By this time next Saturday, most visitors to the London Show will be either at home or heading there having chatted to any number of people, from fellow visitors and enthusiasts, to the various hardware and software developers, and even hobbyists, manning stands. They will know all about the latest news and developments that are to be revealed at the show.
But due to the way we exist in the time stream, we still have a week to go until we reach that point – so at this stage, what will be the latest news next week is still largely unknown to anyone but those directly involved.
At the time of the show preview published on 30th September, the show website had 25 confirmed exhibitors listed – now 27 – but no details of the theatre talks until a couple of days later, and there was almost no definitive news to report of what could be expected. Almost three weeks on, however, things have changed.
Starting with something I know definitively about, if you come to the Soft Rock Software stand, you will be able to see – but not yet buy – a new version of the RiscPiC case for the Raspberry Pi.
The current prototypes, including the black one pictured above, are not suitable for use, but another prototype is currently being made up, and as long as it arrives in time from Belgium, it should be on display and – hopefully – be in use on the stand.
Another source of cases, as well as innovative names, is the RISCOSbits stand, and I gather that Andy Marks will have one or two new toys on sale – so I’m sure we can all say “yippee ki-yay” to that!
On the software front, Tony Bartram of AMCOG Games now has his newest project into the beta testing stage and published some screen grabs and music files.
The game is a top-down racing game, which has been developed with the working title Stunt Racer – although that will probably change for the release version to avoid confusion with the classic RISC OS game Stunt Racer 2000.
Going back to the earlier preview of the show, details of who would be giving four of the talks appeared shortly after it was published – CJE Micro’s, R-Comp, RISC OS Developments Ltd, and RISC OS Open Ltd – and much more recently Sine Nomine Software was added to the list, bringing the number up to the customary five.
In the case of that late addition, I’m told by the RISC OS User Group of London‘s Bryan Hogan that Matthew and Hilary Phillips of Sine Nomine were originally unsure if they’d have something ready in time, but a few days ago Matthew emailed him to say things were looking promising – so there may be something of interest from them, whether an update or new feature to one of their existing products, or something completely new.
A significant piece of news to emerge after that show preview was that RISC OS itself was now in new hands, with Castle Technology Ltd having been taken over by RISC OS Developments Ltd – and the latter will be giving one of the talks. That should be a particularly interesting talk, with hopefully more details about the change of hands, what their plans are for the operating system, and more – and there will no doubt be some interesting questions from the audience.
And I suspect the talk from R-Comp will be particularly interesting. The company has a range of products available, both hardware and software, and there are usually a number of updates to some of the latter in the run up to a show. Indeed, an update to Messenger Pro was announced only a few days ago. However, over on the RISC OS Open forum, the company’s Andrew Rawnsley has been making interesting comments in the “pi-top 2 with RO” thread.
I think this London show could be quite interesting for anyone interested in portable RISC OS. I can think of at least four options that will be on display (maybe more), some of which aren’t announced yet, but will likely be interesting to forum folks 🙂
17th October, 2018
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a lightweight, slim, ARM-based laptop that was really nippy, could run RISC OS 5 natively, and could run firefox with a few clicks if you needed it. Wouldn’t it be cool if the manufacturers were aware of RISC OS and supported development? Maybe I’m daydreaming, or is it hallucinations brought on by excessive cold/flu medication?
18th October, 2018
Makes you wonder what it might take to make a hardware manufacturer take notice of RISC OS, doesn’t it?
18th October, 2018
Edit: Andrew is down with 5th cold/flu in three months.
Colds/flu are not as much fun as RISC OS.
You heard it here first.
Or RISC OS laptops.
Is Andrew dropping hints about something, or simply expressing some wishful thinking?
The best place to find out? Obviously the RISC OS London Show, which takes place on Saturday, 27th October, at:
St Giles Hotel,
Hounslow Road,
Feltham,
TW14 9AD.
The doors will be open to the public from 11:00AM until 5:00PM, with an entry price of £5.00 for adults, free for under-16s.
