Bounty Proposal - Risc PC USB/Unipod Support

I know that the focus is elsewhere with newer hardware, but would be willing to support a bounty for Simtec USB support on the RISC PC under RO5 – would love to get the Simtec/STD unipod working on RO5. Same goes for the viewfinder.

May I ask what the advantage of this would be, even to a staunch RiscPC user? OS5 restricts software compatibility to 32bit apps, so the main attraction of the native 26bit hardware (running old software) is lost. You basically end up with an under-powered Pi mk1, but with no Aemulor option. RiscPCs remain great machines (we still have a couple soldiering on in the dark corners of the office), but it surely makes more sense to leave them on OS 4.x?

Perhaps a better use of bounty funds (and the rare resource – programmer time) would be to re-introduce any features of the RPC that you like (eg. RISC OS 4.39 or RISC OS six features) into OS5 so that more modern hardware (even a Pi) can ultimately fulfil the role of the RPC?

Can’t help agreeing. To get a Risc PC running RISC OS 5 seems a strange thing to do and not something that would have a high priority. Perhaps after a lottery win that has already funded and completed all the other bounties?

Not wishing to use this forum to plug anything, although I clearly inadvertently am doing, as long as you’ve got the network connection on the UniPOD up and running, you could just use a PiPOD to run RISC OS 5, proper USB, and decent graphics on a RiscPC, albeit by proxy. That’s kind of why I wanted one for myself in the first place!

mmmm….ok…. I admit, was day dreaming a little

yes Andrew you are right

if Aemulor would work on a RO5 RPC then the latest impression and other software could be run…

have decided to transplant the RISC OS 5.22 ROMs from the RISC PC into the A7000+ Server (one of the NZ omnibus ones recently sold on fleabay) and run it headless – so long as can get networking to work – that should give me my RO5 fix on the RPC era hardware – have enjoyed having netsurf and other software running on a RPC on the ‘latest’ OS. Have other RPCs for playing with 4.39/6.20 etc. Next project will be setting up the RPi in the Phoebe case using a fairywren board – will see how that goes (would love to put a titanium board in the Phoebe).

very pleased to see the EDID support complete recently as well as work on the USB and TCP/IP stacks.. will support these.

Would love to convince Sprow to get the digital TV card working with RO5, but in reality would rather he keep working on his other projects.

Thanks for everything you guys do keeping the RISC OS scene alive.

yes the pi pod looks appealing – any chance of a video of it running?

any chance of a video of it running?

Absolutely! I’ll sort something out and drop a link on here over the weekend or so.

We also sell ITX mounts for ARMX6 boards if you want something more upscale than a Pi for the Phoebe. That’d give you something with SATA for modern drive connectivity and high res video output, better ethernet, cpu performance etc – more like a complete computer (it’s the most common desktop RISC OS 5 machine here in the UK now). Depends how your skills are, I guess. I agree, though, the fairywren board looks interesting, and being from Aus, has a nice “local” touch for you :)

Next project will be setting up the RPi in the Phoebe case using a fairywren board

You may be interested in this page then!

I just get ‘database error’.

You may be interested in this page then!
bq. I just get ‘database error’.

So did I but it’s up now. Shame the text is unreadable in NetSurf!

Sorry – must find out how to nest quotes!

Shame the text is unreadable in NetSurf!

Saving and deleting the third CSS file helps a lot!

I saw the Fairywren boards a long time ago when they had gone into production from a kickstarter project – I contacted the Geekroo guys as they are based in Adelaide (where I am) and they organised a couple of boards for me – even if they did drop ship from China ! I sat on the project for some time and then found the site which RISCOSBits linked to above while waiting – this gave weight to my idea – just need to find the time to put it all together etc (real work seems to get in the way all too often). Ordered some USB extension cables from ebay in December last year – they arrived yesterday !! Picked up some mini ITX cases with super simple power supplies as well on the weekend – the spare Fairywren board will probably go into one of these and hopefully one of the power supplies will go into the Phoebe case – so it is all gathering momentum….

The only downside to the Fairywren is that was only designed for the first RPi – the Model B fits OK still.
Now as for that beagle board…..

You may be interested in this page then!

It irritates me when someone calls Phoebe Pheobe. As well as calling ARMv7 Arm7 even if in reality ARMv6 is meant.

any chance of a video of it running?

Here’s a quick (Full HD) video showing the PiPOD booting up, logging into the RiscPC it is installed in, and, as you’d mentioned Impression, er, doing something in Impression! With apologies to the school, it was on the hard drive when I bought the RiscPC and I never use it as I prefer Ovation Pro.

Not sure if the video will work on RISC OS… I doubt it.

It’s worth noting that the video appears to show RISC OS 4.02, but it is in fact Adjust with the Steel theme. If using RO6, there are options to switch off the backdrop and window textures from within VNCSvrFE to make screen redraws quicker.

Am I continually missing something with these PiPods?

It’s just providing a VNC Viewer on a Raspberry Pi which anyone can do from any operating system for free!