RISC OS Compatible hardware.

After speaking to some of the people from RISC OS Open, about compatible hardware. We both thought it might be an idea to have a wiki page of hardware people know works with RISC OS. This could even include hardware that people are working on ports for, and how far along they are with it.

Is this something anyone would be interested in and/or be able to contribute to?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I take it the aim would be to list hardware which is compatible with all versions of RISC OS? (rather than just focusing on RISC OS 5) If so then I think the riscos.info wiki would be the best place for it.

Also, just for clarity, would the page be listing “peripheral” hardware (mainly USB devices I guess, but also podules, PCI cards, parallel/serial port devices, disc drives, etc.), or “core” hardware? (i.e. types of CPU & motherboard). Originally I thought you were talking about “core” hardware to port RISC OS to, but then realised you were probably talking about peripherals. In any case, a page on the ROOL wiki summarising what hardware RISC OS 5 runs on would be a good idea, especially if one or two new ports start appearing.

Would certainly be useful for any newcomers to RISC OS. How’s this for a starting point? Please edit/delete/amend/improve. (Maybe the page should be called Platform Compatibility instead.)

Just want to make sure you know about this list too.

Yes, I’d seen it before – although must admit to having forgotten about it when I created the other page. Perhaps what’s needed is a simpler summary incorporated within that list , rather than adding another page as I did. If Andrew Hodgson and the ROOL staff know what’s needed then perhaps we can implement it under ROOL guidance.

There’s no point merging Trevor’s new hardware compatability page and the existing Cortex-A8 hardware compatability page, since they’re about two different things (“core” vs. “peripheral” hardware).

But it’s certainly worth pointing out the Cortex-A8 page for Andrew’s sake (or for whoever starts a new peripheral hardware page somewhere – if that’s what Andrew’s aim was)

I have also just created some pages about ARM Hardware as part of the PRMs. The overview page gives a quick summary of the ARM processors that RISC OS supports, and breaks down the RISC OS hardware into the three distinct categories; Archimedes, Risc PC, and HAL class machines.

I’ve added the technical information about the Archimedes, and will add another page discussing the Risc PC class of computers within the next few days.

The overview page sort of overlaps with the Trevor’s hardware page, even though we were coming at it from different angles, as I was simply providing background information for the technical hardware.

• Adding sources for working USB-Ethernet Adapters would be nice (in GB suppliers as well as in continental)
• Adding sources for USB Sticks (only some really work with my Beagleboard)
• Adding information about other Mass storage devices

by the way – is Steffen Huber working on the support for optical drives? – Steffen? I know you are out there :-)

Yay, able to login again. :)

Right sorry.

Yes the idea would be to list the “core” components, CPU’s, sound chips, etc and then a list for all the add-ons, wireless networking dongles, any modules etc.

I think that it would be useful to have a list on the ROOL wiki for RISC OS 5 and I agree about then having another for RISC OS 4/5/6 on riscos.info

I’ve tweaked Trevor’s page a little bit, but I’m not quite sure how to expand it further. I think it might be worth having Trevor’s page list brief information about each machine, and for each machine to link to a more detailed page giving the specifics (e.g. similar to the Archimedes hardware page) This page could then list the status of development for certain features, and any assumptions that are made as to hardware configuration (e.g. the beagle ROM currently assumes that certain GPIO pins have certain uses. It will only require trivial source code changes to adapt the ROM to new board configurations, but unless this information is all documented in some central location it will be hard for people to know what, if anything, needs changing)

I’ve also realised that there’s two types of information that could be provided for peripherals – information about limitations in RISC OS (e.g. DOSFS/FileCore limit of 2GB for FAT partitions, or the different USB mass storage protocols supported by SCSISoftUSB), and specific information about supported makes/model numbers of peripherals.

I’m of the opinion that the information about RISC OS 5’s capabilities/limitations should be stored on the ROOL wiki, while long lists of product numbers, etc. should be stored on the riscos.info wiki (and the ROOL wiki can simply link to that information where required). That way people can use riscos.info to list compatability information for specific pieces of hardware across all versions of RISC OS, and details of which third-party drivers (if any) are required, without making the ROOL wiki too hard to navigate when developers are looking for the information that they require to evaluate RISC OS 5 for a potential use, or to identify areas that need improvement (After all, the main link to the wiki from the “documents” page says that the wiki is primarily for technical documentation)

...list brief information about each machine, and for each machine to link to a more detailed page giving the specifics (e.g. similar to the Archimedes hardware page)

Would it be appropriate for these to link to a Post-Acorn Hardware page or similar within the PRMs ? Or should it be elsewhere as it’ll contain live information about the status of the port, hardware configs etc.

Linking to the pages from the PRMs would make sense.

I’m of the opinion that the information about RISC OS 5’s capabilities/limitations should be stored on the ROOL wiki, while long lists of product numbers, etc. should be stored on the riscos.info wiki (and the ROOL wiki can simply link to that information where required).

That seems reasonable. I’m happy for riscos.info to contain speculative information as long as it is researched and justified. But having information about stuff that RISC OS doesn’t run on or might never run on on the ROOL wiki doesn’t seem entirely helpful – that should contain firm information about real RISC OS targets only.

Having said that, I’d like to firmly limit the amount of pre-RiscPC/pre-RO4 material on riscos.info, except where required for completeness of a topic.

I’ve had a go at writing some PRM-ish documentation for the HAL “hardware” and the OMAP3. It’s still rather incomplete, but should (hopefully) be a good start for the things we’ve discussed in this thread about talking what hardware RISC OS runs on.

https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/pages/HAL+Hardware

https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/pages/OMAP3+Hardware

I’ll try and improve the pages over the next few days (particularly the OMAP3 one, which at the moment is just a long list of the chips features), so let me know here if you’ve got any ideas for what the pages should/shouldn’t contain.

Thanks. I’ve added a link to OMAP3 Hardware from the core hardware table on the Hardware Compatibility page.

Acorn Archimedes

gets a mention in this OMAP Workshop presentation by Silica .