Why do we use RISC OS 5 and not SIX? What happened to RISC OS SIX?

SIX is a “modern” OS, but we use 5. Why?
What happened to RISC OS SIX?

It ground to a developmental halt – it was a forked development based on an original RISC OS 4, as was RISC OS 5, but attempts to get the two forks together failed and have left some acrimony after threatened law suits and so forth.

Basically, though 6 did have some excellent features, and 5 is still catching up on many of them, it ended up as a dead-end when development ceased.

SIX is basically a slightly later than 4.something. I think it was version bumped from 4 to 6 because 6 is better than 5. Or something. It’s a pain in the butt for version detection as one can’t assume that later versions are improvements of the previous.
I guess our next major incarnation would be 7? I dunno…

You can read up on 6 at http://gerph.org/riscos/ where the author put up some detailed notes in 2012

Surely the key thing about 6 (which made it a developmental dead-end) was that it remained a 26-bit OS, therefore could only run on 10+ year old hardware, or under emulation? Also, its proprietor is no longer trading as such. RISC OS 5, OTOH, now supports an extensive range of current hardware as well as emulators and legacy platforms, and is under active development – game, set and match, basically.

RISC OS 5, OTOH, now supports an extensive range of current hardware as well as emulators and legacy platforms, and is under active development – game, set and match, basically.

And I forgot to mention, is free to the end user. RO6 was a commercial subscription deal funded by the end user.

Also, whilst much of RO6 was 32 bit already, the acrimony over the licensing stopped co-operation to make it work on the Iyonix, the first true 32-bit machine. Dog-in-the-manger sort of attitudes.

…and it should be pointed out that while all this nonsense is something in the order of a decade and a half years ago, some of the people involved are still angry to the point of blunt non-cooperation. It’s a great shame as while it is quite true that RISC OS 4.xx/SIX did more “stuff”, those versions simply aren’t being developed any more so to use them you are tied to outdated long-obsolete hardware, or emulations of outdated long-obsolete hardware.

Where it’s at now for RISC OS? Right here. This, the less prettified incarnation (without rounded edges) runs on contemporary machines, does so without emulations or translations, and is still being maintained.

For what it is worth, I started a discussion regarding what Select has that we lack. Though, a part of me does tend to think that Steve Pampling pretty much covers it in the sixth post down on that page… :-(

Hmm… My previous post may or may not appear with a horizontal scrollbar. What has Textile messed up this time? :-/

This, the less prettified incarnation (without rounded edges)

or green “folders” – change for change’s sake – can anyone explain why this still riles me all this time after attending the RO4 installer’s course all those years ago!

60 quid wasted!

I’ve always felt that a lot (certainly not all) of RiscOs Ltd’s improvements were very useful, but many were, like the rounded corners Rick refers to above, purely cosmetic; but changing the sacred blue “folder” to green! Sacrilege!

Easily sorted with a replacement sprites file … But why?

Also, whilst much of RO6 was 32 bit already, the acrimony over the licensing stopped co-operation to make it work on the Iyonix, the first true 32-bit machine. Dog-in-the-manger sort of attitudes.

Water, bridge, under.¹

To return to Bruno’s question.
Bruno you need to ignore the number 6. The last Acorn version was 3.8, which was never commercially released. This formed the basis for the development of 4.02 and 5.00.
The company developing RO4.02 further developed it as 4.xx in the same time period another company (Castle) developed RO5.00 as a different offshoot of 3.8. RO4.xx got to version 4.39.

Insert a little acrimony² and a few delays and we have 4.39 mutating into RO6 and RO5.xx open sourced by Castle. The reasons for using RO6 as a label for a stable version of 4.xx have been speculated upon and favourite is, as Rick mentioned, that 6 is bigger than 5 and would be presumed better as a version on that basis.
RO6 development ceased years ago, RO5.xx is now on 5.23 (plus date) which will eventually be declared stable as 5.24 and the development version will then be labelled 5.25 (plus date)

Two different products, the one we are mainly concerned with here is RO5.xx which works on modern ARM processors and is currently developed the other is RO6 which only works on (some) old ARM processors or emulations of old processors and is not in current development.
We don’t use it principally because it doesn’t work on modern processors. When I say “modern” I mean any ARM processor developed this century.
As recent developments of Pluto mail client have demonstrated some improvements of applications are dependent on features of the newer hardware like available memory and the older machines that are compatible with RO6 must now be considered legacy items³.

¹ I started this post as a simple "ho, hum, here we go again type of comment and then realised Bruno needed a clear description of the situation. I’ve tried to be dispassionate.

² OK, there was⁴ a lot of acrimony.

³ Even the Iyonix, for which the full 32 bit RO5.xx was developed is now slipping into this same legacy status. Not this is a bad thing when you consider the various new hardware as bare boards and full systems.

⁴ In some quarters there still is a good shovelful of acrimony.

or green “folders” – change for change’s sake – can anyone explain why this still riles me all this time after attending the RO4 installer’s course all those years ago!

Easily sorted with a replacement sprites file … But why?

Probably for the same reason I changed ROS 5s ‘3D’ (isometric actually) icons back to flat again.

RO5.xx is now on 5.23 (plus date) which will eventually be declared stable as 5.24 and the development version will then be labelled 5.25 (plus date)

Should point out, just to clarify, that RISC OS is the polar opposite of Firefox. Our version bumps happen extremely slowly and are according to this pattern:

• Even numbered releases are considered “stable”. There is a feature freeze prior to making a stable release so that things can be checked more thoroughly, uncertain things removed (to be added to a future stable), and so on.

• Odd numbered releases are the development builds. They may offer a lot of new functionality, but at the cutting edge is the risk that the one you install may not work correctly. As modifications are frequent (take a look at the CVS changes) and an auto builder creates fresh ROM images every night, every single version at the moment is called version 5.23. They are distinguished by a date suffix.

I think, generally speaking, people who use RISC OS as a tool or for business purposes will stick to the stable releases, while those who are more nerdy or don’t mind fiddling with things, or have a Pi¹, will benefit from the enhancements in the development releases.

The even nerdier can make their own custom ROMs. My server is running on a recent v5.23 compiled with low vectors² plus some other tweaks.

¹ For which there is no stable release.

² Long story… If I’m developing software, I don’t want known unknowns or unknown knowns or…. ;-)

Thanks for the answers and the history lesson :P
There is more movement in the forum than I thought.

One of the things I like most about RISC OS 6 It is the GUI.

It is possible to use the SIX GUI in 5?

but changing the sacred blue “folder” to green! Sacrilege! Easily sorted with a replacement sprites file … But why?

The Boot application had a green folder icon in Acorn’s developer release of 3.8. Normal directories were still blue, but I can imagine ROL wanting to make them all consistent.

I’m not sure, however, whether ROL’s version used the same shade of green as Acorn’s version.

One of the things I like most about RISC OS 6 It is the GUI. It is possible to use the SIX GUI in 5?

Depends on which bits of the RO6 GUI you like. If it’s the window furniture, which seems to be Steel, then yes, Steel will work on R05 (in a fashion).

If it’s the rounded corners or colour gradient of icons you like then no. RO5 doesn’t offer the option to change icon appearance.

The Boot application had a green folder icon in Acorn’s developer release of 3.8. Normal directories were still blue, but I can imagine ROL wanting to make them all consistent.

The ursula theme still available in RO5 is the same as acorn’s developer release isn’t it?

The last Acorn version was 3.8, which was never commercially released

My School had NCs with 3.8 on it… sadly they skipped them all even after requesting them!

My School had NCs with 3.8 on it… sadly they skipped them all even after requesting them!

It wasn’t called NCOS? http://www.heyrick.co.uk/images/assembler/stb_desk.gif (see top right)

The ursula theme still available in RO5 is the same as acorn’s developer release isn’t it?

That would make sense, but I’m at work now so can’t check for sure.

It wasn’t called NCOS?

A few weeks ago I noticed that there’s still a configuration setting to switch to “NC OS” when building a ROM! :)

It wasn’t called NCOS?

It might have been, certainly had !NCFresco in Apps.

The School mostly used them as Citrix dumb terminals into an NT based Citrix MetaFrame.

It also booted from an NT “RISC OS Boot” share.

But I do remember Switcher > Menu > Info showing RISC OS 3.8

Perhaps should point out to avoid confusion.

R-Comp release stable versions of RO under ‘odd’ numbers. The rule about ‘even is stable, odd is development’ is the ROOL practice.

There have been lots of alternative sets of ‘window furniture’ and file icons. I use a non-standard set. But I don’t know if there is one place for people to find them these days. Anyone know? I’ve just kept copies of the ones I found over the years and liked.

Jim

There have been lots of alternative sets of ‘window furniture’ and file icons. I use a non-standard set.

I have always done this too, and probably many people do. One’s desktop is a personal thing. Perhaps somebody might like to host and edit a gallery?

Blimey. I’ve used RISC OS ever since it first appeared, and I’ve just accepted whatever furniture I’ve been given. I’ve never even thought about whether it was possible to customize it or pick different furniture. Ditto all the versions of Windoze I’ve been lumbered with, and now Mac too.

I don’t think I’ll bother to change the habit of decades.

I don’t think I’ll bother to change the habit of decades.

You are probably better adjusted and less picky than me :)