So is it now 4té-something-Tools? Were there 4té of them before?
With a trip to Amsterdam1 coming up, to attend the Big Ben Club RISC OS eXperience, at which R-Comp‘s Andrew Rawnsley is planning to show off 4téTools as part of his talk, the company has announced a new version of the software. Sporting a range of new features for both 4té and Sixteen Hundred 4té2 users, the software is now at version 1.19.
Headlining the new release is support for overclocking, allowing the Raspberry Pi 4 that sits at the heart of the two computers to be used at higher speeds than normal. Some applications can be quite demanding – web browsers like Iris being the obvious example – so a bit of a boost can be handy.
Related to this is an auto-boost mode, based on an idea baked in to the latest distributions of Raspberry Pi OS. This gives the software the ability to automatically overclock the Pi boards to 1.8GHz.
The software controlling all of this supports profiles, with a number provided to allow easy switching and testing, all of which can be customised by users if required. This means you can have slightly different configurations ready and waiting for use in different situations.
And if you wish to monitor the Pi, so you can see how the computer is performing and whether or not to overclock it, there is a read-out of the current temperature and clock speed.
If overclocking the Pi causes it to get a little hot under the collar, there are fan and power controls in version 1.19 for 4té2 users – although they have in fact been available in the 4té2 version since the machine was launched, but now they are presumably more formally rolled out into the main release.
Version 1.19 of 4téTools also includes an easy way to share your main drive with your other RISC OS computers – and not only is this easy, one click solution optional, it can also be configured to be a little smart about it, with the sharing set to happen when the machine starts, or upon connection of a network cable.
This release of the tools also includes a fresh firmware, which include the latest CPU fixes and improvements from the Pi Foundation. If you’re happy with how your 4té or 4té2 computer is performing, there is no real need to install these – but they are provided should you wish to do so.
Existing owners of the two machines can download the latest version for free – you should find details of the users’ download site and how to log-in near the back of your Welcome Guide.
For ordinary Pi users, the corresponding software release is called PiTools. It is expected that an update to that will be ready in the next few days. Again, existing users should be able to download the update for free when it becomes available; keep an eye out for it when you next check in !Store – although with a trip to the Netherlands this weekend, it may be held back a little longer, so please be patient.
!ReadMe
- After posting yesterday about R-Comp’s planned visit to Amsterdam, it was pointed out to me that the Big Ben Club day isn’t actually in Amsterdam; Koog aan de Zaan is outside of the bigger, more well known city. That’s fair enough – but I would argue (and did in reply) that describing it as Amsterdam is no different than when I refer to small places outside of Bristol as Bristol, especially when I’m talking generally to someone from further afield. It’s just easier to refer to the larger, more well known place. If more specific – accurate – details are needed, look no further than the the content of the post, which included the actual address.
