Come and see the Easter Otter at ROUGOL on 17th April

The Easter Bunny has taken a year out to travel the world. One of the most notable ‘problem areas’ for RISC OS is the web browser situation. NetSurf is an excellent piece of work, but it still has a long way to go to get us to the point where we no longer need to switch to another system in order to perform some web-related tasks, and the developers have to fit their work on the browser around their normal lives and commitments. Step forward, then, Chris Gransden, who brought…

Show report: London 2021

30th October, 2021, marked the return to physical shows in the UK, when the RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) hosted their customary October event at the St Giles Hotel in Feltham – the RISC OS London Show. Understandably under the circumstances, there were fewer exhibitors than in previous years, as well as few visitors; it was a much quieter show than usual – but despite that, it was still an excellent day for finding out what’s happening in the RISC OS world. So what happened? What did we…

Access an ESP32 camera module from the desktop

If you have a Raspberry Pi and wish to attach a camera to it there are a number of options available to you – including from the Raspberry Pi Foundation themselves – but if you wish to use one with RISC OS, your options are considerably more limited. So limited, in fact, that until very recently I don’t think there was a working option. As of mid-May, however, that changed thanks to Rick Murray.

Show report: London 2019

The 2019 RISC OS London Show took place on Saturday, 26th October – and once again (speaking as an exhibitor) seemed to be a buzzing, exciting show with plenty for the visitor to see and experience. It was the 11th London Show, with the first having taken place on 3rd October, 2009, and there was a good mix of exhibitors including large well known RISC OS names and smaller home-based operators. As well as many well known faces there were new ones as well, which is always welcome – and…

Show report: Wakefield 2019

Six months on from the show itself… that’s almost as long as the Long Gap between the Wakefield and London shows! Ahem. The place to be for discerning RISC OS users (and retro Acorn enthusiasts) on Saturday, 27th April, was Wakefield – more specifically, the Cedar Court Hotel in Calder Grove – because that was where the annual Wakefield Acorn and RISC OS Computer Show took place.

Mathematics in BBC BASIC on RISC OS

Introduction “Essential Maths” was a book covering the programming of mathematics concepts like Trigonometry. The book was published thirty five years ago for owners of the BBC and Electron computers – remember those? The writer, Czes Kosniowski, wouldn’t be surprised to know that the principles are as relevant today as they were when he wrote it. Did you know for instance that in a ‘prime sequence’ the only even number is two?

Show report: London 2018

Just in time for Wakefield! With half of a year having passed since the London Show (and the Wakefield Show almost upon us), the RISCOSitory report is more than a little overdue – again! The usual main excuse applies, which is that it’s always busy here in the bunker, and some things have to be put off in favour of other, more important tasks. However, it is now the turn of that task to be used to put off other less important things – so here, at long last, is…

RISC OS Awards: Deadline, and an overdue look at the alternative suggestions

The annual RISC OS Awards poll has now been open for just over two months, and is due to be closed fairly soon. Shortly after the poll began I moved home and didn’t properly set up any computers for quite some time, so the planned occasional review and post of the ‘alternative’ entries didn’t happen, other than one quiet afternoon when I scanned through the votes that had been received at that point and tweeted those alternative entries.