RISC OS for Raspberry Pi

5th of November 2012 by eben

We’re very pleased to announce the immediate availability of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi. First released in 1987, its origins can be traced back to the original team that developed the ARM microprocessor. RISC OS is owned by Castle Technology Ltd, and maintained by RISC OS Open Ltd. This version is made available free of charge to Raspberry Pi users.

Steve Revill, from ROOL, shows off RISC OS on the Pi

We really recommend a download; it’s very smooth, very fast to boot, and we’re delighted to be able to offer RISC OS for the platform. You’ll find a RISC OS image on the downloads page; and if you’re completely new to the OS, you’ll find Burngate’s Stroll around RISC OS in pdf form very useful.

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In the forums

mayor, 54 seconds ago: Interfacing (DSI, CSI, I2C, etc.) • Re: Driving LEDs from GPIO input…
Thanks for the feedback. Replacing with pull-up resistors sounds like a good idea, and if I'm not mistaken, if I intend to use GPIO0 and GPIO1, that IS what I have to implement on the other pins if I want…
jukingeo, 4 minutes ago: Gaming • Re: PiMame difficulties
BBUK wrote:Hi jukingeo.I would not recommend running Advmame in X - it might work but it will be slowwwww.LOL! It barely works! First it runs in a really teeny tiny window and yes, it is slow.The fix for vfb.c is…
Chooky, 4 minutes ago: Français • Re: ssh depuis l'exterieur
Pour hosts.allow et hosts.deny, rien d'interessant. Toutes les lignes sont commentées.Ensuite pour iptables -L :Code: Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)target prot opt source destinationChain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)target prot opt source …
Burngate, 4 minutes ago: Off topic discussion • Re: Great Debate of the Age
I've just found that Umbrellas belong to the Do Not Iron set
Burngate, 6 minutes ago: Off topic discussion • Re: Great Debate of the Age
Many years ago my mother taught me to iron everything. She however got upset when I ironed my trousers after cycling - the oil on the chain picked up muck and threw it on my trouser-leg, and thence to the…

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Raspberry_Pi, 4 hours ago
How's your Swedish? We met Jonas at #MakerFaire San Mateo at the weekend. Here's what he wrote about it. http://t.co/XfOYYLRzTu Cambridge, UK
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3D CAD models - Our most downloaded is model is @Raspberry_Pi model B!!!! Download it today; http://t.co/z16MPVyjIr ^VJ Oxford, UK
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126 comments

Theo M on
November 5, 2012 at 12:30 pm said:

In case you’re wondering why RISC OS is interesting, have a read of this forum post:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=22093
Hint – it’s nothing to do with Linux

Comment ↓
- faustino on
  November 5, 2012 at 1:15 pm said:
  
  It also has nothing to do with Windows or MacOS
  
  Comment ↓
  - Mark A on
    November 6, 2012 at 7:13 pm said:
    
    But dose it have anything to do with a BBC Micro?
    
    Comment ↓
    - peter green on
      November 7, 2012 at 3:01 pm said:
      
      The core of risc-os bares a lot of similarities to the BBC micros “operating system”. The initial boot messages look much the same, the system in non-desktop mode is controlled by * commands. Persistent configuration is by *config like on a BBC master (the original BBC A/B didn’t really have any persistent configuration)
      
      Further RISC OS includes a version of BBC basic.
      
      On the other hand afaict the desktop and relocatable module systems don’t really have much if anything to do with the BBC micro.
      
      .
      
      Comment ↓
      - Sawdust on
        November 8, 2012 at 10:31 pm said:
        
        Except the relocatable modules take the place of the sideways ROMs that were so popular on the Beeb!
Rich Kavanagh on
November 5, 2012 at 12:37 pm said:

Whoa!!!

This is quite possibly the best news I’ve heard since the day I got my shipping delivery email for my Pi.

Downloading now, thank you

Comment ↓
- Rich Kavanagh on
  November 5, 2012 at 12:42 pm said:
  
  I might be getting ahead of myself here, but does this mean I might be able to play Zarch on my Pi??
  
  Comment ↓
  - Chris Evans on
    November 5, 2012 at 2:20 pm said:
    
    Unfortunately Zarch will not work on 32bit addressing ARM chips:-(
    
    Comment ↓
    - Ian on
      November 6, 2012 at 5:32 am said:
      
      Wasn’t Zarch written by a certain Mr. David Braben of the Raspberry Pi Foundation Maybe he might be inspired to port Zarch to RISC OS on the RasPi to let a new generation enjoy this ground-breaking game.
      
      Comment ↓
      - Sputum on
        November 6, 2012 at 1:12 pm said:
        
        Mr Braben is working on a new version of Elite. It’s multi-player space trading (I suppose like Dark Orbit) and dev is being funded through Kickstarter.
Montekuri on
November 5, 2012 at 12:39 pm said:

I searched for RISC OS on Google and found this wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS

The name “Raspberry Pi” is there as a supported hardware!

Comment ↓
Trixster on
November 5, 2012 at 12:41 pm said:

Will this run Archimedes software? I’ve got an original copy of zarch which I can make an image of. Will it run?

Comment ↓
- Davespice on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:17 pm said:
  
  I think the 26 bit to 32 bit difference between the Archimedes and the Pi processors would mean that you would still require an emulator to do this.
  
  Comment ↓
- Andy on
  November 5, 2012 at 3:29 pm said:
  
  Apparently not:
  
  [quote]Be aware that some old software won’t run on the Pi, because ARM chips have changed in various ways between ARM version 2 (the original 1987 chip) and ARM version 6 (the Pi). Everything in !Store and PackMan should be fine, but that old floppy disc you found in the back of the cupboard…
  There’s a program called ‘Aemulor’ which will enable running older software – the developer is rumoured to be working on a Pi version. There’s a list of tested ARMv6 safe software, which also gives links on how to convert old software.[/quote]
  
  Comment ↓
Mark on
November 5, 2012 at 12:49 pm said:

great news

Comment ↓
mahjongg on
November 5, 2012 at 12:50 pm said:

Great news, at one time I had to decide whether to but an Amiga 500 machine, or the new Acorn Archimedes, but the latter proved to be just out of financial reach for me. Still when I saw one in the shop, and had a chance to play around with it I could see its great potential, it was also used the first really new microprocessor the ARM, which was one of the first mainstream (not just for university students) RISC chip.
Now all microprocessors use a RISC instruction set (or the derivation VLIW) inside, even intels offerings, and ARM has thrived because it does more with fewer transistors, thus consumes far less energy.

I never forgot the attraction of RiscOS, and that it offered things that other OS later “borrowed” from it, and now I finally have a chance to use it again.

And although its old, its still very functional, I heard that many modern programs, like Firefox, have been ported to it.

And best of all its much easier to understand every aspect of it than any other OS.

Also, because unlike other OS’s you can use it for timing critical things, a Raspberry PI with RiscOS can behave much more like an Arduino than a Raspberry PI with any Linux based system, and now with the opened ARM code it has access to the GPU the same way Linux does!

Comment ↓
Andrew Joy on
November 5, 2012 at 12:52 pm said:

Amazing

Not used risc OS since my acorn A3010 that was running RISC OS 3.1, looking forward to having a play tonight.

I wonder how much has changed since 3.1 ?

Comment ↓
- Chris Hall on
  November 5, 2012 at 1:26 pm said:
  
  And there’s help available to newcomers to RISC OS both on this forum and on the RISC OS Open Limited ‘Community Support’ forum here http://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/11
  
  Comment ↓
- Dave Parker on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:07 pm said:
  
  I’ve still got my A3000 (RISC OS 3.1). I don’t suppose the software I’ve got will run in this version.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Egel on
    November 5, 2012 at 3:44 pm said:
    
    Some software, writen in BBC Basic, will still work.
    
    Comment ↓
    - bhtooefr on
      November 5, 2012 at 4:26 pm said:
      
      As long as it doesn’t have inline 6502 or ARM assembly. (6502 assembly for obvious reasons (and !65Tube hasn’t been ported to 32-bit AFAIK), ARM assembly because odds are it isn’t 32-bit clean.)
      
      Comment ↓
James on
November 5, 2012 at 1:00 pm said:

Never used it before, may as well see how good it is

Comment ↓
Phil Bowman on
November 5, 2012 at 1:25 pm said:

Elite?

Comment ↓
- Chris Evans on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:21 pm said:
  
  Unfortunately Elite will not work on modern ARM chips (32bit addressing)
  
  Comment ↓
  - Mattt on
    November 5, 2012 at 3:37 pm said:
    
    So no E-Type either I guess. Oh well, I’ll just have to power up the A310 )
    
    Comment ↓
  - Justin on
    November 5, 2012 at 9:44 pm said:
    
    I’m loving the idea of RiscOS on the Pi. But for you Elite fans, are you aware of OOlite (http://www.oolite.org/) until there’s a working Pi version? Been ages since I played it but it does the nostalgia thing very well
    
    Comment ↓
Chris Hall on
November 5, 2012 at 1:36 pm said:

What do you get with RISC OS? What does the desktop look like?

This link tries to answer these questions: http://www.svrsig.org/Beta.htm

Comment ↓
TankSlappa on
November 5, 2012 at 1:42 pm said:

Oooooh! I’m going to have to have a play with this to revisit my teenage years…

Although to be honest it’s more the teenage years I wanted, not the ones I got. I had a Beeb, had great fun modifying it with a soldering iron, and lusted after an Archimedes, but just couldn’t afford one

*sniff*

So after all these years I can finally stop crying myself to sleep

Comment ↓
- Adam Gardner on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:09 pm said:
  
  Must try to play the original Elite on this now!
  
  Comment ↓
  - TankSlappa on
    November 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm said:
    
    OOOH! Good call!
    
    Comment ↓
KJS on
November 5, 2012 at 2:06 pm said:

Retro, i’m grabbing it

Comment ↓
Davespice on
November 5, 2012 at 2:14 pm said:

Brilliant!!!

Comment ↓
tzj on
November 5, 2012 at 2:18 pm said:

As you can get realtime hardware interfacing, would there be python support?

And as it only takes 6mb run would the recomeded minimum SD card size be smaller?

Its nice to learn a completely different os to the ones i’m used to… tho based on the way it works, I think I have used it once before… be it I was in junior school and it was next to a windows 95.

Comment ↓
- bhtooefr on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:27 pm said:
  
  I’ll note that while the OS ROM itself may only take 6 MiB, there’s plenty of applications with it. I believe the RISC OS Pi RC6 image is sized to fit on a 2 GiB SD card.
  
  Comment ↓
- Chris Evans on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:29 pm said:
  
  I think there was a port of Python to RISC OS but it is very old and will probably not run on modern ARM chips.
  Re ‘Realtime’: RISC OS is not billed as an RTOS but programmers ‘single tasking’ have found they can make it pretty much real time.
  I believe the ‘Disc image’ could be smaller or larger but the way that it includes a FAT format part and a RISC OS Filecore format part means that it is not simple to use other sizes. I believe a commercial piece of software is planned that will allow this.
  
  Comment ↓
  - bhtooefr on
    November 5, 2012 at 3:29 pm said:
    
    Looks like it does exist, and looks like it does have 32-bit support:
    
    http://web.archive.org/web/20071223061900/http://python.acorn.de/
    
    Given that the default is for the Raspberry Pi to act like an ARMv5 chip, I’d expect it to work fine. Not sure if it’d work properly on a BeagleBoard, though.
    
    And, it looks like you might be able to build newer versions, as long as it’s 2.x. (Wonder if there’s a package somewhere – at work, so my RPi isn’t handy.)
    
    Comment ↓
    - Tony "pyTony" Veijalainen on
      November 5, 2012 at 10:24 pm said:
      
      There is README pointed by the python.org site and it reads:
      This directory contains files for the RISC OS port of Python.
      For more information about RISC OS see http://www.riscos.com/ .
      
      This port is currently being maintained by Dietmar Schwertberger,
      dietmar@schwertberger.de .
      
      On http://www.schwertberger.de you may find compiled versions and libraries
      as well as RISC OS specific documentation and extensions.
      Compiling:
      
      1. Extract Files from archive directory ‘Python-…’ to a directory named
      ‘!Python’.
      2. Use a tool like Rename to change filenames from ‘*/[ch]‘ into ‘[ch].*’.
      3. Create missing directories with ‘amu cdirs’.
      4. Build with ‘amu’.
      
      I’ve only tested Acorn/Norcroft C/C++ 5.30 and amu.
      
      Python now uses the 32 bit libraries from Pace as well as the 32 bit
      version of OSLib.
      
      You will also need some additional libraries:
      
      DLK (patched version)
      http://www.schwertberger.de
      OSLib
      http://www.mk-net.demon.co.uk/oslib
      
      zlib (optional)
      ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/infozip/zlib/
      expat (optional)
      http://sourceforge.net/projects/expat/
      (makefile and config.h available from http://www.schwertberger.de/riscos_expat.zip
      
      Comment ↓
- Theo M on
  November 5, 2012 at 2:40 pm said:
  
  There is Python for RISC OS – I’m not clear on how up to date it is, though.
  
  The standard SD image takes 2GB as that’s a common size of card, but there’s a lot of free space. The absolute minimum is the 6MB ‘ROM’ in your FAT partition – you can get a bare bones system up with nothing else. Actually, 6MB is the uncompressed size in memory – compressed on disc it’s about 2.2MB
  
  Comment ↓
- swirlythingy on
  November 5, 2012 at 9:34 pm said:
  
  I can’t believe three RISC OS users and ROOL forum regulars have attempted to answer the question, “Is there Python support?” and not noticed this one-month-old port of Python 2.7.2.
  
  Comment ↓
  - arm2 on
    November 5, 2012 at 10:40 pm said:
    
    There is so much stuff coming out for RISC OS at the moment it is very difficult to keep up with it, which is good!
    A comp.sys.acorn.announcement gets noticed by most people!
    
    Comment ↓
tero999 on
November 5, 2012 at 2:51 pm said:

How do you make a screenshot?

Comment ↓
- Egel on
  November 5, 2012 at 3:01 pm said:
  
  With !paint you can take screen snapshots:
  http://acorn.riscos.com/riscos3/37/37DiscImage/Manuals/Manual/BOOK2AB/E_2.HTM
  
  Comment ↓
  - Bruce Goatly on
    November 6, 2012 at 1:30 am said:
    
    In Soviet Russia, screen snapshoots you.
    
    Comment ↓
- Steve on
  November 5, 2012 at 3:52 pm said:
  
  You can either use !Paint or !Snapper to take screenshots. !Paint can be found in the Apps folder on the iconbar and !Snapper can be found in the Utilities folder on the RISC OS Pi SD card.
  
  Comment ↓
Stephen Scott on
November 5, 2012 at 2:56 pm said:

I’ve had a little play with this the past few days – it’s fantastic! Well done to all concerned with getting this far.

Having dug out an ethernet cable, I was able to hook up RISC OS to the internet, and download some of the games I co-wrote last century. Not surprisingly, my Cavern Duel game doesn’t work, but it’s desktop based level editor seemed to work fine (my caveat being it was just a 2 minute test, didn’t look at whether I could save or load files – but still, not bad for 15 year old code!)

I’m gonna delve into the PRMs to see how if I can address how to get the game to work – I guess the simple fact is that I’m using an old school display resolution, which the ‘SpriteExtend’ module is struggling with showing the sprites on screen.

It raises the question of how people like myself are going to resurrect their software to work on this. I looked into this back in 2007 when I realised that the newer systems of that time were going to be problematic with the game. I mentioned then, that some kind of central resource would be great – I think currently, it’s scattered far and wide between ROOL, ROL, various Wikis, and the comp.sys.acorn.* newsgroups. Squeezing blood from a stone while plate spinning is an easier pastime.

I’m not moaning – this release has given the OS a much larger audience than it arguably had in its entire 25 years.

And That Is A Good Thing.

Comment ↓
- bhtooefr on
  November 5, 2012 at 3:11 pm said:
  
  Also, is it 32-bit compatible?
  
  If it’s 15 years old, the 32-bit systems (Iyonix) weren’t even around, so that may be part of the problem.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Stephen Scott on
    November 5, 2012 at 4:12 pm said:
    
    Ah yep, that was the discussion I had in 2007, 32-bit compatibility. I had issues with old sound modules, which were converted with some utility dug out from a hovel of the internet to make them 32-bit compatible. I’ve not dug out my headphones yet to see if I have sound on my RPi.
    
    What’s left now is that I am using an 8-bit screen on a 32-bit system. It’s somewhat pointless to keep it this way, so some grunt work will be required (with lots of coffee) to get it working as desired.
    
    I’ve noted the presence of the website http://www.svrsig.org/Beta.htm which contains links to online editions of the Basic manual and Programmers Reference Manuals, which I guess is the de facto starting point for me?
    
    Comment ↓
    - Theo M on
      November 5, 2012 at 6:38 pm said:
      
      Don’t forget to make it ARMv7 compatible too, so it’ll run on other new machines!
      https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/ARMv7%20compatibility%20primer
      
      Comment ↓
      - Stephen Scott on
        November 6, 2012 at 2:55 pm said:
        
        Since both the game and its editor are written in Basic, ARMvX compatibility is not really an issue. The sound modules are 32-bit compatible. It’s really a case of updating the graphics and display resolution to 32-bit, rather than 8-bit. But thanks for the pointers.
        
        Again, if documentation such as this is housed within a section for former developers, it would be great. But my postings are straying off the main subject of this page
        
        I’ve been reading tweets related to RISC OS these past few weeks. I am pleased with how people all over the world are discovering it for the first time, alongside those who have been away for a considerable period.
        
        Maybe now we can all give Mr Braben a prod and get Zarch to work! Can anyone donate an ARM programmers manual and a desk for him to work on it? No pressure
- Alex Gibson on
  December 11, 2012 at 8:24 pm said:
  
  Hi Stephen, just to say that I for one would appreciate your effort if you get your games running! RISC OS Pi certainly needs a few 32-bit game conversions to point new users to, which is A Good Thing, and anything you do could encourage others, A Very Good Thing! I and I’m sure others would be happy to beta test. Have Acorn hardware ranging from BBC to A3000 to RiscPC to Pi – no Iyonix though…
  
  Comment ↓
Pete on
November 5, 2012 at 3:52 pm said:

This is fast ! do you remember when Linux was fast ? I love trying things I’ve never heard of and being impressed … Many thanks.

Comment ↓
Francois Dion on
November 5, 2012 at 4:15 pm said:

And of course you can take it on the road:
http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com/2012/10/risc-laptop.html

It boots to the desktop, ready to use in 10s flat. Compare to raspbian at 42s, on my setup.

3 interesting factoids:
-TCP/IP is disabled by default, enable it without adding any parameters, and it will get its config from DHCP at the next reboot.
-When trying to replace the URL on the web browser, instead of backing (backspace) the whole way, Ctrl-U will clear the URL.
-F12 will get you a (tiny) command line at the bottom of the screen. hitting enter at that prompt will return to the desktop and close that command line.

François

Comment ↓
- Francois Dion on
  November 5, 2012 at 4:47 pm said:
  
  The wiring how-to is here:
  http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com/2012/10/risc-laptop-cables-cabos.htm
  
  Since the link was in a reply in portuguese, most wont know about it…
  
  Comment ↓
  - Montekuri on
    November 5, 2012 at 5:43 pm said:
    
    You forgot the last “l” of html on the link:
    http://raspberry-python.blogspot.com.br/2012/10/risc-laptop-cables-cabos.html
    
    Comment ↓
jan on
November 5, 2012 at 5:13 pm said:

Does it play Videos ?

Comment ↓
- Chris Evans on
  November 5, 2012 at 6:15 pm said:
  
  Its media serving facilities are rather limited. XBMC is what you need for that.
  
  Comment ↓
- Montekuri on
  November 5, 2012 at 6:51 pm said:
  
  You can install MPLAYER, but it is not GPU accelerated.
  
  Comment ↓
Marc on
November 5, 2012 at 5:34 pm said:

Way cool.
I just got to work, and find this.
Now I don’t feel so good.
I may have to go home sick, now.

PS: for some unknown reason I have several blank sd cards waiting for a new image!

Comment ↓
Ashley Basil on
November 5, 2012 at 6:31 pm said:

Put a lot of time with this yesterday , puppy is fast but this is a “Hot little Kitten”!
Finding my way about slowly,missing some java and flash not surprising, could not see a 1tb drive!, Had some prob’s with camera card, that has more to do with Nikon i think. It saw multi card reader, pen drive and 250gb backup drive, fell over when i move 200 pictures, did the first 102. Fantastic!
Now if it can run a server farm, we could do our bid for Global warming?
Did you know 3% UK ele’ is used in servers farms!

Comment ↓
pete on
November 5, 2012 at 6:48 pm said:

Using a gyration keyboard and mouse which has worked with other rpi linux distributions, but not this RiscOs . Is this a driver issue, I thought it was treated as a USB device

Comment ↓
- Montekuri on
  November 5, 2012 at 6:53 pm said:
  
  I used a wireless (brand = BRIGHT) keyboard and mouse and it worked fine.
  
  Comment ↓
- bhtooefr on
  November 5, 2012 at 7:20 pm said:
  
  I’ve heard claims that RISC OS doesn’t support composite HID devices (which are a single device appearing as having two HID functions).
  
  Comment ↓
- Alex Gibson on
  December 11, 2012 at 8:28 pm said:
  
  Hi Pete, the USB drivers for RISC OS on the Pi were only recently written, as part of a huge amount of ‘modernisation’ work by relatively few people. So if something’s not working for you, try going to riscosopen.org and posting in the forum a request for the functionality you need!
  
  Comment ↓
Montekuri on
November 5, 2012 at 6:54 pm said:

I managed to install Firefox browser and… no flash! No Youtube!!!!
Well, I had faith that it would work

Comment ↓
- tide on
  November 5, 2012 at 8:00 pm said:
  
  The only way to play youtube vids would be downloading tand converting them. Check out !Murnong for that and either !Mplayer or FFMpeg
  
  Comment ↓
  - Ed on
    November 6, 2012 at 4:03 pm said:
    
    Or you can watch youtube videos in HTML5 mode instead of flash. Youtube HTML5 It’s part of a “preview” program, good luck with this, and keep us updated!
    
    Comment ↓
k4gbb on
November 5, 2012 at 8:08 pm said:

How come I never heard of the RISCO OS before?
It must be a Brit thing. My first Home computer was an ELF II (1978).
I entered the OS phase with M$ 1.0 and never seem to get passed the CLI.
The darned Mouse keeps getting lost in the clutter on my desk!
I’m suspect it will catch on with my boys… they are more adapted to the mouse/joy stick thing.

Comment ↓
- bhtooefr on
  November 6, 2012 at 12:28 am said:
  
  Yeah, Acorn completely failed to make it here into the US.
  
  (They tried with the BBC Model B, which is an interesting machine itself (and where the Raspberry Pi’s model naming came from – so the current ones should be called the Raspberry Pi Model B+512 ), but it was a miserable failure (and the compatibility issues didn’t help). So, they didn’t even try to bring the Archimedes here, although they did try (and fail again, as I understand) in Canada.)
  
  Comment ↓
John Germany on
November 5, 2012 at 8:49 pm said:

Wasn’t RiscOS the operating system used on the Acorn Archimedes?

Comment ↓
- swirlythingy on
  November 5, 2012 at 9:40 pm said:
  
  No, RISC OS was.
  
  Comment ↓
tzj on
November 5, 2012 at 9:11 pm said:

I forgot to mention this earlier… where has the qt5 image gone?
Are you still supporting it? Or is it in the same position as puppy?

Comment ↓
Will Godfrey on
November 5, 2012 at 10:13 pm said:

This news has washed away my last excuse for not getting my own Pi

Comment ↓
- Matt Hawkins on
  November 5, 2012 at 10:47 pm said:
  
  Welcome to the club. You know it makes sense!
  
  Comment ↓
Richard Wooding on
November 5, 2012 at 10:42 pm said:

Awesome! I am so happy!

Comment ↓
noel rolfe on
November 5, 2012 at 10:43 pm said:

great news but where’s the network ?
I burned it on to my sd card put it in , powered up and followed the instructions but no network.

Comment ↓
- Theo M on
  November 5, 2012 at 11:48 pm said:
  
  So you enabled the ‘TCP/IP protocol suite’ and rebooted? What happens to the network lights on your Pi as it boots up? Is DHCP enabled on your network?
  
  Comment ↓
  - n r on
    November 6, 2012 at 8:08 am said:
    
    yes , i enable it , reboot and no signs of life from network at all. I know it all works as I am writing this on my pi now , using raspbian. DHCP is enabled as the pi and the laptop use it.
    
    Comment ↓
    - Steve on
      November 6, 2012 at 1:45 pm said:
      
      What type of DHCP sever are you using?
      
      Comment ↓
      - Semtex on
        November 7, 2012 at 5:40 am said:
        
        I had a similar problem initially. If you are using a wireless adapter on your RasPi unplug that and just use an ethernet cable. Then restart.
        I can also confirm that using a combined wireless mouse and keyboard makes for very erratic mouse movement. Add a wired mouse and it is perfect.
      - n r on
        November 7, 2012 at 7:00 pm said:
        
        I am using the DHCP server built into my broadband router. The network light does not light up when running RISC OS but does when running Linux.
- Montekuri on
  November 7, 2012 at 9:10 pm said:
  
  Are you using a cable or wifi adapter?
  
  Comment ↓
  - n r on
    November 8, 2012 at 12:37 pm said:
    
    cable (red)
    
    Comment ↓
    - n r on
      November 10, 2012 at 11:45 pm said:
      
      sorted now see bottom of list .
      
      Comment ↓
markit on
November 6, 2012 at 12:04 am said:

Wow, a proprietary OS in a project intended to educate children about openess, collaboration and learn how to program “reading a lot of code”. Looking forward for a release of “Windows 8 pi – school special edition” soon

Comment ↓
- JamesH on
  November 6, 2012 at 12:21 am said:
  
  Well done – you win the daftest comment of the day award. Do you trolls ever think before posting?
  
  Comment ↓
  - markit on
    November 6, 2012 at 9:23 am said:
    
    Do you really see no problem in that? Don’t you find hurting that in the official download page of the project there is a proprietary OS available? Nor that is not labelled as “proprietary” (=bad) but “you can use it for free” (=so good! You have the permission of install it gratis, yuppy).
    Don’t you think that proprietary, secret, closed code is against education in general, and against education of young programmer (that is the goal of the project) in particular? Are you a troll?
    
    Comment ↓
    - Chris Gransden on
      November 6, 2012 at 10:25 am said:
      
      The source code to RISC OS is available to browse at https://www.riscosopen.org/viewer/revisions.
      
      The licence conditions for RISC OS can be read at http://www.castle-technology.co.uk/licence/front.shtml.
      
      Certain parts of RISC OS have other licences.
      
      Comment ↓
    - DryRiser on
      November 6, 2012 at 10:39 am said:
      
      The source code is available. You can download it, read it and submit changes to it, if you get SVN access, or talk to the right person. It’s also well documented, with the bits that aren’t documented being actively worked on.
      
      How much more open were you wanting?
      
      Comment ↓
    - JamesH on
      November 7, 2012 at 1:17 pm said:
      
      @Marki
      
      In reference to “Don’t you think that proprietary, secret, closed code is against education in general, and against education of young programmer (that is the goal of the project) in particular? Are you a troll?”
      
      No, No, and No. I have no problems AT ALL with proprietary software in education, as long as education is the end result. I grew up using proprietary software, starting with the BBC Micro, moving on the Sun Workstations, then on to PC’s. All proprietary software. Has done me no harm whatsoever with regard to education OR my career. OSS is great, but it’s NOT a panacea, for education or anywhere else. And its certainly not necessary for either.
      
      Comment ↓
Russell Pollock on
November 6, 2012 at 12:07 am said:

Question not a comment. On wheezy I had to edit the config to get my tv to work (hdmi_force_hotplug=1). Do I need to do anything on this and if so where???

Many thanks for all that have done so much for everything for the RaspberryPi for everyone!
Russ

Comment ↓
- Theo M on
  November 6, 2012 at 12:38 am said:
  
  RISC OS uses the same config.txt as Linux, so if it doesn’t work you can try changing that in the same way. RISC OS defaults to 1920×1080 which is scaled down by the GPU to whatever settings are in config.txt – if you need to change to a lower resolution, click the Display Manager – second icon from the right – and choose a more sensible mode.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Russell Pollock on
    November 6, 2012 at 1:24 am said:
    
    Theo M
    Thank you, I looked into the zip and not the image and didn’t think. Duh! This learning new OS’s and programing has really re-energized my mind. Turning sixty in ten days, who says it’s for kids.
    
    Comment ↓
    - Theo M on
      November 6, 2012 at 2:07 am said:
      
      If you put the SD card in a PC, you can change the config.txt settings even if you can’t see anything under RISC OS.
      
      By the way, to get at config.txt under RISC OS: click on the SD card on the iconbar, double click on !Boot while holding down Shift, double click Loader, and you now have the contents of the FAT partition including config.txt that you can change.
      
      Comment ↓
HKwhyIP on
November 6, 2012 at 3:52 am said:

It is super fast. How can I watch a movie under RISC OS? One of the comments mentioned that I can use MPlayer. How can I install it? Any plan to make a similar omxplayer for RISC OS?

Comment ↓
- Chris Gransden on
  November 6, 2012 at 10:29 am said:
  
  There should be a !PackMan icon already on the desktop. You can use it to install MPlayer. Don’t expect to be able to play fluid high resolution videos. There’s no GPU acceleration on RISC OS.
  
  Comment ↓
  - evil twin on
    November 6, 2012 at 12:43 pm said:
    
    Can that be expected in near future?
    
    Comment ↓
    - Chris Gransden on
      November 6, 2012 at 7:24 pm said:
      
      Not any time soon. The main problem with modern GPUs is the documentation is a closely guarded secret. There has been talk of utilising the Linux binary blob and writing a wrapper for RISC OS. Even after this is done the API support needs to be written and all the supporting libraries need porting/implementing.
      
      Comment ↓
      - makomk on
        November 7, 2012 at 12:32 pm said:
        
        That’s a thought. The recent open-sourcing of the ARM code to access the GPU ought to make it easier to access it from other OSes like RiscOS, but I don’t remember seeing any code for video acceleration. It should be there somewhere though.
Andrew L. Weekes on
November 6, 2012 at 11:17 am said:

I never had an Archimedes, but this really feels like the first optimised OS for the Pi. It’s stunningly fast and responsive and looks and feels remarkably modern, it was obviously way ahead of it’s time!

Even web browsing (Java / Flash issues aside) is speedy.

Cool for some BBC Basic retro action, I’ll be interested to see where this goes in terms of software support.

Comment ↓
Chi Man on
November 6, 2012 at 2:02 pm said:

This is another great announcements. Does this OS release has a preference to run on RPi with 512MB memory or not? Please advise.
Regards,
Chi

Comment ↓
- Chris Gransden on
  November 6, 2012 at 5:57 pm said:
  
  On the 256MB model after initial boot up with no applications running there is about 200MB of free memory.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Chi Man on
    November 6, 2012 at 8:30 pm said:
    
    Great. Thanks for your time and the answer. Anyone for a game of Elite?
    
    Comment ↓
Neil on
November 6, 2012 at 3:38 pm said:

Outstanding news. The ARM story arc comes full circle.

Wonder if it will run Archimedes/A3000 Elite

Comment ↓
smrad356 on
November 6, 2012 at 5:42 pm said:

Will be sometime Risco OS support Wifi adapters

Comment ↓
- Chris Evans on
  November 7, 2012 at 11:39 am said:
  
  Hopefully sometime but not likely soon
  
  Comment ↓
johnrambo on
November 6, 2012 at 6:18 pm said:

finally we’ve got RT-OS for RBPi!

Comment ↓
DanielJ on
November 6, 2012 at 9:20 pm said:

All those wanting to run 26bit RISC OS applications, like ArcElite, it is completely possible on the Pi, you just need to install and configure a copy of arcem: http://arcem.sourceforge.net/

Might be some compatibility issues with some games though as far as I can tell from having a play with it.

Comment ↓
DanielJ on
November 6, 2012 at 9:20 pm said:

All those wanting to run 26bit RISC OS applications, like ArcElite, it is completely possible on the Pi, you just need to install and configure a copy of arcem: http://arcem.sourceforge.net/

Might be some compatibility issues with some games though as far as I can tell from having a play with it.

Comment ↓
Ken Howe on
November 6, 2012 at 11:43 pm said:

Will Super Methane Bros. run on this?

http://methane.sourceforge.net/

Comment ↓
Jon Baker on
November 7, 2012 at 4:58 am said:

SYS “Wimp_Initialise” here we come!

Comment ↓
Winkleink on
November 7, 2012 at 10:57 am said:

This is great. I grew up in Ireland where the main school computers were Apple IIe. (Apple manufacturer in Cork) so I had never really played or used an Archimedes. They were more of a novelty in the wake of the Amiga and Atari ST.
I copied the image and booted it up last night.
It’s fast. Proper fast compared to Raspian. For simple web use it would most definitely work. The tips about clicking the wheel on the mouse for middle click and that networking isn’t enabled by default as well as [ctrl]-u to clear the URL in the browser were very useful – thanks to those who posted.
It was so much fun I crawled into bed about 2:30am with a 6:00am alarm clock.
So, I probably won’t be very productive today at work.
Looking forward to playing some more and see what is possible.

My only problem now is too many possibilities.
Scratch
Python
BBC Basic
C++
Risc OS
GPIO
Emulation
:
:

So far the only things I have done are:
Installed Quake 3
Installed the Atari 2600 emulator
Set up a webserver (LAMP) and controlled an Arduino over the network. No GPIO needed.

This just keeps getting better and better. Really looking forward to seeing the improvements expected in Scratch as well.

Comment ↓
James on
November 7, 2012 at 4:30 pm said:

Excellent. I now have my much treasured Zarch and Conqueror floppy disks close to hand  …and a deep feeling of regret having thrown out my last beige box equipped with a floppy disk drive about 2 months ago. Didn’t see that one coming…

Comment ↓
- mahjongg on
  November 13, 2012 at 5:59 pm said:
  
  If you got the floppies, its legal for you to try to download Zarch and Conqueror somewhere.
  
  Comment ↓
SImion Feildish on
November 7, 2012 at 11:52 pm said:

Can I use Visual Basic 6 to program this?

Comment ↓
- IbanezJem on
  November 8, 2012 at 5:04 pm said:
  
  I doubt it very much, but if you take the time to work through the tutorial of DrWimp which is provided in the Programming directory, you should be able to get something up and running in the WIMP environment.
  
  Comment ↓
Craig Moore on
November 8, 2012 at 12:52 am said:

Wow… this sounds beautiful… haven’t used a Archimedes in about 16 years… might consider getting a Pi if this is true…

Comment ↓
The Wizard In Green on
November 8, 2012 at 10:21 am said:

Runs like a charm from a cheap ICIDU 16Gb class 10 card. I’m impressed by its smoothness and speed.

Comment ↓
Willrandship on
November 8, 2012 at 8:00 pm said:

So, what’s the status on Graphics Acceleration, and how much should I care? I mean, this is an extremely lightweight OS, so it probably won’t matter for general use, but some 3D graphics would still be quite nice.

Comment ↓
Jem on
November 10, 2012 at 3:21 pm said:

Warning – RISC NOOB ! ( 2 hrs and counting) Having trouble with Hexen / Heretic. Running the !Run doesn’t launch the game, just gives ‘Unable to determine user home directory’. Any help welcome
P.S. This RISC is FAST !

Comment ↓
- Chris Gransden on
  November 10, 2012 at 4:14 pm said:
  
  There should be an application !UnixHome in the Apps.Support folder. If so just double click on it or install UnixHome using !PackMan. Then try again.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Jem on
    November 10, 2012 at 5:02 pm said:
    
    Thanks Chris ! I had literally just come across the !Unixhome fix on another website. Installed and didn’t work BUT as you say, you have to double-click on it (maybe even each time before the game is run). Future queries will be on the Pi forum under the RISCOS section. Hexen running now Awesome work !
    
    Comment ↓
n r on
November 10, 2012 at 11:43 pm said:

sorted , once I plugged it into my router directly all 3 network LEDs lit up.
It blows my RISC PC into the weeds and i thought my turbo strong arm was fast.
Can’t wait for more updates. Keep up the very good work , many thanks.

Comment ↓
Praetorius on
January 6, 2013 at 3:29 pm said:

Dabbling in RiscOS is proving a lot of fun. This is a great environment to explore. Thanks to everyone who toiled to make RiscOS for the Raspberry Pi possible !

I have a quick question: while I would certainly not say that RiscOs is slow, faster is often “nicer”.

I have been running my Pi with heat sinks at 1 ghz under Raspian and I do like the speed uplift. The Pi seems to take this all in its stride, and runs perfectly and never gets hotter than about 48 degrees.

Is there a way to overclock the Pi while using RiscOS?

Thanks for any help or suggestions

Comment ↓
Rich G on
January 8, 2013 at 11:32 am said:

I tried this for the first time last night. It is truely excellent. It have a RiscPC but have not used it for a couple of years. To see RISC OS working so well and so quickly on this very small and inexpensive hardware is wonderful. Thanks to all involved for making this happen.

I’m temporarily using a Windows 7 laptop as as a wireless – ethernet bridge and that works great.

Comment ↓
Jeff on
January 9, 2013 at 7:22 pm said:

My Pi works fine with the Wheezy os. But when using riscos, it will only boot with composite video. When I connect the hdmi adapter, it just sits there with a blanks screen and won’t boot. Any suggestions?

Comment ↓
- liz on
  January 9, 2013 at 7:28 pm said:
  
  This is an old post, and people won’t be checking comments any more – come and ask your question in the RISC OS section of our forums!
  
  Comment ↓

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