Not A RISC By Thursday
Chris Holgate
Whilst looking for something slightly more useful, I recently stumbled
upon my old programmers reference manuals (issue 1) for the Arthur
operating system. After leafing through for nostalgia's sake, I was left
thinking what a shame it was that Acorn had ended up having to ship Arthur
rather than that 'other' operating system with their brand new ARM based
machines. Unfortunately, I can't find anything substantial about the
'other' operating system anywhere on the web.
For those of you who are wondering what I'm talking about, the history or
myth (I'm not sure which is the correct word to use here) goes something
along the lines of...
In the early 80's Acorn was a big successful computer company with a 'not
invented here' attitude only rivalled by that other fruit and nut company,
Apple. In some ways this was good, in that when Acorn asked Intel if they
could sublicense the '286 and modify it to meet their own requirements and
Intel said 'no', they invented the ARM processor which Intel now
sublicenses and is able to modify to meet it's own requirements.
Where this approach was not successful, was that Acorn set up a software
development centre in the U.S. to develop a world-beating new operating
system to go with the new 32-bit processor architecture. Apparently, this
additional drain on Acorn's resources coincided with a downturn in the
computer market and stiff competition for their eight bit machines from
the newly 16-bitted Commodore and Atari products. One consequence was the
closure of the U.S facility before the revolutionary new operating system
could be completed.
Depressed by this news, the remaining engineers in Cambridge retired to
the pub, where after a few beers they decided that by judicious use of a
couple of bits of string, some blu-tac and a broken pencil they would be
able to shoehorn the old 8-bit BBC MOS into their shiny new 32-bitter.
Overcome with excitement, one of their number vomited all over the napkin
on which the engineers had sketched out the details of their plan, the
resulting stains subsequently being mistaken as a guide to the desktop
colour scheme. And thus Arthur (A Risc by THURsday) was born.
So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about
this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the
advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did
any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time
playing Elite? Is there any documentation still around, and what are the
chances of it 'leaking' onto the web now that Acorn has passed away?
Just curious.
Chris.
--
------------------------> http://www.zynaptic.com <------------------------
Turn left off the OC-192 just after Infocentral and you'll find a rutted
datapath with a 2.4 kBit/s speed limit. At the end of the road an old IBM
XT lies in bits. Inscribed in its rusting case are the immortal words....
.... Not to be taken internally.
Rob Davison
"Chris Holgate" <usenet_...@zynaptic.com> wrote:
> Dear 'netters,
>
> Whilst looking for something slightly more useful, I recently stumbled
> upon my old programmers reference manuals (issue 1) for the Arthur
> operating system. After leafing through for nostalgia's sake, I was left
> thinking what a shame it was that Acorn had ended up having to ship Arthur
> rather than that 'other' operating system with their brand new ARM based
> machines.
Try a google search for "Acorn ARX"
IIRC Archimedes world magazine (when it was still A&B computing?) wrote
an article about it too.
HTH,
Rob.
--
Homepages http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7320
Maple Glen http://www.mapleglen.orcon.net.nz/
Composition http://www.compo.iconbar.com/
sbu...@eggconnect.net
> So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about
> this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the
> advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did
> any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time
My memory is that it was called ARX, and was basically supposed to be
a Unix clone (like Solaris, HPUX etc.). I doubt there was anything
which would have made it particularly better than the competition,
except for the small detail that it would have been running on a 2k
desktop PC instead of a 20k workstation! I'm not sure the original
Arc could actually have coped with Unix very well, though. Supposedly
the team developing it didn't exactly have commercial deadlines in
mind and were showing no signs of being finished anything like in time,
although I don't have any inside knowledge. They did eventually
produce RISC iX, a port of (I think) BSD Unix, but it didn't really
go anywhere.
IBM tried a similar thing a couple of years later, with AIX
on the original Power PC, also a RISC design. They did at least finish the
OS, but IBM never got behind it because they really wanted to sell
people mainframes - until the mainframes got blown away a few years
later by cheap Unix workstations from Sun and Apollo/HP, which in turn
got blown away by even cheaper Intel PCs running Linux.
--
Stephen Burke
Ben Harris
Chris Holgate <usenet_...@zynaptic.com> wrote:
>Depressed by this news, the remaining engineers in Cambridge retired to
>the pub, where after a few beers they decided that by judicious use of a
>couple of bits of string, some blu-tac and a broken pencil they would be
>able to shoehorn the old 8-bit BBC MOS into their shiny new 32-bitter.
>Overcome with excitement, one of their number vomited all over the napkin
>on which the engineers had sketched out the details of their plan, the
>resulting stains subsequently being mistaken as a guide to the desktop
>colour scheme. And thus Arthur (A Risc by THURsday) was born.
I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a
supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel).
--
Ben Harris
Unix Support, University of Cambridge Computing Service.
If I wanted to speak for the University, I'd be in ucam.comp-serv.announce.
Rob Kendrick
> In comp.sys.acorn.misc Chris Holgate <usenet_...@zynaptic.com> wrote:
>> So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about
>> this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the
>> advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did
>> any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time
> My memory is that it was called ARX, and was basically supposed to be
> a Unix clone (like Solaris, HPUX etc.). I doubt there was anything
> which would have made it particularly better than the competition,
> except for the small detail that it would have been running on a 2k
> desktop PC instead of a 20k workstation! I'm not sure the original
> Arc could actually have coped with Unix very well, though. Supposedly
> the team developing it didn't exactly have commercial deadlines in
> mind and were showing no signs of being finished anything like in time,
> although I don't have any inside knowledge. They did eventually
> produce RISC iX, a port of (I think) BSD Unix, but it didn't really
> go anywhere.
RISC iX is based on an early SunOS, as far as I know. Anyway, anybody
who wants to run a UNIX type OS on an ARM is silly... wanted to run a
UNIX type OS on a machine with a 32kB page size is just mad...
--
Rob Kendrick - http://www.lackadaisical.co.uk/
David Given
"Chris Holgate" <usenet_...@zynaptic.com> writes:
[...]
> Depressed by this news, the remaining engineers in Cambridge retired to
> the pub, where after a few beers they decided that by judicious use of a
> couple of bits of string, some blu-tac and a broken pencil they would be
> able to shoehorn the old 8-bit BBC MOS into their shiny new 32-bitter.
> Overcome with excitement, one of their number vomited all over the napkin
> on which the engineers had sketched out the details of their plan, the
> resulting stains subsequently being mistaken as a guide to the desktop
> colour scheme. And thus Arthur (A Risc by THURsday) was born.
Hey, come on. Arthur wasn't up to much, I'll admit, but when it mutated
into Risc OS it wasn't a bad small-computer OS. It was modular and
extendable in a way that operating systems weren't in those days,
excepting possible MacOS.
I assume that this Arx is not it? http://arx.snu.ac.kr
I can't seem to find any details on what Arx actually was anywhere on the
net. Anyone else know anything?
--
+- David Given --------McQ-+ "Est brilgum: toui slimici
| Work: d...@tao-group.com | In uabo tererotitant
| Play: d...@cowlark.com | Brogoui sunt macresculi
+- http://www.cowlark.com -+ Momi rasti strugitant." --- Anonymous
Pete Fenelon
>
> I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a
> supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel).
>
Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim
"where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :)
pete
Terry Blunt
<pe...@fenelon.com> writes
Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
would have competed directly against RiscOS.
As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
Arthur.
--
Terry Blunt <te...@langri.demon.co.uk>
I want my gravestone to be a huge flat lump of granite inscribed:
'Lie down dammit!'
Theo Markettos
>
> Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
> would have competed directly against RiscOS.
>
> As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
> Arthur.
I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing something
(an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, and then RISC
OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where Impression orginally
came from.
Theo
Theo Markettos
> development centre in the U.S. to develop a world-beating new operating
> system to go with the new 32-bit processor architecture. Apparently, this
> additional drain on Acorn's resources coincided with a downturn in the
> computer market and stiff competition for their eight bit machines from
> the newly 16-bitted Commodore and Atari products. One consequence was the
> closure of the U.S facility before the revolutionary new operating system
> could be completed.
That would have been Acorn's Research Center (Palo Alto) aka ARC. ARC got
subsumed into Olivetti when Acorn got bought out in 1985 (my source is a
news article from 1991 I've saved:
http://www.markettos.org.uk/riscos/docs/Modula2ARX.txt )
Olivetti Research Labs (lately Olivetti and Oracle Research Labs) then got
absorbed into AT&T Labs in 1999. AT&T still have a lab in Menlo Park - my
California geography isn't good enough to say whether this is related to
ARC, but I suspect not.
Theo
Al Kossow
<ne...@markettos.org.uk> wrote:
> Olivetti Research Labs (lately Olivetti and Oracle Research Labs) then got
> absorbed into AT&T Labs in 1999. AT&T still have a lab in Menlo Park - my
> California geography isn't good enough to say whether this is related to
> ARC, but I suspect not.
Olivetti Research Labs was on Stevens Creek Blvd in Cupertino.
A local junk store had a bunch of Acorn micro parts that came out
of ORL when they shut down. I think the only thing that I bought
was the ARM sidecar that plugged onto the side of the BBC micro.
I don't recall any 4xx's at all coming out of there.
Jesper Zuschlag
Kevin Bracey wrote:
>This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a few
>years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are currently doing.
>
Do you anything about the actual architecture of Galileo and how far
they came
with the project? I have tried do find some info (more than just the
usual "its the
operating system to end all operating systems, and by the way, it has
something
called QoS!"). Front the pieces I have been able to dig out it seems
that there
were at least some connection to the Nemesis research project. Did
Galileo also
use a single address space architecture?
/Jesper
druck
> RISC iX is based on an early SunOS, as far as I know. Anyway, anybody
> who wants to run a UNIX type OS on an ARM is silly... wanted to run a
> UNIX type OS on a machine with a 32kB page size is just mad...
But the 32K page size is nothing to do with the ARM processor itself. That
was imposed by the MEMC external memory controller used by Acorn with the
ARM2 & ARM3. All ARM's from 6 onwards have had an integrated MMU and
support 4K page sizes as common with other processors.
ARM's are quite capable of running UNIX. The only real drawbacks
being some of the bugs on the early StrongARM's, and the fact that the
caches use logical rather physical addressing, and so much be flushed
on context switches.
---druck
--
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
|_)|(_ / ` / \(_ ' ) / \ / \ /| The Prestige RISC OS Show, 20-21 October
| \| _)\_, \_/ _) /_ \_/ \_/ _|_ Blue Mountain, taste the difference
druck
It was called Impulse, and is the reason why Impression has different error
dialogs, and some strange messages.
Alan Barclay
>In comp.sys.acorn.misc Chris Holgate <usenet_...@zynaptic.com> wrote:
>> So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about
>> this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the
>> advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did
>> any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time
>
>My memory is that it was called ARX, and was basically supposed to be
>a Unix clone (like Solaris, HPUX etc.). I doubt there was anything
Solaris & HPUX are both Unix licensed, derived in one form or another
from the AT&T source code. Solaris is very similar to AT&T's System
V release 4 (SVR4), while HPUX is less so.
Stephen Crocker
druck <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> On 24 Aug 2001 Theo Markettos <ne...@markettos.org.uk> wrote:
> > In comp.sys.acorn.misc Terry Blunt <te...@langri.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >> Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
> >> would have competed directly against RiscOS.
> >>
> >> As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
> >> Arthur.
> >
> > I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing something
> > (an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, and then RISC
> > OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where Impression orginally
> > came from.
>
> It was called Impulse, and is the reason why Impression has different error
> dialogs, and some strange messages.
DBg1:Warning! Stray debugging code detected. This machine will self-destruct
in ten seconds. Awooooga! Awoooooga!
Which I think is about as strange as they come... ;-)
--
x^ ( ) _________ // Email: mailto:cr...@crok.demon.co.uk
< U O |_|_|_|_|_| O || WWW: http://www.crok.demon.co.uk
\, |/|\ _________ [ ]
. |/^\ . 2 . /__\
... 66MHz ain't fast enough!
Rob Kendrick
> On 24 Aug 2001 Rob Kendrick <rjek...@pepperfish.org> wrote:
>> RISC iX is based on an early SunOS, as far as I know. Anyway, anybody
>> who wants to run a UNIX type OS on an ARM is silly... wanted to run a
>> UNIX type OS on a machine with a 32kB page size is just mad...
> But the 32K page size is nothing to do with the ARM processor itself. That
> was imposed by the MEMC external memory controller used by Acorn with the
> ARM2 & ARM3. All ARM's from 6 onwards have had an integrated MMU and
> support 4K page sizes as common with other processors.
I don't actually remember, or can see myself in your quote, suggesting the
32kB page size was the ARM's fault, mearly that it's a bad idea to run a
UNIX with that size page.
> ARM's are quite capable of running UNIX. The only real drawbacks
> being some of the bugs on the early StrongARM's, and the fact that the
> caches use logical rather physical addressing, and so much be flushed
> on context switches.
Having spoken to an ex-ARM employee for a 'technical' reason....
"Nowadays, the big problem is that the cache, and TLB tags are virtual not
physical. This means address space switches can be slow."
And...
"Oh - and you can't buy a quick one."
:)
Don and Wendy
>Before being shot for writing message <ee1150af...@druck.freeuk.net>
> druck <ne...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
>
>> On 24 Aug 2001 Theo Markettos <ne...@markettos.org.uk> wrote:
>> > In comp.sys.acorn.misc Terry Blunt <te...@langri.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
>> >> would have competed directly against RiscOS.
>> >>
>> >> As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
>> >> Arthur.
>> >
>> > I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing something
>> > (an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, and then RISC
>> > OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where Impression orginally
>> > came from.
>>
>> It was called Impulse, and is the reason why Impression has different error
>> dialogs, and some strange messages.
>
>DBg1:Warning! Stray debugging code detected. This machine will self-destruct
>in ten seconds. Awooooga! Awoooooga!
>
>Which I think is about as strange as they come... ;-)
>
What about that rival machine's 'Guru meditation' numbers?
Wendy
Robert Richards
Kevin Bracey <kevin....@pace.co.uk> wrote:
[snip ARX]
> This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a
> few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are
> currently doing.
>
OK I'll bite.
What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing?
--
Robert Richards at home
www.richards44.freeserve.co.uk
Sent from a StrongARM RiscPC running RISC OS 4 - www.riscos.com
Stuart Halliday
Terry Blunt <te...@langri.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
> would have competed directly against RiscOS.
>
> As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
> Arthur.
Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone.
--
Stuart Halliday
The Acorn Cybervillage
http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/
Remove 'takeoutthisbit' to reply to my mail.
Stuart Halliday
Robert Richards <robe...@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <c9e817af4a%kbr...@kbracey.cam.pace.co.uk>
> Kevin Bracey <kevin....@pace.co.uk> wrote:
>
> [snip ARX]
> > This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a
> > few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are
> > currently doing.
> >
> OK I'll bite.
> What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing?
Well, rumour has it they're not doing their Bush Internet boxes any longer.
;-)
Richard Walker
Stuart Halliday <stu...@stuarthalliday.takeoutthisbit.com.invalid> wrote:
> In message <ksQ2gLAW...@langri.demon.co.uk>
> Terry Blunt <te...@langri.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
> > would have competed directly against RiscOS.
> >
> > As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
> > Arthur.
>
> Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone.
Are you sure that was CC?
I saw screenshots of that somewhere, in an advert for Hugh Symons (ex-Acorn
distributor)
As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought Arthur
was dreadful.
--
Richard.
"I got something to say that might cause you pain."
Andrew Hill
"Robert Richards" <robe...@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0c0f98af4...@richards44.freeserve.co.uk...
> In message <c9e817af4a%kbr...@kbracey.cam.pace.co.uk>
> Kevin Bracey <kevin....@pace.co.uk> wrote:
>
> [snip ARX]
> > This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a
> > few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are
> > currently doing.
> >
> OK I'll bite.
> What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing?
Well - according to Kevin's last post, 'trying to decide what the mouse
buttons do.' :o).
Hmm - that brings some great images of Pace engineers stood around,
muttering : "...and when I pressed the middle button, this strange rectangle
with writing in popped up on the screen next to that blue arrow..." and the
others turning and saying "oooh."
Must get out more.
ATB
Andrew
alex_taylor
Commodore were mad like that. Their motherboards have names like Rock
Lobster, and hard disk interfaces called Party Mix, if you open up the
cases.
--
Alex Taylor.
--
I was going to procrastinate today, but I'll do it tomorrow.
Richard Walker
"Andrew Hill" <drew...@tesco.net> wrote:
> "Robert Richards" <robe...@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:0c0f98af4...@richards44.freeserve.co.uk...
>
> > In message <c9e817af4a%kbr...@kbracey.cam.pace.co.uk>
> > Kevin Bracey <kevin....@pace.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a
> > > few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are
> > > currently doing.
> >
> > OK I'll bite.
> > What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing?
>
> Well - according to Kevin's last post, 'trying to decide what the mouse
> buttons do.' :o).
Umm... no. That's what the engineers at PARC, *used* to do! :-)
Kevin said that the current Pace people are doing something 'wacky', whatever
that means! :-)
Stuart Halliday
Richard Walker <runny...@mindless.com> wrote:
> In message <1b99aeaf...@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid>
> Stuart Halliday <stu...@stuarthalliday.takeoutthisbit.com.
invalid> wrote:
>
> > In message <ksQ2gLAW...@langri.demon.co.uk>
> > Terry Blunt <te...@langri.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that
> > > would have competed directly against RiscOS.
> > >
> > > As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with
> > > Arthur.
> >
> > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone.
>
> Are you sure that was CC?
Oh yes.
It was kept very hush, hush at the time for obvious reasons.
It was dropped before it was finished.
> I saw screenshots of that somewhere, in an advert for Hugh Symons (ex-
>Acorn
> distributor)
>
> As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought
> Arthur
> was dreadful.
Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box.
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
pe...@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes:
I know that afc is abounding in old farts (myself not excepted), but how
many of those are genuinely old enough to remember that famous farce
"Charlie's Aunt" to which you seem to be alluding?
Is there some deeper agenda?
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} b...@dsl.co.uk
"We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of
distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr-
easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs
Rich Mackin
in message
news:cd6322b0...@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid...
[snip]
> > > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone.
> >
> > Are you sure that was CC?
>
> Oh yes.
> It was kept very hush, hush at the time for obvious reasons.
> It was dropped before it was finished.
Any screenshots around?
[snip]
> > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought
> > Arthur
> > was dreadful.
>
> Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box.
Again, any screenshots of this in existence?
Nick Spalding
> In article <tod6f7i...@corp.supernews.com>
> pe...@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes:
>
> > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris <bj...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a
> > > supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel).
> > >
> >
> > Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim
> > "where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :)
>
> I know that afc is abounding in old farts (myself not excepted), but how
> many of those are genuinely old enough to remember that famous farce
> "Charlie's Aunt" to which you seem to be alluding?
I am afraid I remember it very well. 70 next birthday.
> Is there some deeper agenda?
Not so far as I can see.
--
Nick Spalding
Dom Wright
"alex_taylor" <alex_...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:m77i7.25135$_71.1...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...
> > What about that rival machine's 'Guru meditation' numbers?
>
> Commodore were mad like that. Their motherboards have names like Rock
> Lobster, and hard disk interfaces called Party Mix, if you open up the
> cases.
>
>
Dom.
Stuart Halliday
"Rich Mackin" <richm...@ntlworld.nospam.com> wrote:
> "Stuart Halliday" <stu...@stuarthalliday.takeoutthisbit.com.invalid> wrote
> in message
> news:cd6322b0...@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid...
>
> [snip]
>
> > > > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone.
> > >
> > > Are you sure that was CC?
> >
> > Oh yes.
> > It was kept very hush, hush at the time for obvious reasons.
> > It was dropped before it was finished.
>
> Any screenshots around?
nope.
> [snip]
>
> > > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought
> > > Arthur
> > > was dreadful.
> >
> > Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box.
>
> Again, any screenshots of this in existence?
Yes and no.
Yes - if you want a picture of a Icon.
No - it was just a single module and had no GUI.
Pete Fenelon
Hmmmm. As a mere youth in my mid-30s I now feel *very* old :)
pete
Stefaan Claes
Kevin Bracey <kevin....@pace.co.uk> wrote:
[snip]
> As far as I know, from speaking to some of the original Arthur/RISC OS 2
> designers, the ARX team were too busy writing specifications, designing
> outlandish architectures and generally mucking around in cloud-cuckoo land
> to actually produce any working product. As someone said to me, when they
> were closed down, they still hadn't decided what each mouse button should
> do.
Dave Walker told me a few months ago (Wakefield 2001) someone (probably)
still has the sources of ARX. Does anyone know who this might be?
Is there a list of the people of the ARX team, or is this (still) top
secret? ;-)
--
Stefaan Claes, Hove, Antwerpen, Belgium, Europe, <scl...@aaug.net>
Richard Walker
"Rich Mackin" <richm...@ntlworld.nospam.com> wrote:
> "Stuart Halliday" <stu...@stuarthalliday.takeoutthisbit.com.invalid> wrote
> in message
> news:cd6322b0...@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid...
>
> > > > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone.
> > >
> > > Are you sure that was CC?
> >
> > Oh yes.
> > It was kept very hush, hush at the time for obvious reasons.
> > It was dropped before it was finished.
>
> Any screenshots around?
The advert I was thinking of is in *one* of my old Acorn Users (I have loads
- from 1982 to 1996!). If I find it, I'll stick it in the scanner.
> > > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought
> > > Arthur was dreadful.
> >
> > Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box.
>
> Again, any screenshots of this in existence?
Again, the non-desktop versions of software like Impression and ScanLight
probably give you some clues as to what the OS may have *looked* like.
--
Richard.
"I look at you all... see the love there that's sleeping."
Robert Richards
Stuart Halliday
<stu...@stuarthalliday.takeoutthisbit.com.invalid> wrote:
> In message <8b0f08b04...@riscpc.ntlworld.com>
> Richard Walker <runny...@mindless.com> wrote:
>
> > In message
> > <1b99aeaf...@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid>
> > Stuart Halliday <stu...@stuarthalliday.takeoutthisbit.com.
> invalid> wrote:
> >
[snip]
> > I saw screenshots of that somewhere, in an advert for Hugh Symons (ex-
> > Acorn distributor)
> >
> > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought
> > Arthur was dreadful.
>
> Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box.
>
I thought the alternative OS was called Zebedee, whereas Impulse was to be
some applications suite.
Alexandre Pechtchanski
Mine will be just 50, but I remember it very well, too. OTOH, what I remember
is much more recent movie remake of the farce ;-)
For curious souls there I refer to the Soviet-made "Charley's Aunt" with
excellent actor Kalyagin playing the "Aunt".
--
[ When replying, remove *'s from address ]
Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY
Charlie Gibbs
DomW...@btinternet.com (Dom Wright) writes:
No, but Amigas have LSI chips named Agnus, Denise, and Paula. Later
machines added Gary and Buster. And just to keep things confusing,
serial ports (plus a few other things) are handled by an 8520 chip -
not to be confused with the 8250 UART so popular in early IBM PCs.
--
cgi...@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs)
I'm switching ISPs - watch this space.
Chris Holgate
wrote:
> In article <c9e817af4a%kbr...@kbracey.cam.pace.co.uk>,
> Kevin Bracey <kevin....@pace.co.uk> wrote:
> [snip]
>
>> As far as I know, from speaking to some of the original Arthur/RISC OS
>> 2 designers, the ARX team were too busy writing specifications,
>> designing outlandish architectures and generally mucking around in
>> cloud-cuckoo land to actually produce any working product. As someone
>> said to me, when they were closed down, they still hadn't decided what
>> each mouse button should do.
>
> Dave Walker told me a few months ago (Wakefield 2001) someone (probably)
> still has the sources of ARX. Does anyone know who this might be?
Now this is the kind of unsubstantiated rumour I wanted to hear! However,
since posting the original article, I've been doing a bit of a trawl
around the Deja^H^H^H^H Google archive to try and find any other known
technology rumours about ARX - they seem to be pretty thin on the ground
and can be distilled down to the following list. Feel free to contradict
any of the following 'facts' if you know them to be wrong or to add to the
list if you know better.
ARX was written in a variant of Modula-2 called Acorn Extended Modula2
(similar to Modula-2+) which adds support for multithreading and exception
handling to the basic language. The language was ported to the ARM from
the 16032 version used to write Panos. Presumably this means that ARX was
optimised towards the AEM2 runtime requirements. The Modula2 compiler
(and presumably ARX itself) was 'lost' to Olivetti when they took over
sole control of the Palo Alto facility.
The O.S. 'ran in user mode', suggesting that it was microkernel based. The
synchronisation primitives of the original microkernel were sufficiently
slow that the SWP instruction was subsequently added to the ARM ISA to
allow user mode code to implement semaphores without going via the
microkernel.
It ran, but with a big performance hit - possibly as a result of spending
half it's time jumping in and out of superviser mode (I can think of a few
other microkernel based O.S. implementations which are said to suffer from
this).
The development team were more interested in piling 'cool' new features
into the system (and arguing about the mouse buttons) than they were in
testing the code to production quality.
On balance, I can't help feeling that Arthur (and certainly RiscOS) had a
few things going in it's favour. In the available clues there is nothing
to suggest that ARX was really that radical after all. Oddball maybe, but
not radical.
Chris.
--
------------------------> http://www.zynaptic.com <------------------------
Turn left off the OC-192 just after Infocentral and you'll find a rutted
datapath with a 2.4 kBit/s speed limit. At the end of the road an old IBM
XT lies in bits. Inscribed in its rusting case are the immortal words....
.... Not to be taken internally.
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes:
> On Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:54:06 GMT, Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie> wrote:
>
> >Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote, in <998841...@dsl.co.uk>:
> >
> >> In article <tod6f7i...@corp.supernews.com>
> >> pe...@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes:
> >>
> >> > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris <bj...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because
> it's a
> >> > > supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel).
> >> >
> >> > Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim
> >> > "where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :)
> >>
> >> I know that afc is abounding in old farts (myself not excepted), but how
> >> many of those are genuinely old enough to remember that famous farce
> >> "Charlie's Aunt" to which you seem to be alluding?
> >
> >I am afraid I remember it very well. 70 next birthday.
>
> Mine will be just 50, but I remember it very well, too. OTOH, what I remember
> is much more recent movie remake of the farce ;-)
Well, I'm 56, and I too have seen the play. However, I really doubt
whether anyone has seen anything but revivals: I've just been to look it
up, and it was written (by Brandon Thomas) in 1892.
Amazing how durable expressions such as "Where the nuts come from" can be
:-)
> For curious souls there I refer to the Soviet-made "Charley's Aunt" with
> excellent actor Kalyagin playing the "Aunt".
Director? (About the only Soviet-made films I've noticed were those
directed by Eisenstein: and very good they were. Who was it that made
that 1960's version of "The Scottish Play" that ran to about 3.5 hr?)
Alexandre Pechtchanski
>Amazing how durable expressions such as "Where the nuts come from" can
>be :-)
Actually, it was not used in Russian - the equivalent was "where there are lots
of wild monkeys" ("nuts" has no punnish value in Russian, alas).
>> For curious souls there I refer to the Soviet-made "Charley's Aunt" with
>> excellent actor Kalyagin playing the "Aunt".
>
>Director? (About the only Soviet-made films I've noticed were those
>directed by Eisenstein: and very good they were.
Well, if you restrict your viewing pleasure to those made before 1950 ;-)
His last movie was, IIRC, "Ivan Groznyj" (_Ivan the Terrible_), made in 1944.
"Zdravstvujte, ya vasha tyotya" (_Charley's Aunt_) was produced in 1975 by
Victor Titov. This was his first movie; I just looked up that he made 5 more,
but I never heard of them, so they are probably no good ;-)
>Who was it that made
>that 1960's version of "The Scottish Play" that ran to about 3.5 hr?)
Never heard of it. Moreover, a database of Russian movies
(http://www.videoguide.ru/) couldn't find anything similar...
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes:
Aha! You're unfamiliar with that thespian euphemism. In the
"the-ate-er", it is supposedly unlucky to mention Shakespeare's MacBeth,
nor indeed to quote even the odd line or two. "Real actors" seem to go
to great lengths to avoid transgressing this tradition.
Alexandre Pechtchanski
>In article <pfnnot8tn72dmf4jh...@4ax.com>
> alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes:
>
>> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, b...@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote:
>>
>> >Who was it that made
>> >that 1960's version of "The Scottish Play" that ran to about 3.5 hr?)
>>
>> Never heard of it. Moreover, a database of Russian movies
>> (http://www.videoguide.ru/) couldn't find anything similar...
>
>Aha! You're unfamiliar with that thespian euphemism. In the
>"the-ate-er", it is supposedly unlucky to mention Shakespeare's MacBeth,
>nor indeed to quote even the odd line or two. "Real actors" seem to go
>to great lengths to avoid transgressing this tradition.
Ah! <Sound of palm soundly slapping forehead>
Still no go - the only 1950-1975 versions I found were 1957 Kurosawa's and 1971
Polanski's. There is also "Siberian Lady MacBeth" by Andrzej Wajda, filmed in
1961, but all of them are much shorter and probably not what you had in mind.
Sam Yorko
Didn't Orson Wells do a really surreal version?
Charles Richmond
>
> In article <pfnnot8tn72dmf4jh...@4ax.com>
> alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes:
>
> > On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, b...@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote:
> >
> > >Who was it that made
> > >that 1960's version of "The Scottish Play" that ran to about 3.5 hr?)
> >
> > Never heard of it. Moreover, a database of Russian movies
> > (http://www.videoguide.ru/) couldn't find anything similar...
>
> Aha! You're unfamiliar with that thespian euphemism. In the
> "the-ate-er", it is supposedly unlucky to mention Shakespeare's MacBeth,
> nor indeed to quote even the odd line or two. "Real actors" seem to go
> to great lengths to avoid transgressing this tradition.
>
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Chris Hedley
> > > Aha! You're unfamiliar with that thespian euphemism. In the
> > > "the-ate-er", it is supposedly unlucky to mention Shakespeare's MacBeth,
> > > nor indeed to quote even the odd line or two. "Real actors" seem to go
> > > to great lengths to avoid transgressing this tradition.
> > >
> > So what happens if the play being performed *is* "McBeth"???
>
I think this was done to its best effect in Blackadder III. To set the
scene, a couple of loathsome thespians with a larger than average dose
of superstition were in the court; of course Blackadder was obliged to
mention the word "Macbeth" at every opportunity, driving these two guys
into some bizarre OCD-type ritual to ward off the expected bad luck.
Chris.
Mirian Crzig Lennox
Of course, the bad luck came anyway... :)
--Mirian
Paul Boddie
> In article <4ab04b59...@aaug.net>, "Stefaan Claes" <scl...@aaug.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > Dave Walker told me a few months ago (Wakefield 2001) someone (probably)
> > still has the sources of ARX. Does anyone know who this might be?
Bring on arx.sourceforge.net! :-)
[...]
> optimised towards the AEM2 runtime requirements. The Modula2 compiler
> (and presumably ARX itself) was 'lost' to Olivetti when they took over
> sole control of the Palo Alto facility.
So, the most likely owner of any ARX media is probably Olivetti. They
might not even know that they have it, if they do still have it, that
is.
> The O.S. 'ran in user mode', suggesting that it was microkernel based. The
> synchronisation primitives of the original microkernel were sufficiently
> slow that the SWP instruction was subsequently added to the ARM ISA to
> allow user mode code to implement semaphores without going via the
> microkernel.
This is what has been said. However, there were rumours that Acorn
were experimenting with the Mach microkernel in the early to mid
1990s. Then, someone mentioned a project called "RISC OS Gold", but I
never heard what that was.
> The development team were more interested in piling 'cool' new features
> into the system (and arguing about the mouse buttons) than they were in
> testing the code to production quality.
This has been repeated often and presumably originated in some kind of
scapegoating exercise, although I personally wonder what the project
management were actually doing. It's easy to blame developers when the
management doesn't have a clue... And remember that we're talking
about Acorn here. ;-)
> On balance, I can't help feeling that Arthur (and certainly RiscOS) had a
> few things going in it's favour. In the available clues there is nothing
> to suggest that ARX was really that radical after all. Oddball maybe, but
> not radical.
There really isn't enough available evidence to say whether or not ARX
was radical or not. In hindsight, it would be hard to believe that
such an operating system could have been successful, and it is
difficult to see now that it would have been a sensible business
decision to pursue the strategy of developing such an operating system
in-house, but unlike the Acorn of the late 90s who stuck with RISC OS
but could have adopted a number of mature and readily available free
operating systems, Acorn of the late 80s needed a "real" operating
system which would have involved a substantial investment to bring to
market. That's why they licensed System V UNIX and tried to make a go
of RISCiX for a time.
Paul
Roger Johnstone
Courtesy of <http://www.burai.demon.co.uk/episodes/ba3-4.html>
Edmund: Oh, incidentally, Baldrick - actors are very superstitious. On no
account mention the word *Macbeth* this evening, alright?
Baldrick: Why not?
Edmund: It brings them bad luck and it makes them very unhappy.
Baldrick: Oh, so you won't be mentioning it either?
Edmund: No... well, not very often.
--
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
Apple II - Future Cop:LAPD - iMac Voodoo2 - Warcraft II
http://homepage.mac.com/rojaws
______________________________________________________________________
from the Red Dwarf III episode "The Last Day"
Kryten: No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?