Or play audio of any kind, really
The Hydra computer range from R-Comp Interactive is so named because, like the creature of Greek myth, it is multi-headed – it’s a computer that can hold up to six Raspberry Pi-based boards, each running its own OS, and all concurrently.
Being from R-Comp, it’s a RISC OS computer first and foremost – that’s the operating system running on the ‘first’ head, while any of the others that are in use (the full six don’t have to be enabled) would most likely be running some form of Linux.
However, while the RISC OS board was able to output sound, this wasn’t possible to get audio out from any Linux ones installed.
Until now.
Not entirely satisfied with this state of affairs, R-Comp have been working away behind the scenes to find a way to give the Linux heads a voice – and they have now achieved it. This means, for example, watching YouTube videos on Hydra becomes a more viable prospect; you could watch them before, but with no sound there wouldn’t have been a great deal of point.
Another improvement to the Hydra systems follows up on the ability to run a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 (announced in March). It’s now possible to off-load some heavy lifting from your main RISC OS head, allowing you to get on with other things, and have the RISC OS on Linux port (whereby RISC OS runs as a Linux program) handle the more time consuming task, at a higher speed.
If you are a Hydra user, you should contact R-Comp (details on their websites linked at the top of this page) to find out more – and if you have one of their N.Ex.T boxes, it’s worth contacting them to see if it can be turned into a Hydra by adding heads.
