Castle merges with Tematic - RISC OS News, Software and Information

Castle merges with Tematic

Published: 10th Jan 2004, 20:34:22GMT Source: drobe.co.uk
By Chris Williams

Page 1 of 1

Peter "WildVision" Wild now Chief Operation Officer

Castle and Tematic have sensationally merged into a single entity that aims to focus on "offering full design and engineering resources to customers wishing to licence RISC OS for use in their new products".

Peter Wild, the founder of WildVision who produced many an exceptional podule card, especially for Computer Concepts, is also now the Chief Operation Officer of Castle, bringing with him experience in the electronic design and manufacture of multimedia and desktop technology. Speaking on his new employment, Peter is quoted as saying: "It is great to be back in the RISC OS world. We hope to clinch substantial licence deals with a variety of household names over the coming months. Things have never looked more promising for RISC OS".

Castle managing director Jack Lillingston gushed: "The combination of Tematic's engineering skills and Castle's marketing and product skills means that we have a company structure that can really tackle the opportunities that lie ahead".

Tematic will become the "Tematic Division" under Castle technology, pledging to "support an embedded version of RISC OS which has been designed for use in the new generation of smart multimedia products for the high volume consumer electronics market". How the Tematic division will distract Castle's overall concentration away from RISC OS desktop users will remain to be seen. We hope any development work on the embedded version of RISC OS will filter back to the desktop stream of RISC OS - real time scheduling, increased stability, reduced footprint, increased hardware support, you name your feature.

Is it selfish for us, the RISC OS community, to demand Castle to focus their efforts on the desktop market, as the company desperately forays into the embedded world, with RISC OS as their sword and shield? Is it now make or break for RISC OS, realistically, as an embedded OS suitable for use in "household name" products?

We also wonder where Select will fit into Castle's plans.

You may recall that the XScale powered Iyonix was produced as a result of work by Tematic and Castle. Tematic is also staffed with ex-Pace engineers who were once Acorn engineers - thus the wheel of the Acorn era continues to revolve, with changing names and objectives and yet the same old operating system. You, folks, are the audience.

Links
Castle website
Tematic website

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moss (-1.5) 10/1/04 8:50PM	Crikey.
john (+1.5) 10/1/04 11:57PM	Interesting perhaps that oregano was split away from castle, and RISC OS has been brought in. I get this feeling that they have it all worked out, which can't be bad. Mind you, I haven't been near anyone who's "gushed" for a while either, which is also nice Good article, I mean!
john 10/1/04 11:59PM	Heh, just read "multi-faceted" - sounds like something from a hair product advert I love marketing-speak. Much better than lawyer-speak
epistaxsis@work (+1.5) 11/1/04 1:25AM	this is very very good. and also quite ironic - remember that Acorn claimed only to do desktop machines to promote the other (alledgedly more profitable) side of their business? Hmm iyonix mk2 around the corner then? truly groovy
vshears 12/1/04 9:48AM	Yes this is potentially very good news. This must be the first major announcment of the year that was not even hinted at in Drobes predictions for 2004? . Vic
mrchocky 12/1/04 10:20AM	Drobe.co.uk had known about this, but hadn't been at liberty to discuss it. As such, there may well be other predictions "missed", but we aren't able to discuss those either In any case, it was a short list. There will be plenty of surprises this year that even the most outrageous guess won't have predicted.
nijinsky 12/1/04 10:55AM	Yes like the possibility of a "new simple" cross platform development environment? Cheers bob
jmb 12/1/04 12:11PM	*In reply to nijinsky:* Is the GCCSDK too complex for you then?
The Doctor 12/1/04 1:01PM	Pleasant surprises I hope Peter. Cheers!
nijinsky (-1.0) 12/1/04 2:30PM	In reply to JMB. Yes. The armbase partner programmers are able to do anything, VB, delphi, C C++ JAVA assembler. OS writing etc etc. (they are in texas and mexico at the moment) But I cant. I'm simply an ideas person. I write in RAD's only. Even BASIC is too much hastle to learn. Well for me that is. I'm too busy doing other things. OHHH and BTW. Any surfers out there. AB surfer is due tobe released for the palm. Cheers Bob
mrchocky 12/1/04 5:03PM	GCCSDK is reasonably simple to set up. But since you say yourself you aren't a programmer, I'm not really sure what you're getting at.
nijinsky (-0.1) 12/1/04 7:24PM	Hi Peter I should have quoted your post snippet "There will be plenty of surprises this year that even the most outrageous guess won't have predicted." That way you would have known to read the post above mine. I thought it was obvious, but hey thats jujst me. Note smiley Then I replied "Yes like the possibility of a "new simple" cross platform development environment?" But then you were not in a position to know that. Then someone asked if GCCSDK was too complex for me and I said yes. It may be reasonably simple to setup and use for computer programmers like you. But then again I'm not interested in learning anything that is not simple for me. That is why I have partners that know how to programme. Just like I dont expect anyone here to know about PSF , deconvolution and confocal laser microscopy and image processing algorithms. I hope that is clear now. And BTW, the company are probably not interested in a small market, but I'm giving it a try to see if they are interested in the platform. I can only hope. Regards Bob
mrchocky (+0.1) 12/1/04 7:34PM	I'm well aware of both the context any meaning of what you did say. But I ask you again, what is your point? If there's issues with GCCSDK then we'd like to hear about them. If, however, you think that we require a new "simple" cross compile environment, then how do you justify this? Your point currently is that you want something for use by non-programmers, which seems to be something of a contradiction.
john 12/1/04 8:09PM	Maybe soething for non programmers who want to become programmers? I.e. some of that visuaul rubbish you get on windows. Might encourage more programmers, might encourage more bloated and worse programmers. Might encourage me to do some (more) revision for my next exam... :/ However, I'd say it's a waste of effort better spent elsewhere (no, not the revision!)
nijinsky (-1.1) 12/1/04 8:58PM	OK you did understand what I said but you dont understand the need. you wrote "If there's issues with GCCSDK then we'd like to hear about them." OK I read the web site and some of the things about it, and I think it is too dificult to do something quickly, --- for me that is. Not a fault of GCCSDK. JUST ME. It doesn't fit in with my ability, and I speculate it doesn't grip others of my ability. NOTE it is not a fault of the app JUST ME. Also note I dont know the ettiquet for emphasis so I capitalised some words, it is not intended as a shout. NOW I did write http://www.gla.ac.uk/~rh82p/confocal.jpg in a day and a half with a 4GL. It searches directories for files and quickly transfers them to the host directory. Ineeded this for work so I wrote it. I could not have done the same in such a short space of time on RISC OS. Fact. Now this sort of thing is the point. RISC OS needs applications. It needs users that see the simplicity of it. It needs a development environment that someone can get it up an running in a couple of days. (don't say basic, even that is too difficult for someone like me). Then when they get to grips with the thing they may progress onwards. "Your point currently is that you want something for use by non-programmers, which seems to be something of a contradiction." This is where you miss the point of RAD's and 4GL's. Simple to use but still powerfull. OK as soon as you write one line of code you are a programmer. Good enough for this kind of app on RISC OS in a day? Tell me how? Have alook at hypercard/supercard. Go to handango (OK for PDA's) and look at the sales of visualCE. Have a look at as simple and powerfull an implementation of BASIC you can get "realbasic". All aimed at nonprogrammers, to be simple to get them up to speed VERY quickly. On RISC OS there is wimp basic etc, however, and it is a big however, they do not cross compile on different platforms. (please note this is no slur on wimp basic. It is, I'm lead to beleive, a great programe). There are easy development apps on riscos, but they are only for RISC OS. To be cross platform you need a more dificult development environment and I found that off-putting. If you look at the original 2 line post you will see that the above and below is a clarification of "Yes like the possibility of a "new simple" cross platform development environment? " Unless RISC OS embraces the "can it run on windows" questions it is always going to lose sales of hardware. However, if you could say "it is a doddle for a complete novice to use RISC OS to make apps like the one obove in 2 days and if you want the same on windows, linux or mac you simply click another button and your app is there". And you get a nice OS to do it in. NO GUI etc to build that is different. Just click a button. Well surely that is a benefit to the platform? You could always say. Buy this machine for the house and write the apps you need in this riscos language, and you will need to spend a LOT of time learnig it to do so, AND then when you get to work and use MacOS or linux or solaris or windows, you will not be able to run the apps unless you use emulation. OR buy a nice easy to use RISC OS box, write in something like a RAD based on a 4GL like supercard, and then with the click of a button, cross compile for windows, linux, solaris, MacOS, and RISC OS and the front end is written for each platform automatically. Now you may disagree. And that is your perogative, however, just because you may disagree does not mean the point is not valid for a lot of people. Appologies to everone elso for the long posting. OFF topic now so I wont continue. Cheers Bob
NoMercy 12/1/04 11:02PM	If anyone had such a tool they'd be rich, though I have to say it'd have to be C/C++ based, <insert VB, 4GL, very rude comment about sub-standard languages> and of course... Sibelius ran on windows.
nijinsky 13/1/04 8:30AM	Hi NoMercy. It already exists, we are in contact with them, and they might be rich. Sibelius is not a dev environment Also Ovationpro runs on windows as well. -) Cheers Bob. Now definately keeping quiet about it.
jonix 13/1/04 5:03PM	I can't see a cross platform IDE aimed at "non-programmers" catering for the construction of complex algorithms. This could end up limiting it to only being able to produce desktop clocks, simple search programs and other utilities which already exist in many variants on all the desktop platforms I can think of.
MENTAT 13/1/04 6:59PM	*In reply to Jonix:* Re. your first sentence, why not?
jonix 15/1/04 11:40PM	What I mean is, if one is inherently a "non-programmer", then one won't know how to create complex algorithms. I can't imagine a tool being able to create one automatically.
nijinsky (-0.1) 16/1/04 11:53AM	I didn't say thte tool could create algorythms. Nor did I imply that the "non-programmer" should know how to. Perhaps I should have said routines. like tophat and rolling ball etc. cheers bob
jonix (-0.1) 16/1/04 4:12PM	*In reply to Nijinsky:* no, I realise that, but how many iterations of programs can you make that include a tophat and rolling ball (I don't confess to know what those are ).
mrchocky (-0.1) 16/1/04 4:23PM	The bottom line is that the applications created by non-programmers are ultimately limited to things like hypercard applications, databases, presentations and similar. Any complex behaviour almost always requires programming, no matter how much you go on about off topic discussions.
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