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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: XDelusion on October 31, 2011, 09:52:19 PM
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Sometimes, on a rather boring and run-of-the-mill Monday, I get news in the submission queue which just puts a gigantic smile on my face. We've talked about the Raspberry Pi before on OSNews, and other than reporting that everything's on track for a Christmas launch, it has also been announced that the Raspberry Pi will be able to run... RISC OS. A British educational ARM board running RISC OS? We have come full circle. And I couldn't be happier. Update: Theo Markettos emailed me with two corrections - Markettos isn't actually a representative of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and the quoted bits are transcribed, they're not Markettos' literal words. Thanks for clearing that up!
Almost ten years ago, I created a mental list of operating systems I wanted to use and test. Most of the systems on the list were easy to acquire and ran on standard hardware - save for three: AmigaOS, MorphOS, and RISC OS. I've used the first two extensively - but RISC OS always remained elusive. It runs on expensive hardware, often completely sold-out, and only available with price tags noted in pounds.
Until today: it has been revealed that RISC OS will be available for the Raspberry Pi ARM board, which will cost $25 or $35 (depending on the version). RISC OS recently became available for the BeagleBoard, which was already a step in the right direction - but the BeagleBoard is still over €100, and for a hobby project, that's just a little too much for my taste. In the Raspberry Pi, RISC OS has found its perfect partner.
At the moment, RISC OS boots and runs on the Raspberry Pi, but lack of drivers for the Raspberry Pi's USB interface necessitates the use of a netbook hooked up to the Pi's serial port to actually use a mouse and keyboard. USB drivers will of course be added eventually.
At the RISC OS London show, Theo Markettos, postdoctoral researcher in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and representative of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, [correction: he's not actually a representative at all] talked about RISC OS on the Pi. "Adrian Lees has RISC OS booting on the Raspberry Pi into the full RISC OS desktop. Lack of USB drivers then prevents user interaction," RISCOScode transcribed Markettos' words, "Work in progress on cannibalising Linux USB drivers to get RISC OS running fully on the Raspberry Pi."
"RISC OS is desirable on the Raspberry Pi as it's just about the only OS left that can still be grasped by one person," RISCOScode transcribed Markettos' words, "Also smaller memory requirements, and a smoother desktop feel."
Markettos further explained that the purpose of the Raspberry Pi is to get developers rethinking the whole approach to how children and young adults can be enticed and excited by a computing device. The best software for the Raspberry Pis is yet to be written, he added. The Pi will boot to a simple > prompt, just like the old BBCmicro. Users can then enter something along the lines of run linux or run riscos. "This will force users to interface with the machine in a programming manner and think of it as something to be commanded at a fundamental level rather than just used."
You have no idea just how excited I am about the Raspberry Pi. The price point, educational focus, and software support are exceptional. The Raspberry Pi is currently being manufactured (in batches, so they can spot possible errors and make revisions), and is on track for a Christmas launch.
Jot me down for at least two.
News from: http://www.osnews.com/story/25276/Raspberry_Pi_To_Embrace_RISC_OS
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Well damn, I may have to get one. It is encouraging as all hell to hear someone talking about really getting kids into a programming mindset again, especially when so much of the rest of the industry seems to be moving towards computers as vendor-controlled vehicles for content consumption...
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First person/group that ports an Amiga "Like" OS to the Raspberry Pi wins the hearts and minds of a grateful Amiga community!
$25 to $35 Raspberry Pi is much more attractive than a $300 to $500 netbook any day.
AROS guys, are you paying attention? This device could be a game changer for AROS, if a port could be done well quickly (or even not so quickly). Since I think there is already a port of AROS on ARM devices, I am guessing that it should not be too difficult to get AROS running on the Raspberry Pi, right?
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Yea, read this story earlier today. RiscOS is perfect for this thing. I plan on getting a couple of them. It's a nice bonus that an old school small OS will run it.
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I want to see Haiku and AROS ported to this thing
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I always thought RiscOS was kinda ... not very good looking. Very cluttered desktop.
That gripe aside, hey, they've got a bunch of SDL ports including Firefox up and running!
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I always thought RiscOS was kinda ... not very good looking. Very cluttered desktop.
Never used it myself, but simply from the article talking about it being one of the last OSes "that one person can understand," it's encouraging to know their heart's in the right place. These are the people we need teaching the programmers of tomorrow, not washed-up business majors who cross-trained in VB and tried to parlay it into a teaching career.
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What a useless piece of crap. The cpu is a steaming pile of manure. Come on, what can u use it for. It will stand like a retarded lame duck on the desk. A monument to failure. Cheap sticker on the side. Weak, useless, powerless, utter crap, and it have a bum OS on top of that . I p#ss on Braben. I p#ss on his grandmother, and it seems I’ve p#ssed on my self too. Well I’m off to the nudie-bar like my rawmodel Al Bundy. The nerve.. the garbage.. bum cpu... bum...crap........ bottom....pants.....
Sorry couldn’t resist. Looks interesting but I don’t have any connection to it like aros, morphos and aos4.
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RISCOS is a pretty horrific operating system, I had to use it for 5 years at school... Yeah, let's get AROS on the board so we can really show off :)
@nicholas, I ran Haiku on my old 3ghz p4 yesterday and it's a bit more CPU heavy than AROS, so might be a little heavy for the Raspberry PI... Just a thought :)
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RISC OS is crap and trying to use it for educational purposes is a waste of time. If one needs a system for teaching students with the goal of being able to understand every facet of the device, a micro controller is a more suitable platform. If the goal is to teach students how to write programs that run under an OS, linux or windows is far more suitable as those skills can apply directly in the real world.
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RISCOS is a pretty horrific operating system, I had to use it for 5 years at school... Yeah, let's get AROS on the board so we can really show off :)
@nicholas, I ran Haiku on my old 3ghz p4 yesterday and it's a bit more CPU heavy than AROS, so might be a little heavy for the Raspberry PI... Just a thought :)
I've noticed Haiku is quite a bit beefier than BeOS running on the same hardware too.
AROS ftw! :)
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Someone please explain to me why *THIS* wasn't picked to port OS4 to???
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Someone please explain to me why *THIS* wasn't picked to port OS4 to???
It's not PPC, AROS is the only OS that supports ARM :)
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Apart from windows, android, meego, Maemo etc etc
Did you mean only AmigaLike OS :)
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What a useless piece of crap. The cpu is a steaming pile of manure. Come on, what can u use it for. It will stand like a retarded lame duck on the desk. A monument to failure. Cheap sticker on the side. Weak, useless, powerless, utter crap, and it have a bum OS on top of that .
It's underpowered for daily-use computing, sure - but as it says in the article, that's exactly what they're trying to avoid it being used for. It's not a replacement for a modern system, it's a machine on which students can learn how to make the computer work themselves. It's like an updated version of a home computer running Basic. And that, I think, is exactly what schools these days are missing.
RISC OS is crap and trying to use it for educational purposes is a waste of time. If one needs a system for teaching students with the goal of being able to understand every facet of the device, a micro controller is a more suitable platform. If the goal is to teach students how to write programs that run under an OS, linux or windows is far more suitable as those skills can apply directly in the real world.
There's a pretty big difference between learning how to write programs in an operating-system environment with interactive debugging and trying to write low-level hardware-banging code, and I don't think too many kids will be open to learning the latter before they've figured out the former. And while Windows or Linux are certainly more commonly used, neither one is something that a grade-school student just getting their feet wet would ever have any hope of understanding. Something simpler and more easily comprehended is definitely called for, and while I don't know if RISC OS is it, it's certainly a hell of a lot closer.
Also, the moment you start talking about putting the kibosh on learning things that don't "apply directly in the real world," you've abandoned real education for the churning out of factory and office drones (the thing that currently characterizes the American school system, which as you may have heard, sucks.) The hell with that.
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Also, the moment you start talking about putting the kibosh on learning things that don't "apply directly in the real world," you've abandoned real education for the churning out of factory and office drones (the thing that currently characterizes the American school system, which as you may have heard, sucks.) The hell with that.
Teaching kids to think for themselves doesn't make them good little consumers.
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RISC OS's GUI is interesting enough to make me interested. Maybe a British tech company can make a RISC OS-inspired operating system for the average computer users.
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@commodorejohn
So you say it could be useful and fun. In that case I wish it all well.
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Teaching kids to think for themselves doesn't make them good little consumers.
+1
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Normally I am the first to poo-poo all these embedded/SOC things trying to re-invent the world, but the education aspect is a very powerful one if it gets into the proper hands. Sadly things in the computer education world are so geared towards "look towards the future" rather than making people respect the past and do as much as they can with fewer resources.
RiscOS I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot clown pole, but that's mainly due to the fact that I, like many guys in North America - just are not familiar with it, and find it inelegant. Fiddling around with Linux on it, that's another story.
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It's not PPC, AROS is the only OS that supports ARM :)
My point exactly....... Gimme this, with a MiniMig case, pre-built and it's cost effective, but I digress........ :confused:
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I, like many guys in North America - just are not familiar with it, and find it inelegant.
How can you find it inelegant if you are not familiar with it?
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This will be fun . . . $35 computer . . . Have wanted to try RiscOS for some time now. Wonder how much it will cost and which version it will be? :-)
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I'm very excited about this. I'll be ordering a Model A and a Model B as soon as they go on sale. First thing I'll do is have shot of the Linux hosted ARM port of AROS.
They are going to sell a lot of these things and once native AROS is on there it will be a great way to attract more people to the community. The vast majority of initial customers are going to be hacker types who like messing about with things, so just the sort of people that will find AROS interesting.
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Sorry Nicholas, I should have been more clear. I've used RiscOS a number of times, but not for long enough to know it terrifically well. Most of the Acorn systems I ever fiddled around with were essentially "collectors" pieces, as no one I knew over here ever really had one back in the day.
Functionally I found it to be a lot of fun, but not something I would enjoy using on any regular basis. More of a personal taste issue, I just found the GUI ugly in all sorts of ungodly ways, lol.
We didn't see a heck of a lot of RiscOS/Acorn systems over here in North America, so I always saw the GUI visually offputting.
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There's a pretty big difference between learning how to write programs in an operating-system environment with interactive debugging and trying to write low-level hardware-banging code, and I don't think too many kids will be open to learning the latter before they've figured out the former. And while Windows or Linux are certainly more commonly used, neither one is something that a grade-school student just getting their feet wet would ever have any hope of understanding. Something simpler and more easily comprehended is definitely called for, and while I don't know if RISC OS is it, it's certainly a hell of a lot closer.
Also, the moment you start talking about putting the kibosh on learning things that don't "apply directly in the real world," you've abandoned real education for the churning out of factory and office drones (the thing that currently characterizes the American school system, which as you may have heard, sucks.) The hell with that.
Kids seem to be getting along just fine these days with python on windows, linux and macs. Python is the new basic. It's amazing what they have access to and can accomplish. I cut my teeth on a Vic-20, moved onto a c64 and then the amiga. Eventually learned C and assembler on a 386. All I ever wanted to code when I was a kid was graphics stuff. Not surprising, graphics code is instant gratification. On those old systems it was damn hard to do anything impressive. That was my motivation to learn C and assembler as a kid. Life would have been a hell of a lot more fun if I had Python, SDL and OpenGL when I was a kid not to mention Javascript.
I can't imagine in this day and age foisting RISC OS on a kid as some kind of educational endevour. Forcing them to slog through all that ancient esoteric crap would be sure to loose their attention. The only people who really think that's a good idea are middle aged nerds pining for the olden days shaking their fists up in the air about how things ain't as simple as they used to be.
And yes, stuff that can be used in the real world matters. Give a guy a tool he can use in the environment he lives in and stuff gets built. Give a guy a tool he can't use in the environment he lives in and nothing will ever be accomplished.
And as far as the educational system in the USA goes, it's not that bad. The problem is the parents who expect the government to turn their kids into successful people while barely lifting a finger themselves.
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Kids seem to be getting along just fine these days with python on windows, linux and macs. Python is the new basic. It's amazing what they have access to and can accomplish.
I have my beefs with Python (literal whitespace? In the 21st century? Really?) but yeah, it's pretty all right, and I'd definitely prefer it over Java as a teaching tool. But! I think there's a lot of value in giving kids tools and an environment that let them (when they're ready) look past the interpreter environment and the standard libraries and discover the rest of the system, and while Python does provide facilities for that, they're not particularily good facilities, and it doesn't really encourage that mindset. (Though to its credit, it doesn't actively discourage it like some other languages...)
I can't imagine in this day and age foisting RISC OS on a kid as some kind of educational endevour. Forcing them to slog through all that ancient esoteric crap would be sure to loose their attention. The only people who really think that's a good idea are middle aged nerds pining for the olden days shaking their fists up in the air about how things ain't as simple as they used to be.
Again, I'm not advocating for RISC OS specifically - I haven't used it or programmed for it, so I don't know whether it's as arcane as all that. What I do think is that there's value in giving students an OS environment that's functional, but simple enough in both principle and implementation that they can really understand it. I believe the original Amiga OS approached this goal (though it had its flaws,) I don't know if RISC OS does or not. But from what was being said in the article, that's their goal here, and putting aside the question of any specific OS, I find that philosophy very encouraging.
And yes, stuff that can be used in the real world matters. Give a guy a tool he can use in the environment he lives in and stuff gets built. Give a guy a tool he can't use in the environment he lives in and nothing will ever be accomplished.
Not so much. It's certainly true you'd have very limited application in the real world for the API specifics of such a niche OS, but that isn't the point - the point is to instill in students a mindset of "computers are not magic, this is stuff that I can learn and understand myself." A mindset like this is the difference between someone who churns out template code because he's paid to and someone who really understands, enjoys, and is enriched by programming - and it's something that damn near nobody teaches these days.
90% of learning to program is getting into the right mindsets - learning to think about structure before you start banging out half-formed implementations, learning to always check your assumptions when debugging, etc. These things are universal; a good programmer is a good programmer no matter what OS, language, or toolchain they're using.
(Except COBOL.)
And as far as the educational system in the USA goes, it's not that bad. The problem is the parents who expect the government to turn their kids into successful people while barely lifting a finger themselves.
While parental disinvolvement is certainly an issue, I've spoken with teachers and former students alike who agree that the system as it stands is geared towards producing ready-made drone workers fitted with predetermined skillsets, not educated at all (because that would take more effort, require dealing with students as individuals instead of as faceless numbers, and might make them troublesome in the workforce.) I was fortunate enough to be home-schooled and never had to deal with the educational system until I reached college, but everything I've seen confirms this.
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It's underpowered for daily-use computing, sure - but as it says in the article, that's exactly what they're trying to avoid it being used for. It's not a replacement for a modern system, it's a machine on which students can learn how to make the computer work themselves. It's like an updated version of a home computer running Basic. And that, I think, is exactly what schools these days are missing.
It's exactly like an updated version of a home computer running BASIC. RISC OS still has a built-in BASIC interpreter and BBC BASIC is one of the best examples of BASIC available; it even manages in-line assembler. It certainly isn't BASIC as you are expecting it to be.
@People who haven't used RISC OS
It really is a truly great example of user interface design. Everything is drag'n'drop, even saving and loading files. All menus are context-sensitive. Applications are tidied up into directories. The close gadget is in the correct place ;)
Coincidentally I recently posted a thread about ArcEm, so anybody wanting to try out RISC OS might like to look here: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59609