RPCEmu on RISC OS

Here’s a screenshot of RPCEmu running RISC OS 4 on a Titanium.
It averages about 14mips idling at the dekstop. Drops to around 10mips in use.

At least :)

It averages about 14mips idling at the dekstop. Drops to around 10mips in use.

So mid way between ARM 2 and ARM 3 performance: I find that rather impressive.

Excellent!

Please find the time to release the source code/build instructions somewhere, so that interested parties like myself can start hacking on things :-)

Nice

Looking at your screenshot made me relise that I had an out of date version of Vkeyboard on my website, so I uploaded the latest version.

Which allows multiple keyboards.

Please find the time to release the source code/build instructions somewhere, so that interested parties like myself can start hacking on things :-)

I’ve added the recipe to the GCCSDK autobuilder on riscos.info.

To build it with the autobuilder it needs a temporary change to ‘build-program’ once all the dependencies have built. Change AB_PATCHOPT=“-l -p0” to AB_PATCHOPT=“-l p1”.

Once built it just needs the RISC OS 5 iomd.rom dropping in the roms folder. It should then boot into the desktop.

Looking at your screenshot made me relise that I had an out of date version of Vkeyboard on my website, so I uploaded the latest version.

While using it with RPCEmu with no keyboard input available it would be useful if it could do the function keys. Also a way of holding down shift so double clicking on a application folder opens it.

Whilst using it with RPCEmu with no keyboard input available it would be useful if it could do the function keys.

There’s !Keyboard, available here, which seems to do what you want it to – it also has different keyboard “skins” so you can have retro red Fn keys or RiscPC-esque grey ones!

While using it with RPCEmu with no keyboard input available it would be useful if it could do the function keys.

I’ve added function keys, and decided to make F12 open a task window,as it is pointless to go to the command line.

The Shift held down so that you could shift click to open applications is a good idea but I have no idea how to implement it.

If anyone wants to try RPCEmu (0.8.100) on RISC OS it can be downloaded from here.

It just needs a RISC OS rom dropping in the ‘roms’ folder then it will boot into the dekstop.

Things missing.

1. No keyboard input. (missing support in the Qt5 libraries). The workaround is to use VKeyboard or Keyboard as an on-screen keyboard.
Create Obey files for things not possible with the mouse. e.g. filer_opendir $.!Boot.
2. No sound. (missing audio backend in the Qt5 libraries)
3. No Networking.
4. HostFS works non-natively. Zip up everything before copying into the hostfs folder. Then unzip on RPCEmu.

Tested with RISC OS 4 and 5 on Titanium, RPi 3 and IGEPv5. Aemulor also works albeit very slowly. (Needs RISC OS 5.22 and RPCSA as the CPU)

Also download resources.zip and merge the contents into !Boot. These are the same files used for Otter Browser and QupZilla. If already using either of these browsers there is no need to download resources.zip.

Tested with RISC OS 4 and 5 on Titanium, RPi 3

Amazing work Chris, you do realise that this (RPi) is probably the first time anyone has been able to carry an RPC around in their pocket even in emulation.

probably the first time anyone has been able to carry an RPC around in their pocket even in emulation.

My HANNspree stick has VRPC-DL and RO6 under W10. It is smaller than a Pi. Just sayin’. ;-)

probably the first time

Get out clause.

With reference to Vkeyboard, I’m working on a keyboard creator and editor at the moment.

It works very well under RISC OS 5. For RISC OS 4.02, it boots in supervisor mode. You’ll need a ready to run system (Boot, etc.) in order to get a normal boot. Mouse tend also to disappear on the host.

For RISC OS 4.02, it boots in supervisor mode.

At a guess that’s because you already ran the RPCEmu with RO5.x and the CMOS settings for RO5.x are still there and don’t match what the 4.02 install requires.
As a test I’d create a working 4.02 install elsewhere and copy the cmos file from that into the RPCEmu on RO install.

Not me: it was a clean install, and I tried first with RO4. But anyway, it works now.

OS5.22, OS5.23 and OS4.02 are now booting fully here now.

A minor issue is that as supplied the configured filesystem is ADFS. An Obey file created on the host reset that to HostFS, suffixing the filename with ,feb within HostFS, obviously.

Mouse tend also to disappear on the host.

The pointer goes missing on the host but clicks don’t! A workaround is to exit RPCEmu via the top toolbar.

Another benchmark to give a rough idea of the speed of RPCEmu running on RISC OS on various boards.

RISC OS 5 idling at the desktop.

8mips Wandboard Cortex-A9 @1008MHz
20mips Titanium Cortex-A15 @1500MHz
16mips RPi 3 Cortex-A53 @1500MHz

For comparison running Linux on an ARM Chromebook

46mips Chromebook Cortex-A72 @2100MHz