RISC OS Archive

For those detractors who've been complaining that new RISC OS kit is too expensive, Castle are now offering a DIY option which could save you several hundred pounds. You purchase the motherboard, and a minimum of other parts from Castle and supply the rest yourself. More details on Drobe.

RISC OS 4 which is produced by RISCOS Ltd, and RISC OS 5 produced by Castle Technology are to merge in a deal announced last night. The Icon Bar has the full story.

Perhaps surprising, and certainly not obvious to many people, is that it's been possible to develop RISC OS programs under Windows for a long time. Historically, ARM's SDK environment was able to generate RISC OS binaries, although that support was removed some time ago. More recently (but has still been true for a number of years), it's been possible to build RISC OS programs using GCCSDK under Cygwin - although bugs in the version of the compiler packaged with it did make that problematic earlier this year.

Castle have issued RISC OS 5.07 to Iyonix users via their online update system, superseding the previously available version of 5.06. A number of "non-critical" software updates will also be made available shortly, according to Castle.

Producing digital music with RISC OS is still possible, says artist Antius, who this month told drobe.co.uk that he's finished recording his latest album, in which RISC OS played a considerable part. Conceived under the hEgelian diAlectics project, the album is due to be mastered at Eevolute, although no specific release date can be given.

Six months after purchasing a Castle Iyonix, drobe.co.uk writer Martin Hansen recounts his experiences with RISC OS 5 and his new XScale powered hardware, serving an illustration of life with the latest generation of RISC OS machines.

How much will it cost to modernise RISC OS 5? Give it your best guess. Well, yesterday Castle estimated that, for them, it'll probably cost between eight and ten million quid. And therefore, it's going to be a very gradual process.

Iconbar.com and Drobe are reporting that Castle Technology has revoked RISCOS Ltd's licence for developing and distributing RISC OS. This is aparently due to a legal dispute over licence terms.

Chris Williams wrote an editorial analyzing the troubles RISC OS and AmigaOS had over the years and finds many common missteps and common problems.

A public pre-release version of GCC 3.3.3 is now available on the RISC OS website. The project considers this release to be "stable enough for general use but may contain a few rough interface edges that need polishing". It's also described as the biggest, official update to RISC OS GCC in two years.

"RISCOS Ltd., developer of RISC OS 4, yesterday announced its pricing scheme for RISC OS 4.39, the next major release of everybody's favourite 26 bit mode operating system. The announcement confirms our initial figures which we revealed early last month. RISCOS Ltd. have also disclosed that the price of RISC OS 4.02 ROM sets are set to increase from March this year." Read the rest at Drobe.

Martin Hansen wrote a review of the 'Advantage Six' (first, second part), a PC solely created to run RISC OS and other StrongARM software in emulation. Martin is discussing the differences between using reference Risc PC, the Iyonix XScale machine and the emulator's hardware, and also benchmarks them.

Graham Shaw has released RiscPkg, a RISC OS package manager. The idea behind package management is relatively simple, but it can hide suprisingly complex details in its aim to ensure a system has the latest versions of software, along with making sure dependent programs are installed, and downloading these easily with an automated installation system.

Castle today celebrated the first birthday of their 600MHz XScale, RISC OS machine, the IYONIX pc. Castle announced the machine 17th of October last year, and placed it on sale on the 28th of Novemeber 2002. Since then, it has gained a Linux port, and revitalised the RISC OS platform. More information in this drobe.co.uk article.