This site now acts as an archive for articles pre-late October 2011, it will remain online for the forseeable future but will not feature any new content. Visiting http://www.riscosblog.co.uk will take you to our new, now-fully active website.
The RISC OS Blog has moved.
November 2nd, 2011 | RISCOSBlogReport: RISC OS London Show 2011
October 29th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
The RISC OS London Show 2011 took place Saturday and it lived up to expectations.To finish off the RISC OS Blog’s coverage of the show (Preview – Commentary), here’s our report from the show, thanks must go to David Gregory who kept us informed throughout the day.
Upon entering the main hall, you would have come across ROUGOL’s stand, the usergroup for RISC OS users and enthusiasts living in and around London. The stand was manned by a number of friendly and informative gentlemen who’d quite obviously gone to a lot of effort in organising the show.
The next stand along from ROUGOLwas that of the Raspberry Pi, the new RISC OS computer on the scene (and the cheapest computer ever made!). Rumours had been flying for weeks before the event as to whether a RISC OS port would be running on the Pi, which will go on sale before Christmas this year. The answer was of course, yes. The Pi was in fact displaying a full RISC OS 5 desktop, but due to a lack of USB drivers, the keyboard and mouse wasn’t operational. A temporary fix involving a Windows laptop was thrown together to get people playing around with the nifty little device. The next few weeks will probably see a number of USB Linux drivers poached and ported over to RISC OS in order to get the Pi fully operational.
RISC OS Open, busier than ever.
RISCOS Open Ltd.’s stand saw them selling their usual range of merchandise and had their helpful volunteers politely informing the public as to their operations, and what they have done recently. The biggest change came in the form of a USB stick, two different types were being sold, the first containing a RISC OS emulator and a RISC OS 5 ROM image, and the second containing everything you need to get RISC OS running on a BeagleBoard.
R-Comp were as well prepared as usual, with their new ARMini computer taking centre stage. As well as selling their range of different computers, R-Comp were quite eager to point out the availability of a new (and ARMv7 friendly!) version of Fireworkz Pro, the popular spreadsheet and word processing package. Along with that, Andrew and his team of friendly staff had a range of 24 and 27-inch RISC OS friendly monitors on sale, as well as a brand new version of their back up software, SafeStore, and some new NAS drivers to accompany it.
A little along from R-Comp, Peter Nowosad was present with the Charm Programming Language stall. Charm is a simple to learn yet powerful high level language, with a compiler that generates efficient code with a small memory footprint.
Nigel Willmott was keen to flaunt a brand new version of his wonderful personal information manager software, Organizer 2.14. The new version contains a lot of exciting new features, as well as bringing back multi-language support, kudos Nigel!
Steve Fryatt was present as usual, discussing his CashBook and PrintPDF software as well as going into some details regarding his work with popular web browser NetSurf.Trevor Johnson was quite eager to recreuit new contributors to WikiProject RISC OS at the show. The projects main aim is to increase RISC OS’ presence on the extremely popular encyclopedia website, Wikipedia.
Jim Nagel had brought out a fresh new copy of Archive magazine at the show, which was a good a read as always.RPCEmu shared a stand with WikiProject RISC OS on the day, RPC Emu being the cross platform RiscPC and A7000 emulator of course. It was being displayed running RISC OS on a number of different machines, including a Nintendo Wii running RISC OS under Linux!Keith Dunlop was on the floor with his new Usable Range project, a brand new audio project involving a BeagleBoard, RISC OS and some “banging tunes”. UPDATE! For those of you craving for a little more information on the new ‘Usable Range’, it is a project lead by Keith Dunlop to improve the BeagleBoard’s (and in theory, other ARMv7 machines) audio processing under RISC OS.
The biggest monitor ever to be present at a RISC OS show courtesy of Keith Dunlops Usable Range.
Next, Retro Clinic were at hand with hardware upgrades such as USB and IDE for your 8-bit computer. Then CJE Micro’s were in attendance with their usual range of stock, be it hardware, software, books and some funky toys too.
Away from the main hall, there were three smaller rooms. Michael Emerton was in one, demonstrating RiscDJ, a digital music library supporting up to 100,000 MP3 and OGG songs with added search and filter facilities. Then we had RISC Control/Beeb Control, where Neil Fazakerley was demonstrating his range of large, RISC OS and Beeb controlled robotic arms, there were a number of RiscPCs and Beebs present, as well as funky little BeagleBoard XM board running RISC OS 5.
Chris Whytehead was in attendance displaying his large Acorn and RISC OS computer collection, some of the most interesting pieces were his Acorn System 3, Acorn System 4, and Acorn System 5 computers, fascinating beasts.
Orpheus Internet were as keen and eager as ever, the RISC OS friendly ISP were very informative and heplful as usual, selling their range of RISC OS friendly Internet packages.
The day’s theatre talks were a constant attraction for the surprisingly large crowd that were present at this year’s show, R-Comp started things of at 11:45am, discussing their ARMini, RISCube and RISCBook computers as well their latest software developments, Fireworkz Pro and SafeStore 2. Martin Wuerthner was next up after Andrew Rawnsley’s informative chat, Martin primarily discussed the TechWriter/EasiWriter 9.0, which was released at the show, but he also focused on RISC OS’ premier graphics package, ArtWorks 2 too. At 13:15, Peter Nowosad then took to the stage discussing the Charm Programming Language, a light and easy to learn multi-platform programming language. The next few talks were taken by WikiProject RISC OS and Orpheus Internet, but the one that really drew a lot of people was the Raspberry Pi presentation, as you’d expect.
RISCOS Ltd. and APDL were the biggest misses from this year’s lively and high-profile show, with the former being unable to make it due to a commitment clash.I hope you all enjoyed the RISC OS Blog’s coverage of the show, and make sure to check out the RISCOSCode and RISCOSitory’s coverage of the event.
The RISC OS Emulation USB stick from RISC OS Open!
Now before I bid you all good night, it’s time for a shameless plug, if you’ve got a spare five minutes, spend it over on the RISC OS Blog forum, which has enjoyed a nice revamp recently and is now located on the riscosblog.co.uk site rather than on an external one.
UPDATE! Photos from last weekend’s show have now replaced the placeholder images from last year’s version in this very article. Thanks must go to Martin Hansen of the RISCOSCode, which is where these images were pinched from.
Live Coverage: RISC OS London Show 2011
October 29th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
9.00am – Chances are that, since you’re reading this right now, you couldn’t make it to the RISC OS London show, which will open its doors at 11am this very morning. Never fear though, the RISC OS Blog is here… with live coverage! Our man on the floor will be feeding me with a ridiculous amount of text messages regarding the events of the day, and of course, they will be posted online here for your reading pleasure. Be sure to check back here regularly for updates.
9.09am – Make sure to check out Martin Hansen’s live tweets from the show floor today on the RISC OS Code twitter channel – #RISCOSCode.
9.23am – Just in case you are not aware, there are two key companies missing from today’s show, the first is RISCOS Ltd. who are tied to a clashing commitment, and Dave Holden of APDL will not be present with his huge stock of software and hardware.
9.37am – If you’re having to make do with our live coverage today then feel free to get in touch and get your comments displayed on this live blog.
9.42am – I’m sure you’ve already read the RISC OS Blog’s show preview, then why not pop over to the RISCOSitory, where Vince Hudd has posted his very own show preview from the St Giles Hotel, Feltham. Check back here in about half an hour or so, when I’ll be building up to today’s show after eating my Saturday morning bacon sandwich.
10.18am – A little traffic update just in case you are on the way to the show this morning, a Premiership football match will be taking place this lunchtime between Arsenal and Chelsea, with the latter team playing at home not too far away from the St Giles hotel. So make sure to plan your journey accordingly as the game has already sold out, meaning there’ll be 60,000 or so football fans wandering around in about an hour or so.
10.34am – The show will be opening its doors in about twenty five minutes or so, the big news of the day will no doubt come from the Raspberry Pi stands as, rumour has it, that it could be running RISC OS by today thanks to the work of Theo Markettos. Other big news will no doubt come from the ever active R-Comp, who will be launching a new version of their back up suite, SafeStore 2.05. Also, R-Comp will be releasing a brand new, ARMv7 compatible version of Fireworkz Pro, the popular word processesor and spreadsheet application today, with the new version being sold at £35, with upgrades being sold for five pounds cheaper.
10.47am – Parking is very sparce at the hotel today, and there already seems to be a good amount of RISC OS users wandering about waiting for the imminent opening of the doors.
The busy main hall from the 2009 show.
11.08am – The doors opened a few minutes ago and the main hall is apparently looking quite busy, with the majority of activity, as expected, taking place at the Raspberry Pi stand. Although, the R-Comp stand seems to be quite busy too, staying on the subject of R-Comp, Andrew will be taking a talk in the theater a little later on, no doubt the ARMini, Fireworkz and Messenger Pro will be on the discussion list.
11.21am – Neil Fazakerley is present with his RiscControl stand displaying an impressive amount of RISC OS powered robotics. As you might expect, the majority of the RISC OS fueled automation is controlled using a number of RiscPC, but there is a BeagleBoard present too.
11.34am – RISC OS Open are selling their own branded USB sticks today, one for easy RISC OS emulation under Windows and the other for the BeagleBoard. Worth a flutter at a tenner a pop.
11.43am – Paul Eben has emailed in, and he seems to be quite excited about the return of Fireworkz Pro, “One of the main reasons I have refrained from using a BeagleBoard as my main RISC OS computer is its lack of compatibility with Fireworkz, which I have been dependent on for well over a decade now“. Paul then goes on to say “with this new ARMv7 friendly Fireworkz and the fact that I can get a BeagleBoard running RISC OS 5 for a cheap price, I can see myself using RISC OS for a number of years to come“.
11.46am – The news you’ve been waiting for is in, a development Raspberry Pi board has been seen running RISC OS, but due to a lack of USB drivers keyboard and mouse interaction is currently impossible. Some Linux USB drivers will have to be poached in order to get a fully interactive RISC OS desktop on the Raspberry Pi, seems do-able.
11.58am – MathMagical Software are present with their ever-colorful stand, and Martin Hansen is quite keen at showing off new versions of Iconizer & Flicker running on a Beagleboard XM.
12.03pm – As you can expect, CJE Micro’s stand is as crammed with stock as usual. The hall, which had been pretty busy early on is now relatively quiet as Andrew Rawnsley’s R-Comp theatre talk is in full-swing.
12.28pm – This medium sized theatre hall was pretty much full for Andrew Rawnsley’s presentation early, which is a nice thing to see in these days of a dwindling RISC OS userbase.
12.49pm – R-Comp have commented on the recent re-release of Fireworkz Pro, according to Andrew, they acquired Fireworkz Pro when they bought Iota software many years ago now. Andrew then went on to display the latest version of Messenger Pro, which is an impressive piece of email software. It’s enjoyed a huge amount of development in recent years, well worth the rather hefty price tag if you ask me.
1.12pm – The Centre for Computing History stand is quite interesting, there’s a huge range of nice kit on display here. From the very old to the… well, old.
A lively hall at the 2010 show.
1.36pm – The latest issue of Archive magazine is out, and is an interesting read.
1.42pm – The R-Comp stand is now enjoying a surge of popularity, so by that I’m going to guess that Andrew’s theatre presentation was very succesful, despite a little technical hitch at the start.
2.02pm – The show is in full swing at the hall is enjoying a flurry of activity, this is definitely an improvement over the Midlands show a few months ago, which was eerily quiet at times.
2.13pm – The guys over at the Raspberry Pi stand have found a little hack to interact with RISC OS on the Pi, using a windows laptop for keyboard & mouse use, all connected to the Pi via a serial port. On quick inspection, the Pi is very nippy and responsive for a £15 computer.
2.33pm – Martin Wuerthner has launched the latest version of his word processing software, EasiWriter/TechWriter 9.0, which is as easy to use and feature-rich as ever.
2.48pm – RISC OS Open will be taking a talk in the theater hall soon, and if R-Comp’s theater talk is anything to go copy, there’s going to be a shortage of seats.
3.11pm - Orpheus Internet are as present as ever, their friendly staff are as informative and friendly as in past shows.
3.17pm – Nigel Wilmott has been busy displaying the latest version of his personal information manager Organizer today, which has enjoyed a new update today. On a quick glance, Nigel’s done a lot of impressive work with Organizer since taking it over quite recently.
3.34pm – Chris Whytehead has been busy displaying his large collection of vintage Acorn kit as ever, he’s even got an Acorn System 3 present.
3.49pm – Vince Hudd has been quite active on his Soft Rock Software stand, displaying and discussing his marvellous WebChange and Seek’n’Link application. Vince has also been demonstrating a new version of Quicksand, a text adventure which is now running in a window on the RISC OS desktop, far more easy on the eye than in previous versions. –There’s even talk about a sequel to Quicksand, and another, bigger adventure game which could be the first in a series.
3.55pm – RISC OS Open have been discussing their bounty scheme, which has received a decent amount of money now, there’s £500 just in the USB pot! This then sparked a discussion regarding RISC OS’ USB stack, which really needs some work. RISC OS Open have also stated that there’s a lot filer work to do, so as a result, a few new filer-related bounties will go up on the RISC OS Open website.
The RISCOS Ltd. stand at last year's show.
4.01pm – The free, cross platform RiscPC and A7000 emulator RPCEmu is sharing a stand with Trevor Johnson’s WikiProject RISC OS today, which is running on a variety of computer, even a Nintedo Wii running Linux!
4.05pm – The informative RISC OS Open talk has now finished and the main hall is now being flooded by RISC OS enthusiasts keen to finish up their shopping and friendly chats before the doors close at 5pm.
4.07pm – The Charity stand is now starting to look a little sparce today, manned by Ian Karley, the charity stand is supporting Combat Stress and is the first time the London show has featured such a stand. Earlier on, the stand was a sea of RiscPCs, miscellaneous hardware and floppy discs, although quite a lot has now been snapped up.
4.28pm – There’s an email in from Terry Emerton, “ROL’s absence at the show has been publicized for some time now, but I wonder if Paul Middleton struck a deal with an attending exhibitor to sell some of ROL’s wares at the show. It seems like the only sensible thing to do“. I agree with it being a sensible idea Terry, but I haven’t heard of anything like that happening today, so as far as I’m aware, no ROL products have been sold at all.
4.44pm – Quarter of an hour left now, and things and users are slowly starting to dribble out of the hotel. Here’s a sum up of what happened in the theatre today, in order they go:
- R-Comp discussed all things ARMini, Messenger Pro and Fireworkz.
- Steve Fryatt discussed his recent software development work.
- Martin Wuerthner announced the release of EasiWriter/TechWriter 9.0.
- Peter Nowosad discussed the Charm Programming Language.
- Raspberry Pi discussions, production and RISC OS talks.
- Trevor Johnson took to the stage discussing WikiProject RISC OS.
4.50pm – Paul Stewart, who announced he would cease publication of PDF magazine Drag ‘n’ Drop in the week is in attendance and has confirmed that he will be continuing the magazine a little longer thanks to the persuasion techniques of R-Comp’s Andrew Rawnsley. A new issue is now available on the Drag ‘n’ Drop website, so go on, grab a copy and plump up Paul’s wallet.
4.53pm – Keeping on the subject of magazine editors, John Cartmell of Qercus magazine is in attendance. Sparking some discussions as whether John’s magazine will re-emerge as an online publication.
4.55pm – So there we have it, it’s been the highest-profile RISC OS London show in history, and it does look like the London show will overtake its Wakefield counterpart as the biggest event of the RISC OS calendar. Thanks for your emails and for sticking with us this afternoon, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s live coverage of the show. There will be a show report online in due course, so until then, cheerio!
Show Preview: London, lock up your daughters
October 28th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
Yes that’s right, Saturday will see the RISC OS bandwagon roll into London town. The usual suspects will be in attendance, and there could be some pretty groundbreaking news coming from the show, ahem, Raspberry Pi, ahem.
As you might expect, the days leading up to the show have seen a surge of news hit the headlines, and I’m pretty sure that there’s more to come. I’ll go into details regarding who’ll be setting up shop on Saturday later in this preview but for now, here’s the latest news building up to the 2011 RISC OS London Show on Saturday. The show is to be held in the same venue as last year, the St Giles Hotel, Feltham, with doors opening to the public from 11am, and remaining open until 5pm, tickets are £5 for adults, and free for minors. If you’re not sure of how to get there, take a look at this page.
News
Organizer 2.14 launches at show - A new version of Organizer 2, the personal information manager for RISC OS, will be released at the 2011 RISC OS London Show on the 29th October 2011.
Organizer’s developer, Nigel Wilmott of North One Communication Ltd. had this to say, “A significant and much requested enhancement now allows users to sort contacts in the Address Book by company or organization, as well as name. This allows contacts to be listed by organization or company, where one is specified, so that all your contacts within an organization can be grouped together… There is also a new language pack, offering multilingual operation in several languages, including German, French, Dutch and Danish“.
Version 2.14 is a free upgrade for existing users of Organizer 2.1x. The release will be available at the show to users of Organizer 2.0x as an upgrade at £15, and to new users and users of older versions of Organizer at £20. Online prices will also be reduced for the weekend of the show to £17.50 for existing users of v2.1x and £25 to new users.
The most significant new feature in Version 2.1 is the ability to make your personal information database come alive by adding thumbnail pictures to your contacts in the Address Book section. You can transfer thumbnails from your phone, or prepare your own, using later versions of Paint, or another graphics suite. This is part of a series of improvements to the Address Book section of the application. Inputting contact details is made easier, with a free-standing data entry window that offers a much improved ability to add extra data fields, such as partners or job titles. As well as bug fixes and performance improvements, v2.14 also includes smaller enhancements, such as the ability to start the Diary week on a Sunday instead of Monday, and a phone redial facility on the tool bar.
Fireworkz Pro, back from the dead – It was just before 8 o’clock this evening that we received an email with some pretty exciting news. R-Comp have announced that, after almost ten years of hibernation Fireworkz Pro, the hugely popular integrated Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Database system for RISC OS, will be returning to the market in a new release. This shiny new version will be compatible with all RISC OS machines, including the brand new ARMini and all other ARMv7 computers and is to be launched at the show on Saturday.
R-Comp and Stuart Swales have teamed up to bring this new version to the market with not only compatibility updates, but with several new improvements and features, for example, the spreadsheet has gained basic import Excel .xls spreadsheets. Andrew Rawnsley of R-Comp goes into detail, “Fireworkz Pro brings together the full versions of the Wordz, Resultz and Recordz products (each of which retailed for about 80-100ukp) into one integrated RISC OS office suite. The “integrated package” is an area that has always been a bit of a weak link in the RISC OS armoury with many still using the ancient Acorn Advance product!
Fireworkz Pro will be available this weekend for just 35ukp inclusive, making it a veritable bargain given value of its components. Existing Fireworkz owners can claim a fiver discount upon proof of ownership to get it for just 30ukp. Please understand that since Fireworkz wasn’t previously an R-Comp product, this isn’t an “upgrade” price, but rather a gentle acknowledgement of your previous purchase from Colton.”
Gerald Fitton, the previous maintainer of the popular productivity suite, had some words to say on the announcement, “I hope that R-Comp do well with this; they have continued to support the RISC OS community for a long time now“. So there we have it, the new version of Fireworkz Pro will launch on Saturday at the RISC OS London Show, it’s going to be a good ‘un chaps.
SafeStore 2.05 – The folks over at R-Comp really have been busy ahead of Saturday’s show, along with arranging the latest version of Fireworkz Pro and other things they have taken the time to release a brand new version of their back up software, SafeStore 2.05. To coincide with this new update, R-Comp have made available a number of RISC OS friendly Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives to customers.
SafeStore 2.05 will be launched at the show with upgrades to existing customers shortly before/after. This new version once copes with a multitude of different/unexpected issues that can occur when backing up to foreign systems. This continues to make SafeStore the most intelligent RISC OS backup system, thanks to its knowledge of the quirks of different systems, and its flexibility.
CJE Advanced Orders – CJE Micro’s famous line goes a little like this “If it’s not in stock, it probably doesn’t exist”, and as much as that’s probably true for their Worthing based store, they can only take a certain amount of things on the road without using a removals truck. CJE’s Chris Evans points out “Whilst we will have our normal show stock and a few extras with us on Saturday we are often asked at shows for items we haven’t brought with us”. So to avoid any disappointment, contact them as soon as possible to ensure that your purchase will be available to be picked up at the show on Saturday.
ARMini Software Scheme – R-Comp Interactive have announced a new software Scheme for owners of Beagleboards running RISC OS. Based around a yearly subscription model, users of Beagleboard (And other ARMv7 based computer, i.e. TouchBook) computers can now receive all the software and support benefits that ARMini owners already receive.
The main benefit of the Scheme is access to the same repository of software and OS updates as ARMini owners, allowing the “DIY” community to receive the same features that ARMini owners do. That means a wealth of additional software features, regular updates, improved monitor drivers for higher resolutions/refresh rates, enhanced USB/disc support, friendly updating and access to a range of valuable software. The scheme also includes a suitable RISC OS licence for each member, to accommodate future upgrades etc. The Scheme will run on calendar years, with the first subscription lasting until the end of 2012. This ties into the first year subscription being higher priced at 69.99ukp compared to subsequent 39.99ukp years. The pricing also reflects that much of the value will be in the immediate access to software. A one-off price of 99.99ukp gives permanent access, for the lifetime of the Scheme.
Exhibitors
Raspberry Pi – It’s taken the world by storm in recent months, the newspapers, magazines, Television stations have been going crazy for the world’s cheapest computer. Now RISC OS machines have never been cheap, it wasn’t too long ago that people were shelling out over a £1,000 on an Iyonix, but now the tables have changed with a RISC OS port to the £15 Raspberry Pi likely to be unveiled at the show. So come 11am on Saturday morning, you can pretty much guarantee that the hordes of drooling technophiles will be neatly gathered over at the Raspberry Pi stand. Exciting stuff.
R-Comp and R-Comp Interactive - Andrew Rawnsley and his band of ever friendly helpers will be attendance on Saturday with their new ARMini computer, natively running RISC OS 5.17, and of course their brand new version of Fireworkz. Also, R-Comp Interactive will be flaunting their brand new, and quite stylish range of 24 and 27 inch RISC OS (and ARMini) friendly widescreen monitors, specially picked to run on your RISC OS machine without fail. R-Comp’s modern and reliable back up solution SafeStore 2.05 will be launched at the show alongside their new range of Network Attached Drives, which nicely accompany the update.
MW-Software – Germany’s sharpest dresser Martin Wuerthner will be flying over to show off his work developing some of RISC OS’ best and most famous applications on Saturday. Award-winning photo manipulation package ArtWorks and professional standard word processors Tech Writer and Easi Writer will be among some of the titles that he’ll be displaying on the stand.
Usable Range – Keith Dunlop will be showing off his latest venture, the Usable Range. It’s brand new and everything is under wraps until its unveiling on Saturday. The only information we are given comes from the Usable Range Ltd. website “British Audio Ingenuity. British Audio Innovation. British Audio Manufacture”. A hunch tells me it’s going to be audio-related.
Archive Magazine – Jim Nagel will be in attendance with the only surviving English language RISC OS magazine, despite it being the sole survivor, it is still hugely popular amongst RISC OS enthusiasts, ex-users and those curious of the platform. Rumour has it that there’ll be a hot-off-the-press stack of the latest issue waiting to be snapped up when the doors open at 11am.
Charity Stand – For the first time, there will be a charity stand at this year’s show. So if you have any stuff you want to get rid of for a good cause or are looking for that rare cherished item, come and have a rummage! The stand can accept any Acorn/RISC OS related hardware or software, but not CRT monitors or x86 PCs.
The Centre for Computing History - The computer musuem will be whipping off the cobwebs from some classic computers from the golden days for Acorn Computers. From the BBC Micro to the Archimedes, and all of the wonderful and whacky stuff inbetween.
The Charm Programming Language – Peter Nowosad will be on hand to demonstrate this interesting and fast high level programming language.
Chris’s Acorns – Chris Whytehead with a selection from his extensive and well documented Acorn and RISC OS computer collection, be it a A3010, BBC Micro, Microdigital Omega or a shiny new Beagleboard, Chris has it.
CJE Micro’s – The Fourth Dimension – The dealer with it all “if it’s not in stock, it probably doesn’t exist”, be it games, software, hardware, books, cables, monitors, they have them. Remember though, make sure to contact them before hand if you’re looking for something in particular, just in case its not in stock come Saturday.
The MathMagical Software Company – Martin Hansen of the RISCOSCode will be exploring the world of maths and graphics as usual.
Organizer – Nigel Willmott will be there with the latest updates to his popular personal management software, Organizer.
Orpheus Internet – The RISC OS friendly ISP will be at the show to show you how they’ve developed an Internet package tailored for the RISC OS user.
Retro Clinic – With exiting hardware upgrades, such as USB and IDE, for your 8-bit machines.
RiscDJ – Michael Emerton demonstrating RiscDJ, a digital music library supporting hundreds of thousands of MP3 and OGG tracks.
RisControl/BeebControl – The rise of the machines, Neil Fazakerley will be demostrating his giant robot arms controlled by computer.
RISC OS Open Ltd – Charged by Castle with maintaining the Shared Source RISC OS, come along and see the latest developments such as the Beagleboard.
ROUGOL – The RISC OS Users Group Of London, the show organisers will be on hand to try to tempt you to its upcomming meetings and talk about RISC OS in London in general.
RPCEmu – The free cross platform Risc PC emulator will be in attendance, undoubtedly showing RISC OS running on a range of different operating systems. The emulator has been improving at an alarming rate in recent years, so if you haven’t checked RPCEmu out for a while, take a look over at the stand come Saturday.
Vince from Soft Rock Software
Soft Rock Software – Vince Hudd will be eagerly displaying his range of software, utilities and games as usual.
Steve Fryatt – Steve will have all the latest versions of his software, CashBook, PrintPDF, etc and also talking about the latest Netsurf developments.
WikiProject RISC OS – Get involved with the improving RISC OS’ presence on Wikipedia.
Who’s missing?
Paul Middleton and RISCOS Ltd. will not be appearing at this year’s show due to a commitment clash, and Dave Holden’s APDL seem to be missing from the confirmed exhibitor’s list too.
In Other News
Jan-Jaap van der Geer has updated DirSync to version 1.10, an application that allows two directory structures to be compared visually, enabling you to filter the differences you see in several ways so that it only shows you newer files. The software then allows you to specify which files should be the same in both places and, where necessary, which version should be copied to the other location, and then synchronise the two directories. This new update makes DirSync ARMv7 compatible, meaning that it will run on your BeagleBoard, ARMini, TouchBook or other Cortex-A8 based device. You can download DirSync here.
Drag ‘n’ Drop, dropped
October 25th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
Say cheese.
It wasn’t too long ago that we had a wealth of magazines to choose from, we were spoilt for choice when looking for a RISC OS related read, be it paper or digital based. Sadly, only one sole survivor remains after news broke recently of the ceasing of Drag ‘n Drop, a PDF based RISC OS magazine.
Although there are still rumours circulating that Qercus will come back from the dead as an online, PDF-based magazine, Archive seems to be the sole survivor when it comes to English RISC OS magazines (GAG and others are still alive and well). Perhaps having one sole magazine will prove to be more effective than a higher number.
Anyway, I hope you’ll all join me in saying, thank you Paul Stewart for all your efforts with Drag ‘n’ Drop over the past few years, we wish you all the best in the future. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
UPDATE! It seems as though Andrew Rawnsley has convinced Paul to continue publishing Drag ‘n for a little while long, so my guess is he is looking to hand it over to a new editor. Good news then.
StrongHelp, OMAP port, Digital CD and more…
October 21st, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
RISCOSBlog.co.ukAs we’re all gearing up for the RISC OS London Show at the end of October, we’ve seen a number of interesting developments emerge and undoubtedly, there’s more to come. Make sure to pop back to riscosblog.co.uk in the next few days to read a detailed preview of the upcoming London show, which will not feature RISCOS Ltd. due to a commitment clash.
Software News
After slipping into the large abyss that is RISC OS abandonware, StrongHelp is back from the dead with vengence. Version 2.86 is now available and was released on the StrongEd mailing list recently. The only information we have about the update is that it is now ARMv7 compatible, meaning it should be fine with the ARMini, BeagleBoard, TouchBook and similar machines. If you’re unfamiliar with StrongHelp, it is an extremely useful utility for creating advanced interactive help files, something that has proved very useful for software developers in the past and looks far better than just a standard !Help file. There’s no website at present, but there is a direct link to the download.
TBA Software have announced that the 26bit version of TBAFS is now available for download. Alan stresses that this is version 1.01 of the software, dating from 1996 and that it has only been tested on versions of RISC OS up to 3.7, and requires the Acorn toolbox modules. Download it from here.
Digital CD (website temporarily down) and its components have been updated by Andreas Timmermans, Digital CD is a desktop music player compatible with RISC OS 3.1 and later (including Iyonix’s 32-bit RISC OS 5). It provides independent control panels for any connected CD drive, Internet radio and music files playlists.
Hardware News
Willi Theiss has been working on porting RISC OS to TI’s OMAP4. A Pandaboard-compatible OMAP4 ROM image is now available for download from RISC OS Open’s downloads page. Keep in mind that this really is an early one and should not be treated as either completed or stable. But by all means, play around with it.
A pre-release Raspberry Pi board will be out on display at the upcomg RISC OS London show at the end of October, a native RISC OS port is nearing completion and is likely to be ready in time for the Raspberry Pi’r public (and global!) release. Exciting stuff people.
Events
The whole RISC OS community have been chattering about and looking forward to this event for several months now, yes, the 2011 RISC OS London show is almost here and, on the 29th of October, London will see a significant amount of RISC OS enthusiasts travel to the St. Giles Hotel, Feltham for an 11am start on a Saturday. The usual suspects are on the exhibitors list except for RISCOS Ltd. who missed the last major RISC OS event, the Midlands Show a few months back. This time, ROL cannot make the trip due to a commitment clash, make of that what you will. In more exciting news, as you may have read already, the Raspberry Pi will be in attendance, and possibly running RISC OS natively! Make sure to check back here in a few days time to read a detailed preview of the show.
To finish, I’m sure you’re all aware that RISCOSBlog.co.uk is now up and running and will now be replacing this blog in the new week or so. Each article will be archived in the aptly named Archive section of the website and the forum (that leads to an external website) will be closing to make way for the RISC OS Blog’s very own, on-site message board.
UPDATE: The new RISC OS Blog forum is now online, and once all messages have been archived on the new board, the old forum will no longer be usable. The advantages for having a forum located at riscosblog.co.uk/forum over the old external one are endless, firstly, there are no seedy advertisements, and now the Admin has complete control over the forum. Plus, the new message board should be completely RISC OS friendly, meaning that even users of ancient browsers like Fresco and Webster should be able to view and post to the site. All users of the old forum should note that an email has been sent to the email address you used to register your account with details on how you can access your account on the new forum, re-registration will not be necessary.
The RISC OS Blog gets the dot-com treatment
October 5th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
Groovy.
Well, it’s .co.uk actually. Yes, visiting riscosblog.co.uk will now bring up the homepage of The RISC OS Blog, which is being hosted by the incredibly generous and RISC OS-friendly people over at GigaTux. This change means that we now have a new email address, we can now be contacted on this address, the old one will rarely be checked.
The website is rather bare at the moment, I’d actually spent several hours designing a complicated, data-filled website, but I realised that it looked terrible. So I started again, from scratch and here we have it, it’s clean, simple and easy to navigate. It is by no means complete, so expect some pretty big changes in the next few weeks.
Go on then, what are you waiting for?
Netsurf, Zap, Fireworkz updates and much more!
October 5th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
It’s been a while since the last RISC OS Blog update, but don’t worry, here’s all you need to know…
Netsurf’s last stable release, 2.7, was released around the time most of us were tucking into some yummy chocolate eggs, so it’s only right that a new, freshers version was thrown our way. 2.8 adds support for frames and iframers, MIME type sniffing and a new image cache. Image decoding can now be deferred until images are required, this ultimately results in faster load times. Vertical layouts of boxes and margin and handling have been improved in this new update, the layout engine has been optimised in order not to calculate word widths when not required. Internal content management has been improved, as well as fixes to the build system and simplified status bar text. There have also been changes that only effect the RISC OS verion, these include changes to the Adjust double-click handling in treeviews, consolidated content handlers for ArtWorks, Draw and Paint, removed redundant code specific to old RISC OS frame and iframe implementation. You can download Netsurf 2.8 here, versions for Linux, AmigaOS, Atari and other systems are also available.
It’s a war that has been raging on for many, many years, StrongED vs Zap. Well, users of R-Comp Interactive’s ARMini or other Cortex-A8 based computers can now choose from the ever strong StrongEd and the ever zapping Zap. Yes, you heard it, Zap, an advanced text editor aimed at programmers is now fully compatible with the ARMini, Touchbook, BeagleBoard etc. Download it now!
The popular application Fireworkz is now compatible with ARMini and similar RISC OS computers thanks to a small patch, in order to download the patch you will have to contact R-Comp and provide proof of Fireworkz ownership (a screenshot is sufficient). Sticking on the subject of R-Comp, they now have a number of RISC OS friendly monitors in stock and on offer, for more details you’re best off contacting them.
The next version of the popular personal information manager for RISC OS, Organizer, will re-introduce support for a number of different languages. The current maintainer of Organizer, Martin Avison, is looking for users of the latest version, 2.12, to test a number of languages, the current list of supported languages are as follows: Dansk, Deutsch, Français, Icelandic, Italiano, Nederlands, Português. If you’re a 2.12 users and you’re interested in testing out any of the languages I just mentioned, contact Martin Avison.
A 32bit clean version of CDFaker has been released. This should be suitable for all 32bit-only machines like the IYONIX pc, the A9 and the BeagleBoard/ARMini. CDFaker is a module that provides a CDFS softloadable driver that is capable of “mounting” an ISO image file for use with CDFS. Instead of swapping physical CDs in real CD drives, you can keep images of your CDs on your harddrive and “swap” them by a simple CLI command or by double-clicking on them. CDFaker was originally developed by Andy Armstrong and was 32bitted by Steffen Huber. See http://www.huber-net.de/cdfaker.html for more details.
TBX C++ library version 0.4 has now been released. TBX is a C++ library to help with the development of C++ applications for the RISC OS desktop. It comes with a userguide and reference documentation. TBX is released under the permissive X11 licence so can be used with commercial and non-commercial applications without charge. Addition downloads provide some examples and a program to help generate simple C++ skeleton projects. All these packages can be easily downloaded using the RISC OS Packaging Project managers !RiscPkg or !PackMan. For more information and instruction on how to download them manually see: http://alanb.drobe.co.uk/tbx.htm
Martin Bazley has updated his TubeWhackOMatic program, which was inspired by this website and this forum discussion, the program’s purpose is to generate the shortest possible Tubewhacks for every station on the London Underground network. This new update corrects a typo or two, tidies up the program’s code and features major alterations and refactor into a recursive structure to enable it to calculate every possible different Tubewhack, and eliminate all but the shortest. Martin has also uploaded some TimPlayer demo songs, these six songs each illustrate a different obscure part of the workings of Digital Symphony, and thanks to a recent TimPlayer update, all now play correctly in TimPlayer. You can download TubeWhackOMatic here, and Martin’s TimPlayer demo songs here.
TBA Software have released version 0.06 of their BASIC VFP Assembler, this new update fixes a VLDM/VSTM 16 double register limit, a VLD1/VST1 offset options incorrect issue, adds VADD.<integer> double word register support and more. The latest version, along with previous versions, can be downloaded from the TBA website.
In other news, the latest version of the ANS Newsletter is now out, the possibility of RISC OS running on a Freescale MX515 could become reality and a review of the classic 1995 RISC OS racer from Oregan, Burn ‘Out, is now online over at The Iconbar, the actual game can now be downloaded free of charge from Ian Jeffray’s website, I’m not too sure whether it’ll run on newer hardware and newer versions of RISC OS, but after a quick play on RISC OS 4.02, I can confirm Burn ‘Out is as fun and addictive as it always was. And just before I round up this round up, I’ll leave with you with the fun fact fact that Sibelius has now reached version 7, again. Thanks to Collin Mathews for pointing that one out.
OpenTTD, ScummVM, FreeCiv, SchemeED updates
September 8th, 2011 | RISCOSBlog
OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe) for RISC OS has been updated to bring it up to date with the version that was made available for mainstream platforms about two weeks ago. Version 1.1.2 can be downloaded from the riscos.info site.
OpenTTD is an open source simulation game based upon the popular Microprose game “Transport Tycoon Deluxe”, written by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features.
The man that is Howard Dawson has updated SchemeED to version 1.04, SchemeED is an Electric Circuit editor for RISC OS. The example circuit files and the SPICE analysis tool for SchemeED, named BSpice, has been updated to coincide with this new update. They can all be downloaded from here.
The RISC OS port of FreeCiv has also been updated, FreeCiv is a multiplayer and single-player, turn-based strategy game. The game’s default settings are closest to Civilization II, in both gameplay and graphics. You can download it here.
ScummVM was updated this lunchtime to coincide with the new version recently released on other platforms. ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executables shipped with the games, allowing you to play them on systems for which they were never designed! Give it a whirl here.
Take a peek at our new forum, you know you want to.
Charm updated, again
September 7th, 2011 | RISCOSBlogThe development of Charm has been coming along at a very rapid rate as of late, with a new release coming every few weeks or so, which is great. So it may come as no surprise to you that Charm 2.4 is now available for download.
Charm is a set of high level language tools and demos for RISC-OS computers and emulators, they are freely available under the terms of the GNU GPLv3 license.
This 32 bit compatible release is the first to support the new 32 bit module header and AIF application header and runs on RISC OS 5 and the ARMini as well as earlier RISC OS versions. Simply unpack the charm directory from the download zip archive using !SparkFS on to the root of your RISC-OS hard drive taking care to save any user projects from a previous release beforehand. See the Charm web site for more information.
Also, you might be pleased to know that I’ve slightly polished up the posting-style for this site in order for everything to appear a little easier on the eye in Netsurf and other RISC OS browsers. Thanks for your feedback on that one. Got a spare five minutes? Then take a look at the new RISC OS Blog forum, it’s quite nice over there, honest.
