2 Jul
2007
2 Jul
'07
12:34 p.m.
In one of my mental wanderings, I remembered that I
had always wanted to play with RiscOS, but never had
found a machine that would run it - so I did a little
web hunting and turned up nearly nothing. Even eBay
had no listings for such gear. I know the Acorn
Archimedes runs RiscOS, but what else? I'm not sure
that the Acorn was ever even sold in the US.
I know, I can probably just go get an emulator, but
I'd still love to play with a real computer. Did any
US-available computer run RiscOS?
-Ian
2 Jul
2 Jul
1:14 p.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
I know the Acorn
Archimedes runs RiscOS, but what else?
Full Acorn machine list here:
http://www.khantazi.org/Archives/MachineLst.html
... most of the 32-bit stuff is RISC OS-capable. I don't think the A500, A680
or M4 could ever be coaxed into running it (very unlikely you'd find any of
those three in the US though). I think the various set-top boxes and NC were
sufficiently capable to do so with a bit of hacking.
Things like A4xx/1's, A30x0's, and RISC PC 600's are common as mud in the UK
still, and have no resale value (they were incredibly common in schools, and
are still turning up in cupboards all the time). Chances are you might find
someone on ebay (UK) prepared to ship one to the US if it meant they ended up
getting a little more out of the deal than they would selling nationally.
I'm not sure
that the Acorn was ever even sold in the US.
The Acorn model B (aka BBC micro) made it to the US, but didn't do well (lack
of sales effort I think, rather than price - and certainly not technical
ability! :-) - but then that was pre-ARM and pre-RISC OS.
I think there was a distributor for the Acorn RISC PC in the States, but
they're unlikely to still be around (the OS seems to be barely clinging on
this side of the pond, and I believe that the hardware these days is nothing
more than a rebranded IBM-compat. PC)
Other than that, I don't think there was ever any Acorn presence in the US. I
have a vague memory of some US company with an ARM-powered portable, but I
don't recall if it ran RISC OS, and I'm almost certain it never made it out of
prototype stage anyway.
I know, I can probably just go get an emulator, but
I'd still love to play with a real computer.
If it comes to it, I might be able to shift one across the pond for you later
this year depending on how things pan out with shipping all the other vintage
stuff I want to move over. If the charges are banded by weight anyway then it
may end up not mattering if I ship a few 'extras'.
Personally, I was never much interested in the RISC OS years. Sure, the ARM
processors were fast as all hell, but the earlier Acorn 8-bitters were always
far more fun to hack around with (which makes the large amount of ARM-powered
stuff that I've ended up accumulating rather worrying ;)
cheers
Jules
1:36 p.m.
In article <316426.84476.qm at web52706.mail.re2.yahoo.com>,
Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> writes:
[...] I know the Acorn
Archimedes runs RiscOS, but what else?
Are you talking about RISC/os, the SysV/BSD hybrid sold by MIPS for
their R3000 and later processors?
The Evans & Sutherland ESV workstation series used this operating
system. I have two machines intact and a complete set of RISC/os
documentation.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
3 Jul
3 Jul
5:05 a.m.
Are you talking about RISC/os, the SysV/BSD hybrid
sold by MIPS for
their R3000 and later processors?
The Evans & Sutherland ESV workstation series used
this operating
system. I have two machines intact and a complete
set of RISC/os
documentation.
Evans & Sutherland? Now _that's_ an interesting beast.
I had no idea that's what their OS was called - that's
really cool. Got any pictures?
I was referring to the RiscOS operating system that
ran on the Acorn Archimedes computer (based on the ARM
processor). One of those little computers you just
don't see in the US.
-Ian
8:56 a.m.
In article <44395.33832.qm at web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>,
Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> writes:
I don't have any pictures yet, but at some point soon I expect to be
buying a digital camera and will be putting lots of pictures of my
collection on the computer graphics history museum. RISC/os was
created by MIPS and licensed to various workstation manufacturers.
E&S wasn't the only one to use RISC/os. IRIX is influenced by RISC/os
but is not a pure derivative of it, according to
<http://www.tliquest.net/ryan/sgi/irix_versions.html>. I guess IRIX
was around on the 68K based SGI boxes before they mvoed to the MIPS
architcture.
Are you
talking about RISC/os, the SysV/BSD hybrid
sold by MIPS for
their R3000 and later processors?
The Evans & Sutherland ESV workstation series used
this operating
system. I have two machines intact and a complete
set of RISC/os
documentation.
Evans & Sutherland? Now _that's_ an interesting beast.
I had no idea that's what their OS was called - that's
really cool. Got any pictures? I was referring to the RiscOS operating system that
ran on the Acorn Archimedes computer (based on the ARM
processor). One of those little computers you just
don't see in the US.
OK, makese sense now and yeah, I don't see those around :-).
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
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