Everything Else

What is the most maximized setup you can get in terms of ARM-powered workstations/desktops, being able to run that RISC OS?

For instance: Which (types of ARM, socketed for that matter?) CPUs and at which frequencies? How much RAM? What graphics adapters, storage controllers, etc. are there? What kind of buses, just PCI, PCI-X perhaps and even PCI-E? Also, peripheral-wise, are there digitizers/tablets known to work?

The last real desktop RISC OS computer was IYONIX and all the newer systems are just boxed Raspberry Pi, BeagleBoard and PandaBoard systems. RISC OS 5 has ROM images for IOMD (A7000, RiscPC), OMAP3, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi and IYONIX.


I am still using old and trusty IYONIX that has slow with modern standards 600 MHz X-Scale processor. It has 512 MB RAM that could be maxed to 1 GB and IDE hard drive. As for expansion cards there are Nvidia FX5200 graphics card, gigabit ethernet and USB-card in PCI-bus. In IYONIX there is also support for old podule type expansion cards with the 2-slot riserboard, but almost no 32-bit drivers exist for podules. I have a MIDImax2 MIDI podule with 32bit drivers that never got working.

The only tablet currently working fully I know of, that has proper drivers is cheap and chearful PaintPal tablet. I have it and it works as expected. I believe some Wacom tablets work in emulated mouse mode, so can be used without pressure support. Only application I know of currently fully supporting tablet with pressure sensitivity is Photodesk. After working drivers the support has to be also implemented to software to take any real advantage of tablet as an input method.

For the heck of it, I think I'll port some closed-source stuff that I've been programming to IRIX or something.

No really, I'd do that if I had manuals on how to do low-level programming for MIPS64 R16000 and V12 chips.

Does this please Bgalakazam? And more importantly, would it please Hamei?

You can't please Hamei, but it's fun to watch people trying.

That's the joke.

Is it also touch screen optimized? OMAP, does it mean it would potentially run off a Texas Instruments ARM development board ‘system’ too?



Looks like a nice system. I did see the site once, when it was still up, but the way these systems were offered didn't feel right; too little information, few pictures and so forth. Also a bit pricey, for me.



What kind of memory does it take?



Is there perhaps also a way to drop in SCSI or even SATA disk in there? (Which I guess would require a SAS/SATA controller.) Speaking of PCI again, what type of PCI? (3.3 V, 5 V; 32-bit, 64-bit; 33 MHz, 66 MHz, 133 MHz [e.g. PCI-X, but I assume not], etc.?)

Do you think any PCI-E bus ARM systems will be made in the future? I mean, considering the fact that a 64-bit ARM has been announce (or rumored, I don't remember) months ago.



That's not too bad, is it?



Any on-board USB, also? What kind of GbE NICs do(es) the RISC OS network driver(s) support?



I'm not familiar with these. Are these of earlier ‘Acorn’ systems, by any chance? (The reason why they won't work, is that because of the old 26-bit addressing space?)



Never heard of it. But, it's better than nothing I guess. (Certainly more than, say, HP-UX has supported in that regard.)



That's good to hear then.



That doesn't really count, that's just USB HID at work... But, I guess that aforementioned tablet would suffice.