Advantage 6

One year on from when the A9home was first unveiled - it was infact sneaked into the Advantage 6 show theatre in a "makeup bag" - we see the release of the A9home.
 
CJE, who are A6's retail partners for the A9, were "so happy" with the hardware and progress, that they were confident to begin selling it at the show.
 
While A6 were disappointed that they are not yet able to totally sign-off the project - there are still niggles, not major problems, with the system, such as providing USB printing (32 bit printer drivers) and the serial port is apparently "not good".
 
So while the A9home is "not ready for everybody", it is "getting very close". People will have to be patient for the "I want everything release". The iterative beta testing programme shows there is still some work to do, but everything is "much closer each time things go out".
 

If you have any news or photos to share, please email us.

Wakefield 2006 photos and show report

[Update] Binary Dinosaurs has a short review of the show up on their website, too.
 

Exhibitors this year include Castle Technology, Genesys Developments, MW Software and the NetSurf development team, who will be demonstrating the latest developments on the open source browser.

VirtualAcorn will also be present, demonstrating their latest addition to their product family, VirtualRPC-SA, which provides emulation of the StrongARM processor in addition to the Arm710 processor it previously supported.

The theatre programme for this year's show is as follows:

Time Presentation 10:30 John Cartmell 10:45 Advantage6 - Part 1 11:30 Castle Technology 13:00 Paul Middleton - RISCOS Ltd. 14:00 ArtWorks 2 15:00 Advantage6 - Part 2

Parking at Thornes Park Athletics Stadium is free, and entry to the show costs £6, with under 5 year olds getting in free (I'd imagine that's physical age, not mental age!) The show is open from 10am until 5pm on Saturday 13th of May.

If you're going to the show this year and would like to share your thoughts of the show with us, please get in touch!

Source: Wakefield Show
 

According to their exhibitor entry on the Computer Trade Show site, they will be launching "a new range Acorns, which will be cutting edge, ultra-reliable and feature rich", powered by AMD and Intel processors.

At the moment, their website doesn't give much away, but discussion on our forums and in csa.misc are suggesting that this isn't the Acorn that we know and love, given that Acorn is still a registered trademark of Element-14 (now owned by Broadcom).

The Icon Bar's hero, Paul Vigay, has said on usenet that he has contacted Companies House to report fraudulent use of the Acorn name, and is asking people to do the same, giving details in his post.

More news on this one as it develops.
 

A spokesman for A6 told us "Traditionally the Wakefield Show is where we take the opportunity to demonstrate the potential cross-overs between our OEM and the retail market. Although the body of the work has been done to meet specific OEM requirements, the core design is based on the same components as the A9home - and Advantage6 have retained the rights to this, meaning that - given sufficient demand - broader support could be developed and offered as an upgrade to existing A9home owners."
Link:Press Release
 

Paul Middleton of RISCOS Ltd told us this evening "The previous organisers of the Dutch Risc OS Expo are unable to organise the usual June show this year, so we have taken the decision to arrange an event on the same basis as the RISC OS Christmas Roadshow 2005"

The date is Saturday 17th June, 10:00 - 17:00 local time. Anyone who wishes to exhibit should contact Paul ASAP to book one of the forty tables at the venue. The price for exhibitors will be at the same level as at the Christmas roadshow, although Paul doesn't seem to want to tell us what that level is.
 

In summary:

• 6400 copies of RISC OS 4.02 sold with upgrade copies alone generating £370,000 (exc VAT) sales over the last 6 years.
  
• Over 1900 copies of RISC OS 4 supplied in new computers from Castle Technology, MicroDigital, RiscStation and Advantage 6.
  
• RISC OS 4.39 recently sold its 500th copy.
  
• Sales of Virtual Acorn add "several thousand more copies to the total number of current RISC OS users"

At the 2004 RISCOS Ltd AGM it was agreed to issue 50,000 ordinary shares. ROL will be shortly issuing these, and ask anyone who is interested in investing to contact them. (details in the Press Release) Previously, ROL shares have been sold for around £1.25 each with 50 new investors allowed each year, so this share issue has the potential to raise more than £50,000.

Money raised from the share issue will be "used to fund further development of RISC OS 4 beyond the limits of the cashflow generated by sales of RISC OS "Select" subscriptions and RISC OS "Adjust" ROMs. It will also be used to fund the development and acquisition of complimentary technologies for RISC OS."

Paul Middleton also detailed that "The full launch of the A9 computer, and then Select 4, are currently targetted for around May this year", perhaps at the Wakefield show, "and once completed attention can be focussed on the Iyonix". However, despite meeting the 100 user pledge target for Iyonix Select Paul said that "the current level of pledges is insufficient to cover the full amount of work needed. It is likely therefore that the first stage will be a limited release of features to users who have continued with their Select subscriptions and who pay a supplement."

Link:
Press Release
RISCOS Ltd