Who, what, where, when, why, how? (But not necessarily in that order!)
Where and how?
If you’re coming off the M5 motorway, use junction 22 and take the A38 (Bristol Road) towards Bristol. After just over five and a half miles, you’ll pass a row of cottages and a pub called the Lamb Inn, and see a turning to the left signposted Webbington – take that road and follow until you come to a T-junction. Turn left here, and you are on Webbington Road – it’s long and winding, but after about three miles, you’ll see the hotel entrance on the right.
If you’re coming down the A38 from Bristol, as you reach a village called Cross, look out for a junction with a pub called the New Inn – turn right here. The road you are on – Old Coach Road – will become Webbington Road when you pass across the ‘T’ of the T-junction mentioned above; around three miles later, you’ll see the hotel entrance on the right.
The nearest railway station is at Weston-Super-Mare, about eight miles away, and the nearest airport is Bristol Airport, about eleven miles away.
When?
Tomorrow!
That’s Saturday, 21st February, 2014. Doors will be open to the public from 10:30am, with the show closing at around 4:00pm.
Who, what and why?
The simple answer to the latter part of that question is “Because you want to support RISC OS and those people and organisations developing for it!”
The more detailed answer encompasses the rest of the question – the who and what. There are some sixteen exhibitors listed on the show website plus “various user groups” and the charity stand, and some of those exhibitors have some very tasty treats indeed for you – quite literally, in the case of Tasty Treats! Accompanying John Norris, who will be exhibiting his mini-dumbbell and bell-ringing software, the Tasty Treats stand will be the place to get your home made jam!
Sine Nomine have already announced that they’ll be bringing along a new version of mapping application RiscOSM, and selling it on SD card as well as the usual CD, and if you want a RISC OS-flavoured case for your Raspberry Pi (original Model A/B form factor, not the + or Pi 2 as yet) the Soft Rock Software stand is where you want to be.
A little birdy (well, the horse’s mouth, actually) tells me that all going to plan with the printer, Archive 23:10 will be available at the show hot off the press. Jim Nagel was up into the early hours recently beavering away to get the latest issue finished in time for the show.
Martin Hansen is planning to demonstrate a GPS navigation system for RISC OS, based around the Raspberry Pi, a MediaTek GPS unit, and software he has been developing. As a complete unit, including keyboard, mouse, screen and power supply, he expects to be selling his seafaring solution for about £300 once it’s ready.
CJE Micro’s will be bringing along the RaspberryRO 2, the new version of their Raspberry Pi-based computer, but with a new Raspberry Pi 2 at its heart, and should also have a new RISC OS prototype. There are no details of this, but there is a possibility that it could be something based around an ARM Cortex-A15.
And then there’s R-Comp, who will have a new “2015 edition” of their Android tablet, amongst other things.
Other things? Oh, yeah – that’ll be the ARMSX ARMX6, then. First announced at the 2014 London Show, after around a year of secret development, the 2015 Southwest Show is to be the official launch event for the computer – although it started shipping to pre-order customers at the end of January.
So going back to the question of “why?” – Well, why not? You’d be a fool not to come!
