Pinebook Pro status?

Does anyone know what’s happening here? There seem to be persistent stories of people running RISC OS on the PBP - e.g., R-Comp claim to sell you one - but I cannot actually find any concrete evidence that it exists, let alone any downloads. I have found a beta ROM for the original Pinebook at https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/pinea64, but the PBP is a rather different beast.

What is there in the way of actual information on this?

@ David

Does anyone know what’s happening here?

Yes, RISC OS Port to PineBook Pro is is a good shape and works fine. It still needs porting audio drivers thought.

You can contact R-Comp directly for prices and offers.

I have two laptops here working, it’s a really nice laptop for RO and definitely works better with RISC OS than with Linux (although if RO doesn’t support all the on board devices yet).

Hope this helps,

It’s a bit of a long-standing problem, I’m afraid. It’s very difficult to find out about many of the commercial offerings. For anything else, you would look up manufacturer/supplier web sites, and read reviews etc. Not so simple here. There seems to be an awful lot of ‘word of mouth’ or ‘pick up the phone’.

@ Richard

It’s a bit of a long-standing problem, I’m afraid. It’s very difficult to find out about many of the commercial offerings.

True, so let me ask, which are the channels that you guys check more often?

The reason I ask is because we have the same problem even with free software and when making regular announcements here + on acorn.sys etc. MY impression is that a good portion of the old RISC OS community is simply not easy to reach by using the usual places.

I have lost count of the folks I know that had to repeat their “announcements” multiple times across years even.

So, what would be a good way for you, for an announcement, to reach you?

The easiest way is to read Archive magazine – are you a subscriber? There is an article on the PBP in the latest issue. It was demonstrated at the South West show. It will also be at the Wakefield show (in Bradford) on 22 April. I think there was an announcement on comp.sys.acorn.announce. It is mentioned on the R-Comp web site. Whether it was also on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard” is problematical.

They are easy to get order from https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/ when it arrives order the Pinebook pro software pack from Andrew at Rcomp. He will send you a sd card with the software, you don’t need to wait he will also send a download link. I got one here in Australia with two weeks of ordering. What can I say I can now sit brown at the beach with a coffee plug my mobile stick into the usb port and surf the web without a care in the world perfect.

It’s a proprietary port? I thought it was an open source project!

Isn’t that pretty much doomed to be DOA? There are so few RISC OS users that they’ll never make your development costs back, and if the development company ever goes under, all that work will just vanish without trace…

Like Rob, I live in Australia and bought my PineBook Pro from Pine64 at the address given above. I also ordered my SD card from Rcomp, who provide excellent customer service. I am very pleased with my PBP laptop which is fast and meets my requirements. Currently there is no audio but there are some work arounds if you want to play music. With suitable adapters from Rcomp and RISCOSBITS, it is possible to connect the laptop to a monitor through a USB port. As Rob mentioned, Wifi is also an option using a mobile stick.

Not sure why you think the project is DOA? Rcomp have been around the RISC OS scene forever and they have initiated many commercial projects (eg Wandboard and PineBook laptop) that are now open source and part of the ROOL downloads.

It is mentioned on the R-Comp web site.

Is it? The “old” Pinebook is mentioned on the R-Comp home page with a link to https://www.riscoscomputers.co.uk/, which has no mention of the Pro. The “software pack” mentioned in this thread might or might not be the “software scheme” listed here, but there’s no mention of Pinebook (old or Pro) there.

There was information about the Pinebook Pro here and here. Hopefully they’ll update their website soon.

Hopefully they’ll update their website soon.

A tag that could be applied to many/most of the businesses in the RO market, unfortunately.

I do wonder whether a co-operative effort among them all to employ someone with the art skills to lay out their sites neatly (first pass) and then update at regular (monthly?) intervals might not go amiss.

Sadly, it seems that so much of the RISC OS commercial world is stuck in the 90s when websites were naff, markup was simple, and it was usually simpler to just call and ask (for a copy of Fly Fishing by J R Hartley).

I recall the poor state of many websites (no easy payment options, no third party payment processor beyond things like “PayPal for existing customers”, so little information and publicity you’d be forgiven for thinking you imagined the product) that they collectively won a broken cog “you suck” award not so long ago.

Rest assured. That the product has no information, no price, no downloads, and no mention beyond something somebody said somewhere else…. just means it’s a current RISC OS product.

Think of it as a type of exclusivity. If it was easy to find, everybody would want one.

Until then, your best bet is to pick up the phone and ask the source. Which is really lousy for us introverts, but that’s a different argument entirely. ;)

@ David

It’s a proprietary port? I thought it was an open source project!

Ok, I am sorry, but I think some people here is confused of what Open Source means. Because RISC OS source code has been open sourced, it doesn’t mean that every port has to be too, that would imply that RISC OS has been Open Sourced and also released under a copy-left distribution license like GPL which would impose every one doing a port to also release their changes as open source and under the same license.

So, with the distribution license RISC OS has been released under, every port could either be open source or not and that would be perfectly fine.

R-Comp is not a foundation, they are a regular company and therefore they may have paid some developer to do a port of RISC OS on the PineBook Pro in order to then sell it for money to recover their investment and make profits (even if that may sound crazy given the actual size of the RISC OS market).

It is possible (but not assured) that, eventually, R-Comp may decide to release their work as open source too, but that is not a must.

Isn’t that pretty much doomed to be DOA? There are so few RISC OS users that they’ll never make your development costs back

I may agree with you, but that would be mine and your opinion. Others may have different opinions on the matter.

Ultimately, the real problem in the RISC OS scene is the lack of developers and that has nothing to do with the size of the market to be honest. How do I know that? Simple, if the world of people having fun with coding would discover RISC OS as, for example, they have discovered TempleOS (which has a user base even smaller than RISC OS) and started initiatives to code on it etc then things would be different (and this is also part of the reasons why I have started the project RISC OS community on gitHub, the coding videos and articles etc), but I am not expecting the old RO userbase to understand the dynamics of modern coding world, so I mention this here just as an example of why I think the lack of developers is not related at all to the small size of the user base. IMHO, is more related to the “vintage” and “isolating” nature of the “RISC OS environment” (topyc this for a complete different discussion).

and if the development company ever goes under, all that work will just vanish without trace…

Potentially, but not surely. We managed to recover a lot of sources from passed companies, and code is being released as open source (althought if unfortunately not always).

In any case, here is a video presentation in January 2023 of the PineBook Pro (as well as other updates), so you can have a more detailed description of the state of the project:

https://wrocc.org.uk/meetings/2023/r-comp

Interestingly it was on the internet by a whiel and searchable on Google, so can you please let me know which channels do you use for your RISC OS updates?

just means it’s a current RISC OS product.

Or was, maybe, current when the text was drafted to get someone, sooner-or-later, to put it on the page-web-thingumie.

Think of it as a type of exclusivity. If it was easy to find, everybody would want one.

ROFLNWM.

Until then, your best bet is to pick up the phone and ask the source.

Ooh, a supplied phone number that might be current. On a real phone (warning: POTS use-by-date in 2024 at latest)

Out of interest, how does one do the MFA thing for payment from your bank to the supplier when on a voice call?

Sadly, it seems that so much of the RISC OS commercial world is stuck in the 90s when websites were naff,

Very true, but again the video presentation at wrocc is on the internet and easy to find, so while you make a good point with which I agree, in this particoular case the RISC OS community itself has provided a service that solved the issue in the first place, which seems to me solving the problem of folks stuck in the past, given the information needed is there and easy to a) search and b) find and consume.

I do wonder whether a co-operative effort among them all to employ someone with the art skills to lay out their sites neatly (first pass) and then update at regular (monthly?) intervals might not go amiss.

Well the CJE website is generally updated for stock/prices weekly.

Until then, your best bet is to pick up the phone and ask the source. Which is really lousy for us introverts, but that’s a different argument entirely. ;)

Send an email?

but I am not expecting the old RO userbase to understand the dynamics of modern coding world

;)

I’ll give you an example from today. I got three cheap ESP32-Cam boards from Alibaba. I thought they were dead, but they’re just wired up weird (one of the ground pins is not connected to anything!).

Yesterday I duped my revised generic camera firmware to one of the boards. Works well, and doesn’t flake out with pictures over 380K (it can go up to ~760K per image).

Today? Well, I came in when the afternoon started to cool with an idea in my head. How about having a thing that wakes up, takes a picture, writes it to SD card with a sequential number, then goes into deep sleep for a minute before repeating?

It’s 260 lines of code (and a fair few are copied from the generic camera code as it’s the camera setup stuff). I wrote code to mount the SD, take a picture, dump it to SD, shut down everything, schedule an interrupt in sixty million microseconds, and then go into full deep sleep until then. It… wasn’t hard. About an hour and a half, and another twenty minutes to compile twice (’cos typo :/ ).

The serial port monitor says:

[generic ESP32 startup gibberish]

Rick's LapseCam starting.
This is boot 18 since powered up.
Starting camera.
Counter for this image is 22.
Starting SD card.
SD card, capacity 120MB, free 89MB.
Waiting five seconds for AEC to settle.
Smile! :) Taking picture.
Writing picture as "/image00022.jpg".
Saved 307004 bytes, updating counter.
Going into deep sleep for a minute, bye.

An hour and a half to make a functional time lapse camera (with a counter in EEPROM that can survive power cycles).

Here’s one of the test pictures. I rotated it before upload as this OV2640 appears to be mounted sideways compared to the other one. Hmmm…

Anyway, hour and a half. It took me a fair bit longer to create a window/icon block by hand when I wanted to try writing a dead-simple Wimp app from scratch.

As a aside – are there any of the Pinebook (not Pro) portable still available?

📞?

R-Comp imported quite a few …

@Paolo,

So, what would be a good way for you, for an announcement, to reach you?

For me, this is the main place. It’s the ‘home’ for RISC OS. Then you have sites like iconbar and riscository. But I’m not aware of any useful/central index for the hardware options. If I was looking for a toaster, I’m sure I could find lots of options and comparisons. Not so with commercial RISC OS offerings. Or maybe they do exist? Maybe I’m just not seeing them.

I do wonder if a wiki page here would be a good start, but there is a risk that it would look like ROOL are offering a view.

And as you say, the software situation is even worse! I’m an old hand who knows what to look for and will put up with the web site madness. But I can’t imagine new-ish users will.

I do wonder if a wiki page here would be a good start, but there is a risk that it would look like ROOL are offering a view.

Once again, I’ll mention https://www.wrocc.org.uk/risc-os/a-guide-to-risc-os-hardware

We don’t aim to cover every different variant of a particular platform, but simply mention each type of hardware and link to the different dealers who are selling solutions based on it. For example, the Pinebook Pro isn’t listed, but we do have a Pinebook section that used to¹ get you to the appropriate R-Comp website.

¹ On following it, I see that they’ve changed the filepath from ARMbok.shtml to Pinebok.shtml, but haven’t put a permanent redirect on to ARMbok.html. I have no issue with rearranging a website (I’ve done it myself many times), but if the old pages don’t 301 to an appropriate new page, your Google ranking is going to be hit badly. I suppose I’d better get on with updating some links…

I have no issue with rearranging a website (I’ve done it myself many times), but if the old pages don’t 301 to an appropriate new page, your Google ranking is going to be hit badly.

Probably true on the hit, but Cisco and Microsoft seem to re-arrange to produce dead ends on a virtually daily basis, so our small community aren’t doing any different in that respect.

Here is the link to get yourself a Pinebook pro $219 will buy you one today https://pine64.com/product-category/pinebook-pro/?v=0446c16e2e66 don’t talk about if you want one put you money down and get one.

Then send some money to rcomp for the software bob your uncle you have a great laptop to run RISC OS i couldn’t recommend it more just a great little computer and as I said before go down the beach have a coffee enjoy.