6 ms·

"the mission to reinvigorate the RISC OS market" They're nearly 20 years too late for that. The only compelling reason to use RISC OS over anything else these

"the mission to reinvigorate the RISC OS market" They're nearly 20 years too late for that. The only compelling reason to use RISC OS over anything else these days is nostalgia. Still, it might be an interesting project to hack on.

Kim_Bruning 8y ago
Running RPCEmu, I was surprised how real the nostalgia for old operating systems can feel! ( and I still haven't gotten Digital Symphony to work on any kind of modern machine. :-/ )
- danellis 8y ago
  I converted a lot of my music from SoundTrackers to Digital Symphony files because it had compression, so I needed half as many floppies. Now, with nothing to play them on, I regret that.
  - Kim_Bruning 8y ago
    That's terrible to hear! Perhaps you'll find some of them back here: https://modarchive.org/index.php?faq-torrents https://modarchive.org/index.php?faq-torrents Also, xmp will play symphony files, http://xmp.sourceforge.net/ http://xmp.sourceforge.net/ (installs fine on debian with apt install xmp ) If you just want to listen to your mod collection again, that might be sufficient already! :-)
Symbiote 8y ago
I had a look at the Icon Bar site [1], and I'm amazed that people are still able to sell software for RISC OS. I was given an informal (but firm) takedown notice in about 2002, when I uploaded an old game to my website and linked to it from a RISC OS forum. I'd thought RISC OS was dead then. [1] https://www.iconbar.com/ https://www.iconbar.com/
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I don't know about that. There's a serious market for a real desktop personal computing operating system right now, one that is simple (note: not easy, simple), and enables users instead of trying to coddle them. Could RISC OS fill that role? Probably not without a whole lot of changes, starting with a conversion to preemptive multitasking. And worse, if anyone took it up they'd probably make it all POSIX and integrate a package manager and try to turn it into another Linux Distro. Still, I can hold on to vain hopes.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  > There's a serious market… The personal computing market has already been divided between Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS.
- danellis 8y ago
  I think simple and useful are competing goals. RISC OS is simple, but there's a lot that it can't do. I expect that simplicity makes porting larger software projects pretty difficult too. > starting with a conversion to preemptive multitasking I wonder how difficult that would actually be. I think it could be done without changing the existing WIMP API. The Wimp_Poll loop would still exist as is, just as in other windowing systems; it just wouldn't be the only time it loses control. And preemption has certainly been done before in Niall Douglas's Tornado project.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    > I think simple and useful are competing goals. Counterpoint: the stick, the knife, and the wheel.
    - mishac 8y ago
      How often do you use a single stick or wheel, that isn't part of some much more complicated machine? (I won't argue about the knife. That is both simple and useful)
    - danellis 8y ago

Kim_Bruning 8y ago

Running RPCEmu, I was surprised how real the nostalgia for old operating systems can feel! ( and I still haven't gotten Digital Symphony to work on any kind of modern machine. :-/ )

danellis 8y ago
I converted a lot of my music from SoundTrackers to Digital Symphony files because it had compression, so I needed half as many floppies. Now, with nothing to play them on, I regret that.
- Kim_Bruning 8y ago
  That's terrible to hear! Perhaps you'll find some of them back here: https://modarchive.org/index.php?faq-torrents https://modarchive.org/index.php?faq-torrents Also, xmp will play symphony files, http://xmp.sourceforge.net/ http://xmp.sourceforge.net/ (installs fine on debian with apt install xmp ) If you just want to listen to your mod collection again, that might be sufficient already! :-)

Symbiote 8y ago

I had a look at the Icon Bar site [1], and I'm amazed that people are still able to sell software for RISC OS. I was given an informal (but firm) takedown notice in about 2002, when I uploaded an old game to my website and linked to it from a RISC OS forum. I'd thought RISC OS was dead then. [1] https://www.iconbar.com/ https://www.iconbar.com/

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

I don't know about that. There's a serious market for a real desktop personal computing operating system right now, one that is simple (note: not easy, simple), and enables users instead of trying to coddle them. Could RISC OS fill that role? Probably not without a whole lot of changes, starting with a conversion to preemptive multitasking. And worse, if anyone took it up they'd probably make it all POSIX and integrate a package manager and try to turn it into another Linux Distro. Still, I can hold on to vain hopes.

Koshkin 8y ago
> There's a serious market… The personal computing market has already been divided between Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS.
danellis 8y ago
I think simple and useful are competing goals. RISC OS is simple, but there's a lot that it can't do. I expect that simplicity makes porting larger software projects pretty difficult too. > starting with a conversion to preemptive multitasking I wonder how difficult that would actually be. I think it could be done without changing the existing WIMP API. The Wimp_Poll loop would still exist as is, just as in other windowing systems; it just wouldn't be the only time it loses control. And preemption has certainly been done before in Niall Douglas's Tornado project.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > I think simple and useful are competing goals. Counterpoint: the stick, the knife, and the wheel.
  - mishac 8y ago
    How often do you use a single stick or wheel, that isn't part of some much more complicated machine? (I won't argue about the knife. That is both simple and useful)
  - danellis 8y ago