The Dark Disc Knight rises
Dave Ruck (aka Druck) announced towards the end of June* that new versions of TimerMod, AppStat and CPUload can be found on the ARM Club website.
The updates correct for “code which could crash if used on the Raspberry Pi when the NetTime module had adjusted the system timer for the real time clock running too fast,” according to Druck’s announcement, who therefore recommended that the new versions are downloaded if they are to be run on the credit card sized computer.
TimerMod is a module that provides microsecond resolution timing facilities, Appstat is an application that monitors events and messages delivered to all running applications, and CPUload is an improved CPU usage monitoring application – and all three (along with many other items) are free to download.
A few days after announcing the updates to TimerMod et al, Druck also announced the availability of DiscKnight, his application – released commercially through the ARM Club for just £10 for a single user licence – for checking and fixing FileCore E and E+ format hard discs.
The new version handles the modified FileCore formats introduced in RISC OS 5.20, and 5.19 for the Raspberry Pi and, according to the developer, users of such systems should upgrade “to prevent spurious errors from being reported, and potential data loss if used to repair a disc on those OS versions.”
As well as compatibility with newer systems, other changes in 5.20 include support for files of up to 4GB in size (where FileCore itself supports this), maps spanning more than one zone are supported (for the Raspberry Pi), the disc record directory size field is checked, the maximum path length checks are optional, and disc sizes are now optionally in multiples of 1,024 (using the lower case k, m and g suffixes) or multiples of 1,000 (using the upper case versions).
For existing users, there is a form on the ARM Club site for requesting a new copy, and another to change the registered email address.
* Yes, that’s how far behind I am with RISC OS news!
