more devices than there are power leads, this article will explain the cheapest way of adding a second power supply.

In order to cater for as wide a range of users as possible, the supplement is supplied in both Impression and Ovation Pro formats. It is laid out in the same style as an issue of RISCUser (but uses only standard fonts), and is set up to print out in pamphlet mode. We regret that if you do not have either Ovation Pro or some version of Impression, you will not be able to read the articles.

The illustration files (which are in ArtWorks format) are quite large and would waste an excessive amount of disc space if supplied within both articles. Therefore, they can be found separately in the Figures directory. There is one directory of figures per article: DIYPins for Build Your Own Rocket Ship and DIYPSU for Whistling for Power.

When you have loaded the Ovation Pro or Impression file into your chosen DTP package, you will find a series of empty frames for the pictures, each with a caption close by it. The captions incorporate figure numbers, so simply drag the corresponding ArtWorks file into each frame. The frames are of appropriate sizes and proportions already, but because of the way some of the illustrations are created, it will be necessary to scale and pan the pictures within the frames to make them look right. Consult the documentation provided with your DTP application for details of how to achieve this. Once done, you may like to save the document onto another disc for future use before you finally print out the pamphlet.

Note that the articles' pages are set up in B5 size, just like the magazine. Since most users will not have printers that are capable of printing on paper which is larger than A4 size, it has been necessary to reduce the page size for printing in the default pamphlet mode. You could turn off pamphlet printing and output the pages singly at actual size (or larger) if you prefer.

DISCLAIMER: the procedures outlined in the two articles are relatively low-risk, and we hope that no difficulties will be encountered should you decide to follow them. However, neither the author nor the publisher can accept liability for loss, damage or injury resulting from use of these articles. Both of the articles involve a certain amount of practical construction work; do not undertake this until you have read and understood the articles and are fully confident about what you are supposed to do. RISC User cannot be help responsible for void warranties, damaged equipment or injured people! Proceed with caution at your own risk.

Copyright  RISC User 1996