Recent Posts

Topic: Code review / Proposed GraphicsV enhancements

It’s not an icon, it’s a UI.

Sitting on the iconbar innit?

The Style Guide has always needed a rewrite.

:)

Topic: Code review / Proposed GraphicsV enhancements

It’s not an icon, it’s a UI.

Ever wondered whether the Guide needed any kind of rewrite?

The Style Guide has always needed a rewrite.

Topic: General / Porting a Amiga emulator

Thanks for the compiler tips. I have now managed (after a lot of headache and no sleep)
build uae4arm. If I start it from cli (not taskwindow) it starts up its gui.But the
emulator dosn’t works just stops with a pthread error (gathered from *spool).
I have not implemented vsync , so that is one cause to error.
So what is the best way of waiting for vsync in riscos? Nevermind found out.

It crahes before vsync is used. Probably in sound.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

Perhaps ROOL need a little time to complete all the release work? I suspect it is a large amount of work to create, test and release the stable version, and swap things around to enable the website to reflect this – which is presumably their priority. Then as a lower priority to also create a new development version and change the website for that, and then to make any post-release changes that are required. They have not even announced that 5.25 is available for use yet.

Topic: Announcements / Archive 24:4 is on its way

I’m pleased to say the “review” I put on twitter yesterday boils down to much the same conclusion: It may be infrequent, but still a good read.

(“review” in quotes because it was based on a quick glance rather than a read)

Topic: Announcements / Wakefield 2018 is Next Weekend

Sadly, the answer is no – the socket I was thinking of is actually output only. I’m limited to the built in microphone.

Topic: Porting RISC OS / Allwinner H3

You can patch the kernel so that it will skip trying to run the boot sequence and go straight to the command prompt instead – near the end of s.NewReset, change the BEQ DoStartSuper to B DoStartSuper.

One quirk of the debug terminal is that although single-tasking keyboard input will come from HAL_DebugRX, you should still be able to use a USB keyboard to press Escape (assuming your USB is working to a sufficient degree)

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

Summary:
Fred has found a “bug” in ZeroPain in that it appears to be locked to a previous version of RO.
From the Readme the intention was/is for ZeroPain to work – but it doesn’t.
David has some reason to have buggy software not report errors but simply crash and burn. While laudable for the support of high vector compatible software it does limit fault finding a little.

Topic: Community Support / Cross compilation

I just figured it was because gcc support in the source tree was a bit rickety and needed some work.

Topic: Porting RISC OS / Allwinner H3

I more or less knocked up the bare basics of what I needed to pump some current into the OPi PC. It’s one of those prototyping boards (Not technically a HAT because it lacks the camera? ribbon cable hole). +5v is provided directly to the +5v GPIO pins via a 10A electronic relay. All the power wiring is trailer wiring, right up to the 5V, 5A PSU. Earth was a little trickier because the *Pi GPIO layout has them scattered. The prototyping board didn’t appear to have them all wired, and the ones that were all went to the board ground rail via a tiny little track or two. So there’s a whole heap of hookup wire soldered on to each GPIO GND pin to the ground rail individually. Unfortunately I had to wire the relay on for now and there’s no caps on the power rails either. I been able to readily salvage those yet.
There is no voltage sag now. It booted second attempt which is pretty good. For reasons I haven’t quite worked out sometimes the boot dies somewhere in the MMU startup zone of the kernel.

My previous plan of accessing a USB drive has a slight failure. I’m stuck on the prompt “Waiting for boot drive to be ready; press Escape to cancel.”
I’m using !Connector. I’m not sure I can send escape.

Topic: General / riscos.info enables HSTS

What I was hoping was happening is that the HTTP browser sees the HSTS header and uses that as a reason to upgrade to HTTPS if it understands HSTS, and if it doesn’t it’ll stay on HTTP. Once upgraded it’ll stay upgraded for the duration of the HSTS lifetime. Since riscos.info has user login accounts with passwords, unlike your blog, they should be protected and why I’d like to deprecate HTTP if possible, but keep it around for those few people who need it (and downloads etc). However, if people land on HTTP (eg from an old link) some browsers don’t pay attention to the HSTS header and stay on HTTP – that’s annoying.

We have to redirect / to /index.php/RISC_OS, but it seems that redirect is causing a HTTPS→HTTP downgrade on NetSurf at least. The redirect currently has the protocol in the target URL – maybe it can work in a protocol-agnostic way, but it would be better for that redirect to push people towards HTTPS so they pick up the HSTS header. However doing that would break anyone who can’t do HTTPS.

There’s no browser sniffing or anything fancy. It just serves exactly the same content on both protocols, to anyone, with an added HSTS header.

Topic: Community Support / Pi 3 shutting down-ish

Has managed to run 38 hours OK. Now shutting down; not sure how much of a run I’ll be able to manage later today.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

… but is irrelevant because, as direct clicking on the module returns, ‘ZeroPain is not supported by this RISC OS version’.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

I’m not sure which “this” you’re referring to, but the ZeroPain readme was recently updated.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

And the release notes for ZeroPain 0.07 and RISC OS 5.24/5.25 state this do they?

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

Does this mean that ZeroPain could be removed?

Yes.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

All functional again including Manga. Does this mean that ZeroPain could be removed?

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

Belay all that! R-Comp have just released an update on PlingStore.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

Huh? Of machines maybe but I’m sure many just have NetFetch or its bits with alternative machines.

Not information I have, you’d need to speak to R-Comp – that’s where the description of the customer base and their requirements came from.
At a guess I’d say anyone wanting to use software that uses SecureSockets will need to remain on a build lower than RO5.24 until the modified version – v1.05 – is distributed by R-Comp. (Unless they get hold of an unofficial distribution copy)

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

The ZeroPain module 0.07 does not load on OS5.25

Oh, that’s what it is. Yet it’s still supplied?

the mainstay of R-Comp customers were using machines built with RO5.22

Huh? Of machines maybe but I’m sure many just have NetFetch or its bits with alternative machines.

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

No rush here but there may be some noise if released after os 1.24.

I was under the impression that the mainstay of R-Comp customers were using machines built with RO5.22 with some use of RO5.23 low vector.¹

Shamelessly I built a ZeroPain Module that does load on OS5.25.

Hey, if it’s needed it’s needed.

¹ iMX6 is, obviously, still going to be on RO5.22 or RO5.23 since no compatible RO5.25 exists and presumably at present ROOL will not be building a RO5.24 for iMX6

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

Manga 0.20, with SecureSockets 1.04, falls into a similar hole. It needs functionality in the ZeroPain module that is not provided by the Compatibity Page. The ZeroPain module 0.07 does not load on OS5.25.

Shamelessly I built a ZeroPain Module that does load on OS5.25.

Topic: Community Support / Cross compilation

The other day I saw something in the AMU manual that was to the effect of “this strange behaviour is not a bug, but a deliberate alignment with how GNU Make does things”. Enough said?

Topic: Bugs / ROS 5.25 kills Hermes

No rush here but there may be some noise if released after os 1.24.

Topic: Community Support / Pi 3 shutting down-ish

Mine did not survive overnight :(

I’m using the 9/4 firmware and 12/4 ROM as linked in Sprow’s post. It’s a Pi 3 (not a 3+), I have hdmi_blanking enabled in config/txt and I was doing absolutely nothing when it failed (I only had NetSurf, Edit and maybe one or two other things running). I woke up this morning, moved the mouse, and the screen didn’t come back on.