1). I spoke directly to Roy Heslop and Gavin(?) of simtec at Wakefield. Gavin confirmed that the hardware is there and running linux (RiscBSD?) and WinCE. From a crossplatform perspective that really gets my attention. He has also stated on the newsgroups that he would absolutely not do it if it could not be done for a reasonable price. In conjunction with this Roy told me that he had plans for an upgrade route for current RiscStation owners to Evolution. He wasn't sure how it would be implemented but that there should be one. He almost convinced me to buy a RiscStation (but I need to see a bit more than good intentions right now).

2) RiscStation also admitted that they were working on DHCP support. This is absolutely vital if they want to sell machines to students at universities as a lot of them are adding network connections to their student residences and it would be stupid to think that these would be administered in any other way than via DHCP. Other people were less enthusiastic about getting the job done. Now DHCP isn't a complex protocol - developing it would be tedious yes, difficult no. The hardest part would be integrating into the RISC OS networking infrastructure but at least they're having a go.

It seems to me that all the hardware manufacturers are being proactive and I wouldn't count Evolution out yet. However if it has no OS....

Rough idea of information gleaned from the theatre presentation at Wakefield:

Evolution will be too expensive - they (at RiscStation) thought it would not, but had some dodgy info from suppliers about hardware costs etc. Thus a large redesign would be required.

Now for an almost quote...

As far as Evolution in it's current form goes, it will almost definately not happen.

Why doesn't somebody e-mail them at RS and ask - hell, maybe I'll even get around to it.

A quick ref. to one of the above posts - I agree that it is tempting to buy a Riscstation/Mico Tower for the extra IDE slots (CD writer + CD ROM + ...) very tempting... all that RiscPC expandability nonsense is just that :(Removed :)

[Edited by 94 at 21:55, 4/07/2000]

1) Pentiums processor have an internal RISC , intel build a x86 code transator in RISC code, so pentium (from p 75) work in RISC code with x86 internal firmware, so if RISC OS Ltd programmers are very very good programmers RISC OS can be ported for PCs without emulations and also run well, about the RISC OS apps well more of this apps use ARM code and a lot of other are compiled in ARM code.. so i don't think that a porting is an usefull thing...

2) about the PCI i told a lot of times that we need PCI only for have an hardware compatibility, not for is benefit because in reality we will have not... also with AGP and USB (if you don't believe me compare viewfinder and an AGP video card and see)

3) about a new board... well the problem is that INTEL are upgrading SA only for portable not for desktop so all is optimized for low energy usage... more features will never be done because the new ARMs have not use a lot of energy and also ARM Ltd are moving in this ways with cellulars and poke computer systems

why this if SA is a very good processor for server computing? easy INTEL used a lot of dollars in XEON tecnology so can't make a concurrent processor (intel never do this) they want XEON tecnology for high applications, pentium 2 and 3 for normal and Celleron for low cost machines (i want remember also that PII born from the old PentiumPRO so it is optimized for 32 bit systems) what can do an ARM in this picture? easy it will be the processor for portable machines and applications... all computers world are going to internet tecnologies so all will run in a browser window (i don't like this but this is the way now, thank you GATES again also for this :-((( ) so wll not be important the operating system.

and RISC OS? well if RO not grow fatser it will die and go in the OS cimitery with AmigaOS, Atari TAOS, DOS, Win3x, Xenix etc... now peoples need this.. a good system with all professional features and a lot of features like fax etc... (ALL IN ONE ISTALLATION not like RO is now)

about the name of a crashed application it is not possible under RISC OS only because it not have protected memory... if it will have you also can see what application make problems and also freeze it (like application not like a piece of memory)

about a PC card... well for now is not possible to use more than an AMD K6 (first generation) because all other PC processors use a 64 bit bus that we have not in a ARM or SA based machines and also this processors use a lot of pin because thay have a lot of chace (chace need pins!) so the miniboards are more complex to do... but we can try to use an 300 Mhx AMD K6 it have MMX, FP and also 3D tecnology so it can be a good way (if someone want informations about this i can give a lot)

Emulation? no thank you! :-)

new motherbaords.... well why ton't try to build a board like the old RiscPC boards but at 66 Mhz and with new slots for RAM? low cost and also the same result of kinetic, but also the PC card can use new features of speed, DMA also and also not DMA cards.... well i think so a very good way and very low cost for all... (but i'm not sure i don't know if this is possible...)

in the end.... well also if i don't told nothing good i believe in ARM tecnologies, SA and RiscPC are very very very good machines the problem now is that all companies want go in internet world... but this will end to not more years, internet is a good place but only for big companies the others will make only rumors...

The fact that later Pentium's have a RISC core is neither here nor there, all code run on Pentiums is X86 code and even if the underlying RISC code were surfaced it would not be ARM compatible so once again emulation would be required.

Even if RiscOS became utterly non-ARM based all the existing applications are supplied as (compiled) ARM code and so would still need an emulator.

As to PCI compatiblity just have a look at the current problems in PCI chipsets such as the i820 (as reported in the PC computer press). So folks do you want that level of problems... if so GET PCI

Even if you had PCI compatibility on an Acorn type machine the business of writing software drivers would be costly as (i) no-one in the Acorn market has PCI experience (ii) the cards you're fitting are often complex and writing drivers for them would require the assistance of their manufacturers (I just can't see Creative spending the time/money for such a small market) and (iii) The cost of licensing the technology - for example a DVD decoder card would necessitate an up front $5000 license fee (for the DVD specification) and if you feed out Dolby Digital 5.1 probably a license for that too. If you sold just 100 units (quite good by Acorn standards) you'd need to charge a minimum of $50 per unit just to make back the license fee - never mind the hardware cost and development cost.

On top of that the PCI interface is moderately complex and would thus cost a lot to implement and (as if that weren't enough) isn't supported by RiscOS so would require development money to be thrown at it.

It would probably be cheaper to implement most expansion hardware from scratch to run under the old Podule bus !

I would like a non-PCI fast bus to handle the I/O, PCI can be bettered trust me on that.

Regarding the ARM being somewhat "not as good" as the Pentium because its not "aimed" at the desktop market is meaningless. Its all MARKETING if it suited ARM tomorrow they'd market it as a super processor, just as Intel market some versions of the Pentium as portable (and their performance is little different from the equivilent desktop variants).

The AMD K6 does NOT have MMX (it uses a thing called 3D Now!). Again this is just marketing, a lot of existing programs DON'T use 3D Now or MMX and still run (they would perform no worse on a PC processor without 3D Now or MMX).

As for applications crashing on RiscOS because of not enough memory protection - just remember the PC has memory protection and still manages some spectacular crashes.

Regarding your point about a RiscPC board at 66MHz, why 66MHz (it is after all a favoured Intel speed but has no other significance), the Athlon uses a 200MHz A Bus, the Millipede Imago uses an amazing 128 Bit bus clocked at least at 100MHz (the Imago would have a bandwidth around 6 times that of 32 bit/66MHz PCI).

We should all be pushing for the BEST technology not the most AVAILABLE technology.

Regards

Annraoi

This is part of the problem with PCI it is relatively complex, moderately fast and few in the Acorn world have a clue how to use it. This imposes costs and delays (which RiscStation are no doubt suffering). As to whether evolution is dead or not I don't know - I hope not.

Perhaps its time for the hardware vendors in the Acorn market to propose a next generation I/O system that could support bridges to PCI/ISA/Podule as well as its own "fast" alternative - what do you think ?

You have to admit, as soon as RISC OS is running OK on it, we have said goodbye to all our hardware problems (well, the main ones), except of course for the small problem of the current circa £1000 price tag :-(

Speaking of RISC OS, RISCOS Ltd reckon that if they fail to have in-house engineers, they will contract the work out, maybe to Pace (Pace are working on it anyway and do have a nice stake in RISCOS Ltd).

About Castle... well they can do more for RiscPCs and RISC OS, the problem maybe is that they have not engineers, for example why they did study a card like kinetik that from the project presents a lot of "bottle neck"? i don't know but i think that 1) they have fear to make a new board because they don't know if people will buy it 2) they don't have engineers that can work arround this board 3) they don't have money... well for the 3rd i can say to castle that INTEL did make a new board maybe they can start to work arround this.... for the 1st well only they know what they want do with/for RiscPC and RiscOS, for the 2nd... well find engineers that just know ARM and are ready for work on it i think that is very difficult so.... i don't know....

Another thing, we don't need ALL the things the PC world has. We just need speed, USB and maybe PCI (and backwards compatibility of course) plus some graphics improvements. After all, it's meant to be DIFFERENT from the PC which is an inferior design. We don't want a machine full of inferior hardware with a buggy OS - might as well get a PC!

How can you complain about RISC OS crashes not telling you what went wrong? I have yet to receive any useful information from Windoze when it crashes, which is on a very regular basis indeed. Windoze crashes for no reason at all; for example, I can be reading a Web site in Netscape, there is no downloading or anything elase going on, and suddenly the system will throw up an error message and it's another restart.

At least when RISC OS crashes you don't have to wait for several mintues for it to load. At least it does load - Windoze often hangs on startup for reasons it probably doesn't even know.

You do seem to know a bit about OSs, and I admit I don't know the ins and outs in great detail, but I do know that never does RISC OS want to be like Windoze and never does it want to be on PC architecture. Granted, RISC OS needs to have more features (DVD, USB etc) and become fully 32bit and hopefully retain backwards compatibility, but RISC OS needs to remain as small as possible and remain on ROMs. The bigger it gets, the more bugs there will be and it will start to become less stable.

Also, the whole point of RISC OS is that it runs on RISC chips and is efficient and reliable. If you port it or adapt it to use PC architecture, then what's the point? Might as well just use Linux or Windows.

We do need new hardware and we are already seeing some very impressive developments, notably the Imago motherboard. This or something similar would surely be the way forward. Once RISC OS is up and running on it, it could form the basis of the next generation of RiscPCs or their successors.

Jack Lillingston assures me that their development programme is well underway and I have great faith in them. Look at the extra lease of life they have given the RiscPC with the Kinetic upgrade. RISCOS Ltd say they will sub-contract if they have no engineers, so I see a bright future as long as some promotion is used. There is no reason that Castle etc can't be in a similar position to Apple in a year or two - after all, Apple were on the brink and then they came up with the iMac and the G4 and look at them now!

After this (i hope last explanation) well Michael... i hope that other peoples are not on your way otherwise i have to jump out of Risc os VERY FAST i don't want die with it... maybe you like games and periferials (like more young people) but the problem is not this if you want periferials will be always someone that will do this but make an operating system is a very hard work and the system have to assure you alot of features like other systems otherwise you will choise other systems....
the problems that you talk about win there is because maybe you have some thing at 16 bits running in your machine (old EISA drivers, old applications and agents) or only you did try in your past to configure some driver at 16 bit and the DLL at 16 bit (wrong) are still in your system this is classic problems of windows (you have 95 or 98 but is the same) if you want resolve it you have to discover all the system and pay attention we will also have the same problems when will be ready RISC OS at 32 bit with old 26 bit applications... so prepare yourself to this also in Risc os...
well so why windows tell you what app make problems? well because at microsoft know that wind have a weak stomac at 16 bit and so used this tecnology, when we will have the same problems with Risc OS we NEVER know what app make the problem because memory don't tell you what app make problems.... so you will see all your ideas go down like a breack glass... sorry for this i apollocize every time with Risc OS users because i know that you don't think to this... what is in back of an system is more different of what is in front... but ok stop with my words (maybe i'm a stupid and i can not see the true after years of programming in more systems i think like other system and not like Risc OS) i only hope that people here have not close minds and can start to think that other people can do something better than Risc OS... yes it is a good system but compared to AmigaOS not to Linux or WindowsNT or the new Windows 2000 (Bill Gates way a part) so someone here can tell me "But i want Risc OS only for games" well it's sad but ok, and so i replay "Do you think that companies will make games for Risc OS for ever, Windows are growing alot also in Game business.... so to not more time also games will leave Risc OS" but OK, i apollocize again and i hope that you will not undestand a day that this is the wrong way...

As for peripherals, well of course I like them! Where would I be without my printer to print my music, my modem to connect to the Internet and my scanner to get my photographs on the computer? I take it you don't use any of these things? If not, you are unique, if so, what are you talking about? I am pretty sure you'll find that most people need/want to use peripherals.

As for the PC and the drivers etc that you mention, all my stuff is for Windows 95/98 and apart from that I really don't the ins and outs. All's I know is that it is very unreliable and that when I have problems in RISC OS I normally end up being to fix them myself.

Comparing RISC OS to Linux is silly as Linux is very much a server OS. It still has quite some way to go before it can be classed as a desktop OS. It's a nightmare to install and very unfriendly to use, especially when compared to RISC OS or even (gasp) Windows.

If RISC OS users thought that RISC OS was inferior to Windows NT/2000 or Linux, I would have thought they would have all left by now. As I keep saying, yes RISC OS does need more features, but for example it doesn't need to rival Linux's server abilities not does it need to be crammed full of drivers for endless numbers of devices, as Windows is. It's supposed to be an end user OS that is simple, reliable and compact. Maybe one day RISCOS Ltd will develop a version specifically for server duties, a sort of RISC OS version of Windows NT Server.

If it was fully 32bit with backwards compatibility (however it would be done), with support for USB, PCI, DVD and the old podule slots and maybe even used AGP graphics cards, what else is really needed?

I just think the more that the OS tries to be able to do, the more bloated and unreliable it becomes. You just have to look at the history of DOS and Windows to see the logic of this.

Paolo, I speak from an end user's point of view, not a programmer's, as you do. What you say about the error messages is probably correct and it may be sorted for RISC OS 5. You picked this games thing from nowhere, but it's fair to say that games drive the PC market and, once this 32bit problem is solved, that is the next little hurdle. Younger users need to be attracted to the platform for it to have a future (I'm thinking in ten years time).

Another point, some up-to-date C++ compilers and libraries etc are needed so I can continue to hassle Sibelius to release the new version of the software for the Acorn. I have sent info to Benn Finn but he says all the resources are inadequate. If you (or anyone else) knows of good, up-to-date C++ compilers and libraries for RISC OS, let me know! Sibelius is one of those killer apps and one that needs to be brought rapidly back into the RISC OS world.

[Edited by 160 at 20:09, 15/7/2000]

about other your replay... well for eample protected memory etc... let a programmer be more happy and let it concentrate on the application, he will not have fear to test the program in all situations because if his program crash (in some situation) the system will not have problem! ok? it's clear this concept? (i hope) so now more programmers did undestand that programming under win and win NT is not so bad... and is also good for some points better than more other systems... so why Risc OS don't have to see the future and have this wonderfull features? because there is someone that have fear of the new? well this is not modern this is old and also you have to undestand that in the world there is a lot of people with good ideas not only Risc OS... we have to see the good that there is in the world and put it in the Risc OS... but it's very strange that a person like you that tell that you love Risc OS don't want that it grow for be a very wonderfull system.

About compare Linux and Risc OS well I TOLD A LOT OF TIMES THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE RISC OS IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL SYSTEM, Risc OS can be compared with Amiga OS or Atari TOS (and of course it is better that A.OS and A.TOS)

You talk about some applications that you do in your home, well image this so.. you have a machine that can do more (undestand MORE) that what it do now (and you too) but Risc OS not use all it features! undestand? (i hope)

and... you have to know that the world go on day by day... Risc OS can NOT STOP otherwise no one will use it! you told about yonger people to try to look Risc OS, well do you know that you can programmin VISUAL C++ under Windows without write a line of code? well i think that new programmers and beginners will go under this system and NOT under Risc OS where you have to write a lot and it don't is diffuse system (so you can not make money also). Other this i want say that i know peoples that after a LIFE of programming under UNIX discovered that for som aspects is better Windows NT, and now there is Win2000 ok i know that you don't like this words but you have to know that all the world are moving under this words and if Risc OS want survive have to offer professional tools to programmers.

But in the end of your replay i undestand that you agree perfectly with me, because you told me that you have problems with C++ library and compilers update... well this is the effect of what i say every time to you... i can not do nothing for this and when i will have your same problem... i will JUMP OUT of Risc OS like other programmers... i'm not a language maker so i need languages and libraries... actualy i'm makeing a CD ROM for Risc OS programmers with C and C++ libraries etc... but the only libraries updated are the MESA Graphics so i don't think that i can help you, when i will finish this CD ROM (it is PD) i can send it to you but it use GNU C and C++ it is good if you want build an operating system for ARM or help Risc OS Ltd to modify Risc OS 4 and maybe also for sibellius up date.... (i hope for you)

How do you define a "professional" operating system? Are you referring to it's programming capabilties etc? How isn't RISC OS professional?

It WOULD be very strange if I didn't want RISC OS to grow into a "wonderful system". I do! Well, it's wonderful already, it just needs some more features, as discussed. The last thing I want is for it to remain static and then die. For starters, I would not have started this conversation, would I!

RISC OS has always outclassed Windows, in my opinion, when it comes to the GUI, speed and stability. With the slight inconvenience of that idiot Stan Bolland breaking up Acorn, there was bound to be a period where Windows overtook on the features side, but hopefully as the market settles down again, RISCOS Ltd will come up with the goods to put RISC OS back on top, where it belongs!

As I say, I am NOT a programmer and when you start talking about the more technical side in depth, I don't really know much of what you are talking about. I am trying to put forward my view as an experienced user of RISC OS as to what I think should be incorporated into the OS and what shouldn't. OK?

If you, as a programmer, say we need protected memory and that the only way to have backwards compatibility is to translate program calls (like Windows) then I don't disagree! As long as it's done and RISC OS doesn't lose it's stability and is kept on ROMs, then I would certainly have no problem. It's just that RISC OS's main selling points are (as far as I can see) it's excellent GUI, stability and tiny size.

If RISC OS is kept small and stable and ROM based with no major changes to the GUI but gains functionality, I would be nothing less than delighted!

As most RiscOS apps use some ARM code it would be pointless to reimplement RiscOS for VM operations (never mind the performance hit, think of all the broken code !!!)

Multiple ARM processors with one of them running 24 bit apps and the other(s) running 32 bit stuff seems perfectly sensible. With a motherboard like the Imago you could have more than 2 and not get inordinate speed loss through them getting in each others way.

Memory protection SHOULD NOT affect how anyone writes their programs (the OS will handle codes that violate memory space appropriately).

It would mean changes in the RiscOS kernel and some modules but applications writers like Paulo and others should not notice much difference except that other programs should not bring their code (or the OS) crashing down.

As to RiscOS not being "professional", I suppose it doesn't have the 63,000 (that is SIXTY THREE THOUSAND) bugs reported in Windows2000. I would happily settle for a "Non-professional" OS with fewer bugs wouldn't you ?

As I've said before Windows has memory protection and still crashes, the causes may differ but are just as troublesome. Improve RiscOS yes, by all means, but PLEASE don't make it like windows !!!!

More features, but keep the bugs and the bloats please!

As to making it like Windows, who on earth would want to use an alternative to Windows that is just like it? In my view, this is Linux's downfall, trying to look and feel like Windows.

There is a gap here for a good, stable and USER FRIENDLY alternative to Windows, something which, with some tweaking and 32bitness, RISC OS would slip into very nicely.

Maybe it would be beneficial to send this discussion to RISCOS Ltd, or maybe they already know exactly what RISC OS needs and are making arrangements. They certainly seem determined to make it 32bit and I'm sure they'll incorporate many of the things we have suggested, as they are fairly obviously needed. They also say that if they can't have in-house engineers, they'll contract the work, maybe using Pace engineers. So that particular situation ain't so bad after all! Maybe RISCOS Ltd will learn from these rumours regarding their death that users need reassuring periodically that things are OK and progress is underway!

I still say that it would be better having one company making the hardware and the OS (like Acorn), but that's probably totally unfeasable now. I suppose one advantage is that we now have lower prices than in Acorn days for the high-end machines (ie half the price).