Aemulor arrives on BeagleBoard and PandaBoard

Sep 082012
 

Make your 32-bit computer do an Impression (ho-ho) of a 26-bit one!

When Castle Technology Ltd launched the IYONIX pc, back in 2002, there was a significant question users needed an answer to before upgrading to the new computer: Would their old software run on the new hardware?

The problem was that for all the previous RISC OS computers, the ARM CPUs worked in (or supported in the case of StrongARM) an addressing mode we refer to as ’26-bit’, in which the program counter and processor status flags are contained in a single register; six bits are used for the status flags, and 26 bits for the program counter – the pointer to where in memory instructions are read for execution. With instructions always being word-aligned, rather than byte-aligned, the 26-bit program counter actually provides a 28-bit address range, representing bits 2 to 27 in the actual address – the lower two bits pointing to the instruction to be read are always zero. Continue reading »

Pic_Index now BeagleBoard compatible

May 122012
 

A is for Application, B is for BeagleBoard, C is for Crikey this is a bit tenuous!

Pic_Index is an application developed by John Williams to generate a thumbnail index for a set of JPEG files, in HTML format – ideal for use as gallery pages on websites, CD ROMs, or anywhere else the user might wish to store the images and resulting HTML.

During April, it emerged during a discussion on the usenet group comp.sys.acorn.misc that Pic_Index didn’t work on the BeagleBoard. Continue reading »

Snippets – 24th March 2012

Mar 242012
 

It’s been a busy month again here, which means there have been no posts to RISCOSitory for a while – so here’s a quick round-up of recent goings on in the world of RISC OS.

RISC OS 5.18

RISC OS 5 has seen its latest ‘stable’ release in the form of RISC OS 5.18, which features some 340 improvements since the last such release (version 5.16). The full list of improvements can be found on the RISC OS Open website, but this list isn’t written in ‘typical user-speak’. In response to requests for a more user friendly list, Rob Sprowson posted one to usenet, which Steve Revill has since posted on the RISC OS open forum. 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 »

Synchronise those directories with DirSync 1.10

Oct 262011
 

Jan-Jaap van der Geer has released the latest version of DirSync, an application that allows two directory structures to be compared visually, enabling you to filter the differences you see in several ways so that it only shows you newer files, for example, or only files that appear in one of the two directories, and so on. The software then allows you to specify which files should be the same in both places and, where necessary, which version should be copied to the other location, and then synchronise the two directories. Continue reading »

R-Comp Interactive announces ARMini software scheme for BeagleBoard users

Oct 242011
 

With the BeagleBoard forming the heart of R-Comp Interactive‘s ARMini computer, it’s easy to see that some of R-Comp’s developments and releases for their computer might be relevant to those people who have put together their own RISC OS computers using the board. Well, now those “DIY” users have a way to access those developments: R-Comp have announced an annual subscription based scheme whereby users of home built RISC OS computers based around a BeagleBoard can receive the software* and support enjoyed by ARMini owners. Continue reading »

Snippets – 9th October 2011

Oct 092011
 

Pi in the sky – or, at least, near Heathrow Airport

For those interested in the Raspberry Pi, the RISC OS London Show (29th October, 2011, St Giles Hotel, Feltham) will be well worth a visit, since the tiny, low cost computer is set to make an appearance. It’s not known at this stage if it will be running RISC OS by the time of the show, but it seems likely that it will be on the RISC OS Open Ltd stand, judging by comments in their forum.

Speaking of the Raspberry Pi, in my Snippets post of 6th August I mentioned a logo competition. Well, that competition is now closed and an excellent winning design chosen.

There’s gold in them there web pages

Continue reading »

Snippets – 10th September 2011

Sep 102011
 

QuadDioph is a new piece of software from Martin Carradus. It’s an application that solves or finds “solution of certain Quadratic Diophantine Equations, of the form x^2 + B.x.y + A.y^2 = z^p, (e.g. x^2 + y^2 = z^2, two squares adding to a square, or x^2 + y^2 = z^3, two squares adding to a cube).” The application is free to download from Martin’s website.

Martin Wuerthner has announced that an ARMv7 compatible version of InterGif. Version 6.18 can be used on the BeagleBoard, ARMini, etc. InterGif is an application for converting graphics from RISC OS Sprite and Draw formats to GIF format with optimised palettes, allowing them to be viewed on other platforms, and used on websites. Originally written by Peter Harley and now maintained by Martin Wuerthner, the software also allows GIF animations to be created from a series of Sprites, and can also convert from GIF to Sprite format.

Continue reading »

Snippets – 29th August 2011

Aug 292011
 

Christopher Martin has announced the availability of version 1.20 of FFmpeg and FFplay. FFmpeg is a versatile, open-source, multi-platform video and audio conversion system and FFplay is a very simple media player built upon FFmpeg and SDL. Christopher has also released a new version, 2.13, of Murnong, an application for fetching and decoding videos from YouTube, this update having been made necessary due to changes implemented on the video sharing website.

Continue reading »

 Older Entries