Interested in an ARM-based laptop?

You’re kidding, right?

If only there was some way I could indicate that, maybe next time.

I think convention these days is to use /s at the end of a sarcastic comment.

…or to realise that I was responding to sarcasm with sarcasm. :-p

I think convention these days is to use /s at the end of a sarcastic comment.

Or use some kind of old school combination of keyboard characters known as a “smiley” like ;-) which is seemingly so common that stuff like MS Outlook will, erm, “helpfully” change it to a prettier version.

Something like /s sets my mind thinking of control characters affecting items after the control.

I think convention these days is to use /s at the end of a sarcastic comment.

It may be useful to drop a smiley or two to “indicate” that you aren’t to be taken too seriously (in case the tone of the message wasn’t a clue), however one should never use /s to indicate sarcasm.
Why? Because sarcasm that needs to be signposted is pretty much missing the entire point of what sarcasm is.

Or from a Pinebook?

;-)

OK, now it’s been teased (not actually released), do we have any guesses as to when it will become available to us?

OK, now it’s been teased (not actually released), do we have any guesses as to when it will become available to us?

As I said in another thread:

Native? Then I’m wanting to know the price and delivery lead time.

Ah, I see that people from these forums have been working on a port to the Pinebook.

As I said in another thread:

Native? Then I’m wanting to know the price and delivery lead time.

Yes, but you asked the day before the show. I’ve asked after the show closed, in the hope that more information might be available by now.

do we have any guesses as to when it will become available to us?

It will be available within days, because rcomp don’t pre-announce products, unless Andrew was mixed up as the same posting has rod messages in also

A laptop (incl. supported WiFi) is what I‘m looking for quite some time. I didn‘t touch Risc OS for a while, mainly as I have currently no decent space for the hardware (all occupied by my wife and my son) and I‘m travelling a lot. Long story short – I‘m interested!

It will be available within days

Well Andrew said it may be done early but it could be circa Feb 19 so a bit like ARMX6 in nearly being ready but a little while to sort out a few things.

It also depends on shipping/production runs as well.

Current runs are for the 14" TN screen one not the 11.6" IPS panel so depending on which type you want then this could be a factor.

As to price then c. £399 but there is the option to go for a higher price c. £499 with funding for native WiFi development or other improvements.

WiFi would be done so all of RISC OS has this capability so we don’t have a split.

All in all a great show and one that was really positive.

Is this the machine?

https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/

How did the PiTop2 turn out?

Bryan Hogan posted a lovely photo of the machine on his twitter account.
Looks really nice.

https://twitter.com/rougol/status/1056192309946171392

Is this the machine?

Yes but for UK pricing on the bare system you need to add in shipping and customs taxes etc so about double the base dollar price.

Plus someone has to spend time porting RISCOS and doing other work.

How did the PiTop2 turn out?

Well it’s Green , very Green.

Better resolution than the PineBook and has Wifi via adaptor and the keyboard is better than the PiTop V1.

It is bulkier than either the 14" or 11.6" Pinebook.

It is a good alternative and one to be considered as CJE have done a good job on making it a good RISCOS package.

But as had been said the PineBook looks good in a MacBook Air type way.

Bryan Hogan posted a lovely photo of the machine on his twitter account. Looks really nice.

So, Andrew Rawnsley has access to Pinebooks which others have to wait months to get confirmed after a complicated ordering process – how is this poaaible?

What magic is being invoked to jump the queue?

Or is it all subject to a non-disclosure-order?

We need to know!

What magic is being invoked to jump the queue?

Perhaps OS developers take precedence over users?

Andrew Rawnsley has access to Pinebooks which others have to wait months to get confirmed after a complicated ordering process – how is this possible?

If you watch Andrew Rawnsley’s talk from the London Show, he says that the CEO of Pine wanted RISC OS running on the Pinebook so contacted RComp and sent them samples, with hardware docs and contact with their engineers to help get a port done :-)

Sounds interesting – ref the rundown of the 11 inch Pinebook I pointed to – there seems to be a FM receiver in there.

(the tester seemed more interested in the cheap price)

(Firefox ran slow – didn’t seem to like the touchpad/buttons)
(Case stripped down well)
(Larger HD chip could be fitted)
(Room for hardware upgrades)
(Speakers a bit tinny)

Was the machine at the show running RO?

[edit 1]
Overall seemed to like the machine.

Was the machine at the show running RO?

Yep.

Was the machine at the show running RO?

Yep.

So the question is can I spend some money and get myself a Xmas present (or if the delivery is a bit late a birthday pressie – 18 days extra)?¹
Then testing the Filer amendments is a comfier exercise^{2 3}

¹ I ask as a nearly Omega owner.
² The sofa is comfy the chair in bedroom 4 (otherwise known as Steve’s computer place) is less so and I’m closer to the fire and radiator here on the sofa.
³ Assumes there’s a wireless setup in the unit, otherwise I have to drill a hole through to the garage a wire to the router/NAS/UPS rack

So the question is can I spend some money and get myself a Xmas present (or if the delivery is a bit late a birthday pressie – 18 days extra)?

Well depends on what you want as current production run is for the 14" model with the TN screen not IPS.

Also depends on RComp sorting out a couple of porting issues.

As I said earlier Andrew said Feb 19 with a possible earlier ship if all went well but best call RComp after giving them a couple of days to recover from the show if you want more details and also a £150 deposit may get you on the queue to get one.

As I said earlier Andrew said Feb 19 with a possible earlier ship if all went well but best call RComp after giving them a couple of days to recover from the show if you wnat more details and also a £150 deposit may get you on queue to get one.

Missed that post, could have saved time asking.

Timing is past the birthday and the absence of Wx means sorting out the masonry drill for a wired run behind me (assuming there that the default before Wx enablement is a provided USB/Ethernet adapter).

14" TN vs. 11.6 2 IPS – Hmmm, I tend to use a laptop directly in front of me so wider viewing angle in IPS doesn’t seem a factor.

One big question is the keyboard – the Pinebook web pages are showing the 14" model to have a more extensive key set but in both the # key has migrated to the strange trans-pondian¹ location on shift-3 so the display and wireless drop to side issues if the keys aren’t in the right places or totally missing.²

Looks like no ARM laptop around here for a fair while.

¹ Now there’s a tautology for you
² No, I won’t “get used to it” anymore than I could get used to toothache.

Steve, personally I’d save the masonary drill and use a wireless point / nano-router type device. Usually less than 20 quid. Some can even be USB powered.

Keyboard is soft-configurable, so that shouldn’t be an issue. We’re already planning a few “key swaps” to make things easier for folks.

Of course, you can dwell on 1001 reasons not to buy something. Or you can join the party on what is arguably the most exciting step forward for RISC OS for 20+ years. Your choice :)

(wink)

Sorry for enthusing so much, but, you know, when did a far eastern hardware manufacturer last start demanding RISC OS builds for their hardware? RISC OS has the opportunity to grow for the first time in many, many years. :)

PS, one thing which maybe wasn’t clear – you don’t have to put down deposits if you’re not comfortable with dealing with us like that. Just expressing interest at the appropriate price points is enough. I’ll try and get the PDF of the show flyer up online tomorrow.

One of the things that’s really helpful is to get a handle on how many units we need to import (in rough terms) as that can be quite expensive in and of itself.

when did a far eastern hardware manufacturer last start demanding RISC OS builds for their hardware?

Ummm, is this a trick question? Is “never” a valid option?

As for the keyboard, take a look at this (from my blog):

I don’t stick labels on my keys in order to have fancy squiggly things, it’s actually for a very real purpose – I hate AZERTY with a passion. I’ve never used a more unfriendly keyboard layout. So the key labels permit me to ignore the French layout, paste on an English style layout, and use that.
Okay, you’re a little stuck if the keyboard has fewer keys (over-pondian keyboards tend to have massive Enter keys…) but if the layout is basically the same, consider fancy labels if it doesn’t suit your desires.
BTW, I’m with you. There should be a hash key beside Enter and a backslash key beside Z, Sh3 should be £ and more importantly Sh2 should be ". If I wanted something weird and different, I’d fire up my Beeb…