Latest news

RISC OS 5.22 stable is now available

Posted by Steve Revill Sat, 25 Apr 2015 12:14:00 GMT

RISC OS Open Limited (ROOL) are pleased to announce the much anticipated latest stable RISC OS release, it incorporates a massive 454 changes for the Tungsten platform (used in the IYONIX pc from Castle Technology), 484 changes for the OMAP3 platform (used in the ARMini from RComp), and 423 changes for the IOMD platform used in the Acorn Risc PC/A7000/A7000+.

For the first time the stable release includes the OMAP4 port, a Cortex-A9 processor used in the PandaRO from CJE Micros and ARMiniX from RComp.

This software is subject to continual improvement and work has already commenced on RISC OS 5.23! Using the convention of even numbers for stable editions and odd numbers for development editions, users can feedback any issues seen to make it into the next version.

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Posted in Press release, New component | 4 comments

RISC OS Open at Wakefield 2015

Posted by Steve Revill Fri, 24 Apr 2015 20:47:00 GMT

RISC OS Open look forward to seeing you at the 20th Wakefield show, this Saturday 25th April 2015.

Posted in Press release, Community | no comments

Pico now even smaller

Posted by Steve Revill Mon, 06 Apr 2015 17:02:00 GMT

First introduced to celebrate 50 years of BASIC last May, Pico is a tiny cut down version of RISC OS which runs on the Raspberry Pi which boots straight to the interpreter prompt and can be used on ordinary FAT format media.

As it predated the model B+ and mark 2 hardware it has previously only been available in large SD card format for the original model B.

Now, all that instant boot-into-BASIC goodness has been shrunk down to micro SD card size and enhanced to work on the more recent versions of the Pi. You can order a copy through the store or bag a 10% discount when ordering a class pack for groups of 10 or more.

Users have been finding all kinds of ways to make use of this non desktop version for embedded control of anything from a robot
arm to central heating systems.

What are you using Pico for?

Posted in New product, Press release | 2 comments

2×Pi×r ... Pi 2 Release Available Now

Posted by Steve Revill Fri, 20 Feb 2015 19:17:00 GMT

Today marks the availability of the very latest beta release candidate for the popular Raspberry Pi educational platform. This ROM now includes support for the Mark 2 Model B Raspberry Pi hardware, using the newer BCM2836 system on chip and a total of 1GB of RAM. The model A, B, and B+ are still supported too.

Visitors to the South west show on Saturday 21st February 2015 can pick up a copy on either SD card or micro SD card.

If you can’t make the show, it can also be ordered online for the same low price as earlier releases. We’ll be making it available as a download in the next few days for users who are confident burning the image onto their existing cards.

With a lucky rabbit’s foot in our side pocket, this follow up to the earlier RC12 is in fact RC14 and includes the following headline changes in addition to the Mark 2 Model B support:

• The kernel now understands and can render sprites with alpha levels of transparency, and hence the desktop can use these facilities too.
• The kernel now supports a much wider array of pixel buffer formats for the screen including 4k and 64k.
• The USB driver, DWCDriver, now uses fast interrupts to handle some of the load from the USB peripheral. Previously normal interrupts might miss
  some key up or mouse click events when the system was busy.
• A new diversion, !Hopper is included which is a RISC OS version of the popular Frogger game.
• Ethernet uploads via the EtherUSB driver are now considerably quicker, typically factors of 10x to 20x depending on the protocol being used.

This new release will also be featured on a future update of NOOBS by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in due course.

Posted in New product, Press release | 2 comments