Tech-centric news site The Register have an article up that gives a brief overview of Acorn, the BeagleBoard, and the fact that RISC OS runs on it. Not exactly new news to the average RISC OS user, but the article is still worth a look just for to see the comments from old hands such as Eddie Edwards, Heyrick, and Hugo Tyson, and some extra trivia tidbits linked to by commenter jlocke.
 
Now, who wants to be the first to enlighten Peter Gathercole that adding (working) pre-emptive multitasking to RISC OS is in no way "trivial"?
 

Thanks to the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Group for putting on another great show - the turnout was good and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. Sorry, there's no detailed show report from me this year, but to give you an idea of what went on here's a summary of the tweets that I posted throughout the day, interspersed with various comments from the peanut gallery Scroll down for my photos from the show (and Joel Rowbottom has uploaded more here).
 

The fifteenth Wakefield Show will take place this weekend in, er, Wakefield. It runs from 10.30am to 4pm this Saturday, and a ticket will set you back a fiver (free for children).
 
There are quite a few exhibitors confirmed, including both RISCOS Ltd and RISC OS Open. The former will have the latest versions of RISC OS SIX, while the latter will be demonstrating the latest builds of the open source Beagleboard port, and possibly even a Touchbook running RISC OS. Other highlights will (hopefully) include:

• NetSurf 2.5, including all the latest improvements and fixes
• Messenger Pro 6 - lots of updates to the leading commercial email client for RISC OS
• Latest versions of MW Software's applications, including the new PostScript 3 printer drivers
• Latest versions of CashBook, PrintPDF, Organizer 2, and other apps

There'll be theatre presentations from all the usual suspects, including ROOL, ROL, R-Comp and MW Software. For more information, head over to the website.
 

Last week saw this year's annual Consumer Electronics Show go down in Las Vegas. The world's largest consumer technology tradeshow, it's traditionally a source for many product announcements from the major manufacturers. This year there was a lot of focus on 3D TVs, e-readers, and, most importantly for us, next-generation ARM-powered goodies.

 
 

For the past several years Drobe have run their yearly Drobe awards, in which members of the public nominate and vote for the RISC OS products and people who they believe have best served the platform over the course of the year. After a quick check with Drobe foreman Chris Williams to make sure he wasn't planning on running the awards this year, the staff at TIB decided it would be a good idea if we picked up the metaphorical torch and ran the awards ourselves. So, ladies and gentlemen, prepare for the first annual Icon Bar awards!
 
This year there will be four categories open for nomination. Once a suitable number of nominations have been collected, the voting booths will be opened. Then at the end of the year the votes will be tallied and the winner and runner-up for each category will be revealed. The categories for this year are:

• Best commercial product
• Best non-commercial product
• Best new development
• Best RISC OS show/event

Of course, if you want to nominate something that doesn't fit into any of the above categories, feel free to send it in and we'll see what we can do!
 
Update: Thanks for all your suggestions. Voting is now open until the end of the year.
 

After hearing the news that videos from the recent RISC OS London Show are now available online, I decided to take a look at what RISCOS Ltd had to say in their presentation. The results I found to be quite shocking...
 
Disclaimer: Although I've obviously been doing a lot of work for RISC OS Open recently, I am not a member of ROOL, nor am I speaking on behalf of ROOL (or The Icon Bar). The opinions expressed below are mine and mine alone, and any likeness or resemblence to any other person's opinions is entirely coincidental.
 
 

This was going to be a pretty dry fluff piece about the gaming events going on in my home city, something I'd pop in to between renewing my travel pass and getting some new shoelaces.  Then something slightly surreal happened to me.
 
I've just spent around an hour in the company of one of the men partly responsible for getting me into computers in the first place.  And I didn't recognise him.
 

Acorn World - now there's a name from the past. The final show was cancelled in 1998 when Acorn closed its workstations division - now it's back thanks to Dave Moore and the Retro Reunited team. The show, held over the weekend at the Cedar Court Hotel in Huddersfield, offered a range of vintage games consoles and bizarre Acorn hardware hacks. The Acorn scene was mostly 8-bit oriented although there was some RISC OS coverage too.