RPCEmu and RISC OS 5.2x Tutorial

I thought a tutorial on RPCEmu and RISC OS 5.20 might be useful.

I have been using RPCemu happily on Mac OS X for a number of years, under Lion / Mountain Lion and now Mavericks (10.9), so I thought I would produce a version of the above installation and configuration instructions for OS X.

Although RPCemu is now at version 0.8.11 for Windows, the latest binary version for OS X appears to be 0.8.9, with a beta produced by Francis Devereux available via a link on the RPCemu website.

Installation

1. Download the zip archive of RPCEmu 0.8.9.
2. Open the zip archive, and copy the application file RPCemu to the Applications folder (either drag it over the Applications entry in the Finder sidebar, or onto the Applications folder on the dock).
3. As the zip file doesn’t contain the folder contents of the Windows zip, create a data folder, e.g., RPCEmu within your Documents folder, Documents/RPCEmu. Create a subfolder called hostfs within this folder, and another called roms.
4. Download an IOMD ROM image from RISC OS Open. All files, stable and beta, are available from the ROM Images page. The recommended ROM for the RiscPC is IOMD stable, other variants exist to cater for other CPUs, each with a stable (even numbered) and a beta (odd numbered) version – this text assumes a stable IOMD ROM.
5. Copy the file riscos from IOMD-Soft.5.20.zip/soft/!Boot/Choices/Boot/PreDesk/SoftLoad/riscos into the Documents/RPCEmu/roms directory. The other files aren’t needed and can be discarded.
6. Download the ROOL self extracting hard disc. As with the ROM image there are both stable and beta versions available. The recommended file is HardDisc4 – stable 2013-06-16. Copy this file to Documents/RPCEmu/hostfs as HardDisc4-util,ffc take care to keep the ,ffc (comma ffc) ending which will be translated by RPCEmu to produce the metadata filetype for RISC OS.

Configuration

1. Open the Applications folder and click on the RPCEmu icon to launch it. A dialogue box will appear, asking you to choose a data directory – choose the RPCEmu folder created earlier.
2. Ignore the TaskManager error and click on the RPCmenu item in the menu bar and then Preferences…
3. Select the RiscPC StrongARM hardware option, select 128MB or more RAM, and 2MB VRAM.
4. After the restart the emulator will stop at a * prompt. This is because the system is not currently configured correctly to boot into the desktop – type desktop to start the desktop GUI. Cancel the error ‘Machine startup has not completed’.
5. Click HostFS, on the iconbar, to open the root directory.
6. Double-click on the HardDisc4-util to extract the HardDisc4 contents. Wait a while. Double-click the HardDisc4 directory that has been created to open it. Cancel the error ‘No Boot application has been run’, and hold shift down while dragging the !Boot to HostFS:$ (this moves it rather than copying).
7. Press f12 and issue the following commands
   Configure FileSystem hostfs
   Configure Boot
8. Press enter twice to return to the desktop then press ctrl-shift-f12 to shutdown.
9. Click the OS X Close button.
10. Click on the RPCemu icon in the Applications folder to re-launch RPCEmu.
11. When RPCemu is launched, it should now boot to the desktop. All further configuration of RISC OS is personal preference. Access the configuration section of RISC OS by a single click of the Menu (middle) mouse button over the cog icon on the far right of the iconbar.

(I couldn’t quite emulate all the formatting in Steve’s original item)

Mike

(I couldn’t quite emulate all the formatting in Steve’s original item)

Two points:
1. I cheated and created an html based document and then tagged it top with notextile and bottom with /notextile the rest is just html tags – the wiki does allow it but the diff function on revisions has a bit of a hissy fit while actually doing the job.

2. If you bounce back to the original version you will see what I put there before Sprow tidied things up. The current version has my name as a last edit which removed ONE letter to correct a typo.

I’m grateful, I’m sure he has better things to do than tidy up my “prose”

If you add the link at the source page take the line for the Windows tutorial copy it below the windows line and change the bit in double square brackets to something like RPCEmu and Mac OS X
When you save that you can click on a link that creates the shell page for your tutorial.

BTW. If you drop on to the Windows page, click edit, copy paste the content of the edit window into a text editor then cancel the edit you will have a copy of the format and text for the windows version and you can make the modifications for the OS X version offline for a quick paste in when you log in to edit.

If you add the link at the source page take the line for the Windows tutorial copy it below the windows line and change the bit in double square brackets to something like RPCEmu and Mac OS X
When you save that you can click on a link that creates the shell page for your tutorial.

Update: Mike I took your text, added the history bit and link to the real hardware ROM stuff, couple of bits of editing to (mostly) match Sprows edit of my entry and we now have a Mac OS X RPCEmu installation page.

Comments/Insults?

Many thanks, Steve – you beat me to it!

However, you’ve not changed the target locations in steps 5 & 6 under Installation – these should be Documents/RPCEmu/roms and Documents/RPCEmu/hostfs, as per my first post.

Mike

However, you’ve not changed the target locations in steps 5 & 6 under Installation – these should be Documents/RPCEmu/roms and Documents/RPCEmu/hostfs, as per my first post.

More accurately – I did a quick hack and slash instead of a search and replace for the markup and then some top and tail. :(
That’s why people should always have someone else check their work.

Changed.

Give it a run through.

If you bounce back to the original version you will see what I put there before Sprow tidied things up.

While there were lots of edits, the basic content is all still there and I figured it’d be more typing to explain in a forum post than to just wade in with my Textile waders.

My main aim was to make it more of an introductory document, power user topics like alternate install directories made the text quite clunky. A power user probably wouldn’t be reading it anyway, whereas a casual web surfer might well do, so having a clearly layed out shop window is important. Much though Textile baffles me, it forces use of the site’s CSS so documents come out looking well integrated and easy on the eye.

Good intro though, you’ve filled a big omission.

Damn… sorry, I tried to make a change to that page and messed it up, and I can’t see how to revert it to Sprow’s last change.

And… I think it’s back now.

My main aim was to make it more of an introductory document, power user topics like alternate install directories made the text quite clunky.

Yeah – verbose. I’m used to providing noddys ABC for the guys in desktop support. Not that they are stupid, just trained not to think.

Good intro though, you’ve filled a big omission.

99% of the contribution is from Tony Moore, with stitch ins of limitations from elsewhere.
Modified text for Mac OS X – Mike as above.

Needs a Linux walk through too. Hint, hint Linux regulars…

The Windows 7 networking element should be fun. XP has amnesia for the TAP settings so it will only get a brief mention.

Okay, got it right this time.

The box that reads “Note: There is no provision for…” annoyed me because there was no padding on the left, so the text was right up against the border.

Except… not. I’ve just looked at it again and it’s back to yesterday’s (before Sprow’s latest edit, let alone my change).

I don’t like this system. :(

And apologies for breaking it. :(

The Windows 7 networking element should be fun. XP has amnesia for the TAP settings so it will only get a brief mention.

I’ve never successfully got networking going from RPCEmu on Win7 (or anything else for that matter). Very annoying!

I’ve never successfully got networking going from RPCEmu on Win7 (or anything else for that matter). Very annoying!

I will try and fit things in – I’ve had the amnesiac version working a few times, but it’s only recently the available laptop kit expanded to include a W7 machine. (works kit and things have to be able to run all the utilities I use day to day, so the w7 is a “being built” version)

The box that reads “Note: There is no provision for…” annoyed me because there was no padding on the left, so the text was right up against the border.

The original had some CSS defining a style for the text. The CSS went, so did the style and the padding wandered off in disgust. :) There you go, a Vince style explanation. :-P

The original had some CSS defining a style for the text.

Which I note was fluffed slightly on the RPCEmu site.

Vince: You’re right about it needing padding so…
padding:0.5em (i.e. all round) I think that looks better.

Done the Windows and OS X pages.

Good man… except looking at the page here still shows it as yesterday’s version, before Sprow’s latest edit. The OS X version looks right, though.

Okay. Loading both pages into another browser shows the current version for both. In which case: WTF?

Ah, right. Instead of trying to reload the page, I navigated away and back to it, and now it looks right.

Is it pub time yet?

Is it pub time yet?

I’m on leave so the whole day is pub time if I want, plus the total bottled beer count of about five cases including Chimay red¹ a bottle (most of anyway) Bowmore² and a shelf full of stuff from the SMWS.

¹ Look it up, this is stuff I’ve had stored for a number of years

² You must know it, even Tesco sell it these days

Steve,

I’ve made a very small edit to the OS X tutorial (to Configuration point 2) – while you were down the pub? :-)

Mike

I’ve made a very small edit to the OS X tutorial (to Configuration point 2)

Ah, typo in the original text.

– while you were down the pub? :-)

Been out on a rare shopping trip and back sitting with Nigerian Guinness and Shipyard Blue Fin Stout on the table.