Owners of R-Comp‘s TiMachine computers and subscribers to their Titanium Support Scheme can now benefit from two updates from the company. The first of these is an update to the Dual Monitor software, and the second is the release of the latest Super Pack – an update to the software provided with the computer or as part of the Support Scheme. Continue reading »
Get a motherbook with a motherboard!
If you have been thinking about buying a Titanium motherboard from Elesar Ltd, you now have an additional incentive: The option of having a printed copy of the new RISC OS 5 User Guide included in the price – although, if you so choose, you can have the motherboard without the Guide.
The new User Guide matches the latest stable release of the operating system, RISC OS 5.24, released in April and is the first printed edition of the tome to be produced in over twenty years; the last edition came from Acorn in 1996. Continue reading »
The version of Linux available from Elesar Ltd for the Titanium motherboard has been updated, bringing it up to version 8.10 of Debian (Jessie), the specific distribution used. The last release was based on version 8.7, and Elesar says this is a maintenance release that benefits from both security and bug fixes, with details of the changes available from the Debian website separately for version 8.8, version 8.9, and finally version 8.10.
The updated version is available either to buy from the company on a ready-to-use micro-SD card, or for more intrepid users to install onto a suitable card themselves, by following the instructions on the GitHub repository. If you have previously bought an Elesar branded card and have at least one remaining support token, the company will happily re-image the card for you – simply get in touch to make arrangements.
An extra wide, 256 colour display!
A two-headed Titanium on the ROOL stand at Southwest 2016
With two DVI-I sockets on board, one of the selling points of Elesar‘s Titanium is the ability to drive two displays side by side. RISC OS doesn’t (properly) support this, but it can be done by fooling the operating system into treating the two screens as though they are one. The software to do this has been available since February 2016.
Much more recently, an updated ROM image was released in July of this year that allowed the board to use 256 colour screen modes – which might sound odd to make a point of with modern systems (including the Titanium) capable of running with 16 million colour displays, but there is some older software that actually needs to run in screen modes with a more limited colour depth; so called “paletted” modes. Continue reading »
R-Comp Interactive will be demonstrating one of their TiMachine computers driving a 2560×1440 display at the London Show on Saturday. The Titanium system board on which the TiMachine is based is normally limited to 2048 horizontal pixels, but because it has two video outputs – intended to drive two displays side by side – it’s possible to get around the limitation with some clever trickery, if you have the right monitor. R-Comp, at the show, will have the right monitor.
The updated version of DualHead – the software supplied by R-Comp with TiMachine computers, and as part of the Titanium Support Scheme will be available to customers/subscribers shortly; keep your eye on the download site (details of which can be found in the documentation supplied with your computers or via the Support Scheme).
My calculator doesn’t seem to like that calculation, but it’s definitely right.
Following last month’s offer of five games for the price of none when purchasing a Titanium motherboard, October sees another piece of software up for grabs from Elesar Ltd when purchasing their flagship product. This time, the offer is for a free full copy of RISC OS Open Ltd‘s Desktop Development Environment. The DDE (which is how it’s known to its friends) is normally priced at £50 including VAT, and includes a C compiler, ARM assembler, GUI resource editor, and more.
To take advantage of the offer, simply pop along to the Elesar Ltd shop page, and on the Titanium + RISC OS product page click on the ‘EH-008-9’ link in the product description to reach the bundle product page, and order from there – and when the product arrives and you’ve put the board in a suitable case, etc, get programming for RISC OS!
If it supports two heads, does that mean it’ll soon support three ARMs?1
Users of R-Comp‘s TiMachine computer – and those who are subscribed to their support scheme for Elesar‘s Titanium – can now make use of the two DVI-I outputs found on the motherboard. The company has released DualHead, which makes it easy to drive two separate monitors from the board. Continue reading »
Five games for the price of none! (Well, ignoring the price of the Titanium, obviously!)
The summer holiday period is just about over, and people with kids will soon see them returning to school (here in the UK, at least). Things will be quiet around the house during the day, so you’ll need some way to pass the time, having got used to entertaining the children during their time off.
Elesar Ltd have provided a simple solution with their latest announcement, by offering a a bundle of five titles from AMCOG Games free with any purchase of a Titanium motherboard. Once the little angels are sent off to school1, you can while away those hours playing: Continue reading »
Elesar Ltd has made available a new release candidate ROM1 for Titanium-based systems, this being number five – known amongst family and friends as RC5 – and while there are a number of changes in the update, the headline feature is that it brings with it support for 256 colour screen modes.
Anybody thinking in practical terms, and who therefore uses their computer for practical things, might miss one of the key points of this – and that key point is FUN! While a ‘true colour’ screen mode might be the norm these days for desktop use, where words might be processed, photos might be shopped2, and desktops might be published3, things were not always so. Continue reading »
Elesar Ltd has released a new version of its Linux micro SD card for the Titanium motherboard. The original Titanium build featured version 8.1 of Debian (Jessie), and the new release features version 8.7. The company says there have been lots of technical changes since the previous release, but the two most obvious ones for customers will be that DHCP is enabled by default, and that there are now CD/DVD-ROM drivers built in by default – so there is no need to resort to arcane command lines to install them.
For those who feel capable of imaging their own micro SD card, full instructions can be found on GitHub, and the company also provides GoLinux [zip] as an additional resource for the Titanium motherboard – an application for RISC OS that reboots the computer into Linux. And for those who bought the earlier micro SD card and who have at least one support token remaining, the company will re-image the card – simply get in touch with them to arrange things.