@colinhoad.com

@loudscotsbloke.bsky.social Hello, me again! I'm looking at peripherals for the Aquarius (hoping to borrow one from a friend this weekend) and wondered if you'd had much success with the Maxduino or other tape emulators? Any recommendations would be most welcome! :)

MuView and rendering PDF pages

To update: I’v now got a !Compo programme working on examining/processing bitmap files to do some ‘stats’ on the content. The point being that these stats then allow a longer program to ‘cherry pick’ or ‘target’ how to do a cleanup of paper oxidisation.

For ‘colour’ bitmaps this can target the way ‘brown’ systematically has R > G > B values* and use that to identify pixels to ‘make white’. But for pages where the degrading is grey, to use the stats of the relative frequencies of different greyscale values, say, to alter the gamut to give a cleaner result. In principle, both approaches can be deployed.

BTW CompoScript lets me call compiled code (in my case written in ye olde ‘C’) to read the values out of !Compo’s memory, bash then numbers, and poke back ‘adjusted’ values. In essence, !Compo acts as the interface for having the work done and giving the user a relevant GUI, etc!)

It also should allow the process to do things like chug through page by page. Indeed, should be able to let the user also ‘skip’ the front cover. (Often that is clean, no oxidation, because it was ‘chinagraphed’ paper to look better on magazine racks, etc. ). Many of the old free scanned magazines have a clean colour front page, with truly eye-wateringly-browned content pages (pulp paper, indeed)!

Somone else (don’t know if he wants his name mentioned here or not) has been sending me some progs that can so some of this on Linux. So I may end up using those. But I’d prefer to get this going on RO as I also use that for the fetching ofebooks.)

Maybe this might also help people to realise just how flexible the most recent versions of !Compo became. :-) It is also now effectively ‘open source’ so could have features added in ways akin to using the scripting, but calling its own new functions rather than user-added ones like those I’ve done and am trying again to generate.

Main snag for me is that it is ages since I’ve done anything like this, and I’m now an old fart who is a full-time carer. So I’m sloooooow at doing things due to being forgetful, and often away dealing with a ‘non maskable interrupt’ in life. :-)

• My impression is that with 0 – 255 gamut RGB values the differences R-G and G-B both tend to be of the order of 20. But I’ve not done stats yet, so that’s just a mk1 eyeball estimate.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Sacrificed on the altar of growth.

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@colinhoad.com

Aa of this morning's weigh-in, the Christmas kilo has been lost! 🥳

Status update for RISC OS 64-bit work

We’ve had a month and a half since the last status update on the 64-bit RISC OS work, so here we go…

• Kernel introspection calls were given some stubbed entry points as part of the live coding work. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-kernel-introspection for details.

• Fixes for the Hourglass Maker have been applied (it seemed to always turn the pointer off!). See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-hourglass-maker for details.

• Wimp text rendering was started as the live coding sessions. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-wimp-textrender for the details.

• The Wimp text rendering is using a library I created a long time ago which abstracts the graphics operations into logical routines. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-gcontext for details of the library.

• Contributed to Matthew Godbolt’s TBAFS archive extraction tool, to improve some of the features. See https://github.com/mattgodbolt/tbafs.

• Released updated versions of Gareth McCaughan’s `mkdrawf`/`decdrawf` tools to create and decode RISC OS Drawfiles. See https://github.com/gerph/garethmccaughan-mkdrawf for details.

  • Released under MIT license, as 32-bit safe.
  • Updated to run on 64-bit Ubuntu as well.

• Updated my `lessfilter` tooling. See https://github.com/gerph/lessfilter for details.

  • Support for listing RISC OS zip archives.
  • Improved frontmatter recognition in markdown.
  • Improved colouring in some `decaof` output.
  • Use `objdump` for 32-bit ARMELF files.
  • Support showing Drawfiles with `decdrawf`.
    • Screenshots here: https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/20222
    • Video here: https://asciinema.org/a/768154

• RISC OS Build service (and shell) updated to the 0.79 version of RISC OS Pyromaniac. See https://shell.riscos.online/ and https://build.riscos.online/.

  • Added `picoc` to the tools that are present, allowing testing with simple C scripts in both 32-bit and 64-bit configurations.

• RISC OS language server for SWI calls created. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-swi-language-server for details.

  • Videos for SublimeText here: https://share.gerph.org/s/tFGhUkZ9T5UVYsO https://share.gerph.org/s/jcfYJUgD02efYi5
  • Video for VSCode here: https://share.gerph.org/s/znYmnFhyG3bZTNy

• Port of the `wren` language to RISC OS 64. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-wren for details.

  • Video here: https://asciinema.org/a/762898

• Port of `MicroQuickJS` to RISC OS 64. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-mquickjs for details.

  • Video here: https://asciinema.org/a/764232

• Port of `MicroUI` to RISC OS (both architectures). See https://github.com/gerph/microui for details.

  • Video here: https://share.gerph.org/s/w8UEFpWZZcXvB4K

• All GitHub repositories updated.

  • Automation has been added to make updating dependencies less time-consuming.
  • PR and issue templates have been added to help guide users to give better reports on issues.

• Released the UUID module in case anyone needed it. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-uuid for details.

• Created example repository for using timed events in applications. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-timed-events-example for details.

• Updated the build environment with the latest tooling. See https://hub.docker.com/r/gerph/riscos-build for details.

• Started sponsorship programme on GitHub. See https://github.com/sponsors/gerph for details.

The overall status of the components can be found in the RISC OS 64 Status repository: https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status/wiki

You can always follow the repositories to see what’s being done. The RISC OS Status repository also has a `Discussions` section for general discussions on the progress of 64-bit work.

The sponsorship programme is something that GitHub offers to allow people to provide contributions towards the RISC OS 64 project. If you like what’s being done, and want to encourage more, feel free to sponsor.

And of course, if you want to get involved in working on any of the conversion to C of components, please speak up.

Gareth McCaughan's `mkdrawf`/`decdrawf` tools on GitHub

Did you find a similar effect with the DecDrawF I’d released?

If you raise an issue on the repository and attach the Drawfile, I’ll have a look.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Having fun with John Pickford's Spectrum Sprite Editor - as found on one of Fred's dev disks during my archiving testing process. I doubt anyone has used this since the early 1990s! It's really good and very typical of the tools we used for home computer game development in the late 80s/early 90s.

Toolbox_RaiseToolboxEvent

Not sure if anyone is interested but here’s a link to my example using my C++ library. Note the application needs the Module ThreadTool to be run first, I haven’t added it to the !Run file. The bulk of the code was generated by another application I’ve written and then tweeked to suit the problem.

GitHub: https://github.com/bantonia/ToolboxLibrary/tree/main/E…

I’m not going to discuss further, this is the route I’m taking.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

No RISC OS announcements at the moment because I’m deep DEEP in the weeds. Doing three or possibly four significant things to PROCFNs and it’s all very easy going oh yes /s

ScummVM 2026.1.0 released

With support for a dozen new game engines, and with them a raft of additional games, ScummVM has seen a new release. The original purpose of the software was to make it possible to play games on modern computers that were originally written using a particular system – LucasArts’ Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion. Since its original release, ScummVM has expanded far beyond that and now supports a range of similar engines, and therefore a plethora of games. It’s maintained by a team of developers, and here in the…

Qercus

Agreed. But looking at the few copies of Quercus I’ve come across, they will not be easy to scan and get a very readable result. There is quite frequent use of black text on grey and patterned backgrounds. Still, once scans have been produced, they could be processed as necessary.

Coding on RISC OS fireside chat, Saturday 7th Feb.

Join us around the “Coding on RISC OS” campfire this Saturday, 7th February, at 7:30 p.m. (GMT) for another one of our friendly and informal fireside chats.

Whether you’re looking to get started, need assistance, want to help others, or share a project or current challenge with the group. You’re all welcome! No experience necessary.

For the Zoom credentials (no change), DM me over on X ( Twitter), BlueSky, ChatCube or Mastodon. There’s also an email link at the bottom of this informative RISCOSitory news page.

Hard Disk support

But the RPCemu website offers an “easy-start” bundle for Windows that includes a version of RISC OS Direct (RO 5.27). How does that work, then?

@iconbar.com

WROCC February 2026 talk on Wednesday - AGM

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/WROCC_February_2026_talk_on_Wednesday_-_AGM/index2296.html

The February meeting will be the Annual General Meeting, starting at 7:45pm on Zoom. This is a members only meeting so a special meeting link will be sent out beforehand to join

@nemo20000.bsky.social

/Slightly/ discernible discrepancy between those who live there and those who only hear about it in propaganda.

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NAS problem

Draytek Vigor 263 manual, page 185 (page 186 covers wake by device on WAN, which I’m pretty sure you don’t want.)

Very quick skim. Looks like they isolate the wired and wireless, but build in a WoL forwarder.

One thing to note is that this may have difficulties if the transmit element (phone) is using the locally generated MAC “Private Address” feature.

If you check the MAC your phone presents to the router then the generated MAC on a “Private Address” setting will have a second character that is 2,6, A or E

Unset that for the phone settings on that SSID,

Rasberry Pi - which is best in 2026?

See previously

To uncompress the download zip on the Mac “The Unarchiver” app, from the App Store, had to be used. The image written to an SD card by balenaEtcher did fail to verify.

Raspberry Pi Imager v2.0.0 eventually wrote a working Direct image. It really was very slow though.

P.S Tried a second card with balenaEtcher and that also failed to validate.

P.P.S Update the Mac Raspberry Pi Imager to the latest, v2.0.6, to considerably speed up the write. That is now faster than balenaEtcher 2.1.4, and as a further bonus writes a working image. (It is a bit odd in that balenaEtcher used to work.)

WROCC February 2026 talk on Wednesday - AGM

WROCC February 2026 Meeting - AGM on Wednesday 4th February

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Whilst archving some disks I found a sprite editor for the ZX Spectrum by former Software Creations colleague John Pickford. This was used at Binary Design and other Manchester based game devs back in 1986. No idea how to use it! Maybe his brother, Ste,remembers @stepickford.bsky.social

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Today’s nemoBasic feature: PROCs & FNs should know what they’re called – FN$.

Also useful for error handling: ONERRORLOCAL:PROCerror(FN$):ENDPROC

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

More old game development disk rescue and archive work underway. The latest batch of 3" disks have had fewer errors than previous ones I've worked with. Fingers crossed it keeps that way!

PhotoDesk 3.25 crashes when trying to create new layer

Hi Community

I encounter a crash of PhotoDesk 3.25 on my Raspberry PI4 (RiscOS 5.30) when trying to create a new layer:

PhotoDesk has suffered an unexpected error. Click OK to continue, Cancel to quit (12038).

Note I alse tested on my ARMini, and it does not crash on it…

Does anyone else encounter this issue?

Regards

François

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 1st February at 1pm UK time.

This week…

• System fonts using the WimpSymbol font character were implemented properly.
• NVRAM configuration of the font name was implemented (and the correct fallback sequence used).
• A test module was created with an initial hook up of the Wimp_TextOp calls.

Thanks for watching!

Next week, I’ll try to complete the TextOp calls, adding in the split/truncation code, and maybe the other system calls.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

How many of you can remember this iconic scene from 1970s TV ( UK )?

Bluetooth development

An update for yesterdays update ;-):

- Trying to get btdevctl compiled and linking. It is seems it compiles but not links it uses a lot of references to proplib so put my attention to compiling proplib

- Trying to get proplib compiling ( and linking ) slow progress.

ScummVM 2026.1.0 "Like a Version" is finally released

Nice work Cam! :) Sounds like the codebase has grown a lot, so congrats on getting it all going.

@armbytes.bsky.social

Interested in coding on RISC OS? Want to learn more or meet others? Join our friendly fireside chat on Zoom—DM for credentials (unchanged). The event is on Saturday, 7th February at 7:30 pm (GMT). #Zoom #Meetup #RISCOS #Community #RaspberryPi #ARM #Retro #AcornComputers

Modern Frosted Theme

Updated Theme now ready to try out :)

Frosted V1.7

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Watch at 2x speed if you're short of time, but watch.

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Handling Unicode

I have now implemented receiving Cerilica_EncodedText and Cerilica_Styled_text (with some limitations) in our application library, so support will gradually appear in our software. The first to be updated is Nominatim – the search box obtainable by clicking on the iconbar menu is one part of the application which will now respond to these two messages.

Testing has been very limited, because I had to generate the messages myself and may not have thought of all the edge cases. I’ll try to fix anything that is brought to my attention.

(Apologies to Nemo: the Nominatim application relies on the RUfL library and so it scans all your fonts when it first runs. You may wish to test on a machine with few extra fonts.)

Spread the word by displaying a show banner

If you want to help publicise the 2026 show, there are now a selection of banners available for you to display on your own web pages. Displaying a banner, with a link to this website, can help spread the word about the event to anyone who visits your own site, and in turn can help […]

Realtek RTL8152

Coming back to this after a very long time (and having missed your last reply, Thomas), I’ve since bought a different USB to Ethernet device using the Realtek 8152 chip and it ‘just works’ out of the box. It sets a MAC address and my router recognised it immediately.

A bit more poking with the old one without the MAC address, I did discover it worked completely as expected on the local network only if I set the IP address manually. ShareFS worked (as previously mentioned), as did VNC, plus several other apps – as long it was local traffic, and used IP addresses, rather than hostnames. Netsurf and Iris did not work to browse web pages.

So I’m concluding that Thomas was right – the vendor was saving a few (fractions of) pennies by not including any hardware to push a MAC address when asked, and was leaving it to the OS to make one up. Cheapskates. RISC OS does not do this, it seems, and maybe rightly so.

MUG marks its 20th birthday

On Wednesday, 4th February, it will have been twenty years to the day since the Midlands User Group (MUG) held its first meeting, and will be getting together in a pub on the day to celebrate that anniversary. On the 4th February, 2006, a small cohort of RISC OS users in the Midlands area gathered together in the home of one – Robin Edwards of Serious Statistical Software, who is sadly no longer with us – and decided to formalise the group and hold regular meetings – initially settling on…

New DME ExtTheme and Launchpad available for download and testing

Ok, folks, it’s the weekend, so tonight I’ll try to count the votes and change those to parameters accordingly.

So, if you fancy to express your vote/opinion, please do so quickly, this ain’t gonna be an “open referendum” for the next forsiable future XD

@nemo20000.bsky.social

BBC journalism 101: Fly-tipped cardboard boxes are "electric vehicle" boxes, but fly-tipped tyres are not "petrol vehicle" tyres.

Drag 'N Drop 60th Edition

Drag ’N Drop 60th Edition

Out Friday 30th January 2026 – Drag ’N Drop 15i2

Drag ’N Drop is a quarterly magazine for RISC OS users, mainly the Raspberry Pi series of machines but much will be relevant to all users and programmers. It comes in PDF format (download).

Drag ’N Drop is an accessible publication focusing on having fun whilst learning how to program with your RISC OS machine.

It costs just GBP4.50, or GBP5.50 with a Zip file of programs typed-in and ready to run. You can try before you buy with free sample editions available for instant download.

Volume 15 Issue 2 is out now, with the issue already emailed out to subscribers.

In this issue:

News and Apps – All the latest in the world of RISC OS with details of where you can get new and updated free and commercial RISC OS software.

Beginner’s Pages – New to RISC OS? Don’t know your adjust from your select? Wonder how to type in a BBC Basic program? Check out our newbie pages.

Cover Story – Learn all about the Bezier and de Casteljau world of curves with a type-in RISC OS Drawfile processing application which approximates curves with straight lines.

Drawfiles on the BBC – Program which allows RISC OS Drawfiles to be plotted on 8-bit BBC micro and Electron computers. Full listing.

Coffee Break – Another Impression tip, this time how to create dropped capitals for attractive layouts on your DTP pages.

Big Dummies C – We get going with Wimp programming in C with the SWI library on RISC OS, learn about hexadecimal notation and tackle arrays. With type-in demo C program.

Compute Module 4 – Not quite a RISC OS laptop but a very portable native RISC OS machine. Full description of what’s involved with the setup which has the Compute Module 4 at its heart.

RISC OZ – Pesky is back home and guides us through moving text from one icon to another in another foray into RISC OS Wimp programming.

Hugh Bowman PI – A high-calibre sleuth is looking for a partner to investigate cases, we find out what’s involved with a review of AMCOG’s latest game.

Sample and buy your copy of Drag N Drop at www.dragdrop.co.uk.

Recovering a RiscOS Disk

Just for future reference. All the issues I was seeing with the RiscPC boot were due to the monitor I was using failing to sync to the RiscPC video output. It simply showed a blank screen.

I got round this using an old multi-sync monitor that could sync down to the 640×350 that the RiscPC seemed to be defaulting to. It could also cope with 56Hz screen refresh that seems to get set at 640×400, again something my modern LCD panel would not sync too.

Once I got a signal I was able to configure the monitor and sort out the various disk issues. As others have said before the absence of !Boot doesn’t stop the machine booting.

@iconbar.com

January 2026 News Summary

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/January_2026_News_Summary/index2292.html

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

@riscosbits.co.uk

New RISC OS laptop? Running @riscosopen.bsky.social RISC OS 5 very quickly!

#RISC_OS #ArgonOneUp #fastest #thinkso

RISCOSbits becomes a VENOMoid

Although it was introduced only a few short years ago, being announced shortly before the 2024 South West Show, the VENOM computer from RISCOSbits is now being discontinued. According to RISCOSbits’ Andy Marks, the last VENOM system left the company’s base of operations earlier this week. He went on to eulogise the range, noting that “it has been our most successful machine to date, selling more than any other system we’ve produced, although our FAST NVMe systems are hot on the heels.” “This has been especially surprising,” he added, “given…

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Interfaces! Interfaces interfaces interfaces.

"Systems" is about architecture and interfaces, and after 40 years in the industry I can be definitive:

Developers are terrible at interfaces.

I mean we're bad at QA and documentation too - for the same reasons - but particularly bad at interfaces.https://dev.to/narnaiezzsshaa/why-we-suddenly-have-developers-who-cant-think-in-systems-gpj

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

R Fred Williams' 2nd batch of game development disks have arrived and are now queued for archiving. These look much more interesting and may have one or two of his 'lost' games on them, along with source code for other titles. New York Warriors and several Dizzy games are written on the labels.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

No amount of PR-speak can disguise the fact that somebody entirely unqualified has made an excruciatingly laughable error in the most public and officious way, so feels unable to retract their misguided edict now they've been confronted by facts.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98pn910e9jo

January 2026 News Summary

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

20 Years of MUG - 4th February 2026

Midland User Group (MUG) – 20th anniversary celebration.

On Wednesday 4th February 2026 MUG will be celebrating 20 years since the first meeting of some RISC OS enthusiasts was held in Robin Edwards home in Blackwell.

These included, in addition to Robin Edwards, Dr Pete Borcherds, John Rickman, Doug Webb, David Mullard and Chris Dale.

At that first meeting it was decided to set up MUG and to to hold meetings every other month of the year.

The group quickly expanded to hold meetings at the Methodist Hall in Blackwell.

At the end of 2006, MUG helped the ARM Club with its Christmas show at Featherstone.

Over the course of the last 20 years MUG have held some 16 RISC OS based shows, including that first one, at various venues.

These include the first show run entirely by the club at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon in 2007.

MUG shows have also been held at Birmingham University Guild of Student 2008 – 2009, Kenilworth 2010 – 2014, at the Recursion Fairs 2015-2018, virtually from 2022-July 2023 and the last, to date, in person MUGRISC OS Xmas Market in December 2023.

In addition to those events many MUG members have been regular trippers to the other RISC OS shows that have been held around the UK over the years.

MUG would like to thank members past and present, remember those who are no longer with us, and to thank the many RISC OS related companies and individuals that have made the last 20 years of RISC OS so memorable.

To commemorate the event MUG will be holding a celebratory meal in Kenilworth.

On behalf of the MUG membership.

More information about MUG

@colinhoad.com

In honour of the big man's 30th, tonight's gaming had to be.... #DukeNukem3D #ComeGetSome

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Another day, another bug in RISC OS BBC Basic [again, by code inspection].

@colinhoad.com

Happy 30th birthday to Duke Nukem 3D! What a game.https://media.tenor.com/SwZwutecbnkAAAAC/duke-nukem-intro.gif?hh=280&ww=498

@colinhoad.com

I think I've found my new browser

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VNC access to Pi400

After installing RPiOS Trixie on the Pi400, setting its fixed IPv4 address, and turning Control Centre → Interfaces → VNC to ON, I find that Avalanche 0.28 doesn’t connect, giving the message ‘Server only offered unsupported authorisation method(s)’.

Can anyone suggest what tweak is necessary to establish the connection?

(RISC OS 5.31 21-Jul-2024 on a Pi CM4)

@colinhoad.com

This sounds utterly horrifying. It was only days ago that we had AI churning out CSAM on demand.

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@colinhoad.com

I just got a Google news alert on my phone and when I tapped it, it automatically took me into Google AI Mode (which I have never enabled and always dismiss when prompted). They're so desperate for us to adopt these tools, they're now tricking us into using them. Wild.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I'm enjoying the language options on this random website. Yes! All the Englishes!

@iconbar.com

RISCOSbits updates its Computer range and prices

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISCOSbits_updates_its_Computer_range_and_prices/index2300.html

RISCOSbits has discontinued their VENOM premium NVMe RISC OS computer system, according to a press release issued this week.

Acorn biographer at ROUGOL, Mon 15th Dec 2025

The video of Rob Napier’s talk is now available here – https://youtu.be/N5yvbB-rqfI

Thanks to Leo White for the excellent job of editing a long talk and Q&A down to a manageable hour!

RISCOSbits updates its Computer range and prices

RISCOSbits has discontinued their VENOM premium NVMe RISC OS computer system, according to a press release issued this week.

@rougol.bsky.social

You can also get more info on the contents and register your interest in Rob's book, plus suggest a charity to receive a cut of the profits, here - www.doitonce.net.au

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RiscPC freezing with Unipod

Remember that the UniPOD has a small and socketed PLA (I think it was a PLA from memory), which is responsible for which functions are active.

Mine never had one of these, and worked fine. It may have been a dealer-only version, I have no idea.

RISCOSbits Stock News

RISCOSbits must announce the immediate discontinuation of their highly successful VENOM premium NVMe RISC OS computer system. The last remaining machine left HQ earlier this week, to a new home.

As part of the eulogy for VENOM, it’s worth noting that it has been our most successful machine to date, selling more than any other system we’ve produced, although our FAST NVMe systems are hot on the heels. This has been especially surprising given its relatively short lifespan, but has been due, in no small part, to our excellent FreeNVMe drivers, developed in conjunction with RISC OS Open and Stader Softwareenwicklung.

To mitigate the loss, we’ve introduced a couple of new systems to our website, to make amends. Well, more like one and a half!

The PLUSFIVE is an add-on for the DIYTHREE to add a very capable Linux board to the system. Using the modular nature of the DIYTHREE case, the PLUSFIVE literally builds onto the existing system to add a Compute Module 5, running at 2.3GHz, with a base spec of 4GB RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage (NVMe is also available as an option). This can then be used to create a very powerful interconnected hybrid RISC OS/Linux system in a particularly small and expandable modular machine. This will be available to existing DIYTHREE users for £169.

The is a full kit and caboodle of a DIYTHREE and a PLUSFIVE is now also available, in the form of the new STACKERDIY kit. For just £369, you get the whole machine in one super compact case. For an extra £30, we can put it all together for you, with no DIY required!

Please check out our DIY pages for details of what the PLUSFIVE and the STACKER can do. There’s a user-written review and build article in the current issue of Archive too.

As part of the process of updating the RISCOSbits website to reflect this, we have also taken the difficult decision to begin to reflect the current changes in memory prices that are hitting hard across the whole computing world. As an example, 1TB NVMe drives have more than doubled in price in the last few months, and even the Raspberry Pi Foundation have had to increase the price of their boards and drives as a result. For several months, we have been able to use existing stock to offset and absorb the price increases, but stock is dwindling and the cheaper suppliers are running dry.

We are proud to be open and honest about our prices and publish them on our website for all to see, allowing customers to get an idea of the excellent value of our systems when making a decision about their next RISC OS machine, so the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that we’ve had to change some prices over the festive period. But we still managed to offer a highly successful Christmas Cracker to quite a few new customers!

If you’re in the market for a new RISC OS machine, sometimes the early bird catches the worm! If you’re holding out for the next round of Show Prices, we may not be able to offer the high discounts you’ve come to expect.

The good news on NVMe pricing is that we’re trying to hold our prices as low as we can, and are managing to absorb some of the price rises, or ‘split the difference’ where we can’t hold them fast. But this won’t last for long and forecasters are currently predicting prices may continue to rise, possibly well into 2027.

Rest assured that the most up-to-date prices shown on our website will always be the best we can offer, without hidden surprises.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Paul Proctor wrote this BASIC program to display the MAP for his BBC Micro version of Alien 8. The start positions and locations of the various objects and Cryonaughts are all shown. I recovered this whilst archiving his old development disks. As you can see, the map is in the shape of a spaceship.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

'Wake me up before you Go-Go' by WHAM! on the BBC Micro from 1984.

@colinhoad.com

Quite apart from how ugly and inefficient the code must be, these kinds of stories just make me despair at how little self-respect and care for the craft people like this must have. Take a look at yourself in the mirror, seriously.

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@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Hi. I know you don't frequent the ROOL forums these days, but there's a thread about handling unicode that you may be able to help out on regarding a Cerilica message question.https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/20238

@iconbar.com

RISC OS North Show is only 2 months away....

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_North_Show_is_only_2_months_away..../index2299.html

Time to make plans - RISC OS North returns on Saturday 21st March 2026 at the Village Hotel Warrington.

@iconbar.com

Working with Git client on RISC OS

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Working_with_Git_client_on_RISC_OS/index2264.html

I have been getting back into programming RISC OS in BBC BASIC to scratch an itch and for a challenge. This also gave me an excellent way to try out the RISC OS Git client. So here are my experiences.

@colinhoad.com

Spare me from people enthusing about how much more productive AI has made them in programming languages they don't know.

PCEmu

I can’t remember which variant of DosBox sits on my 4té2, I intended to put it originally to use it directly on the FAT32 disk were the files I intended to access were located but it was not able to read the folders correctly (lots of files and folder not seen) and had to copy everything on a FileCore disk. I guess another case of broken implementation of directory scanning routine making incorrect assumptions about OS_GBPB.

RISC OS North Show is only 2 months away....

Time to make plans - RISC OS North returns on Saturday 21st March 2026 at the Village Hotel Warrington.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

In 2022 I was finally able to reunite Paul Proctor with his BBC Micro development disks that he left with me back in 1986. He'd moved home several times and we completely lost touch. These contained the source code for Knight Lore, Alien 8, Lunar Jetman and Nightshade. All safely archived.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

“How much of nemoBasic is new?” I sometimes get asked.

The answer is “I’ve written more than I started with”:

@nemo20000.bsky.social

The problem with defining a new flag in the RISC OS window definition is suddenly coming across a window behaving oddly because it, erroneously, ALREADY HAD THE BIT SET.

At some point a few years ago a default window got some flags randomised and neither !TempEdit or the Wimp noticed.

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

nemoBasic is all about removing boilerplate from BBC Basic programs – this sort of thing. So obvious! Why wasn’t it always there? eg

IF STR\(~filename\) = "" THEN ...

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Mike Webb - programmer and co-designer of NES Solstice. I worked with Mike at Software Creations in the late 80s / early 90s. He was the Technical Director and genius who reverse engineered the NES, created his own dev kits for NES and SNES and wrote much of the early development software.

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 25th January at 1pm UK time.

Coming up in about 40 minutes if anyone wants to come along…

RPCEmu riscos 5.31 beta ROM

Thanks. That worked.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

This video shows how we developed games for the NES at Software Creations. PC-ED was our in-house IDE that we used to edit/build/deploy/debug our game code on a PC. This demonstration shows me loading up the 6502 source code for NES Wolverine - May 1991. Object code deployed to NES target dev kit.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Some great news from R. Fred Williams about his missing game development disks - he's found them! Hopefully these include some 'missing-in-action' games that he worked on along with original source code for other titles. Looking forward to seeing them and hope we can extract all the data!

UUID Generation

Perfect lets see if we can use that within the BT stack.

Coding on RISC OS fireside chat, Saturday 10th Jan.

Thanks

Ti board in RPC

Has anyone tried fitting a Ti Motherboard into a RiscPc case?

ROAST update

A new ROCoding entry is now available, this time on Circles, which is a bit more complicated and interesting than rectangles.

Available here: ROAST circles

NAS devices

I just recently started using my Titanium as a NAS as i got 4 x Seagate Exos 7E8 ST12000NM0105 for £25 Each, Excellent Drives and Format 4kn automatic under !PartMgr

Anyone else wanting to grab a bargain here is the link – https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/157497235710 (7 Left)

!Switch - where can i find it?

Hello Community

I can’t find a site anymore where to download the !Switch desktop utility, allowing to get a list of open windows and easily switch between them.

Does anyone has an url?

Thank you for your help.

François

@colinhoad.com

What a ridiculous new system Ebay now has for postage. Someone's bought two items from me and requested combined postage, quite naturally. But there is no way to do it, the button is greyed out and from what I've since read, Ebay has removed the facility and insists you use individual prepaid labels

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I've finished recovering and archiving R Fred Williams' development disks - Einstein, Amstrad & Spectrum. Unfortunately, we didn't find the 'missing' source code and games that Fred was looking for, however, he may have more disks hidden away! Many of the disks did have errors, which is quite common

@colinhoad.com

Got a few books up for sale on ebay, mostly IT related (and one very not, don't ask...)

www.ebay.co.uk/usr/colin_hoad

@nemo20000.bsky.social

For how many years have I been saying we need RISC OS to support on-screen keyboards properly? All of them?!

Turned out to be quite easy:

Impression-X

Hello

I know this is a very old thread, but I am wondering whether there are any chance to see an evolution of ImpressionX in the future. Is the development abandonned (it seems, but I still asks :) ). I am stuck with verion 5.779Dev I bought some years ago :)

Thank you for any information.

François

WROCC January 2026 talk on Wednesday - Elesar

Talk is now on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3mqvDp2PAM

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Wow! Saw this today on eBay...must resist bidding! This takes me back to my childhood when kids were allowed a box full of chemicals and a meths burner to play with! I had this exact set in the mid 1970s. I spent most of the time throwing iron fillings onto the burner. Meths not included!

Contacting Dave Hitchins

I’m trying to contact Dave Hitchins but he seems to have discontinued his old email address. If either Dave or someone who knows him could contact me privately, that’d be great. Thanks :)

@colinhoad.com

They were still up?

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@colinhoad.com

Cold call sales people... do they get trained to try and keep you on the phone even after you've made it clear you have no interest in what they're selling? I employed the "I am terminating this pointless conversation now" strategy.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence.

"The castle, then, was a Norman importation into England."

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Working with Git client on RISC OS

I have been getting back into programming RISC OS in BBC BASIC to scratch an itch and for a challenge. This also gave me an excellent way to try out the RISC OS Git client. So here are my experiences. What is Git

@nemo20000.bsky.social

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

We’ve been stuck with line numbers in RISC OS BBC Basic for a very long time.

File copy icon retained

I’ve noticed recently that when moving one file after another the first file’s icon is shown on the second transfer.

Just now I installed an update of PipeDream. I then downloaded and installed today’s beta ROM. As the ROM file was copying to Loader, it was presented with the PipeDream icon. On completion the icon was a ROM one as expected.

Both transferred from Zip files via SparkFS.

RISC OS 5.31, RaspberryPi 4B

[OvationPro] Anchor text frame in another text frame

Hello Community,

Is there a way to anchor a text frame (the child) within another text frame (the parent), so as if I add text obove the child in the parent, the child frame just moves to keep its relative position in the text of the parent?

Thank you for your help…

François

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Look. Guys. I mean. Come on now.

Multi headed systems at ROUGOL, Mon 19th Jan 2026

The powerpoint slides from the presentation are available here

There was a question about my book production using RISC OS – no article has been published but the information is here

Any possibility of Bush IBX settop (Lazarus) being released?

Hi. I’m new here, and to RISCOS. I know this is a very old post to be replying to but I’m at my wits end trying to get to a desktop on a Bush IBX 100 set top box. I followed the instructions at the link that Rick Murray posted here and that I’ve found I believe on Chris Sawer’s website. I see it worked for you Rick but I’ve been going around in circles and whilst I’m almost there, I just cannot get the filer to run. I have pics of what I’m seeing but I don’t seem to be able to add them to this reply. The box is booting off the zip drive but as it boots I get the following messages:

File Filer:Templates not found

File Pinboard:Messages not found

File Filer_Run not found (presumably because the filer module has not loaded correctly so it doesn’t know what Filer_Run means)

I then get to a desktop with the task manager (the green acorn icon) and the display manager showing on the taskbar (pinboard?) but no filer window open and no drive icons showing. I can get to the command line by pressing the menu button on the acorn icon and choosing commands but if I try "filer_opendir IZIpFS::ZIP.$.Apps for example I just get “use *Desktop to Start the filer”. So it seems the filer module just does not load even though some things like the display manager do. I extracted the modules from the OS 3.7 roms running on an emulator on a PC using !zap. I then zipped them up with !zipEE, transferred them to a raspberry pi running risc OS which can read acorn formatted zip discs with a USB zip drive, transferred them to the drive that way, and then I use a parallel port zip drive to boot the IBX box. Phew! As I say I have pictures if there’s an easy way for me to send those. If anyone has any theories as to why this isn’t working for me I’d be eternally grateful. I followed the instructions at this link:

https://heyrick.eu/assembler/resources/stbgadt.html

Cheers,

Andrew.

Repeat: Bad alignment request

I’m also getting “Bad alignment request”, but in an entirely different context: I’m using an ioctl to set an IPv6 address in an interface.

A web search for the phrase seems to find your posting as the only occurrence in the world!

The associated error number I get is 279.

How to we find where this error is generated?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

The chances of having to build Nvidia FP8 single-byte floating point arrays in RISC OS BBC Basic is very small but non-zero – so can be represented by a float, and getting the rounding of E4M3 floats right has taken me a day longer than it should have. Yes I’ve done E5M2 too, that’s quite different.

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 11th January at 1pm UK time.

No live coding this week. I’m not feeling too well, so I don’t think it would be an especially good session.

Next week, I’ll try to do one.

Dynamic menu entries

I’m trying to add menu entries dynamically using the equivalent of:

menu_add_entry

from the toolbox.

flags is set to 0

menu is set to idBlock→self_id

at_entry is set to -2 (add at end)

*entry_description is set to a quoted string

And last:

*new_entry is set to an address for returning the id of the new entry.

What happens is an entry is created but it is blank, the text passed in entry_description is absent. All the parameters appear to be correct and there is no error.

Any clues? Thank you in advance.

@colinhoad.com

Vote No voteyesornoai.com/vote/nohttps://voteyesornoai.com/vote/no

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

These are the original Spider-Man sprite frames for SNES 'Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge'. Recovered from my old development disks. Back then, in 1992, all of these frames were hand-drawn, pixel by pixel. No 3D modelling software was available to simplify this work or animate Spidey.

@rougol.bsky.social

The next ROUGOL meeting on Monday 19th January will feature multi headed systems, featuring RISC OS and Linux in the same boxhttps://rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/index.html

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Back in the early 90s at Software Creations I designed a Portable Assembly Language ( PAL ) with the intention of using it to develop games for 32/64 bit consoles. The ideal being that this pseudo assembly would generate native code for multiple processors. You only needed to write the game once 1/2

Linux Port

Last screenshot for the next time …

Have configured any things. My “mouse switch” is not ready but works for me…

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Look at the size of that disk icon!

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@colinhoad.com

Windows 95: My Computer Windows 7: Computer Windows 8 (to now): This PC

I do feel that says a lot, consciously or otherwise, about Microsoft's attitude!

@iconbar.com

Rougol January 2026 meeting on Monday - Chris Hall and his multiple heads

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Rougol_January_2026_meeting_on_monday_-_Chris_Hall_and_his_multiple_heads/index2293.html

The January 2026 Rougol meeting is on Monday and features Chris Hall. His contribution to the TIB advent calendar may give you an idea of his topic.

Chris Hall brings three (count ’em) heads to ROUGOL

Zaphod Beeblebrox, eat your heart out. The next RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting will take place on Monday, 19th January, with a presentation by Chris Hall, joining the group via Zoom, about multi-headed systems. Chris has been using a Hydra system from R-Comp, with two of its Pi-based ‘heads’ running RISC OS, and a third one running Linux, and he has had an article published in the latest issue of Archive Magazine (28:1) detailing his first impressions of the machine, with this presentation being a follow-up and…

@archiveriscos.bsky.social

The new issue of Archive Magazine is out now! The Dec/Jan 2026 issue is absolutely packed with all sorts of RISC OS awesomeness. It's not too late to subscribe and get a copy. www.archivemag.co.uk #riscos #acorn #opensource

@colinhoad.com

Calling all Mattel Aquarius fans! I am getting more than a little obsessed with this machine, but have never owned one... does anyone here have one and, if so, know how easy/hard/impossible it is to hook one up to a modern monitor? VGA, SCART, HDMI, any of these?

Time to express an interest in the official Acorn biography

December’s RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting featured Rob Napier as the guest speaker, on the subject of the book he has been working on. Titled “Voices from a Future Passed”, the book is the official biography of Acorn Computers, and Rob went over various aspects of the book and that biography at the meeting. The book is planned for release as a paperback at the start of March, with an expected price of £19.95 in the UK, and corresponding amounts in other currencies/parts of the world. It…

Rougol January 2026 meeting on monday - Chris Hall and his multiple heads

The January 2026 Rougol meeting is on Monday and features Chris Hall. His contribution to the TIB advent calendar may give you an idea of his topic.

Clarity Theme ko-fi

WindowOutlineOver not set

Does that mean it’s not being set for you either, David?

ROUGOL Meeting on Monday 19th Jan 2026

Thanks for posting Chris. I got your second send attempt, and have replied to that. In case there are problems with that too – Yes, I’ll see you on Zoom tonight 8pm ish!

rustc, ELF, ld...

Posting an incorrect statement on the internet wins again! Thanks @Piers.

With -C opt-level=3 there’s no stack used at all, even if I make the code a little more practical. There are a lot of nops, because the parameter to writec is already in r0.

@Paolo, When I try to install with rustup target add armv4t-none-eabi I get

error: toolchain ‘stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu’ does not support target ‘armv4t-none-eabi’; did you mean ‘armv7a-none-eabi’?

#![no_std]
#![no_main]

use core::arch::asm;
use core::arch::naked_asm;
use core::panic::PanicInfo;

// pub extern "C" to allow the naked asm to call main (with a stack).
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn main() {
  for c in "Hello world!\n".bytes() {
    writec( c );
  }
}

#[panic_handler]
fn panic_handler(_p: &PanicInfo) -> ! {
  loop {};
}

fn writec( c: u8 ) {
  unsafe {
    asm! ( "mov r0, {0}\n svc 0", in(reg) c );
  }
}

#[unsafe(link_section = ".init")]
#[no_mangle]
#[unsafe(naked)]
pub extern "C" fn _start() {
  naked_asm! (
         "mov r0, #0",
      "\n mov r1, #0",
      "\n mov r2, #0",
      "\n mov r3, #0",
      "\n svc 0x40",
      "\n mov sp, r1",
      "\n bl main",
      "\n svc 0x11"
      );
}

RiscPCB Version 1.02

Did anyone put Terry’s demo on their site?

@colinhoad.com

Not my house but I know my way around

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Gemini continues to impress me with its deep and accurate RISC OS knowledge. 🤭

Paint sprite dragging

Ok, so it’s an option. It’s still stupid, because it means that you’re going to get crashes unless the theme author is continually keeping up with what is in the ROM. The user is forced to choose between turning an option on and having crashes when they upgrade or at random times because a theme author missed something. If a given user who was using one theme happily switches to another that they downloaded, the system may crash in odd places just because a sprite was missing in the older theme.

There’s really no justification for that sort of behaviour. If someone can explain why an option which is actively dangerous to unaware users exists, I’d love to hear it, but I genuinely cannot think of one.

Updating Submenu Dialogue Boxes

I have a feeling that I might be missing something obvious here…

I have a dialogue box as a submenu (a program information window), which has a toggle size icon so that the user can expand it to read additional details about the application. This works fine.

However, it would be nice if it could always open in the small state, to be a little bit tidier. With a normal window, this would just be a case of fiddling with the visible extent before calling Wimp_OpenWindow, but as a submenu, I can’t see how to do it.

I can set the submenu warning flag and catch Message_SubmenuWarning, but as far as I know that gives me the window handle and not the Open Window block. Similarly, Wimp_CreateSubmenu doesn’t take anything but the handle, so I can’t mess with the visible area before creating the dialogue on screen.

Sitting on Open Window events for the dialogue suggests that the application doesn’t receive one until the window is moved, not when it initially opens – so that doesn’t appear to help either.

Is there any way to achieve what I’m trying to do? Or is it a case of “I wouldn’t start from here”, and I need another approach to displaying the additional info (or just live with the toggled state persisting between visits)?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social Is this a form of bot-defeating obfuscation requiring human error correction or Fat Finger Syndrome?

I'll send you a new version of !RMA.

git switch not replacing files

So I imagine your need to update the equivalent of ~/.ssh/known_hosts

I have tried this in both Choices:WWW. and Choices:ssh. but this did not help

anayway thanks for the sugestions

@colinhoad.com

Genuinely fascinating Drum Tower podcast from @economist.com on the sad demise of Lapsang Souchong tea. It was one of my grandma's favourite teas and the aroma of it reminds me of her. I've even enjoyed the odd cup. That Twinings have discontinued it for supply reasons feels like an 'end of an era'

@colinhoad.com

Fujitsu should be banned permanently from any public sector work after what happened with Horizon.

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@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

Another interesting meeting. Very enjoyable. My thanks to everyone who took part.

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Random projects...

For those not keeping up at the back, what the hell is a “spork” or “non spork” build?

It’s not a fork :-)

Can I request that this thread be split out into a separate thread for each topic with a meaningful title? It’s a mess at the moment.

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

My ShareFSServer for #RISC_OS is getting better and better, in the picture sharing a large PDF (more than 10MB) over #OpenVPN !!! Linux Server at home running the ShareFS server and picture on my RPCEmu from my favorite Cafe runnign on an Apple M1 and connected via OpenVPN. Progress!!!

@colinhoad.com

Be kind to your site administrator 😊 Genuinely lovely to read a little paragraph like this in my 1995 guide to the internet - advice we should all continue to follow!

@colinhoad.com

One thing that gives me a sense of job security is how generally poor I find juniors to be at debugging. "This failed, I don't know why" is increasingly common, and when I ask "did you read the logs?" they often look blankly at me, like logs are some kind of esoteric grimoire...

'Mailbox is full' phishing puzzle

I received an email yesterday saying:

==>

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its

recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

info@theworkshopseries.co.uk LMTP error after RCPT TO:< info@theworkshopseries.co.uk >: 552 5.2.2 < info@theworkshopseries.co.uk > Mailbox is full / Blocks limit exceeded / Inode limit exceeded

Reporting-MTA: dns; s3161.fra1.stableserver.net

Action: failed

Final-Recipient: rfc822; info@theworkshopseries.co.uk

Status: 5.0.0

….

<==

It is lying, because my message did get through to the intended recipient, who said that his mailbox

was certainly not full. Now I have heard of these ‘Mailbox full’ phishing scams. But the links in this

message appear to be harmless. I presume that the scam’s method relies on inserting malware into a

computer to take note of the sender-addresses of emails arriving in the inbox. I had used Plusnet’s

webmail to send my original email, using the Chrome browser, so I do not think there is any malware

inserted at my end. So no harm done. But is my diagnosis correct? Should I be warning

info@theworkshopseries.co.uk that his computer may have been compromised?

Sharing Directories Between Windows 11 and RISC OS

For the record I used LanMan98.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Every time I look at the BBC Basic interpreter code a bug jumps out at me. Yet another “BBC Master International Character Sets Didn’t Make It To Basic” bug: [there’s so many]

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Thanks to @armbytes.bsky.social for reminding me of the RO2-era BBC Basic “LOCAL DATA” foul-up. I’d dealt with it in nemoBasic by allowing READ as a synonym for DATA after LOCAL/RESTORE, which avoids the ancient tokenisation problem (duplicated in editors like Zap of course).

But I fixed it.

@colinhoad.com

The front cover of the BBC Micro 6502 second processor user guide is one of my all time favourites, the photograph is just *so* evocative. I adore this guy's setup, it perfectly captures the spirit of 1980s home computing.

@armbytes.bsky.social

A huge shout-out to everyone who made it! The next meetup is pencilled in for 7th February.

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DHCPv6

I’m in the very early stages of writing a DHCPv6 app to work with the ROD IP stack. I’ve got as far as getting two IPv6 addresses assigned by the router to me (one global, one local), but I can’t see how to add them to my machine. All my experiments so far with the “route” command have failed, mostly complaining of a bad address. (I’ve only tried adding the local address so far.)

Does anyone know how to issue a command to add an IPv6 address to RISC OS?

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Had a great post-Christmas lunchtime get together with Software Creations friends today. We talked about Z80 code optimization techniques, Gameboy development - including 'Wide Boy', Isometric games, Unreal, NES Solstice, CRASH Live, Tatung Einstein, RARE's RAZZ board and lots more!

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@colinhoad.com

A spot of late night memory testing on the Beeb... nasty suspicion one of my DRAM chips is banjaxed 🙃

Sponsorship for 64-bit work

Hiya,

There’s been a little bit of discussion about how people who are not technical can contribute towards work. One of the ways that has been suggested has been to provide donations towards people or that work. To try to provide a mechanism for this, I’ve decided to use the GitHub Sponsorship button.

On many of my GitHub projects, including the general `riscos64-status` project ( https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status), there is a Sponsor button. This will take you to https://github.com/sponsors/gerph/ where you can provide a sponsorship.

Providing sponsorship will encourage more development and tools for this project.

If you feel that the things that I’m doing and the work towards RISC OS 64 is valuable, please feel free to sponsor me!

@colinhoad.com

I agree, but it's also incredibly insulting that the UK government continues to use X for all of its official communications.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99kn52nx9do

@iconbar.com

Fireside developer chat on saturday night

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Fireside_developer_chat_on_saturday_night/index2272.html

The next developer chat is on Saturday night for anyone interested in a very informal event online.

@colinhoad.com

Apparently generating CSAM is ok, provided you pay Elon for it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99kn52nx9do

Telematic Iyonix Reference CD

anyway i screenshot the thread and sent it to the provider hopefully they can shed some light on it.

Oooh, test info. Support staff like that1 – information is always useful if it’s even vaguely relevant.

1 That’s a big step up from the “incident” reports I’ve seen over the years, and those have already had a lot of “it’s broken” dross removed.

Fireside developer chat on saturday night

The next developer chat is on saturday night for anyone interested in a very informal event online.

Weird issue setting up printers

In case it matters, StrongED on the working machine is 4.68f12, while on the newer one it is 4.70a15, Has printing changed there?

Firstly, do you mean 4.68f2 (last version of 4.68) or 4.69f12?

I’ve compared the printing code in 4.69f14 vs 4.70a20 and there aren’t that many differences. There’s some changes to how headers and footers are handled, and changes to make the print dbox override of the mode font height/width work.

If you’re using headers/footers then try turning them off and see if that helps.

ISTR an earlier report of PS3 issues but I can’t find that right now. Anyway, try printing with the PS2 driver, if possible. That will show if there is an issue with PS3 or if it’s a more generic problem.

Iyonix and the rest of my Risc OS collection

Firstly, don’t tick “act as IP router”. If you fill in anything in the Routing window, only put the address of your router – leave everything else blank. If using DHCP, leave everything blank/unticked.

For IP address, either use DHCP (no options) or static (fixed) IP address within same range as router (eg. 192.168.8.100). Netmask of 255.255.255.0 Note that not many routers use 192.168.8.x so you might want to confirm that. 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x are more common.

For Host names, put hostname (eg. iyonix) in first box.

If using DHCP leave rest unticked/blank.

If not using DHCP, put something in domain (must have a dot in it) such as .nom or .home or a full domain if you have one (eg. riscos.com). For primary DNS, put address of router. For secondary address put 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) or 8.8.8.8 (Google).

Set/Save etc. Don’t forget to reboot.

If this doesn’t work, be aware that one of the first signs of a failing Iyonix PSU is the network port failing. USB ethernet is possible on RISC OS – stick to USB 2 adapters though, ideally with ASIX AX88772 chipset. Not every ROM has EtherUSB in ROM though.

RISC OS cannot use USB soundcards at all without a custom ROM. Even then, it can’t use it system-wide, only via specific software.

Finally, be aware that Iyonixes are amongst the more troublesome machines to keep going (see Martin Eastwood’s problems). You may be better off with a cheap Raspberry Pi to play around with – it will likely give you better compatibility with old games etc via !ADFFS and the AnyMode module.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

This is the book I used to learn Z80 machine code programming on my Nascom 2 - so well written. I spent countless hours thumbing through this. I didn't have the luxury of a Z80 assembler to use so I had to hand-assemble the code and type it into memory in hexadecimal. Thank you, Graham Wilson.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I found these AI generated images from about 4 years ago. I was trying out the latest craze. I hate to think how much power has been wasted over the years generating this stuff. I guess it helps tech companies stay 'relevant' and keeps share prices high. I do wonder how long before the bubble bursts

@colinhoad.com

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46275138

Resharing this old story from 2018 for no reason at all.

*stares*

@colinhoad.com

https://www.traffic.gov.scot/gritter-tracker

Scotland, I salute you! These snow gritter names are incredible 😆

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

In December 1987 'The Micro User' magazine was helping Acornsoft off-load surplus stock. Games and Languages were sold off at very reasonable prices.

@colinhoad.com

BBC News report on sick men using Meta AI glasses to film women in public without their consent and then post the videos online for clicks.

"We contacted Meta, who said users should not use the AI glasses in this way."

Oh, so that's ok then?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Those RISC OS users coping with the traumatic loss of 32b ARMs (after the traumatic loss of 26b ARMs) by pitching their hopes on 64b ARMs should raise their gaze slightly nearer the horizon. Things change like Hemingway said - gradually, then suddenly.https://markets.financialcontent.com/wral/article/tokenring-2025-12-26-risc-v-hits-25-market-penetration-as-qualcomm-and-meta-lead-the-shift-to-open-source-silicon

@colinhoad.com

No spoilers, but as someone who adored Stranger Things all the way through, I found the finale very satisfying. Great piece of television, one of the best series Netflix has ever put out.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

If you ever developed for the Sony PS2 this book will bring back happy memories!

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Two more great books to add to the library.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

My French teacher said my 'mind was constantly on other things - computers'. Yep, it sure was, and still is! Sorry, Miss Nicholls. Anyone else out there with memorable school reports?

Developers’ fireside chat – 10th January

The opportunity has once again come around for people involved or interested in software development on, for, or even of RISC OS to gather together and discuss matters relevant to the topic. The next friendly fireside chat is scheduled to take place on Saturday, 10th January. The meetings – which are held online, using the Zoom video conferencing system – don’t follow a set agenda. Instead, the discussion topics are down to those people present, and what they wish to bring up or ask about. For example, at the last…

@colinhoad.com

How is it that HMRC can know you've completed your tax return, know that it resulted in tax to pay, but *not* know that you've already paid it? Constant gaslighting texts and emails "reminding" me to pay are really not conducive to good mental health...

@colinhoad.com

As many others have noted... if even DELL are admitting this, that bubble is looking pretty bursty right about now...

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@colinhoad.com

"Powerful Copilot prompts from Satya Nadella!" screams the Microsoft email in my inbox this morning.

Get. In. The. Sea.

Pre-order Voices From A Future Passed

For those who enjoyed Rob Napier’s talk at ROUGOL last month, and those who missed it but were also excited to read the full history of Acorn, here’s a message from Rob about progress on publication of his book:

Over the holiday break, VOICESFROM A FUTUREPASSED has moved toward publication.

I am cautiously confident that it will be released on 1 March online through Amazon and through some bookshops and possibly some museum shops.

I have set up an information site at www.doitonce.net.au . It gives an outline of the book and a campaign to donate part of the sale price to museums. Please visit the site for details.

If you would like to pre-order or to contact me, just send me a message from there. I try to respond to everyone within one business day.

My HTML skills are a bit rusty and I’ve not managed to get too excited about current web design trends. If anyone has any comments/feedback, I’d be happy to receive your advice. That said: Please be gentle.

All the best

Rob Napier

-———-

@nemo20000.bsky.social

A belated Happy New Year to my RISC OS friends.

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve completed the nemoBasic feature I teased before Christmas.

This new functionality is really exciting for many reasons, so I’ll show you before I describe it: [I’ve coloured some strings here to clarify]

@armbytes.bsky.social

Interested in coding on RISC OS? Want to learn more or meet others? Join our friendly fireside chat on Zoom—DM for credentials (unchanged). The event is this Saturday, 10th January at 7:30 pm (GMT). #Zoom #Meetup #RISCOS #Community #RaspberryPi #ARM #Retro #AcornComputers

@colinhoad.com

I see OpenAI are now "betting big" on audio. Once again a tech company is claiming voice-to-text will replace the keyboard. It won't. It's for bigshot CEO types dictating their bullshit into the ether. Voice-to-text is, and will forever remain, a frustrating medium for any kind of detail work.

App locations inside !Boot

I’m beginning to delve into the murky innards of !Boot, with a view to extending the Clarity theme to the various default apps within it, including Configure. Presently, the sprites in the Clarity theme are installed with a simple Boot merge, with the new files all added into !Boot.Resources.!ThemeDefs.Themes.Clarity. This ensures that the sprites used by the Wimp, plus the icons used for the ROM Apps, are replaced.

If I also want to replace the icons used for the various !Boot apps (!Scrap, !System, etc), then I’m assuming that I can use the same Boot merge to add the required sprites into their various application directories (ie, !Boot.Resources.!System.Themes.Clarity, etc). This does assume that those application directories never move around – is that something I can rely on?

Similarly, the icons for the Configure app aren’t all in the same place. On RO5.31, most are in !Boot.RO500Hook.Res.Configure, but the Internet configuration seems to live in !Boot.Resources.Configure. Again, can I rely on these locations staying consistent, and use a Boot merge to add new sprites into their respective app directories?

I’m aware that there are theme manager applications in development, such as ExtTheme, that will probably be able to handle all this with a bit more aplomb, but I’m hoping to keep the basic distribution of Clarity as simple as possible – just an iconset that can be copied over !Boot with the various components dropped into the right places.

@colinhoad.com

A very kind colleague brought this into the office today for me, as he reckoned I might enjoy it - he was not wrong! The internet of 1995... almost 30 million users 😅

@colinhoad.com

As I was *exiting* a trampoline arena, I jumped off the last trampoline, forgetting there were no more trampolines to land on. So instead I landed on the hard floor of the perimeter and bent my ankle around on itself. Massive sprain, couldn't walk for weeks. Total idiot.

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@iconbar.com

WROCC January 2026 talk on Wednesday - Elesar

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2269.html

The January 2026 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 7th January and starts at 7.45pm on Zoom.https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2269.html

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

On Christmas Day we lost another gaming legend - David Rosen, Co-founder of Sega. He was responsible for the huge success of the Sega arcade games and the Mega Drive console. Thank you for your amazing work. RIP.

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How old are you

With ref to ‘Archive.org’

Do you have to prove your age?

@colinhoad.com

Fairly certain that regex bug I just fixed was a result of AI-generated code...

Kids! Learn your regular expressions. They will never not be useful to you.

@riscosbits.co.uk

Early preview of the new 15.6in RiscDOCK. Bigger screen, bigger battery, same flexibility!

#RISC_OS #RISCOSLaptop

@colinhoad.com

If only the world's journalists were still on Twitter to report on this MASSIVE story about Musk's AI slopbot generating child porn on demand. Too bad they all left the platform, I guess.

@colinhoad.com

I had, up until yesterday, kept my dormant Twitter account (not posted anything or logged in since December 2023), the justification being "I don't want someone pretending to be me" over there. This latest Grok horror show has prompted me to login and deactivate said account.

WROCC January 2026 talk on Wednesday - Elesar

The January 2026 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 7th January and starts at 7.45pm on Zoom.

RISC OS - Flight Simulators

(I’m unsure how to quote people on this forum, I tend to use StarDot.)

Like that ;-)

See the easy guide at the bottom of the page and the linked https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/For…

Celebrate ten years of the Titanium with WROCC – 7th January

Back in October 2015, there was a surprise announcement something visitors to that year’s London Show could expect to see – a new motherboard, designed by Rob Sprowson, with RISC OS in mind; the Titanium. The board itself became available through Rob’s company Elesar Ltd in December of that year, allowing people to build DIY machines around it, and it wasn’t long before there were complete Titanium-based computer systems available from both R-Comp and CJE Micro’s. That was a touch over a decade ago, and Rob Sprowson will be taking…

Archive magazines available

Just for future reference – all spare magazines were collected just before Christmas. I’m still on the lookout for 2009-2022 magazines, but not in any rush :-)

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 4th January at 1pm UK time.

A bit of a scattered day today. I had fixed PicoC so that it could handle the _IN() and _OUT() macros, but somehow broke _OUTR() so the testing got a little distracted. However, the SWIs all seem to work on RISC OS 64, and so I moved on to replacing the data blob for the CPU registers descriptions with one that can be generated. We now have some Python code that builds the data that these tables use, which will make it a lot easier when we need to replace them with a different platform (or update them!).

Hopefully that was interesting to people. I also showed off the hotkey lookup in the editor as well – pressing shift-ctrl-h opens a Chrome Window with the relevant RISC OS documentation in. Pretty simple to do with all the other work that’s gone before, but I finally got around to doing it.

With that, I think I’m done on what I want to do on the Kernel Introspection for now – it’s stubbed well enough. I think next week, I think I’m going to have a look at FSCommands, unless anyone wants to jump in and ask for one of the other components…

Most of Phase 1 is complete ( https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status/wiki/Phase-1) but Phase 2 has lots of things in it ( https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status/wiki/Phase-2).

Is there an XEyes-like tool for RISC OS?

Please accept my apologies for my somewhat delayed reply. My very sincere thanks go to Simon for the modifications to the original program and the helpful explanation regarding changing the BASIC file. Many thanks to David for the fix!

The Desktop Eyes have now found their place on my Iconbar and are happily keeping a close watch on my mouse pointer — simply perfect!

Many thanks once again, and with very kind regards

Berny :)

@nemo20000.bsky.social

You can have too many steering wheel buttons...

@colinhoad.com

It's the New Year's Postbag, 2026! youtu.be/fn87-LmMlDYhttps://youtu.be/fn87-LmMlDY

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

More great work from Mark Moxon. This time it's BBC Micro Sentinel that has been disassembled, annotated and made into buildable source code. Deep dives coming soon too. Looking forward to reading through all this. Geoff Crammond's code has been thoroughly dissected after almost 40 years!

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NetSurf site dead?

It looks that a few github repositories to build Netsurf are also down.

PicoC RISC OS version 0.02 released

Hiya,

Just a little note to say that the PicoC tool that I’ve been using for some of the verification of 32-bit and 64-bit components has been released. PicoC is an interpreted C, which you can use at the command line or with files. It’s handy for writing small things in which just exercise a few SWI calls.

It is even passing its almost all the original tests that were supplied with it (those not run are largely for time).

• The source can be found here: https://gitlab.com/gerph/picoc
• The release can be found here: https://gitlab.com/gerph/picoc/-/releases/v0.02

@colinhoad.com

This is utterly hilarious. As anyone who's tried to use Pinterest recently will know, the site/app is completely swamped with AI slop. If Altman thinks he can use it for more image training data, he's going to be in for a surprise.

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Using EX0 and EY0 for higher definition

There are a quite a few things that don’t take into account the screen scaling when using EX0 EY0. The mouse pointer is one of them.

The OS does scale the mouse pointer for the eigen factors, witness changing to a EX1 EY2 mode. The issue is that a number of APIs assume no more than 32×32 hardware cursor (probably arising from VIDC, but I think some other graphics controllers have that limit too) so for example when you try to scale ptr_default which is 22 pixels high at EX1 EY1 you’d get 44 pixels at EX0 EY0 and the bottom 12 pixels are cropped off. The hourglass with percentage is taller still.

So your options are:

• Live with the cropped pointer. Result: at least it’s proportionally the right size compared with everything else
• Fudge it by using the 12×22 pixel pointer sprite in the Wimp’s Sprites11 file, this is what Castle opted to do with the Iyonix and that’s spread to some of the other themes. Result: at least it’s not cropped, just a bit teeny tiny
• Roll up your sleeves and ripple the planned API changes through all the bits of low level graphics drivers which assume 32×32. Result: not cropped and correctly scaled on hardware that can do bigger overlays

Bluetooth Again

The TCPIPLibs looked indeed nice but will give issues. But it is good to see it confirmed by several people. So I only use CLib. I have also worked on more automatic building so the Obey file ‘Mk’ in the root should do the trick. I’m using the netbsd source ( and file structure ) to make the libs. I use the source for version 10.×.

I do indeed concentrate on btattach for the pi because the firmware needs to get in first ;-).

I’m not sure for the seperator

Thanks for the help !

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

New Dark Mode Theme release for #RISC_OS DME ExtTheme! (remember to let me know if you have any issues)

Go grab your copy for free here: riscoscommunity.org/shop/

#riscos #Desktop #Themeing #DarkMode #OpenSourcehttps://riscoscommunity.org/shop/

FlagQuiz 1.02 released

Kevin Wells has released another new version of FlagQuiz, his application that allows users to test their knowledge and recognition of national flags. Version 1.02 addresses a fairly basic issue in the program, whereby the sprites file containing the various flags used by the program were loaded into the WIMP sprite pool. Unless a program specifically needs its sprites held there, this is bad practice because it risks an application’s sprites being used in place of ones used by the system. Kevin has therefore updated FlagQuiz to store its sprites…

WROCC Meeting - Titanium at Ten - 7th Jan

Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club

Meeting on Wednesday 7th January at 7.45pm

Titanium at Ten

Rob Sprowson of Elesar will celebrate the Titanium, the fastest RISC OS computer that’s been in production the longest. He will wind the clock back to the project’s origins, examining what worked and what didn’t. He will then spotlight several ideas for tapping into the currently unexploited processing power inside every box.

This ‘virtual’ meeting is open to all, and will take place using the Zoom conferencing service using our regular meeting credentials. Zoom invitations will be sent out ahead of the meeting, but only to those who email info2025@wrocc.org.uk to request one. If you would like to be part of the meeting (and don’t already have the link from a previous meeting or receive an invite in the next 24 hours as a member of WROCC), please RSVP — at the latest by the end of Tuesday 6th January (GMT). We email the links out on the morning of the meeting.

If you haven’t used Zoom before, we suggest that before Wednesday you try to join the Zoom test meeting at https://zoom.us/test on the device that you intend to use, in order to check that your system works OK. You will not require a Zoom account to take part.

Past Meetings

Videos of previous meetings can be found in our links to past meetings at https://www.wrocc.org.uk/meetings

Club Membership

Annual membership of WROCC is available for those living near and far at 10.00ukp per year.

Members receive:

• A PDF newsletter with all the latest news and articles.
• Entry to meetings.
• Access to the WROCC Internet Discussion Forum.

For further information, please email info2025@wrocc.org.uk or visit the Club’s website at https://www.wrocc.org.uk

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Ok, found that bit, but where's the rest of it?!

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

2025 has been a great year for me in coding, thanks everyone for all the stars. I hope 2026 is going to be another stellar year! I'm thrilled to be ranked in the top 1% of devs, and if I can do it so can you. Just keep on coding, don't give up, forget the hype about AI, keep digging and learning!

So What Now?

I don?t think that?s fair to ROOL. They have set out the degree to which they

are committing to doing work towards 64-bit. They run these forums and will be

watching them and seeing the work that?s gone on. Having a clear idea what

involvement they want is a positive sign ? and one that is enlightening for

those of us that had a different impression.

I guess I’ve taken the cup half empty view of the situation opposed to the atleast there is a cup, but can see how that would give you at least a reference point to work from.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Hi! I'm a complacent disregard for weather reports plus the most dangerous mountain in Wales.

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List of modules in C

It relies on parts of the C library, which makes it problematic. StubsG is available as a binary and works – it should be usable as-is. Is there a particular issue you have found with the library?

The C library’s Apache licensed, so as long as you’re willing to make your code have a compatible licence it should be fine.

If it’s of interest, I have a (macOS/Linux) Makefile that fetches the source for stubs and builds three variants – 26bit, 32bit and vfp. The latter is a 32-bit stubs, patched automatically. It uses a python (extended) implementation of decaof to rename certain symbols in the symbol table in the .o files, and includes in the library veneers. These veneers export the original function name, and call the renamed functions. And they’re all made into a library with a python reimplementation of libfile. It sounds like it works very similarly to StubsG?

December 2025 News Summary

FlagQuiz the world wide flag quiz for RISC OS has had a few upgrades in December.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Amazingly, BBC Basic never really had a limit on the number of dimensions an array can have. The 8bit Beeb could have had up to 126, though the line length limit restricted you to 116. Dimensions were 16b which was more than enough in less than 64KB...

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Happy New Year! 🎉 🥂 I’ve released a new theme manager for #RISC_OS (DME ExtTheme) and a beta update for LaunchPad, the application launcher. Early beta testing is open now. Full details here:https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/20199

#RISCOS #RetroComputing #OpenSource #DesktopComputing

USBDriver vulnerability

Hi Matthew, happy new year!

That sounds annoying. Please do

*Set Debugger$AnnotatedFile $.excdump
*Set Debugger$DumpOptions -file annotated

and then after the crash you should find an excdump file which tells you which function 5b18 actually is in your USBDriver plus a backtrace. You could either post it here or attach it to a bug report in the bugs section of this website.

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

Happy New Year to all my RISC OS chums.

@armbytes.bsky.social

Happy New Year!🚀🥂

@armbytes.bsky.social

┏━━┓┏━━┓┏━━┓┏━━┓ ┗━┓┃┃┏┓┃┗━┓┃┃┏━┛ ┏━┛┃┃┃┃┃┏━┛┃┃┗━┓ ┃┏━┛┃┃┃┃┃┏━┛┃┏┓┃ ┃┗━┓┃┗┛┃┃┗━┓┃┗┛┃ ┗━━┛┗━━┛┗━━┛┗━━┛ Try #RISCOS this year.

Ambiguous Disc Name - with only one disc!

FYI: Next time you can copy everything off with DiscKnight, expand it’s window and use the Backup option to copy all or part of a disc elsewhere. It does re-tries for failing rusty media, but wont make any difference with flash based stuff.

@colinhoad.com

Just seen someone claiming the Amiga was "better than any PC In those days" in response to a post about Windows XP and early 2000s computing. I, err, don't think it was, old chap.

Help Needed setting my Internet

I am with Plusnet and had New Router. I cannot remember Network Settings Network Configuration.

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

Arrived this morning – perfect! #RISC_OS #Archive #ArchiveMagazine

@colinhoad.com

Sydney, that was epic! Proper fireworks display, they know how to do it #nye

@iconbar.com

December 2025 News Summary

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2270.html

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2270.html

@colinhoad.com

Over Christmas, we were reflecting on family memories and one in particular for which I had a vivid recollection but nobody else could recall (even though they were in it!) This morning I found a photo in an album (pre-digital!) that confirmed it and I realised what a privilege it is to have (1/3)

December 2025 News Summary

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

KeyboardUtil v0.01 released

KeyboardUtil is an on-screen keyboard utility for use on RISC OS computers. It currently requires RISC OS 3.5 or later.

It can be downloaded from here, and the source code is available on GitHub.

FlagQuiz Version 1.02 Released

I have made another little update to my RISC OS world flag quiz application FlagQuiz taking it to version 1.02 New in this version is that the question sprites are local to the application itself rather than being placed in the WIMP sprite pool. This should avoid conflicts with other application that use sprites with … Continue reading "FlagQuiz Version 1.02 Released"

RISC OS today and tomorrow: understanding behaviour and trade-offs

I modified QEMU to load the “bios” (RISC OS ROM image) at 0 instead of 0×8000/0×80000. So it behaves like kernel_old=1 in config.txt (iirc).

#define FIRMWARE_ADDR_2 0 // 0x8000 /* Pi 2 loads kernel.img here by default */
#define FIRMWARE_ADDR_3 0 // 0x80000 /* Pi 3 loads kernel.img here by default */

Plus a bunch of excessive logging, but that’s another matter.

If I were them, I’d have gone for a -preload file,address option, myself, to cover all eventualities like bios, kernel, inird, etc..

Just out of interest, do you do anything with ATAGs? I leave a gap, they’ll be readable, but I don’t scan them yet.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Iain M Banks was right. In no time there'll be giant Minds roaming space with various sized retinues of human pets, getting into skirmishes with each other and consuming all the energy in the cosmos...

@colinhoad.com

I think this means I have to be Susan, Death's granddaughter...

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

I don’t think dogs have the right temperament to be shopkeepers, they’d want to please the customer. Only a cat could insist on no credit; no trying the merchandise; indifference to flattery.

👨 Who’s a good boy? You are! You’re such a good boy! 🐱 It’s still £9.99. And we’re closing.

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

A lot of new nemoBasic syntax is about avoiding repetitive boilerplate. For example, you can tell it to ignore file handle zero by preceding the # with IF – e.g. PRINTIF#handle.

As nemoBasic allows statements to span multiple lines, this is more involved than you’d think:

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Nobody:

“I wonder where the STRACC string buffer is in RISC OS BBC Basic?”

BBC Basic:

@colinhoad.com

I've been playing a lot of Doom 3 recently, and it is very clear how much of an impact Half-Life must have had on the game's development. There are an awful lot of "bring the reactor back online" style missions, along with a greater emphasis on fighting armed troopers compared with Doom/Doom 2.

@colinhoad.com

In 2007, I was on the 172 bus heading towards Waterloo, on the upper deck, and saw Kevin Spacey crossing the road outside the Old Vic theatre. He did not see me.

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Don't give them trinkets, give them their full compensation and throw Fujitsu in the sea.

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@colinhoad.com

How I'm walking out of 2025

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@colinhoad.com

Apparently Jared Leto is going to play Skeletor in a live-action Masters of the Universe movie. I'm not as negative about him as some (more indifferent tbh) but I do feel Mark Hamill ought to have got the gig after his incredible voice acting in the semi-recent Netflix 'Revelation' animated series.

@colinhoad.com

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I finally got around to fixing a bug in RISC OS Basic that is actually from BBC Micro Basic in 1982 – neither tokenises “FORx=1E1TO2E2” correctly!

The reason is some there’s-only-16KB-so-that’ll-have-to-do code which was dutifully carried over to the actually-there’s-more-than-that-now ARM version.

@colinhoad.com

Dune 3: Tokyo Drift

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

This is the first time I've seen the Japanese manual for NES Solstice. I really like it. One of Software Creations' best know titles. Created by my former colleagues Mike Webb and Mark Wilson. Music and SFX by Tim Follin. Crafted in lovely 6502 assembly language.

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@colinhoad.com

This guy continues to be a mental vacuum. Nobody is afraid of Copilot, mate.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-jobs-microsoft-mustafa-suleyman-automation-copilot-chatgpt-b2891475.html

@colinhoad.com

No.

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@colinhoad.com

After spending several enjoyable days engaged in Pascal coding for hobby projects, my first day back at work has mainly been running Python code, wondering why it doesn't work and then realising I'm using := and semi-colons all over the place 🤣

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 R-Comp's new USB charging software

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2291.html

Many thanks to Andrew for sharing the latest software release with ushttps://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2291.html

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 R-Comp's new USB charging software

Many thanks to Andrew for sharing the latest software release with us

@nemo20000.bsky.social

All technology, forever...

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GitLab timeouts

@ James

No idea if you are around today (27th of Dec 2025), but it seems ROOL GitLab is timing out again :(

@colinhoad.com

Re-reading "Hogfather" and have just come to the bit where it refers to an "Anthill Inside" sticker on the side of Hex, the Unseen University computer - little details like that are why I will always love Terry Pratchett 😁

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Excellent.

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Is the system heap meant to be writable from BASIC?

I was just thinking about somewhere safe for privileged code to write to for user mode code to read from and thought perhaps the system heap, since that’s where I thought the system variables are stored (and R3 returned from OS_ReadVarVal points to).

So I tried:

SYS"XOS_ReadVarVal", "*", 0, -1, 0, 0 TO ,,,V%

V% is set to &303FF7CC, in the system heap, not RMA (&20000000) and printing the string there shows “7backup\(Dir”, as expected. What I wasn’t expecting was `V%?5=42` to work, let alone change the name of the variable to “7back\*p\)Dir”!

Is this a limitation of recent MMUs?

@rougol.bsky.social

If you want to see how Gavin produces books on RISC OS watch his recent talk at ROUGOL https://rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2025/sep.html

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

I'd have paid a negotiable amount of money for that in 1987. I remember lugging a Beeb plus Zenith CRT in a shoulder bag around South Wales' rail network whilst at my first engineering job. I left the M128 in the flat cos it wouldn't fit.

I've been walking in large circles ever since.

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@colinhoad.com

This is what happens when search engines give way to LLMs.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crklrnv5yn4o

SerialUSB causes zero page access

RO 5.31 is een development version do you also have this issue with the ‘normal’ RO version 5.30 ?

@iconbar.com

Archive Edition 28:01 reviewed

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2289.html

Archive Magazine 28:01 arrived this week, just in time for the holidays, and it's a cracker!https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2289.html

Archive Edition 28:01 reviewed

Archive Magazine 28:01 arrived this week, just in time for the holidays, and it's a cracker!

Route: route already in table: File exists

Thank you, removing the Gateway setting got rid of that message. As to those suggesting that I set the IP address manually, that is not an option as I am setting up the machine for use in an environment where I do not control the network, so DHCP is the best solution unless I talk really nicely to the network administrator.

@armbytes.bsky.social

RISC OS turns up in the strangest places: Acorn Computers' Online Media (Om) media. 🚀🛸🕹️

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~djg11/fromkoo/cambridge-itv-trial/

Made file source in subdirectory

Hi Paolo thanks now I know what went wrong. I now copied the lib and header files to the app directory. Sorry for the perhaps stupid questions but I have been out of sw development for a long time and that was with MS Visual studio…

@iconbar.com

RISC OS Christmas interview 2025

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2277.html

Many thanks to Paolo Fabio Zaino for taking the time to answer our questions and give us some really interesting updates on his projects.https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2277.html

RISC OS Christmas interview 2025

Many thanks to Paolo Fabio Zaino for taking the time to answer our questions and give us some really interesting updates on his projects.

To Everyone in the Community

And to you, Martin :) Happy RISC OS-ing, and may you have Frosted (desktop-theme) windows on Christmas morning :)

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Gavin Crawford's RISC OS publishing system

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2290.html

Many thanks to Gavin for sharing his desktop with us - something of a powerhouse...https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2290.html

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Gerph's update on 2025 RISC OS projects

Also, I did a quick port of MicroQuickJS last night, just to see how easy it'd be...

@colinhoad.com

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring except maybe this game from Cascade! youtu.be/hvgzOO3BWfwhttps://youtu.be/hvgzOO3BWfw

@nemo20000.bsky.social

A “big” update to RISC OS nemoBasic.

ON ERROR is a class of declaration I was hoping to significantly expand before Christmas, but the special surprise I have is still defrosting with the turkey, but in anticipation of that mystery meat I have implemented this:

Large ON ERROR blocks:

Happy Christmas and New Year from all at R-Comp and ROD

Firstly, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a super, RISC OS-filled 2026. Thankyou to eveyone for being part of the community this year, and for all your RISC OS related activity, support, developments, purchases and forum posts etc.

I’m now finishing for Christmas (well, it is nearly 4pm on Christmas Eve). The intention is to take a bit of a longer Christmas break as I’m absolutely exhausted from a non-stop year. I’ve been working weekends since the summer, and still not found time to celebrate my birthday from back in October! We’ve more-or-less cleared the decks in time for Christmas, so the plan is to take a rest until early Jan.

My intention is to return to work properly on Jan 12th, although I may well be checking email from the 7th onwards – if you can avoid sending tech support emails until then, it’d be appreciated.

In the meantime, Plingstore will continue to operate, although please be patient as I’ll likely only be approving orders every few days.

Christmas cards – I’m afraid we simply haven’t had a chance to do the usual Christmas Card send-out this year, so if you were expecting one and haven’t received, please don’t take it personally. Hopefully normal service will be resumed next year. I may try and slip a few out whilst listening to “Carols from Kings” this afternoon, but it is a wee bit late now.

Warrington Show (RISC OS North) is on Saturday, March 21st, 2026 – see www.riscosnorth.uk for more info. We’ve been slow on getting exhibitor invites out this year, but please pencil this date into your diary (the show has been paid for, so it is definitely happening). We hope to see you there if possible :)

I hope you all have a really nice Chirstmas period, and have exactly the balance of fun, friendship, food, relaxation and RISC OS that you wish for :)

Best wishes to everyone,

Andrew & all @ R-Comp and RISC OS Developments

@armbytes.bsky.social

Wishing you all a Merry RISC OS and a cogtastic New Year! 🎄🚀🕹️🛸

The IconBar advent calendar needs your help

All the entries for our xmas calendar are now live at https://www.iconbar.com/articles/advent/

Many thanks to everyone who contributed – I really appreciate your efforts and ingenuity. Some especially bad puns this year!

It is always one of my favourite items on TIB as we get a really interesting selection of news, opinions and real life things people are doing with RISC OS.

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Gavin Crawford's RISC OS publishing system

Many thanks to Gavin for sharing his desktop with us - something of a powerhouse....

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Gerph's update on 2025 RISC OS projects

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2288.html

Many thanks to Gerph for a detailed RISC OS in his pocket. I have found his Sunday coding sessions really interesting.https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2288.html

Disabling scroll wheel on mouse

Is it possible to configure RISC OS somehow so that the scrolling aspect of the mouse is ignored across the whole operating system, but clicking the scroll wheel still works as the Menu button?

I tried configuring the scroll speed to the slowest setting hoping that would disable it, but it just scrolls very slowly.

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Gerph's update on 2025 RISC OS projects

Many thanks to Gerph for a detaled RISC OS in his pocket (I have found his sunday coding sessions really interesting).

BASIC and LOCAL DATA

In PDP11 BASIC it took just one extra instruction to fix LOCALDATA:continue tokenising:

jsr  pc,TokenSearch	; Search token table
;...
bit  #2,r2		; Are we at the start of statement?
bne  TokenWord1		; No, enter token/char
bit  #16,r1		; Is this a pseudo-variable?
beq  TokenWord2		; No, enter unchanged
add  #&40,r0		; Convert token to command token
.TokenWord1
bic  #&40,r2		; *EXTRA* Middle of statement, don't turn tokeniser off
.TokenWord2
mov  r1,r2		; Copy new flags to current flags
;...

It looks to me that the ARM code would be similarly simple to update. I’ll have a look at it over Christmas.

GCCSDK Built with Nix!

I’m pretty sure that I am the only person using GCCSDK via nix, but I’ve got some updates!

Firstly, I’m using it to compile for RiscOS from an Apple Silicon Mac! It will also definitely work on windows using WSL! So if you are using any of those platforms, great news! This will work a charm!

Next, I’ve managed to create an initial cross stdenv which means that it is much easier to use nix as the build system. The example flake is here:

https://github.com/yobson/riscos-nix/tree/main/example

Next steps will be building OSLib and others this way and move some things over from the auto builder. I also spotted the nordsoft compiler on GitHub (I don’t think it’s the one ROOL uses but will work for risc os), so I may give that the same treatment.

Either way, this is turning out to be a very nice way to bring building for risc os to 2025.

Prophet 4.15 brings mobility

Or, at least, the ability to keep in touch with someone on the move! A new version of Prophet has been released by Elesar. The software – originally published by Quinten Pain’s Apricote Studios, and now looked after by Rob Sprowson’s company – is an accounts and stock management package, designed to handle all the financial record keeping needed by a business, including the ability to submit VAT returns under Making Tax Digital (MTD) requirements. The key change since version 4.14 is the addition of a field for a mobile…

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

As questions about the previous post on #RISC_OS today's and tomorrow start flowing, I posted a new article with some answers to some of those. Please remember this is an open discussion, so if I have made errors please send me the corrections, thank you!

https://riscoscommunity.org/understanding-risc-os/what-happens-to-risc-os-applications-if-we-introduce-preemptive-multitasking/

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Elesar Festive teaser

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2287.html

Many thanks to Sprow for a festive teaser for 2026...https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2287.html

@colinhoad.com

A huge thank you to everyone who has chosen to subscribe to my Acorn nonsense on YouTube, there are 2,250 of you now, for which I feel immensely honoured. Thanks for all the likes, comments and goodwill, all of which keeps me wanting to make more videos. Have a lovely Christmas!

@colinhoad.com

It's Christmas Eve Eve! youtu.be/lrPXzz_jNqMhttps://youtu.be/lrPXzz_jNqM

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Elesar Festive teaser

Many thanks to Sprow for a festive teaser for 2026...

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Very strong contender.

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Quite a bit of floppy swapping...

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@colinhoad.com

Getting in the Christmas spirit at the Barbican carols singalong 🎅🌲🎵

Push code to my own github

Well today it went really bad RISC-OS had frozen, reboot and after that no more push possible due to some strange error. So delete folder and checkout again…

@nemo20000.bsky.social

A trio of nemoBasic updates I’ve added in December. Firstly a trivial one: Press any key!

Being able to just GET without storing the result is surprisingly useful (and optimises something I’d already implemented – the statement form EVAL GET which evaluates its expression but ignores the result)

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

New big post about the present and future of #RISC_OS. Open for corrections. First focus the kernel.

@lproven.bsky.social , @nemo20000.bsky.social , @taynappe.bsky.social and anyone who wish to provide corrections please let me know, thx!

https://riscoscommunity.org/understanding-risc-os/risc-os-today-and-tomorrow-what-would-really-benefit-the-platform/

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Raik Fischer has RISC OS in his pocket

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2285.html

Many thanks to Raik for showing us how he keeps RISC OS in his pocket (It's not too late to send us yours).https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2285.html

@colinhoad.com

With just three more sleeps until Christmas, can Cascade redeem itself today 😆 youtu.be/9111DeU81yIhttps://youtu.be/9111DeU81yI

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Raik Fischer has RISC OS in his pocket

Many thanks to Raik for a showing us how he keeps RISC OS in his pocket (It's not too late to send us yours).

Archive Dec/Jan 2026 now on sale

I read the Jeffrey interview. It is a really nice piece, and a big thanks to him for the shout-out to the RISC OS Community on GitHub! :)

Also, a huge thanks to Jeffrey for mentioning the importance of introducing test automation if people are serious about porting RISC OS to 64-bit systems. Let’s hope his words will be heard. ;)

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Inspired to go out for a leisurely drive... #WheelieYellowhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmvJwfYvlwQ

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 21st December at 1pm UK time.

Gerph is Live!

FlagQuiz updated to version 1.01

Kevin Wells has released an update to his new FlagQuiz application, a piece of software that you can use to test your knowledge of flags from around the world. The program works by displaying a randomly selected flag, along with four options of which nation it might belong to. You then make your choice of one of those four, and you’ll be told if you got it right or not. Unfortunately, there was a silly bug in the original release, whereby it was possible for the four options to not…

Font Assistance

Which NVMe drivers are you using?

Yours. It’s a Fast system.

Rectangles ... and more

I’ve added some PRM references and more examples. A C version will have to wait :-)

Cheers! And happy holidays, everyone.

@colinhoad.com

Day 21! youtu.be/FzmeG8u4oqUhttps://youtu.be/FzmeG8u4oqU

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Damn you Sainsbury's, this is your fault. 🤤

RISCOSbits Christmas Cracker

Just to say thank you, Coming from using a Raspi Pi 4 using Risc OS on a SD card. I have received my Chimera box and RISC OS is certainly blazing fast and zippy on a NVME drive. Apps like Netsurf just browse pages like a snap of the finger and playing Doom is very buttery smooth. :-D, Merry Christmas.

CRamFS

I finally got around to trying this out on the RiscPC (using a StrongARM and RISC OS 5.30), and have got some initial numbers from m1time:

RamFS 2.33 (23 Nov 2020):

Save 1M * 1000: 8539 csec

Load 1M * 1000: 6131 csec

CRamFS + memmove:

Save 1M * 1000: 9370 csec

Load 1M * 1000: 7028 csec

CRamFS + BlockMove:

Save 1M * 1000: 9517 csec

Load 1M * 1000: 6346 csec

I’ve added a bunch of comments on the merge request of things that might help, but I currently don’t have any tools for getting more detailed benchmarks on the RiscPC. That said, it should be possible to get the performance roughly equivalent in C – the BlockMove function seems to be the only part that’s doing something complicated that would require assembly code for performance.

@iconbar.com

ROOL updates DDE to DDE32b

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2286.html

ROOL have released a new version of the DDE which is now DDE32b.https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2286.html

ROOL updates DDE to DDE32b

ROOL have released a new version of the DDE which is now DDE32b.

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 19 and this one comes with a warning: contains extreme flickering images... youtu.be/CC3jJBctL68https://youtu.be/CC3jJBctL68

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - ROOL festive brain teaser

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2284.html

Many thanks to ROOL for some suitably cryptic challenges to keep our brains sharp (It's not too late to send us yours).https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2284.html

FlagQuiz Goes To Version 1.01

My RISC OS application for testing peoples knowledge on world flags called FlagQuiz has had a little upgrade taking it to version 1.01 One was a bug fix in which it was possible for no correct answers were available to be picked, which has now been fixed with the help of Reporter. The other changes … Continue reading "FlagQuiz Goes To Version 1.01"

@colinhoad.com

Ahh yeah, this is my vibe 😍https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwbxpc7dFDU

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 18! Beam me up, Cascade... youtu.be/PXkPT23KHHkhttps://youtu.be/PXkPT23KHHk

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - ROOL festive brain teaser

Many thanks to ROOL for some suitably cryptic challenges to keep our brains sharp (It's not too late to send us yours).

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Don't use UrbanVPN:

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@colinhoad.com

Isn't it remarkable how people with frontend dev skills think AI-generated code needs careful checking, re-checking and multiple iterations of fixes to get it right, but that it does a perfect job of the backend, first time. And vice versa.

@colinhoad.com

This chonky boxset

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@colinhoad.com

I don't know if it's the @chinnyvision.bsky.social effect but I just spent my lunch break watching old "Christmas Day TV Line-up" trailers on YouTube from the late 70s and early 80s 😅

@colinhoad.com

If you have a YouTube channel, you can use the adblock plus browser extension to block those incredibly annoying "AI suggested replies" in YouTube Studio, just add these two filters:

studio.youtube.com###comment-smart-replies studio.youtube.com###comment-smart-replies-disclaimer

@colinhoad.com

I find myself coming back, again and again, to game music from the 90s and early 2000s - it really was a golden age for highly original, distinctive game scores and themes. It's my go-to music for having on in the background while I work. This selection, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoWDrS2b9eM

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 17 and I've lost the plot! youtu.be/TUDKQqRHVgghttps://youtu.be/TUDKQqRHVgg

Iyonix SCSI Card Support

Partis Computing seems to deal with the SCSI Acorn cards – they may do a 32bit version- Ask – they might have tested it on the Iyonix -work/notwork!

I wonder if they would do a version for PCISCSI cards Iyonix / Ti.

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Colin McMurchie Christmas coding project

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2281.html

Many thanks to Colin for bringing some festive antics to our RISC OS desktops (It's not too late to send us yours).https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2281.html

VNC-linke software or screen recorder for RISC OS

Here is another way. Run VNCServ on RISC OS. On Mac or Windows or Linux connect to RISC OS via RealVNC client. Start Zoom. Share RISC OS session and switch on Zoom record.

Most of the MUG YouTube videos were made this way.

Obscure wimp sprites

Some more thoughts on Paint, having been using it very heavily over the past few weeks:

• The various bugs that used to affect various tools in the Sprite window seem to have been very effectively squashed. I don’t think I’ve had a single crash from that source over many hours of use.
• The new outline font tool is great, as is the much better Paintbrush interface. Very nice work.
• There’s a bug report (ticket 520) open on the file dragging/selection in the Spritefile window. This issue would be great to look at – it’s pretty annoying to drag a sprite into a file window and have it replace whatever is currently selected, even if the sprites have different names. When dragging dozens of files around, it’s very easy to overwrite stuff by mistake this way.
• Relatedly, if you try to rename a sprite in a Spritefile window to one that already exists, Paint silently fails to rename it, rather than telling you why.
• The only crashes I’ve had came when deleting a sprite from a Spritefile window. Annoyingly, I can’t reproduce this reliably. If I can find some way to reproduce this, I’ll file a ticket.

I’m not sure if the Bounty work is still current. If it is, then taking a look at some of these issues in the Spritefile window would be really useful. I think possible fixes here would be to:

• Mimic the Filer’s selection behaviour, so that selecting sprites in one Spritefile window clears the previous selection in another window
• Alternatively (or in addition), don’t overwrite selected sprites with different names when dragging sprite(s) into a Spritefile window, but just add the new sprites to the Spritefile
• When a sprite or selection of sprites is dragged to a Spritefile window containing a sprite(s) with the same name, or the user tries to rename a sprite with a name already existing in the file, query the decision. Either halt it, or offer to skip/abort/overwrite.

In any case, congrats to Andy for all his hard work – the app has been really transformed.

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 10! (That's 16 for you decimal folk) youtu.be/1EFpyBTzwJMhttps://youtu.be/1EFpyBTzwJM

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Colin McMurchie Christmas coding project

Many thanks to Colin for a very bringing some festive antics to our RISC OS desktops (It's not too late to send us yours).

RPCEmu NAT fail.

Following the recent DDE update to DDE32b this issue is fixed in the IOMDROM of 14-Dec-25.

From the changelogs :-

Fix for loads of halfword values not making use of unaligned LDR instructions when they are permitted by -memaccess +L41. This resulted in the halfword being formulated from two LDRB instructions which the register allocator did not expect, and R12 being wrongly reused in some small leaf functions.

Accessing ROOL Via Three Broadband

You’re most likely on IPv4?

Very definitely on both IPv6 and IPv4. I was surprised when I tried a Three SIM and found it gave me an IPv6 address (not to be confused with what WiFi gives me!). The IPv6 support is the primary reason I moved (just a few days ago) from O2 to Three.

The killer test, which I’ve just repeated, is to access one of my IPv6-only sites from my phone after turning WiFi off. The web page and the site’s log both show the Three IPv6 address of my phone, which has a very different prefix from that given to me by WiFi.

@colinhoad.com

I love this 😄

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 14th December at 1pm.

Yes, times posted on this site are invariably using UK local time. I’ll include that note in the future, but you can always find out the timezone relative time by going to the YouTube link which should be accurate (unless I schedule stupidly). All my sessions have always been at 1pm UK time.

The session yesterday went quite well, despite feeling a little unwell through it. Implementation of the stubbed functions is progressing well. OS_Byte calls are stubbed, although I went back and forth on their naming, as they seem to be given different names in different places. OS_ReadSysInfo has about a third of the calls stubbed as well. We’re only getting a skeleton right now, so it’s not especially complicated.

Tests have been ported from RISC OS Pyromaniac and look ok – they will need to change as we update the implementation.

Next week I’ll look at the OS_Platform calls and probably the memory calls as well.

@colinhoad.com

So... Perry in Scrubs, then.

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@colinhoad.com

This is *TONIGHT*!

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Odd BASIC error messages

In first example (2>>1)= 1 is a equality test the answer is false (0) or true(-1)

in second Print displays 2>>1 and doesn’t understand = 0 (affectation) in this sentence.

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 15, and it's fair to say this might just be the flagship game of the Cascade Cassette 50... youtu.be/hI7yn51QTRMhttps://youtu.be/hI7yn51QTRM

@nemo20000.bsky.social

"I don't need this water, I'll pour it in the bin" - my brain, apparently.

It's happening folks, I'm going senile.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Typographers and fontographers, are you brave enough?!

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Paul Proctor's BBC Micro 'Cookie' development disk. A conversion of the 'Ultimate Play The Game' Sinclair Spectrum classic that was never officially released. However, a disk copy of it was leaked at some point and it spread around very quickly.

RISCOSbits Launches Chimera Christmas Cracker Edition

What a Fab Deal! Wow

@colinhoad.com

Start your engines, it's day 14! youtu.be/tzz8pPjzmdEhttps://youtu.be/tzz8pPjzmdE

@rougol.bsky.social

https://www.riscository.com/2025/acorn-biographer-rougol-15th-december/

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@colinhoad.com

Remarkably, I found some free time to pick up my OPL language server project again... https://www.colinhoad.com/getting-carried-away-and-how-to-stop-it

RDPclient with Windows 10

I’ve just had the same issue with RDPClient connecting to a new install of Windows 11 Professional 25H2.

There were some additional settings that I needed to change to get RDPClient to connect. (I was seeing the same “connection reset by peer error”)

1. Open GPEDIT.MSC

2. Expand Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Security

3. Change “Set client connection encryption level” to “LOW”

4. Change "Require use of specific security layer for remote (RDP) connections to “RDP”

5. Change "Require user authentication for remote connections by using Network Level Authtication to “DISABLED”

6. Reboot the PC

Obviously lowering the security defaults for Remote Desktop is a bad idea security wise, so use at your own risk!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

This, but code.

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@colinhoad.com

Day 13 and we're still going! youtu.be/ZfNyFH90ZrQhttps://youtu.be/ZfNyFH90ZrQ

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Good wire obtained. Rethreading underway. Yes, I do like making it difficult for myself don't I?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

My dad just offered to make me a coffee... for the first time in 50 years.

And they say people don't change!https://media.tenor.com/QfhuPrcLdgQAAAAC/quite-frankly-im-overwhelmed.gif?hh=202&ww=498

@iconbar.com

Rougol December 2025 meeting on monday - Rob Napier

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2263.html

The December 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and is a special bonus extra (usually there is no meeting in December) with Rob Napier.https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2263.html

Status update for RISC OS 64-bit work

It’s been about 5 weeks since I did a status update on the 64-bit RISC OS work.

• The Wimp Templates subcomponent was worked on as part of the Live Coding and is now complete – See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-wimp-templates for the details.

• The `riscos64-status` repository has been updated with a few things:

  • `PicoC` is noted as a ported language.
  • `Lua` is noted as a ported language.
  • `TCC` is noted as a ported implementation of a C compiler.
  • `GCC` was removed from the ported implementations (it’s not ported, but is usable to build for RISC OS 64, and had been misplaced).
  • `Pascal` is noted as a ported language (using the P2C tool).
  • `Rust` is noted as having been prototyped for use with RISC OS 64.
  • All the feature documents for component now include completion percentages on their pages.

• The `Kernel: Modules` subcomponent had been started.

• The `EvaluateExpression` module has been stubbed.

• The `IIC` module has been stubbed.

• The `OSSWIs` module has been stubbed.

• The hourglass maker has been ported to RISC OS 64. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos-hourglass-maker for details.

  • The module can be found in the `riscos64-status` repository as with many others.

• The Pascal-to-C implementation is being worked into the build environment.

• I presented the general status of RISC OS 64 work to ROUGOL, and the presentation is available on YouTube and through my presentation site. See https://presentations.riscos.online/pyromaniac4/index.… for video, slides and resource links.

• RISC OS Pyromaniac screenshots and videos were updated with the details of the changes and work towards 64-bit. See https://pyromaniac.riscos.online/examples.html#talk2025 for images and videos.

• The RISC OS 64-bit C library has been updated with better handling of linking hidden and internal symbols, and `fgetc` now works properly. See https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-clib for details.

• `objasm2gas` tool has been updated to handle `:INDEX:` and `:BASE:` (as well as the `@` metavariable), and fix problems with field mappings using registers not being calculated as expressions.

• The `Kernel: Introspection` component will be the next live coding project.

Anyhow, that’s where things are for me. You can always follow the repositories to see what’s being done.

As usual, if anyone wants to contribute to these, please speak up.

Allow creation of surfaces.

Thank you!- I need to read the manual.

(‘’removed misunderstanding.. Not my week’’)

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

RIP Stanley Baxter. This BBC Micro advert was a classic.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPdx5P1izwI

@colinhoad.com

If you've not been following this series, I highly recommend it (again!) It's been so informative, and will make you feel smarter 😁

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@riscosbits.co.uk

This is a real Christmas Cracker! Stocks are very limited at this price, and only available while the webpage is up. Once the stocks have gone, the page will disappear...

riscosbits.co.uk/cracker.htm

#risc_os #LimitedOffer #ChristmasCracker #ItsAWrap

Rob Napier, Acorn Biographer – ROUGOL meeting, 15th December

This Monday will see an incredibly rare event take place – so rare, in fact, that there are more dentists for hens than occurences like this: The RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) will hold a December meeting, with Rob Napier taking the virtual podium to talk about his current work-in-progress, an Acorn biography. Beaming himself from Nicholson, a small hamlet 300km from Melbourne, Australia, the meeting will be held online only, via Zoom – details below. Serving in the Air Force until four decades ago, Rob resigned his…

RISCOSbits hopes you’ll go crackers for a Christmas Chimera

A pet mythical beast that’s for life, not just for Christmas With Christmas fast approaching, there’s a festive funbox available from RISCOSbits for a limited period. The RISCOSbits Chimera Christmas Cracker Edition (easier written than said – especially after those Christmas drinks) will be available for a limited period from today. The seasonal special edition of the Chimera machine will be delivered fully built and configured – so it’s ready to plug in and use as soon as it’s unwrapped. Based around a Raspberry Compute Module 4 with 4GB RAM…

@colinhoad.com

Whoaaa we're halfway thee-eere, whooaaa, livin' on a... Cascade game? Well, it's Day 12 and this is how far we've come: youtu.be/PEbm0EnRprAhttps://youtu.be/PEbm0EnRprA

Rougol December 2025 meeting on monday - Rob Napier

The December 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and is a special bonus extra (usually there is no meeting in December) with Rob Napier.

@iconbar.com

RISCOSbits Launches Chimera Christmas Cracker Edition

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2282.html

RISCOSbits announced a festive variant of its Chimera modular RISC OS system, offering upgraded specs at a reduced price. An ideal Christmas present for someone - or yourself if you've been good…https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2282.html

RISCOSbits Launches Chimera Christmas Cracker Edition

RISCOSbits has announced a limited-run festive variant of its Chimera modular RISC OS system, offering upgraded specifications at a significantly reduced price point. It makes an ideal Christmas present for someone or even yourself (you have been very good this year!).

@rougol.bsky.social

Coming up this Monday! We are hopeful that some of Rob's Acorn colleagues will also be joining the chat 😃

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Downtime

All done.

ToolboxC++Lib Discussion

Just an update. I’ve recreated from scratch an application to generate code for C++ Desktop applications from a Toolbox res file and interested selectable events. The application is called !Prototype and can be found in the tools directory of the GitHub Repository.

SerialUSB 0.16, Hearsay 2.25.03 and !Serialdev blockdrivers 2.40 released

I’m having difficulty opening the RaspberryPi serial port with Hearsay, things keep hanging. Is it even supposed to work?

@riscosbits.co.uk

Yule be sorry if you miss this tree-mendous #RISC_OS cracker - it really is snow joke. And don't mull it over for too long, or they'll all be gone!

Remember, even at Christmas, it's okay to treat yours-elf.

I'll get my coat...

#puntastic #RISC_OS #LimitedEdition #BeQuick

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - David Pitt's Festive RISC OS Paint tip

When the text size gets really big, you may see some jaggedy edges.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Been busy recently with an electrical project that involved lots of intricate wire routing, but really struggled with soldering the cables now they're all in place.

Just realised they're not copper, they're bleedin' copperised aluminium. 🤬🔥☹️😭https://media.tenor.com/vui2TXEoHasAAAAC/the-shining-jack-nicholson.gif?hh=278&ww=498

@riscosbits.co.uk

Just 24hrs to go! Is this going to be the #RISC_OS bargain of the year? We're full of #ChristmasSpirit (hic), so it may just be!

#BuyingMyOwnPresents #RISCOSComputers #ModernRetro #We_Wish_You_A_RISCOS_Christmas #And_A_Linux_New_Year?

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - David Pitt's Festive RISC OS Paint tip

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2283.html

David also has an excellent festive tip for Paint users (It's not too late to send us your advent entry).https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2283.html

@colinhoad.com

SAVE THE DATE! ABUG North will be at a new venue in 2026 (6th & 7th Feb) - more details on Stardot here: https://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=472092#p472092

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 11 in the Big Cascade House, who's up for eviction from the gaming world today? youtu.be/pL6o8J8-1Z0https://youtu.be/pL6o8J8-1Z0

@riscosbits.co.uk

It's nearly time to unwrap our little #RISC_OS present. Friday 12th at midday. For those of you lucky enough to snap up the limited stock, it'll be worth the wait. So don't be a #Grinch or a slouch on Friday!

#RISC_OS #Unwrapped #BestPresentEver

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - David Pitt's Festive RISC OS Paint tip

David also has an excellent festive tip for Paint users (It's not too late to send us your advent entry).

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - David Pitt's Festive RISC OS desktop

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_Advent_Calendar_2025_-_David_Pitts_Festive_RISC_OS_desktop/index2280.html

Many thanks to David for a very seasonal and festive RISC OS desktop (It's not too late to send us yours).

Setting up a new monitor

Perhaps a useful facility for RISC OS would be to be able to substitute a user-supplied EDID definition block during boot (pre-desktop).

You can already do that. EDID blob files (with filetype &F76) can be used in all the places an MDF can – you can drag and drop onto Display Manager’s icon bar icon, or *LoadModeFile it, and the monitor list shown in !Configure can chew them too if placed somewhere in the BootResources:Configure.Monitors to be scanned with the others.

@colinhoad.com

Day 10 is upon us! Will Cascade soar to new heights - or sink like a stone? youtu.be/UvbbHN3Bv3shttps://youtu.be/UvbbHN3Bv3s

@riscosbits.co.uk

Our festive offer will be a hot one! And such a sweet deal!

#ChristmasCracker #RISC_OS #LimitedTimeOffer #WhileStocksLast

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - David Pitt's Festive RISC OS desktop

Many thanks to David for a very seasonal and festive RISC OS desktop (It's not too late to send us yours).

*Count possible issue

Just like to echo a thanks on the fine detective work by @Thomas and the show of initiative by @Piers going into the code and digging in at code level. Amazing stuff guys – well played :)

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

This rarely seen BBC Master 128 luggable recently sold on eBay. It's a custom build by Paxton Instruments and includes dual 5.25" drives and a green screen monitor. All of the original connectors/ports have been preserved on the back of the unit. This one is also fitted with an SD card device. HEAVY

@colinhoad.com

Repeat after me: These. People. Are. Not. Human.

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Lurgy has now almost gone. Back to disk archiving and hopefully discovering some lost gems from the 1980s. These game developer disks were sent to me by R. Fred Williams who worked at Big Red Software and Binary design in Manchester. We bumped into each other at the Retro Event in Cambridge recently

Ilitek-tp touchscreen

So I have this interesting device – it is a Raspad 3 (combined with a RP4b 4GB).

I am sure i recently got it to boot RISC OS 5.31 but it hasn’t done so again today so will have to play with it more. When it did boot the screen worked but not the touchscreen function (it’s RISC OS) – the touch screen works in Raspberry Pi OS and identifies as a ilitek-tp screen working on HDMI.

Has anyone got any idea if this can be made to work with RISC OS.

Apparently the ilitek-tp screen is a capacitive type device.

Also don’t think the USB ports on the main board (not the Rpi4) were working with RISC OS but let’s start with the screen.

If i can’t get it working with RISC OS then it may get used as a Pi-Core music player.

Proivde Simple 3D api to basic?

RISC OS already support OpenGL. This wish list item would be to provide a simple module translating GL or VUlkan(?) calls to an appropriate SWI. in BASIC you would then do SYS “GLFunc”,“@”, PTR param_block.

Where GLFunc gets 2 pointers, 1(string) to the name of OPenGL(ES) or Vulkan Function, and the second param being a sutiable width pointer to the parameter block.

Alternatively it would be nice to have some kind of native 3D api, that can be called directly from Basic.

@colinhoad.com

It's hard being a purist programmer. You realise your small program need a function to do a particular thing, documentation suggests it exists in a module, so you import that module and... suddenly the compiler is pulling in a whole crapola of other dependencies and turns it into a bloated mess.

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 9 - what horror lurks behind the Advent of Beeb Games calendar door today? youtu.be/NOgZm1rNA4Ahttps://youtu.be/NOgZm1rNA4A

@riscosbits.co.uk

A gold standard festive offer coming soon!

#risc_os #ChristmasCracker #LimitedEdition #BeQuick #GoldStandard

A Puzzling Addition to the Platform

With uncharacteristic speed following the release of Puzzles 1.00 for RISC OS, version 1.01 is now available to download from https://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/risc-os/games – copies can also be found on the PlingStore, and should appear in PackMan shortly.

The main changes from 1.00 are a few updates from the upstream – the user-facing ones are to the Dominosa, Mines and Undead games.

The RISC OS front end now supports the text_fallback() function, which allows it to make the characters in the top half of the current RISC OS character set available to games if they wish to make use of them. This improves the text display in a couple of the puzzles. If you’re playing Puzzles on a platform that doesn’t support the UCS lookup tables, or are using an alphabet that doesn’t have the desired glyphs in it, then games will continue to use plain ASCII as before.

@colinhoad.com

Such a genuine relief to know I really don't have to care about any of this anymore #Linux

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@colinhoad.com

Revolut, you are my going on holiday PAYG card, I am not going to use you to "Power up with CRYPTO!" so please, less of those app notifications, ta.

@colinhoad.com

What skill did you master that you will never, ever use again?

Reciting the name of every book of the bible in order (both testaments).

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Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 7th December at 1pm.

That may not be entirely true.

Indeed, it does depend on having those high resolution printers or displays – not having them is unusual in business settings nowadays, but it’s probably still fairly common in domestic settings, and perhaps some smaller business settings – but surely not if they care much about fine detail?

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Detlef Frohlich's D64Dir2Spr project

I love the C64. Amazing machine with a truly amazing sound chip.

@colinhoad.com

Spotify, there, telling me I have a listening age of 68...

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Detlef Frohlich's D64Dir2Spr project

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_Advent_Calendar_2025_-_Detlef_Frohlichs_D64Dir2Spr_project/index2275.html

Many thanks to Detlef for a second of his projects (It's not too late to send us yours).

@colinhoad.com

Happy Monday! Let the joy of another random Cascade Cassette 50 game get you set for the week... it's Day 8! youtu.be/9XqIzIEzt6whttps://youtu.be/9XqIzIEzt6w

@colinhoad.com

OK, this is very funny! The bbcmicro.co.uk site has made "Cascade Cassette 50" their Game of the Month, in honour of my Advent of Beeb Games series this year 😂

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Detlef Frohlich's D64Dir2Spr project

Many thanks to Detlef for a second of his projects (It's not too late to send us yours).

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - RISOSbits brings some sharing at Christmas

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_Advent_Calendar_2025_-_RISOSbits_brings_some_sharng_at_Christmas/index2278.html

Many thanks to Andy at RISCOSbits for showing us sharing is not just for Christmas for RISC OS users (It's not too late to send us yours).

@riscosbits.co.uk

A special festive treat coming soon!

#risc_os #ChristmasCracker #LimitedEdition #BeQuick

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 7! Can Cascade maintain its winning streak from yesterday? 🤔😅 youtu.be/aTadPdoWI-0https://youtu.be/aTadPdoWI-0

Iris and Messenger Pro 9

I… cough… insert a single SYS “WImp_Poll” command every 100th READ or WRITE, or every 100th iteration of huge nested loops, to make it multi-task. Real programmers will probably shout: “Eek!”, but well, it works.

That’s fine until the Wimp_Poll returns an event that you need to handle immediately… at which point, things can start to get very messy, very quickly… As soon as you start to add things like window redraw, a state machine hanging off Null events is often easier to make work. :-)

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - RISOSbits brings some sharng at Christmas

Yes it looks really good! thanks for demoing it

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - RISOSbits brings some sharng at Christmas

I thought you'd like that! And your original cogs backdrop on the ECOfile itself!

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - RISOSbits brings some sharng at Christmas

Oh Yay RiscOSBits is using the New Frosted Theme too! Nice

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 6! Time to roll the Cascade dice once again... youtu.be/b_4I7GOoMmAhttps://youtu.be/b_4I7GOoMmA

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - RISOSbits brings some sharng at Christmas

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2278.html

Many thanks to Andy at RISCOSbits for showing us sharing is not just for Christmas for RISC OS users (It's not too late to send us yours).https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2278.html

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - RISOSbits brings some sharng at Christmas

Many thanks to Andy at RISCOSbits for showing us sharing is not just for Christmas for RISC OS users (It's not too late to send us yours).

IPv6

O2 and Vodafone are still on IPv4 CG-NAT where as EE and Three use IPv6.

Vodafone will move to IPv6 post merger, but I have no idea of the timescale on that. Their fixed broadband has supported it for a while.

@iconbar.com

Fire at CJE Micros

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Fire_at_CJE_Micros/index2279.html

According to reports in local media, the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were called to a fire in CJE Micros' building in Littlehampton shortly after 11pm Tuesday. The fire was extinguished and crews left shortly before 2am Wednesday.

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Mark Stephens gets back to BBC BASIC

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_Advent_Calendar_2025_-_Mark_Stephens_gets_back_to_BBC_BASIC/index2276.html

Here's my computer corner and RISC OS project (It's not too late to send us yours).

BASIC V vs BASIC VI

I’ve updated the blog post and improved the test program, to include testing the BASIC VI FPA interpreter.

With some surprising results: I wasn’t expecting FPA integer operations to be so slow! How does that work?

Updated results and the new program here: ROAST

Fire at CJE Micros

According to reports in local media this week, the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were called to a fire in CJE Micros' building in Littlehampton shortly after 11pm on Tuesday evening. The fire was extinguished and crews left the scene shortly before 2am on Wednesday morning.

Fire at CJE Micro’s

You have probably heard already that CJE Micro’s have suffered a fire at their premises in Littlehampton. This happened late on 2nd December, so – thankfully – nobody will have been there working. However, while nobody was harmed, the fire appears to have been quite significant. I’ve reached out to Chris Evans, and he has provided a statement to put on RISCOSitory so that people are aware of the situation. he wrote: We have had a major fire at our unit in Littlehampton Tuesday Night. Unfortunately we have lost a…

@nemo20000.bsky.social

RISC OS nerdery: Now I’ve found a bug in OS_ReadArgs, by code inspection rather than experiment. What on earth could be the justification for this disappearing value?

Hospital Tablets

Spotted this on Stardot rpcemu.m.h.org.uk

I wonder if this would work on Samsung 9- 10 inch Tablet?

Where is HostFS pointed too.

Can one have local files?

@colinhoad.com

Somehow, Cloudflare returned

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Mark Stephens gets back to BBC BASIC

Here's my computer corner and RISC OS project (It's not too late to send us yours).

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 5! Surely... surely it must be better than yesterday's entry? 😅 youtu.be/Qf_2rSPftn4https://youtu.be/Qf_2rSPftn4

@colinhoad.com

Calling all former BT engineers! Did you ever have one of these? It's actually a Psion Organiser II LZ64 but BT had a bunch made for them, rebadged as the P464, and with its own "Kilostream" software that only works via the Comms Link. Please reshare, as I'm keen to learn more about how it works!

Hugh Bowman PI V1.14 Released - A new Original RISC OS Game!

@AVB,

I wouldn’t bother. Pretty much every solution for running RISC OS applications supported sound. The ‘RISC OS On Linux’ project, totally understandably, hasn’t got around to that yet. And if you are just using typical desktop apps, then it’s no big deal. We are talking about one implementation here, with what, a handful of users. I’d be stunned if it was worth the effort.

Also, I think for most games, the sound is key too.

If anyone wants to spend time on it, I’d suggest a module which accepts the relevant SWIs/vectors/whatever for the sound APIs, and just does nothing with them. That would allow audio apps/games to start. In the future, some enterprising soul can figure out how to glue the module into talking to the Linux audio API.

CJE Micros

I wish CJE all the best in recovering from the fire.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Yesterday I mentioned a RISC OS oddity with the OS_ReadArgs call regarding evaluation of parameters, so I thought I’d document it more clearly.

WARNING: This will be deeply upsetting for Basic programmers...

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32Bit AKA Roms

Now Tried 12 SCSI HDD’s none of them mount or format, and *Devices doesn’t output the drives correctly. So theres clearly an issue on the Iyonix with SCSI

Only 1 Drive i get Direct-Access, but the Filer doesn’t see it, and thinks its 6PetaBytes LOL

@colinhoad.com

Insert a movie into another movie:

ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF EGYPT

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@colinhoad.com

It's Day 4, and it's fair to say I may have cracked with this one...! youtu.be/SGqpoZIjC5shttps://youtu.be/SGqpoZIjC5s

AMCOG Games Ten Year Anniversary Sale

We’ve been making games for RISC OS for 10 years.

Thank you to everyone who has bought our games, come and visited us at shows our listened to our talks at clubs.

To celebrate we have discounted one game from each year that we have been making games for RISC OS until the 14th of December 2025.

Morphix – 2025 : 9.99 : (Normally 14.99)

3D Moonbase Attack – 2024 : 9.99 (Normally 14.99)

3D Turbo Boost – 2023 : 7.99 (Normally 11.99)

3D Pingo – 2022 : 7.99 (Normally 9.99)

Spy Mission : The Ice Caves of Dr Atom – 2021 : 4.99 (Normally 6.99)

Scuba Hunter – 2020 : 4.99 (Normally 6.99)

Escape from the Arcade – 2019 : 7.99 (Normally 10.99)

Stunt Drivers – 2018 : 4.99 (Normally 6.99)

Protector – 2017 : 4.99 – (Normally 6.99)

Xeroid – 2016 : 4.99 – (Normally 6.99)

Legends of Magic – 2015 : 4.99 (Normally 6.99)

Available from the Plingstore:

http://www.plingstore.org.uk/ps/download.aw

For more information, please see:

https://www.amcog.co.uk/index-riscos.htm

Why not join us at WROCC tonight?

https://www.wrocc.org.uk/meetings

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Detlef Frohlich's PicoPython project

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_Advent_Calendar_2025_-_Detlef_Frohlichs_PicoPython_project/index2271.html

Many thanks to Detlef for showing us his PicoPython project (It's not too late to send us yours).

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Detlef Frohlich's PicoPython project

Many thanks to Detlef for showing us his PicoPython project (It's not too late to send us yours).

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 3! What delights will the Cascade cassette 50 reveal today? Find out here: youtu.be/zGLcXSINg-ohttps://youtu.be/zGLcXSINg-o

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - new Frosted theme from Martin Eastwood

V0.2 Update With Added Stack.Sans Desktop Font

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Loving this look! ASCII RPGs for the win!

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

And on the subject of the RISC OS Filer, the fact that there is no standardised way to cause the LOADING of a file is utterly shameful, and purely a result of ideological not-invented-here silo-purity tribalism which everyone concerned should have grown out of in the school playground.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Tiny RISC OS d’oh!

I was just documenting the Filer’s star commands (which are many, varied, and highly variant-dependent) when I noticed how bad RO5’s *Filer_DClickHold is.

This sets a delay which, if you hold the second click of a double-click for that time, simulates the Shift key.

@rougol.bsky.social

Early notification that ROUGOL have a Christmas meeting this year, on Monday 15th December, but it is *online only*. Hear from Rob Napier who is writing the biography of Acornhttps://rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/index.html

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

Then my mistake, my confusion, my apologies.

@colinhoad.com

It's Day 2 of the Advent of Beeb Games! youtu.be/CgUdbLLEjPwhttps://youtu.be/CgUdbLLEjPw

@iconbar.com

WROCC December 2025 talk on Wednesday - Amcog Games

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2268.html

The December 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 3rd December and starts at 7.45pm on Zoom.https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2268.html

WROCC December 2025 talk on Wednesday - Amcog Games

The December 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 3rd December and starts at at 7.45pm on Zoom.

@iconbar.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Wraight brings us Clarity

www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2274.html

Many thanks to Chris Wraight for his new theme for RISC OS users and experiment with funding new developments (It's not too late to send us yours).https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2274.html

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Wraight brings us Clarity

Many thanks to Chris Wraight for high new theme for RISC OS users and experiment with funding new developments (It's not too late to send us yours).

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - new Frosted theme from Martin Eastwood

Many thanks to Martin Eastwood for bringing us a beta preview of his forth-coming Frosted Theme (It's not too late to send us yours).

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

What on earth are you on about, JJ?

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

Why are you always so bitter about rod/rcomp? They are a company they have to make a living they give away a lot of their work for free.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The BBC Micro is 44 years old today, Happy Birthday! However, many customers had to wait until early 1982 for delivery of theirs due to limited supply availability before Christmas. During its lifespan just over 1.5 million were sold - exact figures are not known. I still have my original one.

@colinhoad.com

As Anatoly points out, Microsoft couldn't help themselves here and - even on a jumper supposedly "celebrating" the software of yore - they've shoe-horned in a Copilot icon.

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@iconbar.com

'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_Advent_Calendar_2025_-_Chris_Hall_tackles_the_Hydra/index2267.html

Many thanks to Chris Hall for bravely tackling this beast for the benefit of all RISC OS users.

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

I see the ROD/RCOmp crosscontamination continues. For everyone else, ClusterFS is not stable enough for release, but for RCOmp, its good enough to be put on a commercial computer that they sell. They just need to stop pretending that ROD is anything other than RCOmps fundraising wing.

@colinhoad.com

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

Many thanks to Chris Hall for bravely tackling this beast for the benefit of all RISC OS users (It's not too late to send us yours).

@colinhoad.com

Thank you, office Christmas Quiz.

@riscosbits.co.uk

Windows 11 Companions for RISC OS youtu.be/MnC_zU7HpRk?si…

See the basics of our Windows 11 Companions, and feel the potential!

#RISC_OS #RISCOSCompanions #WindowsInWindowsInRISCOShttps://youtu.be/MnC_zU7HpRk?si…

@colinhoad.com

If you fancy another (much more informative!) advent series this December, do check out @matt.godbolt.org 's advent of compiler optimisations, first episode here: youtube.com/watch?v=eLjZ48gqbyghttps://youtube.com/watch?v=eLjZ48gqbyg

@colinhoad.com

What's that knocking at the door? Why, it's the first of the Advent of Beeb Games videos! youtu.be/jWa0oNtmBc4https://youtu.be/jWa0oNtmBc4

Changing the tick button icon

Thanks for the idea, Simon – done!

Windows 11 upgrade breaks LanMan98

yes that might be right :)

SMB2/3 protocol

Sorry for being slow, but as usual no one is helping me, and with ShareFS…

Happy to help with ShareFS. Can’t contribute to any code but I can test the living bejeezus out of it!

@iconbar.com

https://bsky.app/profile/houseofmabel.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy/post/3m6uo2pra67s2

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@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Finished to test the preliminary version of my new Desktop Theme Manager for #RISC_OS check out some screenshots here. I combines all old Theme managers into a single one fully rewritten in C:https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/2025/11/30/dme-project-porting-a-lot-of-themes-to-the-new-exttheme/

Early ExtTheme almost ready for alpha testers

To everyone interested,

I have completed testing the new Theme “Actuator” for my ExtTheme. At the moment, to load a new theme I am using CHris (Little Yellow Moon) original Theme Configure plug-in, but I need to rewrite that, because ExtTheme allow a use to customize a theme (and remembers the customizations between theme switching).

Check this link to have a look at which Themes are already available (there are more than the screenshots in the article), but this gives you an overview:

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/2025/11/30/dme-projec…

Note for Chris and Martin:

I am trying to write some documentation, as soon as I am done I’ll figure out a way for you both to be able to install this and start playing with it.

Please DO NOT use your daily RISC OS system for these tests! I need to replace the Configure plugin and the update may leave stuff behind! So this is just to test your own themes.

I am planning a public beta for Christmas if I have enough time.

@colinhoad.com

ME: what software do I need to install to rip an ISO image from a DVD? LINUX: it's already there in the OS, just run dd on the command line with /dev/cdrom and write to an .iso file

Linux is so great...

@colinhoad.com

A reminder that this kicks off *tomorrow* at 9am! #AdventOfBeeb youtu.be/RHdgIHr78RMhttps://youtu.be/RHdgIHr78RM

Iris Feature Request

Another thing : Copy and paste from the address bar would be nice :)

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 30th November at 1pm.

Next week I’ll be finishing the font handling, and adding in some more test code. It should be relatively easy to do, I hope. That should make the component functional, and we can move on to something else.

I’m thinking that the next one to implement will be the FSCommands module. Largely it’s just an interface from the commands to the OS_FSControl calls, so it should be pretty trivial.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, please drop a line, as these sessions are intended to be interactive and informative.

November 2025 News Summary

Charles has uploaded his recent Pyromaniac / RISC OS 64-bit talk he gave at Rougol on 17 November 2025.

RISC OS North 2026 show date announced

Richard Brown and Andrew Rawnsley, the organisers of 2025’s inaugural – and successful – RISC OS North show, have announced the date of the second show to be held in Warrington as 21st March, 2026. The second show will take place in the same venue as last year: Village Hotel Warrington,110 Centre Park Square,Warrington,WA1 1QA. More details will no doubt appear in due course, but for the moment… write (or type) that date into your diaries, and get those travel plans sorted.

2026 show date announced

After the success of the inaugural RISC OS North show in 2025, picking up the baton from the Wakefield Show, we are pleased to announce the date of the second event as: Saturday, 21st March, 2026 We look forward to welcoming everyone at the same venue as last year: Village Hotel Warrington,110 Centre Park Square,Warrington,WA1 […]

AMCOG delivers witness statement about Hugh Bowman to WROCC – 3rd December

The guest speaker for the next Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) meeting, which takes place on 3rd December, is Tony Bartram of AMCOG Games. Tony released his latest game, Hugh Bowman PI, at the London Show just over a month ago, with its more general release (with some updates) just a few days ago, and that will be the first part of what he will be talking about to WROCC. His talk will be more than just a look at the game itself, however, and will also include the…

Windows 11

I have recently updated to Windows 11 64 bit. I should like to use the excellent Impact Database with it. Can I simply buy the USB stick, install it and use the database versions I have saved on my hard drive?

Many thanks in advance for the kindness and tolerance of the RO community.

Regards

Tony Todd

RiscOS North 2026?

As far as i was told, its going ahead yes, just no date or announcement yet.

@iconbar.com

November 2025 News Summary

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/November_2025_News_Summary/index2255.html

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?https://www.iconbar.com/comments/rss/news2255.html

November 2025 News Summary

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

@iconbar.com

Drag'n'Drop 15i1 edition reviewed

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/DragnDrop_15i1_edition_reviewed/index2258.html

The latest edition of Drag'n'Drop magazine was released at the recent London Show and should be with subscribers now. Congratulations on reaching Volume 15!

@colinhoad.com

The 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th... photos, they're all just computers. And that's probably accurate!

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@colinhoad.com

I'm not a "who remembers this, then?" account, but today I finally tracked down an advert that - for whatever reason - got lodged in my child-brain when I was young. Anyone else remember this series of ads? Pretty sure there was more than one.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P92n1LHexsw

PC Emulator

Ref the old Acorn PC Emulator – what was it compiled with – doesn’t look like ‘C’.

Drag'n'Drop 15i1 edition reviewed

The latest edition of Drag'n'Drop magazine was released at the recent London Show and should be with subscribers now. Congratulations on reaching Volume 15!

@colinhoad.com

Cheers for the excellent pens and bonus stickers @chinnyvision.bsky.social! Hopefully resting them on a Beeb isn't heresy 😄

Pyromaniac Evolution at ROUGOL, Mon 17th Nov 2025

I’ve published the RISC OS Pyromaniac presentation on YouTube now – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC9deUZTmNA if you want to catch up on what I spoke about. My presentation site has been updated to include this – http://riscos.online/talk2/pyromaniac4/index.html – and include the speaker notes, slides and other resources.

Mounting RISC OS disk/image on linux

It might be worth running DiscKnight on the origin disc (or DiscReader on the image) with verbose turned on, as that might give a clue as to what the various things are objecting to.

@colinhoad.com

Most people know that the random junk pixels printed around the edges of various Acorn Electron games are sections of game code 'hidden' in screen memory. But not all of it is actually code, because that would lead to an uneven border, so some of the junk characters are just... junk!

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

For anyone wondering whether our friend @nickpelling.bsky.social is ok - he's alive and well and has not been abducted by aliens: He appears to be researching a book on Roswell.

Oh hang on 👽

@colinhoad.com

Running "Frak!" on my new Linux machine. Probably didn't need 128GB of RAM and an Nvidia 5070 for that, though 😅

Frosted Icon Set for 2025

Ok guys,

let me disable the wobbly stuff (there are quite a few, because I started to reverse engineer WTB patch if anyone remebers it, to add it to my ExtTheme and allow even more customizability), I’ll package it and give it to both of you for testing.

It should take me a few days max.

ExtTheme already has all your work Chris for your old Theme Manager, so you’ll need to create a theme file with all the configuration options like you did in the past. The Theme file format is identical (I kept the same format for compatibility with the past Themes made for your TM). There are more options now, and it does work fine with coloring the windows border (well it can do even more than that, and add size to the border too, but that size is one of the wobbly functions).

It also already includes all the features of ThemeDef from ROOL, and everything is rewritten in C (’cause some folks complained that DME Launchpad was written in BBCBASIC…).

I’ll need both your emails, please contact me at the link below, and as soon as I have disabled the things that makes RO unstable I’ll send you a PackMan package that should install both the Configure UI and the Theme actuator.

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/contact/

A required note: This is alpha quality code, so there might be issues even with the unstable features disabled.

One of the funniest unstable feature is having the iconbar on the left (or right or top) of the screen (yes can do that too), it works, BUT it also duplicate the iconbar XD – I am still fighting with that one, so will be disabled.

@iconbar.com

Coding a Fortran program on RISC OS

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Coding_a_Fortran_program_on_RISC_OS/index2261.html

If you were wondering what to do with that new Fortran Compiler in the latest DDE, Sprow has a very timely article for you...

Hugh Bowman PI opens his RISC OS detective agency

Initially launched at the recent London Show, and now available to buy from !Store, the latest title from AMCOG Games is Hugh Bowman PI. In the game-noir, you play a private investigator called Hugh Bowman, and can take on one of three cases – all of which involve breaking into Professor Von Sparks’ compound. Once in, you can drive around the area, and enter individual buildings to search for clues and – eventually, hopefully – solve the case. In the compound itself, there are robots to avoid, although they temporarily…

Clarity theme in development with (mini) crowd funder

Chris Wraight – aka Little Yellow Moon – is developing a new theme for RISC OS, called Clarity. His aim is to create a comprehensive new look for the desktop, to include window furniture and backgrounds, system icons, and a wide selection of common file types. There is a mini crowd-funder for the theme up and running, with a modest target of £250 (with, at the time of writing, 26% already fulfilled) – Chris explains that this is experimental; an investigation of using Ko-Fi to provide a small amount of…

Test your flag knowledge with FlagQuiz

If you have a familiarity with flags and want to test your knowledge of them, or if you find yourself flummoxed by them and want to try to learn a few, Kevin Wells has a new piece of software that might be of interest. As you might guess from its name, FlagQuiz is a simple flag-based quiz. The application will display a flag, selected at random, and present you with four options for which nation it belongs to; choose one, and see if you got it right – and after…

@armbytes.bsky.social

Newsflash: Fortran mini-tutorial surfaces on TIB 🔥 #Code4Fun #RISCOShttps://www.iconbar.com/articles/Coding_a_Fortran_program_on_RISC_OS/index2261.html

Looking for old Archive magazines

Andrew – if you are still willing to sell / pass on your Archive magazines I would be graeteful and can collect. I’ve got the earlier ones, but later issues are illusive. I’m combining several ‘collections’ to make up a full set, and will be making available all spares to whoever wants them.

StrongED 4.70a19 released

Fred many thanks for this update, especially as StrongEd now supports the newly released Fortran. It is great to be able to create Fortran code and compile it all from StrongEd

Microfunding for small projects

Or am I confusing it with a feature from RISC OS Select?

There was a feature in RISC OS Select that protected the ROM icons, which was later developed further to introduce a priority sprite pool

Coding a Fortran program on RISC OS

If you were wondering what to do with that new Fortran Compiler in the latest DDE, Sprow has a very timely article for you....

Quick StrongED question

Adding tab to the list of terminator characters seems fine to me. A tab won’t normally appear elsewhere in a BASIC program apart from strings so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve modified KeywordFix accordingly and will do some testing.

Thanks for the detective work, and the fix!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I wouldn't trust an LLM to generate code, never mind what to code. However, they do make excellent Rubber Ducks.

I just solved a troublesome design problem while describing something to Gemini, which has cheered me up no end.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

@support.bsky.team You've broken your Android app such that:

1. I keep having to sign back in

2. You've messed up the login fields so the keyboard doesn't know it's a username/password combination so the password manager isn't triggered

It works correctly on the web, but not in the app.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

One of the best, original home computer games. Ported to so many different computers. Made by A&F Software, the name taken from the initials of the company's founders, Doug Anderson and Mike Fitzgerald

Page breaks in ovpro

Hi

I am trying to find out how I can do page breaks in Ovation Pro. Maybe someone can tell me!

Coding on RISC OS fireside chat, this Saturday - 22nd Nov.

A huge shout-out to everyone who made it. The next “Coding on RISC OS” fireside chat is pencilled in for 10th January 2026. Come and join in, no experience necessary.

If you’re curious here’s a link to an informative article.

@armbytes.bsky.social

A huge shout-out to everyone who made it. The next "Coding on RISC OS" fireside chat is pencilled in for 10th January 2026. 🚀🕹️🛸 #Code4fun #ARM #RaspberryPi #OpenSource #RISCOS #Zoom #Meetup

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Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 23rd November at 1pm.

More live coding today at 1pm. Come along if you’re interested!

Pine64 Tablet

it can’t run RO native but will run RO on Linux, but be advised RO on Linux has it’s issues still and isnt really fully ready to be daily used.

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

💻 Weekend project: I finally got time to update the #MerlinOS presentation with the newest features:

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/portfolio/merlin-a-modern-memory-safe-kernel-and-platform/#kernel-documentation

#OperatingSystem #KernelDevelopment #SystemsProgramming #EmbeddedSystems #MemorySafety #FormalVerification #OpenSource #SoftwareEngineering #LowLevel

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The lead-up to November is always a busy time for game developers. You have to get your games on the shop shelves in time for Thanksgiving. If you missed this holiday then you would lose a huge amount of potential sales. Here's a few of the ones I worked on with incredibly talented teams.

@iconbar.com

Live Coding with Gerph on Sunday

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Live_Coding_with_Gerph_on_Sunday/index2266.html

If you were intrigued by Gerph's Monday ROUGOL presentation, or just want to improve your coding skills, then you are in luck!

Live Coding with Gerph on Sunday

If you were intrigued by Gerph's Monday ROUGOL presentation, or just want to improve your coding skills, then you are in luck!

London Show, Sat 25th October 2025

No i think its been misunderstood, what im doing is seperate from anyone else, i wanted to do interviews at the London Show and record, but i was put off, then i was approached by ROD which indicated its something they wanted for north so i said i would look into it. Whoever is handling the theatre talks will be doing the same again.

That’s odd, because what you originally wrote – in response to perceived quality issues with the London theatre videos – was

I’m planning to go to the north show next year and upload videos, but mirror the presentations with a PIP approach to having the host in the talks.

which certainly read as if you were planning to video the talks. If not, then we have all indeed misunderstood1; in that case, apologies.

No one has said anything about taking over anyone’s job, Not that i knew that certain individuals had roles reserved to themselves.

They don’t. But common sense says that when you have a platform running off a limited pool of volunteers, and also have volunteers happily in place doing some roles, it’s generally best to see if new volunteers can take on roles that aren’t already being done. Instead of finding out that the volunteers who you’ve just displaced from constructive roles have little interest in doing something else and have just buggered off into the sunset taking their skills with them.

If the original volunteers are looking for a change of scenery, on the other hand, then go for it. Obviously.

I do think the idea of a video with little interviews where possible of attendees and possibly exhibitors if possible would maybe help encourage people is a good one as it could complement the theatre talks.

Indeed, although a small word of caution: it does need to be planned in advance (which can be before the show opens, if you’re not getting under people’s feet, or during the day), so that exhibitors know to expect an interview and don’t just have a live camera shoved in their face. Sorry, but the latter has happened before (as have other things that you might not expect – after many years exhibiting at events, I’ve learned the hard way that some corners of the RISC OS community are… odd). This may explain some of the cynicism being expressed. That’s also why recorded and edited is better than livestreamed: with the live option, some people may be unhappy with what gets out2.

1 or have been misdirected?

2 WROCC’s videos tend to be edited, I think. Usually just to remove the more blatant pauses and awkward bits, but sometimes to remove things that presenters have got cold feet over in the cold light of the next day.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

My Polestar was perfectly happy crawling along behind a motorbike in traffic, but when the bike stopped at the lights, the cruise control switched off complaining "No lead car"...

Which I think is species-ist or something? So not cool, car. Shame on you. Motorbycyclists can't help being like that.

@colinhoad.com

Tonight's the night! #Telekon #GaryNuman

@nemo20000.bsky.social

If you've any doubts about EV ownership, check the responses of thousands of actual owners... It's certainly nothing like the headlines in some newspapers.

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@iconbar.com

Fireside developer chat on saturday night

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Fireside_developer_chat_on_saturday_night/index2265.html

It definitely feels like the bleak mid-winter. So why not have a cosy Saturday night in? Throw another log on the fire and join some very informal and friendly chat with other RISC OS developers online.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Magic smoke escape route.

@riscos.bsky.social

Meanwhile, on the ROOL forums...

Fireside developer chat on saturday night

It definitely feels like the bleak mid-winter. So why not have a cosy saturday night in. Throw another log on the file and join some very informal and friendly chat with other RISC OS developers online.

@riscosopen.bsky.social

Fortran 77 is here, just a couple of years behind schedule!https://www.riscosopen.org/news/articles/2025/11/20/episode-iv-a-new-hope

@nemo20000.bsky.social

"The driver was stopped and given words of advice about the traffic offences he was committing and also reminded about the seriousness of celebrating Christmas before December" 🎄https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgkgy8749xo.amp

Episode IV - A New Hope

Not only did 1977 see the release of space opera Star Wars – A New Hope, but it was also a year famous for the release of Fortran 77, the follow up to Fortran IV and ’66.

Your compliance is imperative

Fortran is one of a family of imperative programming languages, and was originally short for For mula Tran slation. Finding applications in scientific fields such as modelling of weather systems, molecular structure, and of course calculating star ship propulsion vectors.

Image available as wallpaper from r33v01v3 via Steam

As described in our FAQ the imperative languages are in the class of languages that the Norcroft compiler supports, and we’ve long known from odd scraps of evidence such as the RISC iX User Guide that there was a Fortran version at one time which went alongside the C language we’re so much more familiar with.

With help from Codemist a search of their archives managed to locate a partial copy last worked on in the 1990s on a backup tape stowed inside an old R2-unit.

Joining the Fortran front end – the part of the compiler which deals with language specifics – with the rest of the contemporary tools creates the f77 compiler. In addition, a brand new 200+ page manual describes its use in detail, along with ANSI runtime library.

@colinhoad.com

I think we all know that if Beethoven had had a home micro, it would have been the Beeb 😉

@colinhoad.com

...arriving next Tuesday! 🤩

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@iconbar.com

Announcing the TIB 2025 Advent Calendar

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Announcing_the_TIB_2025_Advent_Calendar/index2259.html

For the last two years, TIB has run an advent calendar over the festive season. And we are looking to our readers to contribute again to make it three in a row...

@colinhoad.com

If you see this, post your getaway vehicle

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@colinhoad.com

Saw an ad from JetBrains on the tube that read "stop replacing AI devs with humans!" and now I hate JetBrains.

Announcing the TIB 2025 Advent Calendar

For the last 2 years, TIB has run an advent calender over the festive season. And we are looking to our readers to contribute again to make it 3 in a row....

New App FlagQuiz

I have released a new RISC OS application called FlagQuiz which is a quiz about flags from around the world. It is multiple choice quiz with 10 questions with each question having 4 choices, you are presented a flag and have to guess the country it belongs to. It supports the RISC OS interactive help, … Continue reading "New App FlagQuiz"

@colinhoad.com

I've been thinking about it for some time, and yesterday's latest from Microsoft re: agentic AI has finally convinced me. New daily driver laptop ordered from laptopwithlinux.com. I'm going Linux full time, I am through with Windows.https://laptopwithlinux.com

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Don't miss this one. Steve Furber's 'From little Acorns to building brains' talk. Part of the ARM at 40 anniversary celebrations.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeQn_AJqX54

Talking to USB

Have tidied up the utilities as below:

will refine them and make a better attempt to write them in discrete functions in due course.

Meanwhile I have a new computer – the Hydra – and am playing with it (and writing a review of it).

@colinhoad.com

This is so messed up I almost can't believe it. How a company like Microsoft can have sunk to this level is just beyond me. AI brainrot to the max.

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/microsoft-warns-security-risks-agentic-os-windows-11-xpia-malware

Time to Update !Killer :)

A few things in no particular order.

1. There was a security permissions “gotcha” that we’d not spotted that came in during a gitlab update a few months ago that was preventing the automatic git mirroring occurring for the TCP/IP 6 project. This has now been resolved, so the code should now auto-update between the internal project git and the ROD git. As a result, the missing 7.09 code is now present as expected.

2. AFAIK that auto-mirroring only applies to that specific project, and happens more-or-less in realtime, so should always reflect latest code. Those wishing to contribute should contact us for further info. Other project repositories work as you would normally expect.

3. Vprotect and Killer sources are now in the ROD git. However, they are not publicly visible due to concerns over security, and there not being enough remaining skilled coders to provide the necessary levels of peer review.

4. My goal would be for public binary builds to appear ASAP

5. Access to those git repositories is available on request, but it is likely we will vet applicants to at least some degree because of the sensitivity of the materials. We have already had one compelling offer to provide long term maintenance of this software, but I’m aware other work has been done and am keen to see all interested parties working together on this.

6. The hint about the Explore link was in the “Explore the github” but you can do so directly via https://gitlab.riscosdev.com/explore

7. Don’t expect to see the Vprotect/Killer projects in the public “explore” due to their sensitivity, until such time as releases are ready.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Cloudflare are having a bad Tuesday.

@iconbar.com

November 2025 Rougol report - Gerph is back

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/November_2025_Rougol_report_-_Gerph_is_back/index2262.html

It's been five years since Gerph last talked to ROUGOL so he was back with an update. And he's been busy - his presentation included 51 information-packed slides!

@colinhoad.com

This is code for "we expect taxpayers to bail us out"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy7vrd8k4eo

November 2025 Rougol report - Gerph is back

It's been five years since Gerph last talked to ROUGOL so he was back with an update. And he's been busy—his presentation included 51 information-packed slides!

Unable to delete directory

I had a RO Toy Train program on VRPC that would create a file/Dir using HostFs and RO couldn’t get rid of it.

Had to use Win – took a while to find out :-)

PS is ‘New Directory’ one word? Space??

SerialUSB 0.17

Chris,

Yes, I confirm with Colin’s version available on his site.

http://ftpc.iconbar.com/usb/

For information: I use it for file transfers from my smart phone via a serial Bluetooth adapter. The transfer works at 460000 Bauds.

Titanium pci scsi

the only cards that are supported are the ones from elesar as far as i know and sadly the driver is only with purchase of the cards

http://shop.elesar.co.uk/index.php?route=product/produ…

USB headsets

Thanks, Stephen. 48000 Hz only, both directions.

Developers’ fireside chat – 22nd November

The next friendly fireside chat for people interested in RISC OS software development will take place at 7:30pm on Saturday, 22nd November. Taking place online via the Zoom video conferencing service, these meetings are intended as an informal way of allowing RISC OS programmers, and anyone interested in the subject, to get together online to discuss relevant matters. There is no set agenda for these online meetings, and instead the discussion is steered by what people want to talk about. People are free to ask questions or bring up (and…

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

@breakintoprogram.co.uk I have found it. Knew I had a spare somewhere, and it’s ’beige’ too. 1.44Mb. It’s yours!

@colinhoad.com

The Advent of Beeb Games... returns for 2025! youtu.be/RHdgIHr78RMhttps://youtu.be/RHdgIHr78RM

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Huge thanks to the lovely staff at @computinghistory.org.uk for being perfect hosts for RetroFest 2025 ( Gaming Edition ). Massive thanks also to @shortcircuit.org.uk for organising everything and making the event such a great success. Same goes to the amazing exhibitors who made it all possible.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Great to meet Andrew Barnabas ( composer ) at the retro event in Cambridge on Sunday.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

BBC Micro Galaforce can be found in the Power Up exhibition at the Science Museum in London - and Manchester! I feel very old now knowing that my work is in museums....

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@iconbar.com

London Show 2025 talks are now online to watch

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/London_Show_2025_talks_are_now_online_to_watch/index2260.html

The recordings of the talks at the recent London Show are now available on YouTube.

WROCC November 2025 talk on Wednesday - Martin Avison

Recording of talk is now online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNTkF0Q9_VU

London Show 2025 talks are now online to watch

The recordings of the talks at the recent London SHow are now available on youtube.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Oooops! Look what followed me home from the Retrofest gaming event. I guess I have a new PET to look after. Needs some work doing to it before it's ready to go! The first computer I ever used. Thank you, Chuck Peddle.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Great to meet some wonderful people at the Retro Computer Fest 2025 event in Cambridge!

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

I've just reminded myself that not only are Greek and Cyrillic Alphabets routinely confused with UTF-8, even Latin1 is not immune - something as typographically unremarkable as "×£" would be misunderstood as "ף", a Hebrew character.

This is why KeyPress must be interpreted in the current Alphabet.

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@armbytes.bsky.social

https://youtu.be/RNTkF0Q9_VU?si=brT347njU1CtomLm

@armbytes.bsky.social

Interested in coding on RISC OS? Want to learn more or meet others? Join our friendly fireside chat on Zoom—DM for credentials (unchanged). If you are a developer, come and connect. The event is this Saturday, 22nd November, at 7:30 pm (GMT). #Zoom #Meetup #RaspberryPi #ARM #Retro #AcornComputers

Gradgrind updated

Gradgrind (a palette/gradient editor for RISC OS) has been updated to 0.92beta, with new features and a number of important bug fixes.

New features include the ability to import/export GIMP palettes, modify palette files in more ways, and an extra display for the palette.

Summary info on the ROAST site , or see the Downloads page for full details of the changes.

RISC OS and Wifi

its here for the ROD stack only listed under John Ballance not Risc OS Developments…. https://gitlab.riscosdev.co.uk/johnballance/internet6

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Had a very busy first day at @computinghistory.org.uk for the retro festival gaming edition event. Great speaking with so many people about the BBC Micro and gaming in general. Thanks to those who said hello. One more day to go. Thanks to @breakintoprogram.co.uk for the company and transport.

Rougol November 2025 meeting on monday - Pyromaniac update

The Pyromaniac project has evolved into other areas, so I'll be talking about how that's happened. About RISC OS Pyromaniac, the tools that I've created, the way that I'm testing things, the things that I'm doing towards RISC OS 64, and how I've changed what I'm doing to be more effective.

@rougol.bsky.social

At this Monday's (17th) ROUGOL meeting we will be hearing all about the evolution of RISC OS Pyromaniac from Gerph. Last pub meet of the year! https://rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/index.html

Pyromaniac Evolution at ROUGOL – 17th November

Your next opportunity to attend a RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting is Monday, 17th November, where Gerph will be discussing the evolution of RISC OS Pyromaniac. If you don’t already know, RISC OS Pyromaniac is an online resource developed by Gerph that provides a semi-hosted re-implementation of RISC OS, capable of running 32-bit programs with a focus on testing software. Gerph first talked about the system to ROUGOL five years ago this month, with the last follow-up talk four years ago – and if you want to…

Theatre talks from the London Show now on YouTube

The RISC OS London Show, which took place a few short weeks ago, maintained the usual format – a main hall where the exhibitors had their stands, and a show theatre for a selection of exhibitors to deliver short talks. If you couldn’t attend the talks on the day – or the show itself (shame on you, unless you have a good excuse) – you can now watch them online thanks to the recording and editing efforts of Leo White. If you want to watch them all in one long…

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I'm now using &437 for that RISC OS Alphabet which required a little "handling" of OS_Byte,71 - so this module actually enables all other 16b Alphabet numbers.

Form an orderly queue.

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

The "AI that's taking your job" drawing clocks...https://clocks.brianmoore.com/

@iconbar.com

Rougol November 2025 meeting on monday - Pyromaniac update

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Rougol_November_2025_meeting_on_monday_-_Pyromaniac_update/index2256.html

The November 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and features Gerph.

Why is ROOL doing this?

Ok, so maybe ‘random’ wasn’t strictly accurate, what I really do is use the same one swi allocation that was ever even approximately mine every time I write a module. From memory this includes the original use, a podule rom board to boot NFS, A broken driver for DE600 parallel Ethernet interface, a dot1Q vlan encapsulation layer (also broken) a driver for a bbc Winchester or Filestore drive on a Arc 1MHze bus podule, or more recently a DCI 4 implementation of the DCI2 ip over econet encapsulation, so I think I will get away with it for a while yet.

Clearly a web site you make an account on, confirm you email, upload the !Allocate file, which at least proves you are reasonably ligit, and emails you back and displays on the web page, would be very much better.

RISC OS London Show 2025 - Notes from the talks

The videos of the show theatre persentations are now online...

@rougol.bsky.social

The recordings of the RISC OS London Show theatre presentations are now availablehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdbtoCQ_z-HFgLf7GUliPGIX5CNSTk97Bhttps://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdbtoCQ_z-HFgLf7GUliPGIX5CNSTk97B

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas.

Updated XP1Dr2SVG

@Clive

your new version works well, well done.

I continued working on !Svg2Draw, I added xlink decoding. I had problems with your old files because there is a element which is actually not used.

In your new version the tags remain but this element no longer has content and in this case my program works.

Thank you for your drawings and your program, this allows me to develop the application.

For anecdote, as I had not understood that these drawings were illustrations for your books, I looked for towns like Meyroha, Barioha… :-)

@armbytes.bsky.social

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdbtoCQ_z-HFgLf7GUliPGIX5CNSTk97B&si=ag3CwzFaUw_3cItA

RingBound

Version 0.48 of !RingBind uploaded. This has almost identical functionality to version 0.44 but adds an edit mode where internal links can be added.

Rougol November 2025 meeting on monday - Pyromaniac update

The November 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and features Gerph.

Recce outage

Apologies to Recce users who may have noticed that fetching Google StreetView images has not been working since the start of November. We have now fixed the problem. There is no need to update your software.

If you do notice persistent problems with any of the Recce data sources, do please let us know via the support email address or our contact form as we may not be using the software as frequently as you do!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

A creditable showing for the BBC Micro against various souped-up Apple IIs, but no Second Processor versions which (by the end of 1984) included 65C02, Z-80B, 6809 and 68000 options. All would have been faster yet.

Later there'd be 65C102, 80186, 80286, 32016 and of course ARM.

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

@nemo20000.bsky.social

"I thought I was following that guy?"

Six months later...https://media.tenor.com/EMPvXgWy1QUAAAAC/gandalf.gif?hh=280&ww=498

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I see the new version of the versatile Amazon Echo is specially optimised for listening to Ozric Tentacles.

That's a Wynne-Win for me.

Toolbox File Format

Yes, though remember Gadget is a variable size depending on the gadget. The original Toolbox manual describes it the best as it highlights various pitfalls.

Set num_gadgets and they then go sequentially in the ‘data’ field. Each gadget has a size, which is (usually) the offset to the next gadget.

http://www.riscos.com/support/developers/toolbox/windo…

http://www.riscos.com/support/developers/toolbox/windo…

The pitfalls are that you shouldn’t assume the size of each header (ie. Window template or Gadget template) and instead use the offsets “The use of a body_offset field is to allow expansion in the header, without losing backwards compatibility.” Similarly ‘gadgets’ is an offset, in the Window template, and “type/size” has the gadget size in the gadget top two bytes (the second link above describes “type/size”).

For reading a file, you should handle the offsets properly, but the reality is they are just memory dumps of the C structures that have never changed size.

Annoyingly, it says “Note that for the gadgets listed below, the size is ‘built in’ to the Window module, and so the size can be set to zero…” which is ridiculous, so means you’ll have to hard-code the sizes for the original gadget set. I think you should use the built-in size if the value in the file is zero, and the value in the file if it’s non-zero.

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

The pre-built version of v0.9.4 for Mac linked to from the official homepage includes an Intel and ARM64 universal binary for the Interpreter version, which averages around 280 MIPS on my M4 Mac.

StrongED stopped working

I can use the current VZap on my Pi CM4 with Nvme just fine with no errors, the Nvme Drive is just seen as ADFS 4 mine is also a FAST System

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

But do remember that the point of using Docker is so that you're not having to rebuild things everywhere - you can either use the image directly, or overlay additional content on it. If you want just the RPCEmu system that's in gerph/rpcemu-base. And of course, if you've any improvements to the system, PRs are always gratefully received.

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

Many thanks!

!UnixFonts

Are there any more !UnixFonts available for Iris? or can we add more?

See https://freetype.org/freetype2/docs/index.html for supported font types.

There are some available via PackMan.

and is there any reason Iris can?t use the full font system on risc os?

It would be better to ask ‘is there any reason why RISC OS can’t use FreeType for it’s font system’.

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

The details are all in the source repository I posted.

@colinhoad.com

I detest this recent UX trend where the options to a supposedly binary question are "Yes" and "Maybe Later" / "Not Right Now" / "Review Later". What's wrong with a plain "No"?

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

If you have the details on how to build from source, I would love to give it a try and post the results.

RPCEmu inside Docker, using VNC

The article today about using RPCEmu on macOS reminded me that I’ve not mentioned the Docker images for RPCEmu that I created some time ago since they were updated. It also made me finally add the automatic resizing and push a multi-arch image (coo, I can now do both ARM and AMD in the same image!).

To use…

docker run -it --rm -p 5901:5901 -v $PWD:/riscos/Shared gerph/rpcemu-3.7

or

docker run -it --rm -p 5901:5901 -v $PWD:/riscos/Shared gerph/rpcemu-5

then connect to the VNC server (with Screen Sharing, or some other client) at localhost:5901 and use the password password.

The current working directory is shared into $.Shared.

As this is a separate configuration, a clean system, and has access to the filesystem it’s really trivial to customise, or just use for running those odd things that you need now and then. And you can be sure that you’ve not broken the system as it’s exactly as distributed.

The disc image is as supplied by the easy start bundles, with tiny tweaks (removing the Acorn logo from the backdrop, changing the screen mode to be larger, and adding a module that resizes the X server on mode change). This also has the interesting side effect of making the system rather more useable when made full screen.

And of course, being docker, you can also run this on Linux and on Windows, and it’ll be pretty much the same.

Sources, as usual, are on GitHub – https://github.com/gerph/rpcemu-docker. You can see the startlingly dumb way that the screen resolution is communicated out of the emulator in the VNCResize module. It’s certainly enough to work on the simple mode changes.

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

The macOS RPCEmu seems good to me on my home Mac - it's an older Intel mac though, so that might be some of the reason. However, using it with networking natively is much more difficult. I used to have it working, but on one upgrade or another it broke.

@armbytes.bsky.social

https://youtu.be/W2yDnrYrhR0?si=P6SmBoxq5k_907t0

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I’ve mentioned it before but it continues to intrigue me – compare the mysterious Mexico [sic] alphabet from the M128 International ROM with the CodePage-437 character set.

Both of these are RISC OS Alphabets (but not 7bit numbers) and make a distinction between semantic and appearance Unicodes:

@iconbar.com

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Moving_back_to_Linux_RPCEmu_on_my_Mac/index2244.html

I'm a big fan of RPCEmu which provides an excellent RISC OS environment on my Mac when I'm travelling. In this post I'm going to explore why I have switched back to the Linux version and cover some of the issues I encountered.

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

I'm not sure how you're getting numbers so low on your Mac version. I just opened an old version I compiled a while back on my M1 Mac and get an average of just under 140 MIPS. Copying it over to an M4 Mac I have for work, it gets an average of around 220.

RISC PC Boot Failure with UniPod

Wonderful! glad its working

Floating Point in C

I’ve got the score up over 900k, and once over 1m, by giving it more registers – I chose to set the baseline to allow the output to run on a PiZero which only has 8 D VFP registers. But 8 D registers means (under AAPCS) none are preserved over a function call. Giving it more would clearly be more efficient, but limits the h/w it can run on. I see apcs-softpcs (which I copied for VFP init) requests 16 D registers.

Curiously, 4 saved D FP registers outperforms 6 or 7 saved (ie. in addition to the 8 D arg registers) – I’ll investigate more as that shouldn’t really happen. ARM’s Norcroft currently has a limit of 31 registers (int + FP), due to its impressive use of signed maths throughout, so I can’t easily use 8 + 8.

After a little bit of fiddling around … it now runs.

That’s quite neat. Potentially could be useful, in fact, since my regression test harness (running on unix) can’t execute any code under RISC OS, only check the disassembled output. I was pondering ELF output for a Pi, but I’ve done all the work on a Mac (hence RPCEmu, hence forgetting about unaligned memory).

Modern, mainstream browsers tend to block insecure links/content in secure pages.

Yay, fewer spamages. It’s literally a one-line python http.server running as a very restricted user as I couldn’t be bothered to setup up a web server, but probably should one day.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Timing... 🧐

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

@colinhoad.com

5 months in to the 5:2 diet and I've lost 7.5kg as of this morning 😊

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

I am a big fan of RPCEmu which provides an excellent RISC OS environment on my Mac when I am travelling. In this post I am going to explore why I have switched back to the Linux version and cover some of the issues I encountered.

ROOL adds Fortran support in latest DDE update

That's pretty cool. I'd love to see Python and COBOL added, particularly Python. Yes, it's an interpreted language by design, but on other platforms you can compile it, too.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Okudagrams are old-hat, so of course must be supported in RISC OS.

Keyboard layout and *configure country

Looking at the RISC OS source, on reset the keyboard type is set to UK in KeyPostInit in Kernel/s/PMF/key. I have modified RISCOS.IMG so that this routine sets the type to USA instead of UK (by directly changing byte 0×458d4 of the RPi Stable 5.30 ROM image to 0×30, from 0×01 – there doesn’t seem to be any checksum on this binary image on the Pi).

As a workaround, this seems fine – now I have a default USA keyboard when booting directly to supervisor/BASIC.

Translating BASIC to C

Long term readers of these fora may remember that I think Printer Manager is far too big to be extended to deal with IPP printers in its present BASIC form.

It occurred to me that it might be possible to translate it to C, in small increments, leaving it testable at all times, by translating bottom-up (i.e. replacing the lowest level functions and procedures first) and replacing them with calls to a module written in C. The module would only be needed until all the translation is done, by which time we’d have a complete translation into C that then would be converted from a module to an app.

Printer Manager is an enormous job to take on top-down, as nothing could be used until it’s all done. The way I’m suggesting would have something testable and usable (the ultimate test of testability!) at all stages.

Any thoughts?

!FTPcs Problem

Shouldn’t affect anything other than another ftp client that uses AcornSSL which it would fix

Running a BASIC programme

If you double-click on a BASIC file in a filer window, you get a window headed ‘Run RAM::RamDisc0.\(.ProgName’ when it asks for INPUT. BASIC has been run by the Alias\)@RunType_FFB system variable *Basic -quit %0.

Is there any way of accessing this info from within BASIC to know, for example, from which directory the file was launched?

Sine Nomine Software at the London Show

The new software is now all available from the Sine Nomine Software website. There are small charges for upgrading ImpEmail, Impact and RiscOSM.

We have also uploaded fresh map data, suitable for use only with the latest version of RiscOSM, version 2.30. Datasets for a wider range of European countries will be appearing over the next few days, including those like Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria which really benefit from the improved support for non-Latin scripts.

UltimaVM - project's updates 2025-11-08

Given the interest shown at the latest RISC OS London Show by many people, here is a post about the new progress with examples:

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/ultimavm-u…

Enjoy! :)

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Here is an article with all the details about a new chunk of progresses on #UltimaVM and the new project's mascot Luma. Still lots of work to finish to get the first beta release out, but hey I am moving forward!https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/2025/11/09/ultimavm-update-2025-11-08-more-features-added-to-ultima-function-pointers-code-sections-and-more/ #RISC_OS #riscos #Linux #Windows #macOS #BSD

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I've just uploaded an update to my RISC OS !RMA utility, primarily to fix RO3 compatibility (thanks to Phil Pemberton for the report) but I noticed I hadn't released the previous version that featured an important upgrade - the ability to explore ANY Heaped Dynamic Area. So, a useful update:https://rma.20000.org

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 9th November at 1pm.

Starting in 20 minutes.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Remembering my great-grandfather, William George Edwards who lost his life on 27th March 1915. Chief Engineer on the SS "Aguila", attacked by a U-boat. His son, my grandfather, was just 9 at the time. #lestweforget

@riscosbits.co.uk

New video uploaded: youtu.be/AuB1leFGihY

Demonstrates how our RISC OS Companions integrate with the RISC OS desktop environment.

#RISC_OS #RISCOSCompanionhttps://youtu.be/AuB1leFGihY

Problem connecting to gitlab.

Is there a problem with gitlab? I haven’t been able to connect during the day for 2 days. I was wondering if other people have a problem connecting.

Status update for RISC OS 64-bit work

getting married

Congratulations indeed!

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

3Dfx. Simply the best! I remember buying my first 3Dfx videocard - an Orchid Righteous 3D. Truly a game changer! Programmers could use the Glide 3D graphics API or battle with an early version of DirectX.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Apparently overclocking calculators is actually a thing!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seBmf9gMQO0

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Preparing for the Retro Computing Festival ( Gaming Edition ) 2025 at The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge next weekend. Here's a Visual Code setup that allows me to build 'Galaforce 2' from its original 6502 source code and deploy the game to an emulator on a PC. Simple, quick workflow!

!Paint Outline Fonts

Nope, not at all.

It’s not just praise that helps developers, as there are “faults” that aren’t actually technical failures.

Explanations of what is perceived as not right, and suggestions for an alternate, are useful too.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Les Dennis is counting the days to the inevitable dramatisation, isn't he.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The development studio for 'X2: Wolverine’s Revenge' - Bruntwood Hall, Cheadle, Manchester (2002). This is where we developed the game - on the top floor, formerly the servant's quarters. I'm at the back popping up my head to see what's going on. That arched window is where we are located - top left

RISCOSBITS New Stacker!

i could also use the linux side’s NVME drive and mount as a NAS/Share on any of my RiscOS machines! it also showed up on Windows and Mac!

LinuxBits Icon – CM5 part of the stacker

PiServer – Other CM5 with Netatalk for wider sharing across multiple platforms

Guide to Impression

The Guide to the Impression Suite now comes with a complete worked example of how to turn a document into a RindBind manual. It starts with an Impression Publisher document which is the original manual for Equasor, TableMate etc. that was originally created in Impression. The process to print that as a PDF, then to extract individual Draw files for each page from that PDF is described in detail with examples at each stage. Packaging this into a ‘RingBind’ file is also described in detail with all the files created at each stage provided. As RingBind reserves space for the Draw file data for four pages, each the size of the largest individual Draw file for a page, it makes sense to reduce the few largest Draw files to a resolution appropriate to screen display rather than printing. The process to do this is also described. A copy of MakeDraw is required.

RO 5.30 Upgrade

Thank you

BBC BASIC - Simple OOP Extensions

I have always thought that BBCBASIC needed records.

RTR’s BASICs have Structures, but the syntax doesn’t really feel native to BBCBASIC.

I have been a fan of Wirth’s Oberon with type extension of records as it is a clean simple concept.

Most OO languages go off into the weeds with very complex and subtle features that are not really needed for 99% of programs.

I have outlined a possible syntax/semantics for a simplified OOP style record structure description below.

Let me know what you think.

OUTLINE OF CONCEPT:

Defininng a record type

No Args (fixed size)

DEF RECmyrec

A% // Integer field

B // Floating field

C$ // String field

D@ // Pointer field (any RECxxx) initial value NULL

DIM E% 1024 // Raw byte block field 1kB inline in record, use with indirection operators

DIM F%(9) // Array of 10 ints

DIM G(9) // Array of 10 floats

DIM H$(9) // Array of 10 strings

DIM I@(9) // Array of 10 pointer to record initial value NULL

ENDREC

With Args (variable size and initial values)

DEF RECmyvarrec(n$,m%,blocksize%)

name\( = n\) // Initialise value

DIM list$(m%) // n+1 strings – record contains a pointer to the array

DIM block% blocksize%*2+38 // can do calculations; specifies number of bytes, numbered 0 to result-1

ENDREC

Global or Private

R@ = RECmyrec // Globals use the heap (I would prefer if the language had GLOBAL to specify global varsfor symmetry/clarity)

// this version of the creation syntax does not make it obvious that allocation is taking place here

GLOBAL R@ = RECmyrec // opt global designator

R@ = NEW RECobject // alternetive syntax choice for creating a new record, makes it explicit that record allocation is taking place.

PRIVATE T@ = NEW RECmyrec // PRIVATEs use the heap. Same as PRIVATE in RTRBBCBASIC

STATIC — used for “class variables/methods” see below

I prefer the use of NEW rather than DIM because DIM is already used for Arrays and Structures

Stack (LOCAL vars)

LOCAL S@ = NEW RECmyvarrec(“Bob”,9,256) // Locals also use the heap because we will often export the reference from the scope expecting the record to persist.

When LOCAL pointer variable goes out of scope, the pointer on the stack is deleted, but the record (on heap) remains and may cause memory leaks,

CLEANUP should be used periodically.

If it is known that the record is no longer needed, it should be deleted before it goes out of scope.

The interpreter could detect escaping references and delete those that don’t, this can be complex with subtle errors, so manual or GC is easier.

Alternatively use Reference Counting (simpler, but risks memory leaks)

Delete Records and Release Heap Memory (manual GC)

DEL p@ — frees the storage fields (strings, arrays, blocks) then frees the record, does NOT follow pointer fields.

CLEANUP — executed outside any PROC or FN, marks all records reachable via global and private pointer variables then sweeps unmarked heap, does NOT follow pointers stored in Raw byte data blocks.

Method:

Add all global & static pointers to the keep queue

While keep queue not empty

….Pull the next pointer from the keep queue as current record

….If current record not marked

……..Add all pointers to records to the keep queue

……..Mark current record for retention

Sweep the record heap freeing all unmarked records using the DEL operation above.

DELREC q@ — as DEL above, BUT it also follows pointer chains deleting all linked records, does NOT follow pointers stored in Raw byte data blocks.

Method:

Add q@ to the delete queue

While delete queue not empty

….Pull the next pointer from the delete queue as current record

….If current record not marked

……..Add all pointers to the delete queue

……..Free all the storage fields

……..Mark current record for deletion

Sweep the record heap freeing all marked records

Access to fields

The field access operator is . followed by the name of a field.

name\( = P@.name\)

Procedure Fields / methods

DEF RECobject

A%

B%

DEF PROCmethod1(a%,b%) // LOCAL vars and params must not have the same name as a record field!

A%=a%-b%

B%=a%+b%

ENDPROC

DEF FNfunc1….

DEF PROCmethod2……

ENDREC

Usage of procedure fields:

R@ = NEW RECobject // alternetive syntax choice for creating a new record, makes it explicit that record allocation is taking place.

R@.PROCmethod1(56,99)

q = R@.FNfunc1

Record Extension and overrides

DEF RECparent(args)

name$

DEF PROCmethod1:ENDPROC // an empty method, calling it does nothing, acts as a placeholder for later redefinition.

DEF PROCmethod2(blah%)

// Some code here

ENDPROC

DEF PROCmethod3(blah%)

// Some other code here

ENDPROC

DEF PROCmethod4:UNDEFINED:ENDPROC — an undefined method placeholder, calling it throws an error, must redefine, like abstract in other languages.

ENDREC

DEF RECchild1(args) EXTEND RECparent(arg exprs) // allows inherited fields to be initialised/dimensioned

address$ // a new field

DEF PROCmethod1 // this overrides any method with the same name, implements something for method1.

// Do something

ENDPROC

// PROCmethod2 is not defined here, so the one from the parent is inherited.

DEF PROCmethod3(blah%) // overrides PROCmethod3

// Do this

PARENT.PROCmethod3(blah%+8) — here we call PROCmethod3 from the parent.

// Do That

ENDPROC

DEF PROCmethod4 // this defines PROCmethod4 for the first time.

// Do something. Calling PARENT.method4 here throws an error (default halt program)

ENDPROC

ENDREC

PARENT

// passes control to an overridden method, that method may have been inherited through several levels of extension, it will activate the last matching definition.

THIS

// refers to the current object within a method, it is implied when accessing fields within methods.

TYPE$

// refers to the type of a record as a string e.g. “RECchild1”

TYPE

// refers to the type of the record internal representation, can be used for type tests

IF THIS.TYPE = RECchild1 THEN …

TYPE and TYPE$ work on any pointer variable as well. to allow type comparisons (compare 2 pointers or pointer against TYPE value):

IF R@.TYPE = P@.TYPE // do they have the same dynamic type?

IF R@.TYPE <> RECsometype // R@ is NOT pointing to a RECsometype?

IF R@.TYPE > P@.TYPE // is R@ pointing to a supertype of P@?

IF R@.TYPE >= P@.TYPE // is R@ the same OR a supertype of P@?

IF R@.TYPE < RECparent // is R@ a subtype of RECparent?

IF R@.TYPE <= RECparent // is R@ the same as or a subtype of RECparent?

Calling an undefined method is a fatal error and will halt the program.

Fields are not redefined/overridden and must only be named once in an extension chain.

There is no multiple inheritance, interfaces, generics as these are complex and hard to do correctly.

Managing Namespace Pollution and example of “class” var/method

If a program has a large number of record types with lots of internal fields and methods that the user of the record does not need to touch the interface becomes a confusing mess.

Most OOP languages allow marking fields and methods as private/public, etc

I propose that for the BASIC extension above that all fields and methods are private by default and only visible inside the REC structure and by any child REC that extends from it.

To make things visible to the program at large, fields and methods are marked with an export mark ‘<-’

DEF RECobject

<- A% // A% is visible to the whole program as MyPtr@.A%

B% // B% is only visible to methods inside RECobject fatal error to attempt access outside.

<- STATIC C% // this is global to all instances of RECobject

<- DEF PROCmethod1(a%,b%) // Can be called anywhere as MyPtr@.PROCmethod1(…)

A%=a%-b%

B%=a%+b%

ENDPROC

DEF FNfunc1 // Can be called inside PROCmethod1 or PROCmethod2 or FNfunc1 as THIS.FNfunc1(…) or PARENT.FNfunc1 (if inherited)

= C%

<- DEF PROCmethod2 // Can be called anywhere as MyPtr@.PROCmethod2(…)

A% = THIS.FNfunc1

ENDPROC

<- STATICDEF PROCdouble // affects all instances, can be called without any live instance

C% = C% * 2 // Can only manipulate STATIC fields and call STATIC methods/functions

ENDPROC

ENDREC

The exported API of this REC is:

DEF RECobject

<- A% // A% is visible to the whole program as MyPtr@.A%

<- STATIC C% // this is global to all instances of RECobject

<- DEF PROCmethod1(a%,b%) // Can be called anywhere as MyPtr@.PROCmethod1(…)

<- DEF PROCmethod2 // Can be called anywhere as MyPtr@.PROCmethod2(…)

<- STATICDEF PROCdouble // affects all instances, can be called without any live instance

ENDREC

Example usage outside the definition

RECobject.C% = 5 // set the class var C% to 5 for all RECobjects

R@ = NEW RECobject

R@.PROCmethod1(20,10)

PRINT R@.A% // prints 10

R@.PROCmethod2

PRINT R@.A% // prints 5

DEL R@ // delete the record

RECobject.PROCdouble // there are no live instances at this time

p@ = NEW RECobject

p@.PROCmethod1(100, 15)

PRINT p@.A% // prints 85

p@.PROCmethod2

PRINT p@.A% // prints 10, as C% was doubled by PROCdouble

DEL p@ // delete the record

Sorry about the terrible formatting, the forum editor wipes indentation.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Here's a Sinclair Microdrive cartridge with a UK pound coin for comparison. We trusted these mini-magnetic tape loops with our valuable data in the 1980s. Totally insane! To be fair, they were actually quite reliable. The tape loop is 5 metres long and stores a minimum of 85 to 100KBytes of data.

@colinhoad.com

Managed to Harry Potter myself on the corner of a kitchen cabinet this morning ⚡️

Compute Module 4 supported?

Have you tried CPUClock?

Many thanks Andy and everyone who replied, that was so simple and now CPUClock controls my CM4 temperature.

my machine is clocked at 2200MHz.

George I have increased my clock speed from 2 GHz to 2.1GHz, I am not quite brave enough at the moment to go all the way to 2.2GHz.

Finally, many thanks to all the brave pioneers who five years ago, helped develop the CM4 into the great device it is today.

Sites blocking all but mainstream browsers

I’ve just tried updating the useragent on !Iris to a newer version as its a few versions behind, ebay loads but doesnt load very well with Chrome 132.0.0.0 as default agent. as suspected websites are changing again and Iris is starting to break down. i’ve noticed a few sites being rejected or just hanging.

Iris/Python3

Yep its very good, recommended to install if you’ve not got it yet already! TCP IP Stack 7.09 – Netmanager Oct 2025

@archiveriscos.bsky.social

Thanks to @markee174 and The Icon Bar for the review of the latest issue of Archive! #riscos #acorn #raspberrypihttps://www.iconbar.com/articles/Archive_Edition_276_reviewed/index2253.html

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

VCR tape copying virus! Hilarious. I should have implemented a similar thing in my BBC Micro game protection systems.

Contacting members

Many forums allow contact, although it’s done via “private messages” inside the forum system rather than by providing contact details directly. As far as I’m aware there is no such feature on the ROOL forums.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

BBC Basic is not Perl, but nemoBasic’s long strings and DIV$ operator do make it good at consuming and parsing text files.

I’ve just added a long-planned feature: “StrongTabs” seps mode – which isn’t limited to tab characters or one-character separators, but consumes multiple separators as one...

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

This weekend I finally found some time to add multi-sentence line support and finish the Transpiling Framework for my #UltimaVM, a fast and secure bytecode interpreter for #Linux, #Windows, #macOS, #BSD, and #RISC_OS.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

In Blake 7, the flight computer of the Scorpio was in fact powered by an Acorn System 1. 6502 rules the universe!

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Picked up my Sinclair Oxford 300 from the calculator doctor @breakintoprogram.co.uk . Dean was able to track down the fault and get it back up and running again. We also had time to have a catch-up and talk about the good old days. Many thanks, Dean!

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Acorn Phoebe

Ref Phoebe has anyone seen one working?

Rare to have one fired up: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6753

Yeah it was fun to have access to it, if only for a couple of months.

I documented most of what I learnt here;

https://www.4corn.co.uk/articles/phoebe/

I think there is emulator version of Phoebe partly done.

It’s rpcemu;

https://www.4corn.co.uk/articles/phoebe/#emu

And having a 1GB physical address space != 1GB RAM.

Indeed, it was a max of 512MB RAM on the Phoebe in 2x 256MB simms

What is Hearsay?

So not David Pilling’s terminal emulator then, despite him being the first in your list, or maybe because…

@archiveriscos.bsky.social

What is Hearsay? www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/20094 #riscos #acorn #raspberrypi #opensource

@nemo20000.bsky.social

The multi-page HSBC advert in today's Times is I think the most complicated bit of web binding/gathering I've ever seen in newsprint. Amazing use of narrowed webs! Very clever. There was a time this would have been prohibitively expensive, but print advertising is dying. Omnicom Media is this you?

@iconbar.com

WROCC November 2025 talk on Wednesday - Martin Avison

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/WROCC_November_2025_talk_on_Wednesday_-_Martin_Avison/index2243.html

The November 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 5th November and starts at at 7.45pm on Zoom.

WROCC November 2025 talk on Wednesday - Martin Avison

The November 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 5th November and starts at at 7.45pm on Zoom.

risc pc alpha 1 file transfer

The Drivers you need and app are all part of the 3.07 Package of !Pc which is here PC3.07 – in this version is an app called !MakeBootDisc which will get you up and running, will display a menu and ask if you want to boot 95 or 98 CD

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Do you remember using these?

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Quick, recover the data before the disk totally dies! Squeaky disks always get my heart racing.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Moldy disks - my pet hate! Especially when you have important disks to try and archive. This Aculab DASH-80 system disk is probably the only one in existence. I have managed to recover most of it after a lot of cleaning. A bit more work and I can hopefully fully recover.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

You must watch this! The early history of ARM by Sophie Wilson, one of the co-creators of the ARM processor.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8MWXdEbDeI

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 2nd November at 1pm.

Quite a slow session today; lots of chatter about other things, but also a lot of explaining why I’ve planned things the way that I have, and how I’m doing this work.

The repository – riscos-wimp-templates – has a simple build and CI environment that tests things. We can open a file and close it – that’s pretty much it. But I’ve also created a simple module that lets us call the SWIs that are defined.

The modules, such as they are, can be found in the riscos64-status repository, as usual.

Interestingly, at the end, I used `PicoC` to perform the test on RISC OS 64, as there isn’t a useful 64bit RISC OS BASIC on there – I never got around to making the SDLBASIC do SWI calls properly.

Next week, I’ll be continuing, I think. Working on the Window and Icon decoding from the templates.

BASIC V 1.85 buggy formatting

I can’t think of a computer language I’ve used that has implied multiplication.

Computers are stupid, they need everything spelt out explicitly, which is exactly how it should be.

Boot RISC OS Pi on Pi 4 from MSD

You could try reformatting the card, downloading the RISC OS Open Raspberry Pi card image – it’s the first item here:

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry…

and imaging it to the reformatted card. You’ll need a USB SD card reader but these are readily and cheaply obtainable. You’ll also need disc-imaging software – as it happens Raspberry Pi do a perfectly good one:

https://raspberrytips.com/raspberry-pi-imager-guide/

You can’t simply copy the diskimage to the card, the card must be imaged, hence the need for imager software (apologies if you already know all this, I can’t estimate your capability from the original post). Good luck, HTH.

Boot RISC OS Pi on Pi 4 from MSD

You could try reformatting the card, downloading the RISC OS Open Raspberry Pi card image – it’s the first item here:

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry…

and imaging it to the reformatted card. You’ll need a USB SD card reader but these are readily and cheaply obtainable. You’ll also need disc-imaging software – as it happens Raspberry Pi do a perfectly good one:

https://raspberrytips.com/raspberry-pi-imager-guide/

You can’t simply copy the diskimage to the card, the card must be imaged, hence the need for imager software (apologies if you already know all this, I can’t estimate your capability from the original post). Good luck, HTH.

October 2025 News Summary

https://www.davidpilling.com/wiki/index.php/Spell

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Two weeks to go....

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Well... 🙀

Learning BASIC

Last year I spent many ‘happy’ months writing these short guides. Having taught English abroad for 13 years I learned the hazards of ‘teacher talk’ and as you can see these volumes contain only code, with some image [usually of what the code produces on screen], but without the usual waffle most other programming books contain.

The title ‘The Happy Hacker’ was inspired by a song of the same name written by Chris Jeffers for the Alto computer over at Xerox PARC. [ https://soundcloud.com/audimprove/happy-hacker and https://vimeo.com/111334072].

Last week I reviewed all of the code and came up with one small improvement:

Rotate {Volume 1, page 12}

…

REPEAT

MOUSE x,y,button

…

ELSE

WAIT <———-add this to smooth rotation!

PROCplot_points

PROCrotate

PROCplot_points

ENDIF

UNTIL button <> 0

The original does NOT contain the ‘WAIT’ command – it still works but not smoothly.

I also made some additional content, not yet included in this Happy Hacker series, which I may include in ‘Volume 14’ one day.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/9gkst23e5499j5r/The+Hap…

October 2025 News Summary

MultiTask now disassembles Draw files extracted from a PDF and concatenates individual characters on the same line to form words and spaces.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Bless the positivity of ebay reviews.

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@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

Look what's arrived, just in time for the weekend. #ArchiveMagazine #RISC_OS @archiveriscos.bsky.social

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Happy Halloween! Who remembers playing 'Ghouls' on the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron?

@iconbar.com

October 2025 News Summary

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/October_2025_News_Summary/index2236.html

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

PipeDream 4.63 released

You can now download this from https://croftnuisk.co.uk/coltsoft/ or wait a little until it reaches PackMan’s updated list…

Source available in GitHub for the curious – https://github.com/skswales/colton-software-pipedream4 – as well as downloadable binaries in case my site goes phut.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

A signed print of the cover artwork for 'Acorn : A World in Pixels' by Ste Pickford @stepickford.bsky.social. Ste and I worked together on several games at Software Creations in the 1990s. I love this artwork. Can you identify all of the characters/games featured?

WROCC explores Pluto – 5th November

That’s the email client, not the dwarf planet, of course! Martin Avison will be the guest speaker at the next Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) meeting, at which he will be discussing news and email client Pluto. The application was first developed in the late 1990s by Jonathan Duddington, and Martin will go into detail about its history, leading up to it becoming open source and still maintained even though its creator has moved on to other things. He will also demonstrate a new installation of Pluto, along with…

Post-show offers and updates from RISCOSbits

It’s now the end of October, and this year’s London Show has come and gone – hopefully it was a successful event for exhibitors, and an enjoyable one for visitors. It was certainly successful for RISCOSbits, according to a post-show announcement from Andy Marks. The first thing he mentioned were the slate coasters hinted at almost two weeks before the show, and revealed the day before. Describing them as very popular (I can see why), Andy says they are now a regular product and can be ordered online, individually or…

October 2025 News Summary

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Finally had some time to update #UltimaVM presentation article with all the latest improvements. I still need to publish the latest release of the Reference Manual, but at least the article is now up-to-date:

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/portfolio/ultima-vm-unified-lightweight-typed-instructions-machine/#current-transpilling-framework-support-for-other-assembly-and-bytecode-transpilling

#Bytecode #VirtualMachine #RISC_OS #Linux #macOS

@iconbar.com

ROOL adds Fortran support in latest DDE update

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/ROOL_adds_Fortran_support_in_latest_DDE_update/index2254.html

ROOL clearly have big plans for the RISC OS DDE

ROOL adds Fortran support in latest DDE update

ROOL clearly have big plans for the RISC OS DDE....

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

45 years ago, the arcade game PAC-MAN was launched in North America ( October 1980 ). It was an instant hit and soon became one of the most iconic videgames of all time. 100s of copy-cat versions were created for home computers, virtually all were un-licensed. One of my all-time favourite games.

SYS as a function

Thanks for that. It looks like we’re mostly aligned. Keeping the non-RISC OS 5 clearly marked in the wiki helps avoid any confusion for people (notably developers) who are downloading RISC OS 5 from elsewhere on our site, or looking at the sources in our repo.

I would say that you announcing things or presenting things is great, but it isn’t equivalent to contacting us directly or even posting in the Code Review forum to discuss anything that will consume shared identifiers or flags. ROLL unfortunately doesn’t have the people or the bandwidth to proactively track everything going on in all the RISC OS-community and adjacent projects. If we’ve given mixed messages in the past, then I apologise for that.

That aside, it’s great to see people actively thinking about and working on paths that move RISC OS forward and out of the current 32-bit only shackles.

WROCC Meeting - Martin Avison: Pluto - 5th Nov

Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club

Meeting on Wednesday 5th November at 7.45pm

Martin Avison: Pluto

Martin will explain the background to Pluto, demonstrate a new install of Pluto and AntiSpam, send and receive some emails, and finally demonstrate a fully populated Pluto and some of its facilities.

This ‘virtual’ meeting is open to all, and will take place using the Zoom conferencing service using our regular meeting credentials. Zoom invitations will be sent out ahead of the meeting, but only to those who email info2025@wrocc.org.uk to request one. If you would like to be part of the meeting (and don’t already have the link from a previous meeting or receive an invite in the next 24 hours as a member of WROCC), please RSVP — at the latest by the end of Tuesday 4th November (GMT). We email the links out on the morning of the meeting.

If you haven’t used Zoom before, we suggest that before Wednesday you try to join the Zoom test meeting at https://zoom.us/test on the device that you intend to use, in order to check that your system works OK. You will not require a Zoom account to take part.

Past Meetings

Videos of previous meetings can be found in our links to past meetings at https://www.wrocc.org.uk/meetings

Club Membership

Annual membership of WROCC is available for those living near and far at 10.00ukp per year.

Members receive:

• A PDF newsletter with all the latest news and articles.
• Entry to meetings.
• Access to the WROCC Internet Discussion Forum.

For further information, please email info2025@wrocc.org.uk or visit the Club’s website at https://www.wrocc.org.uk

RISCOSbits Post Show Update

Fantastic show and i now have my new wooden case with printed extras, fits very nice on my desk with the new Keyboard and Mouse Pad :)

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I almost missed this anniversary! LEGO DC Super-Villains was launched in North America on the 16th October, 2018 - other regions shortly after. A great game and an amazing development team! I chose The Joker variation of the 'developer brick' for this game.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

An important thread:

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Way back in 1998 I was working on my first PC title, 'Incoming'. I was tasked with CPU & GPU optimizations and 3D card compatibility. Back then PC 3D cards were in their infancy and had lots of issues, mostly associated with their drivers. Sometimes we had to work around know problems with hacks!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

BBC Basic is available for multiple platforms and processors, but there’s one keyword (well, two) that’s definitely not portable – CALL.

I decided to address that (ha!) in nemoBasic:

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Here's the letter I received from Superior Software after sending them an early version of BBC Micro 'Crazee Rider'. I'd only been working on the game for a short time so we were still working out which direction we should take. The original brief was a follow up to 'Overdrive', but with corners.

Thank You for an Incredible RISC OS London Show!

Belated thank you to everyone, exhibitors and visitors, who came along on Saturday and made it such a fun day with a lovely cheerful atmosphere. I had to keep putting extra chairs out in the theatre because it was packed with people standing at the back, which was great to see! Same again next year… :-)

Time and Date Issue

#MeToo. If it’s of interest, this is still an issue with the current ROM. Somehow it loses reference to Resources:$.Resources.UK.Messages and then many things (like *Time, Configure’s time&date and keyboard sections) stop working, with the error message being day-dependent ’cos the token being looked up is. I fixed it by replacing CMOS on the errant Pi with a backup.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Mr Kipling, this is pathetic. Dreadful. Abject.

I almost began to consider not eating it.

It actually looks better in the photo. Damn you Google camera wizards.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Thanks Google.

I mean Error Dog.

@iconbar.com

Archive Edition 27:6 reviewed

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Archive_Edition_276_reviewed/index2253.html

Archive Magazine 27:6 arrived this week, just in time to the London Show. After a quiet summer, it kicks off what looks like a busy Autumn.

Archive Magazine Oct/Nov 2025

Print copy arrived yesterday.

Archive Edition 27:6 reviewed

Archive Magazine 27:6 arrived this week, just in time to the London Show. After a quiet summer, it kicks off what looks like a busy Autumn.

@riscosbits.co.uk

It's been a satisfying evening... thanks, @archiveriscos.bsky.social

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The Acorn Springboard, an ARM co-processor upgrade for the IBM PC in the form of an ISA card. I don't think many of these were actually produced and are certainly rarer than the ARM Evaluation System Second Processors which attach to a BBC Micro. Does anyone have one of these or ever used one?

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The news section of Electron User kindly gave me some free publicity for Galaforce when it was launched. I think this was in the October 1986 issue.

RISC OS bites macOS

It turns out that files starting with the characters Draw were characteristic of a binary vector graphics format used by the !Draw app for RISC OS 2 in 1989.

first used by the !Draw app for RISC OS 2 in 1989. tyvm.

Fireworkz 2.33 released

You can now download this from https://croftnuisk.co.uk/coltsoft/ or wait a little until it reaches PackMan’s updated list…

Updated examples and docs packages too.

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 26th October at 1pm.

A pretty excellent session (excluding the section where I left the audio off! oops!). Code variable private words are now in, the testing from RISC OS Pyromaniac has been added, and all passes, and it’s doing everything it needs to. It’s pretty much complete.

I might spend a little time on optimisations next week, to make it a bit more performant, if people are interested in that. If not, then next week I shall move on to another project.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Just got off a zoom call with an old friend from the Software Creations & Genepool days. Craig Houston and I worked on NES Wolverine, SNES Spider-Man / X-Men: Arcade's Revenge and X-2 Wolverine's Revenge. Great to have another catch-up. Photo shows me in blue jumper and Craig right at the back.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Huge thanks to @breakintoprogram.co.uk for fixing my broken Sinclair Oxford 300 calculator! Great to see it working again.

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Happy 25th Birthday to the SONY PlayStation 2 which was launched in North America on the 26th October 2000. Over 160 Million PS2s have been sold during its lifetime making it the best selling videogame console ever. Image credits:- Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Limited (SIEE).

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

What an incredible day at the past RISC OS London show!

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/20078

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Last year I met up with schoolfriends Paul Proctor and Andrew Farrow. Paul programmed the BBC Micro conversions of Knight Lore, Alien 8, Nightshade and other Ultimate games. Andrew helped him with the room mapping. Paul played Alien 8 for the first time in about 40 years! Book/game signing too.

Pubilc Beta Test - Multi Machine UI

This is totally awesome, thanks Peter and Mat! :)

Creatng an ebook - 'part 2'

I’m now asking for info wrt a slightly different situation where I want to be able to make an ebook from a set of numbered jpeg files, one per page.

This is to generate ‘de-oxidised’ versions of PDFs of ancient pulp mags/paperbacks and render them in a far easier form to read.

I can export the jpegs OK. I can also write a Composcript to generate a new set of jpegs that have been ‘de-browned’. But I then need to put those into a new PDF with one jpeg per page. The result then to be more easily read using the usual ebook reading progs on my natty tablet device. (I’ll probably also greyscale the pages in most cases if they’re ‘colour’ jpegs with black text on the brown of oxidised pulp paper.

I don’t mind if the process has to take some time to chug though hundreds of jpegs, I can get a cup of single-estate tea and a biscuit as my RO box does the job. Problem at present is that some anient pulp mags/books are almost unreadable due to becoming oxidised and the the PDF /ebook maker didn’t bother to deal with that. But I suspect a tool like this would be very handy for anyone who wants to read material that exhibits this problem.

And I suspect that for me this RO approach will be easier than trying to work out how to automate the process on Linux as I already know how to use !Compo, etc, for the actual processing. Just not the bit where the resulting bitmaps need to be packed into a PDF (…or other ebook format? Is there one that just ‘zips’ the pages with some meta-info to guide ebook rendering? That might be handy!)

!Chess 1.30 released

The archive has lost the filetypes: they’re added as an extension to the filenames. But it’s easy to change that, though. Thank you for the update.

The archive on the release page is a risc os zip file, if unzipped inside risc os using sparkplug/infozip/sparkfs etc, the filetypes are present. Do not unzip this archive using linux/mac/windows zip software, as the filetype information will be lost.

RO5.30 Why is SVC Stack Protected from USR Mode Reads ?

the page table format which allows for LPAE to work doesn’t have the combination of user mode R/X priviledged R/W/X.

Does that mean the OS needs the SVC stack to be executable? Is that something I have to worry about?

@iconbar.com

RISC OS London Show 2025 - Notes from the talks

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_London_Show_2025_-_Notes_from_the_talks/index2250.html

Here are my notes from the talks. As usual, any mistakes or omissions are mine.

@iconbar.com

RISC OS London Show 2025 - pictures

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_London_Show_2025_-_pictures/index2249.html

Here is a selection of pictures to show you what the event was like

@iconbar.com

RISC OS London Show Report 2025

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISC_OS_London_Show_Report_2025/index2248.html

The 2025 London Show took place in its new regular venue.

Overall there was a real buzz and plenty of people attending.

Here is what I saw on the floor.

RISC OS London Show Report 2025

The 2025 London Show took place in its new regular venue. Doors opened at 11am and there was the usual stands and talks. You can also see all the stands in our pictures and notes on the talks. We even had some nice weather!

RISC OS London Show 2025 - Notes from the talks

Here are my notes from the talks. As usual, any mistakes or omissions are mine.

RISC OS London Show 2025 - pictures

Here is a selection of pictures to show you what the event was like.....

@iconbar.com

RISCOSbits last minute hardware offers at tomorrow's show

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/RISCOSbits_last_minute_hardware_offers_at_tomorrows_show/index2246.html

RISCOSbits have a late-breaking announcement about some last minute hardware offers tomorrow

RISCOSbits last minute hardware offers at tomorrow's show

RISCOSbits have a late-breaking announcement about some last minute hardware offers tomorrow...

RISC OS Developments at London Show (inc Iris download instructions)

Got it. Wrong “autobuilt” path. Sorry for the noise.

@riscosbits.co.uk

Just in case the cryptic images haven't helped, here's an easier picture clue of an external antenna!

We'll have them for sale at the @rougol #riscoslondonshow2025 with access to FREE #RISC_OS control software for #ComputeModule4 systems, like our FreeNVMe and FAST systems.

@riscosbits.co.uk

Want a flash new keyboard, that will literally flash if you ask it to!?

Fully programmable Cherry MX Red near-silent keys, backlight LEDs, customisable key colours on individual keys! Emulate a BBC, A3000, A3010 or Pi500+ keyboard!

See it at #riscoslondonshow2025

#risc_os

@riscosbits.co.uk

See and buy our new #FASTNVMeXL system with our #FreeNVMe drivers, and a whopping 8GB RAM usable under #RISC_OS. Sleek, smooth, and very cool!

#risc_os #riscoslondonshow2025 #WhatWillYouDoWithIt?

@rougol.bsky.social

The RISC OS London Show opens tomorrow morning at 11am. For news of the latest products being released and special offers, see the @riscosopen.bsky.social forumwww.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1 #riscoslondonshow2025https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1

@riscosbits.co.uk

Exclusive: see it working with your RISCOSbits #RISC_OS #FreeNVMe or #FAST system at tomorrow's @rougol London Show: riscoslondonshow.co.uk

Stop The Presses - Last Minute RISCOSbits News and Special Offers

In last minute stop-press news, RISCOSbits are pleased to announce a few additions to the London Show stand.

For those of you who are in the market for a RISC OS laptop, RISCOSbits may have exactly what you are looking for at the London show! We will have VERYLIMITED stock of Linux enabled, but RISC OS capable Pinebook Pros available for sale at the London show. Whilst these laptops are not fitted with RISC OS for licencing reasons, we can demonstrate them running RISC OS to show you that it is possible and easy to do. All you will need to do is pop along to another stand at the show and purchase access to the ROM.

As people may be aware, there are two variants of Pinebook Pro – one with a UK layout keyboard, and one with a more generic (US) layout. We will have the latter available.

The Pinebook Pro comes equipped with 64GB of eMMC storage preinstalled and pre-formatted for RISC OS use. The laptops (running Linux) will be available on a “first come, first served” basis for only £150 – remember, stocks are very limited. We also have a super bargain special offer on one with a slight donk on the top rim of the shell. Doesn’t affect the functionality, but we’ll knock a further £25 off!

Our next bit of exclusive news is we’ll be selling external antennas for Compute Module 4 systems, especially those in metal cases. Many of you will be aware that the Linux method of enabling this using dtparams doesn’t work on RISC OS, but by partnering with Stader Software, we are able to offer exclusive free access to antenna control software for RISC OS to enable the external antenna.

As an added bonus, if you buy a system with a WiFi- enabled Compute Module 4 from our FreeNVMe or FAST range and you ask for an antenna, we’ll give it you for free, including exclusive access to the control software for RISC OS. Combine this with our ‘Get In Free*’ offer and you’re making incredible savings! It’s also worth remembering we publish the prices and specifications of our systems on our website so you can calculate the bang per buck you get with RISCOSbits!

We’ll also have a few gold and black case badges to tell the world what’s running inside your otherwise anonymous case! And at a pocket money price of only £2.50!

And the final teaser is we’ll be bringing along some delightful Welsh slate drinks mats, engraved with your favourite OS logo. Available for just £5 each, they’re sure to make your desk look oh so pretty and er, ringless. You could even buy a set of four for £18 for your coffee table or home cocktail bar!

So ‘coast’ on over to our stand to grab yours!

Hardware discounts from R-Comp at the London Show

With the clock counting down rapidly until I can get to the pub the doors open for tomorrow’s London Show, another announcement has arrived from R-Comp: Stop Press – We’ll be knocking 20ukp off all hardware items (over 50ukp) at the show. You don’t need to quote any adverts or phrases or claim anything special. Just money off for everyone 🙂 At the recent Show Preview user group meeting, Andrew Rawnsley of RCI demonstrated some new hardware items that had been proving popular this summer, and will be available at…

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

A Silicon Graphics 'Indy' workstation. I used one of these for Nintendo 64 game development. A great machine with awesome OS. The N64 development board fits neatly inside the blue case. Such a shame SGI are no longer around. Great hardware, with a great price tag!

@iconbar.com

Show offer on Impression User Manual and free software to collect

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Show_offer_on_Impression_User_Manual_and_free_software_to_collect/index2252.html

If you don't have a copy of the Impression User manual and would like a printed copy, Chris Hall has a very special offer for you at the London Show.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I suspect Michi is wrong here and that it's actually a common UI bug: "feedback" and "commit" using different algorithms OR DIFFERENT COORDINATES.

While the finger is still in contact with the screen (or the mouse button is down) the app (keyboard) provides feedback at the current coords...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksVvXONrIo

RCI Hardware at London Show - 20ukp off too

• We’ll be knocking 20ukp off all hardware items (over 50ukp) at the show.

  You don’t need to quote any adverts or phrases or claim anything special.

  Just money off for everyone :) **

At the recent Show Preview user group meeting, Andrew Rawnsley of RCI

demonstrated some new hardware items that had been proving popular this

summer, and will be available at the London Show this weekend.

18 inches of RISCBook

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

First up was a new 18" RISCBook laptop. For those unfamiliar, the

RISCBook range of laptops run RISC OS and Windows together, providing the

best of both RISC OS and Windows software, with links between the two OSs

to allow them to share resources such as files, printers, clipboard, and

networking.

The pressing onset of Windows 11 has prompted a number of users to upgrade

this Autumn, and the 18" laptop has proven popular. Although 18" may

sound huge for a laptop, screen shapes have become more flexible in recent

times, and the 18" uses a 16:10 ratio with more vertical space for

documents. This means it is roughly the same size/weight as a 17" laptop,

whilst offering more screen space (1920×1200). Very practical for working

on documents, and the high refresh rate (144 Hz) IPS panel looks lovely.

We’ve found that as people age, they appreciate the larger screens and

full size backlit keyboards (with number pads), whilst finding the

convenience of a laptop is easier to fit in various rooms. For example,

RCI’s Allan (Andrew’s father) now uses his laptop downstairs to save

having to trek up to the more traditional machines in his office upstairs.

Whilst the laptops aren’t RISC OS friendly when they arrive, RCI is able

to adapt them to run RISC OS beautifully, with smooth performance and

flexible software compatibility (run both 26bit and 32bit applications).

Touchpad mouse gestures (eg. 3 finger tap) mean that replication of the

three button mouse is great too. Of course, you can plug in a mouse (or

use a wireless one) too.

These laptops are no slouches – 8-core, 16 thread AMD chips amply

demonstrate why AMD have become so dominant again recently – they can

motor through anything from web browsing to video editing. Whilst the

graphics are on-chip, they’re top tier for what they are, making games

possible too. With 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage packed into a slim and

low-weight chassis, there’s a lot of “oomph” inside.

Of course, RCI offers a range of other RISCBooks too, from 13" upwards

with a variety of screens including OLED. However, these 18" units have

proven quite popular, and so we’re singling them out to RISC OS users.

The laptops should be on display in London. Expect to see RCI’s MiniPC

range too.

Pinebook Pros

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Speaking of Laptops, RCI still have one or two Pinebook Pros – they grab

stock from around the world when they appear online. Pinebook Pros offer

a fantastic native-RISC OS experience with class leading performance,

working wifi, and even optional NVMe sockets for high speed storage.

Prices fluctuate as limited availability often results in price spikes,

but RCI is trying to keep prices in the same ballpark as before.

N.Ex.T, Hydra and NVMe

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

RCI will also be showing N.Ex.T and Hydra systems as usual – expect to see

large NVMe drives and some exciting new features. See the latest v9 (and

the forthcoming v10) NVMe drivers with SMART disc health features and

drive health checks. See native RISC OS disc partitions, 4K sectors, our

NVMe toolkit and more.

Hydra shows how Pi4 and Pi5 tech can be used side-by-side, and you’ll be

able to see ROD’s new RISC OS Direct for Pi5 running on a Hydra Head.

Check out the tiny mini.pi N.Ex.T computer which packs almost every

feature into the tiniest box, at a cracking price.

There will also be some rather different devices shown with up to 8 NVMe

slots! Aimed at file sharing and home NAS appliances, these small silent

boxes provide exceptional capabilities at surprisingly affordable prices,

whilst opening up a range of options for RISC OS and allowing room to

expand and grow. Come and find out more at the show.

RISCube Minis

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

We’ve talked about RISCBooks, but 2025 has also bee the year of MiniPCs

with our range of RISCube Minis offering state of the art features and

stunning performance at lower-than-ever prices. See features like the

latest USB4, multiple 4K+ displays, Wifi 6E and 7, 2.5 Gbit ethernet and

more – all useable from RISC OS!

Monitors

=-=-=-=-

We’ll have a selection of IPS and OLED displays available on the stand for

you to check out and plan the best way to make your day-to-day computing

more pleasurable. Remember your screen determines everything you see and

do on the computer, so if you’re an enthusiast (and coming to a computer

show counts as an enthusiast!) then you deserve the best you can.

Monitor prices have come down a bit recently, so why not take advantage of

that to treat yourself?

Whatever takes your fancy, come and check out our range at the RCI stand

at the show and say hello!

!PDF crashing

how did you manage to make such a crispy photo of a screen, without moiré’s and such?

With Chris Johnson’s !Snapper loaded and key triggers set (righthand Shift and Ctrl), you can get a sprite or PNG of the screen saved out milliseconds before the window closes.

Show offer on Impression User Manual and free software to collect

I do have some 120MB sticks pre loaded as well ...

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

If you love Assembly, I am sure you'll love my UltimASM DSL, it allows you to design the Assembly of your dreams or to code in 6502, 6809, 68000 and even VAX ASM on #RISC_OS (and all other supported platform by my #UltimaVM).

Want to know more? Come at the RISC OS London Show Saturday 25th October!

Chris Hall’s last minute London Show offers

One final email has landed in the RISCOSitory bunker before things get fully shut down for the duration of the London Show, and it’s from Chris Hall: The 368 page Impression User Manual (in the form of a PDF file) was originally provided free to purchasers of Impression X. This User Manual is now available in electronic form free to all users of Impression Style (which is free to download from !Store), Publisher and Publisher Plus from !Store. A printed version of the manual is still available, normal price £25,…

Show offer on Impression User Manual and free software to collect

If you don't have a copy of the Impression User manual and would like a printed copy, Chris Hall has a very special offer for you at the London Show

Show Offer

The 368 page Impression User Manual (in the form of a PDF file) was originally provided free to purchasers of Impression X. This User Manual is now available in electronic form free to all users of Impression Style (which is free to download from !Store), Publisher and Publisher Plus from !Store.

A printed version of the manual is still available, normal price £25, which includes a personal download link for Impression Publisher Plus version 5.13, courtesy of RISC OS Developments. I shall be discounting the few remaining copies of this manual at the show.

Although the User Manual was created in Impression, with contents and index created automatically, the PDF that was produced was designed to produce a printed manual. It therefore has no internal links. The RingBind version of the User Manual does have page to page links from the Contents pages, section to section and all 12 pages of the Index.

I shall be handing out USB sticks at the show free of charge with the latest version of !FamTree, version 1.58 (May 2024) [which will be made free to download from !Store after the show]. The USB sticks are only 32Mbytes so you can have as much of the other software listed below as will fit – for example a RingBind version of the RISC OS 5.30 User Manual (with over 3000 internal links) or both RingBind and PDF versions of the Impression User Manual. If you want more then I’ll put it on your own USB stick or another 32MB stick. No individual zip file is larger than 14Mbytes. At least until stocks run out…

This amounts to over 242M bytes of data all on a 128Mbyte USB stick.

London Show sees launch of NetFetch 6 from R-Comp

In another bit of last minute London Show news, a new version of NetFetch is being released by R-Comp. Here’s the full announcement from Andrew Rawnsley: R-Comp are launching version 6 of NetFetch at the London show, over six years since v5.5 launched at Wakefield 2019. (Spoiler – it’s live now on !Store) NetFetch provides flexible mail and news fetching for RISC OS, including anti spam and other filtering capabilities, as well as a friendly front end to RISC OS internet-related software. A version of Messenger Pro is included to…

Last minute show news from RISCOSbits

With the RISC OS London Show now only one day away, here’s a last-minute announcement from RISCOSbits: In last minute stop-press news, RISCOSbits are pleased to announce a few additions to the London Show stand. For those of you who are in the market for a RISC OS laptop, RISCOSbits may have exactly what you are looking for at the London show! We will have VERY LIMITED stock of Linux enabled, but RISC OS capable Pinebook Pros available for sale at the London show. Whilst these laptops are not fitted…

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

Looking out of the window, I see it's a beautiful autumn morning and much nicer than the numerous weather apps on my phone implied. #lake_disctric #cumbria #living_in_the_lakes #westmorland

@riscosopen.bsky.social

London is closer than you think!https://www.riscosopen.org/news/articles/2025/10/23/london-is-closer-than-you-think

London is closer than you think

This year’s London show organised by ROUGOL is this Saturday the 25th October from 11am. Shows are the perfect opportunity to meet and talk to fellow RISC OS users and developers about what they’re doing with our favourite operating system.

Venue details

A short distance by public transport, around ten miles from Heathrow airport, less than four miles from the M1 motorway, the Harrow District Masonic Centre is closer than you think; see this Google map for directions.

Please note: engineering work means the Bakerloo tube line is closed this weekend.

See BASIC in action

See the alpha version of BBCBASIC rewritten in C, running natively on both RISC OS 5 and Windows x64, and find out what’s required to get it all finished. It’s a considerable technical effort, and will pave the way for all kinds of language extensions in future.

Want to know why nightly builds of BASIC gained a new SYS-as-a-function keyword recently? It’s all part of the mission to the moon.

NetFetch 6 new available

R-Comp are launching version 6 of NetFetch at the London show, over six years since v5.5 launched at Wakefield 2019.

(Spoiler – it’s live now on !Store)

NetFetch provides flexible mail and news fetching for RISC OS, including anti spam and other filtering capabilities, as well as a friendly front end to RISC OS internet-related software. A version of Messenger Pro is included to provide users with a “ready to use” kit.

Since the release of v5.5, email provision has changed quite substantially. Many more ISPs require enhanced security in a variety of forms – more passwords and logins, more SSL/TLS encryption, greater identity checks and so on. NetFetch 6 recognises this and has revamped its configuration to emphasise the features that modern people require. New and returning users will find that setting up NetFetch 6 is considerably improved, especially with modern ISPs.

These improvements have been brought about because internet providers such as Orpheus and Plusnet have both undergone changes recently, and whilst helping user sort out their problems, we discovered various areas that

needed to be improved or made clearer. Version six reflects these, modernising and improving the experience.

News handling has also seen a revamp, as many ISPs no longer offer newsgroup facilities. Those that do often require username/password login, so the old setup routines no longer made sense. We have now taken news out of the initial setup to streamline things, and instead introduced a new Assistant to guide people through setting up free newsgroup access regardless of ISP. By following the built-in assistant, and filling out two boxes, you’ll be able to get newsgroup access set up whenever you’re ready. Meanwhile, existing users will appreciate clearer settings, and easy support for both server login and SSL/TLS.

Speaking of encryption, v6 sees support added for the latest TLS 1.3 standard including handshake-level identity checks. These are conducted as part of the TLS connection to prove you are who you say you are – something that we have seen mandated on real-world “big company” TLS 1.3 servers.

NetFetch 6 will be available as a paid-for upgrade to existing customers, launching at the London show, but anyone who has purchased v5.5 this year (2025) can claim a free upgrade by specifying their purchase date when

ordering. Version 6 will be available in person at the show and via !Store download.

NetFetch 6 costs 35ukp new, with upgrades costing 20ukp either in person or via !Store. The new version is live now on !Store and as with its predecessor, includes free updates for the foreseeable future (6 years again? Can’t promise, but who knows!).

Best wishes,

Andrew

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Once upon a time you needed one of these huge beasts, and a lot of money, to make a video. Dixons catalogue, circa. April 1986.

@riscosbits.co.uk

Get in to the #riscoslondonshow2025 for free with #FreeNVMe! Sort of...

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/20069

Free entry at the London Show 2025 with RISCOSbits*

*it’s okay, ROUGOL, we’re not sneaking people in through a side entrance!

To celebrate the first show outing of our updated and very latest release of FreeNVMe genuinely open source drivers, RISCOSbits are offering to refund people’s entrance fee, by way of an extra discount on all purchases of NVMe-enabled pre-built systems at our stand.

Terms and conditions obviously apply (we’ll only offer one refund per customer) but we’re happy if you get together with a RISC OS friend and send your mate up to buy another NVMe system on your behalf to get a second discount!

Simply quote ‘Oi! Gimme my door money back’ when making your purchase and we’ll knock it off the price!

About FreeNVMe

FreeNVMe is the next generation of fully Open Source RISC OS storage technology and it’s completely free!

As the result of partnering with Stader Softwareentwicklung and RISC OS Open, RISCOSbits have been instrumental in developing, and further updating, the free and fully Open Source NVMe driver and filing system, that we first demonstrated way back in December 2023. And it has been in reliable use on RISCOSbits’ Compute Module 4 systems ever since.

Designed from the ground up to fit perfectly with existing RISC OS filesystems, FreeNVMe follows all the usual filecore conventions so that all existing tools, such as DiscKnight, work straight out of the box – no custom tools are required.

A conscious decision was made to adopt the existing standards for filing systems, so that any developments to the core of RISC OS would automatically integrate with FreeNVMe.

There’s no tie-in to a paid-for support scheme – our driver is designed to work with the nightly builds from RISC OS Open. And it’s completely free. You can download it now, without having to buy a system, an NVMe drive or anything else:

www.riscosbits.co.uk/nvme/

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry…

And FreeNVMe is genuinely open source. You can look at, and download, the source code directly from the RISC OS Open repository NOW. You have the opportunity to contribute to the code to improve FreeNVMe and make it into the real community-led filing system it was intended to be.

FreeNVMe is designed to offer the following features as standard:

• Works on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 systems
• 4Kn sectors to allow for drives up to 2TB
• Partitioning via freely available software
• DiscKnight compatibility
• Standard file system icon (no separate app needed)
• Dual format drives with separate icons for each format.

And FreeNVMe is FAST! So fast that we felt comfortable incorporating it into our premium range of computers without any hidden charges.

What’s New

In our latest developments, rather than chasing irrelevant numbers, we’ve been focusing on real-world usability and integration – from more reliable file handling and faster boot times to improved support for large storage volumes and smoother performance under pressure. At the show, you’ll be able to see how NVMe, when properly harnessed, makes RISC OS feel more modern, stable, and capable than ever before. We’ve also improved drive compatibility to near 100% – there’ll always be rogue drives, but we’ve even built in a system to manage them.

We don’t need to make strangely calculated claims about how it compares to other products – we just give it to you for nothing so you can make your own mind up!

@riscosbits.co.uk

Coast at your desk with our Show exclusive Welsh Slate Drink Mats (with rubber pads to avoid scratching!). At a bargain price of £5 each.

Limited stock, so hurry up to the RISCOSbits stand!

#CoastingWithRISC_OS #RISC_OS #AcornComputers #riscoslondonshow2025

@riscosbits.co.uk

You'll be upset, too, if you miss it! Exclusively available at the #RISC_OS London Show! #riscoslondonshow2025

Out 25th October - Mystery release!

No, nothing wrong with your screen! Exciting major update to a very popular product – find out at the London RISC OS show on Saturday….

www.dragdrop.co.uk

Release 9d of RCI’s NVMe drivers, with NVMeTools and SMART

Another announcement has popped up, this time from RCI, R-Comp Interactive (aka RCI – R-Comp’s sister company), about an updated release of their NVMe drivers. This is what Andrew Rawnsley’s email said: R-Comp Interactive is pleased to announce that version 9d of our NVMe Drivers are now available. Since the drivers are already incredibly fast (up to 80% faster than competing products), and work with a wide variety of drives, the focus this time has been on expanding functionality, features and the experience for both users and developers. Headline features…

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Picture Editor having fun at Editorial Editor's expense. 🤭

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PhotoDesk 3.25 released

We are pleased to announce that version 3.25 of PhotoDesk is now available to download for existing users via !Store.

Following on from 3.24’s colossal number of changes, 3.25 is a much smaller affair, correcting a few things that slipped through and have been reported since:

• “click_in_rotate” routine called “click_in_draw” with the incorrect number of paramters. Now fixed.

• Resize and Rotate functions had Bi-cubic and Bi-linear modes swapped. Expected operation has been restored.

• PNG files were being saved without compression, leading to very large files. Since PNG compression is lossless, this was not sensible, so PNGs are now compressed as you’d expect.

The update is available as a free download for anyone who purchased the XAT edition (3.18+) of PhotoDesk some years ago.

We will have a number of fresh CDs with 3.25 on at the London Show this weekend. We offer them as very low cost “stocking stuffers” for existing users. The CDs contain extra software (3.25 adds Chris Terran’s GradGrind palette editor designed for use with PhotoDesk) that wouldn’t fit in the regular download, plus extras like full sets of example images and documentation etc.

If you don’t have a CD drive, bring a USB stick (we do sell them, but they tend to be larger ones) and we’ll copy the CD contents onto the stick for you.

Best wishes,

Andrew

RISC OS Developments London Show news – including a public Iris release

With this year’s London Show drawing ever nearer – the doors will be open to the public in just two days on 25th October, at the Harrow District Masonic Centre – another announcement has landed in the RISCOSitory bunker, and, amongst other interesting news, this one includes something we’ve all been eagerly awaiting for a very long time: a public release of web browser Iris from RISC OS Developments. Over to Andrew Rawnsley for all the gory details: Iris Releases via PackMan The Spring and Summer saw multiple beta releases…

@colinhoad.com

Well, I can now safely remove "Alien Earth" from my muted words list! What a great show, quite possibly the best thing to be made in the Alien universe since the first two movies. And with much of the beautiful aesthetic of the original, which pleased me greatly.

New site is live

did the site go down all day? its up now but its hit and miss

@iconbar.com

PhotoDesk 3.25 released

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/PhotoDesk_3.25_released/index2251.html

It has clearly been a very busy few months at R-Comp... And they have found time to squeeze in a new version of PhotoDesk.

@riscosbits.co.uk

Come and see our #ECOS Companion devices for #risc_os, and see how you can run responsive alternative operating systems alongside your favourite OS. Order yours at the Show!

#riscoscompanions #riscoslondonshow2025 #InternalOrExternal

@riscosbits.co.uk

Now under #RISC_OS control... see the control software in action at the @rougol Show. #riscoslondonshow2025

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I've had "fun" today replacing a broken halogen floodlight with a smart LED one. Controlled by Tuya (infrastructure) and visible to Alexa (for the house), I also had to make it visible to Google Home so that I could control it by voice in the car.

PhotoDesk 3.25 released

It has clearly been a very busy few months at R-Comp....And they have found time to squeeze in a new version of PhotoDesk

@colinhoad.com

Seeing people watermark their AI "art" on LinkedIn... where to even begin 🙄

PhotoDesk 3.25 now available

With the London Show now so close you can almost taste it – okay, I might be confusing the show with my snack – another software update has been announced by R-Comp, with immediate availability via !Store, and the option to buy at the show. This time the update is to PhotoDesk: We are pleased to announce that version 3.25 of PhotoDesk is now available to download for existing users via !Store. Following on from 3.24’s colossal number of changes, 3.25 is a much smaller affair, correcting a few things…

@iconbar.com

October 2025 Rougol report - RISCOSbits show plans

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/October_2025_Rougol_report_-_RISCOSbits_show_plans/index2247.html

The October 2025 talk featured RISCOSbits supremo Andy Marks giving us a bit of a preview of their stall for Saturday's Show.

@riscosbits.co.uk

We're making the #RISC_OS case for wood!

Or should that be 'we're making a wood case for RISC OS'...

See them in the (tree) flesh on Saturday at the @rougol #riscoslondonshow2025 this Saturday.

@riscosbits.co.uk

It's touch and go, but will we have a Pi9home (brew) ready to show at the #riscoslondonshow2025?

#risc_os #justbecause #notrealbutbetterthanapokeintheeye

@rougol.bsky.social

The RISC OS London Show is only a few days away, on Saturday 25th October. Chat to exhibitors old and new, and listen to the latest news in our theatre talks. All the details on the show website www.riscoslondonshow.co.uk/index.php

@colinhoad.com

Stop scrolling & post 2 characters who bring you happiness 😀

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Subversion and RISC OS 4.39

Silly me is trying to do some development on RO 4.39, using svn 1.6.23 from Packman.

Try as I may, I cannot get this system to remember my svn credentials for the repository being used, having to enter them on every single commit (unlike on RO 5).

@colinhoad.com

Colleague appears to be eating what I can only describe as Onion Five Ways 🥴

@archiveriscos.bsky.social

THIS SATURDAY! The RISC OS London Show is back, showcasing the latest products and projects, and providing a chance to meet up, chat, and attend talks about our favourite little OS. #opensource #acorn #raspberrypi www.riscoslondonshow.co.uk

October 2025 Rougol report - RISCOSbits show plans

The October 2025 talk featured RISCOSbits supremo Andy Marks giving us a bit of a preview of their stall for Saturday's Show.

RISCOSbits at London 2025

We are pleased to announce that RISCOSbits will be exhibiting at the RISC OS London Show on Saturday, 25th October 2025. As a continuation of our commitment to providing high-quality, great value and innovative RISC OS systems, we’re bringing along a full range of new and improved products for users of all levels—from casual tinkerers to serious power users.

You’ll be able to get hands-on with our most advanced systems to date, including the blazingly fast FIRE systems with capacity for up to four full speed SATA SSDs (potentially 8TB of RISC OS format storage!), our sleek and compact VENOM, eNVY.Me and PiRO Qube NVMe machines.

You’ll also be able to get your hands on one of our new FAST NVMe XL systems, upgraded to 8GB of useable RAM! Good luck trying to use all that!

The DIY Range

We’re also excited to show off our DIY product range – a collection of hands-on kits that let you build your very own RISC OS computer. Whether you’re a seasoned hardware builder or just fancy getting under the hood, there’s something here for you.

Our entry-level system offers a compact 85mm x 110mm design, powered by a 2GHz CPU and 2GB RAM, with 128GB NVMe storage and a 32GB SD card to run RISC OS from. It’s simple, snappy, and just £119 – a great way to get started.

For those who want a little more flexibility, our mid-range kit expands to a 140mm x 120mm footprint and includes a more versatile selection of ports, 32GB of eMMC storage, 128GB of NVMe storage and USB-C and barrel jack power options – ideal for more advanced projects, priced at £179.

At the top end of the range is our DIY powerhouse system, featuring a 2.2GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC, a 256GB NVMe drive, and a custom designed wooden case that you can finish and personalise yourself. It’s the ideal choice for users who want customisability without sacrificing power or style, available for £199.

All kits come with pre-configured software, essential components, clear instructions, and zero soldering required. Just add your own screwdriver – and maybe a cup of tea!

For more details, see our new website at www.riscosbits.co.uk

Showcases at RISC OS London

We’ll also be lifting the lid on two exciting new developments currently in the works. First up is a brand new dual-OS computer system, mini.BOB. This little beast synergises the best hardware elements of Linux and RISC OS into one seriously powerful unit, all within a tidy, ultra-small footprint case. If you’ve ever dreamed of a seamless crossover between two platforms in a compact and efficient package, this might just be it.

We’ll be demonstrating the results of our ongoing work in enhancing NVMe functionality across the RISC OS platform. Rather than just chasing numbers, we’ve been focusing on real-world usability and integration – from more reliable file handling and faster boot times to improved support for large storage volumes and smoother performance under pressure. At the show, you’ll be able to see how NVMe, when properly harnessed, makes RISC OS feel more modern, stable, and capable than ever before.

We’ll have our custom wood panelled ITX cases available to take away. In either 5 litre or 8 litre capacity, these beautiful little cases make your otherwise anonymous systems really stand out. Designed as a DIY kit, they come as both a fully matt acrylic case or one with wooden front and top panels, also adding a two port USB header converter. Ideal for CM4IO based systems.

And if you want a flash but quality keyboard for your RISC OS needs, we’ll have some on sale that will literally flash – if you ask them to!

With individually backlit near silent Cherry Red MX keys, you can emulate the Retro look of an A3000. And with a few keystrokes, an A3010! That’s right, you can colour each individual key to whatever colour you want.

And, of course, we’ve got a couple of other developments we’ve been quietly refining in the background – ideas and innovations that have kept us excited at RISCOSbits HQ, and we can’t wait to share. Maybe even a throwback to 2005, “adjusted” for the modern 32bit world.

We’ll be showing off, for you to order on the day at special Show prices, our ECOS and ECOfile range of companion systems, to enhance your RISC OS experience by using the best of other OSes.

We’ll also have a selection of clearance stock at bargain prices, some lovely stickers and badges, also available at special low prices. Plus a few other decorative items that we’ll share in due course.

Whether you’re a long-time RISC OS veteran or completely new to the scene, the RISC OS London Show is the perfect opportunity to see the latest developments, chat with us, and explore what RISCOSbits has to offer. We’re excited to bring something for everyone—and we look forward to seeing you in Harrow!

RISCOSbits’ London treasure trove

It’s now only a few more days until this year’s RISC OS London Show, which will take place on Saturday, 25th October, at the Harrow District Masonic Centre – and last night was the latest RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting, at which RISCOSbits gave us a teaser of what to expect from them at the show. So here’s a more detailed run down directly from the horse’s mouth RISCOSbits keyboard: We are pleased to announce that RISCOSbits will be exhibiting at the RISC OS London Show on…

URI Launch Sometimes Fails

Oops, yes. He was very happy for the first release to be any number I chose at random under 1.00 (or indeed over 1.00, but the conversation was about under).

@iconbar.com

Fireworkz Pro 2 version 2.33.00 released

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Fireworkz_Pro_2_version_2.33.00_released/index2245.html

R-Comp has released a free update for Fireworkz Pro.

@colinhoad.com

Another weekend, another retro event! Here's my little report from ABUG South, October 2025: youtu.be/B6TegM0ffnshttps://youtu.be/B6TegM0ffns

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Take a look at this great video by the Slow Mo Guys. They explain how arcade game displays work - regular CRT and also Vector based ones. Without doubt the best explanation I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJVpYL44jUQ

Fireworkz Pro 2 version 2.33.00 released

R-Comp has released a free update for Fireworkz Pro

Fireworkz Pro 2 reaches version 2.33.00

A new version of Fireworkz Pro 2 has been released by R-Comp (with availability via !Store and on CD at the RISC OS London Show on Saturday, 25th October). Over to Andrew Rawnsley for more details: We are pleased to announce the release of Fireworkz Pro version 2.33.00 as a free upgrade for existing users of 2.3x series. It is available to download now on !Store – look in your “My Software”. The new version includes a number of changes including: Improved load / save performance on modern systems (helpful…

@archiveriscos.bsky.social

In the new issue of Archive Magazine, we sit down with none other than Hermann Hauser, the co-founder of Acorn Computers, for an exclusive interview. It's not too late to subscribe! www.archivemag.co.uk

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Fireworkz Pro 2.33.00 released

We are pleased to announce the release of Fireworkz Pro version 2.33.00 as a free upgrade for existing users of 2.3x series. It is available to download now on !Store – look in your “My Software”.

The new version includes a number of changes including:

• Improved load / save performance on modern systems (helpful on SD-based systems)

• VerityMono font (included) is used where monospaced fonts are presently used on systems that don’t have DejaVu Mono already present. This improves on-screen presentation especially for older computers or those running vanilla RISC OS 5.

• No longer leaves hourglass on exit (thank goodness!)

• Updates for national holidays dates in 2026 and 2027

• Improved documentation and example files – updated content, fixed links and extended function examples

• Correct handling of 2-colour toolbar sprites

• Built using latest tools for improved SWI performance, but still compatible with older systems

Overall this new version should perform faster and look nicer than previous versions, whilst fixing some bugs.

Users who qualify for the update can download now on !Store. We’ll also have CD versions (can be put on USB stick too, but bring your stick as we’ll only have larger ones for sale) at the London Show for people looking for physical copies. Existing users can purchase the CD/physical edition for a very low cost making it an ideal show-trinket, whilst other folks can take advantage of show prices on upgrades/full copies.

Fireworkz Pro 2 is an office suite for RISC OS with word processor, spreadsheet and database facilities. Its spreadsheet elements are particularly strong with Excel import/export. Tabling facilities make it ideal for use with DTP packages like Impression/Ovation with data-driven “live” tables and charts. Web/HTML export is also included as well as PDF facilities.

The software is supplied with several manuals and many examples, tutorials and reference files.

For more information, please look for it on !Store.

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 19th October at 1pm.

Mostly good session. The OS_* SWIs were implemented (OS_ReadVarVal and OS_SetVarVal), and seem to be working ok. Error numbers were set properly, and code variables are now implemented. However, they’re only working in 32bit RISC OS. 64bit RISC OS has a different interface, which I’ve implemented, but quite apart from the code variables, I seem to be getting errors back oddly. I suspect that’s CMunge, but I’m not completely sure. I’m investigating.

Fetching Failure

Afraid I’m not understanding the above sufficiently to understand how/why I can dodge pass this roadblock and download the files from Adobe using the RO browers or wget. I’ve experimented, but no cigars! :-/ I did try the unpacked URL with wget, but again, nuffink..

That said, I’ve clearly lost from my mind (sic) quite a lot. A parallel to this is that I find when I open the Imperium zips the files ending with “\doc” get filetyped as ‘text’ when I need them set to “msword” to load correctly into !TechWriter and have the markup enacted and any references to illusrations loaded into the TW display/output. I should know this, but then I’ve started to forget how much I’ve forgotten. Age…. 8-/…

Important travel update for the London Show

If you’re coming to the RISC OS London Show, which at the time of writing will take place in just six days, the organisers have posted an important update for people using public transport: For those planning to travel by tube, note that the Bakerloo Line through Kenton station is closed on the day of the show. Trains from Watford And Euston to Kenton are still running. Use the Metropolitan Line to Northwick Park station instead, it is only slightly further away. More info, maps, and walking directions from the…

@nemo20000.bsky.social

This fun little game has legs, unlike its protagonist. Just needs lots more levels. Snake+gravity:https://si-nk.itch.io/non-mewtonian-cat

Rougol October 2025 meeting on monday - RISCOSbits Preshow teaser

We will also be joined by Chris Johns to talk about porting his block drivers to the RObits FAST systems. Two talks for the price of one

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Just under four weeks to go until the Retro Computer Festival Gaming Edition weekend! I shall be exhibiting alongside fellow Software Creations game developer @breakintoprogram.co.uk so please come along and say hello. I shall be showing how BBC Micro games were developed back in the day.

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RISCOSbits pre-show teaser at ROUGOL, Mon 20th Oct 2025

The next meeting of the RISC OS User Group Of London is:

RISCOSbits pre-show teaser, presented by Andy Marks and special guest

Monday 20th October 2025, 7.45pm

The Duke of Sussex

(upstairs in the Chichester or Petworth Room from 6.30pm)

23 Baylis Road, London, SE1 7AY

http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/venue.html

Also online via Zoom from 7.30pm

https://rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/

RISCOSbits always has interesting new products with imaginative names to release at the RISC OS London Show which is coming up on Saturday 25th October, and this is your chance to hear Andy Marks give a sneak preview of what to expect. We will also be joined by Chris Johns to talk about porting his block drivers to the RObits FAST systems.

Andy has posted a list of the machines you definitely will see at the show elsewhere on the forum with contact details for reserving one to take away with you!

Our venue is right next to Waterloo Station and there is parking directly outside. Directions here – https://rougol.jellybaby.net/venue.html

For any queries or to receive the Zoom link (same as previous months) contact us – https://rougol.jellybaby.net/contacts/

Bryan.

@rougol.bsky.social

That's the one!

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@colinhoad.com

"might" 😂

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Any druids out there need a BBC Micro? Or maybe it's one for any fans of hieroglyphs? Or perhaps it's just made up!

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RISCOSbits comes to London almost a week early

Keen, or what? Okay, so technically Andy Marks from RISCOSbits might not actually be in London (but on the other hand, it’s possible that he might be1). Either way, in-person or appearing virtually, he will be the guest speaker for the next RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting, which will take place on the evening of Monday, 20th October. With the RISC OS London Show taking place only a few days later – Saturday, 25th October – the meeting is billed as the RISCOSbits pre-show teaser, at which…

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

We were working on a SNES 'Taz' game at Software Creations in about 1993/4 and all that remains of the game are these three Taz sprite frames. That may change if I uncover any other artwork. I believe these were drawn/animated by Andy Wilson ( RIP ). Andy is at the front in the photo.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

PKXARC that's a name I've not heard in a long time. Along with ARJ, RAR and LZH format files.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Over 40 years ago we played 'Hopper' on the BBC Micro/Acorn Electron and 'Frogger' in the arcades. Today it's become 'Crossy Road' for mobiles and tablets. There was a rumour that 'Hopper' was named after Andy Hopper, a senior employee at Acorn Computers in the early 80s. Very likely a myth!

@iconbar.com

Discover Merlin and other projects at RISC OS London Show next Saturday

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Discover_Merlin_and_other_projects_at_RISC_OS_London_Show_next_saturday/index2241.html

The RISC OS London Show is next Saturday and there will be lots to see!

Discover Merlin and other projects at RISC OS London Show next saturday

The RISC OS London Show is next Saturday and there will be lots to see

@nemo20000.bsky.social

🎦 This was superb. Best film I've seen for a long time. Cynical, paranoid, transactional, and utterly cinematic. BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime.

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

When you saw the Acornsoft MODE 7 loading screen you knew you were about to play a great game! A sign of quality. In 1986, Acornsoft and Superior Software joined ranks and games were released with both companies names present on the packaging.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

50% over the speed limit. That'd be an immediate ban in the UK.

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@iconbar.com

Rougol October 2025 meeting on monday - RISCSObits Preshow teaser

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/Rougol_October_2025_meeting_on_monday_-_RISCSObits_Preshow_teaser/index2237.html

The October 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and is billed as a pre-show teaser from RISCOSbits.

@colinhoad.com

ABUG South is go! #toomanymachines #nosuchthing

@archiveriscos.bsky.social

Archive Magazine Oct/Nov 2025 issue is out now! Archive is the magazine for RISC OS users. It's not too late to subscribe and get the latest issue - see www.archivemag.co.uk/subscriptions.html for details. Worldwide subscriptions available! #riscos #raspberypi #opensource

@nemo20000.bsky.social

LOL!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

This defence of LLMs is really a damning indictment of interface design - the fact that humans have to resort to ML pattern matching to satisfy the arcane requirements of APIs *designed by humans* is caused by the gulf between the conceptual requirement of the author and the bureaucracy of API cruft

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Rougol October 2025 meeting on monday - RISCOSbits Preshow teaser

The October 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and is billed as a pre-show teaser from RISCOSbits

@colinhoad.com

Realising I have now reached the stage of attending retro events where I pack things *to give away* 😆

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Yay! A RISC OS laptop that isn't an inch thick (unlike my other Dell). This one only has 4 cores though...

Not that RISC OS would notice! 🤭

[now to deploy AHK to fix the Fn-Menu keypress 😡]

@riscosbits.co.uk

A delicious custom walnut Chimera for a customer at the #RISCOSLondonShow2025

The photos really don't do it justice.

#RISC_OS #custombuild

@nemo20000.bsky.social

The last hurrah for the current Q50 Skyline will be a 400hp special. Seems quaint in the EV era - even a little MG4 XPower would trounce it.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

31st December, 1989 ( New Year's Eve ) and I was finalising the CES demo of NES Silver Surfer. It was an early build of the game featuring only 6 playable levels. This document describes a cheat-mode you can activate to make the Silver Surfer invincible! This was removed in the final release.

TrainTimes 2.08 arriving now

Having recently updated TrainTimes to version 2.07, Kevin Wells has already brought out another new version of his application for checking up on railway timetables and other related information. Version 2.08 sees the addition of ticket office opening times to the station details window. Kevin has also dealt with an oversight in the previous release, whereby he hadn’t taken into account of stations being added, changed, or deleted when allowing station details to be viewed from a sub-menu in the Change Station section of the application. Like many of Kevin’s…

A5000 new motherboard

Seems someone has a go at recreating a A5000 motherboard Ref ‘Stardot’ – I wonder if there is room for a 8Mb upgrade to be designed in :-)

The London Show is less than 2 weeks away....

Train times for Kenton for the day

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I have a BBC Master 128 with USB, IDE and an internal HD. I have also added a Rasberry PiCoPro to it so I can run ARM, 32016, Z80 and 80186 code on it! It's great that people keep old hardware alive by making cool stuff like this!

RISCOSbits asks that you get your London Show Special Reserve orders in now

Sadly, though, they’re not asking everyone for their drinks orders for the day. It’s now a touch under two weeks (or is it a touch over one and a half?) until this year’s London Show, which takes place on the 25th October at the Harrow District Masonic Centre, and it’s time for another exhibitor announcement – this time from RISCOSbits. It seems that the team at RISCOSbits will shortly be taking “an impromptu, badly timed and slightly inconvenient holiday, immediately before the show,” which means there won’t be enough time…

@iconbar.com

London Show 2025: Pre-Reserve Your RISCOSbits Hardware for collection

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/London_Show_2025_Pre-Reserve_Your_RISCOSbits_Hardware_for_collection/index2242.html

RISCOSbits are prioritising having pre-built systems for customers over a general selection.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Are you old enough to remember these connectors? The joy of climbing under your desk looking for loose connections when the network disappears!

Image from https://flylib.com/books/en/1.152.1.40/1/

@colinhoad.com

This is a professor at the University of Illinois.

Why on earth are the big tech companies being given this kind of priority over every other energy need? It's totally mad.

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RPCEmu run in Haiku

Can someone post this? I would like to try it on my Haiku machine.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Probably the best, fastest 8-bit computer I've ever used. A Master Turbo ( 4MHz 65c102 ) + 28MByte Hard Drive. Perfect for BBC Micro game development. Made obsolete with the arrival of the Acorn Archimedes range in June 1987. That jump from 8-bit to 32-bit was massive!

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Microsoft ends support for Windows 10 today, October 14th 2025. Windows 11 doesn't work on 3 of my PCs due to CPU incompatibilities. However, I shall keep running Win10 on them now as they are used for lots of retro related stuff. I know I can 'force' an upgrade, but they may break in the future.

London Show 2025: Pre-Reserve Your RISCOSbits Hardware for collection

RISCOSbits are prioritising having pre-built systems for customers over a general selection. So, if you are looking to acquire one of their very desirable systems at the show, you can reserve a system to collect. This also means they can spec it exactly as you want!

@riscosbits.co.uk

RISCOSbits Special Reserve: https://riscosopen.org/forum/forums/1/topics/20052

#riscoslondonshow2025 #risc_os

@iconbar.com

The London Show is less than 2 weeks away....

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/The_London_Show_is_less_than_2_weeks_away..../index2240.html

And Tony (Amcog Games) has a really great 2 minute video on youtube promoting it...

RISCOSbits Special Reserve at London 2025

It’s okay. We’re not launching a RISCOSbits Whisky at the show, it’s just your chance to reserve items from our Show Stock.

Due to an impromptu, badly timed and slightly inconvenient holiday, immediately before the show, we’re out of time to take orders to build up pre-ordered machines to be collected on the day.

So to make amends, we’re offering a chance to reserve items for purchase on the day. We’ll have the following items on sale:

VENOM – premium compact NVMe machine

FAST NVMe – another excellent premium NVMe machine in a full Mini ITX case

DIY Systems – we have the ONE, TWO, and THREE systems available to reserve

Chimera – a multi-headed machine with a special free surprise for the show!

PiRO Qube – the smallest NVMe machine possible!

eNVy.Me – a modern, lightning blue NVMe system with a unique case

FASTFIRE – our speedy SATA machine with multi-disc capabilities. The fastest true multi-disc systems available.

We’ll also have a few late additions to our usual range with bumped up specs. Plus a range of very new things that should signal it’s worth making the case for visiting us at the show. But we’re not putting those up for reserve. You’ll have to coast on over for those.

To reserve your item, drop us an email at london2025@riscosbits.co.uk to let us know what you’d like us to hold for you.

Reservations will be made on a first come, first served basis. All we ask is that you collect your reserved items by 1pm on the day so we don’t have to disappoint too many people!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

"Get your hand off my pelt"

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Another "I'd like to run RISC OS on that but I probably shouldn't"

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Aargh. If you're going to heat a sealed drum of oil, please don't do it with a non-compliant unattended heater with no redundant safety mechanism.

Unless you want to explode your fabrics printing factory. Again.

[a calender is a rolling machine]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyl9x1428vo.amp

@colinhoad.com

Fun and games repairing vintage Mac Classics and Acorn cheese wedge units at the @tnmoc.bsky.social "Mac & Cheese" Fixathon event over the weekend! youtu.be/O8U1R_09FDIhttps://youtu.be/O8U1R_09FDI

TrainTimes Chugs Along To Version 2.08

My train time table application for RISC OS called TrainTimes has had a couple of tweaks making it now version 2.08 New in this version is that it is now possible on the Station Details window to see th eopening times of the ticket office. The tweak was that when I introduced the station details … Continue reading "TrainTimes Chugs Along To Version 2.08"

The London Show is less than 2 weeks away....

And Tony (Amcog Games) has a really great 2 minute video on youtube promoting it....

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

42 years ago 'Atomic Protector', for the BBC Micro, was published by Optima Software. A sister company of Database Publications, the people behind 'The Micro User'. The development team was myself and Martin Galway - this was our very first published game. We were 17 and studying for our A-levels.

RPCEmu 0.95 o Fedora KDE 42 is it possible to connect a Joystick

Hi Alan,

I wrote USBJoystick, however it is only suitable for ‘native’ RISC OS hardware – not emulators. It talks to the built-in USB stack in RISC OS 5 and maps HID devices to the old Acorn joystick API. So if you had, for example, a Raspberry Pi running RISC OS, then you could plug in a USB controller, and it would ‘just work’.

RPCEmu is a hardware emulator of an Acorn Risc PC. Those machines didn’t come with USB (they pre-date it!). You would need RPCEmu to provide some sort of USB-compatibility-layer, which would let USBJoystick work. Or perhaps with less effort, RPCEmu could emulate the Acorn joystick API using whatever the underlying system (Linux, Windows or macOS) supports.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

This is pure gold. A who's who guide to the staff at Sinclair Research Limited, from 1984. Photos and details for everyone at the various offices around the UK. There's some great hairstyles and clothing - you have been warned!https://www.sinclairql.net/downloads/1984-00_Who's_who_at_Sinclair-OCRed-SQPP.pdf

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

This is a typical day at the office when you are a graphics programmer. 'Spammy polys' that need debugging to see what the heck has gone wrong with the shaders! Usually easy to track down if you have a decent GFX debugger / capture system.

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WebP and ImageMagick

Thanks for confirmation! I’ve updated the ROAST article.

How to set objasm debug options for the Econet module source

There is a thread over on stardot regarding getting an ADF10 Econet module to work on a UNIPOD, it presents anecdotal evidence that this been done successfully before but evidently lost without trace.

https://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29655

I have long wondered about that and in a moment of weakness decided to have a look at it.

SO far I have taken the Econet module source from the IOMD build of RISC OS 5 from my RasPi over to a SA RPC with a unipod, and up to date ROOLDDE, where I can build it out of the RISC OS source tree by dropping its make file into amu.

This results in several targets RMs including Econet, EconetSA & EconetD. The EconetSA module works on anther SA RPC with an Acorn AEH60 Econet module, so that’s a good start at any rate.

In the source I can see quite a lot of extra debugging output, particularly around scanning the podules for the right one, an area that I need to rework first. But running EconetD does not result in any debugging output, and nor actually are any of the strings I can see in this code present in the binary.

I have not used objasm before and never explored this mire of macros.

I can see in code section below what appears to be conditional assembly dependent on ‘DebugFindHardware’

FindPoduleLoop

DECS r3

BMI AddressUnknown

[ DebugFindHardware

BREG r3, “Podule_ReadInfo: R3 = &”

]

Push “r10, r11, r14”

MOV r0, #Podule_ReadInfo_SyncBase + Podule_ReadInfo_ID + Podule_ReadInfo_Type

MOV r1, sp

MOV r2, #3*4

SWI XPodule_ReadInfo

Pull “r10, r11, r14”

[ DebugFindHardware

DREG r10, “Synchronous base address = &”

BREG r11, “ID = &”

DREG r14, “Type = &”

]

BVS FindPoduleLoop

BIC r11, r11, #2_101 ; Knock out FIQ/IRQ request bits

TEQ r11, #SimpleType_Econet:SHL:3

BEQ AddressKnown

TEQ r11, #SimpleType_Extended:SHL:3

TEQEQ r14, #ProdType_Econet

BEQ AddressKnown

B FindPoduleLoop

AddressUnknown

LDR r10, =EconetController ; Default for internal hardware

AddressKnown

[ DebugFindHardware

DREG r10, “Address we are using = &”

]

I can see that ‘DebugFindHardware’ appears to be set in this line but I am not making any sense of it:

DebugFindHardware SETL (:LNOT: ReleaseVersion) :LAND: {FALSE}

The make file does not seem to hint at how debug options are set either.

What am I missing here?

Alan

Status update for RISC OS 64-bit work

I’ve also tried to ensure that components which build as 64-bit are marked explicitly with the ‘riscos64’ label on GitHub.

Scheduled downtime

All back now, so unpinning this.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The 'alternative' 6502 mnemonics where letters are added to the standard mnemonic to specify the addressing mode - eg LDAIM 100

This format came about because existing macro assemblers could be easily adapted to support the 6502 processor. MOS, the makers of the 6502, didn't support this format.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

"Mutant Hunter / Ghostmaker" design and renders from the development disks for "X2 : Wolverine's Revenge". Original design artwork by Han Randhawa.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

TFW you've spent £50,000 to drive round in an advert. It's bad enough when it was just for naziism... but Jared Leto?! Can you imagine.

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Why is every in the twenty first century made by people who have no idea what a should do?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

My TV: "Oh, the PlayStation has just switched on! I should wake up and display... the Sky box. Yes that's what I should do."

Later: "You seem to be playing some kind of game. I bet it'd be much better in GAME MODE! Just let me conveniently blank the screen for three seconds while I think about it."https://media.tenor.com/GugokSc3Q4EAAAAC/risa-bezos-speedball.gif?hh=331&ww=498

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

It's always fun reading through old computer magazines. This issue of creative computing is from January 1979 - published in the USA. I love the adverts.

Hacktoberfest 2025

@Paolo

As you are the only user of !Diderot, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have made a small update.

From the panel, open !Reporter and kill the application task, Access to the Resources file with Adjust on the Res button.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

One of my favourite consoles, the Hudson Soft / NEC PC-Engine! Known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North America where, for some reason, it was re-housed in a large, ugly dark coloured case! Games were sold on slim HuCard cartridges and also CD-ROM, if you purchased the external drive. R-Type was amazing!

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I wonder how many people have heard of the Bally Astrocade ( AKA Bally Computer System ). Initially released in 1978. It has a really novel controller and is powered by a Z80 processor. Sadly, it didn't have the success of the Atari VCS/2600. Only 41 cartridge based games exist for it.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

One of the most difficult BBC Micro books to obtain. Is there anyone out there that has a copy? I managed to get an ex-library copy that was re-bound. Curious to know how many are actually around. It was withdrawn from sale for legal reasons - it contained an annotated disassembly of BBC BASIC.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Programming. "That module's annoying". Rewrite module. Rebuild with new data. "That nemoBasic feature is annoying". Rewrite nemoBasic. TaskWindow misbehaves. "That ZapMode is annoying". Rewriting ZapBasic.

This is why I get nothing done - I'm too busy being annoyed.

WROCC October 2025 meeting - R-Comp and ROD Show teaser

Talk video is now available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2wxbdxIayE

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Yes Dwayne, but can you control the box office?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

NOT a new version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" from Amazon, BBC or Netflix... But it bloody should be.

Is Tom Bell the best Ford Prefect yet?https://youtu.be/-431pDOiYRQ?si=ZKwJVDmuKgS703FU

@colinhoad.com

I know I post a lot of stuff about generative AI and how much I dislike it. So for a change I'm going to write this thread in celebration of the many creative people I've had the good fortune of getting to know and interact with over the past couple of years. Real human creators producing real art.

@colinhoad.com

I'm confused, does he think that's a bad thing?

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

NES Silver Surfer review in Electronic Gaming. Difficulty rating AVERAGE. Yes, Average!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Are we doomed to a lifetime of unnecessary sequels from people who misunderstood the original, if indeed they had bothered to watch it at all?https://www.ign.com/articles/tron-ares-review

Any ARM Debuggers Ported to RO5 ?

Thanks to David Feugey for allowing me to use a sub-domain on his ‘riscos.fr’ website, I am releasing a 32-bit Risc OS 5 version of !ARM_Debug. Anybody interested can now have a ‘play’.

This is 32-bit version of Theo Van Der Boogaert’s original RO4 standalone debugger and works independently of the DDE (or whatever). It does require RISC OS 5 to run though:

https://www.fladda.riscos.fr/

This is a first ‘beta’ release and contains some known bugs and no doubt some unknown bugs. All comments welcome.

I next plan to look at implementing SPSR (SVC and USR) support and possibly some co-processor instruction support (these instructions appear to be used in the RO5 kernel).

Ralph

@nemo20000.bsky.social

USR in RISC OS nemoBasic acts as a string operator modifier, causing the string(s) to be treated as UTF-8 instead of bytes. This even applies to the comparison operators, which deal sensibly with malformed UTF-8 sequences (as you can never trust input).

(example uses EXP to expand C-style strings)

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

🚀 #Hacktoberfest2025 is here! Join the #RISC_OS Community on #GitHub, contribute, earn prizes & badges, and help push RISC OS development forward. Start here 👉 https://github.com/RISC-OS-Community Or check this one: https://github.com/pzaino/risc-os-corelib ☕️ Have fun & happy hacking! 😍

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I'm sorry what pardon? "Stuff happens" 🤷

https://www.gov.uk/maib-reports/grounding-and-subsequent-loss-of-the-dive-support-vessel-jean-elaine

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

More digging in my old BBC Micro and Acorn Electron development disks. This time I've finally managed to re-produce the workflow used to get the sprite editor working. My friend Paul Proctor used the Computer Concepts Graphics Extension ROM to create the sprites for the Electron version of Galaforce

@colinhoad.com

AI slop videos are like the very worst kind of TV advert: plenty of people out there seem to want to make them, but almost nobody wants to actually watch them.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Check out 'Orion Patrol' for the BBC Micro. A very clever 'Zarch-a-like' game by Angus Hughes ( 2025 ).

https://www.bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=4544

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

A thing of beauty! The Commodore PET 2001 with chiclet keyboard and integrated monitor + tape deck. 8K Bytes of RAM was more than enough. The first computer I ever used. I learnt BASIC and 6502 machine code on it. Thanks to Pete Davidson, my amazing Computer Studies teacher. Post your first computer

The 2025 London Show is less than 3 weeks away...

News from Archive is that the new issue of Archive (Volume 27 Issue 6) will be dispatched this month (October), after several false starts over the summer, dropping through letterboxes in advance of the London Show to help get the word out.

MakeDraw

MakeDraw has been updated to version 2.84 which increases the maximum number of nested groups to 256 (from 64). It also now ignores draw object types &500, &510, &2020, &2030 and &2032 when a Draw file exported from RiscOSM is the subject of a PROCmdInclude() call. This allows, once again, maps exported from RiscOSM to be included in another Draw file being created.

Updated on my web site, !Store and !PackMan.

MultiTask

MultiTask has been updated to version 7.76 and now disassembles a few more Draw file object types. It will also concatenate consecutive PROCmdTextTran items such as individual characters in a Draw file exported from !PDF and group them in a named group object so that they can be used as hot links. Transformed sprite objects are now also saved but without the transformation matrix.

Updated on my web site and on !Store.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

This weirdness in BBC Basic was theoretically fixed ages ago in nemoBasic but an unrelated typo futzed it in a different way.

I’ve just picked the bones out of that other feature and hence this started working correctly. Small victories.

@iconbar.com

The 2025 London Show is less than 3 weeks away...

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/The_2025_London_Show_is_less_than_3_weeks_away.../index2238.html

It's now less than 3 weeks to go until the 2025 London Show!

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Here are the computer hardware and software charts from November 1983 - PCN Magazine, UK. There were so many computers to choose from back then. Many disappeared without a trace, but the Spectrum, Commodore and BBC Micro sold really well. Great games available from Ultimate, Imagine, Bug Byte etc.

The 2025 London Show is less than 3 weeks away...

It's now less than 3 weeks to go until the 2025 London Show.....

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 5th October at 1pm.

Good session again today. New features added:

• Updating variables.
• Setting and reading macro variables.
• Deleting variables.
• Enumerating variables.

There will be NO session next weekend (Sunday 12th), as I’m busy. But the following week I’ll be adding code variables, and hopefully introducing the OS SWI claims.

Today 3.20 Released

I’m pleased to announce the release of Today version 3.20. The application lists events that have taken place (or will take place) on a given date. It contains a database of historical information, to which additional dates and personal anniversaries can be added.

Originally written by James Miskin, I produced a 32-bit update in 2006. Almost 20 years later, following a question at RISC OS North back in March, I went on a hunt for the source code, dusted it off, and have produced a new version with the following changes:

• The application has been built with a toolchain known to be ARMv7 compatible.
• There is now a Help… entry in the main and iconbar menus.
• The date shown in the scan window is updated when the system clock changes day, so long as the window was previously on the current day.
• The upper bound for the day of the month is correctly set when opening the event window.
• A minimum window size is applied when setting the extent of the scan and search windows, to avoid the search results being hidden.

A copy of version 3.20 can be found on my website, at https://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/risc-os/today. It has also been added — finally — to the PlingStore, and if I’ve managed to find the correct incantations it should also show up in PackMan over the next few days.

Originally released into the Public Domain by James, I have applied version 1.2 of the EUPL to the new release to make its status clear, and the source code can finally be found amongst my other projects on GitHub at https://github.com/steve-fryatt/today

@colinhoad.com

Cheers, @lordarse.com! Time to find out what all the fuss is about... 😉

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Only 20 days to the #RISC_OS London Show! And Next @RISCOSitory post about it: https://www.riscository.com/2025/zfp-systems-london-show/

New version of !GoL

For those who are interested in Conway’s Game of Life, I’d like to point to a new version of !GoL, that now more or less supports colour, as seen here

!GoL is at 3.55, and can be downloaded from www.riscos.sprie.nl – or directly from a fairly recent version of !GoL.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I'm currently working out what to show at next month's Retro Computer Festival ( Gaming Edition ) at the Centre for Computing History. I'm bringing along a Master 128 or BBC Micro and will focus on game development for those machines. Does anyone have any suggestions?

https://bsky.app/profile/computinghistory.org.uk/post/3m2cepagh722d

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

I was just thinking "'Snoino' is an unusual brand name"...

@colinhoad.com

The first line of the blurb and he seems to be suggesting the BBC itself got into a fight with Sinclair in order to launch their own computer literacy project. No mention of Acorn.

@colinhoad.com

Just been to see this, it was FANTASTIC! Both actors portrayed Sugar and Sinclair incredibly well and it had a lot of humour and heart. Thoroughly enjoyed it, catch them if you can, only one show left apparently...

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ZFP Systems at the London Show

It’s now just three weeks to go until this year’s London Show, which takes place at the Harrow District Masonic Centre on 25th October, and the first announcement from an exhibitor has already landed in the RISCOSitory bunker. In fact, the email arrived before last week’s post about the show, so keen was Paolo Zaino, the exhibitor in question, but I deliberately held it back so that it came after the show preview. Using the name ZFP Systems (the brand under which he originally provided professional services to retail outlets…

Ensuring an adequate Shared C Library version

Paraphrasing the section “Ensuring the necessary components are present” on page 354 of the C/C++ manual

Just in case anyone else is looking for it, that section is on page 324 in the most recent manual that I’m aware of.

Oops, yes, my brain must have flipped the 2 to a 5. Page 354 is entirely blank!

@iconbar.com

WROCC October 2025 meeting - R-Comp and ROD Show teaser

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/WROCC_October_2025_meeting_-_R-Comp_and_ROD_Show_teaser/index2239.html

Wakefield's October speaker was Andrew Rawnsley from R-Comp, giving us some updates and teasers for the London Show (in case you need more reasons to attend!)

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Happy 39th Birthday to Galaforce - I'm a bit late. Seems like only yesterday when I was working on this game. Launched in September 1986 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, published by Superior Software. Music and SFX by Martin Galway, our 2nd game together. Addditional artwork by Paul Proctor.

@colinhoad.com

You know, you read stuff like this and wonder how it is that these people ever managed to stand up a company in the first place. Do their brains turn into blue cheese after making a few billion or were they always like this deep down? Just utter, utter bullshit. Laughably so.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Superior Software placed this advert in several computer magazines in 1987 to find new software to publish. 8-bit home computer software sales were in decline and it was hard to find the right software. Their book 'Success in Software' was a very informative guide for would-be game developers.

@colinhoad.com

CORRECTION: one third of a surveymonkey poll conducted online with ~1000 respondents.

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@colinhoad.com

Someone shared this with me earlier, and it's a reminder of just how wonderful she was. The sheer glee of her performance here is infectious. youtube.com/watch?v=UKTviQNM6KAhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=UKTviQNM6KA

@colinhoad.com

BBC News - Keeping Up Appearances star Patricia Routledge dies at 96https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czdjegvjz3do

Rest in peace, she was an absolute star

@colinhoad.com

Woke up this morning to find my phone auto-downloading a 3.2GB update called "Samsung Language Core", apparently a local language module for "AI services". No. Didn't ask for, do not want. Companies must stop pushing this crap on users who aren't interested!

An overlooked Wiki feature?

Almost immediately after writing the previous message I had some ideas for some quite convoluted CSS, which does in fact do a half-decent job of PRM-like indent (within reason, since screen != printed media) via this excitement:

https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/website/instiki/-/merge_…

…so that’s live now. Checking the previously-posted examples with a forced reload should do the trick. It does still get tripped up if there’s a Category reference at the top of the page, though.

APDL make their PD catalogue available for free download

Using XMP and ffmpeg I threw together a little bash script and bingo! MP3s of all my old tracker mods!

September 2025 News Summary

(Double posted fir done reason)

September 2025 News Summary

As well as having produced a Debugger module in the live coding, I've also shown how a replacement module can be built and tested using modern tools. Although obviously the videos are long, the entire process of building the module was done during those sessions.

WROCC October 2025 meeting - R-Comp and ROD Show teaser

Wakefield's October speaker was Andrew Rawnsley from R-Comp, giving us some updates and teasers for the London Show (in case you need more reasons to attend the Show!)

Printing

Let’s be careful here. The printer hasn’t been disabled; the ink cartridges have. I bought a pair of HP ink cartridges (one black, one 3-colour) from Amazon, fitted them, and the printer is OK again.

What are you doing with RISC OS?

I’ve updated my ToolboxC++Lib to include ToolboxScrollList, ToolboxTab and ToolboxTreeView. However, only ToolboxScrollList has had a simple functional test, but it works.

Sources can be found on GitHub

The documentation in the docs directory was created using Doxygen and doesn’t work directly from GitHub, has to be downloaded and viewed locally.

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

'the hell? it's 4:36am... lol anyway, new UltimaVM PUSH/POP register range fast memory copy is done and there is also a little "twist" POP supports both strick LIFO (like the JVM) and natural order (like the ARM). Had to finish so late, because I had a hell of a busy day at work... Need some sleep!

@colinhoad.com

From the FT: OpenAI spent more on marketing and equity options for its employees than it made in revenue in the first half of 2025.

Incredible.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Again with the crashing. #BugReport

Rougol September 2025 meeting on monday - Publishing with Ovation Pro

For anyone who didn't make the talk on the night and may be interested in seeing it, ROUGOL made a recording which is available to watch on YouTube

@colinhoad.com

That last reskeet is taken from Cory Doctorow's (@pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy) excellent post here: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/

Well worth reading in full, he's distilled the economic insanity of AI perfectly.

WROCC October 2025 talk on Wednesday - R-Comp

Me too.

Publishing with Ovation Pro at ROUGOL, Mon 15th Sept 2025

Wouldn’t !Murnong by Christopher Martin do that?

WROCC October 2025 talk on Wednesday - R-Comp

I'm looking forward to it!

2025 Creating a build environment for RISC OS on Linux

I’m surprised that no one hasn’t had a go at making a RO ROM with Linux tools! – instead of using a Emulator.

@rougol.bsky.social

The RISC OS London Show is now just under four weeks away! Preview from RISCOSitory - https://www.riscository.com/2025/london-show-four-weeks/

@rougol.bsky.social

For those who missed it, Gavin's excellent talk can now be watched here youtu.be/NmZSXjij7x4

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@nemo20000.bsky.social

Not the Onion

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Added #JVM Stack Operations mapping to my #UltimaVM (see link). But I am thinking of adding indirect adressing:

PUSH.U64 [r0-r1] Push mem val from addr in r0 to addr in r1 PUSH.F32 [r0] Push val at mem addr in r0

tinyurl.com/JVMToUltimaVM #bytecode #VirtualMachine #Coding #Programming #VM #RISC_OShttps://tinyurl.com/JVMToUltimaVM

RPi 500+

if your audience would find it easier to do something another way, and you actively choose to do something different… then you are failing your audience.

If we take that statement literally then almost everything in RISC OS, old and new, could be seen as “failing” the audience. For example, people have been asking for easier development environments or multi-core support for years, and those needs are still unmet (and after sponsoring 2.5M GBP they still will be unmet apparently!).

That said, I do think Steve has a point.

If someone wanted to organise an online-only event (say a “RISC OS Xmas online show”), I am sure plenty of us could contribute material. The format would mostly be one-way, with prepared videos or live presentations and only limited feedback.

In-person shows, in contrast, work very differently. From my own experience, I get much more direct feedback and can respond to exactly what people are interested in. It also allows for spontaneous conversations that just do not happen online. On Zoom, only one person can really speak at a time, and asking questions in front of a whole audience may not suit everyone.

For example, at the last Bristol show I attended, I was constantly busy with people asking questions, and once the initial “ice” was broken, I had some really valuable and enjoyable conversations. That kind of interaction is very hard to replicate online.

So to me, the two experiences serve different purposes. Online events are valuable, but they cannot replace in-person shows. Even for those of us doing free software rather than running businesses, I think the in-person format offers something unique.

Hence I don’t think the in-person shows are “failing their audience”, I think they are fine and having only two in-person shows per year seems to be a good number given the slow pass in developments that are happening on RISC OS (it’s an old platform and it takes time to build stuff on it). There might be space for an on-line event for who cannot attend the in-person event.

For what concern discussing users issues, I think user-group meetings are still way more valuable (either in person or on-line), given the focus of such meetings.

@iconbar.com

WROCC October 2025 talk on Wednesday - R-Comp

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/WROCC_October_2025_talk_on_Wednesday_-_R-Comp/index2232.html

The October 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 1st October and starts at at 7.45pm on Zoom.

WROCC October 2025 talk on Wednesday - R-Comp

The October 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 1st October and starts at at 7.45pm on Zoom.

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 28th September at 1pm.

Today’s live coding was very successful.

• GSTrans of variables on set now works, meaning that there’s a distinction between type 0 and type 4 variables.
• EvaluateExpression variables (type 3) are now handled on set.
• Number type variables (type 1) are handled on set.
• A new *-command has been added to allow easier debugging of the variables that have been set.
• Simple tests added to check the type, length and returned values from the SWIs have been added. These are run during the CI.
• Fortify is now present in the build, checking that the memory has all been freed (and the memory leaks have been fixed).
• Release 0.02 has been made and, as usual, the binaries are also in the riscos64-status repository.

Missing bits…

• Deleting variables.
• Updating variables.
• Code variables.
• Macro variables.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

This is happening now. It did not used to happen. #BugReport

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Sweden's Nobel-prize-per-Toblerone rate is twice that of Switzerland. 🧐

Meanwhile I'm horrified to see 🇬🇧 being beaten in the chocoholic league by 🇩🇪. Come on lads, I can't do it all on my own!

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

40 years ago The Micro User magazine held a computer show at UMIST (Manchester). Aimed at BBC Micro and Acorn Electron owners these shows were very popular. It was a great place to see the latest hardware and software. WARNING:- you may spot me in this video.

vimeo.com/23537869https://vimeo.com/23537869

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

I've been working on Ovation Pro to add extra scaling options to the picture proxy setting. For those who attended my @rougol.bsky.social talk, I explained the use of proxy images. Base/16, Base/32 & Base/64 now offer even smaller proxies, making for smaller document sizes. #OvationPro #RISC_OS #DTP

@nemo20000.bsky.social

This is not going to become a Lego account, but there was a time when knock-off "compatible" bricks were rubbish.

But now, the Chinese manufacturers are beyond mere reproduction and innovating in a way Lego isn't - producing specialist bricks that AFOLs have been asking Lego for, for years.

Extracting object files from a library

I did discover the source veneer on the gitlab site which @Piers subsequently added a link to in this thread. I was using the emulator, maybe that has something to do with the hanging, haven’t tried on a RPi yet. I found out that the DDE C++ Toolbox library I’m writing had some missing gadgets as I had used the Toolbox documentation. Tabs, ScrollList and TreeView are not included. Returned from holiday so I’m gradually adding them to the library.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I've just booked my table for this years Retro Computer Festival 2025 (Gaming Edition) at The Centre for Computing History, Cambridge - Sat/Sun 15th/16th November.

I shall be exhibiting BBC Micro game development related material. Hope to see you there!

https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/74558/Retro-Computer-Festival-2025-(Gaming-Edition)-Saturday-15th-November/

London Show 2025 – just four weeks to go

Today is Saturday, 27th September, 2025, and I’ve scheduled this post to appear at 11:00am – which means at the time this article appears it will be precisely four weeks to the minute until the doors are open to the public on the 2025 RISC OS London Show, which takes place on Saturday, 25th October. The precise details you need, as a discerning RISC OS user and show visitor, are: Harrow District Masonic Centre,Northwick Circle,Kenton,Harrow,HA3 0EL. The venue has ample (and free) parking for visitors making the trip by car,…

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

🚀 Big week for #theCROWler: v0.9.8 lands this weekend! - Post-processing per rule - Remote app distribution (GitHub deploy coming) - Search API + JDorking - Bug fixes & perf boosts - Docker deploy builds ( #Arm + #Intel / #AMD ) 🔗 https://github.com/pzaino/thecrowler

#Coding #CyberSecurity #ContentDiscovery

CloudFS read error

I can understand the attraction of using pCloud directly from RISC OS. But failing that, if you have a NAS, it may be poossible to get the NAS to connect to pCloud, and then use LanMan98 or NFS to access it from RISC OS until CloudFS is revived.

I actually use this approach anyway now. The reality is this approach also boost performance. I let my Linux box do the sync up in the background, while local share is ultra fast like this and has another advantage, as soon as my ShareFS for Linux is completed and working, I’ll “re-share” my pCloud via ShareFS Server, which means pCLoud for old RISC OS 3 on the Archie as well! ;)

So the RISC OS pCloud client is useful only to who has not a 3rd party Linux box in their network.

Just my 0.5c.

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

In a recent thread on here folks were talking about how useless is #RISC_OS Apps facility. Guys, let me remind that is a thing of the past. We have !Launchpad by years now that fully replace Acorn Apps (even on the old Archimedes) and gives all RO systems same features as macOS and Win 11 Launchpads

@nemo20000.bsky.social

"Scompi, chaps and pizz!" I mispronounce, deliberately; putting myself off the meal I'm making.

@iconbar.com

September 2025 News Summary

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/September_2025_News_Summary/index2233.html

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

A quick video of me unboxing NES Silver Surfer. This is a freebie copy that the team received when the game was launched. It's been sat in a cupboard for over 30 years as I have no way of playing it as it requires an NTSC NES/TV setup. Therefore, it has never been played! Mint condition.

Latest news from R-Comp: WROCC meeting, 1st October

The Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) will be holding their next meeting on Wednesday, 1st October, with Andrew Rawnsley taking centre stage to bring the group up to date with all things R-Comp. Andrew will bring the group up to date with all the latest developments at R-Comp and RCI, and with the London Show (at the time of the meeting) just three and a half weeks away, there’s a chance he may be able to share some details or sneak peaks of new releases for the event. He…

September 2025 News Summary

Fixed. Just checking you were paying attention....

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I know Amazon has many problematic aspects...

But their customer support is *amazing*. They really do value "happy customer" above all else.

September 2025 News Summary

The RISC OS London Show is next *month* not next week, Saturday 25th October to be precise. Don't give everyone a heart attack like that!

September 2025 News Summary

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

Problem reading a USB drive

Is it possible to have a version that prints out the value?

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Just made a big show of trimming the hedge by the car, in the hope it won't freak out next time I drive past it.

🚘🤖 "I have slammed on the emergency brakes to save my precious paintwork from those soft compliant leaves. Be thankful I do not eject you!"⚡

@colinhoad.com

Sam Altman now claiming that if he isn't given enough compute, "hard trade-offs" will have to be made between "providing free education to all" and "curing cancer" - who is buying this flagrant, fraudulent nonsense?

@colinhoad.com

The London RISC OS Show will return on 25th October! @rougol.bsky.socialhttps://youtu.be/dAFZTS3xxTc?si=HSq-0D_XULzVTkH1

How to Purchase DiskKnight ?

I have sent you an email in the meantime, to help get things sorted.

Thanks Andrew,

All sorted now.

My version of DiscKnight now has the ‘repair’ option.

Ralph

@armbytes.bsky.social

Without an ARM, there'd be no RISC OS! Modular, compact and quick. #Retro #AcornComputers #OpenSource #RISCOS #London #Show #Octoberhttps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/a-history-of-arm-part-1-building-the-first-chip

@colinhoad.com

I sometimes wonder whether people have any self-awareness at all of how utterly cringeworthy they look posting AI-generated cartoon pictures of themselves on social media. It seems to be done with zero irony, too.

WROCC Meeting - R-Comp - 1st Oct

Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club

Meeting on Wednesday 1st October at 7.45pm

R-Comp

Andrew Rawnsley will be joining us to bring us up to date on the latest news from R-Comp and RCI ahead of the London Show at the end of the month. Will there be new developments and releases? Software? Hardware? Come and find out! Andrew will also be covering the latest goings on from RISC OS Developments, and showing the fruits of various summer projects. All being well, attendees will have an exciting release to download afterwards…

This ‘virtual’ meeting is open to all, and will take place using the Zoom conferencing service using our regular meeting credentials. Zoom invitations will be sent out ahead of the meeting, but only to those who email info2025@wrocc.org.uk to request one. If you would like to be part of the meeting (and don’t already have the link from a previous meeting or receive an invite in the next 24 hours as a member of WROCC), please RSVP — at the latest by the end of Tuesday 5th August (GMT).

If you haven’t used Zoom before, we suggest that before Wednesday you try to join the Zoom test meeting at https://zoom.us/test on the device that you intend to use, in order to check that your system works OK. You will not require a Zoom account to take part.

Past Meetings

Videos of previous meetings can be found in our links to past meetings at https://www.wrocc.org.uk/meetings

Club Membership

Annual membership of WROCC is available for those living near and far at 10.00ukp per year.

Members receive:

• A PDF newsletter with all the latest news and articles.
• Entry to meetings.
• Access to the WROCC Internet Discussion Forum.

For further information, please email info2025@wrocc.org.uk or visit the Club’s website at https://www.wrocc.org.uk

Iris PackMan install

If Iris clearly flags mismatches and tells users how to fix them, you’re golden.

Compo vs Gimp / ImageMagik?

Way easier than writing a !Compo C program. The X-ray stuff is wild, but for your ebooks, a -fuzz + -opaque cleanup is way more practical.

@colinhoad.com

Absolute joy watching this one from CRD, especially when he gets into the interactive whiteboard! Our school had a grant to go out and buy a bunch of these things, and they ended up in classrooms not getting used much but were very impressive on school open days...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9a3dCd1SQI

Norcroft 64

I’ve taken a couple of embedded projects from ARM32 to AArch64. The biggest time sinks weren’t the compiler, but hidden 32-bit assumptions: pointer math in ints, varargs, packed structs, and unions. Rewriting inline asm and aligning to the AAPCS64 calling convention was unavoidable. What helped most was harsh warnings, UBSan/ASan in tests, and swapping types to size_t/uintptr_t early. For legacy apps we used a small thunk layer and kept a 32-bit build running until parity.

@colinhoad.com

This is 100% insane. Yes, an employer may stipulate this in your employment contract, but that's because *they* are paying *you* for your time, and so the things you create during your working hours are their IP. The tenant/landlord relationship is in no way comparable!

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@rougol.bsky.social

For anyone wondering why no online meet up next month, it's because there's a physical show going on instead! Saturday 25th October, Harrow, NW Londonwww.riscoslondonshow.co.uk

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@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I've just been looking through the SNES Music demo ROM I worked on at Software Creations and wanted to share some interesting facts about the music in PLOK!

The audio samples total 50K ( Bytes ) The SPC-700 music driver is 8K Each level tune is between 2K and 4K The sound effects use 4K.

Amazing!

@colinhoad.com

Live cam of brown bears catching salmon in Alaska! The only live feed you need.https://explore.org/livecams/brown-bears/brown-bear-salmon-cam-brooks-falls

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The project board at Software Creations - around December 1993, Park Place office in Manchester. Dominated by NES and SNES titles, some of which were abandoned or never completed. BASEBALL was 'Ken Griffey Jr. presents MLB'. PLOK had shipped. SNES title 'Moto-X' was finally released in 2023!

@colinhoad.com

So much I agree with here. Games are meant to be enjoyable, and all the more so when you can share your experiences of them with others. Easy mode is my default for new games as it helps me get a feel for them and - sometimes! - even complete them. Difficulty is there for replay only, in my world.

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New software: Gradgrind

Gradgrind update available, fixing a minor bug (incorrect hex display of colour values).
Available from: Roast

@rougol.bsky.social

&FFF (niche RISC OS reference🙂)

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Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 21st September at 1pm.

Live coding today was another success…

There’s now a Git repository on GitHub (https://github.com/gerph/riscos-systemvars) stub module for SystemVars, which allows simple strings to be stored in a dictionary and retrieved. There are some simple SWIs implemented that allow the interface to be exercised. The module also has CI to ensure that the build and loading of the module is successful – and there’s a small test to exercise the internals.

As usual, if anyone has any questions, comments or even code suggestions and PRs, please fire them this way.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

LLMs have no concept of "fact", just (highly complex) word ordering...

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@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

Ok friends, I declare the best time of the year is officially open! 😂 🎃 - Thanks to my GF and Mr. Kipling

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I'm not a bike guy but crikey, if I were...

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The Sinclair Oxford 300 was launched in 1975 and boasted scientific functions. As with all Sinclair products it was very competitively priced - this one was £29.99, very cheap when compared with similar HP models. It had tiny 7 segment displays and a plastic lens to make them appear much larger.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

The Liverpool Software Gazette lasted for only 8 issues with the first appearing in November 1979 and the last in February 1981. Published by Microdigital Ltd., it covered all of the home computers of its time. Sadly, the owners sold it to Apple magazine who changed it to Apple only content!

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

I'm looking forward to reading through these recent acquisitions. Z80, 6502 and 6809 machine code reference/tutorial books from the ealy/mid 1980s.

@colinhoad.com

Well, this is a new one on me! Apparently in 1989 you could buy an ISA card to connect your PC to a VCR and backup your files... to VHS or Betamax tapes 😄 110MB per tape and only £185 + VAT

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

BBC Micro 'Alien 8' development disks. I was looking after these for over 35 years on Paul Proctor's behalf. I had great fun trying to archive them during the last few years. At first some of them just wouldn't read at all. After lots of cleaning and re-tries I managed to recover the contents.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

"I should get back to that colour code I was messing with"

Over a year ago. 😳https://media.tenor.com/OjyLuVbKlVUAAAAC/what-happen-shocked.gif?hh=498&ww=398

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

So, following on from yesterday's post. It's back to being another rainy day here in Cumbria – well, I guess it's not called the 'Lake' district for nothing.

But even through the wind and the rain, the beauty of this place is apparent. #TheLakeDistrict #Cumbria

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@colinhoad.com

Quote with a gif you can hear

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@colinhoad.com

New phone! Spend several minutes agonising over which ringtone to pick. Then put it on vibrate mode for the rest of its life.

@paolofabiozaino.bsky.social

https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/09/18/Rust-1.90.0/

@iconbar.com

September developer 'fireside' chat on saturday night

https://www.iconbar.com/articles/September_developer_fireside_chat_on_saturday_night/index2235.html

The nights are definitely drawing in now. So what better way to spend Saturday night than at next 'fireside' chat (20th September).

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

My perfectly usable Windows 10 PC that I use for everything will soon no longer be supported and can't be upgraded to Windows 11. I like my 'dinosaur' PC and will carry on using it for as long as possible.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Evergreen.

A9 Home port

Timo if you need here there is also a video with the full build process (from our uber Mr. Sprow):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU-wZwangCs

HTH

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social

It's finally stopped raining here in the Lake District, and the sun is shining. The river level has dropped from what it was yesterday – still flowing through at a fair pace though.

It's so nice to step out of the back door of our studio and take in the tranquil scenery and enjoy a moment of calm.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Another new find. An invoice from Martin Galway for the Galaforce 2 music and sound effects - BBC Micro / Acorn Electron. Dated 2nd October 1988. It cost me £115 incl. VAT which was a great deal - mates rates! He wrote a brand new music driver ( player ) for this game and did an amazing job!

@nemo20000.bsky.social

I'm tickled by this conference hall ceiling (presumably) whose lighting seems to be modelled on a bad FSI dither...

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Wasm 3.0 is already here!

https://webassembly.org/news/2025-09-17-wasm-3.0/

September developer 'fireside' chat on saturday night

The nights are definitely drawing in now. So what better way to spend Saturday night than at next 'fireside' chat on saturday night (20th September). As usual, 7:30pm UK time kick-off and the event is on Zoom. Stay for as long or as short a time as you like.

RISC OS 64bit work status

Quick status update on the RISC OS 64 progress, since I posted last…

• The links on the repository have been updated with pages for individual modules, listing the features that those modules need to have and their current status.
• I’m happy with my implementation of the Debugger module now, and the live coding for that has finished. It’s not quite as functional as the RISC OS Pyromaniac version / the riscos-disassemble Python package, but it’s working ok for me.
• New `Conversions` module implementation which works.
• Most of the `Convert*` modules have now been built, though not tested in 64bit (they’re not really important at this stage, but it’s good to know they build!
• The `IconBorders` modules all build just fine.
• Problems I had with `RemotePrinterSupport` have now been fixed and it builds in 64bit.
• `ResourceFS` stub module is now complete, and obviously doesn’t do much yet.
• `VideoTTX`, `VideoGuard` and `MimeMap` built for 64bit, although they’re not tested and probably won’t quite do what’s expected.

And internally I’ve been updating my build environment to better handle certain cases that weren’t working previously.

• The RISC OS Build service now has the ability to enable faster builds, using the host version of the tools – see https://asciinema.org/a/741270 for a simple run.
• Improved integration within the SublimeText editor – pressing command-B can now build things with AMU locally and highlight the errors inline in the file, or with the build service.
• Improvements to CMunge for 64bit interfaces that weren’t quite right, and the -zerrors switch, that I had recently broken.

The most recent test run says that most of the modules and tools that are present in the repository at least load correctly:

• https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status/actions/runs/…

The progress for Phase 1 is looking pretty good now, with many components exceeding the original aims for this phase. Still 17 falling short, but they’re probably going to be reletively easy to get to an appropriate state.

• https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status/wiki/Progress

And the SystemVars module is one of those modules that I will be moving on to in the Live Coding sessions. I suspect this will be relatively easy to deal with, but there will almost certainly be some special cases to handle.

Anyhow that’s where things are for me. You can always follow the repositories to see what’s being done.

Again, if anyone wants to contribute to these, please speak up.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

Why is it orange, they won't sell you an orange one. Polestars are only available in various shades of drizzle.

It's almost like they think it'll look better in pictures! 😳

Carwow didn't seem to notice: https://www.carwow.co.uk/polestar/news/9512/new-polestar-5-first-impressions-jamie-edkins

Developers’ fireside chat – 20th September

The next friendly fireside chat for people interested in RISC OS software development will take place at 7:30pm on Saturday, 20th September. Taking place online via the Zoom video conferencing service, these meetings are intended as an informal way of allowing RISC OS programmers, and anyone interested in the subject, to get together online to discuss relevant matters. These meetings don’t have a set agenda, and topics discussed are based on the questions people might ask or what they’ve been working on and choose to demonstrate. For example, topics covered…

Stations more accessible in TrainTimes 2.07

A new version of TrainTimes has been released. The program is one from the Kevin Wells family of applications that use Wget to request data from a remote application programmer interface (API). In this case, the program can be used to check train timetables, as well as find out useful information about the trains themselves, the stations along their route, and so on. It does so through two different APIs – Real Train Times (from whom, users will need to register for an API key) and National Rail. The update…

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Tatung Einstein host development system for creating ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC games. Originally developed by Mike Webb and re-created from scratch by @breakintoprogram.co.uk. Software Creations and other North West based companies used this system to develop their titles during the mid-80s.

@colinhoad.com

Microsoft quite literally trolling us, now

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

50 years ago the first 6501 and 6502 CPUs were made available at the WESCON trade show in San Francisco. However, MOS found out they weren't actually allowed to sell anything on the show floor so set up shop in a nearby hotel. Chuck Peddle led the team that created the 650x family of processors.

Debugger module release

Over the course of the last 19 live coding sessions, I have produced a Debugger module which supports many of the things that we expect on RISC OS. We support…

• *Memory
• *MemoryI
• *MemoryA
• *DumpI
• *InitStore
• *ShowRegs
• *BreakSet (not for RISC OS 64)
• *BreakClr (not for RISC OS 64)
• *BreakList (not for RISC OS 64)
• *Debug (not for RISC OS 64)
• *Continue (not for RISC OS 64)
• SWI Debugger_Disassemble
• SWI Debugger_DisassembleThumb
• SWI Debugger_DisassembleArch (for AArch32 ARM and Thumb, and for AArch64 instructions)
• AArch32 instructions are disassembled (default for regular RISC OS), including the FPA instructions.
• AArch64 instructions are disassembled (default for RISC OS 64)
• The module is built and released automatically through CI on GitHub – https://github.com/gerph/riscos-debugger-c/releases
• There’s a project board to record what needs to be done – https://github.com/users/gerph/projects/1
• The module can be built, and runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit RISC OS.
• The module is tested with test code derived from the RISC OS Pyromaniac test suites – automatically within CI.

The module has been demonstrated and run on RISC OS in RPCEmu with !Zap and works as you might expect.

The module can be obtained from the RISC OS Debugger GitHub site – https://github.com/gerph/riscos-debugger-c/releases

The purpose of the Live Coding sessions was – initially – so that I could get some practice at doing coding in a different environment, and demonstrating how some techniques and skills can be used. I was hoping that it would be an encouragement to others that things which seem complicated are largely just a set of small steps to address a problem.

The Debugger module was intended to be a ‘simple’ example of how porting something useful to RISC OS can be done. It wasn’t quite so simple – there’s been work in shell, in python, in perl, and assembler and converting from C99 to C89. And working with someone else’s code which I didn’t understand at first. I hope that it has given people some encouragement to try doing things they wouldn’t have. I hope that it has also shown that mistakes are many and plentiful – and we roll with them. It’s also shown how bad my typing is!

It’s been very exciting. I’ve laughed a lot. And along the way there’s been a number of people coming into the chat and watching the sessions without knowing anything about RISC OS. People who asked questions – even if they’re not on the topic of the debugger – and have been very friendly. That’s been a nice experience too.

So it’s been quite successful, and has produced a replacement module in C for an existing module. Feel free to raise bugs in GitHub, and PRs will be happily received if they’re incremental and reviewable.

Live Coding with Gerph, Sunday 14th September at 1pm

This was the final session on the Debugger. I’m pretty happy with the disassembler now. This final session updated the CI tests so that they (mostly) pass. There were some failures when it was finally integrated into the CI, which I decided to fix offline – they were caused by the use of a non-deterministic part of the table generation in Python. Now that it’s fixed, I think we’ve got a good version.

The Debugger has been published up on the site in the releases section: https://github.com/gerph/riscos-debugger-c

The 64bit version can be found on the RISC OS 64bit status pages: https://github.com/gerph/riscos64-status

Next week, I’ll be starting on a different project – something short, I hope!

A9Home port?

All this talk of an A9home port has pushed a bit of a button for me. Anyone have a working one they’re prepared to sell?

@colinhoad.com

Beware Lairds bearing books

@colinhoad.com

There are still (free!) tickets available for this event at @tnmoc.bsky.social - would be great to see you there! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mac-and-cheese-wedge-fixathon-tickets-1614179045979

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

You can assemble 68000 code on a BBC Micro if you have the right software. This cross-assembler was published by Crossware in 1986 IIRC. They sold different versions for various 8 and 16-bit processors. The 68K version was the most exotic. Here's a test process going through lots of combinations.

@nemo20000.bsky.social

@givvygavvygoo.bsky.social @rougol.bsky.social Apologies, something has come up, so can't make it this evening.

@kevedwardsretro.bsky.social

Great response from Martin Galway after I released a teaser for Galaforce 3 on the BBC Micro - a project I shall almost certainly never complete. I may give him the gig if I change my mind!

Coding on RISC OS fireside chat, this Saturday - 20th Sept.

Join us around the “Coding on RISC OS” campfire this coming Saturday, 20th September, at 7:30 p.m. (GMT+1) for another one of our regular, friendly and informal fireside chats.

Whether you’re curious, want to help others, are looking to get started, need assistance, or want to share a project or current challenge with the group, you’re all welcome! No experience necessary.

If you are a developer looking to connect with others, come and join in.

For the Zoom credentials (no change), DM me over on X (Twitter), BlueSky, ChatCube or Mastodon. There’s also an email link at the bottom of this informative RISCOSitory news page.