5 ms·

A shout out to those involved in Acorn, RISC OS, etc around the late 1980s and throughout the 1990's. Around 1992 or so, our family bought our first computer (w

A shout out to those involved in Acorn, RISC OS, etc around the late 1980s and throughout the 1990's. Around 1992 or so, our family bought our first computer (when I was around 5 years old) which was an Acorn A3000 running (if I recall correctly) RISC OS 2 on ROM. The school I went to also had Acorn computers (including the RISC PC toward the latter half of the 1990’s). Nowadays I consider myself extraordinarily privileged to have experienced RISC OS on Acorn hardware in its heyday. I see so many things in modern computing inspired by RISC OS. The taskbar in modern era Windows and Mac OS is remarkably similar to RISC OS 2 which was released in 1988. RISC OS was also an early pioneer of anti-aliasing fonts and had it years before it appeared in Windows. However, sadly, there are many things now lost to history. A machine running RISC OS 2 booted in literally <3 seconds. It was basically just a console screen with “RISC OS 2048K” (or something along those lines) and a second or two later you were at the desktop. It is near impossible to find any modern computing device that boots as quick as the A3000 running RISC OS did. RISC OS also had a wonderful file-save dialog which was simply the file icon—which you were to simply drag and drop directly to the folder you wanted to save the file to! Given you usually had the right folder open anyway, it was usually a case of just dragging to your already open folder. So much more sensible than having to search for a folder in a small explorer window. Thanks to all involved. Acorn and their RISC OS sparked a lifelong interest in computers. Thank you!

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
I guess because I'm in a bit of a mood thanks to arguing with Linux Desktop evangelists lately, I'd like to point out that Rox Filer implemented exactly this file saving functionality (and many other good ideas RiscOS) on Linux. Then they built Rox Desktop around it. It was great. There were AppDirs, context-menu-only, spacial file management, drag-n-drop to save, etc. Naturally, the project's reward for trying to improve the Linux Desktop experience was to have all its ideas ignored by the wider Linux community as it faded into obscurity. If anybody was ever wondering why all these people who have gripes about the Linux Desktop experience never seem receptive to your pleas of "contribute! you can make it better!", this is why.
- twic 6y ago
  I've been thinking for a while that the only way to get a decent desktop experience on Linux is going to be to start from scratch. The graphics drivers and Wayland are probably adequate. But absolutely everything from there on up - window mangers, GUI toolkits, applications, configuration tools - needs to be written from scratch by people who know what they are doing and can build all of it as a cohesive whole. This would be a huge project, and i don't know who has any incentive to do it. It's hard to imagine that it would be possible to make a business out of it.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    I came to the same conclusion some time ago. There are of course things I find less than ideal about the Kernel, and Wayland, but overall they are adequate and would be a lot of work to replace. Pretty much everything else has to go though. I've made some notes about how I'd build such a thing, but the truth is I have neither the time nor the skill set necessary to do all the work myself. Worse yet, when I talk to people about what I think a desktop should be like I often find that while we agree on some subset of ideas, we disagree significantly on others in irreconcilable ways. Either I haven't found the right community yet, or it doesn't exist. There is Probonopd's (of AppImage fame) Hello[0], but unfortunately that also doesn't seem to have a lot of interest. [0] https://github.com/probonopd/hello https://github.com/probonopd/hello
  - Zenst 6y ago
    Bit of an aside - but what potential do you think VR has for GUI's? Personally for desktop GUI's, I was happy with CDE affairs in the 90's, but then I'm a terminal baby so, a GUI was just a way to pull-up terminals for most of my needs, of which CDE still ticks that functionality well, albeit it don't have all the modern eye-candy, which I find a good thing distraction wise.
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    >The graphics drivers and Wayland are probably adequate. But absolutely everything from there on up - window mangers, GUI toolkits, applications, configuration tools - needs to be written from scratch Doesn't projects like Enlightenment [1] do just that? They use Wayland and everything else(WM, Applications, libraries) was developed from scratch over it. I had used it on Raspberry Pi 3, it was the smoothest desktop experience I've had on a Pi. But, unfortunately RPi wasn't officially supported and so none of the 3rd party softwares worked. [1]https://www.enlightenment.org https://www.enlightenment.org
JulianMorrison 6y ago
You can still run it on the Raspberry Pi (up to version 3, the Pi 4 is not yet supported). It works pretty nicely too, although no doubt it could do with some tender loving care to bring things up to date, as it's somewhat abandonware. Certainly it makes the Pi hardware feel snappy in a way that desktop Linux decidedly does not.
- lsllc 6y ago
  RISCOS Open is pretty cool, but it's just not the same experience as the Archimedes!
  - JulianMorrison 6y ago
    I'm curious, what's the difference in feel?
mattbee 6y ago
I had a bit part writing upgrades to the PC emulator, getting Duke Nukem to run. On the boot time - 2s was only realistic until you owned a hard drive! Then there was a boot sequence that was more like 15s after the drive span up, bringing new OS updates into play etc. And then you probably had some more customisations and apps, so my memory was more like a 30s boot. My cold Windows boot is faster than that now, but suffers from UI sludge for about 60s after I've logged in, so that counts as boot time too :( No post-boot sludge on RISC OS. The save dialogue was really fiddly and needed some pro-level window management and mouse skills :) but I appreciated not having two UIs, one for loading and one different for saving.
- scruffyherder 6y ago
  Any link to your writing on the emulator and getting duke3d running? I’d at least find it interesting
  - mattbee 6y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20020806023145/http://www.aleph1.co.uk/AcornProd/Software/PCPro3Demo/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020806023145/http://www.aleph1... was the announcement but - the main work was adding VESA 2.0 support to the BIOS from the spec, organising sharing the screen memory with the host side. Unlike VESA 1.2, the pixel formats were compatible so DOS could just write direct to the RISC OS hosted screen, getting some good frame rates for Duke, Tomb Raider etc.
willtim 6y ago
The problem with the Archimedes was that it arrived late on the scene and was very expensive. My school purchased only one; and none of us kids got to go anywhere near it. The Atari ST is what I moved to after my BBC micro, in about 86 or 87.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

I guess because I'm in a bit of a mood thanks to arguing with Linux Desktop evangelists lately, I'd like to point out that Rox Filer implemented exactly this file saving functionality (and many other good ideas RiscOS) on Linux. Then they built Rox Desktop around it. It was great. There were AppDirs, context-menu-only, spacial file management, drag-n-drop to save, etc. Naturally, the project's reward for trying to improve the Linux Desktop experience was to have all its ideas ignored by the wider Linux community as it faded into obscurity. If anybody was ever wondering why all these people who have gripes about the Linux Desktop experience never seem receptive to your pleas of "contribute! you can make it better!", this is why.

twic 6y ago
I've been thinking for a while that the only way to get a decent desktop experience on Linux is going to be to start from scratch. The graphics drivers and Wayland are probably adequate. But absolutely everything from there on up - window mangers, GUI toolkits, applications, configuration tools - needs to be written from scratch by people who know what they are doing and can build all of it as a cohesive whole. This would be a huge project, and i don't know who has any incentive to do it. It's hard to imagine that it would be possible to make a business out of it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  I came to the same conclusion some time ago. There are of course things I find less than ideal about the Kernel, and Wayland, but overall they are adequate and would be a lot of work to replace. Pretty much everything else has to go though. I've made some notes about how I'd build such a thing, but the truth is I have neither the time nor the skill set necessary to do all the work myself. Worse yet, when I talk to people about what I think a desktop should be like I often find that while we agree on some subset of ideas, we disagree significantly on others in irreconcilable ways. Either I haven't found the right community yet, or it doesn't exist. There is Probonopd's (of AppImage fame) Hello[0], but unfortunately that also doesn't seem to have a lot of interest. [0] https://github.com/probonopd/hello https://github.com/probonopd/hello
- Zenst 6y ago
  Bit of an aside - but what potential do you think VR has for GUI's? Personally for desktop GUI's, I was happy with CDE affairs in the 90's, but then I'm a terminal baby so, a GUI was just a way to pull-up terminals for most of my needs, of which CDE still ticks that functionality well, albeit it don't have all the modern eye-candy, which I find a good thing distraction wise.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  >The graphics drivers and Wayland are probably adequate. But absolutely everything from there on up - window mangers, GUI toolkits, applications, configuration tools - needs to be written from scratch Doesn't projects like Enlightenment [1] do just that? They use Wayland and everything else(WM, Applications, libraries) was developed from scratch over it. I had used it on Raspberry Pi 3, it was the smoothest desktop experience I've had on a Pi. But, unfortunately RPi wasn't officially supported and so none of the 3rd party softwares worked. [1]https://www.enlightenment.org https://www.enlightenment.org

JulianMorrison 6y ago

You can still run it on the Raspberry Pi (up to version 3, the Pi 4 is not yet supported). It works pretty nicely too, although no doubt it could do with some tender loving care to bring things up to date, as it's somewhat abandonware. Certainly it makes the Pi hardware feel snappy in a way that desktop Linux decidedly does not.

lsllc 6y ago
RISCOS Open is pretty cool, but it's just not the same experience as the Archimedes!
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  I'm curious, what's the difference in feel?

mattbee 6y ago

I had a bit part writing upgrades to the PC emulator, getting Duke Nukem to run. On the boot time - 2s was only realistic until you owned a hard drive! Then there was a boot sequence that was more like 15s after the drive span up, bringing new OS updates into play etc. And then you probably had some more customisations and apps, so my memory was more like a 30s boot. My cold Windows boot is faster than that now, but suffers from UI sludge for about 60s after I've logged in, so that counts as boot time too :( No post-boot sludge on RISC OS. The save dialogue was really fiddly and needed some pro-level window management and mouse skills :) but I appreciated not having two UIs, one for loading and one different for saving.

scruffyherder 6y ago
Any link to your writing on the emulator and getting duke3d running? I’d at least find it interesting
- mattbee 6y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20020806023145/http://www.aleph1.co.uk/AcornProd/Software/PCPro3Demo/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20020806023145/http://www.aleph1... was the announcement but - the main work was adding VESA 2.0 support to the BIOS from the spec, organising sharing the screen memory with the host side. Unlike VESA 1.2, the pixel formats were compatible so DOS could just write direct to the RISC OS hosted screen, getting some good frame rates for Duke, Tomb Raider etc.

willtim 6y ago

The problem with the Archimedes was that it arrived late on the scene and was very expensive. My school purchased only one; and none of us kids got to go anywhere near it. The Atari ST is what I moved to after my BBC micro, in about 86 or 87.