RISC OS User Guide AI Assistant released

To everyone interested,

I am delighted to announce that the first of four RISC OS AI Assistants, designed for beginners and those wanting to enjoy some new tech fun, is now available to everyone! 😊

Important Notes Before You Start Using the AI

YES, PLEASE READ THEM ;)

- The tools presented here are a type of Generative AI (GenAI), meaning they specialise in generating human-readable responses within the broader AI umbrella.
- These tools DO make mistakes, so DO NOT TRUST THE AI BLINDLY <—— Got it?
- GenAI tools lack reasoning or intelligence; they are purely statistical correlation generators. Consider this project a kind of “advanced” search engine.
- With the current generation of neural networks, there are – and will be – limitations.
- Privacy: I do not collect any data on your usage, so if you encounter an issue, please report it directly, as I won’t be aware otherwise. If you don’t report it, then it’s not a problem ;)
- ALPHA QUALITY: The tool is in its alpha stage, so I’m actively working on improving response quality. If you find a problem (e.g., incorrect information), please report it via the link below:

- This specific AI assistant is designed to help with the RISC OS User Guide, which means it can:
– Translate the guide into modern language, making RISC OS more accessible than ever
– Generate examples, making RISC OS a bit more approachable
– Recommend tools and applications based on user needs (apologies if your own application isn’t recommended!)
– Assist with installing and configuring RISC OS
– Suggest the best platforms for specific needs and budgets
– Although not primarily built for coding, it can provide basic examples to help users understand how to use commands, the Desktop, and RISC OS APIs (but please don’t expect miracles here; more specialised AI tools are coming soon)

For Developers:

- To have your application included quickly in the knowledge base, please email me with the application name, a brief description, a download link, and a list of features. Applications are being crawled, as this project is broader than just this assistant, so if you’re not in a hurry, rest assured your app’s details will be included.
- In the future, an API will be available for direct integration into RISC OS applications.
- NO, your source code is not being crawled. All the code examples used by the 3 coding AI assistants have been written by me (that is also because code examples have to be specifically written for AI training), and so when it’ll generate code, it’ll use my own code + what it has as principles in its larger language model. So my RAGs are applied on top of the existing LLM. The larger language model may however have your code already crawled (it’s very much unlikely, given AI companies do not care abotu RO, Rick has shown some example of this, ChatGPT has absolutely no clue of how to write code for RO). The AI has my permission to use my RISC OS code examples.

What’s This Project All About?

While the tool announced today is an “instance” of a larger project, the overall initiative is a complex system designed to discover, process, and store information about RISC OS. The engine running on my servers collects data about RISC OS and uses it to generate a graph database (based on graph theory, if you’re familiar). The end result is a knowledge base that powers various tools.

In this case, the engine generates and publishes a subset of information in the form of embeddings and RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) for OpenAI, enabling the service you’ll use to ask questions about RISC OS.

How to Access the Tool

To use the tool (still in alpha), you’ll need:

1) An account on OpenAI ChatGPT
2) This link: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-cDuJaLfS4-risc-os-user-guide

Once in, just ask questions and see how it goes.

Important: Everytime you have a chat with the AI, check at the very bottom of the chat if you have a notification that says a new version is available. If so, click on that link to start a new chat if you wish to use the new and improved version. Each new version foundamentally provides better results to questions.

OpenAI allows to have free accounts too.

Browsers and Compatibility
If you’d like to use it on RISC OS, you can currently access it via the Iris Browser (on a good day) from RISC OS Developments. Iris it’s now available with RISC OS Direct. This accessibility opens the door to many web tools for the community – a big thanks to ROD for this!
As for which platform is best; given the UI is quite heavy, I think a good Pi 4 is strongly required (I tested this on an overclocked FAST machine).

The service has been tested also on Linux, Windows, macOS and BSD. On Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and a few others.

The service does NOT work in NetSurf.

Please note: Given that chats can become quite heavy, I strongly recommend to use Linux, BSD, macOS or WIndows to access the service. Even in the cases when Iris work, it can get heavy pretty quickly. Also, Iris does not support the text-to-voice service and it doesn’t seems to work even with the text-to-image service.

What’s Next?

- We all know RISC OS documentation can be, well, a bit… imprecise (I’m learning the art of British understatement here), and the AI is in a similar state at the moment. But we’ll keep improving it, so no need for grumpiness! It already has more information than the Wiki on the ROOL’s site, so there’s that :)
- More AI Assistance instances will be released beyond just using OpenAI services, so for examples there will be RAG for LLAMA 3.2, Sonet etc.

All right, enough wording, have fun and let me know if you have issues! Cheers

Guide for Beginner Users to Ask Questions Effectively

To get the best experience using this assistant for RISC OS, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to ask questions:

1. 1. Be Clear and Specific
   – Provide as much context as possible about your issue or question. For example, instead of asking “How do I use SWI?” ask “How do I use the `OS_WriteC` SWI to output a character?” or “How do I access ADFS using * commands?”

1. 2. Identify the Focus of Your Question
   – Mention if your question is related to:
   – Desktop Usage (e.g., file management, window manager).
   – Command Line Commands (e.g., Commands in the CLI).
   – *Programming or SWI Calls** (e.g., accessing OS functions through software interrupts).
   – Specific RISC OS Versions (e.g., any features specific to RISC OS 3.60).

1. 3. Use Documented Names and Codes
   – If you know specific terms, like SWI names or hexadecimal values, include them. For instance:
   – For SWI calls, you might specify `OS_WriteC` or provide the SWI number (e.g., `&00` for `OS_WriteC`).
   – If unsure, mention the task you are attempting, and the assistant can help pinpoint the exact SWI or command.

1. 4. Ask About Troubleshooting Steps
   – If you are facing an error, describe what you’ve done so far and any error messages you’ve received.
   – Example: “I tried using the `ADFS` command to access my floppy drive, but it says ‘Drive not ready’. What steps can I take to resolve this?”

1. 5. Exploration of Functional Areas
   – Feel free to explore:
   – File Management: Questions on ADFS, FileCore, DOSFS, and other filing systems.
   – Networking: Configurations related to Econet, NetFS, and DCI4.
   – Utilities and Modules: Information on tools like `ScreenBlank`, the Buffer Manager, or the Draw module.

1. 6. Learning and Examples
   – If you’re learning to program or use SWIs, ask for sample code or explanations:
   – “Can you provide an example of how to use the `OS_ReadC` SWI to read keyboard input in BASIC?”
   – “What is the process for using the Draw module to create a simple shape?”

1. 7. Reference Documents and Commands
   – If you refer to documents, use titles or parts, like “PRM Volume 1” or “Release Notes for RISC OS 3.60,” and specify page numbers if possible.
   – Ask about specific * Commands, OS_Byte, OS_Word, or other system calls by mentioning them directly.

1. Common Questions You Can Ask

- Basic Navigation: “How do I select multiple files on the desktop?”
- File Management: “How can I move a file between directories using the Shift key in RISC OS?”
- Command Line Operations: “What is the syntax for the `*Copy` command?”
- Programming Queries: “What registers do I use for the `OS_HeapSort` SWI?”
- Troubleshooting: “Why can’t I access the network drive on RISC OS 3.60?”

1. Tips for a Quick Response

- Be Direct: If you’re familiar with technical terms, use them to speed up the process.
- Use Relevant Descriptions: Describe your goals or expected results clearly.
- Learning-Oriented Questions: If you’re new to a concept, mention your familiarity level, e.g., “I’m new to SWIs; could you explain what they are and how to start?”

By following these guidelines, you’ll receive accurate, helpful answers tailored to your needs and experience level with RISC OS.

Follow the same guidelines also in your own language if different than English. FOr example for Italian users, just ask questions straight in Italian (and obviously the same for other languages).

Guide for Beginner Users to Ask Questions Effectively

There, fixed that for you. ;)

What is the process for using the Draw module to create a simple shape?

This led me down a rabbit hole of transformation matrixes, and the explanation was “not bad”.

However… I got a choice of two responses and I chose the second one (even though the first is possibly more intuitive to a RISC OS programmer) because it seems to want to shift everything 16 bits to the left. To rotate by 90 degrees and double the size, my matrix is either -131072 and 131072 or -2 and 2. Surely something has gone wrong here, or is this some weird quirk of maths?

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-cDuJaLfS4-risc-os-user-guide/c/672cfb9a-384c-8009-a137-336902aa3408

That being said, it’s a nice explanation and splitting it into parts and then combining them like that does help to make it clearer.

Going further… https://chatgpt.com/g/g-cDuJaLfS4-risc-os-user-guide/c/672cfe2c-c9dc-8009-92d8-b5cc6a4d4755

Not tried the code yet (writing this on Android), but again it’s good to be able to ask questions about little-understood things and get concise RISC OS relevant responses.

😺

It explained what it meant to “flatten” a path (read that in the StrongHelp). And then it popped up a message saying:

Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus or try again after 11:24 PM.

It’s 19h here, so about four and a half hours.

I point this out so if you want to try this, ask concise and direct questions as you only get ten (?) at time.

Nothing to do with Paolo, it’s OpenAI’s free tier limitations. I’m just saying so you can get the important questions asked first. ;)

I’m just saying so you can get the important questions asked first. ;)

Cash OK, or card only at the bar?

There, fixed that for you. ;)

XD

However… I got a choice of two responses and I chose the second one (even though the first is possibly more intuitive to a RISC OS programmer) because it seems to want to shift everything 16 bits to the left. To rotate by 90 degrees and double the size, my matrix is either -131072 and 131072 or -2 and 2. Surely something has gone wrong here, or is this some weird quirk of maths?

Rick, thank you very much for your feedback! And for the enthusiasm, seeing people having fun with the toys I make, makes all the effort worth!

Sounds like I need to add more code examples using the Draw module, however I cannot say for certain given the two provided links where no longer available… In any case I’ll add more code examples during the weekend and we can see how it goes after.

But it may also be that it needs a bit more info on how the module works underneath…

I point this out so if you want to try this, ask concise and direct questions as you only get ten (?) at time.

You can usually edit your questions to ask totally different questions, and these don’t count towards the limit… I’m sure they’ll close that loophole, though.

cannot say for certain given the two provided links where no longer available

Useful. There’s no persistence. Great job there, OpenAI…

I’ll ask again (I’ll need to, given my memory!) and this time I’ll try to print to PDF.

Useful. There’s no persistence. Great job there, OpenAI

Memory span of a goldfish?

What’s a goldfish?

That was a fast success, we have more than 100 chats going on, that means quite a few people are having fun with the new toy! :)

Thank you everyone and keep the feedback coming!

Nice one – any browser you can recommend to use this offer.

NetSurf does not seem to like ChatGPT – oder apps that claim to be browsers but by current standards are at best HTML viewers I didn’t even try.
OBrowser and Otter-Browser seem to not quite like the ShardLibs – the latter even after a reinstall – but they are pretty old and were not that useful at the time being so not much hope…
OWB ist on par with NetSurf on https://chatgpt.com since nothing shows at all with this one.

Iris (Dec 2023 verison from ROD RISC OS Direct) reliably fails on the Cloudfare check that I am human – well, perhaps trying this with a RISC OS browser is kind-of inhuman :-)
On one fun fact: I wipted Iris choices, rebootet and wow, first call of https://chatgpt.com did show a useable window; but the log in button did nothing and upon next request for that page the humanity check loop starts.

Am I doing something wrong, or is there currently no browser for RISC OS useable for ChatGPT thanks to Couldflare.

Hey Herbert :)

NetSurf does not seem to like ChatGPT – oder apps that claim to be browsers but by current standards are at best HTML viewers I didn’t even try.

Correct. I have mentioned in the instructions that NetSurf doesn’t work with the service. NetSurf does not support dynamic layouts. So, even if it has JavaScript support, it will never work with any website or web app that uses those, and most web chats indeed have dynamic layouts. Hence, NetSurf and any other browsers for RISC OS before it are out of the question.

OBrowser and Otter-Browser seem to not quite like the ShardLibs – the latter even after a reinstall – but they are pretty old and were not that useful at the time being so not much hope…

This, unfortunately, is a known issue, and there is little we can do about it. We’ll have to wait until everything merges into the newer SharedLibs (if ever).

Iris (Dec 2023 version from ROD RISC OS Direct) reliably fails on the Cloudflare check that I am human – well, perhaps trying this with a RISC OS browser is kind of inhuman :-)

This is something that likely changed recently. When I tested it about a year ago, it worked fine. In all honesty, I wouldn’t necessarily assume it’s a problem with Iris… I had a set of interviews last summer at Cloudflare. They were lovely people (really nice folks), but the technical level that emerged during the interview was pretty low, to be honest. A couple of interviewers even showed up without having prepared their interviews. In 8 interviews, only a single senior system engineer had his interview prepared, and the questions were okay. The others were very young (maybe at the beginning of their career?) and clearly improvising. I decided not to work for them pretty quickly.

On one fun fact: I wiped Iris choices, rebooted, and wow, the first call of https://chatgpt.com did show a usable window; but the login button did nothing, and upon the next request for that page, the humanity check loop starts.

I ran your very same test and got the same results, so I guess it no longer works (I’ll update my instructions).

Am I doing something wrong, or is there currently no browser for RISC OS usable for ChatGPT thanks to Cloudflare.

I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. Maybe you can try to report the issue to Cloudflare, I’m sure they’ll try to help.

We could investigate what their JS is trying to check; it’s probably that the User Agent is reporting something their JS cannot verify, or their mouse tracking techniques may not work yet in Iris (yes, that type of captcha works by tracking how the mouse moves, and if it can’t get that information, it assumes we’re a robot). Unfortunately, Iris is still not open-sourced, so we can’t examine how the JS engine is actually working with RISC OS, hence I can’t really know what the actual problem is.

any browser you can recommend to use this offer.

Yes, I am a Linux user, and my Linux laptop works really well. I also have macOS and Windows systems, and they work well too. For BSD lovers, the latest FreeBSD Desktop works even better than Linux and the others (but for BSD, you need a laptop/desktop that’s compatible).

For those who want to use only ARM boards: Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 work fine with Linux for ARM, so no need to use x86. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Brave all work fine.

For privacy enthusiasts, you can try TOR Browser, but Cloudflare will probably give you a hard time, so it’s worth adding a VPN service to change your TOR IP to something Cloudflare finds more acceptable. Or, you could use a proxy service like Smartproxy with Residential IPs.

Rick (see above) seems to be using it fine on Android, and it obviously works on Apple iOS devices.

For people like Julie, who recently expressed interest in using AI with a coding UI, there are plugins to access this service on VSCode (I haven’t tried them yet, though). If there are problems, please let me know, and I’ll create a dedicated plugin, not a big deal.

Hope this provides plenty of options.

As for RISC OS:

- I would not recommend using RISC OS even if it did work, because the chat cache can get really large, and I doubt RISC OS software would handle storing a lot of metadata smoothly.

- However, for the “RISC OS or die” crowd, don’t worry. I’m working on a client specifically designed to access the service directly from RISC OS, as browsers may also have issues with copy and paste, so we really need a dedicated client for RISC OS.

HTH

[update]

After digging a bit more into CloudFlare checks, it clearly fails to complete the “challenge” sent to the browser. In theory that should not be happening (given the version of WebKit used in Iris), so probably there are some issues with the way JS engine is interecting with the OS. Maybe this is fixable on the Iris side. Certainly ROD should be interested in solving this, given that CloudFlare is a very popular service used to “secure” many popular servers (althought again, people should be careful adding these stuff in front of their servers, ’cause in this case CloudFLare is clearly unable to detect a real human using a relativelly recent WebKit based browser.

[/update]

althought again, people should be careful adding these stuff in front of their servers, ’cause in this case CloudFLare is clearly unable to detect a real human using a relativelly recent WebKit based browser.

Last year, or early this – I don’t recall – Cloudflare were part of the problem our users were having getting to a totally clean site that was flagged as a malware source because it shared the same frontend resource at Cloudflare. After a bit of conversation, that got sorted, but the initial issue came from Cloudflare not properly monitoring what they are fronting. I did wonder about the tech know how, or lack of, and your interviews’ insight adds to that.

@ Rick and Others

New update of the AI available, this update contains:

- Plenty of updated information on DrawMod, big thanks to ROOL for (obviously) making available the sources, so I can actually write my documentation using those. The AI now should have all the details about the module, the techniques used in the module, and also some info to help people to enable debugging in the module to help with things that may still go wrong.
- Plenty of information on the OLE Protocol for OLESupp, the module per se is copyright RComp (I believe, unless this has changed in recent years), it it has also been distributed in the past and was even part of some !Boot packaging and it’s certainly a very useful module (It would be great to have the sources to do a better job at documenting the details, but, given there is absolutely nothing on the Wiki here, I thought this would be already a bit step forward).
- More info on using RISC OS Apps: !Draw, !Paint, !Edit and !Alarm (althought if these still need more documentation, but it’s a start)
- Some minor fixes here and there (we may refer to bug fixing, but given that is AI, the actual fix may not be sufficient, so please let me know if things have actually improved your end).

As always, to have access to the update, if you have an open session, start a new chat, thank you!

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback! :)

All right, enough wording, have fun

Thanks Paulo, nice work.

@ John

My pleasure, glad to see so many are having fun with the new toy :)

To all

New Assistant release published, this should add a lot of information about:

- ZeroPain and how it works
- Early info about RISC OS boot process and !Boot structure (for the !Boot structure I have added information about the original Acorn UniBoot till 1998, then RO Ltd changes and RO 5 changes, but how that will work in an answer needs to be tested, here it’s late and I am tired now).

Enjoy the new version :)

To All interested

Another day and another update:

- Enabled more information about graphic techniques usable on a series of programs
- Added info about DrawPlus, Vector and a bunch of other vector graphics programs and tried to correlate them with the techniques mentioned above
- Extended the list of computers/SBCs etc. that can run RISC OS (both retro and modern)

The AI search is still reasonably fast, so I hope to be able to add more info about sound too (and techniques) and obviously MIDI. This weekend maybe…

Have fun!