4 ms·

It's odd how arguably the most relevant of the lot was fairly obscure at the time: Acorn computers, creator of the ARM processor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi

It's odd how arguably the most relevant of the lot was fairly obscure at the time: Acorn computers, creator of the ARM processor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers You can run RISC OS on a modern ARM like the Raspberry PI - it gets weirder the longer you work with it - menu items with input boxes and other GUI widgets, a strange DOS VMS UNIX hybrid CLI that appears at the bottom of the framebuffer, scrolling your graphic screen up as you type and full of terminology that's incredibly excessively British. Go to 10 minutes to see the shell https://youtu.be/oL4w3AK6Qpw?si=Vdu2ur1fM0N9Tl2X&t=10m https://youtu.be/oL4w3AK6Qpw?si=Vdu2ur1fM0N9Tl2X&t=10m and http://www.riscos.com/support/users/userguide3/book3b/book3_2.html http://www.riscos.com/support/users/userguide3/book3b/book3_... for the documentation Also see 8:50 for the British terminology and 12:34 for an example of the weird menus The thing I like about it is the creators clearly knew what the dominant paradigm was and made a decision to be different. It's nice.

timmg 3y ago
> Acorn computers, creator of the ARM processor. Whoah! I didn't realize they were the same company!
- dingosity 3y ago
  Yup. ARM == "Acorn RISC Machine"
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Fun fact: the ARM 1 was designed using some custom software on a BBC Micro and tested in simulation (sub 1KLOC) before they submitted the design for tape-out and production. First silicon actually worked! https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/acorn/microarchitectures/arm1 https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/acorn/microarchitectures/arm1
  - kristopolous 3y ago
    oh sure, design an entire cpu on a 6502 with 128kb of ram, no problem. It's wild how spoiled we are. The ATmega328p on a $10 Arduino Nano is 10x faster than that
    - tom_ 3y ago
      Probably more like 64 KB, assuming 6502 second processor... (Actual usable space is less! The second processor's onboard OS uses 2 KB. The BASIC interpreter uses 16 KB for its code plus another approx 1.1 KB for workspace.)
tom_ 3y ago
It's funny that you mention the scrolling, also mentioned here: https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/kicking-off-project-mehitabel/ https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/kicking-off... The Acorn-type CLI is interesting (in my view), and I never realised why until I started using a PC rather than the BBC Micro: there's no shell. The idea doesn't even really exist. The fundamental system call (the OS_CLI SWI on RISC-OS, OSCLI entry point on the BBC Micro) takes an entire command line string, and do whatever that says to do. It's like the shell is permanently there. You never need to parse the string. This is actually pretty useful, because it means that for a lot of stuff you can simply defer to the OS. No need for interfaces to select filing system, choose floppy disk/hard disk, change directory, tweak key repeat rates, print disk catalogue, etc. - there are CLI commands for all of these, and more, so a program need only provide a way to enter a command to be subsequently executed by the permanently resident CLI. And as the program calls it, any commands so entered affect its state rather than being discarded on exit. The average file load/save UI on the BBC Micro was that you entered a file name. All the other stuff you might want to do first (select filing system, choose disk type, select drive, change current directory, check file exists or not, etc.) would be done by executing CLI commands via the program's interface for submitting such things. Feels like RISC-OS's unusual drag'n'drop file save mechanic stems from a similar mindset.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  That's very Oberon (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)). I had no idea
pcc 3y ago
I don't feel as if there was so much of a dominant paradigm back in 1987, when RISC OS first came out, at least not outside of the US? I recall that period more as a melting pot of ideas and approaches from lots of manufacturers independently trying to figure out what paradigms might stick. There were many disparate approaches to text-based OSs: MS-DOS, Acorn MOS on the BBC which is the predecessor of the shell found in RISC OS, Sinclair, Atari, etc. Likewise, separate approaches to GUIs: Mac, Gem, RISC OS / Arthur, the Amiga, etc. Windows 2. Teams from Acorn, Research Machines, Sinclair etc all basically did things in their own way. While the Macintosh UI paradigm was considered dominant in some market segments at the time (eg DTP), there wasn't yet a universal expectation around how GUIs would work. That started happening more after Windows 3 came out, in 1990 iirc. Certainly there must have been cross-pollination of ideas between these different groups. Pretty sure these Docks and Task Bars with icons, that we all have at the bottom of our screens now, was an idea first seen in RISC OS.
- kristopolous 3y ago
  > Pretty sure these Docks and Task Bars with icons, that we all have at the bottom of our screens now, was an idea first seen in RISC OS No way. Windows 1.0 had it (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Windows_1.0_screenshot.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Windows_1.0_s...) . The RISC OS workflow of click on bottom to create new instance paradigm is probably from Xerox Star 8010 although might be earlier https://interface-experience.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IE-Star-3.jpg https://interface-experience.org/site/wp-content/uploads/201... The GUI unification theory is fine but we're talking RISC OS 2023 being still like this. All the weird quirks are still there. Other systems have merged. Even ArcaOS, the successor to OS/2 has dropped all those strange tab systems that OS/2 Warp 3 took from PenpointOS. It's fairly hard to find something that's notably different that's ostensibly still being worked on.
  - fanf2 3y ago
    Those Windows 1 icons are on the desktop, not a task bar.
    - 3y ago

timmg 3y ago

> Acorn computers, creator of the ARM processor. Whoah! I didn't realize they were the same company!

dingosity 3y ago
Yup. ARM == "Acorn RISC Machine"
jacquesm 3y ago
Fun fact: the ARM 1 was designed using some custom software on a BBC Micro and tested in simulation (sub 1KLOC) before they submitted the design for tape-out and production. First silicon actually worked! https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/acorn/microarchitectures/arm1 https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/acorn/microarchitectures/arm1
- kristopolous 3y ago
  oh sure, design an entire cpu on a 6502 with 128kb of ram, no problem. It's wild how spoiled we are. The ATmega328p on a $10 Arduino Nano is 10x faster than that
  - tom_ 3y ago
    Probably more like 64 KB, assuming 6502 second processor... (Actual usable space is less! The second processor's onboard OS uses 2 KB. The BASIC interpreter uses 16 KB for its code plus another approx 1.1 KB for workspace.)

tom_ 3y ago

It's funny that you mention the scrolling, also mentioned here: https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/kicking-off-project-mehitabel/ https://bumbershootsoft.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/kicking-off... The Acorn-type CLI is interesting (in my view), and I never realised why until I started using a PC rather than the BBC Micro: there's no shell. The idea doesn't even really exist. The fundamental system call (the OS_CLI SWI on RISC-OS, OSCLI entry point on the BBC Micro) takes an entire command line string, and do whatever that says to do. It's like the shell is permanently there. You never need to parse the string. This is actually pretty useful, because it means that for a lot of stuff you can simply defer to the OS. No need for interfaces to select filing system, choose floppy disk/hard disk, change directory, tweak key repeat rates, print disk catalogue, etc. - there are CLI commands for all of these, and more, so a program need only provide a way to enter a command to be subsequently executed by the permanently resident CLI. And as the program calls it, any commands so entered affect its state rather than being discarded on exit. The average file load/save UI on the BBC Micro was that you entered a file name. All the other stuff you might want to do first (select filing system, choose disk type, select drive, change current directory, check file exists or not, etc.) would be done by executing CLI commands via the program's interface for submitting such things. Feels like RISC-OS's unusual drag'n'drop file save mechanic stems from a similar mindset.

kristopolous 3y ago
That's very Oberon (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)). I had no idea

pcc 3y ago

I don't feel as if there was so much of a dominant paradigm back in 1987, when RISC OS first came out, at least not outside of the US? I recall that period more as a melting pot of ideas and approaches from lots of manufacturers independently trying to figure out what paradigms might stick. There were many disparate approaches to text-based OSs: MS-DOS, Acorn MOS on the BBC which is the predecessor of the shell found in RISC OS, Sinclair, Atari, etc. Likewise, separate approaches to GUIs: Mac, Gem, RISC OS / Arthur, the Amiga, etc. Windows 2. Teams from Acorn, Research Machines, Sinclair etc all basically did things in their own way. While the Macintosh UI paradigm was considered dominant in some market segments at the time (eg DTP), there wasn't yet a universal expectation around how GUIs would work. That started happening more after Windows 3 came out, in 1990 iirc. Certainly there must have been cross-pollination of ideas between these different groups. Pretty sure these Docks and Task Bars with icons, that we all have at the bottom of our screens now, was an idea first seen in RISC OS.

kristopolous 3y ago
> Pretty sure these Docks and Task Bars with icons, that we all have at the bottom of our screens now, was an idea first seen in RISC OS No way. Windows 1.0 had it (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Windows_1.0_screenshot.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Windows_1.0_s...) . The RISC OS workflow of click on bottom to create new instance paradigm is probably from Xerox Star 8010 although might be earlier https://interface-experience.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IE-Star-3.jpg https://interface-experience.org/site/wp-content/uploads/201... The GUI unification theory is fine but we're talking RISC OS 2023 being still like this. All the weird quirks are still there. Other systems have merged. Even ArcaOS, the successor to OS/2 has dropped all those strange tab systems that OS/2 Warp 3 took from PenpointOS. It's fairly hard to find something that's notably different that's ostensibly still being worked on.
- fanf2 3y ago
  Those Windows 1 icons are on the desktop, not a task bar.
  - 3y ago