running Risc OS on a modern pc

is it possible or will it ever be possible to run a risc operating system on a normal pc?

Ralph

That depends on the elasticity of your use of the word ‘possible’. RISC OS was designed to run on ARM processors, and every aspect of its design was constrained by the limitations of the market and of the technology of its day – from cooperative multitasking to the 77 files per directory limit. The latter constraint has been overcome, the former has not. I think it is important to distinguish between the RISC operating system and its GUI. To my mind it is the GUI which is the outstanding aspect. There are efforts being made to bring its good features to other platforms. Try googling “ROX Desktop”.

is it possible or will it ever be possible to run a risc operating system on a normal pc?

Sounds like a troll to me.

hello, im not even sure what a ARM prosessor is, are there any cheap or free emulators of the risc operating system? its a very logn time since i have used one!

troll??

Ralph, yes there is free RiscPC Emulators for MS Windows like “Red Squirrel”, click here for more info http://www.redsquirrel.fsnet.co.uk/redsquirrel.html

There is also more professional and interesting Archimedes and RiscPC emulators as Virtual Acorn that, actually, runs on Mac OS X too.

Those emulators emulate the old Acorn hardware platforms (like the a5000 or the RiscPC), you need to have (or buy) RISC OS ROM Images (which are included with Virtual Acorn products). Virtual Acorn offers also a wide range of nice applications with the product so I suggest you to have a look at: http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/

As Gavin told you, it is NOT possible to run RISC OS on other platforms than old Acorn, Advantage six or Castle HW (there is also some other small company who was/is trying to build new HW platforms for RISC OS, but, at the moment, they are still with alpha releases and/or test boards).

RISC OS was built around the ARM Processor and were engineered to obtain the best from ARM architecture this means memory management, chip set, buses, code optimization and more all designed for the ARM. It is not impossible to re-engineering the OS and re-write it for other platforms in technically terms, it is simply prohibitive in terms of investment, ROI, man-work and market opportunities.

Nowadays RISC OS community and companies are trying to overcome the 80’s limits of the operating system kernel and his GUI that is one of the most intuitive and easy to use on the market, which is a high value of the product itself. Moreover RISC OS is still one of the most stable operating system on the market, which is another high value.

hello, im not even sure what a ARM prosessor is, are there any cheap or free emulators of the risc operating system? its a very logn time since i have used one!

troll??

Yes a troll, if you google “free risc os emulator” the very first result returned is one.

thanks, very good information there. any chance someone could arnswer some more of my questions :).... i think i will buy a risc pc next time i see one on ebay, and after i have been paid!

do any of them have usb ports or support usb devices in any way?

will windows exe’s work on them?

and are they all very big? guessing they dont use much power as i saw one on ebay had a 100w power supply.

cheers people!

also can they play mp3’s and what file system they use? fat32 or anything usual?

Ralph

im not even sure what a ARM prosessor is

Try typing “ARM” into google and look at the first result, or the second result, or the third…

do any of them have usb ports or support usb devices in any way?

Not the base machines (they’re over a decade old!). There are a couple of expensive expansion board you can buy which add USB

will windows exe’s work on them?

No. RISC OS machine have absolutely nothing to do with Windows in any way. Windows programs will not work on them.

can they play mp3’s

Yes, see: http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Recommended_software#Media

what file system they use? fat32 or anything usual?

They can read FAT32, but the native system is ADFS.

Adam

when i say windows exe’s i mean programs whgich run on windows, so if i havce a small stand alone exe which does somethign in wondows will it work on a risc pc? the hole point of looking in to risc systems is i want to get away from windows, but may find my self tied to some programs which only work on windows.

thanks for the other answers.

Ralph

You can run RISC OS in an emulator on a Windows system. You still use Windows for your Windows-only programs but when you fire up the emulator, you will be able to get a taste for the RISC OS environment and its programs. I strongly suggest you have a Google around the subject – you will learn more, faster than asking here.