Feedback

Send us your views on any aspect of the RISC OS world. This is your chance to bend RISCOS Ltd's ear!

Your letters will be read and answered by the employees of RISCOS Ltd. If your published letter requires a response, we will reply personally; you won't have to wait until the next issue for the answer.

[This page contains a couple of sample letters that were published during volume 1 of Foundation RISC User.]

Click to jump to the following topics:

RISC OS 4 speed benefits

I have heard that installing RISC OS 4 will give speed improvements of as much as 50%. Is this true, and will I see such benefits when using my computer for normal tasks (Impression, Photodesk and the Internet)? How are such enhancements possible? I thought that RISC OS was very fast already!
M. Johnson

The speed increases are real, and yes, you notice them in day-to-day usage. The benchmarks we conducted to test the speed were designed to show the system doing real tasks, as well as the obligatory ArmSI index. So, for example, rendering a Web page really was much faster. Even programs that you would not expect to be faster (e.g. games) show noticeable increases in performance!

The enhancements are largely derived from two areas. Most importantly, large chunks of the OS kernel have been reworked and tidied up, allowing for much streamlining. This gives enhancements across the board. Whilst support for Revision-T StrongARMs has also been added, this does not account for the enhancements, as our benchmarks were all done on older StrongARM processors! The second area of enhancement is the set of filing system improvements that are present in RISC OS 4. You can now safely use ADFSbuffers to cache the disc, and this will speed up boot times etc.

At this point we should say that ARM610 and 710 owners are not forgotten. Indeed, owners of older machines will probably notice more of a difference, as every bit of performance is critical with slower processors.
Andrew Rawnsley

Submitting software to Foundation RISC User

Some days ago I was talking to Herbert zur Nedden at our regular Hamburg RISC OS meeting. Herbert mentioned that he sent you a piece of software for publication on the Foundation CD. I was surprised, because I was under the impression that only registered developers were able to have software published on your CD. As there seems to be the possibility for "normal" people like myself to have things included on your CD, though, I am writing to you.

Therefore, my question is: would you like publish my Psion conversion utility, Psionconv, and other associated utilities such as PsiFS on the Foundation CD?
Thomas Milius

It's true that the Database section currently covers only products from registered developers (and then, only the ones who have participated by supplying the necessary information). However, the rest of the magazine is open to everyone, and I am very happy to receive ideas for articles and software to include in the magazine. In Herbert's case, he supplied a useful piece of software with an article to explain how it works.

The Free Software section is a hand-picked collection of useful software items, with the emphasis on quality rather than quantity. Whilst it's certainly not possible to include the sum total of RISC OS freeware in this archive, we are of course interested in keeping it up to date and expanding it with new items. The Psion connectivity utilities you refer to are all highly useful for Psion owners, so from this issue onwards they will be included in a new Psion section within the archive.

If anyone else is aware of software that they think should be included in the Free Software archive, or has written something that they would like to be included, do please contact me about it.
Richard Hallas