Acorn Arcade forums: London show approaches

Message #115651, posted by helpful at 17:34, 17/10/2010, in reply to message #115649

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Glad to see you've got your priorities right

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Message #115652, posted by swirlythingy at 18:57, 17/10/2010, in reply to message #115649

Posts: 460

Is there a limited edition?

Also, you can buy Lego flat-screen monitors nowadays?

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Message #115681, posted by helpful at 21:05, 18/10/2010, in reply to message #115652

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A bit of pre-show interactivity:

Both the Centre for Computing History and Chris Whytehead are exhibiting, but which of their many historic systems should they bring? Domesday is covered, but take a look at their collections and suggest what else you would like to see.

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/sec/79/Acorn-Computers/

http://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/Computers.html

No guarantees, but this is your chance to influence the show!

Just don't say RISCix, that's what I asked, but none of them work :-( If anyone has a working RISCiX system, do get in touch.

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Philip Webster

Message #115685, posted by pwx at 14:38, 19/10/2010, in reply to message #115681

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There's an archive of a RISCiX installation somewhere on the Web. I can PM you the location of it if you want. I have no idea if it works or not though.

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Message #115688, posted by trevj at 18:20, 19/10/2010, in reply to message #115681

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Centre for Computing History:

BT Merlin M2105
Acorn Briefcase Communicator
Xemplar Matrix NC

Chris Whytehead:

Archimedes A540 (with Econet if there's time/space/facilities to investigate setting it up?)
Phoebe 2100

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http://home.marutan.net/~peter/subsite/photos/20100618%20-%20VCF/images/img_6093.jpg

Message #115705, posted by helpful at 11:30, 21/10/2010, in reply to message #115685

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There's an archive of a RISCiX installation somewhere on the Web. I can PM you the location of it if you want. I have no idea if it works or not though.

Thanks, send it to me and I'll pass it on to Chris and the CCH just in case they don't know about it. Use one of the email addresses from the ROUGOL website:
http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/contacts/

But it turns out the Chris has got some of his RISCiX machines working, so they will be at the show

I've also suggested the Briefcase Communicator to CCH and they are going to see if it will fit in the car with the other stuff they are bringing!

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Peter Howkins

Message #115707, posted by flibble at 17:04, 21/10/2010, in reply to message #115688

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Chris Whytehead:
Phoebe 2100

Chris doesn't have a Phoebe, but my psuedo-phoebe will be on the RPCEmu stand, running RO 3.80 amongst others for added authenticity

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Joel Grounds

Message #115713, posted by iomanoid at 22:36, 21/10/2010, in reply to message #115707

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Damn, before I clicked that I was actually hoping it was made of yellow lego

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Message #115715, posted by trevj at 06:46, 22/10/2010, in reply to message #115707

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Chris Whytehead:
Phoebe 2100
Chris doesn't have a Phoebe,

Doh!

but my psuedo-phoebe will be on the RPCEmu stand, running RO 3.80 amongst others for added authenticity

Great!

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VinceH

Message #115720, posted by VincceH at 08:37, 22/10/2010, in reply to message #115707

Lowering the tone since the dawn of time

Posts: 1600

psuedo-phoebe

Sue do Phoebe? Oooh. That sounds fun. Can I watch?

Meanwhile, I'm due at a client in about half an hour, and I'm heading straight from there to the St Giles Hotel. Do you think it's time I started packing my stuff up yet?

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Message #115721, posted by trevj at 08:49, 22/10/2010, in reply to message #115720

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WebChange, BARUG leaflets, toothbrush, pants. Sorted?

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VinceH

Message #115722, posted by VincceH at 09:18, 22/10/2010, in reply to message #115721

Lowering the tone since the dawn of time

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WebChange, BARUG leaflets, toothbrush, pants. Sorted?

Check, check, check, and <sniff> check!

I'm late and I'm off!

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Message #115723, posted by trevj at 10:48, 22/10/2010, in reply to message #115722

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I take it you've got your computer etc. too!

Nice preview write-up, BTW.

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Chris Evans

Message #115727, posted by CJE at 05:55, 23/10/2010, in reply to message #115648

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Posts: 228

Photodesk users should bring there existing CD with them!
Other new goodies on show as well

See you all there.

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Hilary Phillips

Message #115730, posted by HilaryP at 14:17, 23/10/2010, in reply to message #115648

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In case anybody was wondering about the Sine Nomine software offerings, I did finish House of Cards in time - just! and somehow found the time to produce a new version of DrawPrint too. Assuming Matthew made it to the show he will have been demonstrating those as well as the latest versions of Impact and SuperDoku. All our new releases are at http://sinenomine.co.uk/software/ for those who (like me

) couldn't make the show.

[Edited by HilaryP at 15:19, 23/10/2010]

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Message #115731, posted by swirlythingy at 17:24, 23/10/2010, in reply to message #115730

Posts: 460

I did finish House of Cards in time - just!

Ah, yes, that would have been the one he told me contained a one character bug which he only discovered after having burned 30+ show CDs.

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Hilary Phillips

Message #115733, posted by HilaryP at 19:04, 23/10/2010, in reply to message #115731

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Yes...

(26 CDs actually) but I did at least get it fixed by midnight last night, so in time for Matthew to take the reliably working version 1.04 to demonstrate

And then having woken up at 5 am so Matthew could catch the train I spent the next hour uploading all our new releases onto the website to fit it in before the boys woke up...

Was it a good show, anyway?

[Edited by HilaryP at 20:06, 23/10/2010]

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Message #115734, posted by swirlythingy at 20:26, 23/10/2010, in reply to message #115733

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Definitely worth the ticket price. The most interesting part was probably the ROOL talk, where Steve Revill and a guy who was attracted to the RISC OS scene by the new, easily available hardware and almost-open-source OS (yes, folks, it does happen!) bounced ideas off each other. The theory is currently about adopting the Amiga scene's ~~bribes~~ incentives scheme for getting features implemented, although ROOL probably need to sort out a vague order in which the items in their roadmap need to be implemented first (whether, say, non-rectangular and transparent windows need to be a matter of higher priority than multi-core and floating point support).

I bumped into the same guy again on the train back from Feltham, and he told me he'd been employed by Nokia, which had spun off Symbian into an open-source company. Apparently this led directly to the creation of the BeagleBoard, since the open-source company wanted an open-source platform for their army of bedroom hackers to port to without giving out actual phone hardware, so Texas Instruments was comissioned to make a board almost, but not quite, like one found in a mobile phone.

As this backstory suggests, the BeagleBoard in its original form was originally intended to be a mobile phone platform, but apparently that was something of a flop. Then ROOL latched onto it round about revision B6 (by which time it had already accumulated ports of several other OSes), and, a few years on, Colin (for 'twas his name) discovered how far it had progressed and started taking a practical interest. He said it had come as a complete surprise to release hardware intended for Symbian into the wild and see it suddenly acquire a rash of whole new OSes, one of which he hadn't even heard of!

(I dare say, on the recent TIB record, he'll now pop up with a new account and point out exactly how much of my hazy recollection above is wrong.)

PS: I seriously considered buying a copy of Impact, but it's quite a lot of money and I want to test it more thoroughly first.

PPS: But at least I finally own a ROOL T-shirt. Whee, aren't I stylish?

EDIT: Woot, post #150!

[Edited by swirlythingy at 21:28, 23/10/2010]

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George Greenfield

Message #115737, posted by Bucksboy at 11:48, 24/10/2010, in reply to message #115734

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Good show, enjoyed and encouraged by the ROOL talk and discussion, bought upgrades to Photodesk and Easiwriter, saw and played with the future (absurdly tiny BB-Xm, /very/ responsive desktop and virtually instantaneous Artworks' 'Apple' rendering). All in all, an afternoon well-spent!

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Message #115738, posted by helpful at 17:36, 24/10/2010, in reply to message #115734

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a guy who was attracted to the RISC OS scene by the new, easily available hardware and almost-open-source OS

You should come to ROUGOL more often, then you would have already met him

We picked him up (so to speak) at the VCF earlier this year, where he had come to see the Amiga stuff but was attracted by the Beagleboard demos on the ROUGOL and ROOL stands.

It does show that it is possible to get new people interested in RISC OS if the publicity is done and there is an easy and cheap enough way for someone to give it a try. ROOL are of course trying to address both of these, but they will need the help of all of us too.

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Message #115739, posted by helpful at 18:16, 24/10/2010, in reply to message #115737

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Good show ... All in all, an afternoon well-spent!

Glad you enjoyed it!

BTW, is anyone doing a write up for Iconbar?

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Message #115740, posted by trevj at 19:07, 24/10/2010, in reply to message #115738

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A big thank you to Bryan, ROUGOL and all their helpers for arranging such a successful show.

And an even bigger thank you to Jeffrey for giving so many people an extra reason to attend.

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VinceH

Message #115741, posted by VincceH at 08:10, 25/10/2010, in reply to message #115723

Lowering the tone since the dawn of time

Posts: 1600

I take it you've got your computer etc. too!

I did initially forget something - the stand for my monitor - so it's actually a good job I chose to work on Friday and head off in the direction of London straight from the client's office.

I realised I'd left it at home when I was about half way between there and the office, so I turned around and headed home to collect it. If I hadn't been heading for the client, I would have been on the motorway, travelling much faster, and so much further away from home.

Nice preview write-up, BTW.

Shame my pictures are rubbish. Seriously. Utter, utter rubbish. I blame the fact that the show took place inside a building, instead of half way up a mountain. Taking photos in that sort of environment is a totally alien concept to me. (As is the fact that there are people in them - the vast majority of my photos include precisely zero people, because I don't like having people in my photos.)

Still, I'll play around with them and try my best to tidy them up later, then I'll upload them.

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Message #115743, posted by trevj at 09:54, 25/10/2010, in reply to message #115741

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Shame my pictures are rubbish. Seriously. Utter, utter rubbish... Still, I'll play around with them and try my best to tidy them up later, then I'll upload them.

But at least you've not mislaid/left your camera's battery charger on holiday like I appear to have done

If you've a photo of RO on the TB, that'd be good for the AI wiki page (as per email I just copied you in on).

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VinceH

Message #115744, posted by VincceH at 10:11, 25/10/2010, in reply to message #115743

Lowering the tone since the dawn of time

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Shame my pictures are rubbish. Seriously. Utter, utter rubbish... Still, I'll play around with them and try my best to tidy them up later, then I'll upload them.
But at least you've not mislaid/left your camera's battery charger on holiday like I appear to have done

I've done that with a phone charger before, though - in Spain. Luckily, it could be charged from USB until I was able to collect the charger on my next trip (it was at a friend's place over there).

If you've a photo of RO on the TB, that'd be good for the AI wiki page (as per email I just copied you in on).

Just saw the email. I don't have one - my pictures of the ROOL stand were taken from the opposite wall and, unfortunately, in both there is someone hunched over the computer.

I'm sure I've seen a photo quite recently, though - which means there's probably one online somewhere; it just needs to be found and the owner identified to obtain permission.

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Message #115753, posted by swirlythingy at 01:03, 26/10/2010, in reply to message #115744

Posts: 460

If you've a photo of RO on the TB, that'd be good for the AI wiki page (as per email I just copied you in on).

Is it just me, or is there already a photo of RO on the TB on that page?

Just saw the email. I don't have one - my pictures of the ROOL stand were taken from the opposite wall and, unfortunately, in both there is someone hunched over the computer.

Sorry - that was probably me! (Star Fighter 3000 really was not meant to be played on a laptop keyboard, although the key configuration window helped a lot.)

I should have taken my own camera, really - I took photos last year, but I sent them off to ROUGOL and never saw them again.

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