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The Icon Bar: News and features: Midlands User Group Christmas Show Report
 

Midlands User Group Christmas Show Report

Posted by Andrew Poole on 20:43, 6/12/2008 |
 
Saturday 6 December saw the Midlands User Group's RISC OS Christmas Show in Birmingham. The show was held at Birmingham University's Guild of Students, and was attended by a steady stream of people throughout the day. What follows is a brief report and some photos from the event.

The main announcements for this show were from RISCOS Ltd. who had their new RISC OS Upgrade CD available, along with a "RISC OS Virtually Free" CD, which for a few quid gives you a licensed copy of RISC OS 4 to be used with emulators, and comes with instructions for some emulators on how to get started.
 
RISC OS Open Ltd. had an Iyonix which was running a ROM image built from the publicly available sources, and were selling calendars, t-shirts, mouse mat and coaster packs and source CDs.
 
Orpheus and RISC OS Now were also present, notably with free mince pies for the punters (which were yummy!). A new issue of RISC OS Now was available, albeit in A5 size instead of the usual A4 size booklet. Paul Vigay took along an Acorn System One to show off, along with an Enigma Machine kit, which were on display on the Orpheus stand.
 
NetSurf were in attendance showing off the latest builds of the open source browser, including a Linux build with support for tabbed browsing. CJE had their mini-tardis at the show for all the spares you could need, and R-Comp had their usual selection of RISC OS products for punters, ranging from Games to laptops.
 
The Acorn through the Ages display contained working examples of Acorn kit from days gone by, from the Atom through to the Omega (although the Omega had an amusing sign on the top stating "Microdigital Omega - Non working". The BBC Model B on display sadly went up in smoke during the afternoon, leaving the unmistakable smell of burning electronics hanging around that half of the room for the afternoon.
 
Shortly before the show ended, the raffle was held. Each punter who entered had a number on their ticket (I was visitor number four!), and the number was picked randomly by a programme on Graham Shaw's computer, with source code available for anyone who wanted to check it was all above board. The winning number, as I recall, was 20.
 
Shortly after the raffle, the show drew to a close as crowds thinned out. Overall, it seemed a productive day. There were plenty of people at most of the stands throughout the day, and it looked from my viewpoint at the NetSurf stand that a fair amount of money changed hands around the room. Next year's show will be on the 5th of December. I'll leave you now to peruse the photos below from today's event. For those who missed them, the live feed and its photos are still available for the time being, here.

Show photos

Click a photo for a larger view

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The show venue
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The show is this-a-way
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Exhibitors getting ready
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Punters start to trickle in
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Paul Vigay looks like he's up to something...
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He's got an Acorn System One, and a built Enigma kit
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ROL look ready for Christmas
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Paul Vigay shows off his kit to Drobe's Photographer and ROOL
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CJE get busy
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RISC OS Now was popular with the punters (and exhibitors!)
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Advantage6 had some A9 all-in-ones
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ROL check out the opposition
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John Cartmell looking amused
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Despite this photo, the Atom was working
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This BBC B later went up in smoke, leaving the smell of toasty electronics hanging around for a while
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Archimedes and A3010 on display
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A5000, A7000 and RiscPC
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A portable BBC Master
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R-Comp had lots to sell
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Orpheus special offers
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NetSurf
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A rather dark MW Software (sorry Martin!)
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Microdigital Omega. Non working
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Home-Made portable
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Another look at that non working Omega
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A9 Home in a briefcase, and a VA-running laptop
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Kinetic RiscPC in a tower case
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ROOL goodies
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Meteors, anybody?
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Linux port of NetSurf with tabbed browsing
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Iyonix running a ROM image built from publicly available sources
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General show atmosphere
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Another look at PV's Acorn System One and Enigma kit
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Electron
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Another look at the Omega
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Paul Vigay had free mince pies!
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I decided to not ask.
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The show starts to wind down
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Artworks and Easi/TechWriter highlights
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R-Comp find a quiet moment
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Just after the raffle. The chap behind the chap in a suit won.

 
  Midlands User Group Christmas Show Report
  tlsa (15:58 7/12/2008)
  highlandcattle (09:42 8/12/2008)
    andypoole (11:33 8/12/2008)
  monkeyson2 (10:45 8/12/2008)
    diodesign (18:29 8/12/2008)
      monkeyson2 (00:23 9/12/2008)
        Phlamethrower (01:05 9/12/2008)
          monkeyson2 (01:18 9/12/2008)
          filecore (09:50 9/12/2008)
        epistaxsis (01:33 9/12/2008)
 
Michael Drake Message #108969, posted by tlsa at 15:58, 7/12/2008

Posts: 1097
Nice article, thanks for the report. smile
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
van Engelen Thomas Message #108970, posted by highlandcattle at 09:42, 8/12/2008, in reply to message #108969
Member
Posts: 78
Can somebody explain us the new features of RO 5.14?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Phil Mellor Message #108971, posted by monkeyson2 at 10:45, 8/12/2008, in reply to message #108969
monkeyson2Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler

Posts: 12380
The £5 rom package sounds neat. Are there any emulators on the Mac that I could use it with?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Andrew Poole Message #108972, posted by andypoole at 11:33, 8/12/2008, in reply to message #108970
andypoole
Mouse enthusiast
Web
Twitter

Posts: 5558
Can somebody explain us the new features of RO 5.14?
It's built from the publicly available sources (with the exception of FPEmulator and a couple of other bits IIRC). More info on the ROOL site here: http://www.riscosopen.org/news/articles/2008/12/07/new-risc-os-5-for-the-iyonix

The £5 rom package sounds neat. Are there any emulators on the Mac that I could use it with?
You could port RPCEmu...

Andy.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Chris Williams Message #108973, posted by diodesign at 18:29, 8/12/2008, in reply to message #108971
diodesign
The Opposition

Posts: 269
The £5 rom package sounds neat. Are there any emulators on the Mac that I could use it with?
Well, there's Jon's Mac port of RPCEmu.

http://www.g7jjf.com/rpcemu.htm

He's passed me his source so I can unify the Linux and Mac ports of RPCEmu. My OSX port was old and naff wink

C.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Phil Mellor Message #108976, posted by monkeyson2 at 00:23, 9/12/2008, in reply to message #108973
monkeyson2Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler

Posts: 12380
The £5 rom package sounds neat. Are there any emulators on the Mac that I could use it with?
Well, there's Jon's Mac port of RPCEmu.

http://www.g7jjf.com/rpcemu.htm

He's passed me his source so I can unify the Linux and Mac ports of RPCEmu. My OSX port was old and naff wink
Cool - I knew you'd ported something at one point, but wasn't sure what the current state of play was.

I wonder how easy it would be to make an iPhone version using the Mac codebase? Does it use Cocoa? Apple probably wouldn't allow it in the App Store, but it would still be an interesting project. (Infact, 100 ad-hoc distribution certificates might be enough to cover all demand from iPhone owning RISC OS users.)

http://sales.riscos.com/ - We are sorry but due to technical issues the RISCOS Ltd sales website cannot currently process orders online.
indiff
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Jeffrey Lee Message #108978, posted by Phlamethrower at 01:05, 9/12/2008, in reply to message #108976
PhlamethrowerHot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff

Posts: 15100
I wonder how easy it would be to make an iPhone version using the Mac codebase?
Dunno - do you have a top secret x86 powered iPhone? RPCEmu uses JIT, targeting x86 processors.

And if it didn't use JIT, it'd probably be about as slow as any other unaccelerated ARM-on-ARM emulator (i.e. too slow to be useful)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Phil Mellor Message #108979, posted by monkeyson2 at 01:18, 9/12/2008, in reply to message #108978
monkeyson2Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler

Posts: 12380
Dunno - do you have a top secret x86 powered iPhone?
Yes. It's called the iPhone Simulator wink

RPCEmu uses JIT, targeting x86 processors.

And if it didn't use JIT, it'd probably be about as slow as any other unaccelerated ARM-on-ARM emulator (i.e. too slow to be useful)
Wah, you're no fun! *sulks*
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
keith dunlop Message #108980, posted by epistaxsis at 01:33, 9/12/2008, in reply to message #108976
epistaxsis

Posts: 159
http://sales.riscos.com/ - We are sorry but due to technical issues the RISCOS Ltd sales website cannot currently process orders online.
indiff

Ho hum - so much for the promised releases on Monday then... wink
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Jason Togneri Message #108981, posted by filecore at 09:50, 9/12/2008, in reply to message #108978

Posts: 3867
other unaccelerated ARM-on-ARM emulator
Phwoarr, I'd like to see some hot, unaccelerated ARM-on-ARM action! Drool
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 

The Icon Bar: News and features: Midlands User Group Christmas Show Report