Iyonix wanders north to Scotland | Drobe.co.uk archives

Iyonix wanders north to Scotland

By Chris Williams. Published: 13th Nov 2003, 13:49:09 | Permalink | Printable

Get your diaries out

Dealer Liquid Silicon and OS developer Castle have hooked up to present an evening in Scotland to tout Castle's XScale powered Iyonix. The chosen venue is the Hilton Hotel, located at the Edinburgh International Airport and the date set is 8th December.

Castle have also been pushing other promotions including their 19" monitor give away. With Liquid Silicon's help, perhaps Castle can give a better impression to the Scottish userbase than MicroDigital's Livingston charade.

Starting from 7:30pm, the presentation should last about an hour and then Castle and Liquid Silicon staff hope to afterwards answer questions and give further information until 10pm. Anyone going has been asked to drop Castle an email and of course, we wouldn't mind if someone who attended wrote us an article on the affair.

We're sure many of you can think up some good questions to pester Castle with, such as when will the next release of RISC OS 5 be and what will it feature?

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Discussion

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Bloody hell, could they make it any more out the way? Edinburgh airport is a not exactly the most convenient place to get to, and if you live outside Edinbrugh you'll need to travel in and then out again if you're using public transport.

Actually having it in the city would have made it easier to get to. I dare say it's cheaper than hiring somewhere in the city though.

Dougal on 13/11/03 3:57PM
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Dougal:

Would you have gone if it were Glasgow? -- Spriteman

Spriteman on 13/11/03 4:14PM
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Or Aberdeen?

dgs

dgs on 13/11/03 5:52PM
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Given that both dougal and spriteman are in Glasgow and not Aberdeen, I'll let you work that out.

mrchocky on 13/11/03 6:28PM
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With a solid bus and taxi service from the city centre and, shockingly, aeroplanes actually landing right there (!) I'd suggest the airport is one of the most EASY places to get to. Amusing to see LS have done an apparent 180 on MicroDigital after hosting their poor "see the Omega" day in Livingston last year. It's also probable that Jack/John are less likely to be rude and snipe at the visitors than David was.

imj on 13/11/03 6:59PM
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Yes, last time I went to a conference at the airport Hilton, I caught the airbus from Edinburgh for £5 return. Buses are very regular.

Fylecore on 13/11/03 8:40PM
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Liquid Silicon are och aye the nooo in my boook. I haave indeeed purchaased a phew wee gooods from that crackin bunch of wee jimmy's - Bonny Edinburgh is a Hoots goood place tooo. (P.S. I'm Scottish - so I'm permitted to take the p*ss!)

martin on 13/11/03 8:42PM
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martin:

I'm Scottish - so am I permitted to ask for a translation?

-- Spriteman

Spriteman on 13/11/03 10:52PM
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I have to agree that the airport is *very* easy to get to so much so that it was as convenient flying home to london then it was getting to Waverley. Those airbuses were so regular that I amazingly never missed a flight despite some of the hungovers I had to travel with. Just a pity I am no longer in Edinburgh... sob ;oP

jmcarey on 14/11/03 12:45AM
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mrchocky: I conclude that it's closer to both of them than if it had been in Aberdeen.

dgs

dgs on 14/11/03 12:45AM
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Shame I'm not in Edinburgh any more. I got lost several times round Livingston's roundabouts whilst driving to Microdigital's presentation despite the fact that my work was only 10 minutes drive from that school. Japan has no roundabouts at all (bliss!), and jumping the lights is commonplace. Amazingly all petrol stations in this country close around 8pm. I'd like to add in a good word for Liquid Silicon... they fixed my RiscPC for free years ago (faulty VRAM prevented machine startup) and I've purchased through them whereever possible ever since.

govind on 14/11/03 2:55AM
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In reply to spriteman... It's true that I failed the real test of being a Scotsman by not knowing what a "nockster" is. Do you ? (P.S. It's nothing rude ! - Hope I've spelt it right - )

martin on 14/11/03 7:45AM
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martin:

Sounds like an east coast thing.

-- Spriteman

Spriteman on 14/11/03 9:14AM
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It's a part of your body...

martin on 14/11/03 9:32AM
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Tut. It's "oxster", not nockster.

imj on 14/11/03 9:58AM
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I was somewhat intoxicated in a taxi going down Princess Streat in Edinburgh when the taxi driver informed me what an oxster was. (It's a long story...don't ask...) So, "Get your oxsters out at the Liquid Silicon/Castle evening" translates to...

martin on 14/11/03 10:43AM
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7.30 p.m. on a monday evening at Edinburgh Airport...how convenient.

From a real Aberdonian.

ian on 14/11/03 11:36AM
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It's just good to see a return to the traditional Acorn 'Open Day' concept. I used to love those in Taunton with the local dealers and Mr Taylor from CC at the County Hotel, or that Forte place by the roundabout.

JessFranco on 14/11/03 12:56PM
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martin:

Are you talking under-arms? -- Spriteman

Spriteman on 14/11/03 1:15PM
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Aye. oxster = armpit. And my Risc PC is henceforth going to be called "oxster" as it's an ARM pit ! (Ha ha)

martin on 14/11/03 2:04PM
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Hi folks.

Ian, I've not done a 180 on MD, I sell everyone's machines and if someone wants to come up here to do a demo I'll support them. The Livingston day was set up at *very* short notice (10 days IIRC) with the much appreciated help of Stuart Halliday who sorted out the venue (Livi being much more central than Kirkcaldy).

Edinburgh airport was chosen for this as Jack's flying up and down straight away and it's on a Monday night because it's the only time we're both free at the same time! So, sorry if it's not handy (time or place) for anyone.

Would people who are coming mind dropping me a quick email so we can get a rough idea of numbers, please? Thanks.

liquid on 15/11/03 7:47PM
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liquid: Thanks for the extra info, which is quite interesting.

I guess Edinburgh and Livingston are both central in some ways.

On the Omega front, we do know at least one Omega user in south east England to whom you've shipped Omegas. Obviously you're shipping Iyonix PCs as well. Can you give us any idea of whether you've sold more Omegas, more Iyonix, lots more of one than the other?

(Or even, tangentially, how do either compare to the number of RiscStation, Mico or A7000+ machines you've shipped in the last year or two?)

dgs

dgs on 15/11/03 8:16PM
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dgs: I've said in the past (although not on here) that I won't give out that kind of info as I feel it's generally not helpful to people who have bought a less-popular one and can lead to MCIBTYC type comments). Each machine has it's own merits and I advise people as to whichever machine most fills their individual needs.

(Although, 'tangentially', I've sold more S/H RPCs and A7000s than new 7500-based machines, although that's not giving anything away!). Second hand Risc PCs - get them while you can!!! ;-)

liquid on 15/11/03 11:12PM
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liquid: No fear of a lack of second hand Risc PCs here - I can see four of them as I write this!

Thanks for explaining the awkwardness about customers who may have bought the "less popular" option.

dgs

dgs on 16/11/03 12:30AM
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And the main advantage of Omega over Iyonix is...

JessFranco on 16/11/03 6:18AM
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...it can run a not-crap version of RISC OS.

imj on 16/11/03 1:50PM
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In reply to JessFranco:

Well, it's nice to have the choice of two new and fast 'native' machines, non? If you want an ARM-based solution, then either an Iyonix or an Omega seems like a good choice to me; which of these one plumps for is a very personal decision.

I opted for an Omega because I wanted an up-to-date machine that was compatible with *everything* that I use on my RiscPC -- MicroDigital billed it as a 'go-faster RiscPC', and that is a good way to look at it. All software that is RISC OS 4 compatible will run on it, and (unlike Iyonix) it is capable of working with parallel port devices such as scanners, zip drives, sound digitisers, etc. (all of these were relevant in my case, but may not be so for everyone).

Compatibility is, I feel, the key advantage: if you want to use certain applications, i.e. Sibelius, Topmodel 2, CFS, most RISC OS games, Select, etc., or you want to run 26bit apps natively, then Omega is currently the one to go for (though this may change as Aemulor is enhanced). And, of course, as and when applications are updated for the Iyonix (i.e. Impression), Omega users will also benefit. One of the first software upgrades that I purchased for my Omega was ArtWorks 2 which is simply gorgeous!

Whichever machine you choose, be positive, be happy it's RISC OS, and enjoy ;-)

Stewy on 16/11/03 4:10PM
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Well said! Personally I wish MD would hurry up and get the Omega working fully and then advertise the hell out of it. Quickly!

Cheers!

The Doctor on 16/11/03 5:34PM
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Further to Stewy's comments, the Omega has PS/2 ports as well as the printer port and can support rotating monitors (well, it will do...). The motherboard is a lot smaller (it will fit in our small 1U rack cases) and has flash ROM sockets going spare if you want to plug stuff in, plus the second processor(s) options when available. You also get speakers and a modem.

On the other hand, the Iyonix is available when you order one, is currently faster for most uses and can use bigger screen modes with more colours due to the video card. USB works and has plenty of things to plug in. It can take podules and is also usually cheaper.

Those are the main additional things I can think of. There's not a *best* one, there are two choices, one of which will suit your needs better than the other - it's pointless to then slag off the competition, it doesn't help the market.

Anyway, this is an Iyonix demo discussion - let's keep it that way, shall we?

liquid on 19/11/03 2:50PM
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