Needed: New Version Of RISC OS For Raspberry Pi 3

Earlier this year I had started programming with BBC BASIC in the RISC OS Pi operating system and I have been satisfied and I enjoyed every minute I spent writing lines of code. However, RISC OS Pi needs a serious functional makeover: I need better joystick support and the operating system needs revision in order to work with the Raspberry Pi 3.

Other things in consideration include a better audio recording software and conversion of *.WAV sound samples to sound files for use with MusicMaker (written in BASIC) to make into sound modules.

Everything else is perfect.

Meanwhile I have been experimenting with the ENIGMA game development software applications in the Raspbian Jesse and Ubuntu operating systems. But the Raspberry Pi 3 needs its own version of RISC OS Pi.

But it does work with the Raspberry Pi 3. If you are referring to the WiFi, Bluetooth and support for multiple CPU cores, no it does not support them. I believe the issue with WiFi and Bluetooth is one of proprietary firmware blobs, and lack of usable WiFi and BT stacks for RISC OS in general.
Multiple CPU support is something a bit larger. The OS inherently only supports one core. I know people are playing with waking up the other cores to use for their own projects, but the main problem is the OS doesn’t support it and from what I read there is some disagreement on how it should be handled.
Remember, the Windows 9x series including Windows ME never supported multiple CPUs. I also remember when SMP support was added to Linux. These things take time. The user base of RISC OS isn’t huge so if it does get done it’ll probably be a while. It takes manpower to do it and there aren’t too many people with the knowledge and time to do it. I certainly have neither.

If you have been programming, you know that RISC OS has a functional USB stack and supports HID devices. Otherwise typing and pointing would be a challenge. I can’t comment on what the state of joystick support is but if you can manage to talk to a USB HID gamepad, understanding them isn’t hard. I did it empirically myself over a decade ago with a microcontroller and poorly documented USB controller chip. Ie press buttons, move axes and see what it spits out.

I think what I am saying is your options are to wait and hope someone does it, do it yourself, or go without.

I quite happily use RISC OS on my Pi 3 and use it for surfing the web, writing programs for it with GCC, accessing and hosting NFS shares, and generally just messing around with.

Are you using a recent daily ROM and recent firmware from GitHub? If not, do it. I had to build a lot of the programs I use from source to get them to work. I’m not sure but I think !PackMan has versions of most things built without the obsoleted instructions now anyway.

PackMan does not work on the Pi3.

PackMan does not work on the Pi3.

Are you running the latest version (0.9.1)? I was under the impression that it was Pi 3-compatible, although I haven’t tested it myself.

The latest version of !PackMan is compatible. I use it regularly. The latest NetSurf is also compatible.

The only problem I have with anything are the Sunfish UI being prone to crashing and Zap not being zero page safe and crashing occasionally.

What happens when you run it? I’ve just transplanted my Pi 1’s SD card into my Pi 3 and PackMan seems to run perfectly. My ROM is from 20/08/16.

On another note, I just tried to build a C app and got “This program is only licensed for use on a Raspberry Pi” (DDE 25). Does anyone know what to do to fix this?

Interesting, I can not get the latest !PackMan to run on my RPi 3B. Is there something extra I must do to get it to work?

Did you delete the existing install? I have a vague recollection that the SD image path for PackMan is different to the package install location, so the desktop shortcut runs continues to run the old version. Don’t quote me on that though, I just recall having a similar issue when I build my Pi3 last month.

Are you running the latest version (0.9.1)?

I am running the version in RC14 on a Pi 3 with a view to asking it to upgrade itself. Is Packman available via !Store? That would allow Pi3 users to upgrade Packman without having to search the web.

I’m in Raspbian right now so I can’t compare versions but I believe the most recent version of PackMan is found here:
http://www.riscos.info/packages/arm/Administration/
I put this here mostly as a hit for anyone that may be searching for it.

Glad you got it working. I didn’t notice you were running the RC14 ROM. The must have for the Pi3 are a fresh ROM, fresh firmware from GitHub, and some tweaks to config.txt to let the CPU run at full speed.

The must have for the Pi3 are a fresh ROM, fresh firmware from GitHub, and some tweaks to config.txt to let the CPU run at full speed.

ROMs from March 27th onwards shouldn’t need any config.txt tweaks in order to allow the CPU to run at full speed (unless you’re using config.txt to override the automatic temperature/voltage based throttling the firmware does, I guess)

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/3961

I’ll have to try removing them. I found without them my Pi 3 ran slower than my Zero. Trouble is my 3 gets fairly warm in RISC OS with it’s CPU speed forced. I do however suspect that it’s not RISC OS but an application that isn’t sleeping properly.

On another note, I just tried to build a C app and got “This program is only licensed for use on a Raspberry Pi” (DDE 25). Does anyone know what to do to fix this?

You need a more recent version of the NutPi software bundle. Much of the software on the NutPi bundle includes checks to make sure it is running on a Pi because the software is sold at a cheap rate to match the cheap cost of the board. Developers were asked to update software to be able to detect the RPi3 a while ago but I do not know when (or if) the NutPi update for RPi3 came out.

my 3 gets fairly warm in RISC OS with it’s CPU speed forced.

It should NOT need its speed to be forced, it should switch dynamically from 1200MHz to 600MHz provided you have firmware and rom from about 26 March 2016 or later. Remove the force_turbo command from config/txt and all speed setting commands.

As luck would have it the RISC OS MicroSD is plugged in via adapter for it’s regular update. I’ll comment the lines out now.

You need a more recent version of the NutPi software bundle.

I was under the impression that DDE 25 (which I have) was the latest available through Nut Pi. Can anyone confirm?

my 3 gets fairly warm in RISC OS with it’s CPU speed forced.

It should NOT need its speed to be forced, it should switch dynamically from 1200MHz to 600MHz provided you have firmware and rom from about 26 March 2016 or later. Remove the force_turbo command from config/txt and all speed setting commands.

You can use Chris Johnson’s excellent CPUClock to confirm the dynamic clocking. Available Here

DavidS, that’s what I had too. Question is if I remove the clock entries, and change to force_turbo=0 do I still need avoid_warnings=2 ?

Chris E. I saw mention of CPUClock elsewhere. I didn’t realise it worked with the Pi Hardware. I’ll give that a try. Thanks!

In RISC OS now. The program works well. The temperature is hovering at 57*C give or take. Throttling flips between 600 and 1200MHz. Nothing lower or intermediate? I’m actually surprised there aren’t more clock speeds.
I had to swap out the keyboard to type this. In the past month maybe I’ve seen a return of “RISC OS Drunken Logitech Wireless Keyboard Syndrome”. It appears to miss keydown and keyup events. Sadly I can only test that with one Logitech keyboard, as the other one is still missing some important keys after it kissed the wall when it decided to miss a keyup on backspace while editing source.