RISC OS 5.20 formally released

See our news update here.

I note the datafile Resources:$.Resources.BASIC.VFPData in RO 5.20. However, I also note that

*BASIC
>HELP [

gives you the old, and presumably out of date, help information. Any good manuals lurking on the site?

I have offered to update the BBC BASIC Reference Manual but no reply from ROOL as yet.

I have offered to update the BBC BASIC Reference Manual

We’ve been discussing this – there are issues with getting hold of the original and getting a suitable copy of Framemaker, etc. A plan is coming together…

Excellent…

I am having some trouble finding the details of changes between versions 1.06 and 1.20 and between versions 1.30 and 1.39 but I think I have the rest. My research so far has concentrated on identifying the changes since 1992 when the previous manual was published. I also have the ‘BBC BASIC Reference Manual Addendum’ dated April 1995 covering the changes between 1.05 and 1.06 for RISC OS 3.5 (and 3.6).

So far I therefore have this

Aemulor 2.32: Iyonix ROS 5.20
Eureka v.3
“File obey2 not found” – mode change to Arm 3 or 600 make no difference.

If Adrian is unwell, I wish him better!!!

Chris: I have offered to update the BBC BASIC Reference Manual

Your pdf of changes is an excellent start!

I suspect you may need to include something about the ROL branch of Basic, even though it will make it a bit more complicated, to make the changes as complete as possible. There is some change info available from the ROL site

That explains why 1.35 (03-Mar-2003) predates 1.29 (08-Jan-2004). More complicated than I thought. I will also need to correlate bug fixes between the two branches e.g. Select 1.34 (fix for ERL from external code) with ROOL 1.54. Hmmm!

I think I might go down the ROL fork only as far as RISC OS 4.42 and BASIC 1.34 (to include Virtual RIsc PC-Adjust) which is about when ROL was dead on its feet.

Can I use BASIC64 from RISC OS 4.39 on my Pi under 5.21 to test it? That has version 1.29 (08-Jan-2004) which has been 32-bitted?

Anyway the pdf is updated a bit now but still has a gap in the detail between 1.06 and 1.20 (in the common tree) and between 1.30 and 1.39 (in the Castle fork, while Castle were doing paid-for ROM updates which I didn’t get).

I will have a hunt around my stuff.

[edited to remove unfounded flippant remark]

I will have a hunt around my stuff.

Many thanks.

I have investigated how much a BBC BASIC Reference Manual, in the same size as the PRM and RISC OS 3 User Guide (i.e. black and white inners, 190mm wide by 230mm high, perfect bound) would cost to produce in batches of about 20 and the cost is reasonable. So an updated, printed manual is on the cards.

in batches of about 20 and the cost is reasonable

Under £10? Under £20? Is the intention to sell these at shows? Then there’s the P&P, handling, faffing, etc. for non-show orders. A fully updated and corrected BBC BASIC manual could invite worldwide orders.

Is spiral bound an option for such small print runs?

For this kind of book – it is handy to be able to change/update the pages.
ie mistakes/updates etc.
Slightly lighter to post – providing your own cover.
Perhaps a version that included info on BBC for Windows.

What is a good price? I have paid <30€ for the 400 Sites of the C-Manual from the CD. I send the PDF to the copy shop in our village and became two spiral bound book with tranparent plastic covers. For a small series the price is certainly still negotiable.

Under £10? Under £20?

cost price between £9 and £10 each (assuming 500 pages and this inc. delivery of a batch to a single address) depending whether you add a few colour plates or not. That would mean a cover price of at least £20 and P&P of nearly £10 (just over 1kg). The options (which will be decided by ROOL) are printed copy for sale, PDF for download or sale and HTML ditto. Spiral bound an option but is more expensive than perfect bound (glued, like the PRMs). But let’s wait until the work’s done before worrying about decisions like this…

Chris – just out of interest, how much do you think it would cost for a one off of about 3800 pages. I’m not fussed about paper weight (do it like a Gideon bible if you want), binding, or if they split it into smaller parts, just so long as it is cheap! Source is PDF.
I contacted another company and… Let’s just say it would be cheaper to buy a laser printer, toner, several reams of paper, and make up my own.

still has a gap in the detail between 1.06 and 1.20 (in the common tree) and between 1.30 and 1.39 (in the Castle fork, while Castle were doing paid-for ROM updates which I didn’t get)

There is a bit of information here but I suspect you’re going to struggle to fill in all the blanks from before source code was kept in CVS. Note: this is all well before Castle owning stuff – we’re back in the Acorn days here.

1.30 to 1.39 in the Castle fork is all documented here.

I suspect Castle’s change logs around that time were nearly as sparse as ROL’s!

I resent that accusation! ;)

I resent that accusation!

Sorry Steve – it was an unfounded flippant remark. Removed.

I don’t think Steve was being serious – hence the smiley. Castle/Pace are very capable of producing terse changelogs! (‘Lots of Tungsten work.’ is perhaps one of the best examples, consisting of at least a thousand lines of changes spread across several Kernel source files. But no indication of what files were changed or what the changes do.)

There is a bit of information here …

Many thanks for that.

I suspect Castle’s change logs around that time were nearly as sparse as ROL’s!

I found them quite comprehensive. It’s just that I didn’t get the paid-for rom updates so I didn’t get them.

Chris – just out of interest, how much do you think it would cost for a one off of about 3800 pages.

The printer I use limits a perfect bound paperback to a maximum of 740 pages (i.e. 370 sheets) and so you would have to spplit it into volumes.
Price for a one-off from lulu.com is quite dependent on the page size.
Example A4 740pp £16 500pp £12
Another example Royal (6.139″×9.321″) 500pp £9

Although you need to add P&P, you will find that this is competitive against the price of toner for a laser printer plus the cost of paper. [Toner cartridge does 7000 pages and costs £90 and A4 paper costs £3 for 500 sheets making 500pp cost £1.50 for paper and £7 for toner.]

Another example Royal (6.139″×9.321″) 500pp £9

I don’t know what royal is (I’ll need to find a tape measure to visualise the imperial size), but that works out a little over £65. Not bad. Though I worry it’ll cost as much again in postage.
Ah, it speaks French.

[…]

Typical. Standard paper, 500pp, royal size: £8.95 or €12.30.
Same, but A5 size: £8.95 or €11.80.

I’ve bookmarked it, though note that LikeForex informs me that £8,95 is €10.28; so there’s like 15% or so extra on top here. Hmmm. :-/ It isn’t an American company, is it?

Anyway, conversion annoyances aside, I wasn’t aware of Lulu. Might be useful. Thank you for that.

It isn’t an American company, is it?

Yes. It has the customer service that you would expect from an American company that is careful to have no offices in Britain (which would imply that things like the Sale of Goods Act etc would apply to its activities).

I don’t think Steve was being serious

Yep, I was joking. :)

There is a bit of information here but I suspect you’re going to struggle to fill in all the blanks from before source code was kept in CVS. Note: this is all well before Castle owning stuff – we’re back in the Acorn days here.

I have tried to cover this as follows:

Development of RISC OS 3 reached 3.70/3.71 in 1996 which included StrongARM compatability, but there was little change in BASIC functionality between version 1.06 (RISC OS 3.50), 1.16 (RISC OS 3.70) and 1.19 (RISC OS 4.02). Some development took place under the ‘Select’ scheme (mostly, if not exclusively, confined to bug fixes) up to version 1.34 (06-Oct-2004) (RISC OS 4.42). Meanwhile development was taking place, in parallel, for the Iyonix computer, which was released with version 1.34 (02-Dec-2002) (RISC OS 5.01).

Whilst the changes at each version are described in some detail below, there are good reasons to review how developments between 1999 (RISC OS 4.02 and 4.03) and 2002 (RISC OS 4.33 and RISC OS 5.01) took place, if only to retain clarity between the Select fork and the Castle fork. Up to version 1.19, the version number of BASIC is unambiguous. After that point it is clearer to say ‘requires RISC OS 5’ or ‘requires RISC OS 5.19 (18-Sep-2012) or later’ or ‘requires RISC OS 5.20 or later’. In each case these are equivalent to requiring at least version 1.34 (02-Dec-2002), 1.53 (18-Sep-2012) and 1.54 (27-Apr-2013) respectively but avoid confusion with Select developments.