RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi

For anyone interested in GPIO uses (and a host of other external control-type interfacing possibilities) check out the new RPi ‘Gert’ add-on board that’s just arrived on the RPi main page: http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Looks like a hardware hacker’s dream. I do hope this can be quickly fully supported by RISC OS as I suspect it will be very popular with teachers/students as a way to get light’s, buzzers, motors etc working quickly in their after school classes.

Being able to control projects with a few simple lines in Basic would be very attractive for teachers with little programming experience (which is the vast majority apparently) and a good way to (re)introduce them to RISC OS.

With any luck it plugs straight into the 16 GPIO sockets on the mainboard, so if we can get those accessible from Basic then the whole Gert board should be controllable.

-Neil F.

Hi Neil,
Yes, I too am very excited about the GertBoard.
Possibly, that is were Raspberry Pi can outshine something like an iPad.
I suppose an iPad could control something via the internet, and printers are coming out that have their own email addresss, but I think physically having the thing connected up in front of you at a fraction of the cost, is the way to go.
I really like that it’s all getting back to soldering irons and circuit boards.
Reminds me of the 1970s and all the electronics magazines that used to be on the shelves in WHSmiths.
(Happy days)
Merry Christmas,
Martin

Apoligies if this has already been discussed but has anyone taken up the NIC driver for the Pi yet? If not I am happy to take a swing at it.

issue of multi booting without using the hardware solution of pressing a button

It looks as if PiCard caters for single images. Does anyone (Theo?) know whether this app is likely to be suitable for writing the RO image? (Code in Python, screenshot.)

I haven’t been following PiCard, but there are several ways of accessing a RISC OS image:

1. As a giant RISC OS ROM only, containing a boot sequence and any ‘distribution’ in ResourceFS
2. As a ROM plus an extra FileCore partition
3. As a ROM plus a FileCore disc image on a FAT partition

1 and 3 and relatively easy to implement (but we’d have to supply them prebuilt), 2 requires PiCard being able to write FileCore filing systems. The Linux ADFS kernel module might just about cope with this, but Windows and Mac wouldn’t. A prebuilt FileCore partition is of limited value unless we can resize it (it isn’t impossible to make a tool that merely extends partitions, but it doesn’t exist at the moment).

Which option we go for depends largely on the SD driver, and the means of choosing a boot OS (if any). Extending PiCard to support RISC OS in some form or other would in principle be relatively straightforward.

Stephen, the NIC on the RPi is an SMSC LAN9512, which should already be supported by EtherUSB. So hopefully it will ‘just work’.

This is where support for archives as folders would be useful built into the ROM.

With reference to freeware ideas for the disc image, I am not in a position to test any apps on ARMv7, but I can mention some items which I think could be considered because they have proven useful or instructive to me:

(Compatible with ARMv7 according to the compatibility page):
InterGif, SwiftJPEG, Ticker, Locate, DigitalCD, UnitConv, AppDock

plus some that aren’t on that list but perhaps could/should be:
DrawScript, DiscSpace, XChars, Dict, CashBook, PipeDream, ViewXLS, Variations, JClean, FTPc.

to name a few, and I’m sure there are more if I were to do a comprehensive review of what I use less often. I am not offering to contact authors, I’m afraid.

I have added quite a few of Bernard’s suggestions to the Wiki page. I’m using Firefox on Linux on a Beagleboard, so it’s fairly slow editing the table and the wiki table syntax is rather unpleasant!

I did not add SwiftJPEG, Ticker, DigitalCD, UnitConv, AppDock or DrawScript because I don’t know what they are or didn’t have time: feel free, someone else, to add them. I did not add PipeDream because I very much doubt it will be available (it’s not available for the Iyonix, as far as I know).

I also added a few other things I had thought of, e.g. Moonfish, OpenVector, etc.

Who is actually active in following up these suggestions? There are a lot of gaps in the table:

• whether it works on the Beagleboard
• what the licence is
• whether the author has been contacted

I’d be most happy to help with testing on the Beagleboard and maybe having a go at recompiling things such as Moonfish, as that would be best use of my technical skills. But I’m sure there’s scope for others to help just filling in some of the blanks in the table and contacting authors.

By the way, Hilary would be quite happy for DrawPrint to be distributed on the Raspberry Pi disc image. Should we send a formal e-mail to someone? Or wait to be contacted?!

SwiftJPEG

Note that SwiftJPEG fails on JPEGs from some common sources, with an “Outside file at line nnn” error. Andrew Hodgkinson is the maintainer. I reported the fault last Autumn, but Andrew said at the time he was busy.

Yep, still busy :-D

You could busy yourself with looking at SwiftJPEG :-D

Seriously, it’s an excellent programme, apart from that problem that makes it completely unable to display images from some sources.

programme

Dave, would you really consider yourself to be an "older source"?

I consider myself to be British :-)

I have never understood why so many people accept the American spellings for things and activities that were invented in Britain.

OT: Differences between British and American English claims (with "little blue numbers in brackets", so it must be true) that programme for program came from the French. I guess you’ll probably prefer -ise (as I do, incidentally) although apparently the OED prefers -ize!

Back on topic, there’s some info about open/closed source on the main part of the RPi website. Maybe Theo’s able to expand on this…

I have added quite a few of Bernard’s suggestions to the Wiki page
[How does Textile mark up quotation?]

Thanks, Matthew. Some further details on my suggestions:
!Ticker v0.86 25-Apr-2007
Darren Salt, Scrolling news ticker
!UnitConv 2.32 14-Dec-2011
Chris Johnson, Instant conversion of values between units (extensible)
!DrawScript v2.12ß 16-May-2001
Joe Taylor, BASIC language extension for creating drawfiles
!DigitalCD v3.04 30-Dec-2011
André Timmermans, Multiformat audio player
!AcornCD v0.26 22-Nov-2002, 32-bit patch 08-Sep-2003
John Beranek, Access to music CD metadata

(AcornCD will be of interest when R-Comp release their upcoming update to !MusicMan).

And for those who like discreetly placed shortcut buttons, I make use of:
!AppDock v2.51 14-Nov0-2005
Martin Würthner
!Toolbar v1.21 31-Jul-2009
David Thomas

I was mistaken about PipeDream. Although v4.50/23 has recently been made freely available it is 26-bit only.

You really want our AcornCD 0.30 release which is rebuilt for ARMv7 – it is still in testing, but will be ready for forthcoming MusicMan. Just need some help with PlayIt though!

!Ticker v0.86 25-Apr-2007
Darren Salt, Scrolling news ticker

Note that v0.86 has issues on the BB. I have made some minor changes and recompiled for ARMv7. It was announced in c.s.a.a

Thanks, Chris; apologies for missing your c.s.a.announce item. With amended link, the entry can now read:

!Ticker v0.87a 27-Jan-2012
Darren Salt, Scrolling news ticker. Recompiled for ARMv7 by Chris Johnson.

Abridged BCM2835 datasheet freely available (and a manufacturing date, but let’s face it, the datasheet is the more interesting part ;-))

The datasheet doesn’t contain any documentation about the video hardware and very little about the USB controller, but the bits of hardware which are documented seem to be documented well enough for us to write some drivers. Hopefully it won’t be long before Adrian releases (or is allowed to release) his RISC OS port.

You don’t need information on the video hardware per se; rather the messaging protocol to the VideoCore coprocessor. Very little of that has been published at the moment. Full information on the USB controller is unfortunately a restricted download and you need a Synopsys SiteID, which in practise means that you must be – like me – working at a semiconductor design company. The Linux driver source is available, of course.

The port is progressing, albeit far slower than I would have liked. I hope to release it to ROOL and Theo soon, so that they may contribute.

PrivateEye

It’s freeware. I have no objections to you including it.

(Ideally I need to get a proper ARMv7-compliant rebuild out at some point).

"Rebuilt from the open source codebase for ARMv7 compatibility. PrivateEye is now licensed under a BSD license."

(Edit: I now see this was on c.s.a.announce too.)

The port is progressing, albeit far slower than I would have liked. I hope to release it to ROOL and Theo soon, so that they may contribute.

Slow progress is better than no progress. If I’m able to get one of the boards from the first batch then I’ll hopefully be able to help out in one or two areas.

If I manage to get my hands on a Pi I’d be happy to do some testing once there’s something available. Used to use RISC OS a lot and would very much like to see it back in wider use again.

“Slow progress is better than no progress. If I’m able to get one of the boards from the first batch then I’ll hopefully be able to help out in one or two areas”

I agree with the slow progress comment: Thanks for all you are doing, Adrian.

Given that Raspberry Pi has over 18000 followers on twitter and 10000 boards are in the first batch, even the limit of one per customer is going to result in a mad scramble. If I get one, I certainly don’t mind lending it out for a couple of months if it helps…

I wonder if there will be a resell market on eBay at four times the price !?

Regards, Martin. http://www.RISCOScode.com