Midlands show report

0:52am, 30th November 2002 - Pre-show warmup
A bit late but for the sake of completeness, the RISC OS Midlands show in Birmingham is taking place today with a full host of exhibitors. The Midlands show, managed by the ARM Club, is normally considered to be the little brother of the yearly schedule of RISC OS events, this year however looks set to change all that.

Roll call of exhibitors
R-Comp, Castle, MW Software, CJE/4thDim, Icon Technology, Surftec, Kudlian Software, ITC, Acorn Publisher, Acorn User, Archive, Photodesk, Soft Rock Software, Zenta, Cerilica, RISCOS Ltd., Fortran Friends, APDL, Virtual Acorn, AAUG, Aemulor.com, Unix Porting Project and drobe.co.uk.

1pm, later that day - Iyonix in action
We had an informal play with the Iyonix computer, trying out the bundled software such as Oregano 2 and then stressing the machine with some simple tests, such as forcing !Draw to do a 9,999 interpolation and hacking about with writing some simple multitasking applications (in !Edit, how old school). Although we liked what we saw (except Oregano 2 although the reboots were pretty damn fast), we'll be publishing a full indepth Iyonix review in due course. It was nice to see at least some quality software like Nettle running natively on the Iyonix.

4pm, later that day - Image galore
Show photos taken by drobe.co.uk photograpic consultant Stuart Winter can be found here. Server master Ian also took a few photos of us with his compact geeky digital camera, best picture being here here.

Sunday, 1st December - Round up
The show was essentially an event for RISC OS users to meet developers and pick up stuff at discount prices. Most exhibitors were showing off 32 bit compatible software fresh off the compiler or something new. The show became very busy around lunchtime but there was enough space for everyone, unlike the South East show. Here's interesting things going down that are worth mentioning:

New OHP from Photodesk Ltd.

Billed as "the leading RISC OS presentation software package", the new OHP (version 2.5) is 26/32 bit neutral and features the following enhancements:

• Improved compatibility with large video modes
  
• New 'actual size' mode for presenting bit map files (Sprites and JPEGs)
  
• Improved slide selection and editing
  
• Extended gallery of preset backgrounds
  
• New transition effects
  
• What Photodesk call "various other minor improvements", what we call "bug fixes".
  

OHP is an editor and viewer for full-screen presentations under RISC OS, a computerised OverHead Projector but with sound and transition effects. This is the second major update to the package since its first release in 1998.
OHP website

Castle Iyonix in the flesh

The date on RISC OS 5 (from the Switcher) was 28th November 2002, so development must have been right up until the end of the week in time for the show. Castle had with them 50 Iyonixes or so, all ready for sale. We were told by a Castle lackey that, by the end of the day, they had shifted a total of 28 with the first two going as soon as the show opened. One third party developer we spoke to commented that he expected all of them to have gone, especially if they'd been shipping at the South East show. Show attendees who spoke to us on the drobe.co.uk stand seemed cautious, waiting instead for the Omega arrive so a proper comparasion could be made; something we're looking forward too as well. It was however a promising sight to see users exiting the show with large white Iyonix boxes tucked safely under their arms, people who'll be among the first to use RISC OS natively on a machine that exceeds the (in comparasion) rather dreary RiscPC specifications. If you have an Iyonix and want to tell us about it, please get in touch.

Aemulor progresses

Aemulor, the 26 bit emulator for the 32 bit Iyonix, is progressing nicely it seems with a release date (for the full version) aimed at January. The developers we spoke to seemed confident that they can squeeze more out of the emulator engine. Artworks and Impression appeared to run at ARM600/ARM700 speed, so no slower than on an original RiscPC.

Related articles
Midlands 2006 show photos and news
Midlands 2006 show preview
Midlands 2006 show this month

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