A whole flurry of RISC OS news the last few days. A port of Gnash is in the works, while a survey showed that users of the RISC OS word processors TechWriter/EasiWriter want .doc support. Meanwhile, RISC OS got transparent windows. Drobe also has a short article on re-writing RISC OS.
I would like to try out RISC OS in a Vmware instance. I have never heard of RISC OS, how does one obtain it?
Its for ARM systems, you get it by buying an ARM system from one of a few makers (Advantage6, Castle), or by buying VirtualRiscPC, which does the job of VMWare in this case – except obviously emulating an ARM box not a PC.
“or by buying VirtualRiscPC”
or perhaps qemu’s ARM emulation.
My bad…
Do you have a URL of VirtualRiscPC for OS X? I googled and there is a lot of information but I cannot find it for OS X.
Thanks!!
There currently isn’t a version for OS X released but one was demonstrated at a recent show. Not sure when it will be released.
URL: http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk
Other RISC OS related URLS you might find useful:
http://www.qercus.com (RISC OS related magazine)
http://www.cjemicrosc.co.uk (retailer for the A9 from Advantage 6)
http://www.thea9.com (homepage of the A9 from Advantage6)
http://select.riscos.com/RISCOS6/ (latest version of RISC OS due to be released soon)
http://www.riscos.com (the OS Developer for RISCOS 4/6 and Select schemes)
http://www.iyonix.com (the other main RISC OS computer)
Edited 2006-11-24 08:45
(Looks like thea9.com is no more)
its: thea9.info
I remember using Acorns and RISC OS in the old 386 Windows 3.1 days. It was great, the PC booted in seconds and seemed so powerful compaired with Windows.
Oh and RISC OS had that Icon Bar years before Win 95 had a Task Bar. (I don’t think we need to worry about that patent)
I might try VirtualRiscPC myself or dig out that old Acorn – I wonder if I can find an Acorn mouse?
RISC OS had it’s Icon Bar long before it was even called RISC OS. 🙂
Several prominent RISC OS programmers joined Microsoft in the early 90s, I believe joining the OS division, and there were several Acorn machines hanging around on desks in Seattle. It’s almost certain that elements of RISC OS influenced the development of Windows 95.
Besides the Icon Bar, the right-click pop-up menus in Win95 almost certainly owe their heritage to RISC OS too.
There seem to be quite a number of stories coming out
about RISC OS.
Does anyone have any idea of the userbase number for tis system??
RISC OS was a popular platform in UK schools for quite some time. As for home users, it was always over-shadowed by other platforms such as the Amiga and ST. Acorn probably sold considerably less than 500,000 RISC OS machines around the world, with most of them going to education.
The current active RISC OS userbase can only be a few thousand, however many people look back with fondness on the platform.
A few thousand desktop users indeed – however there could be even more out there.
We know there has been some penetration into the embedded market…
One of two commercial companies developing RISC OS, RISCOS Limited, have estimated that the current global userbase numbers around 3000-4000. Back in the ‘glory days’ of 1992, Acorn estimated that the worldwide userbase numbered around 250 000.
VirtualAcorn have also demonstrated a proof-of-concept version of VirtualRISCPC for Linux.
http://www.riscos.info/index.php/RPCEmu
Is far from finished but it does do other platforms.
http://www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact1691.html
http://www.riscos.info/index.php/RPCEmu
Edited 2006-11-25 18:59
http://www.advantagesix.com