Solid-state drives from R-Comp

Jul 012012
 

The Silence of the NAND.

R-Comp Interactive have announced the availability of affordable, high quality SSDs for computers running RISC OS 5.

SSDs, or solid-state drives are designed to be used as a storage medium instead of (or alongside, depending on your computer) the hard disk drives that most RISC OS users will probably be more familiar with,  but instead of the key component in the drive being a magnetic disk, spun at high speed in order to enable fast access times to all parts, SSDs typically contain NAND flash memory, and therefore lack the moving parts of the traditional hard drive, which means they are silent in operation and consume much less power. Continue reading »

Welcome to the R-Comp Apothecary…

Apr 222012
 

…where your prescription is one tablet per… well, just one, and that’s all you’ll need, actually.

It’s unlikely that anybody in RISC OS land has failed to notice the rise in popularity of tablet computing. Tablet and touchscreen devices have been around for a while, but (mobile phones aside) had failed to impact on the computing world in any noticeable way until Apple launched their iPad, and other devices started appearing based on Google’s Android operating system. In most cases, these tablet computers run on one of a number of ARM based processors – which owe their very existence to Acorn Computers, the company that developed the ARM processor in the first place, put it in a desktop computer, and wrote an operating system to use it.

Recognising that there was a circle in need of completion here, R-Comp has brought us one step closer to doing just that by announcing the latest addition to their product range, which will be seeing its debut at the Wakefield Show, this coming Saturday, 28th April, 2012. Continue reading »

Raspberry Pi launch causes indigestion

Feb 292012
 
The Raspberry Pi at the RISC OS London Show in October 2011

The launch of the Raspberry Pi this morning was either a resounding success, or it was an abysmal failure, depending on your point of view – and for the network staff of two companies, it must have been a nightmare.

As expected, the first batches of the Model B device went on sale at 6am GMT, with an order restriction of one per customer. Licenced manufacturing deals were set up with Premier Farnell (see footnote) and RS Components, so that the two companies could deal with the distribution of the first batches of the Model B to arrive in the country, and after that they’ll be manufacturing and distributing the boards on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which means the device can be manufactured in large volumes much more quickly than the Foundation itself could manage. Farnell and RS Components, who both have worldwide distribution networks, will be manufacturing to meet demand. Continue reading »

The early bird catches the Raspberry Pi

Feb 272012
 

According to the latest post on the Raspberry Pi website, “The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be making a big (and very positive) announcement that just might interest you at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29 February 2012.”

This is expected to be the first batch of the tiny computer going on sale; Eben Upton posted a status update on Saturday morning saying that they had “been assured this morning that a first batch of boards will ship to us either today or first thing Monday” – adding that “if you don’t own an alarm clock, this weekend might be a good time to do some shopping.”

Do bear in mind, of course, that while the RISC OS port is underway, it is still not complete – there remains work to be done. However, over on the RISC OS Open forum, Theo Markettos suggests that it might be helpful if a few people try to purchase one, either to help with development themselves or to lend to other developers working on RISC OS.

A celebration of the 30th anniversary of the BBC Micro

Feb 262012
 

In a number of posts on RISCOSitory.com over the last year, I’ve mentioned that we were approaching the BBC Micro’s 30th birthday and linked to a single page website about it. It appears that more details have now appeared on another single page site, describing it as “an anniversary celebration of the BBC Micro and Computer Literacy Project.”

The date set for the celebration is Sunday, 25th March, 2012, with the location given as – fittingly – Cambridge. There is a link to a contact form, and another to a Twitter feed.

First Raspberry Pis to go under the hammer

Dec 312011
 

I mentioned in my report of the London Show, earlier this year, that the Raspberry Pi was expected to go on sale by the end of this year, and that a limited number would be auctioned on eBay at around the same time. Unfortunately, the first of these two events has had to be postponed, but the auctions are going ahead, starting tonight.

Two of the ten numbered beta Raspberry Pis will be put on eBay each day, starting with numbers #10 and #09 tonight from around 10pm (GMT), continuing as a countdown until numbers #02 and #01 appear on the site, which should therefore be the 4th January. Continue reading »

Christmas offers from R-Comp

Dec 242011
 

R-Comp have announced that they have a stock of 25 inch LED-backlit monitors. These monitors, from a well-respected brand, offer excellent picture quality, with built-in ISF/image calibration features, and provide HDMI, VGA and older analogue connections, allowing you to use them with older computers such as RiscPCs and IYONIX pcs, as well as digital computers such as the ARMini or RISCube. These screens also have built in freeview, allowing their use as ordinary TVs. Continue reading »

CD and DVD support comes to ARMini

Dec 182011
 

While RISC OS users have been able to access CDs and DVDs from their computers many years, users of R-Comp Interactive’s ARMini computer (as well as those using BeagleBoards in their own right) have only been able to do so via another computer and a network connection: Accessing the media in CD and DVD drives connected to the computer by USB was not an option.

Until recently. Continue reading »

A slice of Raspberry Pi

Jul 242011
 

Back in May, on the RISC OS Open forum, Rik Griffin identified a possible new target for a RISC OS port, from The Raspberry Pi Foundation, “a UK registered charity (Registration Number 1129409) which exists to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing.”

The foundation is developing a very small computer, about the size of a USB stick, with an intended price tag of £10 to £15. David Braben – a name anyone familiar with the Acorn and RISC OS worlds should recognise – took a prototype along to the BBC in May to talk about it and the motivation behind The Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Continue reading »

The boot’s on the other foot

Jul 202011
 

As sold by R-Comp, the ARMini comes shipped in much the same way any other computer running RISC OS has done – you connect it up, switch on, and moments later you are presented with the familiar RISC OS desktop. For many users, this is what they want – that’s why they’ve bought the ARMini, an out of the box solution, rather than the more DIY approach of a Beagleboard-xm and the necessary bits and pieces to get it up and running. That doesn’t mean users have to stick with just RISC OS, though – ARM Linux has been an alternative for some time for other RISC OS (and ARM based) computers, and R-Comp have themselves opted to put together a suitable Linux distribution (based on Lubuntu – a lightweight variant of Ubuntu) for the ARMini (and Beagleboard-xm).

Continue reading »

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