A modern mum tries out Risc OS 3.11 from 1992

Hey everyone ;)

You probably don’t know about me or my OSFirstTimer YouTube channel with over 8,500 subscribers but for the first time on the channel Acorns Risc OS has finally been featured in one of our videos. Our videos involve an average 39 year old mum attempting to use a variety of operating systems throughout history so far over 40 of them ranging from 1984 to 2013. She is given the same 5 tasks to complete within each operating system to test how user friendly it is.

Here’s a link to the video of her testing Risc OS 3.11: http://youtu.be/7aX6EZFU_Ak

Really interesting to see someone new (you and your mother) try to use the OS. Excellent piece.

A lot of rather obvious clangers dropped (“shutting down wipes your hard disc”, indeed!), but the one which stuck with me was the statement that Maestro couldn’t play the music you wrote with it. You’ve got a real blind spot for middle-clicking, huh?

The backdrop changing mechanism was rather convoluted back in RISC OS 3.11. It was improved for RISC OS 4 in 1999, which also fixed the problem of the backdrop not staying put when you restart the computer.

The things you deride as taking ‘too many steps’ are actually oft-underappreciated advantages. For example, think of the process you would go through to save a text document from Notepad. You’d have to open the Save dialogue and navigate through your hard disc to the place you’d want to put it, wouldn’t you? You’re not actually saving any steps overall by not having to open the directory display first. But more to the point, the drag-and-drop system lets you drag files – even as-yet unsaved files – directly into other applications which can open the same types of file, without any need for temporary files.

And as for applications not (usually) opening windows when you initially load them, you neglect to mention the flipside – when you close the last window belonging to an application, the application doesn’t quit. If you want to use it again, you don’t have to load it again. This isn’t really noticeable with apps like Edit which load instantaneously, but it becomes a major advantage with things like web browsers which can take ages to start up.

Some thoughts…

I like how you try to deflect from the “it looks like Apple” and “maybe these guys came up with the idea”. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. The amusing thing is that few things are innovative and original despite any crap Apple spews.

Yeah, the entire screen is the desktop. The pinboard is like the Windows backdrop where you can dump icons onto it for quick access. They are called icons, by the way.

I can understand from a PC/Linux/Mac point of view that it is “stupid” to have to load a program and then tell it to display something on the screen. Please look at it from our point of view that it is equally “stupid” for an application to be incapable of running without splattering something on the screen, or having a pile of minimised windows.
You know what happens when I close the only open Firefox window? Firefox quits. This is a design choice of the OS, but not necessarily a logical one. What if I just want Firefox out of the way while I do something else? I could minimise, but that takes a lot of space on the taskbar.

The version of RISC OS you are looking at comes from 1991. There are earlier versions.

Had you been using a real RISC OS computer and not an emulation, it might have been really obvious to your mother that the mouse has three buttons.
[later pan down – the hell kind of mouse is THAT?]

Later versions of RISC OS will pop open submenus automatically.

The number of tasks involved in saving a file is about the same on RISC OS and Windows. For RISC OS, open filer, open save box, drag it. For Windows, open save box, bugger around in a tiny bit of the screen to find the place where you want to put the file, OK it.

We do now have a default instead of a grey screen, and have for a while. Please bear in mind that RISC OS 3 would be expected to run sanely on an 8MHz machine with 1MB memory onboard (my A3000 runs RISC OS 3.11). So we won’t want to toss away a lot of memory on a pretty image. Now, now we can afford to. But not back in ’91.

Dude, what a load of cobblers. “Most back then is what you’d see is sixteen”. Every RISC OS machine of that era had a VIDC which could offer 2, 4, 16, and 256 colours. As standard. The reason for the other options is, in a low-memory machine, you can trade off display quality for memory. RISC OS looks horrid in 2 colours, however you make a huge amount of memory available if you’re doing crazy stuff like trying to do desktop publishing on a 1MB machine fitted with only a floppy disc. Yes, I speak from experience. :-)

Look at your memory report. While shocking your mom with the two colour version, your free memory was 12512K. Back to 256 colours, it becomes 11680K. It’s a difference of 832K for an 800×600 resolution (which is why 640×480 did us ;-) ).

Oh, and no. You are running an emulator. The default resolutions offered by RISC OS are quite different to what you see in that list; and I don’t recall the standard RISC OS 3.11 display manager looking like that. As you are using VirtualA5000, it is possible that some stuff has been tweaked.

? Windows 7 running a VM of Windows XP running VirtualA5000?

Y and W? How did you manage to kill the Wimp characters? I notice also the font redraws are stuffed up with the colours.
Which brings to mind – original RISC OS 3.11 did not offer outline fonts out of the box. I’m glad VA5000 does, ’cos your mom would have hated the look of everything in the VDUfont style of text.

“When you turned the computer off it actually wiped the entire harddisc”.
Bollocks.
What is the point of that? What would be the use of a computer that wiped stuff?
More likely you disabled a few things to make it plainer for your mother (remember she asked why there wasn’t a default picture?) and forgot that upon a reboot it would reload the configuration.

You later correct to “it wipes the settings”. That is because you did a direct adjustment instead of using the configuration tool like you’re supposed to.

Maestro… dunce, didn’t you think to click MENU and see if there was an option like “Play”? Perhaps, you know, at the bottom of the menu that would appear? “Get Windows 7 and get some program” isn’t a useful reply. Your mom is right, if you program in some music, you’d want to have the computer play it so that you can hear what it sounds like.
“you can just do the notes and it will play it” – a bit like Maestro in RISC OS, you mean.
I guess being used to the likes of Windows and Linux that you don’t really think of the middle mouse button.

As for RISC OS today, you can get a ROM image from this site, and RPCEmu to run it on – or do it in real hardware with a RaspberryPi. Just don’t forget the mouse has three buttons, eh?

The video is interesting in that it highlights the need to change RISC OS if it is to ever to gain mass appeal. The question one has to ask though is how far do you want it to change? It becomes fairly obvious that if no change is made to the general “look and feel” of the system, everyday users (as typified by the housewife of the video) will very quickly move on to another OS which they think of as more intuitive by today’s standards.
Some of you may well be thinking “good riddance, they don’t know what they are talking about, RISCOS is better off without them”. You could also argue that, should these “mass everyday users” become the driving force behind major changes, RISC OS could easily degenerate into a bloated system like others.
However, if RISC OS is to survive important brutal lessons must be learned. The reality is that the active RISC OS community is small and, until the Pi came along, was dwindling. Also, many changes made to other operating systems occurred not because of corporate policy (made behind closed doors profit driven executives) but because of user demand arising from everyday usage. Refusal to take on board such changes because they originate from mass users not only smacks of elitism, it also acts to alienate a large part of your potential future audience.
The woman herself picked up very quickly that, for 1992, the OS was in front of its time. However, we have to accept that, in many respects, it is no longer so. Looking through this forum and others, it becomes quickly apparent that there are frustrations and limitations with RISC OS. Fixes and improvements will only happen when the users/developers community is much larger than current (I am truly astounded by the amount of work done by such a small number of amazing developers). In addition, new blood is needed to ensure ongoing development so that RISC OS has a realistic future.
With the advent of machines such as the Raspberry Pi, RISC OS has been given the second chance it so richly deserves. However, if changes are not made to accommodate the expectations of potential new users , this chance will be missed. The trick, of course, is being able to identify priorities and then implementing them in a way that makes everyone happy.
Please note these are only comments intended to open up discussion. I am in no way trying to criticize anyone.

Hi,

An interesting exercise to watch. Obviously it’s very hard to “get” how an operating system operates when you are asked to use it without any training or guidance of any sort beforehand. Also, using a system from 1992 after experiencing modern systems puts you at a disadvantage. Lots of preconcieved ideas about how things should work etc.

RISC OS does need some introduction to change the way of thinking before you can use it well. Outlining how the 3 button mouse works is a must. Also, understanding that you are in control of your files and that the filing sytstem is quite central to the whole drag/drop saving/loading experience. You don’t have to store everything in My Documents and My Pictures.

With regards to the amount of steps taken to save a file, When asked to explain it to others, I usually ask how they would do the following on the operating system they are used to:

Say, someone has emailed you a document or spreadsheet that needs modifying and then sent back to the sender. How would you do that?

For example, on Windows:

Save the email attachment to disc by navigating to the folder to save it to using the tiny save dialog window. (Usually people save it somewhere OK, but don’t take note of where it was saved to).
Load up Word, or Excel etc.
Choose File, Open and RENAVIGATE back to the place you saved the email attachment to. Find that file and open it.
Make the modifications.
Choose File, Save to save the changes.
Hit reply to the email you received.
Choose Add attachment and RENAVIGATE back to the place you saved the changed doucment.

That’s navigating through the filing system 3 times!

On RISCOS, you don’t even need to save the file anywhere.

Load up the word processor or spreadsheet.
Drag the attachment from the email to the word processor or spreadsheet icon on the iconbar.
It will open so you can make the changes.
Hit reply to the email you received.
Choose Save on the document and drag and drop it back into the email.

Of course, you can save the file to disc instead of drag/dropping it between applications, but this only requires you to navigate to a folder ONCE!

Anyway, I’m sure with a bit of practice and understanding by both of you, you’ll figure out why things are done they way they are. Of course, improvements can and have been made to the OS, for example setting the pinboard background and not having to manually save those changes – which is why there were lost on a reboot.

Your Mum seemed to get more interested when she was able to pretty up the system with a picture. Unfortunately, people today do go for pretty systems over functional ones, but in 1992, memory size was at a premium and so prettyness hads take a back seat.

Did you notice how fast the OS started up and shutdown? I can fire up RISC OS, a browser and go to a website before my Windows machine is in a usable state.

By your accent, I guess you’re Aussies? Greetings from across the ditch.

As a relatively new user myself (I had absolutely zero RISC OS experience until I had a chance encounter with a former Acorn employee last year who told me that I could get it for my Pi) I can agree with some of the points. It took me a while to get used to middle-clicking everything and I had no idea how to save files until I looked online. If it wasn’t so mind-blowingly speedy compared to Linux then I’d probably have quit there and then, but I’ve persevered and still use it on my Pi to this day.

On the other hand, some of the issues experienced are undoubtedly due to the emulator rather than problems with RISC OS itself. For example, I’m fairly sure that my backdrop stays put after a restart :)

As far as getting more developers involved, there doesn’t seem to be much available aside from BBC Basic. I’m aware of the existence of the DDE but I’m not clear on what it actually does. I’d love to see a free trial available although I’m not sure of the best way to accomplish this (possibly by limiting apps to the same computer that they were compiled on, similar to how Aemulor does the MAC address check). But I’m also aware that ROOL is spread a bit thin so I’m not expecting anything to happen instantly :)

That’s about all I can think of, other than that as a kiwi I’m required to make fun of your accent!

I suppose coming from the modern computing era then a 20+ year old OS will always fair worse off in comparisons made by a lay person with modern expectations. Bearing in mind what was around at the time, RISC OS 3.11 was streets ahead of Win3.1 and other offerings such as Amiga Workbench which is why it lasted so well into the late 90s in the education sector.

From memory, even RISC OS 3.11 compared OK usability wise to Win 95, although by the time Win 98 came out all the additional bells and whistles started making ROS look more and more old school in comparison.

If the “mum” is 39 now, it’s a shame she is not a few years younger and educated in the UK education system as she would almost certainly have had computing lessons on an A3010 or similar mid 90s in that case.

The video is interesting in that it highlights the need to change RISC OS if it is to ever to gain mass appeal.

Obviously it’s very hard to “get” how an operating system operates when you are asked to use it without any training or guidance of any sort beforehand. Also, using a system from 1992 after experiencing modern systems puts you at a disadvantage. Lots of preconcieved ideas about how things should work etc.

Which is the point really. I think particularly relevant in some other threads where appealing to new users sometimes seems to over-ride wanting to maintain integrity of the OS.

While it is clear RISC OS needs to change to accept more users, the problem is many of the changes would fundamentally break the good things about it.
Perhaps what is required is good user documentation that loads itself at start….. Like the Pi distribution does?

I can’t help but think this mom is no longer a good test subject. She seems familiar with Windows and Mac and if this is like her 40th OS then she is hardly a beginner?
I ought to video how far my mom gets. Probably lost at finding the text editor – she’s used Windows for years and still doesn’t know how to load saved stuff, find Notepad, etc. She starts it, loads Firefox, and if anything goes wrong she shuts the lid and said for me to get back home. How do you think she’d get on with RISC OS? :-)

Seriously though, while some things (cut and paste keys) ought to be standardised, some things have to be accepted as being different.

If only there were a tutorial with pretty hand illustrations showing how to operate this strange system. It could be printed in a book and supplied with the machine.

Oh, wait…

A German you can find here and a English you can find here. ;-)
It is also possible that I have a english PDF.