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RISC OS is the superbly efficient operating system designed in the 1980's by Acorn Computers, and its latest incarnation is used by thousands of people around the world. However, many may never have even heard of RISC OS - so if you're one of them, you've come to the right place.

Pre-dating both Windows and Mac OS to use a task bar or 'Dock', RISC OS includes many revolutionary features which are only just being copied by other systems. Its anti-aliased font technology is still the envy of the computer world and its drag 'n' drop, stackable windows GUI, flexibility and ease of use make it arguably the most productive computer system in the world today.

Thousands of applications and utilities are available, often developed by small companies and individual users, mean that you should be able to find software on RISC OS to cater for all your computing requirements. It is hoped that new developers will come on board to help promote and enhance RISC OS even more.

RISCOS.org seeks to not only introduce newcomers and experts alike to this wonderful system, but to act as a resource centre and help forum for existing users around the world. Our software database is probably the most comprehensive repository of RISC OS links anywhere on the internet, and we update it frequently with new releases.

Recent Articles and What's New at RISCOS.org
  • NEW! Wakefield 2008 - A few photos I took at the Wakefield Show. Unfortunately there aren't many because I didn't manage to get away from the stand during the day. (26th Apr 2008)
  • Clip Art - I've just created a new section, containing various clip art files I've created, which are free for people to use. (9th Apr 2008)
  • iMachine announcement An archived copy of our 2008 April Fool.... (1st Apr 2008)
  • CSA.* FAQ gets revamp and new home I've started giving the CSA.* FAQ a major overhaul, along with moving it to its new home at www.riscos.org/csafaq/ (4th Mar 2008)
  • USB speed tests I've created a new page to correlate various USB speed tests. (30th Nov 2007)

News Headlines from the RISC OS world
  • SELECT4i4 featuring RISC OS 6.10 to be released at Wakefield Show 2008 RISCOS Ltd have today announced that a major new version of RISC OS will be available at the Wakefield Show this weekend. Featuring a claimed 3000 changes and improvements since the last release, this looks like a good enough reason to head for RISCOS Ltd's stand. See the full press release for more information. (24th Apr, 5.30pm)

Older News...

News Headlines from other RISC OS Portals
Drobe
Wakefield 2008 show photos
Images taken from weekend's event
Wakefield 2008 show live news
Latest gossip from the hall floor
Animation and typing applications really released
Former Iota software taken over by R-Comp
- quickies
R-Comp sorry for being too busy for DialUp and DataPower updates
Andrew Rawnsley explains delays in development
ROL still planning Select for Iyonix in 2008
Subscribers told to expect "some" features this year
Accounts software CashBook updated
Version 1.10 also to be demonstrated at Wakefield 2008
Network login system ported to RISC OS
Graham Shaw releases Kerberos-like open source software
Image print tool updated
DrawPrint bug-fixed to version 1.12
IconBar
Building the Dream 2 - The RISC OS Sound System
A bit later than I was hoping, but nevertheless it's now time for Building the Dream 2.
Merry Christmas from The Icon Bar!
Well it's that time of year again. It hardly seems like a full year since we last wished all our readers a very Merry Christmas.
Review: Nokia N770 Internet Tablet
A guilty secret: limited though they were, I used to love working with early Palm and Psion PDAs. Neal Stephonson wrote in his novel Cryptonomicon...
Freeware instant messaging client released
Parmesan is a new client for the popular MSN Messenger network, developed by Christian Ludlam. Released as freeware, the software brings new features to instant messaging on RISC OS. Chief among these are display pictures and nudges.
RISC OS Open
Problem with some Wakefield CDs
It has come to our attention that the ISO file one one of the machines being used to burn our CDs at the Wakefield Show became corrupted at some point during the day.If you have any problems with a CD bought from us at Wakefield, please send us an email describing what your problems are, the names of the file(s) that are causing you trouble and your postal address.We will send out a replacement CD free of charge. Please accept our apologies on this matter.
Batch Four source code released

Wakefield, 26th April 2008

One year on from the first shared source code release, Castle Technology Ltd (Castle) and RISC OS Open Ltd (ROOL) were pleased to release Batch Four of the RISC OS source code on CD at the Wakefield RISC OS show. Batch 4 includes long-awaited low level components such as the RISC OS kernel, hardware abstraction layer and the Shared C Library. Batch 4 will be released on the RISC OS Open Limited web site soon.
Batch Three source code released

Cambridge, 22nd February 2008

Castle Technology Ltd (Castle) and RISC OS Open Ltd (ROOL) are pleased to announce the release of Batch Three of the RISC OS source code, following on from the first release in May and second release in October.
New tool to aid RISCOS Ltd and Castle RISC OS development
As a part of the joint co-operation between RISC OS Open and RISCOS Ltd, we are please to announce the availability of a tool which we hope will help to make life a little bit easier for developers. It is aimed at gathering some specific statistics from a wide range of RISC OS users in order for us to better identify where the main problem areas lie with respect to the differences between the RISCOS Ltd RISC OS branch and the Castle Technology RISC OS branch.
ROOL wins Drobe Award
The guys at RISC OS Open are very humble and happy to find that we have received a coverted Drobe award (our second one). This year’s award is in the category of “Best show of initiative”.It’s been hard work for us all to find any time over the Christmas period but we’re all looking forward to getting started on the next batch of RISC OS sources to release sometime soon.The full awards news article can be found on the Drobe.web site.
MyRISCOS
Select4i4 (RISC OS 6.10) to be released at Wakefield
In a press release earlier today, RISCOS Ltd have today announced that the very latest version of RISC OS will be launched at this Saturday's Wakefield show. Full press release follows:
Wakefield Show Theatre
The Wakefield Show next Weekend (Saturday, 26th April) has the welcome return by popular demand of the show theatre, this will be on the ground floor of the Cedar Court Hotel in the Garden Suite.
Wakefield Charity Stall
Once again WROCC will be supporting the Wakefield Hospice by running a charity stall at this years show next weekend on Saturday 26th April.
Wakefield Show reminder
Chris Hughes, Show organiser has sent us the following press release about the Wakefield show...
Professor Steve Furber at RONWUG May 21st 2008
Professor Steve Furber, one of the pricipal designers of the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor, as used in native RISC OS kit, will be visiting the RISC OS North West User Group on Wednesday 21st May 2008 and giving a talk about that development.
Acorn Gamez
Hive and Popcorn
Rik Griffin has updated his space-invaders games Hive to the 32-Bit platform and has updated his game authoring library, Popcorn. His announcement explains both releases:

"
I'm please to announce new release of a RISC OS game, and a new version of
the game development library, Popcorn.
The game is Hive - which is actually an enhanced version of the original,
now with 32 bit graphics and hardware acceleration on the Iyonix platform.
Not only is Hive a full game in its own right, as source code is provided,
it also serves as a detailed demonstration of how to use the Popcorn
library.
Hive can be downloaded from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rik.griffin/
(Hive requires a couple of third party modules, see notes at the bottom of
this post).
Popcorn is a game development library to aid in writing RISC OS games in C
(or other APCS compatible languages). It provides several useful features
including:
- A resource manager, for easy loading of data (graphics, sounds etc).
- A fast sprite plotter, for 8 or 32 bpp screen modes, with clipping,
  and alpha blending.
- Table based handling of game objects, with automatic collision detection,
  and "callbacks" to the application for objects that need attention.
- Hardware independent high resolution timer.
- Hardware acceleration on the Iyonix platform.
- Various other functions, like key handling and logging.
Full source code is provided. Also there's a tutorial explaining how to
write a very simple game ("Pong"). There's a StrongHelp format manual too,
which supports keyword lookup.
Popcorn is available from http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rik.griffin/
Popcorn and Hive were originally written by Matthew Bloch and described in
a series of articles in Acorn User several years ago.
Both Hive and Popcorn are still "works in progress", if you have any
problems or comments please contact me. I'd suggest followups to this post
concerning development go to csa.programmer and those concerning the game
itself go to csa.games.
If anyone actually wants to write a game using Popcorn, please get in touch
via email or newsgroups if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy
to offer help and advice.
Notes - modules required:
Hive needs the THSound module to play sounds. This is available from
  http://www.snowstone.org.uk/riscos/realh/index.html
However I just discovered that the module on that page is not 32 bit
compatible. The source code is there so you can recomplile it if you have
the facilities. I've contacted the owner of that page and hopefully a 32
bit binary will be available soon.
Hive also needs the HAL26 module to run on 26 bit hardware (ie RiscPCs,
A7000s). HAL26 is available from
  http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/riscos/othersoft.html
Popcorn also uses several modules for hardware acceleration on the Iyonix
platform, these are "AppAcc" and "IntelDMA", these modules are bundled with
Hive as their licences allow this. Popcorn also uses the "HALTimer" module
which too is bundled with Hive. "


Starfighter 3000: Next Generation
An updated version of the 1994 game Starfighter 3000 has been released on the RISCWorld magazine CD-ROM under the name Starfighter 3000: Next Generation.

What's new?
SF:NG has new graphics, new music, new textures and lots more! Starfighter, which is arguably the best game on the RISC OS Operating System is now truly in the 21st Century.

Originally developed in 1994, Star Fighter 3000 was created by Fednet Software, which also produced other Acorn gaming greats including Stunt Racer 2000 and Chocks Away. Like Stunt Racer 2000, SF3K pits players against each other in a fierce, futuristic and televised world controlled by the media. In its latest form, dubbed Star Fighter 3000: The Next Generation, the game is 450MB in size.

It's understood efforts to tidy up the game have been on-going for the past five years, and Chris Bazley has been behind various updates and enhancements. The new title screen was drawn using Composition and Top Model, we're informed.

• The sparkling new version of Star Fighter 3000 is bundled with the latest issue of RISCWorld, a bi-monthly subscription magazine that comes on a CD, along with an article on how it all came together. See the link below for more details and prices. The magazine is published by APDL, which also sells copies of SF3K under the iSV brand.

Starfighter 3000: Next Generation:

[image][image][image][image][image][image]

Original Starfighter 3000:

[image]
[image]
Pinball is back...
...and this time, it's 32-bit!

Alan Buckley has converted the 90's DOS pinball game called PC Spiel Pinball to the RISC OS platform in the form of PC Play Pinball 1.0. This game may not be Gottleb Classics but the 2D flat graphics and dodgy physics are still highly addictive!

Alan Buckley would like to thank Ansgar Scherp and Joachim Gelhaus, the original authors of the Turbo Pascal game which is now available with non-restrictive copyright on the source code. This version is coded in the C programming language with the help of the ever faithfull SDL library.

System Requirements

The Shared Unix Library available from here. This is provided in an archive which contains a !System application which needs to be merged with your !System.

202Mhz computer running RISC OS 4 or higher. (32-bit compatible)


Other downloads


So, what are you waiting for? Grab your free copy from the RISC OS PC Play Pinball website now!
Follow the development of a game!
Thanks to Gareth Lock you can follow the development of a small Space Invaders game written in BBC BASIC on his website, perfect for beginners wanting to start coding games! Follow the game's development here![image]
Christmas Delights!
Game updates and a new online software and games directory!

Before I get to the news I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone in the RISC OS community and beyond!


Now for the news:

Alan Buckley has launched a new RISC OS friendly website that automatically shows the latest versions of several RISC OS ports of programs and games. The Autobuilder takes the source code from open source packages originally written for Unix-like platforms, and compiles them into RISC OS applications, ready for download by punters.

Thanks to the Autobuilder, a new version of a maths game for youngsters TuxMath can be downloaded for free from the webiste along with new versions of the MS-DOS emulator for the Iyonix, DOSBox and Battle for Wesnoth, a fantastic turn-based fantasy game very much like Heroes of Might and Magic 2.
The Autobuilder also produces libraries including a new version of the libSDL package for all the coders out there.

[image]

Got something games related to discuss? Talk about it with the Acorn Gamez community on our forum!

Acorn Gamez are looking for contributers! If you have any news, reviews or anything related to RISC OS games then don't be afraid to contact us!
And maybe of interest....
The Register
Vista security credentials tarnished in malware survey

Better off with a Win 2000 box

Windows Vista is better at protecting against malware than XP but more easily infected than Windows 2000, according to a study by Australian anti-virus firm PC Tools.…
Office 2007 SP1 goes automatic for the people

'Huddled masses yearning to breathe free'

Microsoft will start automatically pumping out its first service packs for the Office 2007 suite next month.…
Compulsory lobby register moves closer

EU Parliament calls for Book of Fat Lunch

A compulsory register of lobby companies revealing which companies or organisations are paying their bills comes a step nearer today.…
Iubi Blue personal media player

Not a bad box of tricks

Review Anyone after a portable 30GB media player is quite possibly going to end up with either a Cowon A3 or the Archos 605, both of which we liked. Many might argue, however, that list should also include the Iubi Blue.…
Fujitsu develops world's first hi-def train simulator

Going loco - virtually

Writing down the serial number of the 10.47 to Chichester in a notepad while standing on a cold platform is all well and good, but now you can pretend to be the actual train driver, thanks to Fujitsu, which has developed the world's first HD virtual railway.…[image]
Gizmodo Latest Gadgets
Gear4 Offers iPod Speaker With A Twist
Gear4, wanton producer of accessories and all things iPod, today launched the DUO, a 2.1 home stereo system with a detachable portable speaker. Phew - we're glad there's something unique about it since iPod speakers are barely worth announcing these days there's so many of them....
Shhh….Quieter Xbox 360 Coming In August
As you may well know, the Xbox 360 is not a discreet console. If it was human, it'd be Janet Street Porter going at it hammer and tongs with Gordon Ramsay in the corner of your room. I know, because I have all the consoles side by side and the 360 shouts down the...
Bat-Cuffs For Those Who Don't Have £250,000 For A Batmobile
Seeing as we won't be able to afford a £250,000 fully-functioning Batmobile this week, we'll probably settle for some Bat-Cuffs. What better way to get your whole, Men-in-Tights fantasy life off to a flying, crime-busting - somewhat kinky - start than with these JLA Trophy Room Batman Bat-Cuffs Replica. The makers say:...
Sony Adds HD Tuners To New Bravia Range
We've just had Panasonic launching the first TVs with in-built Freesat tuners and now Sony has joined the party by launching a new series with HD tuners on-board. The good-looking Bravia V4500 series, which comprise 26in, 32in and 37in models, come with an integrated MPEG-4 AVC HD tuner, allowing you to enjoy terrestrial HD...
Guns Get Fashion Makeover
Maybe you can use these weapons with your new camouflaged Iomega eGo Camo portable hard disk drive (HDD) but somehow I doubt they'd fit in with regular combat clothing. You may need to add a Philip Treacy hat to pull it off. We see lots of blinged gadgets and items here but it's not...
Stuff.tv Latest Gadgets
Gadget of the Day: R/C Drinks Cooler
Sun making you feel lazy? Can't even be bothered to go to the fridge for a beer? You need the slacker's best friend - a remote control beer cooler
All change in Stuff.tv's Top 10 of Everything
What are the movers, shakers and new entries in our Top 10s of tech?
STUFF EXCLUSIVE - Gear4 Duo cuts loose
Gear4's new two-part iPod dock gets portable
Gadget of the Day: HY Mini Wind Turbine
Is that a wind turbine in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
Pioneer's Kuros get back to black
Pioneer's latest Kuro plasmas get five times deeper black levels - film noir a speciality
(external news feeds last updated at 2:01pm and took 3 seconds)
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