Getting Started

I’m terribly sorry if this question is beyond simple but I’ve been studying computer science and developing applications for other operating systems for some time now and I thought it would be interesting to try building my own operating system using RISC OS as a starting point. I was wondering how I would go about starting this? I was thinking of buying a Raspberry Pi for running the OS but I was wondering if there is some kind of an IDE I can use?

Thank you. :)

I was wondering how I would go about starting this?

You need to purchase the Desktop Development Environment in order to build the ROM. Work is being done towards making it buildable with GCC, but it’s not in a usable state yet. Also, RISC OS cannot currently be built on any operating system apart from RISC OS, which probably sounds like a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, but fortunately there are a number of pre-built ROMs and disc-based components to get you started.

I was thinking of buying a Raspberry Pi for running the OS

RISC OS doesn’t run on the Raspberry Pi yet (or at least not for the general public). It does run on the BeagleBoard-xM, or alternatively there’s a free emulator for Windows, Mac and Linux called RPCEmu.

I was wondering if there is some kind of an IDE I can use?

Despite its name, the DDE is not an IDE (thank god), it’s a collection of compilers, debuggers and other standalone tools. There’s a basic text editor called Edit bundled inside the RISC OS ROM, but for serious work you really want to use either StrongED or Zap. (For everyone’s safety, I won’t tell you which is better – think vi versus emacs on steroids.)