RISC OS 4 and all its bleedin’ relatives

I need to check some unpleasant kernel-level implementation details (Jeffrey look away now) in as many versions of RO as possible. I have quite a collection already, but I don’t have any 6s and I’m missing a few 4s.

Jason Tribbeck used to have a load of ROM images, but his site seems to have suffered some amnesia. Is there any other source?

Does anyone have anything between 4.03 and 4.20 inclusive, 4.29, 4.37, or 4.40 and above (including the two 6.0x and three 6.1x)?

Such images would be supplied strictly under the provisions of European Directive 2009/24 ¶15 “to obtain the necessary information to achieve the interoperability of an independently created program with other programs”.

(Title is a reference to the stationers “Philip, Son & Nephew”)

I’m hiking this weekend (starting…NOW) so don’t expect profuse thanks immediately!

Jason Tribbeck used to have a load of ROM images

Uh… His ROM images were exactly that. Pictures of ROMs.

The 4corn site has ROM images in the sense you’re thinking of, but none of the ROLtd ones.

That said, given the 4/SIX versions are still a commercial item and the total lack of development in recent eternities, I generally just pretend they don’t exist.
I can’t test what I don’t have, and I don’t need a 26 bit solution enough to buy them… <shrug>

That said, given the 4/SIX versions are still a commercial item

You mean there’s a price tag, or they get sold?

You mean there’s a price tag, or they get sold?

Both are true.

I have a Alphalock system. What about 4.05? Is that still a commercial item? http://www.riscos.com/news/news_items/PR120103.htm

You mean there’s a price tag, or they get sold?

Both are true.

In which case, nostalgia isn’t dead because I can’t think of any other reason to go out and buy a 26 bit version.

Steve

Every time someone buys a product from Virtual Acorn, they are buying RISC OS 4 as part of the package. As long as VA remains in business, 26-bit versions of RISC OS will be sold.

If you are using an emulator, RISC OS 4 or 6 are a much better choice than RO5 – they are more compatible with old software and have more features.

Leaving aside compatibility with old software, what, Bryan, in your opinion, are RISC OS 4/6’s best unique features? Given that there’s no development going on in that branch of RISC OS, maybe RISC OS 5 could develop to a point where it included those features. Maybe at that point the version leapfrog could continue to 7…

As long as VA remains in business, 26-bit versions of RISC OS will be sold.

That pre-supposes that VA won’t ever use a 32-bit version, but you’re probably right and it won’t.

Leaving aside compatibility with old software, what, Bryan, in your opinion, are RISC OS 4/6’s best unique features?

Rick must be busy or I’m sure he’d have chirped up about rounded buttons etc.

I will say that ROL version has a better (more recent certainly) IP stack, but if you’re on a VA that’s pretty much academic.
If we had a new IP stack that would be a tick for RO5.

Rick must be busy or I’m sure he’d have chirped up about rounded buttons etc.

Don’t forget the green folders! A major breakthrough!

If we had a new IP stack that would be a tick for RO5.

This, perhaps? :)

That pre-supposes that VA won’t ever use a 32-bit version, but you’re probably right and it won’t.

It’s a bit of a shame, really. A few (?) tweaks to get a 32 bit version of RISC OS running on VA, plus a little more friendliness with the source to share all those lovely rounded icons, and VA could then benefit from a version of RISC OS actually being actively developed, and we could have… rounded icons.

[happy Steve? ;-)]

Rick must be busy or I’m sure he’d have chirped up about rounded buttons etc.

Partially that I was actually at work doing… work stuff… and partially that we’ve been over this so many times before that it is somewhere between “meh” and “whatever”.

Seriously… The features that ROLtd offers, as far as I can determine from this list are:

• Image file conversions (and PNG support?) in the OS
• Open menus (that don’t fit on the right) on the left
• Change DeskTop font size (it used to work, when was this removed?)
• Thumbnails in the filer (I used to use Filer+, then FilerPro, which did this)
• Customisable “Set type” quick menu (Filer+/FilerPro did this too)
• Built in “Trash can”

That’s my personal opinion. I would also say that a firewall is not useful. Any decent firewall would not be running on the machine it is protecting.

There are many things that are much harder to quantify. For example the multi-user and startup menu stuff – RISC OS is not a multi-user OS, so I can imagine this is simply some sort of mechanism to point the OS at different sets of Choices so different people can set the machine up to their preferences, but everybody can still access the same (each other’s) files.

Likewise, the moveable window furniture. This is probably something closer to rounded icons, that would be cool if you could load a Windows theme and freak people out with windows that are not quite the same as Windows Windows, but close enough to be confusing. ;-)

Then we get the very hard to quantify things. Justin’s diary talks endlessly about the huge number of changes for improved stability, yet – depite the many glaring design flaws in RISC OS – my Pi is pretty solid and serves up WebJames and runs my weather monitoring software. That’s not to say it can’t be crashed, trying to run weird applications on Aemulor (hello AcornDTP!) is a good way of bringing things to a grinding halt, and I try to avoid using DDT as the BIG Debugger is another way of messing everything up (my perverse sense of humour finds that funny). Mucking up stack stuff in module code is instant brain death; but I wonder if any of the ROLtd stability enhancements would make any difference here? Justin talks about all the scary stuff in TaskWindow, but it never seemed a big problem for me – it can build RISC OS from scratch and remain perfectly stable.

I’m sure a lot of little tweaks and fixes have been made, which would likely need to be done all over again if/when we run into them – but without a list, there’s not really any way of comparing. I look at all the little issues being raised by the static analysis and can’t help but think that maybe ROLtd has that brokenness within? It works both ways. In recent time we have changed dynamic area handling to a method better suited for big memory (so a half-gigabyte RAMdisc is possible – not that there’s any device (real or emulated) capable of such a thing in ROLtd’s world) and tried shifting page zero of to high memory (and discovering a load of third party stuff is broken – could this be a factor in stability or otherwise of older machines?). So while better stability is good, it’s not as if one has and the other doesn’t. Both do, in different ways.

So, let’s leave aside the internal things and look at features. Of the feature set, the only things that would really grab my interest are some visual fluff for the Filer, and having better OS level support for alien image formats.

And…

uh…

rounded icons?

:-P

Seriously – though. Whichever way you slice it, the fact is the ROLtd branch is going to get more and more dead. There’s no development, and the huge segregation means it can’t even attempt to benefit from any of the work going on here. RISC OS 5 might be less fancy looking, less rounded, but it is being developed still, is available for modern hardware with modern storage (an unexpanded RiscPC can’t touch USB, never mind SD cards) and really there comes a time when one just has to say “forget what’s better about the other branch, it was better a decade ago, now it’s us carrying the torch”.

The end.

This, perhaps? :)

Wow, that’s a really messed up map reference. :-)

The only useful references I get when pasting that together are 43°14’59.9”N, 115°48’00.6”W which is in Idaho. It’s a forest (or scrubland?).
Or 53°14’59.9”N, 115°48’00.6”W which is in Alberta a little west of Edmonton. It’s a forest.
33°14’59.9”N, 115°48’00.6”W is a lake just north of Mexicali.

63N and up, rather less likely to be inhabited. 23N and down, it’s the Pacific…

Of course, maybe ‘3’ is the first digit, not the second. Well, okay, the top of Baja California and a big bit of Nevada. Which the last time I looked, was practically empty except for Vegas, secret military installations, and aliens.

So, um, wanna try that secret location gag again? ;-)

I presume Google got it right first time for me… Area 51.

Ron

Wow, that’s a really messed up map reference.

It could just as easily be a combination of mistyping and textile mangling and have started out as something related to the date:
March 14th 3 14
and some extras…
3.14159265

Yes, Pi day today 2018-3-14

Image file conversions (and PNG support?) in the OS Open menus (that don’t fit on the right) on the left Change DeskTop font size (it used to work, when was this removed?) Thumbnails in the filer (I used to use Filer+, then FilerPro, which did this) Customisable “Set type” quick menu (Filer+/FilerPro did this too) Built in “Trash can”

That’s my personal opinion. I would also say that a firewall is not useful. Any decent firewall would not be running on the machine it is protecting.

First you missed system log, which is in the list, then you need to consider that although a firewall on the device being protected is always less defence than a real firewall device between it and the nasties you do have situations where you use a mobile device on an insecure network: Hotspots, so having something of a firewall is better than nothing at all.

situations where you use a mobile device on an insecure network: Hotspots, so having something of a firewall is better than nothing at all.

Hmm, I’d think ignoring local traffic (not exposing loads of accessible ports) and tunnelling via VPN would be the best solution for insecure networks?
It still surprises me that there is no obvious “this network is not secure” option in Android, unless it can deduce that from the lack of WEP/WPA?

That said, hardly points that apply to RISC OS as it is now. And as it is now, I would consider an on-machine firewall to be a false sense of security. Look at the one that was in XP…

Ron: Aha, Area 51. That was what was being pointed to in Nevada. Them there aliens. You’ll want 37°14’06”N, 115°48’40”W or if you’re using a GPS device that doesn’t understand proper co-ordinates, try 37.2350000, -115.8111111, or on Google Maps 859665MQ+XH.

I think I would agree with Rick’s comments on the benefits of the other branch, but perhaps I can also throw in the global clipboard? Did they not update the Wimp and all the built in apps?

I would like to see the same in RISC OS 5. New users must find the current behaviour odd!

If you are using an emulator, RISC OS 4 or 6 are a much better choice than RO5 – they are more compatible with old software and have more features.

I must agree here. RISC OS 5 is great for bringing is support for newer hardware (32-bit ARM, USB SATA, …) and making some preparations for exploiting more that one ARM core but that left little time to improve the user’s experience, which on the other hand was what pretty much all what the RO Ltd’s Select scheme concentrated on. Needless to say the hardware side of things is totally irrelevant for an emulator, so there are a few things I kinda miss on OS 5 like:

• the image file rendering and conversion system which which was greatly integrated in the OS and applications, like the filer’s thumbnails, the pinboard, paint’s import/export options and ImgViewer, a nice little image viewer which was useful to view scanlations offline, clicking on the “next” image would either show the next image or if it was the last image of an archive/directory jump to the first image of the next archive/directory which made it a good way to browse a folder full of manga chapters.
• the right click on the cog which open’s the configuration window, which for some unknown reason was forcefully rejected as an addition to OS 5.
• the possibility to select part of the text in icons
• more control in the filer’s window layout, in particular the inherited layout option: open a subdirectory and it will have the same layout as its parent (instead of reusing the last layout you choose) as I like to have my developments folder’s in large icons layout to easily manipulate the files, and the documents folder which I just consult in small layout format.
• the possibility to define something other than the depressing grey icons and backgrounds.
• more intelligent handling background errors (i.e. from callbacks, interrupts), that is not killing the application that run’s in the foreground at that time.

There are a few niceties for developers to:

• syslog
• automatic dumps taken when applications crashes (kinda like a ZeroPain but for more generic crashes)
• Toolbox modules which improved stability and functionality (not that I am a fan of the Toolbox)

perhaps I can also throw in the global clipboard? Did they not update the Wimp and all the built in apps?

There is a bounty for that, too

André mentioned

select part of the text in icons

That’s number one. It is 2018 you know.

The image conversion modules are a bit of a red herring – since no one is writing RO4-only software, no one is relying on that functionality. It’s nice to have thumbnails in Filer but it’s not a compatibility issue really (same with ZLib etc).

Rick obliged with

Rounded buttons

Oh heavens, it is 2018 you know. Buttons are so 20th Century. ;-)

Anyway, having been overwhelmed by offers of missing versions of RO4 & 6 (not) I’m clearly asking the wrong people.

As you were, carry on.

I’m clearly asking the wrong people.

Well, given this is a RISC OS 5 site… ;-)