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Although I already use RISC OS, I for one would be really interested to know what you make of it.

Assuming you're new to the OS, I'd expect a bit of a mixed bag. It has (IMHO) a peculiar a mixture of very nice features, and things which could be improved.

I've tried quite a few OSes, and RISCOS is not one of them - And despite OSNews' coverage lately of it, I'm still confused as to what its purpose serves.

I'm aware that not every system needs a "purpose" as there's always sleeper-hit systems or hobby ones alike, but.. what's the point?

I honestly don't mean to sound abrasive here, but.. could someone enlighten me?

Originally RISC OS was intended as a general purpose desktop OS to rival Mac OS or Windows. However it was only really successful in the UK and parts of Europe (I think). It only ever ran natively on ARM hardware.

Nowadays, it's still a desktop OS (this is what I use it for; I only rarely use anything else at home), but due to the small userbase you'd probably call it 'hobby' now.

However, due to its small memory footprint and the fact it runs entirely from ROM (and on ARM processors), it is apparently still very good for embedded applications. Here's a (rather old) article: http://www.byte.com/art/9612/sec5/art1.htm

Nonethless, even as a desktop OS it *still* has advantages. It benefits from being quite different to other OSes E.g. universal drag 'n' drop saving (you can save directly from one application into another), the way the filer works, the fact that it only uses context sensitive menus, its surprising responsiveness etc..

It also had a lot of things that other OSes have now caught up with, but that were pretty revolutionary on a home OS at the time. Things like universal anti aliased fonts, an iconbar (like a dock), single folder applications that can be moved anywhere etc..

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this goes some way to helping answer your question.

Edited 2006-01-25 10:17

That does indeed answer questions alot more simply than most other places did. Thanks for the info.

You assume that because it is minority, it is therefore hard to use?

From: Kroc
You assume that because it is minority, it is therefore hard to use?

I read Bringbackanonposting's comments to be a reference to application availability and format compatibility (or lack thereof) offered by RISC OS, as opposed to "the big three" as termed by the linked weblog entry.

Although, I must say I did enjoy RISC OS and the applications that were included. I had sporadic exposure to it on Acorn boxen during 1994 - 1997 at a high school, and it was used a lot for DTP work (the newsletter, yearbook, and other publications were done, in majority by students, on those systems). Certainly a breath of fresh air against Win 3.11 (and later Win 95) systems in the other lab, and (my view only, of course) in many ways comparable to the experience of Macintosh systems at the time, which was what I was using at home.

(I guess you could say my OS use "heritage" is a little outside the norm, since until just before the turn of the century I had no regular exposure to Windows of any sort...)

But back to the topic at hand, let RISC OS be marketed. It may be an "alternative" OS, but it's a worthy one nonetheless.