What does your RISC OS setup look like?

The Icon Bar is aiming to publish more frequent articles over the coming months to provide stuff for people to read/comment and interact over. We are hoping to run a series of articles on what your computer system setup looks like, especially if you have had to move things around with the current lockdown. Hopefully not precariously balanced on the edge of the bath…

Our first article in the series is at https://www.iconbar.com/articles/What_is_your_current_RISC_OS_setup/index1537.html . If you would like to send in a picture or your setup and a description, we would love to publish any contributions. My email is on the post.

Not as neat as yours! If you want to have a photo of the jungle, sorry rainforest, then I will send one in just as soon as my registration with iconbar is complete. At least my rainforest is a Mickey$oft and AppyMac free zone.

This was my set-up in 2017 – it’s still much the same: http://clive.semmens.org.uk/RISCOS/Desk2017.html

We’re actually in a new house (well, not a new house, but new to us) and it isn’t exactly the same. I’ll take a shot of the current set up later today.

David,

My email address is on the post so you can email me directly if interested – no registration needed

Clive,

Looks very nice and I like the ARM mug. I have started using my ‘Keep Calm and carry on using RISC OS’ mug.

The Icon Bar is aiming to publish more frequent articles over the coming months to provide stuff for people to read/comment and interact over.

Thanks for that!

If you would like to send in a picture or your setup and a description

Which one? :)

All of them!

Many thanks for all the submissions so far – we will run one a day as long people want to send them in. Fascinating to see the different setups and kit people have running!

Another set up here

I think you need another keyboard

My workspace is here: https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20131103
It is, of course, seven years less tidy. ;-)

Here is how the Pi and networking is handled: https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20150912

There’s a little switch in the way too, to allow the Pi, PC, and another machine or two to share the Vonets. And, of course, my NetRadio.

My RISC OS set-up resembles a recycling centre – otherwise known as “a tip”!

If I took a photo I’d have to add arrows: → Raspberry Pi etcetera

I think you need another keyboard

There is a KVM switch there.

John W.

Not as big a tip as my study, I bet. Like you, having seen others photos, I don’t think anyone would like to see my jungle.

While we are on it, why is it that when you go to change or remove a cable it is always tangled up with loads of other cables despite originally routing it carefully to avoid it being caught up with other cables? Do these cables have a life of their own? Are they mating?

Surely cables with plugs and sockets are meant to mate?
It is generally when they fail to mate they cause problems.
Let them have a peaceful life.

I often wondered why some cable ends were said to be male and some female: it’s all about mating. I suppose that’s why I have so many cables under and behind the desk.

Do these cables have a life of their own?

Time to quote myself, from a post of 7 years ago:

And a lesson: one day I will clean the terrifying knot of wires and cables that lives its alien life under my desk.

That day hasn’t yet arrived, and the knot has grown a lot bigger now. Apparently, it’s a very persistent species.

I think it’s a whole phylum, not just one species. When we moved, in the community under my desk I discovered a number of individuals of species that I’m pretty sure date from the Jurassic period.

I think it’s a whole phylum, not just one species.

Looking at another thread on connecting a plotter, I was reminded that sometime ago I had a USB/Centronics lead which allowed me to drive my old printer from my new(!) Iyonix computer.

Have I still got it? I’m not sure. It was a few countries ago!

I had a USB/Centronics lead

Me too, though I never used it as the printer (Epson?) that I had at the time supported both parallel and USB. It is somewhere in its wrapper.

Anyway, most such leads provide a “printer interface class” and they have the IEEE1284 protocol built in. That means the host throws some data at it, and it deals with the parallel port behaviour. Makes it useless for bit banging.

There is one chip, USS720 I think (or is that The Enterprise?) which can be switched to “register mode” where it then provides registers like traditional hardware so you can read stuff like whether or not the !ACK pin is high.

Anyway, printer yes. Scanner or zip drive? Not so much…

that I’m pretty sure date from the Jurassic period.

In a box buried in the corner, all lonely and damp (and probably mouldy eighteen years later) I believe I have an 8 inch floppy and a Umatic tape.
Which is peculiar given that I have never possessed such hardware. The biggest discs I’ve owned have been the 5.25" on the Beeb, and the video tapes were either VHS or ßetamax.

<shrug>

Makes me wonder where they came from. I don’t recall ever thinking “cool, I’ll buy myself an enormous disc I can’t use!”.

Anyway, printer yes. Scanner or zip drive? Not so much…

Just a thought!

While we are on it, why is it that when you go to change or remove a cable it is always tangled up with loads of other cables despite originally routing it carefully to avoid it being caught up with other cables?

If you haven’t already read “Three Men in a Boat”, by Jerome K. Jerome, you should. He had something to say on a closely related topic (among many other equally entertaining ones).

I believe I have an 8 inch floppy

I may still have some somewhere. I’ve certainly got the floppy box they lived in, and they may still be in it. If they aren’t, I don’t know what is – could be any of all sorts of things. It’s in the old house where our son lives, and I shan’t make him take a look.

For a while I had a rescued IBM word processor that used them, but I cannibalized that aeons ago. Its PSU is still driving something or other, very probably, but I’ve lost track.

I still have a few 5.25" hard sectored floppy discs!

I believe I have an 8 inch floppy

I could talk (discretely) with one of the guys in Pharmacy to find out your options :)