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OTP Adjust ROMs in stock

By Chris Williams. Published: 11th Jun 2004, 16:16:22 | Permalink | Printable

Dragging that RiscPC into 2004

RISCOS Ltd. have announced that RISC OS 4.39 is available in stock to order. Although the PR says the ROMs are Flash based, RISCOS Ltd.'s Paul Middleton confirmed to us that the OS is being shipped on the recently secured OTP ROMs.

The OS upgrade is suitable for RiscPC and A7000 computers, although a version for VirtualAcorn users is still promised. As for the Iyonix: not a chance "at the present time".

"RISC OS 4.39 has been developed to be capable of building 32 bit compatible versions, but many of the higher level features of Select (upon which 4.39 is based) rely on low level changes to the kernel that are not currently present in the RISC OS 5 kernel and supporting modules," explained RISCOS Ltd., leaving us spinning with a sense of deja-vu. "RISCOS Ltd is committed to making the new features of Select available to all RISC OS users but it also requires the co-operation and support of the hardware manufacturers."

RISC OS 4.39, aka Adjust, features the past three years of Select development, which includes: a mass of bug fixes, stability updates, icon cut'n'pasting, Filer thumbnailing, updated support software (notably Paint), overhauled plugin based graphics support, a proper recycle bin, zero configuration network support, a DHCP client, custom icon borders, Appletalk support, and lots more - see our Adjust review.

Links

RISCOS Ltd.

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Discussion

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I don't seem to be able to find any details of changes between RO4.39 and RO4.02, let alone for people upgrading from RO3.5+, save trawling through the changelogs and adding together all of the changes for Select1, Select2, Select3 and Adjust1 for each module. Surely it can't be that hard.

ninja on 11/6/04 6:54PM
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[link] [link] [link]

Grek1 on 11/6/04 8:08PM
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I'm having the exact same problem as ninja! The Select website is hardly easy-going, and hacking through three long drobe articles isn't really enticing :-(

All I want is a comparison with the previous ROM version of RISC OS. Is that so much to ask?

Adam

adamr on 12/6/04 12:51PM
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Is reading three Drobe articles so much to ask ?

Grek1 on 12/6/04 2:05PM
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Those articles aren't aimed at me though - I'm not interested in all the minutiae of Select 1 (and 2 and 3). I'd like a simple article on the *major* changes/improvements since RISC OS 4.

It seems strange that ROL haven't provided this as surely at least some potential sales must be to people (like me) who never subscribed to Select...

Adam

adamr on 12/6/04 7:19PM
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Those *are* the major changes / improvements.

The detailed list is at: [link]

Grek1 on 12/6/04 8:39PM
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I'm afraid such a list with the *major* changes is not there to read.

Why? Well here is a *guess* of mine:

1. What is a major change anyhow? Is DHCP (for me yes, for others perhaps not)? Are rounded buttons one (for me no, for others yes)? There are quite a few other like changes where you'd debate if it is major - but as for DHCP and rounded buttons I'd include both in the list!

2. Such a list would be pretty short since you don't want to read all those small bug fixes but just the info that there are lots of them in such a list. This grouping would apply to other parts as well like ImageConvert where I'd expect one entry to handle all formats and features.

But if such a list would then be so short users might ask themselves if that is it and think it's not worthwhile... Just to make sure: I don't want to suggest that there is not much new in Select - there is.

But simply put: RISCOS Ltd wants to sell RISC OS Select/Adjust so they are the ones who have to convice the potential buyers that what they offer is worth the money. I found a summary at riscos.com is here: [link] but the NB states that this list is not necessarily true and thus worthless. The change log offered on the selet page is a joke - and dated 14-10-2002. The DBChances are not bad, but ist too technical and does not give you an overview unless you spend lots of time clicking around, reading the more or less long change summary lists.

Simply put I agree that a sensible overview of what RISC OS Select/Adjust offers over RISC OS 3.x and 4.x for a normal *end-user* is something I expect RISCOS Ltd to offer. If I'm a normal end-user I don't care about module version numbers, things like "Wimp EdgeNotify message" or all the bug fixes in detail. But perhaps such users are not the target :-)

And in reply to Grek1: The drobe articles mentioned make good reading but do they cover all aspects of what RISC OS Adjust offers?

Summing up: If I had RISC OS 3.5 now and a working system with no explicit need for an upgrade to RISC OS 4 I'm not sure I would go and buy Adjust for the simple reason that the company selling it doesn't seem to want to let me in on what if offers but does expect me to pass on quite bit bit of money. If I go on riscos.com looking for the new RISC OS Adjust ROMs all I find is a link to the order form and to the news page (yes, despite the home page stating a specific news item it just links to the news page where I have to find that article). Reading these I learn that it seems to have something to do with RISC OS Select and thus might follow the link to Select and then the link to "what is RISC OS Select" I get a page dated 08/01/03 - obviously very outdated and doesn't really help me either. And the Select change log is much older, as I wrote already.

So I seem to be left with DBChances where you can spend hours following lots of links to grab all the information offered trying to figure out what this really does you good. No, this DB is good as a concise list but not as a sorce to figure out if it is worth to spend money to upgrade form RISC OS 3.5 or 4.02 eg. to RISC OS Ajust.

My decision based on this web site would be to *not* buy since the selling company doesn't seem to want to let me know what they sell (the information might be there in full but not in such a way that I can get it with a reasonable amount of time) :-o

hzn on 13/6/04 8:25AM
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Short note:

Wow, I didn't know that the comment processor translates typos. In my posting I wrote "riscos.com" in the odd place (without the quotes); these now read "RISC OS.com" in my posting. That was done by the comment processing code of Drobe - not me.

hzn on 13/6/04 8:30AM
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"...but do they cover all aspects of what RISC OS Adjust offers ?"

No they provide a list of major features, like several have requested above.

<not buying Select/Adjust because of RISCOS Ltd's information policy>

Surely you buy a product because you want it not because of the company's information policy or lack thereof ?

if it has enough features you like buy it. If it does not then don't buy it. If it has but you don't know because those features are not listed in a readable way then don't buy them.

Grek1 on 13/6/04 10:02AM
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Why buy Adjust ? Off the top of my head, the features that make it of interest to me, a RISC OS 4 user, in order, are; 1) Latest version of OS boots from ROM so fast and solid. 2) Can install close to 512 kilobytes of RAM on my KInetic. 3) Enhanced !Paint which I use a lot. 4) Easier networking. There are many more features which are 'nice' but those are the four that would make me hand over cash. I do think that the price is high but it is a top quality product.

martin on 13/6/04 10:13AM
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martin:

Yes Select/Adjust Paint is very nice indeed :-)

I would add 5) the image file view/convert system.

Grek1 on 13/6/04 10:47AM
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martin: "Can install close to 512 kilobytes of RAM on my Kinetic"

I don't think RISC OS 4.39 would work with that much RAM :-)

dgs

dgs on 13/6/04 1:40PM
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In reply to dgs Nice one dgs - You took this photo at the South West show in Feb 2004 and gave it the caption: "RISCOS Ltd.'s RiscPC running 4.38 with 512MB of RAM"

[link]

!

martin on 13/6/04 9:27PM
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martin: "You took this photo at the South West show in Feb 2004 and gave it the caption" [etc etc]

So I did.

Does that mean that RISC OS 4.39 works with "close to 512 kilobytes of RAM" ?

Maybe this is a good example for Smiler of why errors of scales are not *always* related to abbreviations :-)

dgs

dgs on 13/6/04 9:59PM
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RISC OS 4.39 upgrade FAQ

Q. How much memory do I need to run RISC OS 4.39?

A. 16 MB is the minimum advised. A bonus feature of the RISC OS 4.39 ROMs is that on many Kinetic StrongARM cards, it will now be possible to use a 256 MB SO-DIMM chip on the Kinetic card along with 256 MB on the motherboard thus giving a 510MB machine.

martin on 13/6/04 10:34PM
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martin: Thank you for that quote from the RISC OS 4.39 upgrade FAQ.

How is it relevant to running RISC OS 4.39 in "close to 512 kilobytes of RAM" ?

dgs

dgs on 14/6/04 12:13AM
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"Surely you buy a product because you want it not because of the company's information policy or lack thereof ?"

Depends whether it has any competition for which the information is easier to obtain.

dgs: obviously Select/Adjust suffers from massive bloat then

mavhc on 14/6/04 9:22AM
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I've only just understood dgs's comment about running with 512 somethings of RAM...

It pays to read comments carefully!

monkeyson on 14/6/04 10:33AM
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In reply to monkeyson I've just realised what he's on about myself. Oh well : dgs 1 : mhh 0. It's taken this tread rather off topic though.

martin on 14/6/04 10:51AM
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I've upgraded from RO4.02 to Adjust. I'm quite impressed by Adjust and think it has been worth it. In particular:

Things just work. For example I can shift-boolt and get a menu of boot options, not have to faff with the command line. Similarly I don't need to !Boot any more because it's all !Configurable.The RISCOS

Major things that I appreciate: Fresco/Marcel CDFS with sensible filename handling DHCP (though I'm not using it at the moment)

caliston2 on 14/6/04 12:05PM
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Hmm, Netsurf doesn't like the Preview button. Anyway.

The RISC OS 4 PRM

The ImageFileRender system

Plus all the little things that just make life easier. The upgrade is particularly painless, which is a significant time saver.

(Hmm, NS has a funny way of moving the cursor around when editing. Hope this makes sense)

caliston2 on 14/6/04 12:11PM
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Quick question for those that may know; does the thumbnail filer option in Select 4.37 work with EXIF jpegs from digital cameras?

If so what am I missing from my Select install?

blahsnr on 14/6/04 12:35PM
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Answering my own post, a re-boot seems to have got the thumbnail filer working with EXIF jpegs.

blahsnr on 14/6/04 1:49PM
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Thanks, those of you who mentioned the benefits of Adjust

Thing is, I'm looking for something to show other people as well as for my own info

I think what I'm after is this: [link] except for Adjust obviously! Maybe ROL will produce it in time - at the moment they don't even have an "Adjust" section on their homepage!!

Adam

adamr on 14/6/04 4:02PM
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