R-Comp’s mini.m now available

Jul 292018
 

That’s apparently pronounced “minim” which means I can’t make any Mini Me references. Um… like that one.

Shortly before this year’s Wakefield Show, R-Comp teased us with the news that they had a small surprise in store for visitors to the show, which visitors soon discovered was a new, small computer – the mini.m.  Based around the same processor as the ARMSX ARMX6, a quad-core Freescale i.MX6, the mini.m is for all intents and purposes a smaller version of the established machine – with some obvious differences due to its small size.

Just how small is it? The computer is housed in a cube-shaped case measuring just two inches in each dimension – a very small, incredibly convenient piece of kit that can be placed in a discreet location on your desk without taking up a lot of space. Continue reading »

Printed User Guide now an option when buying a Titanium

Jun 052018
 

Get a motherbook with a motherboard!

RISC OS 5 User Guide front cover, courtesy of RISC OS Open LtdIf you have been thinking about buying a Titanium motherboard from Elesar Ltd, you now have an additional incentive: The option of having a printed copy of the new RISC OS 5 User Guide included in the price – although, if you so choose, you can have the motherboard without the Guide.

The new User Guide matches the latest stable release of the operating system, RISC OS 5.24, released in April and is the first printed edition of the tome to be produced in over twenty years; the last edition came from Acorn in 1996. Continue reading »

R-Comp has a small something in store for Wakefield

Apr 192018
 

But size isn’t everything, you know. Honestly.

In a pre-show tease, R-Comp‘s Andrew Rawnsley has posted to the RISC OS Open Forum to say the company will have something new at this weekend’s show – in a thread entitled “Good things come in small packages.” He goes on to explain that you shouldn’t be deceived by it’s small size, because this mysterious item – which he also describes as small, powerful, and shiny – packs quite a punch.

This mysterious item, we are told, is fully ARM’d – and we should think a Lord of the Rings dwarf. Continue reading »

News nybble: Raspberry Pi 3B+ launched

Mar 152018
 

Yesterday was Pi Day, a name reflecting that if you write your dates in either Overpuddlian form (mm-dd-yyyy) or as specified by ISO 8601 (yyyy-mm-dd) – in both cases ignoring the year – you get 3-14, which sort of looks like Pi to two decimal places if you squint a bit so that the dash looks like a decimal point. A fitting day, then, for the Raspberry Pi Foundation to release another version of its credit card-sized computer: A ‘+’ version of the Raspberry Pi 3 model B.

The most notable change for day to day use are that while the Pi 3B+ sports the same processor as the Pi 3, the ARM Cortex-A53, it’s running at a higher speed – 1.4GHz rather than 1.2GHz. Another notable change is that it also features Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0,  compared with the previous 100 megabit, support for power over ethernet (via a separate HAT device). Hopefully, RISC OS will soon be updated so that it can be used on the new Pi.

Look and ye shall see: The CE revealed

Feb 132018
 

CE are family… I’ve got all my versions with me!

Following the surprise teaser released towards the end of January of Ident Computer’s new Raspberry Pi-based kit computer, the Ident WinCE, more details of the system have now been revealed.

Benefiting from the latest in 3D printing technology, the snazzy looking CE (which stands for Compact Edition)  consists of a base unit which comes in three variations – one for RISC OS users, and one for users of other operating systems, and one especially for the retro gaming community. Continue reading »

See the CE in February

Jan 282018
 

This was going to be a news nybble, but two paragraphs weren’t nearly enough!

A couple of years ago Tom Williamson of Ident Computer brought his Raspberry Pi-based kit computer, the Micro One, to the world of RISC OS – and in February he will be unveiling a follow-up system, the Ident Compact Edition, or Ident CE for short1.

A teaser image of the Ident Compact Edition, courtesy of Ident Computer

A teaser image of the Ident Compact Edition, courtesy of Ident Computer

Continue reading »

What do you get if you cross a two headed Titanium with 256 colours?

Dec 072017
 

An extra wide, 256 colour display!

A two-headed Titanium on the ROOL stand at Southwest 2016

A two-headed Titanium on the ROOL stand at Southwest 2016

With two DVI-I sockets on board, one of the selling points of Elesar‘s Titanium is the ability to drive two displays side by side. RISC OS doesn’t (properly) support this, but it can be done by fooling the operating system into treating the two screens as though they are one. The software to do this has been available since February 2016.

Much more recently, an updated ROM image was released in July of this year that allowed the board to use 256 colour screen modes – which might sound odd to make a point of with modern systems (including the Titanium) capable of running with 16 million colour displays, but there is some older software that actually needs to run in screen modes with a more limited colour depth; so called “paletted” modes. Continue reading »

News nybble: Pi-Top acrylic slice – featuring the RISC OS cog

Oct 302017
 
RISC OS branded Pi-Top acrylic slice in situ

RISC OS branded Pi-Top acrylic slice in situ

For any discerning RISC OS user who has a Pi-Top – whether bought from 4D as the Pi-TopRO, or elsewhere as just the Pi-Top – one thing obviously missing from the product is any kind of branding to make it a distinctively RISC OS laptop. RISCOSbits‘ Andy Marks has now come up with the solution.

The Pi-based laptop features a slide-out panel between the keyboard and hinges, and RISCOSbits can now supply a RISC OS branded acrylic slice for the that fits neatly in place of the original strip on the v1 Pi-Top. The branding takes the form of a large cog that sits at the right hand edge of the strip, just above the trackpad. Currently available via eBay, the strip costs £11.50 plus £2.50 postage and packing.

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