Recent Posts

Topic: Community Support / Indentation with StrongED

Yes backspace works, but I would like it to move back a TAB

A single press of Backspace can only move back a Tab if Tabs are inserted as TrueTab (ie an actual Tab character).

When Tabs are inserted as spaces then you can use undo (F8) to go back a Tab immediately after it was entered, otherwise you’ll need to delete all inserted spaces.

The closest to what you want is to use these settings in Mode Choices → Tabs:

• Insert tabs = As TAB character (aka TrueTab)
• Display TAB char = As spaces
• Width of TAB char = 4 characters

This does mean that Tab characters are used instead of spaces, don’t know if that’s a problem.

I’ll have a look to see if the Backspace can be made to work as it does in VIM.

Topic: General / WebsterXL

You… might want to look up a browser called Arachne

Isn’t that still being developed, or at least commercial software still? I liked Arachne. I used to use it on an abomination of a 386, with an FPU from a laptop which violently exploded, and an EMS card from a 286. It was like hitting a wall but it was better than running out of RAM.

Topic: Announcements / Java-based SpriteViewer/SpriteConverter prerelease

Cool, is working fine.
Have try with WIN10 and with Titanium Linux…

Topic: Community Support / using *Wipe in an Obey file

Tonight I learned. Thanks for that.
Hopefully I haven’t missed any directories.

Topic: Bounties / Are RISC OS folk meanies or just poor?

At the time of writing, the main forum index has “5,495 topics, 76,723 posts, 960 voices”.

While it is possible that people may have registered an account and not posted anything, I suspect they are outnumbered by the people who posted something in the past but have since moved away from RISC OS.

So, the number of active forum users is certainly below 960 and could be well below 500.

Now let’s look at the open bounties. They have raised £18,000 from 159 donations. Some people will have donated towards more than one bounty, so my guess is that 20% of the (presumed 500) user base have donated. While I am not an expert on raising money (as my bank balance all too readily attests) a 20% response rate doesn’t sound that bad to me.

Topic: Community Support / Is there a 32bit version

Thanks for the 32-bit versions of !Run and !RunImage for WordHound. I get an error on attemting to run it: ‘System:Modules.Impulse’ not found. For sure, there is no such module in System:Modules, but there is a module ImpulseII inside !WordHound. Double-clicking on this produces the error “Impulse is not 32-bit compatible”.

Attempting to run WordHound (with the 32-bit versions of !Run and !RunImage) under Aemulor, produces the error “Impulse not found” again.

The old WordHound runs fine under Aemulor. It seems that the Impulse module needs 32-bitting.

Topic: Announcements / RISC OS Developments announce acquisition of Castle Technology Ltd and RISC OS IPR (don't panic!)

Great to see people still supporting RISC OS 20 years after Acorn pulled the plug. After all the trials the platform has been through where still here, trying to push it forward. Things have started to look up in recent years and hopefully this will be a catalyst to a brighter future.
Looking forward to the show.

Topic: Aldershot / 2038: here we come

Michael is reported to be slightly stronger than Andrew at landfall on the Florida Panhandle, but both Cat 4. Neither is stronger than the huge Labor Day Hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935. This is the use of selective criteria to make a point. I hate that.

When faced with someone talking about Climate Change, I ask “What is the most important greenhouse gas?”. If I get the correct answer, I expect that a sensible discussion will follow. Otherwise I walk away, because there is no point in wasting my time.

Sensible discussion is necessary, but it is in short supply.

Here’s my Savage Garden Affirmation bit…

I can go along with most of that. ;-)

Topic: Aldershot / Frobnicate

Someday I will dive into a proper P-code engine.

I have one. Very extensible (no real limit on number of keywords accepted), but I never finish it :)

Topic: General / WebsterXL

Plus, a web browser, written in BASIC. Come on, geek points right there…

True. It could attract some amateur developers too.

Topic: Community Support / Iyonix ROS 5.11r3 to 5.24 update ?

but don’t have a website

Just drop me a mail…

Topic: Aldershot / 2038: here we come

I believe that nobody knows what the effects will be (it was going to be grape vines in England and orange trees here

Yeah, I think they rather missed the global in Global Warming i.e. it’s a global effect but the local aspects are, with more energy in the system, more extreme versions of what you always had¹ which has always been rather variable, hence the British fascination with weather.

until somebody realised what every smart schoolchild had already figured out – if everything warms up then what happens to the huge amount of cold water from the melted ice?).

I think that’s the bit where my home city of Sheffield may be a seaside town on a fairly long inlet. Rather depends on the rise as Sheffield at it’s lowest is 95ft above sea level but 1700ft+ at the highest. One thing is certain the label “British Isles” will be majoring on the Isles bit but even at worst the majority of Sheffields wonderful hills will be high and dry.

¹ Of course if one of the effects is weakening the conveyor belt of warm water known as the Gulf Stream then the UK is likely to be a bit cooler.

Topic: Aldershot / 2038: here we come

Everything based upon 32 bit time_t might fail, but RISC OS will be fine:

>DIM time% 8, str% 32
>time%!0 = -1 : REM Set all bits
>time%!4 = -1
>SYS "Territory_ConvertStandardDateAndTime", -1, time%, str%, (32 + (1 << 30) + (1 << 31)), 0, 0 TO ,t%
>t%?0 = 13
>PRINT $str%
06:57:57 03-Jun-2248
>

Topic: Aldershot / Frobnicate

[javascript…]

You’ll be pleased to hear that I changed it to something more sensible (and updated the comment to explain what it actually does).

I’m glad that code got changed, because wow!

Topic: Bounties / Are RISC OS folk meanies or just poor?

but, even if there were only 1000 active accounts

Hum, remove one 0, and I think you’ll be closer to reality. And remove one another for the number of active core developers :)

We’re simply not enough.

Topic: Aldershot / 2038: here we come

Correct (corrected), distracted: I’m not on call but keeping an eye on things at work as a badly placed aircon unit leaked onto the UPS of the main telephone switch and half the phones in the hospital are out of action – my main concern is the presence of a core switch in the same room which wasn’t affected but is at risk if things get worse.

You mean it was stronger than those Category 4 hurricanes hitting Florida in 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1950? How do you know?

Based on the statement from the state governor reading a prepared text. Of course as a politician he’s entitled to exaggerate.

I am always impressed by the certainty many people show when they demand spending of billions of bucks (of other people’s money of course) in the face of the complete uncertainty of the effect of that spending.

I think it would be better if the climate change sceptics paused before spending on schemes that certainly contribute to the known greenhouse gas problems. Sometimes it isn’t high spend to try and tackle a problem, its not spending on the cause that is required.

Topic: Aldershot / Frobnicate

Was it worth it? Those are hours of your life you’re never getting back… :-)

Since I did a 48 hour week at work last week, I was too tired to program… reading about programming was about the best use of my down time.

Topic: Announcements / RISC OS Developments announce acquisition of Castle Technology Ltd and RISC OS IPR (don't panic!)

I do not panic :)

and with it the RISC OS Operating System

I hope to see some news around this point. IMHO, RISC OS 5 is the best asset we have today. And it would be even better if RISC OS 3/4 (or even BBC Micro) ROM were free to use under RISC OS 5 emulators (Arcem, ArchiEmu, RPCEmu). That would give us more software and so attract more users.

RISC OS 3 source code – or at least some work around it – would be cool too. For example, it would be fantastic to be able to modify RISC OS 3.1 to support bigger modes under emulation.

Topic: Aldershot / 2038: here we come

You mean it was stronger than those Category 4 hurricanes hitting Florida in 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1950?

Yes.

How do you know?

By reading.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/11/hurricane-michael-explained-biggest-florida-storm-all-you-need-to-know-extreme-weather

Climate Change is an extremely complicated subject.

Here’s my Savage Garden Affirmation bit…

• I believe that climate change is a real thing.
• I believe that nobody knows what the effects will be (it was going to be grape vines in England and orange trees here until somebody realised what every smart schoolchild had already figured out – if everything warms up then what happens to the huge amount of cold water from the melted ice?).
• I believe that humans are partly responsible for this change.
• I believe that taxing stuff and carbon trading is a sick joke, because…
• I believe that humanity may think they have power but nature is far more powerful than us and if it is going to happen then it will happen, and…
• I believe that our planet oscillates in cycles of warm and cool and this is going to happen regardless, all we have managed is to alter the timing slightly
• I believe this planet does not owe us a future or a hospitable place, for much of its existence it was quite the opposite (not forgetting the five big extinction events), it is us that needs to adapt
• I believe that tax money must be spent on dredging rivers, building flood defences, and working out how to relocate major cities a little further inland
• I believe talking about it isn’t good enough, if it’s really half a degree to disaster, actions need to be seen to be taken, but…
• I believe politicians are full of shit.

Topic: Community Support / using *Wipe in an Obey file

x wipe directory ~cfr~v

Topic: Community Support / using *Wipe in an Obey file

Can you use IfThere, so:

IfThere <filename> then *Wipe <filename>

Topic: Community Support / using *Wipe in an Obey file

That’s what I’m using already.
Here’s the listing.

Set Base$Dir <Obey$Dir>.^
Set Cstl$Dir <Base$Dir>.castle.RiscOS

Wipe <Base$Dir>.Apps ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.bsd.RiscOS.Apps ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.BuildSys ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.Env ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.Export ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.Images ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.Install ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.Library ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.mixed.RiscOS.Apps ~cfr~v
Wipe <Base$Dir>.Modules ~cfr~v
Wipe <Cstl$Dir>.BuildSys.Logs ~cfr~v
Wipe <Cstl$Dir>.BuildSys.Shadow ~cfr~v
Wipe <Cstl$Dir>.castle ~cfr~v
Wipe <Cstl$Dir>.Export.APCS-32 ~cfr~v
Wipe <Cstl$Dir>.Images ~cfr~v
Wipe <Cstl$Dir>.Install ~cfr~v

Topic: Community Support / using *Wipe in an Obey file

*wipe directory ~cfr~v

Topic: Community Support / using *Wipe in an Obey file

How can I use *Wipe in an Obey file so an error dialog isn’t thrown if it tries to remove a non-existent directory?
I’ve made a simple Obey to “Unprepare” a RISC OS source tree. Ie remove things that are copied in via !Prepare, and a few other things like log files. The problem is not necessarily everything would have been created.
How do I handle this situation?

Topic: Aldershot / 2038: here we come

Interesting because the prevailing theory suggests that the likely change effects (apart from the melting of icecaps that gets much publicity) will largely be more variable/extreme conditions.

Where can I read about that prevailing theory? AFAIK, there is no solid statistical evidence that weather gets either more variable or more extreme or both.

For areas that get large storm systems (hurricane/typhoon) they are likely to see more and stronger – and that’s what the US of A has been seeing for a number of years, more and stronger.

I am sure you will show me some evidence for that hypothesis. I am following Climate Change science since reading the first IPCC report in 1990. I have since learned that most of the media reports about Climate Change are greatlyexagerated, mostly because model output is falsely taken as evidence for anything. For software developers, a good start is to look at the ModelE source code to quickly lose faith in anything those models predict.

So back to that prediction about “more and stronger”. As a start, how much more likely and how much stronger? Error bars of that prediction? I have followed some of the model’s predictions over the years, and usually after less than 10 years they are outside their suggested error bars. Don’t believe in anything that the models “predict”.

Of course people are free to deny that the storm system labelled Michael wasn’t the strongest system to hit Florida.

I guess the double negative was not intended…

You mean it was stronger than those Category 4 hurricanes hitting Florida in 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1950? How do you know? Al I know is that Michael was Category 4. You remember Hurricane Andrew? Now when was that, and what Category?

Climate Change is an extremely complicated subject. We know very little about many of the mechanisms (you can even read that in the IPCC reports). We still don’t know if cloud feedback is likely negative or positive. We have no idea how constantly changing ocean currents like PDO or AMO are affecting the whole climate system. I am always impressed by the certainty many people show when they demand spending of billions of bucks (of other people’s money of course) in the face of the complete uncertainty of the effect of that spending. But that is probably because believing is much easier than knowing. Those who know nothing must believe everything.