Last minute London Show news from RISCOSbits

In last minute stop-press news, RISCOSbits are pleased to announce a few additions to the London Show stand.

For those of you who are in the market for a RISC OS laptop, RISCOSbits may have exactly what you are looking for at the London show! We will have VERY LIMITED stock of Linux enabled Pinebook Pros available for sale at the London show. Whilst these laptops are not fitted with RISC OS for licencing reasons, we can demonstrate them running RISC OS to show you that it is possible and easy to do. All you will need to do is pop along to another stand at the show and purchase access to the ROM.

As people may be aware, there are two variants of Pinebook Pro – one with a UK layout keyboard, and one with a more generic (US) layout. We will have both available.

The Pinebook Pros come equipped with 64GB of eMMC storage preinstalled and pre-formatted for RISC OS use. The laptops (running Linux) will be available on a “first come, first served” basis for a very low price – remember, stocks are very limited.

We will also have a number of prototypes on demonstration at the show. The first of these will be the as yet unnamed dual head machine running both RISC OS and Linux. Codenamed the slightly Tolkein-esque Bob (Best Of Both) Twelveports, this machine clearly comprises enough ports to serve a small Navy and enough processing power to run both RISC OS and Linux concurrently, with both operating systems having both dedicated (as well as shared access to) super fast NVMe storage. Initially designed as a DIY build machine, plans are in place to encapsulate the machine into a standard ITX format for use with standard PC cases.

The second prototype due to be shown off is our new luxuriant partially wood panelled ITX case. Made from robust acrylic sheet, with wooden front and top panels for a more luxurious accent, this case is sure to wow people at first glance.

Neither of these prototypes will be available to take away on the day but come and have a look, see what you think, and maybe even suggest a proper name for Bob! Our current preference is ROLux (to rhyme with boll…) so any suggestions gratefully received!

Due to supplier issues, we are disappointed that our new EDOS64 won’t be available at the show. We’ve been beavering away behind the scenes to update our previous EDOS to 64bit and we’ve done it just in time to discover our supplier is out of stock.

For previous purchasers of EDOS, there is no easy upgrade to EDOS64 – even with Linux on a native Raspberry Pi, it has to be done by reinstalling – but if you send your media back to us, we can perform the upgrade for you. You will lose any Linux settings and files that you haven’t backed up, but the RISC OS side should remain intact. There will be a minor administrative charge – please contact us for details.

The last bit of ‘stop-press’ news is that RISCOSbits will be bringing a one-off PiRO Noir to London with 544GB of RISC OS storage! To avoid having to do complicated equations, that is comprised of a 64GB SD card and a specially partitioned 480GB M.2 drive, made up of a 256GB filecore partition and the remainder set up as a fast Turbo drive. That’s three disc icons on the icon bar!

If you want that extra storage for your RISC OS needs, without going down the NVMe path, then this may well be the machine for you.

And the final teaser is we’ll be bringing along some pennywise sticky drivers that could be absolutely key!