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The Icon Bar: News and features: Heads Up - RISC OS South East Show
 

Heads Up - RISC OS South East Show

Posted by Richard Goodwin on 15:40, 1/11/2002 | , , , , ,
 
Time for another last minute show heads up - if you can get your backsides out of bed of a Saturday morning then the RISC OS South East Show starts at 10am.

As well as seeing the Iyonix machine dotted around on developers stands there should be the usual round of new software, upgrades, theatre presentations and fisticuffs.

R-Comp have sent the usual pre-show email promising a much faster version of WebsterXL, the time-based multi ISP Dialup2, a new version of Grapevine, talk of spam filtering and a cool new printer gateway that allows any RISC OS program to print via a PC on the same network, thus allowing your aging Acorn to use the latest photo realistic USB printers without waiting for drivers. Or USB cards. Or something.

Cerilica have Insignia 1.50 ready for the show, with the rendering of drawfiles added for your title designing pleasure. The price remains at under 40 of your earth pounds. Despite the link back to the site guys we didn't include the 32bit Vantage news as a new 26bit version is more important to some of us ;)

And if that isn't enough to get your juices running, "The" Paul Vigay and Peter "Chocky" Naulls - together on the same stand! Come on, what more could you want?!
 

  Heads Up - RISC OS South East Show
  [mentat] (09:00 2/11/2002)
  takkaria (10:37 2/11/2002)
    baggins (12:39 2/11/2002)
      harmsy (13:18 2/11/2002)
        andypoole (13:22 2/11/2002)
          rich (16:03 2/11/2002)
            danielbarron (17:45 2/11/2002)
              [mentat] (17:53 2/11/2002)
                danielbarron (18:12 2/11/2002)
                  danielbarron (18:25 2/11/2002)
                    andypoole (18:35 2/11/2002)
                      Benjamin Newton (18:40 2/11/2002)
                        7S (18:58 2/11/2002)
                          jmb (22:50 2/11/2002)
                            danielbarron (11:18 3/11/2002)
                              jmb (13:00 3/11/2002)
                                Ernst Dinkla (09:53 4/11/2002)
                                  thegman (10:16 4/11/2002)
                                    Matthew Phillips (11:30 4/11/2002)
                                      peter (14:32 4/11/2002)
                                        Peter Russell (21:14 4/11/2002)
 
I don't have tourettes you're just a cun Message #91366, posted by [mentat] at 09:00, 2/11/2002
[mentat]Fear is the mind-killer
Posts: 6266
*Get's in car...*
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Andrew Sidwell Message #91367, posted by takkaria at 10:37, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91366
Member
Posts: 324
mentat: that's "gets"
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baggins Message #91368, posted at 12:39, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91367
Unregistered user "And if that isn't enough to get your juices running, "The" Paul Vigay and Peter "Chocky" Naulls - together on the same stand! Come on, what more could you want?!"

A movie of the resulting fight.

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harmsy Message #91369, posted at 13:18, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91368
Unregistered user Bring us a news update please guys!
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Andrew Poole Message #91370, posted by andypoole at 13:22, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91369
andypoole
Mouse enthusiast
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Posts: 5558
Well I can't write one.. I couldn't get there :-(
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Richard Goodwin Message #91371, posted by rich at 16:03, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91370
Rich
Dictator for life
Posts: 6824
I'm afraid I spent the morning photographing squirrels back in Chichester.
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Daniel Barron Message #91372, posted by danielbarron at 17:45, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91371
Member
Posts: 19
Heh :) first show report.

It was very very busy. A long queue had formed of
about 100 people before the doors opened at 10am.
First off was a walk around the stalls. Interesting people like Castle, etc were there. But there was no appearance of RiscOS Ltd or Microdigital. I renewed a couple of mag subs. But there was nothing that caught my eye to buy that I had not already bought. No new games or network apps. The universal printer driver was available but I already ordered mine a few days ago.
Next up I started queuing for the Castle Presentation at about 10:30 and by 11:05 almost the entire building tried to pour into the theater. I got middle front row. The talk was facinating and they showed a working and super fast Iyonics PC as well as talking about the hardware and software.

The Iyonics comes with RISC OS 5 which is 32 bit and no VIDC requirements. The cpu is a 600Mhz xscale which is soldered to the motherboard. When questioned about upgrading the MD said that we've all seen the problems with cpus on cards and he wanted the reliability. When asked about newer motherboards he seemed to suggest that whole new machines would be needed but I think it was a slip of the grammar.

The Iyonics PC itself looked like a boring 5 year old micro tower. It screams out for modding and painting. It has 2 USB at the front and a soft power. 2 floppy bays, 2 CD bays and 1 HD bay. At the back are pci slots 2 EASI 32-bit slots, 2 USB, 2 serial, mic, line in, sound out, video on a card (GeForce 2MX PCI on display), but no paralell port. The MD said 'USB all the way'. USB 1 is done, but USB 2 support is coming.

I saw no NIC or mb NIC, but he did say that it works with Gigabit cards which is nice :)

All old apps should work on it with some clever software that emulates 26 bit mode. (Artworks was being shown working on a stand on an Iyonics for example).
They would not say when it was available or the price, but 'soon'.

Boot up time was just as quick as a clean SA RPC. Apps loaded at an incredible speed. Double click and its loaded. So fast that you don't notice.

The graphics were very impressive. Superbly quick and high resolution. The sound quality was good as as we walking in we were greeted with some thumping music playing from an Iyonics and medium speakers.
1920 by 1440 IIRC at 16M. Bascially the same as the
graphics card at the time.

Iyonics car stickers were given away.

No word on Select. When asked on the stand Jack was a little tetchy about it (understandably). During the presentation there was little hint about select on RISC OS 5. RISC OS 5 is basically like RISC OS 4.02 but with hardware indepenance of VIDC and is fully 32-bit. What we now need is Select on RISC OS 5 - puleeeez!

RISC OS 5 was in flash rom and copied to RAM during bootup just like the kinetic.

RISC OS 5 is copyright pace.

I would have bought one or preordered but they won't set a price or take orders until its ready.

Nothing doing at the RiscStation stand.

I did not see the faster WXL.

I saw Peter Naulls which was nice to put a face to the name I've been sending money to.

Most of the people there were under 30 or over 60.

That's all I can remember was interesting....

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I don't have tourettes you're just a cun Message #91373, posted by [mentat] at 17:53, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91372
[mentat]Fear is the mind-killer
Posts: 6266
Cheers daniel - saves me the bother ;-)

Tak - nope. My mate, "Get", was in my car.

--
(Jeez gimme a break, I wrote that after less than 5 hours kip).

  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Daniel Barron Message #91374, posted by danielbarron at 18:12, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91373
Member
Posts: 19
NP mentat.

Show stuff I forgot:

On the back of the case is the power socket and an on/off switch like most PCs. The PSU is a 250W unit with a special silent mode where when the case temperature is under 35 degrees C the fan goes into whisper mode making the whole machine very quiet. In normal operation they have never seen the temp over 35 and only managed to test it by putting the whole machine into a heated cupboard due to the super cool cpu. The cpu I saw had no fan.

Virtual Acorn had a stand. My friend bought a copy so he could secretly put it on the PC of the director at B***** to remind him what an Acorn was like. He also wanted it to play Twinworld and Stunt Racer.

I would have definately bought a copy but no networking support is provided yet.

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Daniel Barron Message #91375, posted by danielbarron at 18:25, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91374
Member
Posts: 19
Arg! more things:

Castle have apparently done no benchmarking as a whole but were able to give various nugets such as:

200Mhz RAM, not 16Mhz like the Risc PC.
32Mb/sec ide not 2Mb/sec.
1 Gb RAM max vs 258. (kinetic blah blah ;))
AC98 sound.
Plus the faster cpu and better graphics.

They're modding application space (I think he meant dynamic areas) so that they can go to 1Gb.

Oregano 2 was a sore point he skipped over jokingly and as fast as possible.

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Andrew Poole Message #91376, posted by andypoole at 18:35, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91375
andypoole
Mouse enthusiast
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Posts: 5558
tsk.. will O2 ever seee the light of day :-/
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Benjamin Newton Message #91377, posted at 18:40, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91376
Unregistered user You were in the middle of the front row! So was I. How amazing!

(Red shirt, lots of hair)

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7S Message #91378, posted at 18:58, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91377
Unregistered user John Balance (Techy chap of Castle - which you all know) has reportedly said that he would not allow such a superior machine to go to market without a decent up to date browser installed.

Castle have also suggested that all the Select components could be made to work with ROS 5.

Just wait and see I guess.

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JMB Message #91379, posted by jmb at 22:50, 2/11/2002, in reply to message #91378
Member
Posts: 467
Hmm, when I went to the Castle stand (about 1:30 pm), someone asked about O2 and we were told that they had just got a copy of the 32 bit version. (a 26 bit version will be available). In fact, they had the CD with it on there :P It wasn't in action on the stand so I can't say anything more interesting than the above.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Daniel Barron Message #91380, posted by danielbarron at 11:18, 3/11/2002, in reply to message #91379
Member
Posts: 19
Benjamin: I was cream t-shirt, long hair, fat :)

7S: ROL have said that all of the select work has been 32-bit so patching it into RO5 should be quite simple. If ROL don't produce select for RO5 I will be dissapointed. Alternatively, if castle add all the select features themselves.... however in such a small market it would be silly to duplicate work.

jmb: What do you mean a 26 bit version will be available? The whole point of the 32-bit versions is that they work on *both*. There is no need for different versions of apps. 32-bit only means it uses no dodgy PC+flag R15 stuff (ok very simplified).

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JMB Message #91381, posted by jmb at 13:00, 3/11/2002, in reply to message #91380
Member
Posts: 467
yes, sorry, (note to self -- engage brain before typing :P).
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Ernst Dinkla Message #91382, posted at 09:53, 4/11/2002, in reply to message #91381
Unregistered user Part time lurker after 3 years abstinence of the RO scene.

Is RO5 Xscale dependent or will it run on any ARM like the new Samsung 1.2 Ghz ? No dependence on the Intel graphic features of Xscale ?

Ernst Dinkla

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thegman Message #91383, posted at 10:16, 4/11/2002, in reply to message #91382
Unregistered user I got the impression from Jack Lillingston that Pace had completely removed any reliance on any specific graphics chipset. I though the machine was very impressive, EasiWriter loaded in a split second, but I would have liked to see benchmarks of uncompressing JPEGs vs. other boxes and that kind of thing. It has a 600Mhz XScale, but MD are going on about 1GHz chips, so that may make the Omega a favourite in any future battle. Overall, I liked the machine, the case was a boring PC-affair, but as it's Micro-ATX, replacements should be easy and may be on offer from dealers. Incidentally, Jack L from Castle said that the case had an Iyonix logo as the power button, it looked to me that the logo had been based on the button! I think there was disappointment that there is no release date, or price, not even ball-park estimates.
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Matthew Phillips Message #91384, posted at 11:30, 4/11/2002, in reply to message #91383
Unregistered user Re earlier comment regarding application space going up to 1GB. Jack did not mean dynamic areas. The whole point about a 32-bit OS is that there is no address limit for executable code, so realy huge chunks of application space will be available. This means that for many purposes, applications should go back to using application space rather than dynamic areas, as dynamic areas muck up the logical memory space.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Peter Darnell Message #91385, posted by peter at 14:32, 4/11/2002, in reply to message #91384
Member
Posts: 25
All that I heard was SOON SOON SOON from nearly everybody, Castle for the Iyonix/Oregano2, RiscStation for the portable/Evolution and Surftec for their USB drivers for card readers/zip drives so with them and the Omega, well you what do you know they all arrive at the same time. .
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Peter Russell Message #91386, posted at 21:14, 4/11/2002, in reply to message #91385
Unregistered user Regarding the Iyonix and the 35 degrees thingy. Send one out to Australia and we will definitely test the fan!! Its nearly always over that in Port Augusta summer!
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The Icon Bar: News and features: Heads Up - RISC OS South East Show