Now, it's almost as inevitable as the turning of the seasons that R-Comp will bombard us with emails just before a show, and usually they go into the mixed bag that is the pre-show roundup. However, this time out they seem to have got the right idea - tell us about a completely new cool product and they get a news posting all of their own!

It's called Grapevine, and is basically an all-in-one instant messenger for RISC OS. There's similar clients on other platforms (Trillian springs to mind[1]), but as far as I know this is the first RISC OS all-in-one solution. Currently it seems to support MSN Messenger and IRC, with AOL and Yahoo messaging mentioned in the future support section. The buzz word checklist includes "full support for emoticons... varying display fonts, mapping of Windows fonts to RISC OS equivalents, multi-way conversations, attractive graphical user interface ... designed with first-time users in mind, it also has much for more technical users, such as configurable macros ... 'friends' system allows you to use IRC as an Instant Messaging system just like MSN ... separate Whisper session windows, DDC chat and file transfer, operator controls, lists of channel members and so on."

Because of the amount of development that has gone (and continues to go on) into the product Grapevine is not a freebie like on some platforms, but costs 25 quid (inc. VAT and P&P). But hey, that's not much for a RISC OS product enjoying pretty much full time development.

OK, I'll play nice - other reasons to visit the R-Comp stand include: Artex's strategy game TEK finally seeing the light of day after four years of development (more on that at Acorn Arcade); Webster XL gets another upgrade (with a hefty namecheck for Harry's font site to support Windows fonts); and there's the ADSL in a box and Simtec et al. 10/100bT network cards. Oh, and the WebThumbs thumbnail generator as part of EasyClip2+. OK Andrew? :)

[1] well, it would have if I could have remembered the name. Ta [mentat].