RISC OS 5.24 on RiscPC... "updowngrade" from 6.20

Hi! I have a StrongArm RiscPC with 4.39 in ROMs, on which I installed the 6.20 softload version around 2011. I guess I can stop waiting for the reunified RISC OS 7 for now, so yesterday I tried to install the 5.24 softload version into the installed file system, mainly because I just came around to try the C/C++ update from Castle from february last year and it seems to be broken on the 6.20 system.
The first try went through making a backup of !Boot and then merge the 5.24 !Boot. The files under Choices/PreDesk..got installed, but I did not manage to get it started in the boot process.
So the second try was to reinstall the original RiscOS 4.39 !Boot distribution. Did not work either. I did install the downloaded version 5 System updates from the separate archive, but it still does not work to softload 5.24. I can start !!Softload directly, which runs the reboot, goes into the start screen and then fails to access the disk. I guess I am missing something fairly basic here. Any ideas?

I suspect all you need to do is completely replace !Boot with the version from 5. The PlingSystem updates aren’t required as they provide updates for legacy RISC OS versions.

When you double click on !Softload – how far does it get – ie the RO5 desktop.

What system (ie motherboard ADFS) are you using for your HDisk.

Are you able to get/give star commands?

If so what does below give :-

*UNPLUG

[edit]

Colin, when I double click on !!Softload from RiscOS 4.39 I get the prompt, and after entering y I land in Supervisor mode.
typing *desktop gives me the Castle RiscOS 5 splash screen for a while and then the desktop with an error message “Invalid shut down state detected in CMOS”
Hard disc access does not work then.

I am using a SSD with UniPod IDEFS.

*unplug shows MBufManager,AUNMsgs, Internet and BootNet from (Podule 8), which is the i-cubed Etherlan600LK interface, i believe.

Edit: I just ordered the ROMs, to make things easier and to give a little support…

Jon, tried that too, did not work…

I am using a SSD with UniPod IDEFS.

That’ll be your main problem – there aren’t any 32bit compatible UniPod drivers available. If you want to use RISC OS 5, you’ll have to use the motherboard IDE interface.

If you had the SSD connected to the UniPod because the motherboard IDE interface didn’t like it, you might find that it works OK on the motherboard IDE with RISC OS 5. E.g. the “disc error 20” bug, which could theoretically occur on any OS version when using a drive manufactured in the past 20 years (but was mostly only seen when using CF cards), was recently fixed.

For the network card, I believe you’ll want to install the updated EtherH driver from this page (installation instructions included in the download).

Jeffrey, thanks for the hints. Here is what happened until now:

The 5.24 ROMs arrived today. I had some difficulties working out the fact that different from all the other RSC OS ROMs I have here, the labels are printed to be readable from the back side, before I managed to notice the IC notch pointing in the other direction… I did some interesting intermediate experiments like fitting the 4.02 ROM modules again to see if I can softload 5.24 from there, which involved finding them first, because logically the RiscOS 4.02 box contained the 3.71 ROMS (and another StrongArm-110 sample chip I totally forgot about) while the 4.02 ROMs ended up with the 4.39 package…
Well, the result was that the softload starts up, but then leads to a red screen with the keyboard dead and the floppy light blinking 4 times.

Ok. as soon as I put them in the right way around, I was able to boot. Went into supervisor mode, but I could do a *desktop, saw the castle splash screen and then the normal desktop. Unfortunately the hard disk was not recognized, so I thought I run the !IOMD524 application from cd, which I did. That broke something, because after the reboot I got the boot prompt with an error window in front of the command line showing “Error: Memory cannot be moved (Error &1C1)”., which also came when typing *rommodules, *help and other commands. I did reset the CMOS commnd holding down “R” on boot, but it still comes when trying to change to the desktop.

Apart from the EtherX from Unipod I also have the i-cubed EtherLan 602 card fitted which of course only does 10MBit/s. I am a bit confused about that bit about no 32bit compatible UniPod drivers, because it is working with both 4.39 and 6.2. The SSD naturally is formatted with IDEFS now, can’t really remember if this was a problem with ADFS… Probably yes. I’ll try tomorrow if I can get some usable state out of this. As a fallback I still have the disconnected 2GB ADFS drive from 1999 inside which worked fine the last time I connected it.

I am a bit confused about that bit about no 32bit compatible UniPod drivers, because it is working with both 4.39 and 6.2.

Both of those are 26-bit.

I am a bit confused about that bit about no 32bit compatible UniPod drivers, because it is working with both 4.39 and 6.2

As Chris says those both run the system in 26 bit mode.
If it helps clarify things then if you work on the fact that RO5.23 is the beta that became the stable RO5.24 then RO4.39 is the beta that became the stable RO6.2 – really ROL should have done RO4.37 and 4.39 as increments in the beta and RO4.38 then RO4.40 as the stable but they made a choice to label it as RO6 and muddy the waters.
Simple choice: if you want to run software that requires a 26 mode OS you stay with the ROL stream, if you want to use a currently developing OS and don’t have 26 bit software you want to use then run the ROOL RO5.xx stream.

Obviously things like disc interfaces and network cards (or indeed the PC card) all require new drivers if they are to work under RO5.xx

I was kindly sent a 32bit version of EtherX from the makers of the NIC (from the A9?) – but it didn’t seem to work –
[edited]
So I 32bitted the version on my RPC.
This was softloaded for the NIC – it seemed to work ok while I used the RPC in either 32bit or 26bit mode.

Whether this would work with a UniPod I dont know.

As for the two 26bit modules for the HD interface of the UniPod – they could perhaps be 32bitted – difficult to tell without seeing them.

Anyone out there have a copy of the latest versions?
(Then the hard part testing the modules- could be tricky)

Is your 2Gb HD – formatted for RO4?

Right… I vaguely remember. In 2010/11 it was not really an option to use version 5 on the RiscPC, that was around the time when I upgraded both the ROMs and the Unipod podule. The 2GB hard disc contains the adfs hard disk image I used before with RISC OS 4.02. It works when I connect it, but is a bit noisy and I am not sure if it is such a good idea to reactivate a nearly 20 years old hard disk for more than a copy operation. I am still looking for the other ssd I used with the Pandaboard that no longer boots. I guess I will investigate this further the next weekend.

That broke something, because after the reboot I got the boot prompt with an error window in front of the command line showing “Error: Memory cannot be moved (Error &1C1)”., which also came when typing *rommodules, *help and other commands. I did reset the CMOS commnd holding down “R” on boot, but it still comes when trying to change to the desktop.

See what

*Status RMASize

It’s possible that the default is no longer enough. Ordinarily the value is set during !Boot with an AddToRMA command, but if your boot application is stranded on the Unipod then you may want some

*Configure RMASize

I have it at 256K here, though I don’t remember why.

It appears to be the default (at least on the Pi).

Edit: It seems that you know this; next time I’ll read the whole post before piping up :)

Query for Colin Ferris, would your EtherX version work for my Net100 simtec card I have at work. Could I beg a copy?
Regards
Colin.

Email address?

Cheers Colin. colmcdonagh@btinternet.com

Hi, Just an update: Yesterday I got a fresh 160GB IDE hard disc. I did struggle a bit with the setup until I actually watched the video on the install disc and realized that first I had to refit the 4.02 ROMs before starting the installation, and also because I had changed the harddisk to the UniPod interface I had changed the jumper setting on the CDROM drive from Slave to Master, which for some reason worked with RiscOS 6, but not with RISC OS 4.02… After fixing that I could install the !Boot structure on the new HD, and now it boots with RiscOS 5.24. I still have not figured out what to do with the UniPod. I guess I will take a closer look this weekend…