The WROCC Vol 38 Issue 5 Out Now

The August 2020 issue of The WROCC – the newsletter of the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club – is on its way out to members across the UK and beyond this week.

Issue 5 of Volume 38 has a member relate how they used lock-down to set up a Raspberry Pi 4 to run RISC OS, and the problems that had to be resolved along the way. There’s a look at using AltKeys from XAT to enter non-standard characters, a quick comparison with Rick Murray’s MoreKeys, and some more Teletext-related nostalgia from members. We give an update on the changes to the Club’s email discussion forum, and reveal what we plan to do with part of the very special first prize from the draw at the cancelled Wakefield show.

See https://www.wrocc.org.uk/newsletter for more details of recent issues, and to download samples of older issues.

Able to trace its roots directly back to the first Wakefield Club newsletter in April 1983, these days The WROCC is produced in an A5 booklet layout and copies are delivered free to WROCC members in PDF format. Membership of the Club costs £15 per year with a reduced rate of £7.50 for the first year… and despite our name, there are no geographical restrictions.

a quick comparison with Rick Murray’s MoreKeys,

Don’t s’pose you could send me a copy of that bit, could you?

and some more Teletext-related nostalgia from members.

BTW, you know, there’s a pile of teletext stuff lurking on my site. In case anyone is interested.

Don’t s’pose you could send me a copy of that bit, could you?

Check your email (assuming that I’ve got the right address)…

BTW, you know, there’s a pile of teletext stuff lurking on my site. In case anyone is interested.

One of those apps (TTXeditor) was part of the memories! :-)

I wonder if there a way of sponsor PDF mags for people outside the UK?

Is there a way of explaining ‘zoom’ for the in-experienced?

And how much data is used per session?

Thanks. You might also find http://heyrick.eu/software/oldsource/ worth a look. All the teletext source is at the bottom.

I will leave it to Steve to fill in details of the specific setup in use but Zoom is probably the easiest¹ of the video conference solutions generally available.
Copious help info and a test setup all available on their website the main issue with most solutions is the non-intuitive control setup so the test instance probably needs a bashing before actual live use.

¹ MS Teams / Skype seems to require half of the universe of tcp/udp ports open to half the planet’s IP space through a firewall before it even starts working. Cisco Webex has fewer port requirements and a minimal server URL group.
The Go To (hell) family of applications fostered by Citrix is a bad joke – the test site doesn’t work unless you allow access to numerous data mining and tracker sites and it’s pretty flakey even when you give it unrestricted access.

With reference to the bit about TTXEditor… uh…

I’ve just installed the latest build of RISC OS on my Pi 2.
And run TTXEditor.

And did this:

Not one single hiccup. Not one single crash. It was happy when I switched down to 64K mode (and Netsurf promptly died ;-) ).

So… are you using the latest of my DeskLib builds? You need a recent compiler not just for the program, but for the library too. You can grab a copy from http://heyrick.ddns.net/desklib/ (note – get the archive at the bottom of the page for all the stuff, the link at the top is very literally the .o library file)

If that all sounds like too much bother, I’ve stuck a copy of my build at http://heyrick.ddns.net/files/ttxednew.zip (along with the most recent versions of the support modules, in case they need to be updated as well)

Hope this is useful.

So… are you using the latest of my DeskLib builds? You need a recent compiler not just for the program, but for the library too. You can grab a copy from http://heyrick.ddns.net/desklib/ (note – get the archive at the bottom of the page for all the stuff, the link at the top is very literally the .o library file)

Yup. I built your DeskLib sources using the current DDE, then used that to build TTXeditor.

I’ve stuck a copy of my build at http://heyrick.ddns.net/files/ttxednew.zip

The same behaviour, I’m afraid…

(along with the most recent versions of the support modules, in case they need to be updated as well)

…however those fix it. The problem seems to have been plotting non-graphics characters in anything other than column 0, but since it works with the updated modules there’s probably no point narrowing it down further.

Thanks!

I wonder if there a way of sponsor PDF mags for people outside the UK?

What are you thinking of? Copies of The WROCC already go outside of the UK each month.

If you mean “PDF mags in not-English”, then you just need people willing to write for them and edit them every month. :-)

PS. I should add that I’m fairly sure that some already exist. The Big Ben Club have a newsletter called *Asterisk, and the German Archimedes Group have GAGNews – both websites imply current activity. Isn’t there a French group, too?

I will leave it to Steve to fill in details of the specific setup in use but Zoom is probably the easiest of the video conference solutions generally available.

Zoom seems to be that platform that the RISC OS groups have so far settled on, probably for those reasons.

Copious help info and a test setup all available on their website the main issue with most solutions is the non-intuitive control setup so the test instance probably needs a bashing before actual live use.

I don’t know how others did it, but WROCC provided details of the software downloads and test meetings to all those who attended the first meeting in June, provided contact details for those with questions, and set aside time at the start of the session to help people. We had no takers, so presumably it “just worked” for most people.

We had similar experiences at the theatre I’m involved with, where we had moved all activities on to Zoom by late April. We’ve largely given up on promoting the support stuff, as no-one seems to need it.

…however those fix it.

Mmm, so it wasn’t my crappy code after all. ;-)

Is there a way of explaining ‘zoom’ for the in-experienced?

You know how Skype lets you talk to somebody and see them, and them you?

Now imagine a screen with a grid of, say, five by five little video feeds to allow 25 people to talk to each other at the same time.
That’s Zoom.

And how much data is used per session?

A quick search online suggests between 810MiB (high quality) to 2.4GiB (1080p quality) per hour for group meetings. Will be less on mobile, as the client/server optimises the data to fit the available bandwidth and will usually drop quality when you’re using mobile comms.

Mmm, so it wasn’t my crappy code after all. ;-)

It seems to be the difference between Teletext+ 2.34 and Teletext+ 2.35, whatever that is.

Isn’t there a French group, too?

Not today, even if – basically – RISC OS FR is a user group.

Not today […] RISC OS FR […]

It is a group, it’s just more laid back. There’s no magazine and no meetings.

But, it ought to be remembered that France has a similar population to the UK in two and a half times the space. Oh, and out of urban areas, a poor-to-non-existant public transport system.
[there’s a reason they’re willing to let people like me, who had never driven on anything more than a car park (when I was 10!) drive a toy car…without a licence…]

the difference between Teletext+ 2.34 and Teletext+ 2.35

I don’t have the sources so could be barking up the wrong tree, but a cursory look at both suggests that at offset +&EDC of the older module, there’s this:

    LDR   R6, [R10], #1
    MOV   R6, R6, ROR #28
    AND   R6, R6, #&FF

That looks to me rather like it’s reading a byte by way of rotated load. If so, ARMv7 will either abort (if alignment exception) or do something completely different (if no exception). ;-)

The zoom meeting was great I logged on my phone on CarPlay no video of course, when I started my commute to Brisbane from bribe island in the Sunshine Coast, just about right length it was finishing by the time I got to work great start to the day I hope that they continue to include zoom at every meeting then people can join in from anywhere in the world.