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Archive magazine reviewed By Mark Stephens. Published: 23rd Oct 2007, 15:46:44. A media watch special Archive magazine is under new management after Jim Nagel recently replaced Paul Beverley as editor. Is Jim the next e.e. cummings and where will he take the RISC OS subscription magazine? Mark Stephens takes a look at Jim's first issue to find out. In the heyday of the home computer boom, there were two crucial reads for the RISC OS and Acorn enthusiast: Archive edited by Paul Beverley, and Jim Nagel's column in Computer Shopper. Jim has been quieter on the scene since his slot was dropped by the mainstream IT magazine. However he has kept himself busy as a journalist for all sorts of other publications, including the Times newspaper. When Paul announced that he was stepping down as editor of Archive, there was some relief that the magazine would at least continue under the new stewardship of Jim. The first issue has arrived in the post, so this seems like an opportune moment to have a look at Archive and see how it is evolving. New volume Jim has chosen to take over from volume 21 and has ghost-edited Archive in the past when Paul was busy building up his proofreading and copy-editing business. So there are therefore no major changes expected. The October issue is 64 pages long and will look reassuringly familiar to subscribers. The paper quality feels nicer than that of volume 20. Archive magazine has always featured a selection of long-running series and regular writers mixed in with lots of other contributions - generally with some link to RISC OS or of interest to RISC OS users. Mentioning other OSes is fine so long as there is some link back to RISC OS usage. The usual regulars are all still there: news, the free software column, the new commercial products round-up, and so on. The list of authors on the front cover will be familiar to readers. In this issue there are also articles on handling website statistics, transferring files to Vista, and distributed computing. Most magazines and non-daily newspapers seem to focus less on breaking news, where you can never quite compete with online sites, television and radio, while concentrating more on useful and in-depth material. In line with this, Archive is a mix of reviews, tutorials, interesting snippets, ideas and suggestions. The technical level has always been varied and it stretches from easy-going to extremely involved - such as compiling the RISC OS shared source with the GCCSDK. The layout and style of the magazine are essentially unchanged. Being very picky, as I'm getting old and intolerant, there were a few uninvited spaces in the email addresses printed at the end of articles, which I am sure will be sorted in the future. Overall, there is still the same attention to detail with layout and spelling - although the editorial's near total lack of capital letters, as you can see below, is hard to miss. Jim has started to add some nice little flourishes to his magazine. Boxes featuring hints and tips now appear as little fillers throughout the magazine and there is a small biography and photo for each author at the end of every article - so they will no longer be able to hide anonymously at shows. I was quite surprised as some of my expectations of what some authors looked like and their age were way off. I did notice the editorial section lacked this detail so we will have to wait for the next show to see what Jim Nagel looks like. Archive was always a very personal magazine where the editor said what he thought and Paul also had his 'God slot' for sharing his thoughts with his readers. It's not clear from Jim's editorial whether he plans to continue the monthly column based around the Christian faith, but he lays out his thoughts and plans for the magazine very clearly and eloquently. So rather than poorly paraphrase them, below is a scanned copy, republished with permission. Click for a larger image. Conclusions Archive is still one of my highlights of the month and it's good to see it going forward under an enthusiastic and capable new editor. If you have not tried Archive or have let your subscription lapse, now is a good time to have another look at it. It's great to have Jim back and I hope Paul will continue to contribute to Archive and the community. Links Archive website Drobe contributes a regular news summary column to Archive on a pro bono basis. Discussion Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date | Skip to the end I like the style of Jim's introductory piece there in the scan. However, the lack of capitals is really going to get old very soon! (*finds his cheque book*) fylfot on 23/10/07 7:27PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] fylfot: Indeed - it's almost as if Jim's shift key is malfunctioning. I'm told the rest of the magazine does not suffer from such constant diminutive lettering, however. Perhaps this was a one-off. Also, don't be a stranger fylfot, you're sorely missed on IRC. rjek on 23/10/07 7:35PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Jim's column in Shopper was great, back in the old days. I too found that snippet a bit difficult to read, though. killermike on 23/10/07 8:44PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] It is only the editorial that lacks caps, thankfully. I hate it too. However, the rest of the magazine is the usual Archive fare and seems to sustain the normal high quality (hmm, that was all meant to be complimentary, lest it sound like faint praise). I've said it before but I'm relieved that Archive is in safe hands. TonyStill on 23/10/07 9:23PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] I'd perhaps only half-noticed the lower-case in the main text, and certainly not in the section headings, but what I had noticed was RISC OS with the large 'R' and smaller 'ISC OS' (all caps), that's got to take some effort?. None of it bothers me though. At the SE show, Jim was asked about the e.e.cummings style and put it down to having to scribble notes on punch cards in ages past, but looking at the pages shown above, he has used capitals for all the names (6 times in 8 words for Andrew Bissex...), so why not at the start of sentences and for the 'I's? I guess it's just his style, so no problem here!!! TimDWest on 23/10/07 11:38PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Perhaps the new Style Tracker functionality in TechWriter would help sort this out Archive is RISC OS institution and long may it continue stevek on 24/10/07 6:02AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Nice to see that the first issue by Jim got out and I hope that he manages to continue Archive on a regular time frame - there are not many RISC OS magazines which have such a good and long standing track record, that is have appeared for so many years and in time for each issue! Hi jc, no need to comment: Archive like GAG-News in Germany have the small advantage that printing is less complex since they're in black&white. I agree with the odd one here that the lack of caps in the editorial looks strange and the mis-caps-ing of RISC OS is a bit too much but hey, we're on the editorial page and that's where it is allowed. Good luck Jim! hzn on 25/10/07 7:27AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] hzn: At Jim's talk he said the spaces/caps were font mapping issues in Postscript which should now be sorted. markee174 on 25/10/07 5:03PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Not got the magazine yet - has it been posted? CKH2 on 27/10/07 8:52AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] CKH2: Yes, the October issue has arrived here, at least for me. diomus on 27/10/07 12:01PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ] Please login before posting a comment. Use the form on the right to do so or create a free account.

Login Username Password Create a new account Forgot your password? Search this website This week's poll Recent developments have left me feeling... Assured ROS will appear on new hardware 55% Pleased OS desktop features are being developed 10% ROL and ROOL will eventually kiss and make up 5% App developments are critical 10% Dave Holden sleeps easy at night 19% Discuss this | Archives Featured articles Wakefield 2009 wrap-up, photos and video The weekend's RISC OS event has been and gone and we've got the rest of our lives to look forward to. Here's a round-up of extra news and Drobe's show-related coverage and some photos taken from Wakefield 2009 - plus a video from the show floor.  16 comments, latest by AW on 29/4/09 7:41PM. Published: 27 Apr 2009 RISC OS 5 pictured running on ARM Cortex-A8 kit Picture exclusive - This grainy photograph shows a port of RISC OS 5, sourced from the RISC OS Open project, running on a Beagleboard - a device powered by a 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor with a built-in graphics chip. The port, developed by Jeffrey Lee with help from Uwe Kall and ROOL staff, is seen as a major breakthrough for the shared-source project as it proves the OS can be ported to new hardware without the need for a large team of engineers.  75 comments, latest by rjek on 30/4/09 3:15PM. Published: 25 Apr 2009 Open documents from Windows-using pals with handy online tool It can be a pain when someone sends you a file that can only be opened on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux - but with the help of a free-to-use website and NetSurf, Paul Stewart reveals how these documents can be viewed on RISC OS.  6 comments, latest by AW on 8/5/09 12:12AM. Published: 19 Apr 2009 Useful links News and media: Iconbar • MyRISCOS • ArcSite • RISCOScode • ANS • C.S.A.Announce • Archive • Qercus • RiscWorld • GAG-News Top developers: RISCOS Ltd • RISC OS Open • MW Software • R-Comp • Advantage Six • VirtualAcorn Dealers: CJE Micros • APDL • Castle • a4 • X-Ample • Liquid Silicon • Webmonster Usergroups: WROCC • RONE • NKACC • IRUG • SASAUG • ROUGOL • RONWUG • MUG • GAG • RISCOS.be Useful: RISCOS.org • RISCOS.info • Filebase • NetSurf Non-RISC OS: The Register • The Inquirer • Apple Insider • BBC News • Sky News • Google News • xkcd • diodesign

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