Raspberry Pi 4

@Brian: That’s a good question regarding those graphics benchmarks…I would say those don’t show the real picture. As seen above with the memory benchmark, the Pi4 doubles memory speed vs Pi3 and that’s something I can see clearly when coding my tiny graphics intros, but of course that’s assembler without relying on OS routines. The rectangle copy relies on OS_Plot routines. I can only guess the bottleneck (whatever it is…) must be there somewhere…one guess would be that those routines read directly from screen memory (?), which is generally slow…may be Jeffrey can tell more about it…

ClockSp results @2147MHz

*basic
ARM BBC BASIC V (C) Acorn 1989

Starting with 651516 bytes free

>CHAIN"clocksp"
BBC BASIC CPU Timing Program
Real REPEAT loop     45054.94MHz
Integer REPEAT loop  32297.29MHz
Real FOR loop        45309.73MHz
Integer FOR loop     45641.02MHz
Trig/Log test       202352.94MHz
String manipulation  58200.00MHz
Procedure call       59629.62MHz
GOSUB call           72580.64MHz
Combined Average     72344.67MHz

Compared to a 2.00MHz BBC B
>

I’m getting the occasional weird “Not enough memory” error. One was while trying to do Wimpslot 32M in a taskWindow. Just now while editing a file in StrongEd. It’d pop up like it’d hit some sort of character limit. Totally not reproducible unfortunately. Has anyone else seen this happen?

edit: I just realised both are related to StrongEd. Not sure why, or if it’s this ROM only causing it. So nevermind.

bq.’ “Not enough memory” error … related to StrongEd.

This has already been fixed in StrongED 4.70a4

Help!

I no longer have a running RO machine (well, I haven’t tried my two RPCs – not started up in more than 14 years, but my Iyonix has a dead drive). I have writen rc16, with the Pi4 ROM image, to USB stick – this boots on my Pi4 and I can do a few things, but I believe that I am missing files from the HardDisk4 image. Is there a way of merging in the disk image on Linux (without using RO) or getting the HardDisk4 image onto the Pi somehow? My main Linux platform is Linux Mint.

writen rc16, with the Pi4 ROM image, to USB stick

RC16 includes the latest HardDisc4 image (as at 14 Jun 2020) so you are not missing anything.

Thanks for the response, Chris.

So what am I doing wrong? (My RISC OS is very rusty – I hadn’t realised how much I’d forgotten after thirteen years away).

When I boot from the USB stick, the !Boot sequence doesn’t run – the !Scrap directory isn’t available and double clicking on !Boot says “You cannot reconfigure this machine”.

That’s probably because, when it boots, I see the green RO/RPi screen, with a command window at the bottom. I can only get to the desktop by typing the *desktop command which, clearly, doesn’t run the !Boot.

Edit:
Ah, I probably need to put something in cmdline.txt to tell it to boot to the USB stick, not the SD card (as you have to do with Linux)?

Looks like it’s working OK. The default file system is stored in CMOS.

Type,

*configure filesystem scsi

Then reboot.

Edit: Duplicate of Chris’s post above!

You may still have problems because RISC OS won’t be saving CMOS changes to the proper place.

Try this instead:

1. *scsi
2. *run !boot
   This will take you to the desktop.
3. Create an Obey file in !Boot.Choices.Boot.PostDesk containing the command
   SaveCMOS <Boot$Dir>.Loader.CMOS
4. Open a Task window (Ctrl-F12) and type
   configure filesystem scsi

Now perform a tidy shutdown (Ctrl-Shift-F12). When you reboot you should now be in the desktop.

Hmmm …
I told you my RISC OS was rusty:

I type “*configure filesystem scsi”,
then “*status filesystem” and it returns “FileSystem SCSI”.

I reboot and then “status filesystem” returns “FileSystem SDFS” again!

Stuart:
Yes, !boot does start the desktop, but with a warning: “Machine startup has not completed successfully: ‘The disk drive is empty’”.
However, cancelling that warning does get me to a sensible-looking desktop, but ….
the SDFS drive is empty, because I don’t have an SD card installed.
the USB drive (Fat32fs) now displays the Fat partition of the USB stick
the Resources:$.Discs is empty.
How do I get to the SCSI drive with my !Boot etc on it?

Combined Average 72344.67MHz

As its 37½ years between the BBC Micro and the Raspberry Pi 4 being launched, that means the performance of BBC Basic has increased by just under ¹ / ₃ every year!

Try *Filer_OpenDir SCSI::0.$

Also try *SaveCMOS fat32fs::0.$.CMOS

How do I get to the SCSI drive with my !Boot etc on it?

*scsi
*cat

That should list the root directory of your USB stick.

If the USB stick appears as drive 0, try the following:

*configure filesystem scsi
*configure scsifsdrive 0
*SaveCMOS :0.$.!Boot.Loader.CMOS

If it appears as drive 4, you would do:

*configure filesystem scsi
*configure scsifsdrive 4
*SaveCMOS :4.$.!Boot.Loader.CMOS

A reboot should now take you to the desktop.

If all of that has worked, you should now create the Obey file in !Boot.Choices.Boot.PostDesk as mentioned in my earlier message.

Booting off USB and not having an SD card seems to have highlighted a number of issues.
It looks like SDCMOS goes dormant when it doesn’t detect a CMOS file in SDFS:$.CMOS or SDFS:$.!Boot.Loader.CMOS.

Also fat32fs doesn’t detect the fat partition on SDFS but does on SCSI. You have to dismount the fat partition and then right click the icon to get the file core partition or right click first.

Stuart – thanks for your time and assistance. I’m almost there….

It is now booting to the desktop without intervention. However, I still am unable to access my SCSIFS::0 drive from any icon on the icon bar unless I start !Director and use the menu from there.

If I use !Configure (or !Boot) to set the number of SCSI drives to 1, my Fat32FS disappears (taking the Loader.CMOS file with it). This upsets much functionality in the desktop.

I’m not convinced that PostDesk is working. I’ve created the Obey file, named PostDesk alongside the PreDesktop obey file … or should it be a file in a PreDesk folder?

How do I get a SCSIFS icon onto the icon bar?

Is anyone else running with a USB drive and no SD card?

Chris,
Yes, I was beginning to suspect that I was pioneering in the realm of not having an SD card.

For me, SDCMOS appears to be fine until I try to set a number of SCSI drives to prompt the display of a SCSIFS icon. I have been able to save settings to the CMOS file.

until I try to set a number of SCSI drives

If CMOS is not saving, when you reboot it will reset back to zero. Leave it as zero. It’s for old school fixed SCSI drives. USB drives appear and dissappear automatically when plugged in and unplugged.

To see the contents of the USB SCSI drive right click instead of left click. The default name is HardDisk4 or similar. If you used RC16 image it’s RISCOSpi. It changes to Boot or PiBoot if you left click on it. If that happens click menu and then dismount. Then you will see either :0 or :4.

Chris – yes, clearly, when the CMOS file becomes inaccessible, then changes will not be saved.

Right Click on the USB icon only provides access to the Fat32fs partition. Using !Configure to set number of SCSIdrives to 1 kills Fat32fs, preventing CMOS from being saved.

Using !Configure to set number of SCSIdrives to 1

Changing that will only cause bad things to happen! Always leave it as zero.

Press f12 and type,

rmkill fat32fs

Press return to get back to the desktop. Try clicking on the drive icon again.

A bit of explanation is called for. The RC16 image was intended for an SD card, and actually contains two partitions: the FAT16 boot partition (with start4.elf, riscos.img etc.) and a Filecore partition (with all of the RISC OS applications including !Boot). When booting from SD, the Raspberry Pi bootloader sees only the FAT16 partition and RISC OS only sees the Filecore partition¹ so everyone is happy.

When booting from USB, RISC OS can see both partitions and behaves accordingly.

• If – as your first action – you left-click on the drive icon, you will get the FAT16 partition.
• If – as your first action – you right-click on the drive icon, you will get the Filecore partition.

Once a “choice” has been made, all subsequent clicks (left or right) will open the partition you first selected. If you want to be sure of getting the Filecore partition you should Dismount the drive and then right-click on the drive.

¹ This is a bit of a fudge: what actually happens is that SDFS, on detecting a Filecore-format SD card, quietly ignores the presence of the FAT16 partition and only ever displays the Filecore partition. Thanks to some jiggery-pokery, the FAT16 partition is mapped to a DOSdisc file (!Boot.Loader) so you can view/alter the contents from Filecore without explicitly selecting the FAT16 partition.

I’m not convinced that PostDesk is working. I’ve created the Obey file, named PostDesk alongside the PreDesktop obey file … or should it be a file in a PreDesk folder?

Apologies: you need to create a directory called PostDesk in !Boot.Choices.Boot and put your Obey file inside that. My Raspberry Pi came with a PostDesk directory already present, so I thought it was a feature of all builds.

What we’re trying to do here is set things so that CMOS gets saved to your USB stick every time you perform a tidy shutdown. This is because RISC OS – expecting to boot from SD – only tries to save CMOS to the SD card.

Okay, thanks to you both – I now have a usable system. Initial right-click certainly brings up the SCSI partition, and an obey in the PostDesk directory does appear to save the CMOS correctly. I’m very grateful.

I will now re-acquaint myself with RO and introduce it to the rest of the family. My two daughters, 7 and 11 y/o, were playing with !Paint this morning.

I’ll have to ask Andrew R for a copy of my LPR driver – I appear to have lost it (including sources) when my Iyo drive failed!

One more oddity, almost certainly due to no SD card – any attempt at restarting (shutdown/restart etc) hangs at the rainbow screen (six flashes on the green LED) – I’m sure it’s looking for the SD.

I did come across another person here in Philippines who was interested in trying RO – I’ll message him and encourage him!

When booting from USB, RISC OS can see both partitions and behaves accordingly.

RC16 loads fat32fs as part of Boot. This is what is causing the problem in this instance. Although right clicking on the drive should have worked.

The problem with the CMOS file is it’s hard coded to SDFS.

One more oddity, almost certainly due to no SD card – any attempt at restarting (shutdown/restart etc) hangs at the rainbow screen (six flashes on the green LED) – I’m sure it’s looking for the SD.

Sounds like you are running with old firmware. You should see the new text splash screen and the reason for not starting up. start4/elf and fixup4/dat may also need updating.