I had a dream..

-That a few Acorn RISC OS developers (mostly pensioners) with some other support were in cahoots to port RISC OS into the 64-bit world, some doing the kernel, others updating the relocatable modules, a third party developing a 2632emu(lator) RM which enables legacy software to run in a fully “sandboxed” environment in RAM.

Sometimes its a real shame to wake up, it’d be a great xmas gift..

Well, I think this remark is strongly linked to the more ‘philosophical’ question: why do we continue to use RiscOS ? I don’t think it’s because it’s 26/32… or whatever bits, nor because of more memory, more power, more…??? My impression is that, as an old computer user, I grew with ZX81, C64, BBC, Amiga’s and Archimedes, but the only machine where I really had the sensation to control and understand the inner side was the archimedes. And I feel still the same when using my Raspberry pi 4 running riscos. Of course, people will say that I can use much more ‘up to date’ operating systems (linux…). But still, the ‘feeling’ is not comparable to use a good old BBC Basic to pilot some GPIO’s, and see direct results. But of course, it’s my own feelings …
But who nows… Santa Claus maybe exists after all ? :-)

As to Santa Claus, I could swear my father was Him until I was about 5 years old (well maybe 4) – he did a real good impression of the sound of reindeer landing and all that “ho, ho” stuff.

But the results from my dream would be the only salvation f,or RISC OS in the long run. Haven’t used it in years, so even now I miss the sheer productivity in desktop publishing and illustrations I achieved using ArtWorks, Photoshop, Ovation Pro, Impression Publisher and other tools.

Those would still run at lighting speed under emulation on modern Arm CPUs, even Architecture 9 with no 32-bit support. Oh well call me a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.. :*)

I could swear my father was Him

I wasn’t so easily fooled.

Though it did take mom a while to convince me that the living room table wasn’t called an “ohshit”, ‘cos that’s what daddy always used to say after walking into it.

even now I miss the sheer productivity in desktop publishing and illustrations I achieved using ArtWorks, Photoshop, Ovation Pro,

PhotoDesk, not Photoshop. ;)

But, then, why do you “miss” these things? This post is nonsense, as they all exist right now, they work right now, and they work perfectly fine on hardware that can be purchased right now and will still be available for a while.

Yes, ARM has ditched 32 bit and yes the new processors have as well (or only support a subset of the 32 bit realm). But this doesn’t mean that everything up until that point suddenly ceases to work.
Get yourself a big spec Pi 4 (or, at least, get on the waiting list!) and you can return to your days of productivity. Nothing to miss, mourn, or reminisce.