Here's a quick round up of some of the recent activities in the RISC OS world.

London Show reminder

Next weekend, Saturday the 27th of October, is the date for this years London show. The show is to be held at the usual location of the St Giles Hotel in Feltham, London, and will be open from 11AM to 5PM. Tickets cost £5 on the door.
 
Although the theatre presentation schedule isn't yet available, the exhibitor's list is. Apart from all the usual subjects you should also keep an eye out for ROOL's first official, stable release of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi.

ROOL updates

As mentioned above, the first stable release of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi is expected to be unveiled at this years London show. The port has come on a long way since it was first shown at last years show, and is now pretty much on par with the other platforms with regards to features and usability. The distribution is to be available in the form of an SD card complete with ROM image, !Boot sequence, and a selection of pre-installed software, based around the work Chris Hall and others have placed into the Pi alpha distro.
 
Other news from ROOL in recent months includes:

• The release of SDFS, an SD card filing system for all the modern machines (BeagleBoard/ARMini, PandaBoard, Raspberry Pi)
• The release of several 32bit compatible NIC drivers for the RiscPC/A7000 (previously the IOMD port of RISC OS 5 had no drivers available, except under emulation)
• Work on step one of the multi-stage filing system improvements bounty has begun
• There have also been several performance improvements over the past few months - faster remapping of memory and shorter drive mount times, resulting in significantly shorter boot times for modern machines, faster font plotting, and last but not least a SmartReflex driver to allow the BeagleBoard-xM/ARMini to run at its full speed of 1GHz instead of 800MHz.

GCC 4.1.2 release 2 released

Hot on the heels of release 1 of GCC 4.1.2, the RISC OS GCCSDK team have released release 2, with a focus on fixing the bugs that were found in the initial release.

Emulation news

• Aemulor Pro now freely available for ARMv7 machines
  A new version of Aemulor Pro, compatible with all the modern ARMv7 machines (BeagleBoard, ARMini, PandaBoard, etc.) is now available to download free of charge from the Spellings website at http://buyit.spellings.net/. A Raspberry Pi compatible version is expected to appear in due course.
• ArcEm 1.50 alpha available
  The ArcEm team are back with a new website and a new alpha release. Compared to the previous 1.00 release there have been many significant improvements. In particular the RISC OS version is now ARMv6/ARMv7 compatible, and fast enough to play most Arc games at full speed on an Iyonix. Members of R-Comp's ARMini/BeagleBoard/PandaLand support schemes also have access to a more polished version of the emulator, and several games to play on it, under the moniker !AcornMode.
• Atari emulator Hatari ported to RISC OS
  In recent weeks Franck Martinaux has released a RISC OS port of version 1.6.2 of the Atari ST emulator Hatari. The emulator is reported to run at full speed on BB-xM, and is available from Franck's website at http://www.norisc-nofun.co.uk/software.html.

 

This is a quick reminder that the 2012 Wakefield show is to be held next weekend, on Saturday the 28th of April. The show will be open between 10:30 and 4:30, at the usual venue of the The Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield.
 
For more details, including a list of exhibitors, please see the show website.
 

This is a quick reminder that the 2012 SouthWest show is to be held this weekend, on Saturday the 25th of February. The show will be open between 10:45 and 3:30, at the venue of the Webbington Hotel and Spa near Weston-super-Mare.
 
For more details, including a list of exhibitors, please see the show website.
 

Here's a quick roundup of everything that's happened over the past few weeks.

New software releases

NetSurf 2.8

Version 2.8 of the NetSurf browser was released last month. The major new features in this release are a new cross-platform system for handling frames and iframes, and an improved image cache.

Charm 2.4

Peter Nowosad's Charm programming language also saw a new release last month. Version 2.4 is the first version of the language to be 32bit compatible, so if you're looking for something a little bit different from your programming languages then now's a good as time as any to give it a go.

StrongHelp 2.86

A new version of StrongHelp was released to the StrongED mailing list, featuring several bugfixes, mainly for ARMv7 compatability. Download it here.

CDFaker now 32bit

Steffen Huber has released a 32bit version of Andy Armstrong's CDFaker utility, which allows you to mount ISO images and read their contents via CDFS. Apart from being 32bit compatible, this release is also fully ARMv7 compatible.

InterGIF 6.18

Martin Weurthner's popular InterGIF utility has also seen an update. The main focus of this release was to make the utility ARMv7 compatible.

DigitalCD updates

Music player DigitalCD and related modules (TimPlayer, DiskSample) have been updated to add support for more tracker music formats, along with a few bugfixes.

New C/C++ tools release

And last but not least, RISC OS Open have released version 22 of the C tools package. The main development focus for this release was on improving objasm, to add support for the full ARMv7 instruction set, and to add support for some features offered by the assembler available in ARM's RealView package (which has a shared heritage with objasm and the other 'ROOL' tools).
 
For purchasing information, see ROOL's announcement.

RISC OS 5 news

OMAP4 ROM now available to download

As mentioned in the previous news roundup, Willi Theiss has been working on porting RISC OS to TI's OMAP4. This work has now found its way into ROOL's CVS, allowing them to add a (Pandaboard-compatible) OMAP4 ROM image to the downloads page. However as this is a first release, expect to see a fair number of bugs and missing features.

Raspberry Pi port on the cards

Veteran developer Adrian Lees has expressed an interest in porting RISC OS to the low-cost Raspberry Pi computer. Previously the possibility of a port was put into doubt by the question of whether anyone would have access to the required hardware documentation, but since Adrian works at Broadcom alongside Raspberry Pi Foundation members it sounds like lack of documentation will be the least of his issues.

Bounty pot reaches £1K

The amount of money available to developers through the ROOL bounty system has now reached £1000. However none of the bounties have yet hit their (secret) target values, so it looks like any budding programmers will have to wait a bit longer before they're able to take on any of the tasks listed (unless they want to do it for free!)
 
Correction: As has been pointed out by ROOL, bounties don't have any target funding values. Instead, interested parties merely need to get in touch and say that they're starting work once they feel that the money in the pot has reached an acceptable value. For more info on the workings of the bounty system, see here.

Filesystem bounties

On the subject of bounties, developer Rob Sprowson has recently had a go at analysing all the different filesystem wishlist items and boiling them down to a list of defined bounties, which can be found here. It's probable that this list (or something close to it) will be adopted by ROOL and added to the bounty area of their website in the near future. Not to be content with just making a bounty list, Rob has also had a go at fixing a few filing system bugs recently, mainly focusing around making sure FileSwitch and the filer are happy with files between 2G and 4G in size, as well as fixing a couple of bugs in RPCEmu that stopped large files from working there.

London show approaching

And finally, this is your official reminder that the 2011 RISC OS London show is here in just under two weeks time, on the 29th of October. Apart from the usual names on the exhibitors list it's worth pointing out that there'll be a pre-release version of the Raspberry Pi board on show. And if Adrian hasn't got it running RISC OS natively by the end of the show, it sounds like the RPCEmu team will be there with a copy of the RPCEmu emulator as a fallback. Unfortunately one notable absentee from the exhibitors list is RISCOS Ltd, who are unable to attend due to a clash with another commitment.
 

It's that time of year again - this Saturday marks the date of the sixteenth Wakefield show. The show will take place at its usual location of the Cedar Court Hotel, and will run from 10:00am to 4:30pm. Entry is set to cost £5 per adult, which grants you access to both the main show floor itself and to the theatre presentations. Highlights of this year's show look to be:

• R-Comp/RCI - Apart from the other wares they'll be bringing to the show, expect them to also take the opportunity to officially launch their new ARMini computer.
• RISC OS Open and RISCOS Ltd - Providing you with the latest OS updates, no matter which side of the fence you're on.
• Mike Cook's Gadgets stand - If you've ever wanted to find out what he's been up to since his Micro User/Acorn User days, now's your chance!
• WikiProject RISC OS - Meet the people who aim to put RISC OS back on the map (on Wikipedia, at least).
• Also look out for lots of new software releases, including (but not limited to) new versions of Organizer 2 and Impact.

For more details about the show, including the theatre schedule, please check out the show's website.
 

Vince "One C or two" Hudd and Trevor "Likes to link" Johnson have sent in the following information about an upcoming RISC OS-based meeting in Bristol, along with a reminder on how to get in touch with the BRU mailing list. I'll let Vince and Trevor do the talking for this one:
 

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Following the first successful meeting of members of the Bristol RISC OS Users mailing list, a discussion list formed to support the possible rebirth of a user group for the area, a second meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday 16th March, 2011, and is therefore an ideal opportunity to discuss anything of interest from the RISC OS South West Show, which takes place on Saturday 5th March, 2011.
 
Like the first meeting, this one will be entirely informal in nature - a group of like minded individuals meeting in a pub for a drink and a chat, so if you are a RISC OS user in or around Bristol and think you can make it, we look forward to seeing you there.

• Theme : The RISC OS South West Show
• Date : Wed 16th Mar 2011
• Time : 19:15 for 19:30
• Venue : Air Balloon, Filton, Bristol, BS34 7PY (northwest of the A38/A4174 roundabout)
• Admittance: free

The meeting is open to anyone interested in RISC OS computers. Attendees are welcome to bring hardware along but, as with the first meeting, no arrangements are in place for use of a function room or similar. Please don't expect to be able to plug anything into the mains or to have a clear table to use.
 
We look forward to seeing you there.
 
Vince Hudd & Trevor Johnson

The Bristol RISC OS Users Mailing List

The 'BRU' mailing list is open to all RISC OS users in or around Bristol and the wider surrounding area - current subscribers being spread as far affield as Cheltenham in one direction, and Glastonbury in the other. The list was set up to support the possibility of a new user group, and to provide a forum for discussion for those people in the area.
 
Joining is as easy as sending and replying to an email:

• First, send an email from the address you would like subscribed, to bru-list-request@riscository.co.uk, with a subject of 'subscribe'
• Second, reply to the confirmation email you will receive shortly after - or click on the link contained within.

 

News has reached us of a couple of shows/groups which have been organised outside of the UK:

Arche Acorn User Club - Germany

First up is the return of the Arche Acorn User Club, which is based in Germany. Says group leader Holger Palmroth:

After some years of hibernation, the Arche Acorn User Club organizes a user meeting again. The reason, and the topic, is of course the BeagleBoard.
 
The meeting takes place at the 19th March, 2011 in the Unperfekthaus, room 104, Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 18 in 45127 Essen. It start at 1:00 pm (UTC+1).
 
Detlef Thielsch, producer of the BIK (BeagleBoard in a box) will be there, presenting the BIK as well as PhotoDesk 3.10. Steffen Huber, author of CDVDBurn and Herbert zur Nedden, editor of GAG-News, THE German RISC OS magazine will most
likely also attend the meeting. Martin Würthner unfortunately can't come, but provides us with a BeagleBoard compatible demo version of ArtWorks 2. Currently we expect to have 4-5 BeagleBoard system to show.
 
The Unperfekthaus is an unique place with it's own, special rules.

1. Every visitor pays 5,50 Euro, not at entrance, but at leaving the house.This fee includes a flatrate for softdrinks and coffee.
2. Those who want to enter and leave multiple times would need to 9,50 Euro, athough there is no need to leave the house to eat. The Unperfekthaus offers a good buffet for as low as 5,50 Euro for a small dish up to 12,50 Euro for all-you-can-eat. These expenses will be paid the leaving the house, too.

We welcome every spontaneous visitor, but due to room constrains we want to ask everyone who intends to come with a computer to inform us via email.
 
Updates to the meeting you will find at http://forum.acorn.de/ in the thread "!RiscOS & Arche Treffen am 19.03.2011 im UPH Essen".
 
PS: We would be glad if someone could provide us with a fullHD monitor which can deal with 24 pictures per second. Some Flatron models from LG, for example, accept a 24Hz signal at their DVI input.

Big Ben Club - The Netherlands

The second piece of news is that for the fourth year in a row, the Big Ben Club will be organising The RISC OS eXperience. This years show will be held on Saturday the 14th of May, between 10:00 and 16:00, at its usual location:
 
Wijkgebouw de Vuister
Molenwerf 44
1541 WR Koog aan de Zaan
The Netherlands
 
For more information, check the club website.
 

With a new year upon us it is heartening to see that there is already a good list of RISC OS events scheduled for this year. So here are some dates to add to your shiny new diary or PDA.

Update - Invicta RISC OS Users' Group

Peter Campbell-Banks has got in touch to let us know that IRUG meet on the third Sunday of every month at 14:30 at the Royal Naval Association Club in Kent. This means their next meeting will be on the 20th. For more details on the group check out their website, email Peter, or 'phone him on 07854 055060.