A bit of this, a bit of that, eye of newt, toe of frog – it’s all good. The next meeting of the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) – the second meeting of 2017, but the first ‘normal’ meeting, because last month’s was the group’s annual general meeting – takes place on Wednesday, 1st February, and will feature not one, but two talks on two very different subjects.
Read MoreAuthor: VinceH
VinceH, aka Vince M Hudd, owns and operates Soft Rock Software, providing services and software to not only the RISC OS market, but also to the wider world. RISCOSitory and its associated sites and services are provided for free as a result of that - so buying his stuff is probably quite helpful.
News nybble: Asteroid-clone SpaceShip game released
Having first appeared on the RISC OS Open forum in February of last year, Patrick M – who at that point said he was new to programming – has had a bash at turning what he’s learnt since that point into a simple Asteroid-clone called SpaceShip [zip]. Tony Bartram of Amcog Games has since modified SpaceShip to use sound effects produced by his RDSP sound module – making it the first game to use the module for sound effects. RDSP is currently only at an alpha release, but the results…
Read MoreExpose your desktop for some BASIC tools
But cover up any private bits! In yet another BASIC-based initiative on the part of David Feugey’s RISC OS FR, a tailored edition of the latest Desktop Development Environment from RISC OS Open Ltd is on offer to people who want to get into BASIC programming, for the grand price tag of zero pounds, zero pence1, and one screenshot of your RISC OS desktop.
Read MoreNews nybble: TechWriter and EasiWriter hints and tips in the Midlands
Techwriter and Easiwriter will be the subject of the next Midlands User Group meeting, with John McCartney providing hints, tips and demonstrations of both packages in use. The meeting takes place at 2:00pm on Saturday, 21st January, at: The Methodist Church Hall, Greenhill, Blackwell, Bromsgrove, B60 1BL. There is a small entrance fee payable, which covers the cost of the hall, and refreshments will be available.
Read MoreNews nybble: RONWUG meeting, 18th January
The next meeting of the RISC OS North West User Group will take place on Wednesday, 18th January, running from 7:30pm until around 10:00pm at the usual venue: The Trafford Metrovick Rugby and Cricket Club, Finnybank Road, Sale, Cheshire, M33 6LR. There are no membership or entry fees, and the meeting is open to anyone interested in RISC OS computers.
Read MoreNews nybble: Experimental multi-core ROM in the wild
Cor Cor, blimey! In the 483rd post to a thread on the RISC OS Open forum that was started over six years ago and runs to twenty pages, Jeffrey Lee has made available a new toy for those users that want to try it out – a ROM build for the Raspberry Pi that includes support for those versions of the board that feature multiple cores (i.e. the version 2 and 3 Pis). The release includes the source for the current HAL and kernel changes and SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) module,…
Read MoreStrongHelp given a leg-up to version 2.89
Eigen see why a new version was needed. Fred Graute has released a new version of StrongHelp, the simple hypertext system for designing and reading on-screen manuals, help texts, etc. The software dates back to a time when the world wide web, and HTML, was largely unknown1, and provided a neat way for software developers – particularly small companies and hobby programmers, who might not have had the resources to produce full-blown manuals – to include manuals with their software that were something more than just text files.
Read MoreWakefield Show formally announced
But not so formally that I had to wear a dinner jacket to publish it here! Although the date for the 2017 Wakefield Show has been known about since the 2016 London Show, where it first appeared in the public eye in the issue of Archive Magazine published on the day of the event, it hadn’t been formally announced. At the time Archive’s editor, Jim Nagel, told me that he asked WROCC’s Chris Hughes for the date so that it could be included in the magazine, and I similarly asked…
Read MoreDevelopment environment gets a dose of paracetamol
Wrapped up well, fed hot soup. RISC OS Open Limited have released a new version of the Desktop Development Environment (DDE), the set of tools used by many developers for writing software for RISC OS, as well as anyone working on the operating system itself. The primary focus of the new release (aka DDE27) is the relocation of zero page, currently only included in release candidate versions of the operating system, but which will eventually find its way into a formal release version. As such, this version of the tools…
Read MoreNews nybble: Elesar’s mystery product revealed
But if you want more details, pop along to the ROUGOL meeting on Monday! As well as talking about CloudFS, the mystery product that Elesar Ltd‘s Rob Sprowson is set to reveal at the next meeting of the RISC OS User Group of London has been revealed as an updated version of Font Directory Pro, which was originally developed and sold by LOOKsystems. The software has been updated so that it can be used on the latest hardware, and on zero-page versions of RISC OS, and MW Software have provided…
Read More