Wiki logic

I tweaked a few out of date things on The History of RISC OS on Wiki-Wiki; and I have a few comments:

1. Who owns the copyright to the desktop “furniture”? I think a screenshot of RISC OS, perhaps on a RaspberryPi, would be good on Wiki, because that page referred shows Arthur and RISC OS 3.1 – both of which are ugly compared to now. The main detail page has a (somewhat messy/cluttered, IMHO) screenshot of RISC OS 4. But it seems as if there may be copyright issues in making a screenshot?
2. In the History document, there’s a note up the top that says “This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject. Please add citations from reliable and independent sources.”. I can understand this could be dodgy when it comes to egotistical celebrities and politicians; but for something like an operating system I don’t understand why Wiki would choose to shun such a thing? There’s an expression “direct from the horse’s mouth” for situations like this, where Wikipedia would seem to prefer the “a friend of a friend” method, which is inherently flawed as surely rather than reporting from the official source you are trusting the reliability of a third party who is probably reporting their own take on what the official source is doing…
   Example – on this site is a download image, plus sources, for the RPi. It exists. It can be downloaded. Now looking at it, either the thing is real or it isn’t, and if it is here then it is real. Why would we need some third party to say “there’s a Pi build over there” when one can look right here and see it?

The main detail page has a (somewhat messy/cluttered, IMHO) screenshot of RISC OS 4.

Plus inaccurate elements like stating that RO4 is in flash – if that were so I’d be able to reflash the spare RPC board upstairs to RO5.19…
(OK, probably not a good idea even if the OS was flash resident, but you know what I mean)

The Select section seems to wander from present to past tense and back, as does the RO6 section. Both appear to be pretty direct lifts of promotional material from ROL which is probably the reason for the citations comment.
Amendment to have the Select and Six entries described as "last release was… " would make sense.
Those not familiar with the platform might otherwise think that subscribing to the scheme would achieve something.

I’ve still got two RPC’s with RO4 in flash. It was on carrier boards that plugged into the ROM sockets.

I’ve still got two RPC’s with RO4 in flash. It was on carrier boards that plugged into the ROM sockets.

There’s always one isn’t there? :P
Right, the method for J.Bloggs to reflash their machine would be…?

I know nothing about the Select/ROLtd stuff, so I just left well alone.

Actually, truth be told, given the current level of development there, I didn’t even bother reading those sections. ;-)

Right, the method for J.Bloggs to reflash their machine would be…?

I can’t imagine there is any actual point or benefit to the end-user in this, so the “RISC OS 4 is in Flash” is technically correct, but erroneous.

It is useful for ROL. They don’t have to commit so many units of a specific version of RO4 to masked ROMs, they can erase and reprogram them with newer versions if necessary, and they can make any quantity down to one-offs (as opposed to whatever bulk volume makes sense for a masked ROM).

However, given the lack of Flash capabilities of the RiscPC, plus the memory mapping overlaying parts of ROM area with some I/O stuff (could possibly be worked around), I think it is safe to say that a RiscPC user just isn’t going to be capable of reflashing the OS.

It was never for your convenience, it was for ROLs (and to keep your price down).

Ok, my memory might be faulty on this but …

My recollection of the activity around Black Friday, that the only time that RO4 was supplied in Flash ROMS, was to installers, and that this was V4.0

Masked ROMS have never been used for 4, 4.02 & later were and are (?) supplied on OTP ROMS, which although dearer than masked for an individual ROM, have a much lower minimum quantity, so the total funding required is much smaller.

RISC OS 4.00 was supplied to end users as flash, on a carrier board. RISC OS 4.02 was supplied exclusively as OTP ROMs. ISTR that 4.39 (“Adjust”) was produced as masked ROMs, but can’t find evidence for that now.