core only ROS build?

Okay, added PCI and FPE back in – also added all the SCSI stuff (I forgot these).

Removed WindowManager and TaskManager. Not sure why a single-tasking setup would have wanted those; though I guess I’ll find out if it blows up on me. ;-)

Running a build now. Doing a full clean-all-and-build so it’ll take a while…

Thanks Jeffrey. Boot still fails – SWI &%0 not known when initialising SDFS, and dumped into supervisor with no keyboard (USB fail?) – but I get quite a bit further than before. I can actually see stuff on the screen now. Yay.

Oh, and… reset to sort-of booted takes eight seconds (as opposed to 19 for RISC OS proper). It’s almost as fast as a Beeb too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYnonZsT6RU

In case anybody is crazy enough to wants to play around with this themselves, I created a new ROM size of 2048K (BCM2835Dev.Export.APCS-32.Hdr.Global.ImageSize – you’ll see one called 5120K, it ought to be obvious what needs to be changed). Copy BCM2835Dev.BuildSys.Components.ROOL.BCM2835 as BCM2835Dev.BuildSys.Components.ROOL.BCM2835mini and edit it as follows, the modules built are:
HAL_BCM2835, Kernel, Podule, PCI, FileSwitch, ResourceFS, TerritoryManager, Messages, MessageTrans, UK, SharedRISC_OSLib, BASIC105, BufferManager, ColourTrans, Debugger, DeviceFS, PortableHAL, RTSupport, USBDriver, DWCDriver, VCHIQ, BCMSound, BCMVideo, FileCore, ADFS, RamFS, FontManager, FPEmulator, Hourglass, IIC, RTC, SerialDeviceDriver, SerialDeviceSupport, ShellCLI, SoundDMA_HAL, DOSFS, SCSISwitch, SCSISoftUSB, SCSIFS, SDIODriver, SDFS, SDCMOS, and ScreenModes.
Then copy BCM2835Dev.Env.ROOL.BCM2835 as BCM2835Dev.Env.ROOL.BCM2835mini and alter ImageSize to point to the 2048K one and Build to point to “ROOL.BCM2835mini”.

I think that’s it. If not, the build process will whinge at you.
So, just tell !Builder to make “BCM2835mini”. Best to do a full build (from clean onwards).

Right. Now rebuilding the proper Pi ROM with RAMFS hacked to think it has 256 byte sectors. See if that works. :-) [edit: not really, but it was a fun way to waste time while waiting for Wake up, girls! to arrive…]

Very good idea. I was thinking of a way to set up a mini RISC OS file server. Now I can :)

What is the minimal Boot needed to boot RISC OS on a Pi with sound, video, and USB support?

My intentions are to boot into my app ASAP, without hitting the desktop or, more preferably, using a simple obey boot file?

Not yet got a setup that is stable (in other words, doesn’t crash at startup ;-) ).

If you just want to boot directly into your app – you could play with the boot sequence. The simplest thing to do is rename the !Boot folder and put in its place an Exec (I think, if not, try Obey) file called !Boot that runs your app. But note – this will start up RISC OS with no resources. No System, no Scrap, no… you get the idea. Maybe that’s good enough for what you need? At any rate, it’s a little simpler than building a custom version of RISC OS.

Based on my own playing around on a Pi, you just need a FAT formatted SD card with the Pi firmware and the RISC OS ROM image. No need for a FileCore formatted area, nor boot sequence, in theory!

I made my own FAT/FileCore SD card with an alpha ROM and boot sequence. Works fine for ADFFS and the Pi-compatible game releases.

I assume everyone has seen RISC OS Pico now…

“Seen” – Yes – Had it running NO

Being a bit of a smart alex -[ other alexis are available ]

I downloaded the zip mentioned on the appropriate web page (using the Pi)
and opened the zip, transfering the results direct to a new Fat32 4gb SD card
sitting in a card reader.

Switched off the Pi and swapped the cards. Switched on the Pi – Nil response.

I have tried everything I could think of – Correcting the file types, removing
Hex line terminators in the Config/Txt file, Using “System Disc” to prepare
the SD card anew then opening the zip again and loading it onto the card.

So – what is it that I didn’t think to do ?

Do I care? – Not really, I just wanted to try it out for fun.

This could be a challenge but I don’t want to wreck the Pi’s SD skt
with lots of card swapping, so I pass.

So – what is it that I didn’t think to do?

Do you have a PC to look at the files on? To make certain that CONFIG.TXT is exactly that and not something dumb like “config~1.txt” or something…

I tried it. Gosh! A BBC model B with 494 Mbytes free. Even CTRL-BREAK works. Also glad to see that the BASIC command ‘EDIT’ works. It is a pity that the first screen you see (after typing EDIT) doesn’t contain a keystrip image though (as you would get by pressing CTRL-f5).

So all we want now is the Welcome disc. Seriously though it desperately needs a ‘RunMe’ file – trying *Run &.!Boot gives an error. Also *con.boot does not succeed in saving the boot status and it starts up after CTRL-BREAK with ‘noboot’ again.

Would it help to put a file ‘cmos’ into !Boot.Loader to specify these options?

A BBC model B with 494 Mbytes free

That’s 490Mbytes more than mine had¹, total.

Why is a part of me waiting for the news announcement that someone put a Pi board with RO-Pico into a Beeb case?

¹ Well, has really but I’m not quite sure where the Beeb is at present. Need a big tidy up, not least to trim down the (closed) social club paperwork

I have an EEE PC, but running Linux. Tried a quick look at the card but the contents are not recognized. The config/txt file seemed to be ok – I even swapped it for the one that normally boots the Pi – nul points!
Thanks for the thought anyway.

I think I installed the ‘cut down’ RISC OS into the FAT partition on an existing dual-partition SD card so that RISC OS saw the filecore partition when it started up in MODE 7. Shall try again with an empty SD card.

A BBC model B with 494 Mbytes free
That’s 490Mbytes more than mine had, total.

Wow.

It’s 493.999969482422Mbytes more than my Beeb had, total.

Why is a part of me waiting for the news announcement that someone put a Pi board with RO-Pico into a Beeb case?

That would be pretty sweet, so long as you don’t need all the keys (Alt?). Still, it’d be funny to drop one of those in a Beeb case and try to pass it off as eighties tech to unsuspecting children (or adults that picked the Sinclair cra…alternative). Start off with blocky graphics in four colours, then slowly improve, all the time mumbling about how this all really takes you back.
If they call bull on, like, a 30fps real time flight sim along the lines of StarFighter3000, you can always remind them that this is why the Beeb cost so much more, the 6502’s low latency is soooo much better than the Z80, and anyway, didn’t a one of you ever play Elite? Sheesh!
;-)

If it wasn’t for the issues likely to be involved with hooking a Beeb keyboard to a modern machine¹, it could be worth doing just for the lulz. But, people, you gotta use the CVBS output. Nobody will buy an ’80s micro with HDMI!

¹ Dave’s work with a Bluetooth keyboard could be useful here – as we would likely need something similar to decode an IIC I/O chip wired to the Beeb’s keyboard. At least we have schematics of that.

Interesting what could be done with sideways RAM.

4Mbyte Sideways RAM? You win the lottery or something?!? ;-)

4Mbyte Sideways RAM?

“Solidisk 2/4Meg upgrade”, I suppose technically it is a mix and match¹. 4MHz clock.
Left for a few weeks loose connections could cause it to be flakier than something from Cadbury.

You win the lottery or something?!?

Hmmm, not that much. Never been rich, and the mortgage should stop it ever happening

Among other things I recall using the setup to hack a database program from the local school² so that it actually worked properly – naff programming meant it didn’t set the text string length correctly and since they saw fit to protect the disc it loaded from fixing it involved first hacking the protection.

¹ Take a product someone else made, a soldering iron and memory devices from a polytechnic spares bin and a young lad who could see why it wouldn’t work. Mostly it diDn’t and had to revert to it’s proper form.

² It (the database) held the stock lists for the science department which included long text for the item names

Once I put the cut down Pico image on a card on its own all was working as expected. It starts up with the correct time (thanks to the CJE RTC module). If I set the ‘boot’ option (by using *con. boot) then it will run a programme &.!Boot on start up. Very nice and retro.

But not quite retro enough? I tried to run a BASIC programme from 1989 (start up the RISC PC, get the Cumana Proteus drive working, read an optical disc backup, copy the file to a floppy, via the Iyonix) but I get the error SWI name not known (SYS “Font_FindFont”) when I try to prepare for a Font_Paint to the screen. It runs OK on the Iyonix though (it is not a multitasking app just a simple BASIC programme with a bit of machine code running in MODE 12). Looking in ResourceFS there don’t seem to be any fonts?

So I recall that I did a screenload of a previously created display (to avoid the Font calls) – will need a day or two of work to get it going. This was a BASIC programme that I first wrote at school in 1972 (Yes 42 years ago – it was fairly primitive then).

Will the flashing colours work in MODE 2 on the Pico?

Looking in ResourceFS there don’t seem to be any fonts?

I thought you liked it being retro!

Will the flashing colours work in MODE 2 on the Pico?

Flashing colours will work. Mode 2 won’t, as the Pi doesn’t support <256 colour modes (except mode 7, which is emulated using a 256 colour mode).

I had a “Eureka” moment again while having a bath!

Went all retro and downloaded and unzipped the Pico files on my faithfull RiscPC, then used Share FS to pull the files onto an SD Card in the reader attached to the PI.

Instant gratification – It worked a treat – Perhaps it was a read write speed twitch on the Pi.

As the start up said 840Meg I can see no reason (yet) to use a 4Gb card, and as I was rootling through my bit boxes found a lonely 1Gb card and have now got that working the Pico.

The only problems were wet wetwear memory failures -

It took me 20 minutes to sort out the fact that CHAIN & RUN etc. need to be CAPITALS and the File Names in " " quotes. At least Ctrl/Break works.

The task now is to try and find some of my very old proglets that are accessible on the RiscPC. All my 5.1/4" discs are long gone and I never made 3.1/2" copies.

Then the fun of setting up a !Boot file to auto start in a sensible Directory.
It’s a good job I hung on to the BBC B and Electron User Guides.

It took me 20 minutes to sort out the fact that CHAIN & RUN etc. need to be CAPITALS and the File Names in " " quotes.

Oh my. It’s been an eternity since I last used CHAIN.

At least Ctrl/Break works.

Did it ever stop?

Well I am trying to get an old programme working on the Pico build. If I do a *con.spritesize 32k and (after CTRL-BREAK) try a *SLOAD Sprites command, I get an AODT at &FC1A2C10.

Just had a look at the Archimedes Welcome Disc from October 1987 – there’s very little on it. It shows how little memory there was then – one utility ‘&.Library.UseDeskTop’ has the following:

*|
*| This enables the user to use the DeskTop 
*| after playing Lander on a 512K machine
*|
*CONFIGURE SCREENSIZE 0
*CONFIGURE LANGUAGE 3
*RMREINIT FontManager
*RMREINIT WindowManager
*|
*| Now press CTRL-BREAK to start up DeskTop
*|

So in 25 years the memory available has increased by a factor of 1000 (from 512k to 512M) and the cost reduced by a factor of 25 (from £920 for the Archimedes model 305 without monitor to £37 or so for the Pi plus keyboard without monitor – the £920 back in 1987 would be £2260 in today’s money making the factor 60 vice 25). Speed back then was 4 to 7 MIPS – the Pi now clocks at 300 to 700 MIPS (depending on cache hits) – an increase by a factor of about 100.

I’ll be demonstrating the ‘core only’ RISC OS build [Edit: by which I mean the RISC OS Pico build] on a Raspberry Pi with a 3" LCD screen at the Bristol RISC OS User Group on Wednesday 14th May. It will be running a 42 year old programme (one that was first written 42 years ago but not developed at all between 1989 [when I thought I had finished it] and May 2014).

the ‘core only’ RISC OS build

You mean RISC OS Pico?