South East 2007 show preview Published: 18th Oct 2007, 18:13:54 | Permalink | PrintableWhat to expect at this weekend's event The RISC OS South East show, taking place this Saturday in Guildford, Surrey, will see a number of new products unveiled - from databases to graphics. Here's a round up of what you can expect to see revealed this weekend.
Headlining the event are R-Comp, CJE Micros and Icon Technology with their new releases. R-Comp will have on sale copies of DataPower 3, CJE Micros have an upgrade for PhotoDesk prepared, and Icon will launch a new version of TechWriter and EasiWriter.
On top of this, VirtualAcorn will be demonstrating a new beta version of their RiscPC emulator for Apple Macs.
VA's Aaron Timbrell told us: "Beta3 of VRPCAdjustSA for the Mac will be making its first appearance. We've done another round of improvements based on the feedback from users of Beta2.
"We've also been tweaking the Intel processor cores to solve a couple of niggles and to optimise them for the Apple architecture."
Steve Revill from RISC OS Open and Jack Lillingston from Castle will give a theatre talk on their shared-source project and the Iyonix computer. ROOL also hope to release various core components of RISC OS 5 on the day of the show.
RISC OS Ltd will have a stand at the show although no new release of RISC OS 6 or RISC OS Select is expected to be unveiled. ROL may have something ready in time for the Christmas show, it's believed.
ROL's Paul Middleton spoke to punters at a usergroup this week, where he brought with him some new bits of RISC OS Select, a Viewfinder-powered RiscPC and an Apple G5 Mac running VirtualRiscPC.
An eyewitness said: "Paul suggested there won't be a Select 4i3 out for the South East show, but there might be one for the Christmas shows.
"He demonstrated some new or newish bits of Select, which were loaded over the top of a S4i2 softload. One of which was the Filer with keyboard navigation, which he demonstrated at Guildford two years ago. There was also monitor auto-detection stuff, so you don't always need a MDF file, but he didn't show the Filer with the toolbar he demonstrateded in 2005."
Our man in the south London curry house added: "Paul wasn't able to confirm whether or not RISC OS Select will be released as a softload over RISC OS 5.
"He also claimed that there would never be another native RISC OS hardware platform, as the market conditions that created the Iyonix and A9 won't happen again. These conditions being a large RISC OS-using customer requiring it, who will fund development of the hardware. In the case of Iyonix, Paul mentioned that the particular customer was Nokia - albeit very quietly."
Paul is due to give a show theatre presentation at the event.
RISC OS Now editor Louie Smith confirmed she will be exhibiting at the show, and said progress reports of her magazine will be posted on the publication's website. Readers have waited months for a new issue of the bi-monthly magazine to arrive as Louie ran into problems generating PostScript output for mass-printing with RISC OS. However, it's hoped a breakthrough in processing the PostScript files in order to make them suitable for professional printers will get the publication back on track.
RISC OS Now webmaster Paul Vigay said: "I'm optimistic that Louie's temporary problems have been solved and that future issues will be back on track.
"I'm liaising directly with the printer at the moment, and I'm pleased to say that RISC OS is now being used 100% from start to finish - although it did involve writing some PostScript pre-processing software for RISC OS.
"However, now that this application is complete and working, there is no problem in getting Louie's OvationPro files into a format compatible with the final printer."
Paul added he will be demonstrating his RISC OS shareware and running a special offer for people who sign up for broadband with his Orpheus ISP.
He said: "I've got a brand new version of WebGallery, which has quite a few amendments and bug fixes in it, so people can come and have a nose at that. I'll also see if I can stock up on interesting sweeties too, as I seem to recall people kept popping by the stand to nick a toffee or sherbet last time."
MathMagical, run by Drobe contributor Martin Hansen, will be selling CDs of mathematically generated artwork. Its cover is pictured left. The CD will feature a slideshow of 217 computer calculated and plotted pictures, 65 of which are new and never seen before. Martin has also tidied up the user interfaces of his RISC OS software and added Drawfile export support to his Sudoku game.
He said: "Everyone I've shown the CD of images to thinks it's fab. Sadly, perhaps, it's also a move towards something that I can sell to Windows and Apple users too."
Alligata Media's David Bradforth, who will be giving the other theatre presentation with Qercus, will be offering a special four-issue subscription to eBay Advisor magazine. He'll also have copies of RISCdomain, BASIC V: A dabhand guide, Essential OpenOffice.org and more on sale.
Other exhibitors at the event include APDL, Electronic Font Foundation, the ARM Club, MW Software, the NetSurf team, Archive magazine, and the charity stand. Jim Nagel and Paul Beverley, of Archive, will also give a theatre presentation. The event was organised by the Surrey and Sussex Acorn User Group with the help of Fillin Ltd.
If you're going to the show, feel free to drop us an email afterwards with any news you've heard or pictures taken. A full report show should follow after the event.
Links
The South East show website - doors open from 10am to 4pm on Saturday October 20 2007. Entry costs a fiver.
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