hzn (+2.0)
25/4/08 5:18AM |
Would be great indeed! And a touch screen driver exists already by Thomas Milius, albeit not for this device. |
nijinsky (+2.0)
25/4/08 8:42AM |
I've been touting this for the last 7 years as the future of RISC OS.
If you try to sell a desktop to the masses then they will go with a well known system.
If you sell teh small size functionality then the OS doesn't matter.
Take what I'm typing on. An eeePC running xandros full desktop and a 3 hsdpa modem.
cheers
bob |
jymbob (+1.0)
25/4/08 9:54AM |
Looks like it's using this display: [Link: www.gst-lcd.com](5.7inch%20TFT).pdf - url may not display correctly, as it uses extended characters.
In which case it's a 320x240 (QVGA) screen. I doubt many RISC OS apps would be usable on such a small work area without serious rewrites.
Also using a touchscreen gets rid of one of the main advantages of RISC OS: Consistent usage of three buttons throughout the OS. |
rjek (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:03AM |
In reply to Jymbob:
It's a 640x480 VGA touch panel manufactured by URT. It's quite usable running GNOME. |
Stoppers (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:09AM |
In reply to nijinsky:
The problem is that identical hardware will be available with (and fully supported by) another, better known, OS.
At a lower price than a RISC OS version.
Say you could get RO running on a Nokia 810, why would people buy it rather than the standard version from Nokia? |
cables (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:12AM |
If it's ever commercially released, I'll be interested. It's a bit of a bind having to convert files from my Palm PDA to Techwriter format. |
rjek (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:26AM |
In reply to cables:
Well, having the hardware released is different from you being able to load your TechWriter documents on it - it doesn't run RISC OS. And you'd have to plug in a USB keyboard for it to be useful for word processing. |
liquid (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:38AM |
In reply to jymbob:
My touchscreen drivers emulate all three buttons, including Adjust-double clicking. I'll reinstate the info as my new site develops as there's nothing there just now... |
nijinsky (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:39AM |
I've never been able to find the article or pictures recently. However, the chaps at Digital research (I think it was them) had easiwriter running on a compaq ipaq 3630.
It was only one app but it was a start. Never heard anything like it since.
And of course RISCOS Ltd noted that a netbook or ipaq system was what RISC OS was missing from back in 2001
[Link: www.riscos.com]
And if you want to know what RISC OS would look like on a PDA then have a look at this old Drobe article
http://www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact1624.html
cheers
Bob |
liquid (+1.0)
25/4/08 10:39AM |
In reply to liquid:
Meant to add - of course the resolution is a problem. Changing the eigen values of the screen mode is a way round it if clarity is not an issue. |
ninja (+1.0)
25/4/08 1:34PM |
Is resolution really a problem? The standard desktop modes for RISC OS 2 were 640x256 (rectangular pixels), and lets be honest, the desktop hasn't changed all that much since then. The problem would be the size of the window handles which would be something like 2mm square on that screen. |
arawnsley (+1.0)
25/4/08 2:10PM |
In reply to ninja:
due to the way RISC OS handled eigen-values (or whatever they're called), the "standard" mode was always essentially 640x512 in terms of usable area (square pixels), even though the pixels were rectangular. Since any modern device would use square pixels (I assume), one has to take this into consideration. This is why 640x480 was rather nasty on RISC OS (in terms of usability) whereas in Win3.1 it was more usable. |
fwibbler
25/4/08 9:35PM |
Would the pixel doubled modes be of any use here? |
guestx
26/4/08 12:12AM |
In reply to Stoppers:
"Say you could get RO running on a Nokia 810"
That's being very hypothetical: Nokia run Linux on their tablets and yet there's still a lot of proprietary stuff and secrecy around the hardware. In contrast, you'd have a better chance with the Openmoko (FIC) devices, which have small but relatively high resolution screens, or with Gumstix devices plus screens. Indeed, this Simtec device would compete more with the latter. |
stevek
26/4/08 2:17AM |
Of course you wouldn't necessarily use a device like this as a PDA...It has a serial port, 2 USB ports, ethernet and a touch screen. Sounds like a good industrial controller type device. Many CNC cutting machines and other automated factory machines have small controllers running either Linux of Windows CE variants.
Other reasons why RISC OS would be a good solution in the industrial controller market include - fast development using BASIC for prototyping applications, GCC if you need more speed, it is ROM based and low power requirements (PoE might be an option!). |
rjek
26/4/08 6:52AM |
In reply to stevek:
"Other reasons why RISC OS would be a good solution in the industrial controller market include - fast development using BASIC for prototyping applications, GCC if you need more speed, it is ROM based and low power requirements"
Unfortunately, Linux and Windows CE already have all of those advantages - and Linux is significantly cheaper! |
jess
26/4/08 9:30AM |
For the price it would likely be, it would need wifi, the ability to plug into an external screen, and more RAM than the A9, plus the ability to boot into Linux or RISC OS 6. I'd consider buying one.
I suspect a lot of users who have abandoned RISC OS as their main OS would be interested, were the price right.
In reply to rjek:
The thing Linux lacks and can never have is a single consistant user interface. This problem will only be bypassed if distributions start taking the limelight, rather than generic linux. (Perhaps its time for a Linux distro that adopts as much of the RISC OS style guide as possible) |
nijinsky
26/4/08 9:59AM |
RISC OS has been used in many industrial situations.
We had an automated protein purification unit that was controlled by a riscpc.
I have a cell biology image measurement application from way back (better using ImageJ these days) and also a colleague had a cell migration app. Source code now lost.
However, take this one scenario. You have a microscope that moves a motorised stage running custom software to take framegrabs and make a timelapse movie. The system costs 40,000gbp. So the cost of an OS is negligible.
Again I have an imaging system that cost a similar amount. te cost of the Mac quad core wth 4Gb RAM etc was nothing to the cost of the software 12,000gbp.
So in essence. OS price in industrial situations in nothing.
cheers
Bob |
rjek
27/4/08 10:22AM |
In reply to Jess:
Name two industrial control systems from different vendors that have the same GUI, regardless of the OS they run: it simply isn't important. (And in any case, there are only two main "GUIs" for Linux these days, and they're roughly identical across distributions)
In reply to nijinsky:
IME in the embedded and custom control world, the price of the OS does matter. It's not just the runtime cost, it's the cost of the development and debugging tools, the cost of training your software engineering staff, the cost of porting the OS to your custom hardware, etc. Operating systems that already exist in this market (Linux, QNX, VxWorks, Nucleus, etc) don't suffer these problems to the same extent: they have debugging tools for a start (although the toolchains for some of them are expensive) but your softies almost certainly already know how to write good code for them, and they're trivial to port.
Additionally, I certainly wouldn't trust RISC OS to run something mission-critical, like a power station, distribution systems, monitoring of a jet engine etc! |
cables
28/4/08 9:23AM |
In reply to rjek:
I don't have a plug-in keyboard for my Palm PDA: it has a small display of a keyboard that I can tap with a stylus. It works surprisingly well, and I would like to see a similar setup on a RISC OS version. |
nijinsky
28/4/08 12:20PM |
It should be really easy to make a desktop keyboard. I remember an app years ago that I used to make custom buttons for !zap. Cant remember the name but you could just assign an add letter function to that and make a start on one in an hour.
cheers
bob |
rjek
28/4/08 12:47PM |
Sure, a screen keyboard's easy. I think most people (certainly me!) tire from using them after significantly shorter periods of time than you'd expect to be using a word processor for. |
Stewy
28/4/08 1:19PM |
VKeyboard from Kevsoft provides a screen keyboard for RISC OS:
http://riscos.kevsoft.co.uk/
In reply to nijinsky:
The app was most likely the very flexible ButtonBar from the Flying Pig:
[Link: www.flypig.co.uk] |
cables
28/4/08 2:09PM |
In reply to rjek:
It's certainly true that using a screen keyboard is more tiring than using a conventional one, but that wouldn't bother me: my use of a PDA for word processing is almost exclusively short bursts of writing during my dinner hour at work. |
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