Castle have issued a new RISC OS 5 ROM for brave Iyonix users to beta test. Version 5.10 is mainly a bug fixing exercise, and coincides with a USB mass storage update that also corrects a few glitches. “It is intended that these updates will go in general circulation in a few days time, unless anything hugely untoward crops up. We have been running these for a while now,” said Castle’s John Ballance. This update also includes the updated GeForce 2 driver, bringing 3D acceleration to RISC OS.
The continual updates and development of RISC OS 5 are very encouraging. Although it’s called a beta, this version seems to run very well as far as I can tell.
Does anyone know of any good reviews on riscos? I never tried it…
One of the difficulties with trying out RISC OS properly is that it’s tied to the processor it was designed for (ARM processors specifically).
You can get old hardware very cheap (e.g. on eBay), and there is an emulator for Windows, but it’s not as convenient as just booting off a CD.
Also, unless you pay money, in my opinion you won’t get a comparable experience, I’m afraid. On paper RISC OS doesn’t look too great, but in use it has a unique ‘feel’ to it.
Very old article:
http://www.byte.com/art/9612/sec5/art1.htm
But you can get lots more info at http://www.drobe.co.uk
Does anyone outside UK use RISC OS?
Yes, there are users in mainland Europe, even dealers and user groups. Australia and NZ also have some users, but there are practically none in USA.
Must agree with flypig, on paper, RISC OS is from the stone age and lacks many, many important features (especially RISC OS 5, the RISC OS 4.3x ‘Select’ series is considered my most to be better for the desktop)). But once you try it on a decent machine (would not bother with anything less than a RiscPC, and StrongARM if you can), you’ll probably rather like it.
Here are a couple of other websites which may provide info the the curious:
http://www.blastzone.demon.co.uk/
http://www.riscos.org/about.html
http://www.iconbar.com/
and
http://www.qercus.com
The last is the website of Qercus magazine, formally known as Acorn User.