RISC OS Upgrade: Upgrading the ROM (changes)

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This page explains how to upgrade the RISC OS ROM image on some of the more popular hardware targets. It is assumed that you have already upgraded the HardDisc4 contents.

RPCEmu

The actions listed here should be performed from the host OS (Windows/macOS/Linux).

• Visit the RiscPC software download page and choose one of the “IOMD 5.30 stable” downloads.
• Unpack the zipfile and find the ROM file.
  • In the Softload version, it can be found in soft/!SoftLoad with a filename of “riscos”.
  • In the “Flash prog” version, it can be found in !KinPrg with a filename of “riscos”.
• Go to your RPCEmu “roms” directory and remove the existing ROM file. We suggest you keep this somewhere safe, in case you need to regress. Your “roms” directory should now be empty.
• Copy the new “riscos” file to the RPCEmu “roms” directory. You may want to rename the file (e.g. to “riscos530”) to indicate which version of RISC OS it is.

Raspberry Pi

The actions listed here are all carried out on the on the DOS (i.e. FAT16) boot partition of the SD card. You can perform the upgrade from RISC OS, or if you prefer you can use another machine (Windows/macOS/Linux) to perform the upgrade.

“Stable” builds (e.g. RISC OS 5.30)

• Visit the Raspberry Pi downloads page and choose the “RPi ROM stable” download.
• Unpack the zipfile and copy the ROM image (riscos.img) and firmware (bootcode.bin, fixup.dat, fixup4.dat, start.elf, start4.elf) to the DOS partition of the SD card – this will overwrite some of the files already present¹
  (to display the DOS partition from RISC OS, shift-doubleclick on !Boot, then double-click on Loader).
• If you were doing this from RISC OS:
  Close all Filer windows, wait 15 seconds, then shut down and restart.
• If you were doing this on another machine:
  Dismount the SD card, then reinsert the card into your Raspberry Pi.

¹ You may prefer to move the old ROM (riscos.img) and the old firmware files (bootcode.bin, fixup.dat, fixup4.dat, start.elf, start4.elf) to an “OldFiles” directory instead of overwriting them. This would allow for an easy regression to the old ROM (and firmware) if necessary.

“Development” builds (e.g. RISC OS 5.31)

• Visit the Raspberry Pi downloads page and choose the “Beta RPi ROM” download.
• Unpack the zipfile and copy the “riscos.img” file to the DOS partition of the SD card, overwriting the “riscos.img” file already present²
  (to display the DOS partition from RISC OS, shift-doubleclick on !Boot, then double-click on Loader).
• Obtain the necessary firmware for this version of RISC OS. See Software information: Raspberry Pi: Firmware for details.
• Install the firmware in the DOS partition of the SD card. Once again you will be overwriting existing files.
• If you were doing this from RISC OS:
  Close all Filer windows, wait 15 seconds, then shut down and restart.
• If you were doing this on another machine:
  Dismount the SD card, then reinsert the card into your Raspberry Pi.

² You may prefer to move the old “riscos.img” to an “OldFiles” directory instead of overwriting it. This would allow for an easy regression to the old ROM if necessary.

Other hardware targets

Follow the instructions in the ROM download for your chosen hardware.

If you are just trying-out the new ROM, you are strongly advised to use the “Softload” version of the ROM image, where available. The “Flash prog” version (Iyonix, Kinetic Risc PC, Titanium) should only be used if you know that you won’t be regressing to the older ROM.