'Adjust' ROM FAQ online | Drobe.co.uk archives

'Adjust' ROM FAQ online

By Chris Williams. Published: 23rd Feb 2004, 23:34:58 | Permalink | Printable

Part exchange offer

As a follow-up to our previous article on the unveiling of RISC OS 4.39, aka 'RISC OS Adjust', we can report that developer RISCOS Ltd. has published online a ROM upgrade FAQ as well as other release details.

RISC OS 4.39 can be part exchanged with a RISC OS 4.02 ROM set for a 10 quid discount on the upgrade price. 'Adjust' will also be initially supplied on Flash ROM, with OTP ('one time programmable') ROMs to be produced if there is sufficient demand.

On the subject of a 32bit Iyonix compatible RISC OS 4, RISCOS Ltd. Managing Director Paul Middleton earlier today explained to drobe.co.uk: "Much of RISC OS 4 is 32bit compatible, but major areas such as Kernel obviously need to be tailored to specific processors or else a suitable HAL added. There is no intention of making RISC OS 4 a 32 bit OS for existing StrongARM or ARM7500FE processors".

Links

RISCOS Ltd. website

Previous: Living with Technology review
Next: New USB mice and keyboard support for Iyonix

Discussion

Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date | Skip to the end

I notice from the website link that RISC OS intend to have this available ond on sale this coming weekend at the South West Show.

I'm curious about Flash v OTP ROM - Which is better ? I'd have thought Flash was but the 'if sufficient demand' makes it sound like OTP is.

Oh, and I hope it is compatable with Viewfinder as I imagine that this is ROM is especially of interest to users looking to extract the most from their StrongARM machines. I'll be surprised if it isn't but it's a topic not covered by the FAQs.

martin on 24/2/04 7:34AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Why don't they give a price for orders from outside Europe? ie no VAT but with shipping.

rmacf on 24/2/04 7:42AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Martin - yes, it's compatible with ViewFinder.

md0u80c9 on 24/2/04 9:20AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

So, if much of RISC OS 4 is 32 bit compatible, all we need is another hardware manufacturer to produce a 32bit machine by either a Xscale or another ARM processor.

As for a tailor made version, why don't they just put a HAL into RISC OS 4 anyway. It's only going to make it easier for them to support other hardware in the future.

sa110 on 24/2/04 10:51AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

"So, if much of RISC OS 4 is 32 bit compatible, all we need is another hardware manufacturer to produce a 32bit machine by either a Xscale or another ARM processor."

The Omega? It's VIDC/IOMD compatible. And you wouldn't have to wait for ARMtwister.

monkeyson on 24/2/04 11:12AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

@sa110:

They are working on a HAL. They are increasing the level of abstraction from the hardware all the time. Next thing on the list seems to be a standard API for graphics cards.

JGZimmerle on 24/2/04 12:26PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

That would be good news. Unfortunately I think it is unlikely that any other manufacturer will produce another 32bit machine. Most people who wanted a faster machine will have already bought the Iyonix. Those few that didn't aren't going to make it worthwhile enough to make such a machine. Cheers!

The Doctor on 24/2/04 2:01PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Maybe not in the consumer market, but ROL is slowly but steadily transforming RISC OS into a modern OS wich might appeal to the embedded markets again, once that process is finished.

JGZimmerle on 24/2/04 2:56PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

ROL have IIRC no licence for any other than the desktop market, and since Castle are also interested in the embedded market (and have a lot more experience in that market, as well as being able to sell combined software/hardware solutions and having a lot more man-power), ROL are wasting time and money if they are doing what you tell us they do.

ROL have, until now, clearly focussed on the desktop user (which is their job!). For the embedded market, I am quite sure that things like a USB stack, a working HAL, a Unicode-capable font manager and WIMP, large application space (read: RO 5) as well as vast experience in writing USB, ethernet and SCSI drivers is a lot more valuable than a Joliet-capable CDFS, a better !Paint and pseudo multi user support.

hubersn on 24/2/04 3:37PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

From what I gathered from Jack Lillington some time ago, the embedded market is where the core business is for CTL. Select has some nice features but CTL may feel they don't need the 'bloat' (if that is the right word). Maybe Drobe could get a statement from CTL about incorporating Select features.

Eddie on 24/2/04 7:33PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The trouble is Select doesn't necessarily mean 'bloat'. One of the things RISCOS Ltd say they've worked on in Select is making the kernel itself smaller and more modular, which you could argue is more suitable for an embedded OS. Just because Select includes some extra graphical features doesn't mean they need to be built in to a ROM image.

hubersn: I'm curious as to how you know what RISCOS Ltd's licences say? I'd assume since they announced they were working on embedded RISC OS over 2 years ago now they probably thought they would have some way of selling it. I do agree this is yet another area where it can't be in the best interests of Castle or RISCOS Ltd to have unnecessary competition though.

illudium on 24/2/04 7:50PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

A ROL spokesperson just told the Select list that, at present, there isn't an ROS4.39 upgrade path for RiscStation, Mico and Omega users. The spokesperson added, "The manufacturers concerned may chose to offer it as an upgrade for their machines, but we have not been asked to make the necessary code available to them as yet."

Chris.

diomus on 24/2/04 8:34PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

@hubersn:

IIRC ROL's licence sais, that they have the desktop market exclusively and that they may sell into other markets, provided that they do not create direct competition for pace that way.

BTW, the CTL/Pace deal looks very different to me under the light of the recent SCO/Novell lawsuite. Maybe CTL have not bought as much as we thougt? Does someone have more details on the CTL/Pace deal?

JGZimmerle on 24/2/04 11:06PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The CTL/Pace deal was very simple: CTL bought everything RISC OS, including e.g. the support commitments wrt Pace's RISC OS customers. I fail to see any similarities to the SCO/Novell issue.

hubersn on 25/2/04 1:51PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

JGZimmerle:

Is that more of your wishful thinking?

fylfot on 25/2/04 2:03PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The problem with the CTL / ROL issue is that neither can afford to sue the nuts off the other.

Pity, cos otherwise we wouldn't have this silly OS fork.

epistaxsis@work on 25/2/04 2:32PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I know that many find the RISC OS fork irritating, perhaps as much from an ideological point of view as what it currently amounts to, in practice. In a sense it's a part of life for anyone into computing though: Everyday I work with a collection of Acorn machines running RISC OS 3.1, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and 4.03 with a wide range of RAM from 4 to 134MB. I'm forever bumping into things that one machine can do and another can't. My point is that, over time, all OSes fork and that if we have to live with it, we can. I agree that it's not ideal but at least both prongs of RISC OS are moving forward and being developed. I'm quite excited about the new 4.39 ROM release - While RISC OS 5 has had to focus on its innards RISC OS 4 is thinking more about what the icing on top should look like.

martin on 25/2/04 6:41PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

martin:

so you don't come across RO5 machines...

so you don't really see the fork.

Lets put it this way - a mate of mine has just downloaded some sort of select patch for his RiscPC and it screwed the machine.

Given that I use RO5 it was difficult.

Speaking personally I think that all RO4 derivatives are a waste of time - ROL included.

unless of course you wish to run some sort of :doody: emulator

I wish that CTL had enough cash to kick mr. Middleton's arse - he (and his 2 bit company) are directly responsible for the current sorry state of affairs...

epistaxsis@work on 25/2/04 8:00PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

epistaxsis@work: Do you actually have any facts to base that on at all? What on earth makes you think that Mr Middleton is to blame for the OS fork? I don't think either company (or Pace for that matter) is entirely blameless in this, but to put all the blame on RISCOS Ltd is silly.

What do you mean by "some sort of select patch" as well? AFAIAA there hasn't been any sort of "select patch" released for a while.

illudium on 25/2/04 8:17PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The similarity is, that SCO sais the same thing about Unix (that they bought it all). However Novell sais that they kept the copyright and only sold the technology to SCO. IIRC the press release for the Pace/CTL deal said, that Pace had sold the RISC OS technology to Castle, but that Pace kept the intellectual property rights for it?

@fylfot: What do you mean? That I would wish for RISC OS to still be locked inside Pace? Bulls***. Just because I think that an OS split is a bad thing and that it would have been a better idea if Castle had contracted ROL to do the development on the OS, to concentrated on the hardware instead, does not mean that I wish for Castle to be fooled in the way that SCO seems to have been fooled. After all they still are a RISC OS company.

JGZimmerle on 25/2/04 9:18PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Hum. My Iyonix now claims that RISC OS 5.05 is (c) Castle Technology Ltd.

That accords with my understanding of what Castle bought from PACE. At the time, the announcement also said that existing licences continued; I think that includes RO Ltd.

TonyStill on 25/2/04 9:38PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Rather than wittering on about some nebulous law suit, it would be nice to concentrate on the actual matter in hand. ROL will give a ten quid discount off the price of 4.39 for a px on my 4.02 ROMs. Very nice.

Except... how long will this actually take? 'Cos for that time I'd be the proud owner of a plastic box with some bits in, not a computer...

mikeg on 25/2/04 10:38PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

mikeg> RISCOS Ltd have said that they will send out the 4.39 ROMs, and then you send back the 4.02 ROMs. If they're not back within a certain time (28 days according to the press release linked above) they'll charge the extra £10.

illudium on 25/2/04 10:40PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I agree that for us, these licencing/ownership issues are only of academic interest. However, as such I do find them interesting.

JGZimmerle on 26/2/04 2:26AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Hmm - maybe soon will be the time for me to buy a used RO 4.02 ROM set for my RiscPC? £20 plus pnp would surely get me one?

Gulli on 26/2/04 12:59PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Please login before posting a comment. Use the form on the right to do so or create a free account.

+++ Message board +++

Read messages or start a new thread

Search the archives

Today's featured article

RiscPC breaks 1.5GHz barrier
Calm down dear, this is a case mod

23 comments, latest by flypig on 13/5/04 1:56PM. Published: 12 May 2004

Random article

Artex release new screenshots of the latest Iron Dignity developments

Discuss this. Published: 15 Sep 2000

Create a new account
Forgot your password?

Useful links

News and media:
Iconbar • MyRISCOS • ArcSite • RISCOScode • ANS • C.S.A.Announce • Archive • Qercus • RiscWorld • Drag'n'Drop • GAG-News

Top developers:
RISCOS Ltd • RISC OS Open • MW Software • R-Comp • Advantage Six • VirtualAcorn

Dealers:
CJE Micros • APDL • Castle • a4 • X-Ample • Liquid Silicon • Webmonster

Usergroups:
WROCC • RONE • NKACC • IRUG • SASAUG • ROUGOL • RONWUG • MUG • WAUG • GAG • RISCOS.be

Useful:
RISCOS.org.uk • RISCOS.org • RISCOS.info • Filebase • Chris Why's Acorn/RISC OS collection • NetSurf

Non-RISC OS:
The Register • The Inquirer • Apple Insider • BBC News • Sky News • Google News • xkcd • diodesign

Â© 1999-2009 The Drobe Team. Some rights reserved, click here for more information
Powered by MiniDrobeCMS, based on J4U | Statistics
"This poll is not indicative, and doesn't reflect public opinion"
Page generated in 0.0399 seconds.