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Adjust ROMs in production

By Chris Williams. Published: 9th Apr 2004, 20:27:42.

Select 4 later this year

For those of you wondering where your RISC OS Adjust (aka RISC OS 4.39) orders are, RISCOS Ltd. today told Foundation subscribers that "production of the ROMs has commenced". RISCOS Ltd. will be shipping the silicon chips after the Easter break and they expect it'll take a week to process their order list.

Also, the RISC OS 4 developers have confirmed that MicroDigital have been testing Adjust on Omega and Mico computers, although they're awaiting the details of said testing. RISCOS Ltd. have also disclosed that they've had 148 orders so far and to justify producing the next batch of ROM chips, they'll need a further 250 orders.

"We will shortly be starting work on the Select version of RISC OS 4.39 which we expect to have available by the end of May," RISCOS Ltd.'s managing director Paul Middleton explained. "This will be issued as Select 3i4. Select 4 will follow later in the year with even more features and a new bundle of supporting applications."

Links
RISCOS Ltd.

Discussion

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For Select 4 its going to be a case of; no 32 bits, no renewal.

druck on 9/4/04 8:43PM [ Reply | Report ]

I'll second that... there's no point spending more money on my (literally) mouldy Risc PC.

But does that mean that we don't subscribe to Select 4 until a version for the Iyonix is actually demonstrated, actually shipped, or what?

dgs

dgs on 9/4/04 9:27PM [ Reply | Report ]

RIscOS said that if people didn't continue to support Select, an Iyonix version would never happen. I've paid my money for one year, but I'm unlikely to do it for a second....

markee174 on 9/4/04 9:45PM [ Reply | Report ]

My RiscPC doesn't get much use now, but I'll be resubscribing to Select because I want the additions for the Iyonix. It's also good to have the latest OS on my RiscPC for when I do use it.

ksattic on 9/4/04 10:03PM [ Reply | Report ]

A firm comitment to deliver a substantial proportion of the current Select feature set within in the next year, would be enough for me to sign up again.

However more provaracation, vague musings or implausable technical excuses, and its the end of the line for ROL as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers ---Dave

druck on 9/4/04 10:04PM [ Reply | Report ]

druck: With the space in the market opened by VirtualRiscPC (which seems as ever popular as the Iyonix these days, what with the recent push by dealers to package up their own VRPC-WinXP systems), I can't see it being the end of the line for ROL for some time. Even if VRPC users don't opt to upgrade to Select/Adjust, ROL should be getting royalties from the copies of ROS4 shipped with VRPC.

Just a personal observation, of course.

Chris. Just me.

diomus on 9/4/04 11:13PM [ Reply | Report ]

Royalty sales from RO4 to emulatiors (and I cant see many who dont have a current RISC OS machine wanting Select, as it s isn't necessary to run old software), will not sustain development of the operating system - thats what counts.

druck on 9/4/04 11:36PM [ Reply | Report ]

You're really suggesting that people buying new A6's and RISC Cubes etc only want to "run old software" ? Get real. If you don't want to keep up with recent OS developments, that's your choice, but do stop your continued ranty chant of "end of the line for ROL" as that really is just being silly. We're aware from your continued boasting on the newsgroups that fast cars, sat nav, big monitors etc are your bag - "bigger, faster" sums it up for you it seems - enjoy that 600Mhz XScale, sure, but there's a hell of a lot of us who can quite happily stick with a 200Mhz ARM (or much faster emulation) and get the benefit of the undeniably richer features running there. It's quite a shame that you appear to have become too jaded and stubborn to see that.

imj on 10/4/04 12:29AM [ Reply | Report ]

jmj, please read my comment more carefully. My point is people coming to the emulator after a number years away from RISC OS are not likely to bring in any new Select subscriptions. Those with emulators in addition or even replacing a RISC OS machine, may well continue their subscription, but thats not the issue.

The situation is a very large percentage of Select subscribers now have 32 bit machines, and if they do not renew, Select development will be unstanable. That is a fact from ROL's own break even figures.

ROL cannot rely on emulators and the dwindling number of 26bit native hardware owners to fund future developments. A 32 bit operating system supporting the latest hardware and interface standards is the only way to sustain a viable future.

druck on 10/4/04 1:17AM [ Reply | Report ]

Oh stop your sniding at ROL, it's just boring now. You've turned from RISC OS advocate in to a "me too" whingebucket on that matter. Give it a rest.

I don't believe that the majority of sales of "Hybrid" machines are to folks who have been "away from RISC OS" as you put it -- for many, it's the logical step up from a RiscPC they already have -- they get some good speed improvements and can run Windows software as required. For some, as a laptop, it'll be a 2nd machine to their RiscPC.

Iyonix owners aren't badgering CTL anywhere near enough and CTL don't, themselves, want ROL to even exist as far as I can see. With CTL pushing against ROL producing a whole OS (and face it, you're plain WRONG about "most" of Select not requiring kernel changes, so odds and sods of Select addons on top of RO5 are out of the question) there's simply not going to be an Iyonix Select. CTL are the ones you need to convince that a Select for Iyonix should happen. ROL are (ttbomk) ready. Got a statement from CTL to prove otherwise? I'm sure ROL would love to see it ;-)

imj on 10/4/04 2:27AM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: Most people I know who own a Windows laptop with the VRPC emulator, own it as a second machine to their Iyonix.

I'm an Iyonix owner and a current Select subscriber. Sorry, you're telling *me* whether I'm "badgering CTL anywhere near enough or not" ? I'm so sorry.

You buy the products, you make the demands, if you want to.

"Speak for yourself" is the phrase that springs to mind.

Which Iyonix owners are *you* speaking for?

There's a great deal of wildly optimistic talk about Virtual Risc PC sales (much of it by dealers with a stake in it), I've yet to see it backed by facts, figures, or substantial numbers of real live users.

dgs

dgs on 10/4/04 3:17AM [ Reply | Report ]

safd

Oliveyrc on 10/4/04 10:01AM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: Whether the bulk of select would be easy to get going on Iyonix, *some* would be. That should be made available to Iyonix owners asap. druck: I doubt that many people would buy a hybrid or even VRPC *just* to run old software, VA5000 would do a big proportion of old software for a fraction of the price. Hybrids are likely to be bought by those who would otherwise jump ship entirely or would keep an existing acorn alongside a new PC.

It would make sense for a new VRPC supplied with adjust to be produced.

jess on 10/4/04 10:38AM [ Reply | Report ]

What happens when Select4 is released? Do the ROMs get reflashed or something? or so we go back to softloads again?

AndrewDuffell on 10/4/04 10:50AM [ Reply | Report ]

It appears to me that it isn't an all or nothing issue with Select features for Iyonix.

A committment from ROL to produce what they can and work on what is possible should be more than enough to keep many Iyonix users on board.

I'm sure CTL could do their bit helping tpo make this happen - after all a good number of people say they are waiting for 32 bit Select features before replacing their RPCs.

It seems to me that, if the players could see it, its a win/win situation. ROL sell more subscriptions *and* CTL sell more machines. Unless, of course, CTL really do have that notebook RO5 machine waiting in the wings and expect to finally kill off RO4 by having the best hardware all round.

cynic on 10/4/04 11:45AM [ Reply | Report ]

Why as an 'Adjust' punter do I have to read that the ROMs are being deliverd after Easter? There is nothing (last time I looked) on the ROL website and I have have zero communications from ROL. This lack of communication is what is driving people away from RiscOS!

Mart on 10/4/04 12:16PM [ Reply | Report ]

Andrew Duffell> "What happens when Select4 is released" ? You get softloads, yep. Note that the ROM is called "Adjust" which is quite distinct from the "Select" softload and subscription. Will ROL make an "Adjust 2" ROM release? I guess that's up to ROL, the demand from users, and sales of Adjust 1. Select will always be more "up to date" than Adjust, though - that's the nature of softloads.

jess> "Select".."Some"..."That should be made available to Iyonix owners asap" ... care to suggest what is worth ROL's while releasing to Iyonix owners that doesn't require core changes? I can't think of much, myself. Select is an operating system. A whole. Not just a few bits of apps and modules sat on top of it.

I'd put it another way: CTL "should make available" all the documentation on their hardware, and provide the drivers, so that ROL have a sane chance of making an Iyonix Select. AIUI, they don't want to do that, sadly.

imj on 10/4/04 12:29PM [ Reply | Report ]

Mart: The info is from RISCOS Ltd newsletter number 30. I guess these still only go out to Foundation subscribers, so if you're not a Foundation subscriber then you might not have got one...

dgs

dgs on 10/4/04 12:36PM [ Reply | Report ]

Paint and draw would be an obvious starting point for Iyonix users. It would presumably need the png etc handling of select put in a module, (saying that it probably is a module in the select "ROM")

jess on 10/4/04 12:37PM [ Reply | Report ]

jess - it's really not that simple. New paint uses PNG support. PNG support relies upon the ImgConvert modules, which in turn rely upon colour blend, which in turn rely upon kernel changes.

There are very few 'stand alone' component changes, except the toolbox which ROL have released as free updates anyway.

md0u80c9 on 10/4/04 1:20PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj> does the information in the TRM for the Iyonix and the Iyonix website not provide enough low level information?

jonix on 10/4/04 1:56PM [ Reply | Report ]

Paint uses a hell of a lot more than just "PNG support" from Select. Features I can think of OTTOMH are the almighty amount of changes to SpriteExtend for CMYK and Alpha sprites (also required to load PNGs properly), cross-depth mask plotting, mask promotion, the whole ImageFileConvert subsystem, PNG modules, JPEG module fixes, etc (that's a LOT of stuff), Changes to colourtrans for plotting fonts in low-colour modes and to masks, proper mouse wheel support, fixed colourpicker, and iirc, even the Homerton.Bold.Oblique intmetrics were wrong and causing plotting errors. Some of the fixes and extensions I've mentioned also require lower-level changes to other modules and the kernel.

Oh, and md0u80c9, PNG support doesn't "rely on the IFC modules", tt's the other way around -- The ConvertPNG module uses the PNG module to provide image file conversion functions. :-)

Paint also /doesn't/ use the toolbox modules.

I think it's a bit sad that jess and JWB seem to think Paint and Draw are worthy things to get from Select on their own - they're not - they're just little sample applications, really - most of the work is done by the OS.

It's the fact I can just dump an ArtWorks file or BMP etc on Paint or Draw and it "just works" without me having to be concerned further that is the power of Select - that's the OS doing the work, not the apps.

imj on 10/4/04 4:24PM [ Reply | Report ]

I think md0u80c9 might know a thing or two about ROL. I also think he may know a lot about the RISC OS kernel, OS, etc etc. Perhaps a lot more than most if not all people here. I DO know that for a fact. ;-)

PS md0u80c9 are you finished with the Dr. studies.

Cheers Dr. Bob

nijinsky on 10/4/04 4:59PM [ Reply | Report ]

I suspect you'll also find that IMJ also knows rather a lot RISC OS too. Cheers!

The Doctor on 10/4/04 5:19PM [ Reply | Report ]

Normal commercial practice is that a business makes a proposition: It offers a defined good or service for a defined price, then it waits to see what response the market makes.

Which is a long-winded way of asking why RO Ltd don't offer for sale those bits of Select that *do* work on RO5/Iyonix at a price that makes it worth their while ('cos clearly it's not going to be *no* work to do this). I expect it could be quite a lot of functionality (RO Ltd declared several years ago that all their developments were 26/32-bit neutral so that updated Sprite Extend, for example, should be usable).

They might be able to justify a similar price to an Adjust ROM (less the physical device) - after all, they're in a monopoly-supply position. This would be significant revenue if the expected number of Iyonix owners then bought-in to Select.

I desperately want someone to hold out an Olive Branch in this silly split of RO. Facing facts, RO Ltd have most to lose from the split (IMHO) so they might do well to act first and hence gain sympathy.

TonyStill on 10/4/04 5:50PM [ Reply | Report ]

>Tony

The inference from what Ian has said is that there are independancies between the various "visible" applications, their functionality and the modified kernel. What Ian says seems reasonable, there *may* be more involved in transferring some apps across to RO5 from Select. If that is the case then simply picking selected bits of Select and grafting them onto RO5 may be a non-starter.

Perhaps an alternative may work, as ROL (and its programmers) have considerable expertise in the OS, perhaps they could release other (new) products that build on what they learned in developing Select (a bit like Microsofts Windows Plus packs) - not so much a whole replacement OS - but a tweakable GUI, with some useful visual and functional additions made. Surely that *could* be done without requiring kernel access to OS 5 ? It would get ROL's and its developers money and keep some degree of coherence on the ROS platform - if not (I fear) the gap may become unbridgable and we'll wind up with Select specific and RO5 specific code and we'll all lose out.

Regards

Annraoi

AMS on 11/4/04 1:05PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj - my understanding was that ConvertPNG was used by Paint to convert the PNG into a sprite for editing. I'm certain there are dependencies which go the other way around too; in many ways that highlights the problem for everyone else even more!!! I was trying to be very brief; I think your somewhat longer summary does the situation far more justice though!!!!!

I also didn't say it /did/ use toolbox, although I can see how it was misconstrued (Paint predating the Toolbox massively et al!). What I said was that toolbox was the only component I could name which doesn't rely vastly upon other module changes. Even then, many Toolbox problems could be resolved if it /could/ rely upon Wimp changes, for example.

Regarding the ROM release, remember that Adjust and Select have always been billed as 'different' projects. Adjust is primarily intended for people who, for various reasons, cannot boot from softloads, and therefore are not covered by the Select programme. It's also a way of replacing the aged RISC OS 4 ROM set with progress so far - it's a good way of phasing out OS 4. If you look back at the changelog, you can see why it's a good idea to change the base OS to 3i4!!!

md0u80c9 on 11/4/04 4:03PM [ Reply | Report ]

Hmm - last paragraph directed at other posters, not IMJ of course, who is well aware of this ;o)

md0u80c9 on 12/4/04 1:01AM [ Reply | Report ]

I just love the marketing of RISCOS Ltd: "For those of you wondering where your RISC OS Adjust (aka RISC OS 4.39) orders are, RISCOS Ltd. today told Foundation subscribers that..."

My main question here is why does RISCOS Ltd not tell news like this to the public but just to Foundation subscribers (and probably Select subscribers). As a matter of fact, why don't they talk to IYONIX users which are not Foundation or Select subscribers so that they can learn what those users want as Select features on RISC OS 5?

But perhaps they don't want to offer anything to the users who do not subscribe to Foundation or Select :-o

hzn on 12/4/04 9:10AM [ Reply | Report ]

Announcements are /always/ picked up by the RISC OS press; with Drobe around you wouldn't need to tell everyone, would you? I'm sure Drobe would have been well aware of this too - Chris has extremely sensitive ears for hearing news ;o)

.

The rest of your post is really stating the obvious - that businesses provide goods to customers who in return give them money. Gosh.

md0u80c9 on 12/4/04 1:51PM [ Reply | Report ]

This topic continues the discussion from [link]

diomus on 12/04/04 2:37PM [ Reply | Report ]

I certainly agree that there must be no delay in getting Select to te 32bit machines but I won't hesitate to get upgrade my RiscPC to the latest version as soon as I can as I'd like to maintain it as long as possible and have it in the best possible state should I need to return to it!

AW on 12/04/04 3:32PM [ Reply | Report ]

I thought it was a bit odd the way ROL told Foundation users about the Adjust production news, but not actual Adjust customers. I know it might look a bit rude seeing the news on drobe.co.uk before riscos.com.

Chris. Just me.

diomus on 12/04/04 3:36PM [ Reply | Report ]

chris. See my comment on this thread 2 days ago :-p

The last 'news' on RiscOS.com was either 20th or 28th Feb (depending which bit you read!). Not sure if rude is quite the word that I would use as an Adjust customer. I am assuming here that I am a customer as having sent off my order mid March I have yet to see any communication from RiscOS ltd, having been with the RiscOS scene for a while I have come to assume that ignore your customers is par for the course with one notable exception.

Mart on 12/04/04 3:54PM [ Reply | Report ]

Mart: So why do you put up with it? ROL still send me begging letters and I haven't bought anything off them for at least 2 years now!

robert79 on 12/04/04 5:56PM [ Reply | Report ]

Because what other choice do you have? Unless you want ROL to fail so Castle can buy them out.

It's not hard to send an email to everyone who ordered one, assuming they gave an email address.

But if you tell your customers stuff what's the point in the Foundation?

mavhc on 12/04/04 6:06PM [ Reply | Report ]

I want them to join with Castle not fail.

AW on 12/04/04 8:12PM [ Reply | Report ]

Chris,

Historically, Drobe has /always/ published before riscos.com. It's cos you're too damn good at what you do :o)

md0u80c9 on 13/04/04 00:17AM [ Reply | Report ]

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