Desktop Development Environment

About the DDE

The Desktop Development Environment is a suite of tools for building applications and modules which run on RISC OS, as well as the OS itself.

The tools were originally developed by Acorn and Codemist in tandem with RISC OS, and is what they used for in-house development. As such, there are still strong ties between the RISC OS source code and the DDE.

What's included?

The DDE includes:

• C compiler optimised to producing efficient Arm code
  • generates object code suitable for ARMv2 to ARMv8 (AArch32)
  • strict implementation of the ANSI/ISO language standard
  • includes C99 extensions
  • includes C18 extensions
  • allows C to be freely mixed with inline assembler
• Arm assembler
  • includes Arm A32, Arm T32 (formerly 'Thumb'), FPA and VFP instruction sets
  • powerful macro expansion facilities
  • more advanced than any current Open Source Arm assembler
• Linker
• Makefile utility, object librarian, C module header generator (CMHG)
• Desktop application debugger
• Object compression/decompression/analysis tools
• GUI resource file editor
• Intelligent Arm disassembler
• ABC (Archimedes BASIC compiler) to convert BBC BASIC programs into machine code
  • feature set closely matching the interpreter
  • directives to control extra code generation options
  • fast floating point support for either FPA or VFP instruction sets
  • can produce applications and even modules
• Arm Cortex-A8 instruction timing simulator
• CFront based C++ translator
• Comprehensive documentation in fully cross-indexed Adobe PDF format
  • C/C++ and ABC (covering the three compilers)
  • Assember (covering ObjAsm)
  • Desktop Tools (covering the other tools and applications)

When compared to the last Acorn C/C++ release, there are the following headline changes:

• Updated C compiler (including C99 and C18 dialects, instruction scheduling, inline assembler, and CPUs up to ARMv8 AArch32)
• Updated assembler (including support for the VFP and NEON instruction sets, and CPUs up to ARMv8 AArch32)
• Updated BASIC compiler (including DIM LOCAL and similar, VFP accelerated floating point code generation)
• Suitable for running on and producing both 26 & 32 bit versions of RISC OS
• Extensively revised set of manuals
• Produces faster and smaller run-time code
• Major and minor bug fixes
• Reorganised for USB or download distribution and ease of installation

When you buy the DDE from ROOL, any updates in the twelve months following your purchase will be released to you free of charge. As a registered developer you are licensed to use the tools and libraries to create commercial products. The DDE requires a minimum of RISC OS 3.10, 16MB harddisc space, and 4MB RAM.

ROOL DDE USB stick for £50

Buy your copy from the ROOL store for £50 plus P&P. We will send you a FAT formatted DDE USB stick and provide a temporary download link for your digital copy.

Buy your copy of the DDE as a digital download, with no waiting for a USB stick to arrive. We will send you a temporary download link for your digital copy.

Half-Price upgrade for £25

If you have purchased the DDE from RISC OS Open more than twelve months ago, you can upgrade to the latest version as a zip file download at this reduced rate of £25 . Enter your Developer Number (which starts with 'DEV07') into the box provided then proceed to the checkout. If you've forgotten or lost your Developer Number please send us an email and we'll try to find you in our records, please allow up to two working days while we search.

Developer number: DEV07

Special BASIC-Only DDE for £0

If you don't need the full range of languages that the DDE offers there's a variant with only ABC in it for compiling BBC BASIC programs. Thanks to an initiative sponsored by RISC OS FR this is available at no cost by following the instructions in this announcement. Should you decide to expand your horizons later then it can be traded in for a 10% discount from the full ROOL DDE.

Special Pi-Only DDE for £0

If you're a new developer hungry to get started working on the RISC OS source code but buying a full copy of the DDE is putting you off, you can get started with a version which runs on the Raspberry Pi family of computers. Thanks to an initiative sponsored by RISC OS Open this introductory version is available at no cost by following the instructions in this announcement.