OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/21395/RISC_OS_5_Pictured_Running_on_ARM_Cortex-A8_Kit Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 22 May 2013 19:53:57 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Awesome news... http://www.osnews.com/thread?360924 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360924 RISC OS is a cool little OS with some interesting available software. To see it within striking distance of being fully operational on hardware that is both cheaper and more powerful than anything ever made available before is amazing. All hail the power of Open Source! Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments good times http://www.osnews.com/thread?360933 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360933 It is nice to see RISC OS moving in a future friendly direction. good work guys, keep it up. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (poundsmack) Comments RE: Awesome news... http://www.osnews.com/thread?360948 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360948 I don't really know RISC OS or why anyone would want to run it, but its still a pretty awesome example of open source. If it wants to be an option, this is a good first step. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bill Shooter of Bul) Comments ARM on the Rise http://www.osnews.com/thread?360979 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360979 Even though I've never used RiscOS myself I'm well aware of its cult following, especially over in Europe, so this is great news for many I'm sure. I recall looking at those Ionix made RiscOS machines awhile ago and they were $600+, and came in a shuttle-style case -- big and expensive.

Before Christmas of this year, we're going to have a handful of ARM Cortex-A8-based netbooks, and even a few nettops (which are about the size of a deck of playing cards) which will be based on the likes of the Omap3530 (production at 600Mhz, sampling at 800Mhz and higher) and the i.MX 515 (which runs around 1Ghz) -- both have 3D acceleration and many other features.

ARM has been on the rise somewhat quietly gaining ground within the mobile space, and the combination of faster, more integrated ARM chips and the popularity of low-powered x86 chips like Atom have created a situation where ARM can compete on performance while offering benefits in terms of cost, power consumption, and level of integration.

The x86 strategy has been to develop for high-powered system and let the x86 technology trickle down to low-end devices. ARM has been slowly, but steadily, moving upwards from the low end devices. In the near term I think we're going to see a lot of overlap in the low end of the "PC" market -- nettops and netbooks, but I wouldn't be surprised if, eventually, ARM becomes a more-potent architecture capable of competing in higher-end, traditionally "PC" devices -- I imagine the desktop will be the last to be infiltrated but, if the worthiness of ARM is proven in nettops and netbooks, that ARM processors will later move into what could be considered "real" laptops and devices such as media center PCs within 5 years.

ARM already has a base in consumer devices the likes of which PowerPC, Alpha, MIPS or Sparc could only dream of (even as good a run as Power had in the Macs). No one is begging the ARM suppliers to develop this new hardware in the way that Apple had to beg IBM for new PowerPC chips suitable for consumer use -- its happening as a natural course of evolution, and ARM is actually interested in being in that space.

ARM is now the second most-supported architecture among Linux distributions and open software. Flash is coming to ARM this year -- the last piece of the "full internet experience."

ARM does indeed have a long way to go to match x86 on high-end performance, but we're now starting to see multi-core, super-scaler ARM architectures (Cortex A9) which will really set the foundation for ARM performance to accelerate more rapidly than it has to this point.

I believe very strongly that we're seeing the coming-of-age of an architecture that will become the most significant competition x86 has ever seen -- One which may stand toe-to-toe with x86 before our lifetimes are through. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ravyne) Comments RE[2]: Awesome news... http://www.osnews.com/thread?360990 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360990 Stable operating system with a small footprint, quick bootup/shutdown times. Intiative UI. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mark1282) Comments RE[3]: Awesome news... http://www.osnews.com/thread?360993 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360993 I think you mean "intuitive". Those features aren't that rare these days. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bill Shooter of Bul) Comments RE: ARM on the Rise http://www.osnews.com/thread?361043 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361043 ARM was born on the high end. The Acorn RISC machines blew everything else available at the price (and even well above their price) out of the water when introduced in 1987. Sadly after Acorn stopped making computers, there was no need for a a high end desktop/workstation RISC variant, so progress basically stopped. Now as cellphones and PDAs need more and more horsepower, development of high-performance ARM parts seems to have started up again. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments RE: ARM on the Rise http://www.osnews.com/thread?361163 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361163

ARM is now the second most-supported architecture among Linux distributions and open software. Flash is coming to ARM this year -- the last piece of the "full internet experience."


Uh, my Nokia n800 with OS 2008 would like a word with you. :-)

Seriously, it may perhaps have Flash that can't handle some kind of heavy/slow content, or fail to meet some 'available for other ARM-based hardware and not in a binary blob' open source condition, but it exists today.

Hate Flash (slow/buggy/closed source/used for media DRM). Hate Silverlight more (same as above, plus fewer CPU architectures (Flash has a OS X PowerPC variant, Silverlight 2.0 is now OS X Intel only) and Microsoft baggage). Fri, 01 May 2009 04:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lubod) Comments