Drobe and RISC OS themed backdrops | Drobe.co.uk archives

Drobe and RISC OS themed backdrops

By Chris Williams. Published: 4th Dec 2002, 05:37:50 | Permalink | Printable

An early Christmas treat from drobe.co.uk

It's very heartwarming when we get emailed comments and news tip offs from readers, moreso when they have stuff to give us. We were recently emailed by the graphically talented Dave Watson with a drobe.co.uk themed backdrop that he created and, after clearing it with him, we've uploaded the image (as well as a few other in-house designed ones) for you to enjoy appropiately. Each backdrop is in the RISC OS spritefile format and comes conveniently in a 32,000 colour and a 256 colour version, all compressed into a zip archive. If you want to resize them, we recommend !ChangeFSI.


521k zipfile 1024x768	292k zipfile 1024x768	114k zipfile 500x700
'blueberry icecream' by Dave Watson	'RISC OS works'	drobe poster

After downloading a zipfile, please read the !Readme file within. It goes without saying that all our backdrops are 32 bit compatible. Have fun.

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Discussion

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Although nice, the BSOD is getting very old.. it only happens rarely these things.. no-one thinks it is funny anymore It is better to show what ROS *CAN* do instead of bashing other systems over and over again.... oh well, I'll take the drobe.co.uk backdrop :P

mfrissen on 4/12/02 7:13AM
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Easier than trying to put across in one image all the ways Windows sucks though.

This message was brought to you from the "I changed my backdrop once, 5 years ago" department

mavhc on 4/12/02 9:01AM
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If you download the backdrop, the blurb in the Readme says that "Windows98 may be long gone but such a monstrosity can never be forgotten. This backdrop is a tribute to the classic blue screen and a helpful reminder of our favourite alternative OS."

So, yes. Win98 is old but we're too bitter to forget the good ol'bsod. We hate bashing other systems to promote RISC OS, RISC OS is nothing like all the other OSes and has its own merits. The best way to show off RISC OS is to make people use it.

Chris, drobe. Recognise.

diomus on 4/12/02 9:09AM
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I seem to recall seeing a backdrop on a Windows box saying something similar, except with a picture of a RISC OS Wimp message box saying oflaoflaoflaoflaofla....

nunfetishist on 4/12/02 11:21AM
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If that's bitter consider the Unix people with the BSOD xscreensaver, which shows the crash screens from other OSes.

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but bashing other OSes to promote RISC OS tends to work better than demonstration, IME it tends to crash and burn in the middle of the most ordinary operation when someone is watching.

LucidIon on 4/12/02 11:41AM
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LucidIon - Probably the most unlucky guy in the world .. ever.

May linux have mercy on you. :-)

-- Spriteman.

Spriteman on 4/12/02 11:59AM
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The Unhappy Mac is the best flavour of the crash screensaver in X.

nunfetishist on 4/12/02 12:09PM
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LucidIon wrote: "IME it tends to crash and burn in the middle of the most ordinary operation when someone is watching."

we call that 'the demo effect' .. happens in 99% of all demos.. nothing to worry about :-)

mfrissen on 4/12/02 3:25PM
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mfrissen: *my* win2k bluescreens every other boot. No I mean litterally. Ever since doing a windows update. It *IS* that common. Although while in win2k BSOD happens less now as it seems to be replaced with a complete rest now.

danielbarron on 4/12/02 3:35PM
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LucidIon I saw a chap at the Guildford show trying to show a feature of one of the writing/DTP packages (I forget which). Every time he followed a sequence it crashed. The people watching got fed up and moved on. Very embarrassing for the poor guy

DiehardDuck on 4/12/02 4:33PM
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I don't see how people can say that RISC OS much stabler than other OSes. My RISC OS machine crashes at least twice a day, I wouldnt call that stability.

I don't use RISC OS because of it's mythical stability. I use it because I find it personally the easier OS to use. That coupled with the fact that I'm too stuborn and cheap to get a PC.

Snig on 4/12/02 5:19PM
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Not wishing to start an uptime or stability war, I generally leave my RISC OS box on 24/7 without having to reset. This is doing tasks like web browsing, mail reading, using Nettle and various other well established apps.

jonix on 4/12/02 5:35PM
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I used to have the same problem all the time with my Acorn crashing (during demos). I put it down to the hardware - it's a very old machine with every upgrade imaginable. My A5000 was solid as a rock. Funnily enough, I've had the machine on 24/7 for the past few weeks and I've been using it constantly. Not a single freeze-up to speak of. Waiting patiently for my Iyonix... ;o)

-- Simon Wilson, Boulder, Colorado

ksattic on 4/12/02 6:01PM
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My Kinetic RPC 233mhz hardly ever crashes :P

Sober on 4/12/02 6:59PM
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Sitting here using 2nd Windows '98 laptop (connected to monitor) both of which had screens which died within a month of guaruntee. Would happily at least see blue screen on laptop and enjoy every dig at MS and overheating disfunctional hardware which goes with it.On other hand await new RiscOS with pleasure.

Ria on 4/12/02 7:17PM
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Finding stability in RISC OS is a case of finding stable software. RISC OS 4.33 which I use everyday is hella stable but the software running on it tends to play up.

I know it sounds like a trivial comment but some apps like to cheat and crash. There is a lot of stable software out there though

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 4/12/02 7:28PM
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Chris - very true. Writing my first C++ WIMP app the other week, I managed to wipe my CMOS by following a pointer that I shouldn't have followed...

RISC OS 4.33 and VF 1.49 are a great combination.

BTW, my current backdrop is "blueberry ice-cream" above. I advise anyone not running at 1024x768 to scale the images with !ChangeFSI instead of Pinboard.

-- Simon Wilson, Boulder, Colorado

ksattic on 4/12/02 7:52PM
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Where are the 1600x1200 versions? :oP I mean what else will I do with the 32MB of RAM on my ViewFinder2 graphics card? -- James Carey, Edinburgh

jmcarey on 5/12/02 3:08AM
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I agree that RISC OS' reputation as a stable OS is undeserved compared to Mac OS X (although it's not without problems), Win XP, Linux and various flavours of *nix. But it says a lot for the platform that despite this, it's low processor power, and small market, we all still use and love it.

thegman on 5/12/02 10:32AM
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BSOD rare? You obviously don't have RM and Viglen machines. -- Jess

jess on 5/12/02 12:07PM
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But that's the fault of the hardware, or buggy drivers. IME Win2K with certified drivers is extremely stable, and very tolerant of unstable software - unlike RISC OS. RISC OS runs fine until an app goes wrong - then you say goodbye to anything you've not saved!

xqfea on 5/12/02 1:05PM
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I've only had Windows 2000 crash once, and that was when I risked loading a USB WebCam driver designed for Windows 98, and it warned be first "You don't want to do this" but I did it anyway.

Personally, I'd much prefer RISCOS Ltd. invest time and development on increasing RISC OS' stability, rather than adding (mostly) pointless toys.

nunfetishist on 5/12/02 1:49PM
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Oi. RISC OS 4.33 is stable, very stable, I'll have you know and I know not of these toys you speak of. If you're refering to enhancing the memory protection then that really does require a lot of work.

Besides, we use RISC OS cos it's RISC OS. Some people can't grasp this.

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 5/12/02 1:58PM
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What's protected in 4.33 that isn't in 4.02 and 3.7? I can only assume than any WIMP task can still write all over bits of the module area as it sees fit? I didn't think that would really be fixable, as it is sometimes required.

IMO, much too much code in RISC OS is run in a priviledged mode, which is part of the problem.

nunfetishist on 5/12/02 2:04PM
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I think most of my risc os problems are hardware related, rather than OS.

(ie repeatable fresco error only when machine first powered up)

-- Jess

jess on 5/12/02 4:57PM
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Even other platform users read drobe

[link]

Dougal on 5/12/02 9:19PM
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Nice MacOS X theme on your RiscPC there... ;o)

-- Simon Wilson, Boulder, Colorado

ksattic on 5/12/02 9:34PM
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Drobe Blueberry Ice-cream backdrop for RISC OS in 1600x1200(ish) size is available.

[link]

:-)

-- Spriteman.

Spriteman on 5/12/02 9:47PM
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Most hardware problems in Acorn machines can be found to be caused by:

Crappy RAM SIMMs that's been fitted (we still don't *any* RAM test programs on our platform).

Bad SCSI termination by the user.

Oxidization of solder joints caused by age.

Component creep in chips fitted in sockets caused by vibration and temperture changes.

Dust covering components.

Then last but by no means least. There is all the duff hardware produced by most of the hardware manufacturers including Acorn.

Mobos, Backplanes, VRAM, StrongARM and x86 cards have all had faults in them which caused the desktop to crash!

I wonder if the Iyonix or Omega Mobos will have any known hardware faults when they're released?

They've got a great tradition to keep up with! ;-)

quatermass on 6/12/02 1:37PM
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> (we still don't *any* RAM test programs on our platform)

Not even [link] ?

mavhc on 6/12/02 2:19PM
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There are plenty of naive memory testers for RISC OS. There weren't any that did the job properly when I last looked (ie, actually testing *all* RAM, including the RAM that the tester is running from, which is important.) Look at [link] to see a useful tool for PCs: it's its own OS, meaning it can easily check all RAM. (Simply knowing that a program can run from some RAM is not a good way of testing the RAM for problems.)

nunfetishist on 6/12/02 2:59PM
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Woo hoo for Spritey! Now that's what I call service :oP -- James Carey

jmcarey on 6/12/02 7:34PM
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Oh please! The RAM test program memtest on my site was written back in 1989!!

It only tests 28MB of RAM. Last time I looked most people have far more.

I don't understand this at all, lots of people are complaining of system crashing but our platform can't even test its own memory for faulty RAM SIMMs?

To nunfetishist, "plenty of naive memory testers for RISC OS"?

I say tell me of another memory tester please because I've never seen one!

quatermass on 7/12/02 7:31PM
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Look. You're becoming a broken record. Writing a RAM tester is not an easy task but it can be done. As you seem to want one so much, I guess we can all look forward to you releasing your memory tester when you finish writing it.

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 7/12/02 8:21PM
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Excuse me folks, but wot the flippin' eck has all this memory tester nonsense got to do with Drobe backdrops? Please, please, for everyone's sake and less stupid drivel on here, keep comments RELEVANT to the articles to which they're posted.

ian on 7/12/02 11:15PM
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Awww, don't be such a killjoy.

nunfetishist on 8/12/02 2:07PM
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Ignite blue touch paper...

piemmm on 8/12/02 3:07PM
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