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An arbitrary number of possibly influential RISC OS things

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An arbitrary number of possibly influential RISC OS things

Posted by Phil Mellor on 15:00, 23/3/2007 | RISC OS, Advocacy, Graphics, Sound and music, Internet, Programming, Software, Open source, The Vigay

In this article we look at some of the programs and projects - some obvious, others less so - that influenced the history of the RISC OS platform and its users. These are our suggestions, not a top ten and certainly not in any particular order. What other applications would you add to the list?

Continue reading "An arbitrary number of possibly influential RISC OS things" | 32 comments in the forums

Helvetica: the movie

Posted by Phil Mellor on 14:00, 15/3/2007 | Media, Graphics

I've been excited about the Helvetica movie ever since I read about it on NoiseToSignal last August. According to the blurb, "Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives."

It finally premiered on the 13th at SXSW and, judging from the reviews, it seems it's everything I hoped for...

Thanks to Hustwit's clean lines of narrative and intellectually playful style, we get a great look at the universality of Helvetica as a typeface and how, after it was unveiled in 1957 and hailed as a miracle of modernism, it became the unofficial font of official activities. Hustwit's camera noses through a variety of urban landscapes and shows you just how omnipresent Helvetica is -- traffic signs, logos, official notices, storefronts.

At its best, Helvetica makes us actually look at the world around us, and actually think about how the medium is the message, how much art is in the things our eyes gloss over every day.

One of the most intellectually exciting, stimulating, warm-hearted and best-made independent documentaries I've seen in a long time, Helvetica turns 26 letters into a whole new perspective on the world.

Cinematical

This is not really a movie about a typeface. Helvetica is just a character in this wonderfully-made film, which just might be the best history of graphic design we've ever seen ... Designer or not, you will never, ever see the world the same again.

MediaBistro

Hopefully the UK screenings will be announced soon. I need to see this film.

1 comment in the forums

What you can do with Draw

Posted by Phil Mellor on 11:00, 3/1/2007 | RISC OS, Graphics, Tutorials, Advocacy

In my opinion, the Draw module is one of the most significant and useful components of RISC OS. For the uninitiated, it provides a set of routines for calculating, transforming and rendering lines, polygons, bezier curves, sprites, and text. The Draw application has been bundled with every version of RISC OS and the draw file format is a defacto standard for almost every RISC OS application that incorporates graphics in some way.

Aside from the obvious applications such as word processing, desktop publishing, and so on, many other programs use Draw files in quite unique ways. As an example, the sound editing program Sonor can export sound waves in Draw format.

In this article I hope to demonstrate some of the flexibility that Draw and the RISC OS desktop can provide.

Continue reading "What you can do with Draw" | 13 comments in the forums

Early August Update

Posted by Richard Goodwin on 11:38, 4/8/2006 | RISC OS, Programming, RISC OS Ltd, Magazines, Video, Acorn, Graphics, Google

Apart from my Dad adding another year to the tally, here's a rundown of what's happenin' this weekend: "RISC OS Now" magazine launching; R-Comp's new RISCube MINI; some quickies.

RISC OS Now
Louie Smith is launching a new magazine (in the preferred dead tree format), with the dual aims of appealing to the existing user/programmer base and attracting new blood.

To this end, contributers are sought, and cash money may be on offer:

I'm looking for anyone able to write articles and reviews aimed at experts and beginners alike. I am interested in articles about existing software and new releases. Also, if anyone is interested in writing a regular column please contact me.

Expected to cost £4.20 per issue, or £29.95 for the annual subscription, this may or may not hit a WH Smiths near you soon. It'd be nice to see something hit the shelves again to fill the AU-shaped hole, if Smiths can be persuaded.

Source: Usenet posting

Riscube

RISCube MINI
The specs seem a little fluid at the mo, but R-Comp

are about to release a "stunning new computer" that's "the size of a medium-sized hardback book - it'll even fit into a briefcase."

A dual core, 512MB, 80GB HDD, CD writing, card reading, DVI/VGA/TV outputting and wired/wireless networking model is the base, with Windows XP Home and RISC OS 4 or Adjust; but cheaper (single core) or beefier (e.g. 1GB/200GB/DVD writer/XP Pro) models will be available.

Price inc. VAT is expected to be around 999 of your earth pounds, more info at the RISCube website.

Source: press release

Quickies

RISC OS ELF GCC with shared library support
Richard's RISC OS Site updated - ArtWorks and Photography. And no name-fillage in his !HTML3 config
You can add new or updated software to our database, and they'll appear not only on the front page, but also in our new RSS feeds. Spam should also be kept out due to added security.

9 comments in the forums

World cup fever hits Artworks

Posted by Andrew Duffell on 18:31, 3/6/2006 | RISC OS, Acorn, Graphics

With the world cup finals just six days away, MW Software are slashing the price of Artworks by upto 50% depending on how your ~~favourite~~chosen team does in this years finals.

Here's the deal...
Name your favourite national football team when ordering a full copy of ArtWorks 2.6 for 169 Pounds

If your team gets as far as the quarter finals, you will get a refund of 10% of the original price (i.e., 16.90 Pounds).
If your team gets as far as the semi-finals, this refund doubles to 20% (i.e., 33.80 Pounds).
If your team gets as far as the final, you will get a total refund of 30% of the original price (i.e., 50.70 Pounds).
Finally, if your team wins the world championship, you will get a refund of 50% of the original price (i.e., you will get 84.50 Pounds back!).

There are a few conditions such as selecting your chosen team before their first match, so check out the press release.

Link: Press Release

4 comments in the forums

Wakefield 2006 show report

Posted by Phil Mellor on 00:00, 14/5/2006 | Castle Technology, Emulation, Graphics, Hardware, Internet, Magazines, MicroDigital, Programming, Retro, RISC OS, RiscStation, RISC OS Ltd, Shows, Software

Advantage 6

One year on from when the A9home was first unveiled - it was infact sneaked into the Advantage 6 show theatre in a "makeup bag" - we see the release of the A9home.

CJE, who are A6's retail partners for the A9, were "so happy" with the hardware and progress, that they were confident to begin selling it at the show.

While A6 were disappointed that they are not yet able to totally sign-off the project - there are still niggles, not major problems, with the system, such as providing USB printing (32 bit printer drivers) and the serial port is apparently "not good".

So while the A9home is "not ready for everybody", it is "getting very close". People will have to be patient for the "I want everything release". The iterative beta testing programme shows there is still some work to do, but everything is "much closer each time things go out".

Continue reading "Wakefield 2006 show report" | Comment in the forums

Wakey Wakey, it's show time again!

Posted by Andrew C. Poole on 20:54, 10/5/2006 | RISC OS, Hardware, Emulation, Graphics, Internet, Acorn, Magazines, Shows, Advantage 6, RISC OS Ltd, IYONIX, Castle Technology

Once again it's time for the Wakefield show, the 11th one to be exact. Just for you lucky punters, roughly 30 exhibitors will be attending the show this year, and as usual the theatre has a packed programme throughout the day. In addition to this, there's also a "RISC OS in action" section, manned by Ian Chamberlain and sponsored by Qercus, which will have a number of demonstrations of RISC OS in use on A9 and Iyonix computers doing various tasks.

Exhibitors this year include Castle Technology, Genesys Developments, MW Software and the NetSurf development team, who will be demonstrating the latest developments on the open source browser.

VirtualAcorn will also be present, demonstrating their latest addition to their product family, VirtualRPC-SA, which provides emulation of the StrongARM processor in addition to the Arm710 processor it previously supported.

The theatre programme for this year's show is as follows:

Time	Presentation
10:30	John Cartmell
10:45	Advantage6 - Part 1
11:30	Castle Technology
13:00	Paul Middleton - RISCOS Ltd.
14:00	ArtWorks 2
15:00	Advantage6 - Part 2

Parking at Thornes Park Athletics Stadium is free, and entry to the show costs £6, with under 5 year olds getting in free (I'd imagine that's physical age, not mental age!) The show is open from 10am until 5pm on Saturday 13th of May.

If you're going to the show this year and would like to share your thoughts of the show with us, please get in touch!

Source: Wakefield Show

2 comments in the forums

NetSurf 1.0 and GTK+ port

Posted by Andrew Duffell on 13:18, 30/3/2006 | RISC OS, Internet, Acorn, Open source, Graphics

NetSurf has come a long way since it was first conceived in our forums four years ago, but has currently seen no official releases. An announcement by Daniel Silverstone on the NetSurf website has confirmed that the "team are working towards releasing version 1.0 of NetSurf for RISC OS".

Goals for 1.0 include:

Cookie support needs fixing
HTML list support needs finishing
CSS absolute positioning needs implementing
RISC OS Choices UI needs finishing

Rob Kendrick and Daniel are also now working on a GTK+ interface for the browser which will work on many different operating systems. GTK+ is a graphical toolkit used on Linux, and also ported to Windows, Solaris and BSDs. Up until now NetSurf has only been available via the command line on Linux for debugging purposes, however those who wish to try out the GTK+ interface will have to compile it themselves because no test builds are available.

The current development plan will see the release of NetSurf 1.0 promoted as a fully fledged RISC OS browser and a later release of NetSurf 2.0 "simultaneously released as a RISC OS browser and as a GTK browser on as many platforms as we [NetSurf team] can compile it for".

2 comments in the forums