Zaphod Beeblebrox, eat your heart out.
The next RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting will take place on Monday, 19th January, with a presentation by Chris Hall, joining the group via Zoom, about multi-headed systems.
Chris has been using a Hydra system from R-Comp, with two of its Pi-based ‘heads’ running RISC OS, and a third one running Linux, and he has had an article published in the latest issue of Archive Magazine (28:1) detailing his first impressions of the machine, with this presentation being a follow-up and expansion on that.
Explaining why he wanted a system with multiple heads, he will discuss how each of its heads is configured, and how well it works and performs in use. Internally, the Hydra’s multiple heads are networked together, allowing some access and control between them, and Chris will look at that as well, exploring the differences between Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Virtual Network Computing (VNC), both of which allow one computer system (or head in this case) to be operated via another.
Once his exploration of the Hydra is complete, Chris expects there to be time to look at some of his software, including RingBind, Cat, DrawDis, and Locking – all of which make use of MakeDraw, a tool for generating Draw files programmatically. Another of Chris’ applications, MultiTask, can be used to disassemble Draw files, and he will demonstrate how doing so allows subtle changes to be made to the Draw file that aren’t possible using Draw itself.
This month, ROUGOLs meetings return to the usual format, with attendance possible both in person at the pub, and online via Zoom.
To attend in person, you need to head to:
The Duke of Sussex
(Upstairs in the Chichester or Petworth Room)
23 Baylis Road,
London,
SE1 7AY.
There are directions to the venue on the ROUGOL website, and you can expect to find members lurking from around 6:30pm. The meeting proper will commence from around 7:45pm.
To join online using Zoom you’ll need a device that can run the software, along with the log-in credentials. These remain the same as previous meetings, so if you’ve already joined one you should have them, but if not you can get them by contacting ROUGOL. The Zoom meeting should be open for people to join from around 7:30pm.
Looking ahead
- 16th February: Colin Hoade, who operates a YouTube channel dedicated to retro computing, will be in the pub talking about that channel and showing off some of his Acorn and Psion handheld devices.
- 16th March: Matt Godbolt, who these days resides in Chicago, will be visiting London and taking the opportunity to visit ROUGOL in the pub to talk about jsbeeb, his Javascript BBC Micro emulator, and the Compiler Explorer website.
