Future of Risc OS - comp.sys.acorn.apps

Message from discussion Future of Risc OS

David

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More options 24 Mar 2007, 23:24

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.apps

From: David <nos...@nomaps.amnops.invalid>

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 23:24:25 +0000 (GMT)

Local: Sat 24 Mar 2007 23:24

Subject: Re: Future of Risc OS

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In article <3dd6c6c84e.zen44...@zen.co.uk>, Simon Smith

<simon_smith_n...@zen.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <81d7b8c84e.Ni...@blueyonder.co.uk> Nigel Willmott
> <nwillm...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> > The RO situation once again looks bleak. I haven't been around for
> > most of the last 10 days, but on re-entering the RO universe, I
> > find that one of its last real-world users is jumping ship and its
> > only serious developer of major new applications is taking time
> > out.
> Yes, that's just what I said here:
> http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/forum?forum=game00009&bookmark=20000509:0...
> (link should all be on one line)
> But I said that almost seven years ago in mid-2000, and RISC OS is in
> no more or less trouble now than it was then. As I recall the Phoebe
> crisis was back then, and then there was Acorn disappearing entirely,
> and so on . . . I suspect you (and I, and others) may be worrying
> needlessly. An OS that is still 'dying' seven years after I (and many
> others) said it was dying can't really be as sick as all that. Were I
> to make another similar post today, I'd give it another five years
> just as I did in 2000. and once again I'd be absolutely delighted to
> come back and have to eat my words sometime around 2015.

Yebbut... I bet the number of users is no more than half of what it was
when you said it.

> RISC OS /is/ only - well mostly - a minority or hobbyist OS, but I
> really don't think any the less of it for that. I say, keep your
> expectations realistic, contribute where you can, and enjoy using the
> OS as long as it's available. That's all I'm doing. And given that I
> don't make unreasonable demands of it, its reliability, consistency,
> ease of use etc. have repaid me manyfold. What more can one ask?

The GUI is wonderful; the co-operative multitasking & modular design is
wonderful; BASIC with embedded m/c should be (and used to be) the bees
knees; the window back button and 3-button mouse system is pure ecstasy
(for non-fingerlarly challenged folks); the non-standard, slothly slow
hardware sucks molasses through a hollow microfibre.

Without apps, the platform says nothing to the general user; and
without an economic speed, even apps might well wonder what they're
supposed to be doing.

--
David - toro-danyo atcost uku fullstop co fullstop uk
http://www.toro-danyo.uku.co.uk/

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