Sibelius on Raspberry Pi?

We have many customers running RISC OS Sibelius on our RISCube/RISCBook range, as we’re based in the vacinity of the RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music). Many of the staff there started on RISC OS Sibelius and still use it in preference to the Windows version – they find it more productive. I’m also a bassoonist, so have a personal interest in music on RISC OS too.

However, it is tricky to run on hardware such as Pi, because of its use of very low colour depths, copy protection, and 26-bit ARM-code. I have had the demo working, but that’s not overly representative of the full version – I’ve never had much luck with that. I think Colin Ferris was having a go at trying to get it to work, but suffice to say that it isn’t trivial. So, for now, your best choice for RISC OS Sib is RISCube/RISCbook, which can generally match performance with the high end ARM boards available, so it really is just a case of “which is the best tool for the job?”.

That’s odd. The original post has vanished. It was a guy asking about running Sibelius on Pi or other modern RISC OS hardware, and whether people still did that (they do – folks still like RISC OS Sib).

That’s odd. The original post has vanished.

It was a spammer, repeating word-for-word comma-for-comma what was asked a few years ago, hence the reference to Aemulor now having appeared for the Pi (which it had then)

I think Dave left your post as it is useful information. If he wants to delete everything except your longer post I think we can leave things alone then.

Andrew could append his riscube advert onto the end of the original then a moderator could delete the whole of this thread then just the 1 useful reply is kept

I think that would be the best solution.

My dad used Sibelius on our A3010 until the late 90s. I still have our A3010, but for some reason Sibelius complains about being corrupted and asks to be reinstalled from the floppy disks, which have long been lost or thrown out. It’s a shame because there seems to be a lot of music files on the A3010’s hard disc, which would have been interesting to listen to.

…and therein lies the problem with copy protection…

It’s a shame because there seems to be a lot of music files on the A3010’s hard disc, which would have been interesting to listen to.

I’m no expert but from a quick look at the Sibelius website:
http://www.avid.com/sibelius/how-to-buy
there would seem to be several options for renting the PC/Mac version of Sibelius by the month, or using a 30-day demo version (might not be possible to save out files from the latter of course). Presumably the PC/Mac versions can read RISC OS Sibelius files, in which case you may be able to access the A3010’s files without excessive outlay (assuming you have a suitable PC or Mac of course). Or you could try their Help line (you can’t be the first person to find themselves in the predicament you describe).

The problem is that only PC versions up to v4 will read RISC OS files. Beyond that, they broke/ditched backwards compatibility. Since v4 predates Avid (if memory serves), I very much doubt they’d be able to supply a version which could read RISC OS files. This has been a pain-in-the-proverbial for a number of my customers.

Part of the copy protection comes from taking the hardware address of the computer mixing it with the !System Date/Time and then creating Sibelius7 directory and setting its Date/Time.

(setting Date/Time of a dir is not possible with VRPC Hostfs – thats why you have to use the HD file)

Havn’t tried Hostfs on !RPCEmu.
Anyone like to try to use something like !StampIt – on a plain Dir in !RPCEmu?

Or indeed any of the new machines HD?

If you are using the same machine – perhaps you have changed !System or deleted the Sibeliius7 dir in !Scrap.

It should be possible to find out the value to set Sibelius7 dir – from the other two values.

Anyone know what was the last version of RO Sib7?
Was there ever – updating software?

I have done a 32bit version of the Demo of Sib7 running of VRPC RO5.23 – anyone like to test it on a ‘Ti’ machine – which seems to be able to run a 4 colour mode.

As the ‘Ti’ now has a 256 colour mode – is it possible in software – for the other machines to be made to run a 4 colour mode?

Thanks

Anyone like to try to use something like !StampIt – on a plain Dir in !RPCEmu?

Doesn’t change the timestamp for directories, works fine for files. Probably a “feature” of HostFS.

When Avid bought Sibelius Software there was such an outcry about it that I briefly looked into documenting the file formats of the original Acorn version and the later PC versions, since I was in the right frame of mind for that kind of reverse engineering at the time. However, when I reached out to a couple of vocal users about the idea, they either thought I should use a “cracked” PC version to help with figuring out the format or had their head in the sand about the challenges they would face converting PC Sibelius files to other proprietary formats.

The Acorn format looks easier to decode than the PC one. If someone wanted to fund work on an Acorn Sibelius to MusicXML or Lilypond convertor, I might be persuaded to look at it again.

there was such an outcry about it

Hmm… Twitter feed runs from July to October. Around 10,000 clicked “signatures” and… nothing…

an Acorn Sibelius to MusicXML or Lilypond convertor

MuseScore?

Something like that or Frescobaldi that can read and write open formats, and won’t leave users stranded if the developers leave the business.

Daughter (accomplished composer, see http://anjulasemmens.com/ ) uses Sibelius on her Mac. Not sure whether we originally had it on the Acorns, but if we did we upgraded a long time ago and I’ve no idea whether she transferred files.

Ungifted amateur that I am, I use MuseScore, originally on a PC and now on my Mac. ( http://clive.semmens.org.uk/RISCOS/index.php?AppsQ ). MuseScore meets my needs admirably.

Shame there are no example MP3s to listen to, but credit for a site that works on NetSurf! Did you have a hand in ensuring that?

I have MuseScore, but unfortunately a lot gets lost between the idea in my head and what turns up as notation. I’ve been after some sort of reasonable MIDI solution (to reduce the music to simpler note on – duration – note off) but it seems nothing has come of the idea to open source MelIDI, and I’ve not found anything useful (and free) that runs under XP, though maybe I’m not looking in the right places?

Did you have a hand in ensuring that?

No, not at all. She’s entirely responsible for her own website, which although it’s much less extensive than mine is far more sophisticated! I think that the fact it works on NetSurf is purely accidental. She grew up with Acorns – well, an A5000 – but has been exclusively a Mac user for a long time now.

I’m fairly comfortable with conventional musical notation – but not very good at knowing what chords or chord sequences sound good or achieve particular effects.

The initial attraction of MuseScore was of course that it’s free, but it also seems to work well for me.