Dear Foundation member, News from RISCOS Ltd No. 11 November 21st 2000 ================== RISCOS 2000 Show at Epsom Downs Race Course ------------------------------------------- The Show was very well attended and it was good to see not only the well travelled regular users, but also a new breed of users who were actively considering buying a RISC OS machine as opposed to a PC for their first venture into computing. Big news items at the show were the announcements of the MicroDigital Omega desktop computer and the RiscStation Osaris palmtop. MicroDigital Omega ------------------ The Omega is designed as a dual processor system with StrongARM or future XScale chip. The planned specs are:- Memory : 64Mb PC133 SD RAM Expandable via 2 x DIMM 1Gb max. 10MB Flash Memory Operating system + modules Video : Lightning + video chip Hardware JPEG decoder 2D and 3D acceleration (VRAM via main memory) 240MHz DAC Video Modes: Up to 2048 x 1536 x 24 bit colour@72Hz Expansion : 4 x 32bit x 33MHz PCI slots Modem 56k internal modem CD ROM drive 52 speed Hard disc drive 20GB For full details contact MicroDigital on 01274 618774 or look at the specs at http://www.microdigital.co.uk/blackomegatechspec.html RiscStation Osaris ------------------ The Osaris is produced by Oregon Scientific and uses the EPOC 32 operating system. (Which is now being referred to as the Symbian Operating System - SOS!) It has 8MB System ROM, 8MB RAM, 18MHz ARM 711T processor, 16 grey level ½ VGA LCD display. It doesn't run RISC OS, but comes with a connectivity pack to connect to RISC OS or Windows computers. The price is £143.83 + VAT for a single Osaris or £169.36 with the extras pack. For full details contact RiscStation on 01942 797777 or take a look at http://www.riscstation.co.uk/products/palmtop/ RISC OS 4.5 ----------- The Epsom Show was our first mention of the next version of RISC OS due for release next summer. With the imminent arrival of processors such as the XScale which only run in 32 bit mode, some very far reaching changes to RISC OS are being planned. RISC OS 4.5 will include limited support for applications that want to run in 32 bit mode on current hardware - such as Risc PC. The full feature list is being kept under wraps, but we are sure it will have something to give everyone a reason to upgrade. Forthcoming events ------------------ RISCOS Midlands Show 2000 ------------------------- RISCOS Ltd will be at the ARM Club Midlands Show on Saturday 2nd December. As in previous years the event is being held at the National MotorCycle Museum next to the NEC in Birmingham. For details look at http://www.armclub.org.uk/shows/midlands/ RISCOS 2001 Southwest Show -------------------------- The Acorn SouthWest Show organised by John Stonier has been renamed RISCOS SouthWest for 2001. The venue as for previous years will be at the Webbington Hotel in Loxton, which is 10 minutes drive from the M5 not far away from Weston Super Mare. As well as the usual dealers area, there is going to be a special enthusiasts area, where members of the Foundation, and others can bring along their own machines to show off their skills and what equipment they have. Whilst User Groups round the country have meetings where local users can take their machines along, this will be the first time that there will be an opportunity to show your machine off to a national audience. There will also be an indoor "Car Boot Sale" area, where for an initial £5 donation to the Charity Sale you will be able to have access to a 6 foot table to sell off any unwanted Acorn kit you have. Coding competition ------------------ As part of the exhibition events next year we are sponsoring a coding / demo competition. The aim is two fold. 1. To encourage new programmers 2. To help produce demos that can run on machines for display purposes. At present the major demo that most people use is the tumbling slideshow which does not show off the full capabilities of new machines. I would like to suggest you becoming a co-sponsor of the event by putting up a Mico or an Omega as one of the prizes for the events. The competition will be judged either at the RISCOS SouthWest Show in Weston Super Mare in February or possibly at the Wakefield Show in May. The basic rules of the competition will be produce a demo program that runs for at least 5 minutes before repeating. It must run in a high resolution screen mode of at least 1024 x 768 x 32K. It should incorporate Still Images from those supplied with RISC OS 4 and possibly multi-tasking Replay clips. It should have a high quality audio track and be capable of running from files direct from a CD but also loading standard material from hard disc. Prizes will be donated by all the leading hardware developers and for those of you wanting to take advantage of some of the special features being offered by the new hardware, technical details should be available very shortly. Entries will be open to both Individuals and Teams. Full details will be published shortly. What is XScale? --------------- You may have heard mentions of the new XScale technology from Intel. XScale is a new microarchitecture designed to expand the capabilities of the Intel Internet Exchange architecture family of high-performance/low power network processors and high-throughput I/O processors in Internet infrastructure and storage applications. The good news is that it is based on the ARM v.5TE instruction set (excluding the floating point instruction set), this new microarchitecture delivers industry-leading mWatt/MIPS performance, and preserves software compatibility with the Intel SA 110 and ARM cores that form the basis of Intel's initial generation of network processors. The Intel® XScale™ core is designed to be combined with a variety of peripherals to enable new generations of components that meet the requirements of selected market segments, including networking and storage. The first chip that will be of interest to desktop manufacturers will be the Intel 80200. The only bad news with the 80200 is that it does not support operation in 26 bit modes. This new architecture is part of what was previously being called StrongARM 2. For the full rundown take a look at http://developer.intel.com/design/iio/papers/273429.htm The specs for the 80200 are at http://developer.intel.com/design/iio/datashts/ Interesting Web Links --------------------- Which searching for something totally un-related I came across a reference to RISC OS on a most unexpected site - Borland Community. This site is run by Borland (otherwise known as Inprise) who produce products such as Delphi and Interbase. Take a look at http://community.borland.com/directory/Computers/Operating_Systems/RISCOS which has some interesting RISC OS links. NB Some such as Uniqueway are no longer active. Uptime record ------------- We have an A7000+ that has now been up for 136 days without interuption. If anyone else has long running machines, especially if they are used for any special purpose then please let us know. RISC OS 32-bit software forward compatibility release ----------------------------------------------------- RISCOS Ltd and Pace Micro Technology plc have today released a beta version of the components required for users of the Acorn C/C++ development environment to produce RISC OS programs that will be compatible with future 32-bit only versions of RISC OS. The beta software is freely available from the RISCOS Ltd Website at http://www.riscos.com/download/ Before downloading the components users must agree to the terms of a Software License Agreement and provide full details of the machine on which they intend to run the software. Included in the package are:- Shared C Library 5.17 3 Oct 2000 CallASWI 0.02 2 Oct 2000 FPEmulator 4.14 2 Oct 2000 Note: The FPPC hardware floating point system is no longer supported. New Libraries for C/C++ - c++lib, ANSIlib, flexlib etc Documentation Two documents are included with the package. 32bitIntro This gives an overview for Developers producing standard Desktop applications written in C or BASIC and for users of the Acorn C/C++ development environment. It will help them produce RISC OS programs that will be compatible with future 32-bit only versions of RISC OS. 32bitTech This document summarises information on the changes to the RISC OS binary interfaces between 26 and 32-bit versions of RISC OS. It should provide a basis for developers to ensure that their software is compatible with future systems. N.B A lot of the information in this document is at a much lower level than the majority of software developers require. All software and documentation is © 2000 Pace Micro Technology plc. Foundation RISC USER CD Back Issues ------------------------------------- Due to the quality of the articles in the CD there have been many requests to buy back issues of the CD's. I am pleased to announce that consequently we are offering Back Issues to Foundation members for only £5 + postage + VAT = £6.76 for UK members. To order please send a letter, fax or email to the usual Foundation address. Foundation Risc User CD No. 4 ----------------------------- The good news is that Issue 4 will shortly be going to press and should be with everyone before Christmas. Technical Support Help Line --------------------------- A reminder that times of the support line to 5.00 p.m until 8.30 p.m The RISC OS 4 Helpline is on 029 2049 2326 or email you query to mailto:support@riscos.com Enquiries for the Foundation and General Sales 029 2049 2324 from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm Monday - Saturday. Fax for all enquiries 029 2044 0071 Please quote your Foundation Membership Number on all enquiries Replying to queries from this Newsletter ---------------------------------------- If you are responding to a specific query in this newsletter please use the appropriate mailto: address to reply rather than replying to the sender of this email. Also don't reply to the general foundation or admin email addresses as your enquiry may not get dealt with promptly. We try to reply to all enquiries within 5 days. But at peak times it may take longer to reply. If you have received this email in error, or wish to be removed from this list then please send an email to mailto:foundation@riscos.com with the subject REMOVE regards -- Paul Middleton RISCOS Ltd ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©2000 RISCOS Ltd. RISC OS is a trademark of Pace Micro Technology plc. 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