h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm online, it would seem... if you're online too, we can probably get something done .

I'll have a look at the article again, and will be back with questions in hand...

Okay, first and foremost and easily most annoyingly, you're not really allowed to use 'I' in an article if there's any way of avoiding it. So the following phrases need rephrasing:

'Any acorn machine can read discs formatted on both PCs and macs, and I find it far faster when formatting/verifying discs. '

'I have never had to take a machine to be serviced, and have only ever once had one lock up on me, despite the fact that I write software (and on other platforms this is one of the most dangerous things that you can be doing).'

'Finally, I must just mention the sad story of the Pheobe.'

'I have also wired this entry up to the Acorn WebRing.'

'12 seconds from switch on to desktop. Yes, I am sad enough to time it '

I personally hate doing this, so any suggestions you have would be welcome...

I think the easiest way for us to go about this is for me to make changes on my test page, A206867. Then we can discuss 'em with relative ease...

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Other questions...

How sure are you that RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer? I've heard that it can also be 'Reduced Instruction Set Chip', which would make more sense in the circumstances...

Can I change 'RISC OSC powered computers are superior to PCs' to 'RISC OS powered computers are superior to PCs in many ways'? This, I think, is less likely to lead to argument and fits more nicely at the top of the list of nice features of Acorns.

Are they really going to produce a game worth buying an Acorn for? A lot of games spend a long time in development, and it doesn't necessarily make 'em any better...

And... er... do we *have* to say that Bill Gates is evil?

Sorry about last night, there was a power cut.

Sorry also for wasting your time: I didn't know that 'I' is depreceted. Is it acceptable to refer to 'this researcher' or something of the kind? (I am only curious).

Here are my suggested replacements:

'Any acorn machine can read discs formatted on both PCs and macs, and can format and verify them faster as well. Defragmenting hard discs is unnesscary on an Acorn, since with the operating system in ROM and memory efficient applications, it is accessed far less often and there is consiquently less fragmentation.'

'Most users have never had to take a machine to be serviced. They also remaing useful for far longer, typically more than a decade, and are more resiliant to power surges et al.'

'Although not really a killer application, mention must now be made of the sad story of *Pheobe*.'

'This entry has also been wired up to the Acorn WebRing.'
Please *do not* remove the footnote mentioning Paul Vigay.

Re: '12 seconds from switch on to desktop. Yes, I am sad enough to time it '
Probably better to remove the footnote from here and replace the line at the top with:
The operating system is not stored on the hard disc as with Windows, but is held in ROM chips inside the computer. This means it cannot be corrupted by viruses, and that the computer is far faster to start up - typically taking under 15 seconds.

It is best to remove footnote number #4 (the David Pilling one), since it will only be understood by RISC OS users.

> Can I change 'RISC OS powered computers are superior to PCs'
> to 'RISC OS powered computers are superior to PCs in many ways'?
Yes, and please remove the assocated footnote. I always use too many, and they make things look clutered.


Everyone agrees that the OS is incredibly easy to use, and because of the way it is designed, it is very easy for programmers to extend.


The whole system was designed in a far more modular manner that other operating systems, meaning that any programmer can easily trap events and calls to routines, and filter or replace them.
The user interface is also aggreed to be easier to use and more consistant. For example, all fonts are anti-aliased3, significantly improving display quality.
Anti-aliasing means that fonts are blended in with the background colour to remove jagged edges. PCs have only recently begun to do this, where as Acorn have been doing it since 1989. PC font blending is better described as 'smudging', and in many cases makes small fonts *harder* to read!

Re: The meaning of RISC
See http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=risc . This resource is the cited on the Edexcel A-level computing website, among others.
By the same token, although Wimp usially stands for Windows Icons Menus Pointers, my definition is correct (it is given in the RISC OS programmer's refrence manuals, with which you do *not* want to argue).

Re: Games for RISC OS. See http://www.artex.oaktree.co.uk/irondignity/about.html . No, it isn't anything special by modern standards, and there will be versions released for other platforms anyway

> And... er... do we *have* to say that Bill Gates is evil?
You can probably remove the last section entirely, although insulting music teachers is something of a hobby of mine (well, it helps to pass the time...)

Hey guys! Just wanted to drop you a quick note and remind you that our esteemed Editor Mark Moxon used to write the Acorn magazine!

Maybe he'll take an unusual interest in this entry!!

- X

...not only that, but Jim Lynn and most of the h2g2 art team used to work at Computer Concepts, the publisher of Artworks (now known, I /believe/, as Corel Xara, but /please/ do not quote me on that!)

-OPD

LOL! Talk about having an inside track to instant approval!

Thanks... I'll make the changes, and you can review the finished product at my test page...

For some reason it isn't really mentioned in the style guide that we don't like people using 'I'. It is, however, one thing that we do tend to spend quite a lot of time changing...

*grin* However, seeing as you've done all the work this time, you're more than forgiven .

I'm planning on having the edited version up by 21:00 GMT today... I'll be sending it back this weekend, so you've got a while to make any final complaints should you feel the need .

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Thankyou for updating the artical...now I look at it again, I see a number of mistakes, although I promise you that I am not always this pedantic .

* In the "Why RISC is best" section, on point number 3, the redundant footnote following the words "anti-aliased" has not been removed.
* At the end of the same line, the footnote #1 /follows/ the full stop (which the style guide says it shouldn't).
* I think that the phrase "days, weeks or months" should be "weeks or months" (no point in being optimistic where Microsoft is concerned )
* I think that "powersurges" should be two words.
* In "the mouse has 3 buttons", use the word "three".
* Replace "Personally, 'killer apps' always remind me of cargo cultism, but I'm well known for being a bit mad ." with "Many reguard 'killer apps' as being a form of cargo cultism."
* Replace "sad sotry" with the correct spelling.

Thankyou again for letting me help. Incidentally, when in the future I need to update the artical, how do I go about getting it re-approved?

Note to Jimi X: yes, this looks like a very good way of helping a flagging market; I can just see the adverts now...
...would /you/ like to have your entries processed in /record time/? If so, simply buy a RISC OS computer, and tell everyone that you like it!

LOL!

*grin* Thanks for that... all good points...

I was actually planning on going over the whole thing once more - I ended up doing less yesterday than I'd planned, largely due to various siblings of mine.

Actually, I always seem to end up doing less work than I planned on doing, on weekdays. 95% of my editing is done at weekends.

*grin* I need to start doing this more often - getting the original authors involved - it sure seems to save a lot of work...

Hopefully I'll have the final final version up by the end of Saturday, and the whole lot sent of by the end of Sunday, so do give me a holler if I happen to insert any more mistakes.

If you want to write an update for an article, your best bet is to submit the updated version (ie the version that should replace the current one) with a note at the top pointing to the original. You *could* just submit the update and a link to the original article, but then some poor sub-ed'll have to recombine the two... up to you, really - after all, we're here to help .

Regards (and more thanks!),

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