Just some useful tips and ideas

OK, we all need to think about anti-virus software and a firewall, but do we take the plunge and spend money on it or risk our data and personal details with one of the free ones, or Microsoft's own firewall (which is heavily attacked).

Having looked at the options, we have taken the plunge of renewing our subscription with Symantec and purchased their Norton 360 product, which is quicker than previous versions of Norton Internet Security (so it does not tie the system up as much), has faster scanning, provides its own firewall and antivirus protection and much more.

The advantages of Norton 360 are that it also provides regular backups of your data (full or incremental backups) and also provides 2GB free online storage for you to store your most important files, in case of the all too drastic hard disk failure. One of the bonuses is that when you look at the price tag, of £59.99, this may appear very high, but often PC World has discounted offers and you also must remember that this now includes the facility to install it on 3 computers in the same household, so that works out at just under £20 per PC !!

Not too bad when you think of the damage that one virus can do.

The other trick for this month, has to be to look at switching to the Alliance & Leicester's current account - it still offers the best rate of interest of any current account (6.5% fixed until Jan 2009), excellent online service and you only need fund it with £500pm (most other similar accounts need minimum funding of £1000pm). Keep your eyes open for special offers too - they often offer very high interest bearing savings accounts if you open them at the same time as a current account.

Well worth the small bit of paperwork it takes to switch

We have recently had some very successful reports for people using old DOS and emulator programs who are struggling to find a compatible printer. Whilst Printfil has been one product which we have commended in the past for this sort of situation, it is limited to mainly text and does not understand many control codes. We and several others have found that QPCPrint is now a much better alternative, particularly if your program outputs a mixture of text and graphics and expects to output to an EPSON compatible printer. QPCPrint understands a much wider range of ESC/P2 programming codes, and can therefore provide output much closer to the original on any modern Windows Printer - more details and a link to a demonstration version of QPCPrint is available on our webpage dedicated to older printers and printing from DOS / emulators

Why do we need this?

I suppose the answer is that if you have never found that you cannot print from a program, you do not need this. However, many users of emulators and DOS programs find that their program will only send output direct to the parallel port, using its own inbuilt command codes. Many modern printers will not even accept plain text sent to the parallel port (that is if they even connect through the parallel port - most are USB nowadays). As printers have developed, they expect Windows to do all of the hard work and convert text and graphics into something which they can understand without having to convert - this cuts down on the cost of hardware, but means a loss of compatibility with older programs.

How do Printfil and QPCPrint work?

Both Printfil and QPCPrint are Windows based programs, set up as pseudo printer drivers on your computer. They look for any output set to a parallel port (eg. LPT1 is the default), then capture this output and convert it into data which can then be printed on any modern printer connected to Windows. This can be done in the background, or you can use options to view the output and decide which printer to use.

Printfil is the only program of the two which can handle a printer which is actually connected to LPT1. However, QPCPrint is more accurate when it comes to printing from a program which expects an EPSON printer.

Try them both and see what you think. We can offer some advice and assistance if you are struggling.

First off for October is two new products for Sinclair ZX Spectrum users:

- a low cost composite video kit which consists of a small board which replaces the Spectrum's own TV modulator (UM1233). This provides excellent output on modern televisions and allows you to get around some of the problems with SCART leads. We need someone to try it on other retro computers which provide a TV out, as it should work with all of them.

We even offer a fitting service if you are worried about the need to open your machine and use a soldering iron.

- now the news that all PlusD users have been waiting for - a Kempston compatible Joystick interface which, although uncased, does have a through port which allows you to plug the PlusD disk interface into the back so you can use the Joystick with games on disk. We have not yet tried it with a DivIDE but see no reason why it won't work.

If you want to order, visit our website devoted to the retro computing scene.