Section 1: Hardware and Operating Systems ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.1) What is an Acorn machine? Acorn computers are a British built line of computers that started with 6502 based machines and later became based upon ARM (Acorn Risc Machine) processors. Acorn computers were made by the Acorn Computer Group. Section 1.2 details those machines currently in manufacture and how to fetch a full list of all machines known to have been made by Acorn. Acorn machines are known for their innovation, flexibility and reliability of hardware/software. In January 1999 Acorn Computers Ltd., was renamed Element-14, focussing more on their Digital TV technology. Element-14 were later purchased by Broadcom Corporation on November 24 2000. More information can be found on their web site at http://www.broadcom.com The remaining part of Acorn was later sold to Pace Micros, including the remains of their set-top box division. Thus Acorn the company, is technically no more - other than a brand name. Pace subsequently agreed to licence RISC OS, Acorn's powerful wimp-based operating system to a newly formed company called RISCOS Ltd. RISC OS is now licenced to a number of third party hardware developers around the world, many of which continue to manufacture RISC OS based computers. Castle Technology took over the manufacture of the Acorn Risc PC and A7000 range, and now produce the Iyonix which is currently the fastest RISC OS computer available. Reading through section 1 should give newcomers to the Acorn scene a reasonable appreciation of what the machines can do by default. They were very strong in education, which was Acorn's primary market. However, in later years, the Acorn group started to make moves into other markets such as the Digital TV market for the future. For those people who wish to see RISC OS in typical use then visiting http://www.geocities.com/~banksp/Power/Acorn/RISCOS.html will provide you with some images and text about using RISC OS. www.riscos.org is also a good source of information and links to RISC OS software and resources. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.2) What kind of Acorn/RISC OS machines are there? The full list of Acorn made machines is now getting somewhat lengthy as many variants and new machines have been launched amd discontinued in the last few years. As of June 2002, I'm only listing current machines in the actual FAQ, as there are numerous web sites available which detail the history of Acorn & RISC OS computers. The following sites may be useful to find out about past machines. However, I've included some information on various diverse machines (below). * http://www.khantazi.org/Archives/MachineLst.html - Philip Banks comprehensive list of Acorn machines. * http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/acornhistory/acornhistory.shtml - An excellent technical history of Acorn Computers, compiled by Robert McMordie. * http://atterer.net/acorn.html#hard - Richard Atterer's Information about Acorn Computers. * http://homepage.tinet.ie/~lrtc/computers/acorn_ro/acorn/ - Richard Butler's History of Acorn & RISC OS What follows is an up to date list of machines currently in production and available. The Iyonix ---------- The Iyonix is currently the most powerful RISC OS based, ARM powered computer. Manufactured by Castle Technology, it is available in a variety of models. It is also the only current machine running a full 32-bit version of RISC OS. Detailed specification for the base model comprises; - Intel XScale 80321 Processor running at 600MHz. - 32-bit RISC OS 5 - 128Mb 200MHz DDR RAM - 40, 80 or 120Gb Hard Drive - UDMA 100 support - 16-bit Sound system - nVidia GeForce 2MX graphics giving resolutions of up to 2048x1536 pixels in 16 million colours. - Virtually silent operation (quieter than even the latest iMac range of Apple computers) - USB Keyboard & Mouse. - USB expansion - Full PCI DMA for expansion cards More information is available at http://www.iyonix.com Acorn RiscPC series ------------------- In 2003 Castle technology announced that they were ceasing production of the Risc PC range, which has now been supeceded by the Iyonix PC, which was designed and manufactured by Castle in order to provide a new RISC OS flagship machine. The Risc PC was the last generation of Acorn badged machines, which superseded the original Acorn Archimedes computers. All of them were based on a highly configurable and modular system that made a bewildering variety of options available. All were founded on the 'second generation' chipset featuring VIDC20, IOMD and the latest StrongARM processor. The 'RPC' range was launched on the 15th of April 1994 with the RiscPC 600 series of machines. The last 'Kinetic' RPC was some ten times faster than the original 1994 model. The A7000+ ---------- The A7000+ is manufactured by Castle Technology and is an ideal entry model to introduce users to RISC OS. There are currently four models in the range, starting with a 16MB model running RISC OS 3.7 and starting at 399.00+VAT. More information, and specifications is available at www.castle-technology.co.uk/castle/ordering/computers.html Detailed specification comprises; - 24Mb EDO Memory (expandable up to 136Mb) - ADFS by default. - IDE interface. (20 Gb hard drive) - ARM 7500 FE processor. (48 MHz) - 32 MHz RAM. - 4096k OS in ROM. - ~43.08 MIPS. The Risc Station series ----------------------- After the demise of Acorn, this is one of the new RISC OS based machines designed around non-Acorn hardware. Risc Stations are currently available in Network, Lite, Lite+ and 'Scorcher' models. A more powerful model - the Risc Station Evolution - is currently in development and a long awaited portable is nearing completion. For more information, contact Risc Station Ltd at 168 Elliott Street, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 8DS (tel.+44(0)1942 797777, fax +44(0)1942 797711). Web: http://www.riscstation.co.uk - email: i...@riscstation.co.uk Detailed specification comprises; Risc Stations are based upon a 56MHz ARM7500FPE (with integrated floating point co-processor) with RISC OS 4 fitted as standard. Notable features of the base system include: - 8Mb 60ns EDO memory, upgradeable to 256Mb. - Screen resolution up to 1600x1200x256 colours. - 6Mb Flash memory containing RISC OS 4 and additional utilities. - PS2 style keyboard and PS2 3 button mouse input. - 2 x fast serial ports rated at 460K baud. - 2 x high speed EIDE ports. - 2 x PC style game ports with MIDI. - 10baseT ethernet port with Wake On Lan. - EPP/ECP fast parallel port. - IRDA infra-red interface support. - High density floppy drive port - 15 pin VGA connector. - Full 16 bit OPL3 stereo sound sampler & mixer with FM synthesiser, MIDI, Wavetable support and 2 CD mixer ports. 3 x 3.5mm jack sockets for Line in/Mic in/Headphone & speaker out. Machine differences neTworx As base system above. neTworxHD As base system, plus 2GB (min) hard drive. R7500 Lite As base system, plus 16Mb memory, 4.3GB EIDE hard drive, 48x Atapi EIDE CD Rom Drive. R7500+ Lite As base system, plus 64Mb memory, 10.1GB EIDE hard drive, 52x Atapi EIDE CD Rom Drive. R7500 Scorcher As R7500+ Lite, plus CD-RW, native support for LS120 & ZIP atapi drives, 60W external speakers. The Microdigital series ----------------------- Microdigital are another third-party manufacturer who produce RISC OS based desktop computers based on ARM RISC processors. Their full range of products can be found on their website at http://www.microdigital.co.uk/products/ The Omega --------- Full specs are available from the Microdigital web site at http://www.microdigital.co.uk/omspec.htm Acorn Diversification --------------------- Over the years, Acorn diversified into new markets, producing a number of concept machines and variations of existing computers. For history sake I've got a page dedicated to legacy and other machines, which is on my personal website at http://www.vigay.com/riscos/acorn.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.3) What versions of the ARM processor are there? The details of currently ARM chips and their capabilities are described on Philip Banks web site at http://www.geocities.com/~banksp/Archives/ARMChips.html Current developments can be found on ARM Ltd's web site at http://www.arm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.4) What are the differences between RISC OS 2 and RISC OS 3? A good article on the differences between RISC OS 3 and various versions of RISC OS 3 is available on Richard Goodwins website at http://www.houseofmabel.com/puters/RISCOS3/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.5) What are the differences between RISC OS 3.5 and RISC OS 3.6? Quite a few, although nothing particularly drastic OS wise, mostly improvements although the lifting of the FileCore partition limit and the incorporation of JPEG handling into the OS are quite substantial improvements. Here is the list :- * Now stored on 2x2Mb ROMs, or an increase ot a potential 4096Kb of OS. * FileCore improvements allowing at least 4Gb partitions. * Support for ATAPI style CD-ROM drives. * JFIF handling incorporated into the OS. * Standard applications have been moved back into ROM. * Toolbox modules, the Cv5 support modules, moved into ROM. * CDFS modules moved into ROM. * Access modules moved into ROM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.6) What are the differences between RISC OS 3.6 and RISC OS 3.7? Like RISC OS 3.6, RISC OS 3.7 is primarily changed behind the scenes and is an incremental improvement of the OS. The changes mostly have been geared towards rendering the OS StrongARM compatible. Here is the list :- * Autodetection of processor type enhanced to detect and cater for ARM6 and better processors up to the StrongARM * Memory handling has been moved into the kernel, away from the Window manager. This not only speeds up task switching but now means the kernel is now aware of multiple applications. * FileSwitch supports 2048 byte buffers, useful for CDFS. * The Font Manager is now capable of blending anti-aliased fonts to a variable colour background. Improving the readability of fonts displayed over colour images. (Like Web pages, say. :) ) * An improved Internet module is supplied in ROM. * A StrongARM compatible Econet module is supplied in ROM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.7) What is RISC OS 3.8/Ursula? Before Acorn decided to abandon Workstations and focus on Digital TV, work was at an advanced stage on an updated version of the operating system (codenamed Ursula) to live in their new machine (Phoebe). Developers had access the RISC OS 3.8 (as Ursula declared itself to be) for evaluation and beta testing purposes. Versions of RISC OS 3.8 were primarily available for ARM710 machines, although some StrongARM compatible versions are known to exist. For those who don't know, Phoebe is a character from the hit US sit-com Friends, and Ursula is the name of Phoebe's twin sister. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.8) What are the differences between RISC OS 3.7 and RISC OS 3.8/4? RISC OS 3.8 was a developmental version of RISC OS 4 released to developers just before the closure of Acorn's Workstation division and cancellation of the Phoebe project. It was code-named Ursula (which is the name of Phoebe's twin sister in Friends!). It has now been completed by the newly formed RISCOS Ltd and RISC OS 4 is the first new version of RISC OS to be released by a company other than Acorn, A comprehensive list of features was released onto their own web site during April 1999. This can be obtained from http://www.riscos.com/risc_os_4/Features.html In a nutshell some of the major new features are:- * Performance Enhancements * New Disc format brings new features, improved performance and more disc space. * Redesigned icon set * Faster/Easier configuration and !Boot * New screen saver system * 'Lazy Task Swapping' * Improved applications including a new !Writer appliction for simple word processing and !Taborca - an Adobe PDF creator. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.9) What are the differences between RISC OS 4 and RISC OS 5? RISC OS 5 is exclusively available for the Iyonix PC at present, and is essentially a completely re-written and fully 32-bit version of RISC OS 4.02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.10) What are the graphics capabilities of the Acorn machines? I've now decided to restrict this section of the FAQ to detailing currently available models. For the graphics capabilities of older machines, please visit my Acorn History page at http://www.vigay.com/riscos/acorn.html Iyonix machines --------------- The most notable difference in the graphics capability of the Iyonix is that it now incorporates a 'standard' graphics card, namely the nVidia GeForce 2MX. This gives much higher resolutions and colour depths than previous 'Acorn' machines, but also sacrifices 2 & 4 bit colour depths (ie. 4 and 16 colour screen modes). Rather than give an exhaustive list of all 'modes', it will suffice to say that it can display resolutions from 320x200 up to 2048x1536 pixels, each in either 256, 32 thousand or 16 million colours (8, 16 or 24 bit). Risc PC machines ---------------- This covers all Risc PC in the Risc PC 600, Risc PC 700, A7000 & A7000+ machines. Here the newer VIDC20 chip has been used and the display capabilities are somewhat extended. Namely :- X res. Y res. Colours 160 256 4,16,256 320 256 2,4,16,256 640 200 2,4,16,256 640 250 4,16 640 256 2,4,16,256 640 352 2,4,16,256 640 480 2,4,16,256 640 512 2,4,16,256 768 288 2,4,16,256 800 600 2,4,16,256,32k*,16M** 896 352 2,4,16,256 1024 768 16,256*,32k** 1056 250 16 1056 256 16,256 1152 896 2 1280 1024 4,16*,256** 1600 1200 16*,256** * Requires 1 MB of VRAM ** Requires 2 MB of VRAM With the addition of Video RAM (VRAM) to the Risc PC the base capabilities are a touch variable, thus the note next to some of entries. All other modes are available with standard DRAM, and these the only modes the A7000 can access. The A7000+, thanks to it's faster memory speeds, functions equivalently to a RiscPC with 1 Mb of VRAM even though it doesn't have any VRAM itself. Furthermore the new VIDC20 has 256 palette registers, compared to the VIDC1a's 16, and a palette range of 16 million colours. Exactly how the colour mapping in 32,000 modes is handled is not yet clear. Again these are just standard screen modes provided, and even perhaps not all of them - the Risc PC is completely configurable in display resolutions and capabilities. However each monitor type must have a mode definition file set up for it, to allow you to take advantage of this flexability. A library of common monitor definition files can be found at http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/monitors/ It must be stressed again that these are merely the resolutions and colour depths defined by the machines operating systems. In all of the machines cases there are both hardware and software extensions that alter and increase the list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.11) Is Virtual Memory possible under RISC OS? The short answer is that full VM is not possible under the current versions of RISC OS. The problem is that most of RISC OS works in SVC mode, if a DataFetch abort occurs then R14_svc is corrupted. This makes returning from the SWI somewhat problematic. This is a hardware limitation with the ARM2 and ARM3 cell chips. Hardware using ARM6 or better processor cells have special memory abort modes that alleviate this problem so future machines and incarnations of RISC OS may well have VM available. Indeed the new RiscPC machines make prime candidates for having virtual memory, however there are still re-entrancy issues that make this problematic for RISC OS. (Consider loading data from a file into paged out virtual memory...) However limited solutions are available now. !Virtual is one such solution allowing VM for a user process using a limited subset of SWI's that are carefully 'protected' against R14_svc being corrupted. Such solutions suffer from the restricted set of SWI's they support and are mostly useful for batch style processing jobs like compilation or memory intensive processing jobs. !Virtual can be downloaded from http://www.sunsite.org.uk/package/archimedes/riscos/util/memory !Virtual currently does not work with Risc PCs due to the fact that it requires a page size which is a multiple of 8kb. (This means !Virtual will not work with A305s.) Also available commercially, from Clares Micro Supplies, is Virtualise for the RiscPC machines. This provides virtual memory on dynamic areas. As more and more software starts to use dynamic areas for data storage and manipulation this will become increasingly useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.12) What 'Easter Eggs' are present in RISC OS? It has been a long tradition with Acorn OSes to have hidden sections that give credit to the people involved in the creation of that OS. The BBC Model B ROMs had the names of the people involved hidden in the memory space occupied by Fred, Jim and Shelia. With the release of the ARM powered machines this tradition has continued on. RISC OS 2.00 ------------ * tucked away in the ROMs is a list of the names of involved people. RISC OS 3.00 ------------ * If you type 'rmtmd' when the desktop welcome screen is displayed a slide show of the key RISC OS team members is displayed on the screen. * In the info box of the task manager if you clicked menu over the letters 'rmtmd', in that order, contained within the author icon a full list of the people involved with the OS's development is displayed in that icon. RISC OS 3.10 & 3.11 ----------------------- * In the info box of the task manager if you clicked menu over the letters 'team', in that order, contained within the author icon a full list of the people involved with the OS's development is displayed in that icon. * Using a template editor examine the task managers templates file from the Resources filing system. (Resources:$.Resources.Switcher.Templates)
  • Inside the 'power' dialogue is a message. RISC OS 3.50 ------------ * In the info box of the task manager if you clicked menu over the author icon four times a full list of the people involved with the OS's development is displayed in that icon. (This can take a while to watch, be warned...) * Using a template editor examine the task managers templates file from the Resources filing system. (Resources:$.Resources.Switcher.Template3D) Inside the 'power' dialogue is a message, in 3D. This message also appeared in the replacement templates supplied with NewLook for RISC OS 3.1. REM Extract Names and Pictures from RISC OS 3.50, 3.60 and 3.70 ROMs REM REM Based on an original program (for RISC OS 3.50) by Nick Craig-Wood. REM Updated by Matt Rix SYS "OS_Byte",129,0,255 TO ,version% CASE version% OF WHEN &A5: S=&1F47AC :REM RISC OS 3.50 WHEN &A6: S=&358F18 :REM RISC OS 3.60 - Thanks to Terry Adams for finding this WHEN &A7: S=&3A0868 :REM RISC OS 3.70 OTHERWISE: ERROR 0,"Cannot run on this ROM version.":END ENDCASE S+=&3800000 E=S+&3130 O=65536 SYS "Squash_Decompress",%1000,-1 TO Q DIM R Q,P O SYS "Squash_Decompress",%0100,R,S,E-S,P,O TO,,,,,U path$="Pipe:$." piccy$=path$+"Pictures" names$=path$+"Names" run$="Filer_Run " SYS "OS_File",10,piccy$,&FF9,,P+8,P+P!4+8 SYS "OS_File",10,names$,&FFF,,P+P!4+8,P+O-U OSCLI "SetType "+piccy$+" Sprite" OSCLI "SetType "+names$+" Text" OSCLI run$+piccy$ OSCLI run$+names$ END RISC OS 3.60 ------------ * In the info box of the task manager if you clicked menu over the author icon four times a full list of the people involved with the OS's development is displayed in that icon. (This can take a while to watch, be warned...) * Using a template editor examine the task managers templates file from the Resources filing system. (Resources:$.Resources.Switcher.Template3D) Inside the 'power' dialogue is a message, in 3D. This message also appeared in the replacement templates supplied with NewLook for RISC OS 3.1. * Run the program listed in the RISC OS 3.50 section to be given a list, and pictures, of the primary developers of RISC OS 3.60. RISC OS 3.70 ------------ * In the info box of the task manager if you clicked menu over the author icon four times a full list of the people involved with the OS's development is displayed in that icon, including a 'special' acknowledgment to Peter Bondar. (This can take a while to watch, be warned...) This only works if the menu was opened from the Task Manager window, not the icon. * Using a template editor examine the task managers templates file from the Resources filing system. (Resources:$.Resources.Switcher.Template3D) Inside the 'power' dialogue is a message, in 3D. This message also appeared in the replacement templates supplied with NewLook for RISC OS 3.1. * Run the program listed in the RISC OS 3.50 section to be given a list, and pictures, of the primary developers of RISC OS 3.70. RISC OS 3.71 ------------ * In the info box of the task manager if you clicked menu over the author icon four times a full list of the people involved with the OS's development is displayed in that icon, including a 'special' acknowledgment to Peter Bondar. (This can take a while to watch, be warned...) This only works if the menu was opened from the Task Manager window, not the icon. RISC OS 4.02 ------------ * From BASIC, issue the command SYS "OS_Module",2,"IRQUtils" and RISC OS will launch an invaders game. * Click MENU over the RISC OS 4 icon on the far right of the iconbar. Move the pointer over to 'Info' and then across to open the RISC OS 4 information box. Click MENU four times over the icon containg '© 1999, RISCOS Ltd'. Sit back and watch a list of RISCOS Ltd. developers scroll by. * Using a template editor examine the switcher module's file in the Resources filing system. (Resources:$.Resources.Switcher.Templates) Inside the 'power' dialogue is the message "Help! We've been released from the software factory, and don't know what to do!". There is another one inside the 'Confirm' template. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.13) What is the current status of Linux for Acorn machines? Due to the rapid development of Linux exact details about the latest incarnation of Linux are not kept in this FAQ. However for the latest information you might like to consult these web pages, or email the people involved with the port :- Native Linux page :- http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/ (r...@arm.linux.org.uk) The Iyonix machine has a near complete Linux port available for me. Further information can be found at http://www.iyonix.com/linux.html Peter Naulls has some very useful ARM Linux resources available on his website at http://www.chocky.org/linux/ Additional information can be obtained from Aleph 1, who are now developing a complete ARMLinux distribution. Further information can be obtained from http://www.aleph1.co.uk If you have the original Acorn Clan disc and would like to install ARMLinux, I have written a Dummies Guide to Installing ARMLinux which is available at http://www.vigay.com/riscos/armlinux.html. However, I no longer run ARMLinux personally, so this page is no longer maintained. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.14) What is the current status of NetBSD for Acorn machines? N.B. The RiscBSD name has been dropped entirely in favour of NetBSD/arm32. Due to the rapid development of NetBSD exact details about the latest incarnation of it are not kept in this FAQ. This is a port of NetBSD, a Unix variant, to the RiscPC. However for the latest information you might like to consult these web pages, listen to the NetBSD email list or email the people involved with development of it:- NetBSD/arm32 - For RiscPC and later machines - http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/arm32/ NetBSD/arm26 - For Archimedes and other pre arm600 boxes - http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/acorn26/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1.15) What is Lazy Task Swapping ? On RISC OS 3.5 and 3.6 machines there were seen to be serious delays in the desktop when running applications with large wimpslots, mostly indicated by the lack of reponsiveness. The problem was identified as being that of having to page in the entire application which, with a 4k page size was quite slow. In RISC OS 3.7 this situation was improved by changing the way in which the application is paged in. RISC OS 4 can support a new method of paging tasks in - Lazy Task Swapping. This can also be called 'demand paging', because instead of paging the entire space in, individual pages are only given 'on demand'. This means that in a large application only sections of the application space may be physically present although the application itself will be unaware of this. There is a problem, however, with some versions of the StrongARM processor which will (under certain circumstances) cause Lazy Task Swapping to fail. StrongARMs prior to revision T exhibit this failing and Lazy Task Swapping is consequently be disabled. You may also want to disable Lazy Task swapping if you encounter problems when using DMA. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------