Tuck in to a tasty bonus
Posted by Steve Revill Sun, 01 Oct 2023 10:11:00 GMT
The Bonus Binaries download is one of our most popular downloads, coming in 2nd place behind the main HardDisc4, with the !System resource 3rd of all the Miscellaneous downloads. Since its introduction in 2015 extra treats have been added, so let’s take a look inside.
What are bonus binaries?
They’re a bonus in addition to the main disc image for RISC OS, where the applications concerned may have fallen into a state of disrepair, lack internationalisation or are anachronistic in some other way and are thus considered unsuitable for inclusion on the standard HardDisc4 image.
Nonetheless they’re worth a look, because something is always better than nothing!
CC-BY Chris Parfitt
Selected examples
For a full list of contents, see the Software Information page. Selected additions since the original 2015 nightly download include:
- FormEd – Acorn’s old Template editor was located and, being written in BASIC, dusted off and made available for developers who prefer its way of doing things. Not to be confused with the WinEdit Template editor.
- ZeroPain – give developers extra feedback when you find a buggy application which crashes due to accessing memory that it shouldn’t
- Player – play back MIDI and sound samples through ESP’s desktop player app
- RealTime – the reverb effects application for use with ESP’s MIDI synth
- MakeIns – instrument editor application for use with ESP’s MIDI synth
- Connector – Andreas Zieringer’s popular terminal emulator for all kinds of serial port communications
- Econet – for retro networking charm take a look at the latest versions of Gateway, NetMonitor, and MailMan
- CDPlayer – a keypad style controller for playing audio CDs from drives with analogue out
- Clock – displays a simple analogue clock face
Ideal first task
If you’re new to developing for RISC OS those things in the Bonus Binaries make an ideal first task to get stuck into – there’s not too much risk of making the OS unbootable like working on some of the more scary components can, yet your labours will be enjoyed by hundreds of people.
The source code is linked to from the respective item’s Software Information page. If you need hints on which rough edges need polish for the application to be upgraded to the main disc disc, get in touch.
