RISC OS Archive

"For a computer that's been around for over a year now (to beta testers), the A9 has had relatively little detailed coverage in the RISC OS world. This makes it hard to judge whether or not to spend hard-earned cash on the little blighter. Having owned one for a few months, I've recorded my impressions of the A9home. It's not complete by any means (I've not got round to hooking it up to a printer, for example), but I hope it's helpful for anyone thinking of taking the plunge."

RISCOS Ltd has released a preview build of RISC OS 6 Select 4 for Select subscribers to download. The release came just in time for the Midlands 2006 show this weekend after the company pulled out all the stops to finish the preview package. Copies of the operating system were available on CD from the event in Wolverhampton. The preview version is expected to be the forerunner to a full bug fixed Select 4 release, which will only be available to users who have continued to renew their Select subscriptions. An announcement sent out on Friday evening read: "RISCOS Ltd are pleased to announce the immediate availability of RISC OS 6 Preview for Select subscribers. The RISC OS 6 Preview release gives RiscPC, A7000 and VirtualRPC-Adjust users an opportunity to experience recent developments within RISC OS through the Select scheme."

The next release of the RISC OS Firefox port will be Iyonix-only, developer Peter Naulls revealed today. Although the updated port, dubbed Firefox 2, is said to be working, Peter, pictured, will first need a further five grand in cash donations from users - even though the revised port may ship without https support, which is crucial for online banking and shopping.

RISCOS Ltd have called for coders and beta testers to step forward and contribute to the company's flavour of RISC OS. Users were also welcomed to pitch ideas and feature suggestions - provided they weren't web browser-related. The company said this weekend it was 'looking at ways of increasing the involvement of users in the future development of RISC OS Select'. While it's not quite the same as Castle's plans with RISC OS Open, ROL have previously drawn upon a close circle of third party programmers to top up its features list, rewarding them with beta and alpha test builds of RISC OS and free Select subscriptions.

"Following the talks given at this month's South East RISC OS show in Guildford, Surrey, Leo White has kindly uploaded the video recordings he made of the theatre presentations. If you have a web browser with a recent version of Flash installed, you can go watch them now on Google Video. The three pieces, which cover RISCOS Ltd, Castle, RISC OS Open and RISC OS Now, are fairly good quality, and it's pretty clear what the speakers are saying."

The high street bank today apologised to NetSurf users for locking them out of their web bank accounts, and re-enabled their access. HSBC said it now recognises NetSurf and RISC OS, adding: "We welcome all standards compliant browsers and platforms." The move was welcomed by punters, who were amazed that a global corporation had responded positively to the needs of a niche platform.

Drobe.co.uk has photos of the upcoming RISC OS 6/Select 4 in action, as well as an outline description of the operating system's new features, along with more details of the announcement. "The key features of RISC OS 6 include a highly modularised operating system to aid portability, stability and maintenance of the OS; legacy support components; and updated graphics, toolbox, programming library, networking, and desktop components."

RISCOS Ltd have today announced RISC OS Six on the Glasgow leg of their northern road show. RISC OS Six is built from a completely 26 bit / 32 bit neutral source, and the move away from the RISC OS 4 brand is because 'RISC OS 4 has always been linked with 26 bit computers'. The name RISC OS Six is also said to have been chosen due to links with Advantage Six. ROL 'hopes that everyone will soon see the advantages of RISC OS 6'.

Web monkeys and source code jockeys are being recruited by RISC OS Open to help coordinate the 'shared source' RISC OS 5 project. Recruit is used loosely here as ROS Open say the open source-ish initiative will be run purely on a "voluntary basis". The team is hoping to hear from charitable people who know their makefiles from their wildwildwikis. Company secretary Revill asked for anyone "interested in helping out with the RISC OS shared source project" to visit the RISC OS Open website. In another article, author of the RISC OS article for our contest explains how to improve RISC OS's look.

Yesterday, we reported on the news that RISC OS would slowly be open sourced via a dual licensing scheme. Independent programmers have so far viewed the announcement with mixed opinions. While some say it is hard to judge the impact of this new initiative without seeing a formal license, others have warmly welcomed the news and pledged to take up development.

The RPCemu emulator has been ported to run on the Iyonix, enabling RISC OS 4 to run inside RISC OS 5. This allows for a greater deal of compatibility and lets certain RO4-only enhancements become available to Iyonix users.

Being a RISC OS user is an odd experience. It's normally baffling to non-believers why so many (mostly British) computer users persist with the eccentric beast. It's easy to list reasons why no self-respecting geek would trouble with it: many old or under-developed applications, poor streaming media support, lack of compatibility with key standards and technologies, limited hardware support, and there are many more. For most, RISC OS is a thing of the past, a curio, a once-promising minority OS trampled on by the juggernauts of Windows, MacOS and Linux.

RISC OS cannot be saved by simply open sourcing it, said RISCOS Ltd boss Paul Middleton. He added that Castle's wish to open source RISC OS "would have no effect on RISCOS Ltd's products". Paul told subscribers over the weekend: "Making RISC OS open source, or free as some people want, is not the panacea for suddenly taking RISC OS forward. No operating system can be developed solely for free."

"Screen savers have always been a staple free software for RISC OS, with the likes of the venerable Out to Lunch, AlphaSave, and the now GPLed Delirium all acting as saviours of the CRT for many years. However, it was not until RISC OS 4 that graphical screen saver capabilities shipped as a standard part of the OS." More here. Additionally, RPCEmu has been ported to the Mac OS X platform, allowing RISC OS 4 to run alongside Apple's shiny desktop.