Free “VirtualRPC in Use” e-books

Apr 012013
 

Ee be free, ee be.

Well known to readers of Archive Magazine, the group known as T.O.M.S. – who first appeared in the magazine in volume 13, issue 11 (August 2000) with a review of the Epson Stylus Photo 1200 – had a semi-regular series of articles published in the A5 periodical from volume 17, issue 3 (December 2003) until volume 19, issue 4 (January 2006) . That series was centered around using VirtualRPC, an emulator for Windows and Mac OS X computers that allows those people who need to use those platforms to continue to enjoy using RISC OS without having to have two computers on their desk, and was called “VirtualRPC in Use” Continue reading »

Hatari updated to run on Raspberry Pi

Dec 162012
 

Hatari… Ho! Goody!

NO RISC – NO FUN‘s Franck Martinaux has released a new version of Hatari, the Atari ST emulator. Previously only available for computers running RISC OS 5.18 on at least a Cortex-A8 (ARMv7) processor as used in the BeagleBoard and PandaBoard, this update of the RISC OS port allows it to be used on a Raspberry Pi, which uses an ARMv6 BroadCom BCM2835 SoC (System on a Chip). Continue reading »

FastDOSBox 1.00 now available

Dec 162012
 

Faster than a speeding bullet… albeit an old, comparatively slow, speeding bullet, by today’s standards

Franck Martinaux has made version 1.00 of FastDosBox available from the NO RISC – NO FUN website. Previously mentioned on the website, the application was described as being available exclusively from PlingStore, R-Comp’s initiative to make it easier for new users to discover software they might be interested in. Continue reading »

Atari ST emulator ported to RISC OS

Oct 142012
 

Hats off to Hatari!

Franck Martinaux of NO RISC – NO FUN – a new name in the RISC OS world – has released a port of version 1.62 of Hatari, an Atari ST emulator.

Only available for computers running RISC OS 5.18 or later on at least a Cortex-A8 processor – which currently means systems based around the BeagleBoard and PandaBoard – Hatari has been compiled with an optimised version of SDL 1.2.15, and is able to emulate an 8Mhz Atari ST or STE at 100% of the original computer’s speed. Continue reading »

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 »

Mednafen – multi game system emulator comes to RISC OS

Apr 122012
 

Following the release of his port of Fuse, the Spectrum emulator, Chris Gransden has busied himself with porting another emulator to RISC OS. This time, it’s a port from the Unix version of Mednafen, a command line driven multiple system emulator that provides support for OpenGL and SDL graphics, network play, re-mappable input configuration, joystick and keyboard support, save states, game rewinding, GSF playback, and screenshots.

Continue reading »

RPCEmu 0.8.9 released

Jan 032012
 

Peter and Matthew Howkins have announced the availability of a new version of free emulator RPCEmu.

Version 0.8.9 brings with it a long list of improvements, fixes and new features. These include, for all the platforms on which the emulator can be run:

  • There is now support for emulation of 256 MB of RAM. This is the maximum amount supported by the RiscPC (which, as its name suggests, is hardware the emulator is originally designed to emulate) and A7000.
  • A new option has been added to reduce CPU usage. When enabled, Continue reading »

Snippets – 16th July 2011

Jul 162011
 

Chris Gransden has announced the availability of version 3.02.1.24 of PDF, allowing users to view files in the ever prevalent Portable Document File format from Adobe. Changes in this version include better interaction with Paint and better facilities when saving images.

PDF can, of course, be used to view Drag ‘n Drop, a PDF based magazine aimed at Acorn 8-bit and RISC OS 32-bit communities – and volume 2 issue 4 is now available to purchase online for £3. Features in this issue include part 9 of Dave Stratford’s series on sorting, an article about upgrading to Messenger Pro 6, a selection of photographs from the 2011 Wakefield Show, along with a number of other articles.

Continue reading »