You know it’s the final countdown to a RISC OS show when the announcements from individual exhibitors begin to land – and so it has begun; the first announcement regarding RISC OS North has come from RISCOSbits. Here’s what Andy Marks had to say:
With just under two weeks to go, RISCOSbits are pleased to be able to attend, and briefly wanted to preview just a fraction of our offer for, the upcoming RISC OS North Show.
Evolutions
We’ll hopefully be demonstrating an update to our FAST SATA-based RISC OS systems, to incorporate open source block device drivers. As with other block device based filing systems, this introduces partitioning, particularly useful with larger drives, and also additional speed improvements – is it the fastest disc-based filesystem available? We’re currently working with other RISC OS luminaries to ensure that available tools will work with our new SATAFS out of the box.
We’ll hopefully have stock of machines and kits to take away on the day!
Stability
We’ll also be demonstrating our free and completely open source NVMe Drivers and some of the latest compatibility developments. We’ll be showing off the current stable feature-set on the day, many enabled by custom GUI tools for RISC OS:
- Rudimentary direct NVMe booting
- 4K drives up to 2TB
- Multi-format drives
- Namespaces
Many of these functions have been present from the first iterations of our drivers, and demonstrated at past shows and club meetings, but we’re aware that not everyone has picked up on them. But we still have plans for the future!
And for those with some curiosity (and money to burn!), Namespaces is a form of hardware-based partitioning of larger drives, into multiple-format, separate drives. Prices for these drives are at a premium, often triple (or more!) the cost of similar capacity consumer devices, and with current pricing being as it is, we’re risking being Jim Bowen and telling you to ‘look at what you could have won!’ Whilst we aren’t in a position to supply Namespace drives unless specifically requested, we can advise you on compatible drives and prices, including often elusive 2280 variants of these ‘enterprise’ class devices.
FreeNVMe systems will also be available on the day to take away, both pre-built and in DIY Kit form, often at ‘old’ prices as we use up our stock of components bought before the global price hike.
Portable Curios
We’ll have a couple of portable ‘curios’ for you to look at, which we’re contemplating offering as DIY products and self-build guides. We’re not telling you too much now, but giving you an insight to recent developments at RISCOSbits HQ.
The first is an Argon One Up laptop with integrated Compute Module 5, running RISC OS via both RISC OS on Linux, and RPCemu. See just how fantastically well it works with RISC OS in situ, and how multiple operating systems can work on the same system at the same time! And when we say ‘multiple’ we don’t just mean different versions of RISC OS!
We’ll also show off a gadget perhaps best described as a ‘terminal’ that works very nicely with RISC OS. Keep an eye on our blog for a preview of the device in I.the run up to the show, and also keep an eye on upcoming issues of Archive Magazine for a much more detailed overview!
We also need to make a bit of space in our kit room, so we may have a few bargain older portable systems available on the day.
Just browsing?
We’ll also have a couple of ‘RISC OS in a Browser’ tools that you may find Remotely interesting as you Roam around the show. Pop over and have a look!
Keep an eye open for more detailed announcements in the coming days, but we just wanted the whet your appetite for what will hopefully turn out to be a great show!
