Squeak 4.0 & 4.4 releases

There is now an official release of Squeak 4.0 and Squeak 4.4 for RISC OS available at squeakvm.org/riscos

The 4.0 release package is probably the one to use right now since the 4.4 release expects FreeType support along with a few other changes I haven’t yet optimised for RISC OS. The fall-back code does indeed work but it’s a bit slower.

Anyone with any experience of making FreeType work on RISC OS ? Please contact me…

There’s been some work on Pango, Cairo and friends in the GCCSDK autobuilder. However I don’t think anyone has written a native implementation – in other words it just uses the default renderers. Or something like that, I haven’t used them myself.

Anyone with any experience of making FreeType work on RISC OS?

Not me, but I’d argue that what should be done is a complete overhaul of the FontManager (which is no longer fit for purpose) – keeping and extending that API and making use of FreeType or similar at the back end.

As it happens I’m scheduled to implement (elsewhere) a FreeType system soon, though I have to add Intellifont support to it at the same time.

I just tested the stuff with the latest RC7 revision of RiscOS, but I got an error, that Object memory could not be retrieved.

I’ve been talking with Marten privately about this, but I’ve just fired up a fresh RC8 SD card and Squeak starts up with no issues.
Assuming we don’t conclude that the default memory request I put into the !Run file is Just Too Damn Big for the setup on Marten’s machine, more info later.

I would set a much smaller default space allocation if there were a way to increase my memory without moving it; so far as I recall the last time I tried this by whatever means there was no way to claim more memory (let alone release what I no longer needed) that guaranteed being able to keep to the same base address. That was a very long time ago though, so maybe there is a way now? Or maybe there always was and I simply misunderstood…

Slightly confused… If you mean the WimpSlot, then of course you can change the size of that and its base address ALWAYS starts at &8000.

If you mean an RMA allocation, then that can move when you resize it. If you do mean that, then consider using a Dynamic Area – you can reserve a large amount of address space but a small amount of physical RAM. Resizing doesn’t move the base address.

Let’s see if I can explain without descending into too much gibberish -
Originally (~1996) I simply used a malloc. Later, DA’s came into fashion as a way to speed up wimp_poll by avoiding having so much memory map to update (IIRC). Then I got an Iyonix and, inevitably, Aemulor. That added some issues wrt DA’s. It’s entirely possibly I didn’t get it all correct.

The current code (viewable at http://www.squeakvm.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/squeak/trunk/platforms/RiscOS/vm/sqRPCMain.c?view=markup function platAllocateMemory() for the deeply curious) does-
use a xos_read_dynamic_area to find out if we can use a large application space alloc
if we can’t, or if the useDAMemory flag is set,
make a DA
else
malloc

To the best of my knowledge the wimpslot doesn’t affect my malloc so that shouldn’t have caused Marten’s problem and in fact it all runs ok on RC8 for him as well.

I have no memory of why I changed to defaulting to malloc after the Iyonix/Aemulor era but it would have been due to advice given somewhere. If using a DA would allow me to have growing/shrinking that worked suitably – adding memory to the high end, removing it from the high end – I’d very pleased to know how to do it. The sparse area page on this site helps a little but if anyone has working example code that would be really nice.

The next RISC OS User Group Of London meeting on Monday 19th May will be all about Scratch and Squeak. Pub wifi and transatlantic connections permitting, this will also include a “visit” from Tim to give us the low down on the latest developments!

http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/

Bryan.

Scratch and Squeak

Now there is a name for a pub.

Pubs over here don’t have exciting names. “Bar du Lac” or “Bar du Poste” (if near a lake / post office), otherwise frequently “Chez” followed by the name of the person who owned it in the dark ages. Bleugh, boring.

Scratch and Squeak
Now there is a name for a pub.

Never nicknamed a pet Scratch, but one of the cats sometimes gets called Squeak.¹ Chez Fuff is the nickname for the house. Fur and fluff³ you see…

¹ Merlyn² marderfuff wooly-bum snot-dotter
² Female, black long hair, howls at full moons (as opposed to the deceased Moet who growled at dogs and barked at squirrels)

³ That’s cat fluff in quantities large enough to trouble a Dyson