RISC OS 5.20 at the Midlands Show
Posted by Steve Revill Thu, 11 Jul 2013 20:57:00 GMT
RISC OS Open are very pleased to announce that we will be attending the Midlands RISC OS Show this Saturday, 13th July.
At the show this year we will unveil the latest stable release of RISC OS, version 5.20, which has well over 600 changes, improvements and bug fixes since the previous stable release.
RISC OS 5.20 is an even-numbered release so it has been verified as stable for the Castle Iyonix PC, the RComp ARMini and – for the first time ever with RISC OS 5, on Acorn-branded hardware such as the RiscPC and A7000.
There will be a lot of show exclusives so come along and take a look! If you want to buy any of these items online, more information will be following on the ROOL site next week.
Merchandise at the Show
We will be selling the following merchandise (subject to stock availability):
- The official (and updated!) RISC OS Pi (RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi) SD cards
- The NutPi Raspberry Pi add-on pack SD cards
- USB sticks for RISC OS emulation on Windows, Mac and Linux
- USB sticks containing the native RISC OS disc image for booting Beagle Boards (and similar)
- CD containing all of the RISC OS 5.20 images, associated software and a RiscPC/A7000 ROM replacement video
- CMOS widgets for the Beagle Board (and similar machines)
- Replacement EtherB networking cards for RiscPC/A7000 and A7000+
- The Desktop Development Environment (DDE) tools for RISC OS on a USB stick
We will also be offering help with ROM upgrades and battery replacement for RiscPC owners (subject to availability of parts):
- RiscPC/A7000 ROM replacement service (upgrade to RISC OS 5)
- RiscPC/A7000 battery replacement service
All merchandise and service prices will be given at the show.
RISC OS 5 for Acorn Machines
There have been over 1500 feature enhancements and bug fixes since the last ROM based version by Acorn. RISC OS 5 builds on the familiar desktop experience present in earlier versions of the operating system.
RISC OS 5 is also fully “32 bit compatible”, rather than the old “26 bit” earlier versions of the Operating System. One of the key advantages to enabling these extra 6 bits is that the memory map can be rearranged to make room for bigger applications working on more data. This means that, for example, large digital photographs can be loaded in one step directly into memory. In principle, applications can use the full amount of memory that can be fitted to the machine (256MB usually).
Delivered in virus proof read only memory chips, the upgrade is instantly available at power on with no need to load anything from disc – useful in a discless environment where everything is stored on a network server.
ROOL will be offering a ROM installation service for RiscPC and A7000 machines. ROOL will also be offering to replace the batteries used to keep the CMOS (including date and time) running while the RiscPC (or A7000) is powered off – over time, these batteries can fail and cause damage to the computer’s motherboard, as well as loss of settings between reboots.
RISC OS Pi Update
The RISC OS Pi image has just been updated to RISC OS 5.21 (it is still in beta), including the latest Raspberry Pi firmware and RISC OS disc image. Some supporting software has also seen updates. This will be available exclusively on SD cards at the show.
Note: the latest RISC OS Pi image is not yet available to download online – but you can get it exclusively at the Midlands Show.
Interesting. How much RAM does it support on Kintetics?
256MB for the Kinetic, 256MB for the motherboard (slower!), 2MB of VRAM, so 514MB total.
That sounds interesting, do all Kinetic boards support the same amount of RAM?
Do the USB cards work with RO5?
When will the price be announced?
I don’t see the CD with all the 5.2 goodies on in the ROOL store.
ROOL were reluctant to sell the CD (on its own) at the show except with a set of ROMs.