RISCOS on the Mac

What with the new MacBook soon to be available, I’m seriously considering switching to one as I’m fed up with the fan noise on my current laptop and like the small lightweight design and high res. screen.

I’ve never used a Mac before so am a total noob in this regard and despite visiting various Mac shops over the past few weeks, haven’t found an answer to the “middle mouse button” issue.

From what I’ve managed to gather, Parallels may support it if you have a MagicMouse – I want to use the track pad if possible. With the track pad, I’m led to believe you can use gestures, such as a three finger press and Bootcamp doesn’t have drivers that can provide gestures. So although the idea of a small, lightweight MacBook with a decent resolution screen is very appealing, I’m not certain it’s all that practical.

My preferred route is Bootcamp, as I’ll be coding a RISCOS Hypervisor under Red Squirrel (currently the only emulator that can provide a close enough ARM/MMU emulation to do it). Running under Parallels adds a third layer of virtualization which may or may not impact this – without trying it, I honestly don’t know.

What’s the experience of anyone that uses RISCOS on a Mac?

My experience with RISCOS on a Mac is zero, but unfortunately my experience with the Mac itself isn’t. Even my wife, who used to be an Apple fan, is now questioning why MacOS – either on her MacBook, or on her iPhone for that matter – is ever called intuitive or user friendly. I won’t enumerate the various problems we encountered, some of which were really serious, but be assured that even a MacBook fan can be noisy as a vacuum cleaner – and that’s not only my wife I’m talking about.

A year ago, I bought a Asus Rog laptop (republic of gamers). It’s expensive, even a bit more expensive than the cheapest MacBook, but I never regretted the costs. Not only it’s incredibly fast (start up time, for example, is a matter of seconds, even after a year), it has a breathtakingly beautiful HD screen – and absolutely silent fans! RISCOS runs blindingly fast through VRPC. I would certainly consider this route, rather than the Apple one.

MacBook fan can be noisy as a vacuum cleaner

The new MacBook is fanless…

The new MacBook is fanless…

That’s an invitation to a pun, but I think I made my point.

My experience is completely different.

The only way I’ve found round the middle-button problem is to attach a mouse. I use the trackpad for everything except middle clicking.

My MacBook Pro is virtually silent. But I have to agree that, since Steve Jobs’ death, Apple’s “improvements” are on a par with Microsoft’s. Suffice to say it’s 99% certain that my next computer will be a Mac. The only thing that would change my mind would be a really phenomenal linux computer.

a pun

Really? http://www.apple.com/macbook/design/
Please note that the speed of RPCEmu or VirtualRPC is really not good on Mac, since there is no (on VirtualRPC… not sure for RPCEmu) support of the recompiler on OS X.

There are today very good Atom solutions, with low prices and fanless designs. Enough for RPCEmu.

I notice that RPCEmu 0.8.12 automatically maps the middle mouse button to the right ALT key (unless you select “two button mouse mode” in which case it is the right button that is mapped.

Unfortunately there is no up to date version of RPCEmu available for Mac—it isn’t possible to compile it on any version of MacOS > 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).

I’ll be booting to Windows and running Red Squirrel, if there’s no other way, I’ll have to resort to Windows under Parallels. I’m really only buying it for the screen resolution and lightweight design.

RPCEmu can’t be used to code the Hypervisor as its MMU emulation isn’t accurate enough yet.

I went into Curry’s today and looked at actual Windows laptops, not one had any mouse buttons, let alone a middle mouse button, so it seems to be the trend to have track pads only. I may we’ll have to stick with my free chuck-out Lenovo which apart from the reeolution and fan noise does the job.

I gave up on RPCemu on OS X due to lack of updates. I now run RPCemu on Windows 7 on my iMac using Boot Camp and have no serious issues (I actually have two installs, one for RO4 and a second running RO5). Not as satisfying as a real RISC OS machine, of course, but then what is?

The mouse can be a pain, but there’s nothing stopping you from plugging a standard USB three-button/scrollwheel mouse into the Mac, if you really need to.

I went into Curry’s today and looked at actual Windows laptops, not one had any mouse buttons, let alone a middle mouse button, so it seems to be the trend to have track pads only

I have many good words for trackpads, none bear repeating in polite company.
The W7 laptop here has a mouse connected 2 buttons plus scroll which acts as a third.

not one had any mouse buttons, let alone a middle mouse button, so it seems to be the trend to have track pads only.

You’ll be hard pushed to find a middle mouse button, the Windows API never really required more than two buttons… Thankfully most mice with scroll wheels have the wheel itself acting as a middle button (and RISC OS knows how to use it).

Anyway, there should be two sensitive areas just below the touchpad, either as physical buttons (even though it might not look it) or as touchable areas. These will typically act as the “buttons”, in addition to tapping the touchpad itself.

I have many good words for trackpads, none bear repeating in polite company.

I love the touchpad on my EeePC. It makes using the UI a breeze, and extra stuff like tap-tap-hold so I can drag stuff around with multiple drags (and a final tap to release) makes me feel like going back to a regular mouse is like the Dark Ages.

That said, most touchpads are set up with the basic option set which actually makes them harder to use – so it isn’t surprising a lot of people at work use plug-in traditional mice.

I gave up on RPCemu on OS X due to lack of updates. I now run RPCemu on Windows 7 on my iMac using Boot Camp and have no serious issues (I actually have two installs, one for RO4 and a second running RO5). Not as satisfying as a real RISC OS machine, of course, but then what is?

The mouse can be a pain, but there’s nothing stopping you from plugging a standard USB three-button/scrollwheel mouse into the Mac, if you really need to.

Sounds like you’re doing exactly what I’m looking into. So I presume you’re using a stock PC three button mouse and not the Magic Mouse or Trackpad?

I’ve had to change my programming behaviour recently, having to switch from a desktop to a laptop and spend large amounts of time bed-bound, so was trying to avoid an external mouse. At the minute, I do have one to hand which I do use occasionally, but the Lenovo has a perfectly workable trackpad and middle mouse button (as do all T, X and E business class)

I shouldn’t complain, it was donated by my current contract employer so I could continue ADFFS development – they’ve been really understanding and not only let me take indefinite time out but very supportive of JASPP/ADFFS. It doesn’t have the resolution though, going from 3160×2400 to 1280×800 was a nasty shock as I can’t easily run multiple emulators in parallel and see them all. Tabing between them has side-effects which generally press keys inadvertently, this isn’t helpful when soak testing games in demo mode.

I’ve actually found working on a laptop more productive than the PC, hence my now serious look at switching totally over to a high quality laptop with a high resolution screen. Apple lead in this area and can easily be converted to a Windows machine – I wouldn’t use one as a Mac, not for programming RISCOS.

The problem with mice is they don’t work well on beds, my iPad has found a new use though!!

You’ll be hard pushed to find a middle mouse button, the Windows API never really required more than two buttons

If you look at business class laptops, quite a few have a middle mouse buttons, but as you point out the scroll wheel on PC mice is generally the third mouse button.

That said, most touchpads are set up with the basic option set which actually makes them harder to use – so it isn’t surprising a lot of people at work use plug-in traditional mice.

I very quickly turned off all the gestures, drag-scrolling, double-tap etc and have dumbed it down to just a mouse pointer with no buttons. I use the physical buttons above and below the pad (left/right are below and left/middle/right are above) – Lenovo actually have a good design in this respect.

I think the current Dell Precision notebooks have a three button touchpad similar to the business-class ThinkPads. Not sure if they still do resolutions beyond 1920×1080 though – I used to have a 15" 1920×1200 which was quite nice, but everybody seems to have settled on FullHD at the moment.

A curve-ball, but… you could try running Red Squirrel under WINE, so it’s native on Mac OS X. I tried Arculator the other day, and to my amazement, is started up!

Regarding RPCEmu, it is a shame in general that the Mac OS X port is ‘second class’ compared to Windows/Linux. It would also be nice to have native Arculator, if anyone fancies it…

Please note that the speed of RPCEmu or VirtualRPC is really not good on Mac, since there is no (on VirtualRPC… not sure for RPCEmu) support of the recompiler on OS X.

Speed isn’t an issue – I can’t use recompilers anyhow as they break horribly with ADFFS and would almost certainly fail to run a Hypervisor.

I think the current Dell Precision notebooks have a three button touchpad similar to the business-class ThinkPads. Not sure if they still do resolutions beyond 1920×1080 though – I used to have a 15" 1920×1200 which was quite nice, but everybody seems to have settled on FullHD at the moment.

I did consider them, still swayed to the Mac though as the screen is by far the best. There’s the Surface Pro 3 as well, similar resolution but damned expensive for a device with no keyboard.

A curve-ball, but… you could try running Red Squirrel under WINE, so it’s native on Mac OS X. I tried Arculator the other day, and to my amazement, is started up!

Being no Mac user – I hadn’t even considered that as an option. How would the middle mouse button work in this scenario? Has anyone managed to get Red Squirrel running under WINE?

Regarding RPCEmu, it is a shame in general that the Mac OS X port is ‘second class’ compared to Windows/Linux.

Even if it was the same, it still wouldn’t work in my scenario. Until the MMU has had a complete rewrite, its perfectly capable of running RO5, but can’t be used to develop ADFFS or a Hypervisor as it’s not raising the correct Aborts that a physical MMU does. I’m sure it will get there soon enough, they’re aware of the issue. As with most of us, it’s finding the time to code around day jobs etc. I’m hopeful it will get there at which point it will finally surpass Red Squirrel on the IOMD/ARM610 compatibility/accuracy front.

It would also be nice to have native Arculator, if anyone fancies it…

The source is available and Tom’s been updating it recently to add RISC iX support, he also added native JFD support a while back although I’ve not tested it myself yet. Just needs someone with a Mac to figure out how to compile it to run – assuming the libraries it relies on are available on the Mac of course.

The Mac 3-button situation is just like Windows. You can configure the button to do what you want. I can’t recall off-hand how it was implemented in the Mac OS X port of RPCEmu, but it’s probably a minor code change (I’m sure I recall discussion about it on the mailing list). I did once use Arculator with a 3-button mouse back on a PowerPC Mac, and it was do-able.

I’ve seen the Arculator source, and David Boddie’s work-in-progress tweaks for getting it run on Linux (https://bitbucket.org/dboddie/arculator/commits/all). Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to get it compiled on Mac OS X.

There is another issue with the Mac—the keyboard layout is different from a standard UK PC keyboard. Indeed, it’s more like a US keyboard, but with £ on shift-3 instead of #. (# is available as ALT-3 (on Windows/Parallels as shift-alt-3). So several keys will be in the wrong place, and if you can tell RISC OS it’s a US keyboard, you won’t be able to type a £ sign.

Also an emulated RISC OS doesn’t recognise the caps lock key.

VRPC for Mac might get round these issues, but I don’t have it.

the keyboard layout is different from a standard UK PC keyboard.

I noticed this with the Bluetooth keyboard on the iPad. Most annoying is that " and ’ are on the same key. Urgh.

I noticed this with the Bluetooth keyboard on the iPad. Most annoying is that " and ’ are on the same key. Urgh.

Pretty much my first reaction to US keyboard layouts, the second being “why?”

Can anyone give me a good reason why the US uses that keyboard layout?

Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual for those of us brought up on US keyboards… when I first installed RISC OS on my Pi it was a bit of a “WTF moment” when the " key was producing @!

Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual for those of us brought up on US keyboards… when I first installed RISC OS on my Pi it was a bit of a “WTF moment” when the " key was producing @!

Oh, I’ve been fighting with US layouts for years – US keyboard loaded on a DOS box with a UK keyboard and a similar situation connecting to a UNIX box and trying to pipe a command output to another.

In the instance above the issue is mainly Apple being, well Apple and issuing a layout that is neither but rather an insane mix of the worst of both.