RaspberryJams

Aug 192012
 

A better late than never introduction for the RISC OS world to the #RaspberryJam

RISC OS users should by now need no introduction to the Raspberry Pi – but in case there is anyone reading this who has been living as a hermit for the last few years with no access to the internet (or any other news sources) in their cave, it is a very small, incredibly cheap computer based around a Broadcom BCM2835 ‘System on a Chip’ (or SoC). The heart of that SoC is an ARM processor, running at 700Mhz.

The idea behind the computer is to get children programming, to get them interested in computers and understand them – something which had been in an observable decline, with fewer and fewer students with less relevant skills applying to read Computer Science at University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory in recent years. Continue reading »

Bristol RISC OS Users 2nd Meeting

Feb 282011
 

Following the success of the first meeting of members of the Bristol RISC OS Users mailing list, a discussion list formed to support the possible rebirth of a user group for the area, a second meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday 16th March, 2011, and is therefore an ideal opportunity to discuss anything of interest from the RISC OS South West Show, which takes place on Saturday 5th March, 2011. Continue reading »

Bristol RISC OS Users announce an initial informal meeting

Jan 202011
 

Following on from discussions that began about a year ago and which led initially to the creation of a mailing list to bring together RISC OS users in and around the Bristol area, an initial meeting has been announced for those users – so if you are a RISC OS user in that area, the date to note in your diaries is Wednesday 26th January, 7:15pm for 7:30pm, and the venue the Air Balloon pub in Filton, Bristol – which is very easy to find. The following is the announcement that has been posted to comp.sys.acorn.announce:

Continue reading »

Logo ideas for Bristol RISC OS user group

Jan 302010
 

Updated 31/1/2010 with a fourth idea and altered to use a vector based acorn.

Updated 1/2/2010 with a new version of idea 4, but with better colours, and a few others.

Following the initial comments made earlier this week about the possibility of starting a new Bristol based RISC OS user group if there is enough interest, Trevor was able to find a copy of the old BARUG (Bristol Area RISC OS User Group) logo:

Bristol Area RISC OS User Group Logo

Bristol Area RISC OS User Group Logo

To my mind, there are a small number of issues with this. First and foremost, it’s a bitmap which means it can’t be easily re-sized (upwards) without a loss of quality. Somebody, somewhere probably does have it in a vector based format – but it matters not, because of the remaining issues. The second is that it uses the word “RISC” instead of “RISC OS” – the former term encompasses a great deal more than just RISC OS (although the flaw with both is their apparent exclusion of, say, 8bit users of old Acorn kit). And the third most obvious issue is the use of the acorns to represent the towers of the Clifton Suspension Bridge; representing the bridge encompasses a well known Bristol landmark in the design – which is great, given that it’s a Bristol based group – but the acorn is somewhat out of date in that it associates the group (and RISC OS) with Acorn Computers Ltd, who are long gone. There may also be trademark issues with the use of the acorn.

Continue reading »

Is there any scope for starting a new Bristol RISC OS user group?

Jan 262010
 

Littered around the country, and possibly overseas as well, there are a number of RISC OS user groups, who meet up on a regular basis, discuss RISC OS issues and have developers and other guests pop in to demonstrate their latest software or give a talk on some aspect of what they do or have done. There used to be such a group for Bristol and the surrounding areas, which I never bothered to join (so in a way I’m partly responsible for what happened next). That group closed down in 2006 due to declining numbers. When its demise was announced, I figured there must still be quite a number of users in the area, so I set up a mailing list for Bristol users.

A mailing list to which nobody subscribed, so after about some time I quietly removed it – there was no need to announce its closure, since it wasn’t going to affect anyone.

A few days ago, though, I was contacted by another Bristol user, Trevor Johnson. He had read of the Bristol user group’s closure on Drobe, and of my setting up the mailing list – and had tried, unsuccessfully, to subscribe. The general point of his email: Is there perhaps any scope for starting a new Bristol user group? Continue reading »