Midlands User Group

At the Midlands User Group this afternoon, I will be demonstrating a Raspberry Pi model Zero, ARMX6 (kit, with PiFi), Titanium (DIY) and IGEPv5 (Rapido Ig) and talking about the differences between them.

the differences between them.

Can’t imagine memory would make a lot of difference on RISC OS, once you’re over the Otter-needs-a-half-gig-machine, since RISC OS is lightweight.
It’s going to come down to basic clock speed/architecture isn’t it? The choice of Slow, Medium, Fast, and …. Me! speeds.

I wonder if video support might factor into it as well? I’m surprised at how naff the OMAP’s video capabilities are, and one of the reasons I don’t use the Beagle more is that it really doesn’t like talking to my HDMI adaptor. The Pi, by comparison, is plug and play.
But, then, the Pi is architecturally back to front, being an ARM bolted to a GPU (not the other way around) so maybe this flexibility is to be expected?

I think you’ve answered your own question – variations in architecture can and do make a significant difference in practice. Regarding Otter in particular, since the cost differential between a Pi and the top-end machines is of the order of 20:1, a key question is the extent to which Otter becomes smooth and usable on the latter. I am a big fan of the Otter port, which has done more to make RISC OS a viable day-in, day-out computing platform than almost any other recent software development, but you definitely need patience when running it on a Pi2 with JS on. If the Titanium/Rapido-1g machines offer a worthwhile Otter speed-up that alone would make me consider them. I can’t make this meeting but the comparison is certainly worthwhile IMHO.

Well, hopefully you’ll be able to see what Chris has to say for yourself on YouTube some point.

I plan to attend and film the talk for this meeting, as well as MUG’s future meetings, subject to clashes with other commitments – and provided whoever is giving the talk is okay with it¹.

If I do record it, it won’t appear straight away – I think it’s worth leaving it a few weeks; long enough that seeing a recording doesn’t make attending meetings pointless, but soon enough that the subject doesn’t go out of date. IYSWIM.

¹ There was some joking about this at the Bristol meeting on Wednesday, but Chris didn’t actually say yes or no at that point. So I’ll find out when I get there. :)

hopefully you’ll be able to see what Chris has to say for yourself on YouTube some point.

Excellent! And thanks. I’m glad Chris plans to demo both the Titanium and the Rapido-1g, as I’m intrigued to see if there is any material difference in their performance – the benchmarks [http://www.svrsig.org/HowFast.htm] suggest not. If so, the decision which to get will be difficult – support an important, long-standing dealer, or (arguably) the most significant native hardware development since the Iyonix? Funny how often, like buses, new RISC OS machines come along in twos (Riscstation/Mico, Iyonix/Omega, and now Titanium/Rapido-1g).

Funny how often, like buses, new RISC OS machines come along in twos (Riscstation/Mico, Iyonix/Omega,

I think that last counts as one and a bit rather than two.

I bought a CJE Titanium, when it arrived an RPi3 was in use, my first thought on the Titanium was that it had the feel of a modern computer in terms of its speed or responsiveness in a way that the RPi3 didn’t. Otter was better on the Titanium than on the RPi3 but I do have to say real world browsing is done here with Safari on a Mac which is someway faster, but NetSurf does what it does well on the Titanium with the cache enabled, I had always thought of Netsurf on RISC OS as sluggish on the RPi3.

Daily ROOL ROM beta builds are available for the Titanium so I can use those as I had previously done on the RPi’s, but that is, so far, not the case for the IPEGv5.

I am glad I bought this CJE Titanium, it really is rather good, but is is not a “day-in day-out” machine here, it is a splendid hobby machine from which I am getting my money’s worth, but it does sit alongside an iMac and there is a Mac mini under the tele, they are the “day-in day-out” machines.

If so, the decision which to get will be difficult – support an important, long-standing dealer, or (arguably) the most significant native hardware development since the Iyonix?

You can achieve both in one hit, since CJE also sell the Rapido Ti for native hardware goodness built in sunny Brighton.

Rapido Ti for native hardware goodness

Curiosity mode:
Given the remaining stock level of the first release board is there a rev 2 board coming? After all that one board must be lonely. :)

built in sunny Brighton

or sunny Worthing? And yes, I know about it!

since the cost differential between a Pi and the top-end machines is of the order of 20:1

And a Pi Zero? ;-)

but you definitely need patience when running it on a Pi2 with JS on.

I can only imagine that there must be “issues” with how RISC OS multitasks and the restriction on only using a single core? How do these things feel on a Pi3?

I ask – because a Pi2 is approximately the same specification as my last mobile phone, which did struggle a bit with Firefox but worked okay with the stock browser. My current phone is only marginally faster than the Pi3 (Firefox is much better), so there shouldn’t be a whole lot of difference; except for the slight issue that 1 core just isn’t going to get through as much work as four.

If I do record it, it won’t appear straight away – I think it’s worth leaving it a few weeks; long enough that seeing a recording doesn’t make attending meetings pointless, but soon enough that the subject doesn’t go out of date.

I wonder if a few days might be a better guess. There are plenty more reasons to turn up at a meeting other than talks, not to mention some of us simply cannot go. If there is discussion regarding issues raised at the talk, it’s perhaps better if all interested parties know what the discussion is about. :-)

Funny how often, like buses, new RISC OS machines come along in twos (Riscstation/Mico, Iyonix/Omega, and now Titanium/Rapido-1g).

Yes, it is strange. It’s like pitting two machines against each other – Celebrity Deathmatch style.

As for the Omega… Hmmm… https://web.archive.org/web/20120316220856/http://www.drobe.co.uk/article.php?id=1395
The comments are, like so often on El Reg, more interesting than the article itself.

Though, I think the funniest is possibly this: http://qubeserver.com/qube/systems/Omega.html

Quote: The Iyonix?
A fantastic machine, but though I absolutely wouldn’t say no to one I’ve not been minded to go looking. It’s to do with it ‘not being an Acorn anymore’…
…The Omega is an ‘Acorn’. It’s got a highly upgraded Acorn-compatible chipset. My Viewfinder RiscPC is an ‘Acorn’ even though not using it’s VIDC can introduce compatibility issues…
…An Iyonix is ‘not an Acorn’. It’s a box of off-the-shelf parts cleverly assembled to ‘behave like an Acorn’.

This, especially the last line, really tickles. Why? Well let’s start with the Omega not made by Acorn. Then we can say that according to the motherboard description it appears to be an ALi chip for I/O, a StrongARM, and two big-ass FPGAs programmed to “behave like an Acorn”. Possibly the only thing the Omega has in it that is more “Acorn” than an Iyonix is a StrongARM chip (which must have surely been showing its age by then?).

Don’t worry about stocks of Titanium’s, we at CJE Micro’s have good stocks and I’m sure Elesar can change some of their Linux Titaniums into RISC OS Titaniums if necessary. AIUI it will take them about 30 seconds a board!

Curiosity mode: Given the remaining stock level of the first release board is there a rev 2 board coming? After all that one board must be lonely. :)

Elesar’s shop shows the stock available for immediate despatch rather than all work-in-progress, so the stock levels tend to follow a sawtooth shape. Titanium stock is more complicated than, for example, its TRM since we have to make a forecast to account for the lead time of chips (up to 12 weeks) and other external influences such as large fluctuations in currency (most electronics is costed in dollars). The TRM on the other hand is printed in Slough so only needs 3 days’ notice to get more.

I wonder if a few days might be a better guess.

It might be – but it’s not going to happen.

I put together a ‘bullet-point’ comparison for the talk which I include below (edited to include minor corrections, textile has added the blank lines):

† – inclusive of support scheme
* – includes delivery

So there are three new machines at different prices: all three are available either as a bare
board or as a built computer. So what are the principal differences?

• Two of them (IGEP and Ti) use RGB instead of BGR
  • ArtWorks and Netsurf have been fixed, PhotoDesk and Ovation are in hand
• Only one of them (ARMX6) can do 3440×1440 video
  • IGEPv5 and Ti are limited to 2048 wide video
• Only one of them (Ti) has two video outputs
  • and can drive two monitors with half the desktop on each
• Only one of them (ARMX6) can run !PhotoDesk at present (not A15 compatable)
  • this is being worked on
• Only one of them (ARMX6) has fully-fledged HDMI audio support
  • allows 192kHz playback from RISC OS apps; also has baked-in‘ USB audio
• The IGEPv5 and Ti cannot do C256; the IGEPv5 and ARMX6 cannot do C16
  • these limits are likely to remain
• The IGEPv5 has the fastest SATA interface
  • but the others are not far behind
• The Ti offers a RISC OS app that can start up a Linux desktop
  • a reset is required to revert to RISC OS
• The Ti RISC OS source is available so you can build the ROM yourself

What do they have in common? SATA storage (either SCSIfs on ARMX6 or ADFS),
a good fast processor, micro SD card, gigabit Ethernet, SATA connector, real time clock,
serial port, USB sockets etc., at least 2Gbytes of memory (IGEP has 4Gbytes but RISC
OS can only use 2Gbytes). All also use an ARMv7 so the software incompatabilities that
have been seen on the Raspberry Pi model 3 (which has an ARM v8) do not apply.

How do you choose? My recommendation is to select one or more desktop machines
in your price range, know what performance you require and what softwareyou intend to
use and ask to make sure it can do this. If that ends up too expensive (and you are happy
doing some DIY), consider the equivalent bare circuit board.

Speed comparison benchmarks can be found here and some detailed comparisons here and in the June 2016 issue of WROCC.

Raspberry Pi – £25ish?
:-)

PhotoDesk and Ovation are in hand

Ovation != OvationPro.

Ovation Pi3/RGB safe :-)

I presume all these machines – need a digital monitor.

Would a RPC powersupply work with Ti etc?

Other things to keep in mind:

• Titanium board is standard ATX so can easily be put into many cases – very difficult for the IGEPv5 and the Wandboard (ARMX6)
• Titanium RISC OS is open and self-buildable – you cannot (currently?) build your own ARMX6 or IGEPv5 RISC OS

Titanium board is standard ATX so can easily be put into many cases – very difficult for the IGEPv5 and the Wandboard (ARMX6)
Titanium RISC OS is open and self-buildable – you cannot (currently?) build your own ARMX6 or IGEPv5 RISC OS

The Titanium is actually DTX. DTX cases are very thin on the ground but are available from: ‘We have it in stock’
For the RapidO Ig we use a MiniITX or DTX case and can supply the custom Bracket I/O Shield to bare board purchasers who can then fit it into any MiniITX, DTX or ATX case.

n.b. Re pricing quoted by Chris Hall. CJE/4D prices quoted are inclusive of delivery.

Other things to keep in mind:

Good point

Re pricing. CJE/4D prices quoted are inclusive of delivery.

I’ll add both these points to the info for Vince.

Also R-Comp’s machines are inclusive of their support scheme.

The Titanium is actually DTX.

The Elesar website disagrees with you: “Standard ATX form factor drops straight into standard chassis”

The Elesar website disagrees with you: “Standard ATX form factor drops straight into standard chassis”

“ATX-compatible form factor” is probably more correct. The power connector, backplate position and mounting holes are compatible with ATX chassis, but it’s a smaller board so you have the option of using a smaller (i.e. DTX) chassis if you so desire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTX_(form_factor)

The Titanium is actually DTX.

The Elesar website disagrees with you: “Standard ATX form factor drops straight into standard chassis”

Yes, if you imagine them like table mats the hierarchy goes

• ATX is huge (6 expansion slots)
• Micro ATX is smaller (4 expansion slots) but the holes are a subset of ATX
• DTX is smaller (2 expansion slots) but the holes are a subset of micro ATX, which was a subset of ATX
• Mini DTX also has 2 expansion slots, but with a little less board area

Hence Titanium is ATX form factor compatible and fits any ATX case, or its form factor derivatives.

Ovation Pi3/RGB safe :-)

Good to know, but Ovation is too simple to do anything complicated. :-)

I presume all these machines – need a digital monitor.

I think so? That said there are fairly cheap HDMI to VGA adaptors.

Would a RPC powersupply work with Ti etc?

I suppose you could wire the 5V to a micro USB, though it seems to me that such a thing wouldn’t necessarily be a power efficient way to do it…

Would a RPC powersupply work with Ti etc?

Not without extra DC:DC conversion. The Ti like most modern system uses 3.3V amongst other voltages!