A huge blow to the already small RISC OS market and community: Castle Technology has announced that the Iyonix range of ARM-based RISC OS computers will be taken off the market after 30th September. Support will continue through the Iyonix website, the dealer network, and by email. This leaves Advantage6 as the only manufacturer of RISC OS hardware with its A9Home computer.
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Member since:2005-07-06
I would have strangled anyone that suggested that to me. 
Member since:2006-03-13
Actually, RISC OS was quite innovative in many ways. It was the first OS to offer subpixel anti-aliasing of fonts (all the way back in 1990) and had a very good universal implementation of drag and drop. Technically speaking, the kernel wasn't all that hot, but it got the job done for the much more innovative desktop environment.
Member since:2005-08-03
I disagree.
The ability to use that 3rd mouse button to keep menus open to quickly select a different option on say a drop down menu made it really productive.
I liked being able to have several windows open, often overlapping, and being able to read from one and type into the back window without the OS trying to bring the back window to the front. It didn't interfere with the way I'd work.
Once more RISC OS made me productive.
The ability of the OS to replace any part of itself by the use of internal software vectors meant that it was trivial to upgrade an application or the OS without having to reboot.
I loved the ability to reorganise the hard drive contents to the way I thought was best for me.
I'd like to have all my Apps organised by tasks.
Moving an App was as simply as dragging and dropping a single App folder from one drive to another. So I had folders called Graphic Tools, DTP Tools, File Tools, etc. Simple and neat.
When I'd work on a graphic, I'd load a desktop full of my graphics shortcuts. When I'd do DTP I'd change the desktop to show DTP things.
RISC OS made me very productive.
I only left when it became apparent that the CPU being made for RISC OS wasn't going to get any faster and JPEGs were getting bigger due to digital camera.
I still miss it.
Member since:
2006-01-16
IMHO, as a former RISC OS developer, I'd say that RISC OS just doesn't cut it.
The great parts of RISC OS were the innovative UI, BBC BASIC, and the font manager.
The really bad parts of RISC OS are the kernel, multi-tasking system, and memory model. These are all the same problems which plagued Mac OS 9. Unfortunately RISC OS never was a modern operating system, not even when it first came out.
Anybody suggesting that Apple should have turned to Mac OS 9 as the OS for the iPhone and/or iPod would be rightly ridiculed. Similarly I can't take suggestions that RISC OS should be repurposed for NetBook-class computers seriously either.
FYI, in Acorn's dying days they had a NetBook-class of computer in development which never saw the light of day. After the death of Acorn, RISC OS Ltd attempted to port RISC OS to the Psion netBook.
Edited 2008-09-30 12:45 UTC