RISC OS Community & IT Development

Sometimes I feel the need to shout out to everyone here and say THANK YOU!

I mean, RISC OS is still here !

Whilst there are still some grievances re various things, generally the RISC OS community is very supportive and seems to be heading in the same direction.

There has been some great improvements in the last 12-24 months with various software and hardware support ie wifi, network stacks, IRIS , RISC OSM, games, and more…

I also keep an eye on Haiku which appears to have more developers / supporters but you should all be proud that RISC OS still exists and is still usable.

Yes it is a ‘Hobby OS’ but hey we’re all getting older and nostalgia is not a negative in my opinion, especially in the AI era and a bit of a longing for how things used to be, ‘back in the old days’. Still very interested to watch where things are going in the modern era but it just doesn’t seem to be as much fun as it used to be (although people like Fabio bringing AI databases to RISC OS is pretty cool really, and the fact that IRIS exists even though not 100% it does enable a large proportion of the modern web to be accessed from RISC OS – pretty impressive when you think where we have all come from).

Once you get to a certain age you can reflect on things a bit.. watching IT development from the early eighties to now has been fascinating and where it goes next even more so…

Once you get to a certain age you can reflect on things a bit.. watching IT development from the early eighties to now has been fascinating and where it goes next even more so…

…watching IT developments from the mid-sixties possibly even more so? 8~) – the ideas we had (in the sixth form) when we learnt that you could put more than one transistor on the same bit of silicon or germanium! We dreamed of PCBs with hundreds of “integrated circuits,” each with hundreds of transistors – a digital telephone exchange – digital TV via the phone – hell, you could put libraries on the TV phone – in fact we more or less dreamed the internet, although the scale of it and the speed would have blown our minds.

We dreamed of PCBs with hundreds of “integrated circuits,”

My dream was to own a Dick Tracy wristwatch

and it did not even count steps or check blood pressure.

Once you get to a certain age you can reflect on things a bit.. watching IT development from the early eighties to now has been fascinating and where it goes next even more so…

Last week I had reason to revisit what had been my place of work from 1963 to 1999. What struck me hardest was the absence of all the cheerful tea/coffee ladies, and their replacement by machines. I do not doubt that the machines have grown steadily cleverer, but they have no conversation. I shudder to think of a time when they have that too.

but they have no conversation

I do not look forward to the day that they do, and yes, I do miss the tea/coffee ladies.

What struck me hardest was the absence of all the cheerful tea/coffee ladies, and their replacement by machines.

When I started work at IBM Newman Street in 1967 a coffee lady came to my beautifully engineered metal desk at around 11.00. As well as coffee she had a supply of doughnuts.

Within a year she had been replaced by a machine. So much more convenient for the programmers said the Management. They can have a coffee whenever it suits them. All the metal desks were replaced by shoddy chipboard veneered desks with drawers that did not open smoothly.

It was progress Jim, but not as we knew it.

and seems to be heading in the same direction.

Well, it’s us against the world.

but it just doesn’t seem to be as much fun as it used to be

Anything in particular?

and where it goes next even more so…

I’m rather more cynical. While it has indeed been mind blowing to go from a large box with a massive 32K of memory (most used by the screen!) to a little handheld gizmo that can make live pictures from the other side of the world magically appear out of thin air. . . I can’t help but worry that far too much is going on behind the scenes and not in a good way. I’m not talking about stupid governments wanting to have encryption back doors (which is awful in and of itself, but I’m not a bad guy so I doubt I’d be of any interest). It’s more the corporate quagmire we’re all sleepwalking into, where something you tweeted a couple of years ago was misinterpreted by an AI and now you just can’t get medical coverage. Of course your options to understand why and challenge the decision will diminish as time goes by until one day it’s simply “computer says no” and computer is a god.

Case in point, ask an AI if it knows me, then ask it to summarise my medical situation as described on my blog; apparently I am living with chronic pain. Uhhhh…

My dream was to own

I had a Sony Watchman. I dinky monochrome TV that had a one inch cathode ray. Unlike the pitifully low resolution LCD offerings, this was good enough that I could flick it on under the duvet and read the teletext carousel on BBC2 after closedown.

I didn’t really dream much other than that. I never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Forty odd years have passed and I’m still no closer to an answer. I guess I’ll have to settle for “alive”.

I do miss the tea/coffee ladies.

Far too much gossip and stirring for my liking. I wouldn’t say that replacing people with machines is any sort of improvement – the only machine that I am happy to use is the scan-it-yourself thing at the supermarket because that makes it quick and easy to pay and go, but even as a hardcore introvert, I found the introduction of those big touch screen menu things in McDonald’s to be an abomination, and the removal of most of the tills so you couldn’t even vote with your feet.
Yes it’s often easier (especially if you’re like me and have several red lines – no ice in drinks ever and no tomatoes), but that’s not the point. Their staff are people being treated like robots. It’s shameful.

Anyway, tea ladies were not the problem, it was the gossiping. I really don’t care who did what with whom on the photocopier.

I shudder to think of a time when they have that too.

A coffee machine’s conversation will be of no interest to anybody. “This coffee was brought to you by BetterHelp” and “You can drink your tea anywhere with NordVPN”. I hope and pray for the day that the whole advertising scam collapses, but given that’s where the big bucks are (why d’you think it’s pervading into everything?), I’m not going to hold my breath. Oh, and every time you press that coffee button, it’ll play the Intel jingle. Or maybe coca-cola. Or whatever paid for it this week.

replaced by shoddy chipboard veneered desks with drawers that did not open smoothly.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a flat pack desk with decent drawers. The one I have in the living room (a cheap thing from the supermarket – https://heyrick.eu/blog/index.php?diary=20240809) has wood sliding on a metal bracket and… it doesn’t open very far.

I do not doubt that the machines have grown steadily cleverer, but they have no conversation. I shudder to think of a time when they have that too.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1999717/

apparently I am living with chronic pain.

No, living with chronic pains(plural), but since we are down an electric pipe you can ignore us quite easily. :)

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a flat pack desk with decent drawers

The cherry wood desk in the office (bedroom 4 if you like) is fine, the oak desk in the hall needs some wax on the runners for best working; the flat pack setup in the other office (bedroom 3) has drawers that stick and a suspension file setup that runs front to back thus ensuring that there is zero chance of removing a file without fully opening the drawer that sticks and even fully open it is difficult as the back of the file is still in the drawer recess. Not a problem there’s a real, steel, filing cabinet¹ at the side of the desk :)
Looks the part for photos, short on operational detail.

¹ The wife bought the desk setup, I rescued the steel filing cabinet from the outgoing “scrap” at work.

living with chronic pains(plural)

Well, there’s the pain in my arse when I have to go to work, then the bigger one when I get there, and the brain pain of the “pzzzup-in-a-brewery” situation, and……

PS: I know what you meant. ;)

Hey Rick. How things?

If you’re feeling a bit miffed, that’s understandable. I would not take kindly to someone publicly scrutinising my posts without prior consent – it seems to go against what I see as welcoming behaviour. Perhaps they should be removed?

I’d consider an apology helpful, especially as you’ve been, from my perspective, a good citizen here.

PS. I don’t believe there was a malintent; it is just one of those human missteps.