News from RISCOS Ltd No. 16 May 23rd 2001 ============= Why wasn't RISCOS Ltd at the Wakefield 2001 Show? ------------------------------------------------- With the increasing demand for skilled RISC OS programmers RISCOS Ltd has been developing RISC OS since June 2000 using contract software engineers rather than staff employees. This has been interpreted by some people as "RISCOS Ltd has NO programmers" which is luckily not the case. However to make the best use of those peoples' skills, we have cut back on our presence at exhibitions, since many programmers are happier working in isolation, rather than trying to help users directly with their queries. I'm sure that many of you will appreciate that some very good software is produced by people who never appear in public! With many other activities underway, it was decided that it would not be possible to attend the Wakefield Show this year, but I shall be visiting the RISC OS Expo 2001 organised by the Big Ben Club in Holland in a few weeks time, to meet up with our European customers. RISC OS Select -------------- In the two years since we took over the development of the desktop version of RISC OS there have been major changes in the RISC OS marketplace. RISCOS Ltd is adapting to those changes and RISC OS Select is the first result of those changes. 26 bit versions of RISC OS under the project name of RISC OS 4.5 will in future be supplied on a yearly subscription basis. This is similar to the way that yearly maintenance and upgrade schemes are provided for other major software packages. From now on RISC OS will be updated on a rolling basis, instead of releasing a major upgrade every couple of years. The important point to note is that there is no target for a "Final" release version of RISC OS, since technology and user requirements will very much dictate what features are, or are not, added to new versions of RISC OS and hence the RISC OS Select Scheme is deliberately intended to be fluid in nature. It is also very important to note that RISC OS Select is a personal subscription meaning that you may install the software provided under the scheme onto any machines which you or your family (who are resident at the same location own). If you have 3 machines at home you do not have to take out 3 RISC OS Select Subscriptions. If you are a company with greater than 10 machines then a special price applies. The advantage of the scheme is that the timescale for fixing bugs and offering new features will be significantly decreased. Many people who heard about the Scheme at the Wakefield Show have been concerned that with the Operating System being soft loaded that it would therefore be prone to virus attack. We would like to point out that using the Select Scheme components does not mean you have to remove the current physical ROM's from the machine and hence in the unlikely event of problems with the new ROM image you will always be able to return to using the original RISC OS 4 settings. Future components of RISC OS will be released in two formats:- 1. ROM images which can be softloaded to replace the existing physical ROM's 2. Individual modules that can be loaded as part of the Boot sequence. The new ROM image and modules can be stored on local Hard Disc, on a Network, or loaded directly from CD. Part of the new ROM image boot sequence will provide the option to choose which medium you wish to boot from, so that you may for example wish to keep a backup of your usual Boot sequence on CDR and then install the new RISC OS Select ROM image and Boot sequence onto your main hard drive. All Subscribers to RISC OS Select will receive up to 3 CD's per year i.e one CD approximately every 4 months. The CD will contain both Beta software and official release versions. It is anticipated that components which are issued as Beta on one CD will become official releases on the next CD. Interim components will also be available from a password protected area of the new RISC OS Select Web Site. The scheme is suitable both for users who want to be sure of receiving the latest fixes & official releases and also for users who like to have the latest experimental modules & features. (Subscribers to RISC OS Select will be provided with a method whereby they can choose to just install the release components or else they can try out the latest features, knowing that they can restore to a known working set-up at any time. To do this each Select CD will contain a "safe" boot image with all the released upgrades and patches pre-installed as a working disc image.) N.B. Users will have to initially purchase RISC OS 4 in ROM either as an upgrade from RISC OS 3.5/6/7 or else as an integral part of a new computer. It will NOT be possible to softload RISC OS Select packages onto anything other than RISC OS 4. Purchasing RISC OS 4 -------------------- New Users --------- New users will be have three choices when purchasing RISC OS 4 in the future. i) To join the RISC OS Select Scheme for £179. For this they will receive the current full RISC OS 4 ROM package and a one year subscription to the Select Scheme. or ii) To buy the current RISC OS 4.02 ROM and installation CD for the special new reduced price of £95. (This will NOT include any bundled applications, such as Vector, Writer, ImageFS or the new RISC OS Internet Suite) or iii) Buy the current full package with bundled applications and Manuals CD for the new reduced price of £109. (Users choosing ii) or iii) will not get access to the web site or other upgrade features of RISC OS Select.) Existing Users -------------- Existing RISC OS 4 users will be able to join the Select Scheme for one year for £105 (or £99 if they are members of the Foundation.) If a new purchaser wants to upgrade to RISC OS Select after they have bought their RISC OS 4 upgrade they can do so for £80 instead of the normal £105. This upgrade offer will be available for up to 4 months after the purchase of a RISC OS 4 upgrade at the full price. Users of machines that were supplied with RISC OS 4 will only be able to join the Select Scheme at the full price of £105, irrespective of when they purchased their computer. e.g if you have bought RISC OS 4 as part of a Kinetic StrongARM upgrade or with a RiscStation, Risc PC, A7000+ or MicroDigital Mico. NB All prices are inclusive of VAT. Overseas subscribers will be charged postage at cost if they wish to receive CD's. They may optionally choose to only receive updates via the Web Site at a reduced cost. Application forms for the RISC OS Select Scheme are available from the RISCOS Ltd Web Site at http://www.riscos.com/select/ Registered Developers --------------------- Since the formation of RISCOS Ltd the demands of the current software developers have been very varied. In a recent survey of developers most of them indicated that they do not usually need much individual support. In order to provide full support to those that require it we shall be increasing the fees for Registered Developers to £500 per 6 months as from 1st June 2001. This will entitle them to direct contact with the RISC OS Development team. Developers that only need access to technical documentation will be able to do so by joining the RISC OS Select Scheme. Anyone that joins the RISC OS Select scheme may also apply to be become an affiliate Registered Developer. There will be no fee for becoming an affiliate and they will be able to use the Registered Developers logo. The Foundation RISC User CD and the RISC OS Products Database Web Site will contain a database of all Registered Developers, and their products. The only requirement for becoming an affiliate and having software included on the database will be that a fully functional version (and any subsequent updates) of the software is supplied to RISCOS Ltd for evaluation and internal use. End User Support ---------------- With immediate effect RISCOS Ltd will no longer be offering technical support for end-users via telephone. Support queries can still be sent to mailto:support@riscos.com but there will no guarantee of an individual response. Where appropriate new answers will be added to the RISC OS Knowledge Base at http://support.riscos.com/ RISC OS Select Q and A ---------------------- Q. Do I have to take out a RISC OS Select Subscription for every machine I own? A. NO. The scheme is a personal one and allows you to install the RISC OS Select software on any machines you own. If you are a business with more than 10 machines then a site wide subscription to Select costs £300 per annum. You will however have to have bought a separate RISC OS 4 ROM upgrade for each machine you own, in the first place before joining the Select Scheme. Discounts are available for bulk purchases of RISC OS 4 ROM's. Q. What new features will there be in the RISC OS Select Scheme? A. We have many new features planned for RISC OS 4. It is not possible to state exactly when any particular new feature or update will appear since the whole idea of the Select Scheme is to make new items available as soon as possible, rather then waiting 3-4 years before releasing everything at once. By releasing a smaller number of items at a time then the testing schedule is made much easier and those people that like trying out the latest features can do so as soon as possible. Q. I don't like the idea of softloads. I want to wait until the proper ROM release of RISC OS 4.5 A. You will unfortunately have a long wait as there will not be a "proper" ROM release. The whole idea is that there will be a rolling scheme of updates. It is possible that there might be new ROM images available every month from the web site, not just every 4 months on CD, but that will depend entirely on how long any particular item takes to develop. It was always intended that RISC OS should be able to be updated on a much more regular basis than once every couple of years. Unfortunately the problems with obtaining suitable FlashROMS made that impossible. The softload scheme now allows that to happen. We want developers and end-users to become a close part of the future development of RISC OS, and whilst it is not possible to make RISC OS Open Source as some people would like, by releasing new components as soon as possible everyone will get the chance to play their part in testing and improving RISC OS faster than has been possible in the past. Q. Doesn't making RISC OS softloadable open it up to viruses? A. NO. You will still have the ROM in the machine, that cannot be altered. The ROM image will only be able to load over a specific physical ROM. If a virus attempts to change the ROM image it simply won't load. Q. Why don't you offer a Monthly payment Scheme? A. The administration burden and costs of taking and checking monthly payments are simply too much. Q. £1000 is just too much to become a Registered Developer now. Doesn't this mean you are trying to discourage RISC OS Developers? A. NO. Virtually all the information that was previously only available to Registered Developers will now be available as part of the RISC OS Select Scheme. So for just over half the price of the old Registered Developer Scheme you now get updated versions of RISC OS effectively for free if you join the RISC OS Select Scheme. The new Registered Developers Scheme is purely aimed at Developers who need to have direct contact with the programming team and access to documentation on specific features that cannot be made public. Q. £105 per year is too much. If it was more like £50 and we got a proper set of ROM's at the end of each year I'd be happy! A. The maintenance and development of RISC OS is unfortunatley an expensive business, and the volumes in which RISC OS is sold, simply doesn't make sense at other prices. As many people have pointed out, Acorn used to subsidise their software development from the hardware sales. Since RISCOS Ltd doesn't produce hardware we don't have that luxury. As regards supplying proper ROM's the problem is the cost and availability of ROM's. At present Masked ROM's (as originally supplied with RISC OS 3 machines) are on 16 - 20 weeks lead time. With Beta testing time added to that schedule it would mean that there would be over 9 months between code being released and it actually reaching end users. Under the RISC OS Select Scheme we can cut that cycle down to less than 2 weeks. The cost of the ROM's is also nearly £25 and hence there would be little money left to actually fund the development of RISC OS if we only sold it for £50 and gave away ROM sets as well. Q. In that case why don't you use Flash ROM's? A. Unfortunately suitable Flash ROM's are not available. Q. Exactly what new features are planned for the RISC OS Select Scheme. A. We have taken the results of the recent survey and questionaires over the past year and at present the following is the features that are in the current RISC OS Select ROM image under development:- RISC OS Select Features -----------------------  New version of CDFS with support for RockRidge extensions, Joliet and mixed mode disc reading.  Filer has been improved with : - indication of shared discs via file icons, - refresh option for filer displays, - numeric sorting of names, - lowercasifying option, - optional alternate renaming method, - create new directory by click on menu entry, - sharing of directories made simpler, - easier entry of filenames with spaces - i.e you can now just type in a filename entry rather than .  Updates to !ChangeFSI and !Paint to allow importing of PNG files.  JPEG export from !Paint  System application support for the Universal Clipboard system allowing cutting and pasting between compliant applications.  New version of !Printers with support for networked printer drivers.  Startup choices to allow user to choose boot device so that booting is possible from CD-ROM, network or hard disc.  LanManFS in ROM along with new Internet stack with BootP and DHCP support and updated ShareFS. This will also work with the Appletalk client module which will be available shortly.  ROM images larger than 4MB to support everything being in ROM for machines than may require to boot without a hard disc.  New configuration applications for fonts, replay, screensetup and filer.  Miscellaneous improvements to kernel  !Bugz application for easy reporting of faults.  ADFSfiler quick format  Improved speed of booting over ShareFS  New integrated CDPlayer and CDFS Filer  Graduated Pinboard backdrop  Multi-user choices  GZip support in !Squash  Improved internet configuration And many other features that are of interest to programmers such as :-  Filer has improved error handling  Improved DeviceFS/BufferManager interaction  FileSwitch with : Enumerate file handles Fix for upcall on rename in an image filing system  !Impression second-ROM bank access fix (would crash on click)  Wimp EdgeNotify message  Wimp copes with long CLIs to StartTask  Shared ZLib and PNG support.  Programmers Zip file handling  ShareFS now supports EOF  MimeMap has : reduced processesing impact caching of matches to improve efficiency  SpriteExtend : fixes for 1:2 sampled JPEGs rendering speed improvements Exif support  Improved JPEG compression support  ClipboardHolder module provides a persistent clipboard  Freeway fix for S_0 bug  Fix for HeapSort failing near the end of a page  All Obey files are now cached. This means that you CANNOT use *Obey Pipe:Gunge if the file is already open.  PipeFS speed improvements  Taskwindow speed improvements for Upcall handling  Sound service handling for external hardware NB. All the above items are beta releases and may not necessarily be included in the first RISC OS Select ROM release. Further details and illustrative screen shots will appear on the Select Web Site shortly. Support Web Sites ----------------- RISC OS 4 --------- To encourage RISC OS Software development, subscribers to the RISC OS Select Scheme will get access to the documentation and resources about RISC OS 4 previously only provided to Registered Developers at http://support.riscos.com/ RISC OS 3 --------- Support for legacy computers and software prior to RISC OS 4 is now available at http://acorn.riscos.com/ This area also contains the contents of the old Acorn public FTP site along with additional items such as the Acorn Universal Boot application. 32 bit RISC OS -------------- There has been considerable debate over the development of 32 bit versions of RISC OS, which were to be called RISC OS 5. Up until January 2001 it had been expected that a 32 bit version of RISC OS would be required to support new processors in a relatively short timespan, since 26 bit processors were expected to have a very limited remaining availability. At present however RISCOS Ltd does not have any customers (i.e hardware producers) who have made any commitment that requires the production of a 32 bit version of RISC OS and it appears that the availability of 26 bit processors will continue for longer than was expected. Consequently all our development resources are being put in to enhancing the features of existing 26 bit RISC OS. 32 bit versions of some parts of RISC OS do exist, and new code is being produced with 32 bit versions in mind but the amount of work needed to convert major areas of RISC OS such as the kernel and ADFS will take many man months of work to complete and until we get sufficient commitment from our customers, that work will not be undertaken. The current 4,000+ users of RISC OS 4 are our first priority and whilst 26 bit machines continue to sell in quantity, desktop versions of RISC OS will remain 26 bit. It is important to note that much existing software that is written in Assembler cannot be easily converted to run in 32 bit mode and that simply producing a 32 bit version of RISC OS to run on existing hardware, would not offer current users any advantages. So before you decide to ditch your old computer and think about upgrading to a new machine, make sure you fully understand the implications of moving to a new hardware platform. If you haven't already upgraded to RISC OS 4, now is a good time to do it. Note that this does not mean that new 32 bit processors will not be able to be supported under RISC OS in the future or that we are ditching RISC OS. The practicality is that at present the Xscale chip is pretty expensive when bought in small quantities, and with production very much in its early days, unless demand is sufficiently large, getting hold of those processors at a reasonable cost and in a reasonable timescale is a major factor preventing the early launch of new machines at a sensible price. And finally ----------- I should point out that we looked very carefully at the options for future development of RISC OS and this scheme is the only choice. The RISC OS desktop market (as opposed to the use of RISC OS for Information Appliances and Embedded markets) is regrettably now very small. We have just over 4,000 RISC OS 4 users and it is those users that have to pay for the ongoing development of RISC OS. I have seen people suggesting on newsgroups that they will probably prefer to wait 6 months and see what happens before making any decisions to either buy RISC OS 4 or to join the Select Scheme. The simple fact however is that if everyone makes that same decision there will not be any new versions of RISC OS for them to buy! If Ford produced a new range of cars and no one bought them, there simply wouldn't be a new range to follow the next year and RISCOS Ltd is in the same situation. If you want new products to be developed you have to buy the current products in order to pay for the development of future products. It is not blackmail, it is a plain commercial reality. Replying to queries from this Newsletter ---------------------------------------- If you are responding to a specific query in this newsletter please use the appropriate mailto: address to reply rather than replying to the sender of this email. Also don't reply to the general foundation or admin email addresses as your enquiry may not get dealt with promptly. We try to reply to all enquiries within 5 days. But at peak times it may take longer to reply. If you have received this email in error, or wish to be removed from this list then please send an email to mailto:foundation@riscos.com with the subject REMOVE regards -- Paul Middleton RISCOS Ltd ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©2001 RISCOS Ltd. RISC OS is a trademark of Pace Micro Technology plc. Certain other product names, brand names, and company names may be trademarks or designations of their respective owners.