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Risc OS

Has it been updated at all recently? Last time I tried it on a Pi it felt like running Windows 95, BeOs, Amiga OS, NextStep or whatever, it just couldn’t cope with modern websites etc at all. I like the idea given its history, but it seemed to have been left to die in any real usable sense. Certainly no alternative to a well-supported full-featured and secure modern Linux.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Just wondering if there are any other Risc OS users here... or is it just me? :)
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In 1992-1993 I managed an Econet network of 20-odd Acorn A3000's. I procured and installed a new 40 Mb A5000 as a file server & ran it in parallel with an older 20 Mb Acorn file server stuffed with BBC Micro software that ran in an emulator, IIRC, on RiscOS. Haven't touched RiscOS since. I vaguely recall that for about 6 months the flight simulator on the A5000 was the most impressive gaming experience I had ever seen.
 
Tony L said:
Has it been updated at all recently? Last time I tried it on a Pi it felt like running Windows 95, BeOs, Amiga OS, NextStep or whatever, it just couldn’t cope with modern websites etc at all. I like the idea given its history, but it seemed to have been left to die in any real usable sense. Certainly no alternative to a well-supported full-featured and secure modern Linux.
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You seem to be confusing the OS with the apps. :)

Yes, RO is continuously being developed. Both an 'Open' version by ROOL and a 'Commercial' one by ROD. (Despight that, they co-operate and swap code.)

And web browing isn't the OS. There are two main browsers. !NetSurf (which I use for all my access to this forum) is deliberately a 'light' browser and I keep scripting off. !Iris is a WebKit-based browser and can render pages with bucketloads of scripting, etc.

I was prompted to ask because I'm currently writing a program to generate interactively the field patterns around antennas which render using a specific RO App. Set me wondering how many others here might use it - or may not even know it exists! But a number of people still use it, and buy various modern hardware to run it on. I just bought one Pi-based system for my better half to use.
 
foxwelljsly said:
In 1992-1993 I managed an Econet network of 20-odd Acorn A3000's. I procured and installed a new 40 Mb A5000 as a file server & ran it in parallel with an older 20 Mb Acorn file server stuffed with BBC Micro software that ran in an emulator, IIRC, on RiscOS. Haven't touched RiscOS since. I vaguely recall that for about 6 months the flight simulator on the A5000 was the most impressive gaming experience I had ever seen.
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FWIW 'at work' I often had to use all kinds of systems, from ICL's to Suns to Doze to. Macs... Cromenco's as well IIRC. But kept coming back to the BBC - RO types as far easier to use for a single user environment.

I do also use Linux, but mainly for when heavy bit-bashing tasks are needed and/or it has convenient software. e.g. to run a DVB or FunCube dongle for RF purposes.

FWIW2 All my websites/pages are generated using RO, as have been my books, magazine articles. etc.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
You seem to be confusing the OS with the apps. :)
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I’m assessing the overall usability of a system. The vast majority of computer use these days is internet based and if a system hasn’t a browser suitable for internet banking, e-commerce, social media, 4k video replay etc etc it isn’t really a contender. Raspberry Pi OS meets these requirements as you can run secure mainstream browsers (Chrome, Firefox etc) on it, my impression is that isn’t the case with RISC OS.

I like RISC OS, but view it as a bit of historical fun rather than a daily driver.
 
Occurs to me to add: One big plus for me is that allthe RO machines can be used 'single tasking'. i.e. you can stop the desktop and multitasking to run a program that 'takes over' and works on one task. That's useless for most users, of course. But for situations where you want to do something like control and data logging in a lab it can be very handy. All my old RiscPC I'd had at work were passed on to someone who made underwater 'robots' for the North Sea. He used them as the robit brains in what he made and operated.

And I recently wrote a program that used that to turn my present RO box into a combined Audio DAC / ADC / sig gen / analyser to carry out measurements on audio equipment. Goes full-screen display and just concentrates on this.

Someone else then did a modified version for on-desktop, but I prefer the lack of clutter/distraction of single-tasking for things like this.
 
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