Talk:History of RISC OS

Arthur written in BASIC?
http://productsdb.riscos.com/admin/riscos.htm states You may like to know that Acorn's first release of the Desktop in 1987 was written in BBC BASIC! Can this be verified? It sounds implausible but perhaps there's truth in it. Which published articles are there which refer to the work of Paul Fellows and his team? --Trevj (talk) 10:50, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The desktop environment was indeed one BASIC program, with what we would now call 'apps' loaded as BASIC libraries. I wrote my own extensions and modified it quite a bit. Of course it relied upon the fledgling WindowManager module (or whatever it was called then) to do the WIMP stuff, but that didn't do task switching back then. nemo (talk) 09:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * That's useful to know. I've retrieved my old Micro User and A&B Computing mags from '87 but haven't found anything yet to back this up in reliable sources (that's not to say that you're not a reliable source, but I'm sure you know what I mean!). Is this stuff documented anywhere so that it can be included? Thanks. --Trevj (talk) 11:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, one could purchase the Classic ROMs Collection from RISC OS Ltd (it’s a tenner) which includes two versions of Arthur... but I’m tempted to remain unreliable and £10 better off. ;-) nemo (talk) 12:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Added a ref from PCW in '87. -- Trevj (talk) 11:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm now reincluding this after rewording. -- Trevj (talk) 08:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Arthur was written in assembler. The Arthur desktop was a demo program written in BBC basic by Richard Manby, who also wrote the graphic libraries for Arthur. These things are the facts : Paul fellows, Arthur team leader 1985-87

Also the Arthur == Arm on Thursday is the correct quote, Paul Fellows.

I don't have any web sources to quote for this, but would point out that, How could I have original web sources FFS, this was how many years before the web existed???

Anyone wants to quote me, I am Paul.fellows@ntlworld.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.155.46 (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi and thanks for your note. I'm sorry to have missed your talk to ROUGOL members in Oct 2012. Perhaps some of that transcript can be used for sourcing, although generally sources with more traditional editorial rigour are preferred. Regarding the "ARm on THURsday" thing, the ROUGOL transript states "I believe that the word Arthur comes from the fact they wanted ARm on THURsday, because of the crisis, but that's my memory of it, and there's a bit of debate and other people may say different things." This isn't quite the same as what's noted above.
 * As for web sources, yes it's frustrating that much of this history obviously predates the web. However, Wikipedia does not insist on online sources. I have previously included sources from printed magazines within a few articles, and there's no good reason not to do so here. The main barriers to doing so (as I see it) are access to such printed sources, and the searching of their contents.
 * Anyway, I'll drop you an email some time when I'm a bit less busy. All the best, and thanks again. -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 07:59, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Early development
I've removed the following as it's been (rightly IMO) tagged as original research:

Despite rumours that Arthur stands for A Risc by THURsday or ARm on THURsday, no substantiated claims have been found.

--Trevj (talk) 10:22, 8 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Erm, that quote, whilst amusing, doesn't say that the acronym is a myth, merely that the whole ARX dev and Arthur dev is fairly mythical. Incidentaly I'm still glad it's been removed, because whilst 'A Risc by THURsday' quotes and variants) have been kicking for years, I've never seen it said by anyone that that had primary knowledge, and certainly never in a way that was citable. Incidentaly the quote from Paul Fellows (who would have primary knowledge) that existed on a previous version of this page *is* good enough for me provided it's citable in some way. This is an example of one of those things that whilst very famous inside the Acorn/RISC OS world actually is really difficult to prove actually happened, and really doesn't lose a lot from the page if it's dropped.--Flibble (talk) 15:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)


 * We need to locate interviews with these guys from the time (or reinterview them and publish in suitable (editor-reviewed) publications so they can be included here, i.e. not original research). I'm at my parents' now but haven't yet had a chance to look through the old Micro Users/Acorn Computing and have to leave in 2 hours - may have to wait for another time :-( --Trevj (talk) 08:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I squeezed a dozen or so 1987/88 Micro Users and also some A&B Computing into the bag before leaving. --Trevj (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Arthur was Arm on Thursday. This was at a board meeting where Acorn technical director, Jim Mercian gave me, Paul Fellows, the challenge to develop a new BBC micro like OS for the Arm in five months, using the programmers of the Acornsoft languages team : Tony Thompson, Stuart Swales, Richard Manby supported,by Tim Dobson, nick reeves and Brian Cockburn. There are no primary references for this because it was 1985, well before the web existed. Doubt it? Try emailing Paul.fellows@ntwlorld.com
 * Thanks. Please refer to my comments above. -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 07:59, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

ROM module
"It initially ran from a 512 KB ROM module." - isn't the word "module" redundant? Does one call a set of ROMs (there were four of them) a "module"? --HeyRick1973 (talk) 17:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like it to me. If you feel like taking it out, be bold and do so. There's also a touch of overlinking there but I guess most of that section needs rewriting (or at least refs inserting) anyway because it's short on refs. -- Trevj (talk) 07:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. HeyRick1973 (talk) 16:23, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Looks like an improvement to me. -- Trevj (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, module is not correct, Paul fellows — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.155.46 (talk) 22:57, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 07:59, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Needs update
The section "Shared Source Initiative" says "Ports of RISC OS 5 to the BeagleBoard and Risc PC/A7000 are, however, under way." This needs updating. There is a development (5.19) IOMD (RiscPC) build that works on the RiscPC, A7000, and RiscPC-like emulators. The X-Scale Iyonix has both stable (5.18) and development (5.19) versions available. The OMAP3 (Beagle(xM) etc) boards have both a stable release (5.18) and the latest development release (5.19); which is running okay on my Beagle xM (for example). The OMAP4 (Pandora) has the development release (5.19), as does the RaspberryPi board.

While there may be some issues with the development release (as a work in progress), it is safe to say that hardware with 5.18 has a functional version of RISC OS available, while hardware with 5.19 has had RISC OS ported to it.

I write this not to suggest a big list in the Wiki article, but rather to point out how out of date the content is.

Speaking of which, there should probably be a screenshot of RISC OS 5, for the two shown (Arthur and RISC OS 3.11) are quite dated (yuck, look at all that VDU text!). --HeyRick1973 (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's out of date.
 * The 5.18/5.19 thing really needs reliable sources, of which there are a few - I'll have a look some time before the London Show, unless someone beats me to it before then
 * The OMAP4 stuff may not have been reported in the news, and forum posts are far from ideal
 * I agree about screenshot, and that a non-free one could be uploaded - the window furniture and icons are copyrightable (with the possible exception of the basic 2D set), so such non-free screenshots need to be referred to by sourced commentary in the article prose, and must include a completed non-free use rationale... this may all sound like rather a PITA but AIUI exists because the goal is totally free content, and also eases the fight against vandalism (non-complying images can be speedily deleted)
 * As a general point, there will be some wasted effort and maintenance headaches unless we're mindful of content forking. -- Trevj (talk) 07:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and updated it so the content there now bears some relevance to this decade. At least, having done the work on IOMD, OMAP3, OMAP4, and BCM-thingy ports, plus having all of the source available, this Wiki page should reflect this in preference to content that is years out of date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HeyRick1973 (talk • contribs) 16:28, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

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Archive link for archimedes pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20070324200411/http://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/docs/Mags/PCW/PCW_Aug87_Archimedes.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.60.14 (talk) 23:27, 27 September 2019 (UTC)