From: "Chris Holgate" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:26:33 +0100 Lines: 58 Message-ID: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-35.pebble-butterfly.dialup.pol.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk 998609071 19703 62.137.49.35 (23 Aug 2001 23:24:31 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2001 23:24:31 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net User-Agent: Pan/0.9.7 (Unix) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88292 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. 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. ###### From: Rob Davison Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: <3fa2cdae4a.rdavison@xtra.co.nz> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> Organization: Maple Glen Lines: 25 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.10d (MsgServe/1.10) (RISC-OS/4.02) NewsHound/1.42 Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:48:39 +1200 NNTP-Posting-Host: 202.27.183.152 X-Complaints-To: newsadmin@xtra.co.nz X-Trace: news.xtra.co.nz 998614336 202.27.183.152 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:52:16 NZST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:52:16 NZST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!12786873!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!newsfeed.r-kom.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!enews.sgi.com!news.xtra.co.nz!xtra.co.nz%rdavison Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88290 In message <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> "Chris Holgate" 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/ ###### From: sburke@eggconnect.net Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 24 Aug 2001 09:47:55 GMT Organization: Rutherford Appleton Lab Lines: 27 Sender: Stephen Burke Message-ID: <9m57sb$191q@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: csflnx01.rl.ac.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990517 ("Psychonaut") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.12-20smp (i686)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!btnet-peer!btnet!server2.netnews.ja.net!ral!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88258 In comp.sys.acorn.misc Chris Holgate wrote: > So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about > this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the > advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did > any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time My memory is that it was called ARX, and was basically supposed to be a Unix clone (like Solaris, HPUX etc.). I doubt there was anything which would have made it particularly better than the competition, except for the small detail that it would have been running on a 2k desktop PC instead of a 20k workstation! I'm not sure the original Arc could actually have coped with Unix very well, though. Supposedly the team developing it didn't exactly have commercial deadlines in mind and were showing no signs of being finished anything like in time, although I don't have any inside knowledge. They did eventually produce RISC iX, a port of (I think) BSD Unix, but it didn't really go anywhere. IBM tried a similar thing a couple of years later, with AIX on the original Power PC, also a RISC design. They did at least finish the OS, but IBM never got behind it because they really wanted to sell people mainframes - until the mainframes got blown away a few years later by cheap Unix workstations from Sun and Apollo/HP, which in turn got blown away by even cheaper Intel PCs running Linux. -- Stephen Burke ###### Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Organization: I do not speak for anyone but myself, and barely that. References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> From: dg@pearl.tao.co.uk (David Given) Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: Lines: 27 Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:19:55 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.255.240.131 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998654271 62.255.240.131 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:57:51 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:57:51 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!3438958!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.mathworks.com!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!127.0.0.1!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88367 In article <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>, "Chris Holgate" 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: dg@tao-group.com | In uabo tererotitant | Play: dg@cowlark.com | Brogoui sunt macresculi +- http://www.cowlark.com -+ Momi rasti strugitant." --- Anonymous ###### From: bjh21@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ben Harris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 24 Aug 2001 11:50:01 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 18 Message-ID: <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: draco.cus.cam.ac.uk Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!fu-berlin.de!server1.netnews.ja.net!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!bjh21 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88298 In article <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>, Chris Holgate wrote: >Depressed by this news, the remaining engineers in Cambridge retired to >the pub, where after a few beers they decided that by judicious use of a >couple of bits of string, some blu-tac and a broken pencil they would be >able to shoehorn the old 8-bit BBC MOS into their shiny new 32-bitter. >Overcome with excitement, one of their number vomited all over the napkin >on which the engineers had sketched out the details of their plan, the >resulting stains subsequently being mistaken as a guide to the desktop >colour scheme. And thus Arthur (A Risc by THURsday) was born. I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel). -- Ben Harris Unix Support, University of Cambridge Computing Service. If I wanted to speak for the University, I'd be in ucam.comp-serv.announce. ###### From: Rob Kendrick Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:54:05 +0100 Organization: The Pepperfish Consortium Message-ID: Sender: Robert Kendrick References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m57sb$191q@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.4 (i686)) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 26 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!sn-uk-xit-01!sn-uk-post-02!sn-uk-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88342 sburke@eggconnect.net wrote: > In comp.sys.acorn.misc Chris Holgate 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/ ###### From: Kevin Bracey Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:19:56 +0100 Organization: Pace Micro Technology plc, Cambridge, United Kingdom Lines: 25 Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: kbracey.cam.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 998663398 7703 136.170.129.213 (24 Aug 2001 14:29:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2001 14:29:58 GMT X-Newsreader: Messenger v1.40f for RISC OS X-No-Archive: yes X-Posting-Agent: RISC OS Newsbase 0.61b User-Agent: NewsHound/1.38 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!newsrouter.chello.at!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.csl-gmbh.net!news-x2.support.nl!news-x.support.nl!psinet-eu-nl!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!kbracey.cam.pace.co.uk!kbracey Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88368 In message <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> "Chris Holgate" wrote: > > So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about > this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the > advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did > any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time > playing Elite? Is there any documentation still around, and what are the > chances of it 'leaking' onto the web now that Acorn has passed away? As far as I know, from speaking to some of the original Arthur/RISC OS 2 designers, the ARX team were too busy writing specifications, designing outlandish architectures and generally mucking around in cloud-cuckoo land to actually produce any working product. As someone said to me, when they were closed down, they still hadn't decided what each mouse button should do. This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are currently doing. -- Kevin Bracey, Principal Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology plc Tel: +44 (0) 1223 518566 645 Newmarket Road Fax: +44 (0) 1223 518526 Cambridge, CB5 8PB, United Kingdom WWW: http://www.pace.co.uk/ ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 18:16:07 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: Sender: Pete Fenelon References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.3-STABLE (i386)) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!feeder.qis.net!sn-xit-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88329 In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris wrote: > > I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a > supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel). > Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim "where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :) pete ###### From: Terry Blunt Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 19:54:14 +0100 Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: langri.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: langri.demon.co.uk:212.229.120.249 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 998679812 nnrp-13:27827 NO-IDENT langri.demon.co.uk:212.229.120.249 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 5.01 S Lines: 25 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-hub.siol.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!langri.demon.co.uk!terry Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88338 In article , Pete Fenelon writes >In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris wrote: >> >> I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a >> supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel). >> > >Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim >"where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :) > >pete Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that would have competed directly against RiscOS. As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with Arthur. -- Terry Blunt I want my gravestone to be a huge flat lump of granite inscribed: 'Lie down dammit!' ###### From: druck Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m57sb$191q@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk> Organization: D.T. Lines: 21 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.23) NewsHound/1.42 Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 20:29:51 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.126.146.221 X-Complaints-To: abuse@freeuk.net X-Trace: nnrp3.clara.net 998690750 212.126.146.221 (Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:05:50 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:05:50 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!opentransit.net!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!194.213.69.151!news.algonet.se!algonet!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!nnrp3.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88311 On 24 Aug 2001 Rob Kendrick 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. 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 ###### From: Theo Markettos Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 24 Aug 2001 20:28:23 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 14 Sender: Theo Markettos Message-ID: <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: door.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk User-Agent: tin/1.4.2-20000205 ("Possession") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.16 (i586)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!server1.netnews.ja.net!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88317 In comp.sys.acorn.misc Terry Blunt wrote: > > Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that > would have competed directly against RiscOS. > > As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with > Arthur. I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing something (an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, and then RISC OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where Impression orginally came from. Theo ###### From: Theo Markettos Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 24 Aug 2001 20:40:43 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 22 Sender: Theo Markettos Message-ID: <9m6e4b$ssv$2@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: door.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk User-Agent: tin/1.4.2-20000205 ("Possession") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.16 (i586)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!server1.netnews.ja.net!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88315 In comp.sys.acorn.misc Chris Holgate wrote: > > Where this approach was not successful, was that Acorn set up a software > development centre in the U.S. to develop a world-beating new operating > system to go with the new 32-bit processor architecture. Apparently, this > additional drain on Acorn's resources coincided with a downturn in the > computer market and stiff competition for their eight bit machines from > the newly 16-bitted Commodore and Atari products. One consequence was the > closure of the U.S facility before the revolutionary new operating system > could be completed. That would have been Acorn's Research Center (Palo Alto) aka ARC. ARC got subsumed into Olivetti when Acorn got bought out in 1985 (my source is a news article from 1991 I've saved: http://www.markettos.org.uk/riscos/docs/Modula2ARX.txt ) Olivetti Research Labs (lately Olivetti and Oracle Research Labs) then got absorbed into AT&T Labs in 1999. AT&T still have a lab in Menlo Park - my California geography isn't good enough to say whether this is related to ARC, but I suspect not. Theo ###### From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 13:55:04 -0700 Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m6e4b$ssv$2@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: il0502a-dhcp38.apple.com X-Trace: news.apple.com 998686504 2236 17.205.24.38 (24 Aug 2001 20:55:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.apple.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2001 20:55:04 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!fr.usenet-edu.net!usenet-edu.net!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!128.230.129.106!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!forum.apple.com!news.apple.com!il0502a-dhcp38.apple.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88341 In article <9m6e4b$ssv$2@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Theo Markettos wrote: > Olivetti Research Labs (lately Olivetti and Oracle Research Labs) then got > absorbed into AT&T Labs in 1999. AT&T still have a lab in Menlo Park - my > California geography isn't good enough to say whether this is related to > ARC, but I suspect not. Olivetti Research Labs was on Stevens Creek Blvd in Cupertino. A local junk store had a bunch of Acorn micro parts that came out of ORL when they shut down. I think the only thing that I bought was the ARM sidecar that plugged onto the side of the BBC micro. I don't recall any 4xx's at all coming out of there. ###### From: Jesper Zuschlag Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 23:32:09 +0200 Organization: CyberCity Internet Lines: 21 Message-ID: <3B86C7D9.9010204@zuschlag.dk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: port185.ds1-suoe.adsl.cybercity.dk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.cybercity.dk 998688476 36265 212.242.114.62 (24 Aug 2001 21:27:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@cybercity.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 21:27:56 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010726 Netscape6/6.1 X-Accept-Language: en,pdf Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!opentransit.net!kinglear.mobilixnet.dk!news1!newsfeed1.uni2.dk!news.cybercity.dk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88200 Kevin Bracey wrote: >This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a few >years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are currently doing. > Do you anything about the actual architecture of Galileo and how far they came with the project? I have tried do find some info (more than just the usual "its the operating system to end all operating systems, and by the way, it has something called QoS!"). Front the pieces I have been able to dig out it seems that there were at least some connection to the Nemesis research project. Did Galileo also use a single address space architecture? /Jesper ###### Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 01:33:21 +0100 From: druck Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> Organization: D.T. Lines: 23 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.23) NewsHound/1.42 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.126.146.31 Lines: 23 X-Complaints-To: abuse@clara.net X-Trace: 16e020c15f76ea2e6278b3087c56e1b9f443008c70744962d60c20413b870673 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!eos.uk.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88310 On 24 Aug 2001 Theo Markettos wrote: > In comp.sys.acorn.misc Terry Blunt 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. ---druck -- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |_)|(_ / ` / \(_ ' ) / \ / \ /| The Prestige RISC OS Show, 20-21 October | \| _)\_, \_/ _) /_ \_/ \_/ _|_ Blue Mountain, taste the difference ###### From: gorilla@elaine.furryape.com (Alan Barclay) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 25 Aug 2001 02:07:33 GMT Organization: Gorilla & Hamster Zoo of Toronto Lines: 14 Message-ID: <998705250.573794@elaine.furryape.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m57sb$191q@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-011.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) Cache-Post-Path: elaine.furryape.com!unknown@localhost X-Cache: nntpcache 2.4.0b5 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!elaine.drink.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88294 In article <9m57sb$191q@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk>, wrote: >In comp.sys.acorn.misc Chris Holgate wrote: >> So that's the myth, but I'd be interested in finding out any facts about >> this 'other' operating system - if there are any out there. What were the >> advanced features that made it so much better than the competition? Did >> any code ever get written, or did the U.S. team just spend their time > >My memory is that it was called ARX, and was basically supposed to be >a Unix clone (like Solaris, HPUX etc.). I doubt there was anything Solaris & HPUX are both Unix licensed, derived in one form or another from the AT&T source code. Solaris is very similar to AT&T's System V release 4 (SVR4), while HPUX is less so. ###### From: Stephen Crocker Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 09:23:17 +0100 Organization: Crokk Message-ID: <10187baf4a.crok@crok.demon.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: crok.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: crok.demon.co.uk:158.152.158.252 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 998728268 nnrp-01:26085 NO-IDENT crok.demon.co.uk:158.152.158.252 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.11 (Newsbase/0.67b) (RISC-OS/4.02) NewsHound/1.39 X-Posting-Agent: RISC OS Newsbase 0.67b Lines: 31 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!crok.demon.co.uk%crok Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88285 Before being shot for writing message druck wrote: > On 24 Aug 2001 Theo Markettos wrote: > > In comp.sys.acorn.misc Terry Blunt wrote: > >> > >> Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that > >> would have competed directly against RiscOS. > >> > >> As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with > >> Arthur. > > > > I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing something > > (an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, and then RISC > > OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where Impression orginally > > came from. > > It was called Impulse, and is the reason why Impression has different error > dialogs, and some strange messages. DBg1:Warning! Stray debugging code detected. This machine will self-destruct in ten seconds. Awooooga! Awoooooga! Which I think is about as strange as they come... ;-) -- x^ ( ) _________ // Email: mailto:crok@crok.demon.co.uk < U O |_|_|_|_|_| O || WWW: http://www.crok.demon.co.uk \, |/|\ _________ [ ] . |/^\ . 2 . /__\ ... 66MHz ain't fast enough! ###### From: Steven Pampling Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 09:39:28 +0100 Message-ID: <4aaf7c928asteve.pampling@argonet.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> User-Agent: Pluto/2.03e (RISC-OS/4.02) NewsHound/1.42 X-No-Archive: yes Organization: Que? Orga-what Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: useraq01.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: 998729073 news.dial.pipex.com 8505 62.188.136.61 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!feed.news.nacamar.de!f.de.uu.net!lnewspeer01.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewspost00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88362 In article <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Theo Markettos wrote: > I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing > something (an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, > and then RISC OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where > Impression orginally came from. There are some references to this in the Impulse documentation, if anyone reads it. -- Steve ###### From: Rob Kendrick Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 11:42:27 +0100 Organization: The Pepperfish Consortium Message-ID: Sender: Robert Kendrick References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m57sb$191q@newton.cc.rl.ac.uk> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.4 (i686)) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 33 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.abs.net!feeder.qis.net!sn-xit-02!sn-uk-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88347 druck wrote: > On 24 Aug 2001 Rob Kendrick wrote: >> RISC iX is based on an early SunOS, as far as I know. Anyway, anybody >> who wants to run a UNIX type OS on an ARM is silly... wanted to run a >> UNIX type OS on a machine with a 32kB page size is just mad... > But the 32K page size is nothing to do with the ARM processor itself. That > was imposed by the MEMC external memory controller used by Acorn with the > ARM2 & ARM3. All ARM's from 6 onwards have had an integrated MMU and > support 4K page sizes as common with other processors. I don't actually remember, or can see myself in your quote, suggesting the 32kB page size was the ARM's fault, mearly that it's a bad idea to run a UNIX with that size page. > ARM's are quite capable of running UNIX. The only real drawbacks > being some of the bugs on the early StrongARM's, and the fact that the > caches use logical rather physical addressing, and so much be flushed > on context switches. Having spoken to an ex-ARM employee for a 'technical' reason.... "Nowadays, the big problem is that the cache, and TLB tags are virtual not physical. This means address space switches can be slow." And... "Oh - and you can't buy a quick one." :) -- Rob Kendrick - http://www.lackadaisical.co.uk/ ###### From: Don and Wendy Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <10187baf4a.crok@crok.demon.co.uk> Organization: home Lines: 30 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/3.70) NewsHound/1.42 Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 12:15:42 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.126.147.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@freeuk.net X-Trace: nnrp4.clara.net 998738700 212.126.147.199 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 12:25:00 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 12:25:00 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!nnrp4.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88304 Stephen Crocker wrote: >Before being shot for writing message > druck wrote: > >> On 24 Aug 2001 Theo Markettos wrote: >> > In comp.sys.acorn.misc Terry Blunt wrote: >> >> >> >> Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that >> >> would have competed directly against RiscOS. >> >> >> >> As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with >> >> Arthur. >> > >> > I'm not sure it was a threat, more the fact they were developing something >> > (an office automation something IIRC) to compete with Arthur, and then RISC >> > OS came along and CC gave up. I think that was where Impression orginally >> > came from. >> >> It was called Impulse, and is the reason why Impression has different error >> dialogs, and some strange messages. > >DBg1:Warning! Stray debugging code detected. This machine will self-destruct >in ten seconds. Awooooga! Awoooooga! > >Which I think is about as strange as they come... ;-) > What about that rival machine's 'Guru meditation' numbers? Wendy ###### From: Robert Richards Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 14:39:40 +0100 Lines: 15 Message-ID: <0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-227.new-jersey.dialup.pol.co.uk X-Trace: news5.svr.pol.co.uk 998746782 3923 62.137.81.227 (25 Aug 2001 13:39:42 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 25 Aug 2001 13:39:42 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.02) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!richards44.freeserve.co.uk%robert79 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88415 In message Kevin Bracey wrote: [snip ARX] > This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a > few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are > currently doing. > OK I'll bite. What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing? -- Robert Richards at home www.richards44.freeserve.co.uk Sent from a StrongARM RiscPC running RISC OS 4 - www.riscos.com ###### From: Stuart Halliday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> Organization: The Acorn Cybervillage Lines: 17 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.02) X-Processed: Monty (v.1.24) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:45:51 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.79.180 X-Complaints-To: abuse@clara.net X-Trace: nnrp3.clara.net 998761575 62.31.79.180 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:46:15 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:46:15 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!212.74.64.35!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!nnrp3.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88496 In message Terry Blunt wrote: > > Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that > would have competed directly against RiscOS. > > As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with > Arthur. Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone. -- Stuart Halliday The Acorn Cybervillage http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/ Remove 'takeoutthisbit' to reply to my mail. ###### From: Stuart Halliday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: <626ab4af4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: The Acorn Cybervillage Lines: 22 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.02) X-Processed: Monty (v.1.24) Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 19:49:24 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.79.180 X-Complaints-To: abuse@clara.net X-Trace: nnrp3.clara.net 998765562 62.31.79.180 (Sat, 25 Aug 2001 19:52:42 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 19:52:42 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!nnrp3.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88492 In message <0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> Robert Richards wrote: > In message > Kevin Bracey 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. ;-) -- Stuart Halliday The Acorn Cybervillage http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/ Remove 'takeoutthisbit' to reply to my mail. ###### From: "Andrew Hill" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 23:56:41 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 29 Message-ID: <9mao9s$8u3$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-122-245-99.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88479 "Robert Richards" wrote in message news:0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk... > In message > Kevin Bracey wrote: > > [snip ARX] > > This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a > > few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are > > currently doing. > > > OK I'll bite. > What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing? Well - according to Kevin's last post, 'trying to decide what the mouse buttons do.' :o). Hmm - that brings some great images of Pace engineers stood around, muttering : "...and when I pressed the middle button, this strange rectangle with writing in popped up on the screen next to that blue arrow..." and the others turning and saying "oooh." Must get out more. ATB Andrew ###### From: Richard Walker Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> Lines: 27 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.11 (MsgServe/1.11) (RISC-OS/3.70) NewsHound/1.42 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 11:03:01 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.254.91.68 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news11-gui.server.ntli.net 998820064 62.254.91.68 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 11:01:04 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 11:01:04 BST Organization: ntl Cablemodem News Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news2.euro.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news11-gui.server.ntli.net.POSTED!riscpc.ntlworld.com%richard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88481 In message <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> Stuart Halliday wrote: > In message > Terry Blunt wrote: > > > Does anyone remember Computer Concepts threat to bring out an OS that > > would have competed directly against RiscOS. > > > > As I understand Charles Moir & co were somewhat 'dissatisfied' with > > Arthur. > > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone. Are you sure that was CC? I saw screenshots of that somewhere, in an advert for Hugh Symons (ex-Acorn distributor) As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought Arthur was dreadful. -- Richard. "I got something to say that might cause you pain." ###### From: "alex_taylor" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <10187baf4a.crok@crok.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Lines: 15 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 14:48:46 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 213.105.22.94 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998833746 213.105.22.94 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 14:49:06 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 14:49:06 BST Organization: ntlworld News Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88421 > What about that rival machine's 'Guru meditation' numbers? Commodore were mad like that. Their motherboards have names like Rock Lobster, and hard disk interfaces called Party Mix, if you open up the cases. -- Alex Taylor. -- I was going to procrastinate today, but I'll do it tomorrow. ###### From: Richard Walker Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: <46ce1fb04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk> <9mao9s$8u3$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> Lines: 29 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.11 (MsgServe/1.11) (RISC-OS/3.70) NewsHound/1.42 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:22:23 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.254.91.68 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news11-gui.server.ntli.net 998835638 62.254.91.68 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:20:38 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:20:38 BST Organization: ntl Cablemodem News Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!212.74.64.35!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news11-gui.server.ntli.net.POSTED!riscpc.ntlworld.com%richard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88482 In message <9mao9s$8u3$1@plutonium.btinternet.com> "Andrew Hill" wrote: > "Robert Richards" wrote in message > news:0c0f98af4a.robert79@richards44.freeserve.co.uk... > > > In message > > Kevin Bracey wrote: > > > > > This is strangely reminiscent of Galileo, another wacky project from a > > > few years ago, or indeed what the remnants of Acorn at Pace are > > > currently doing. > > > > OK I'll bite. > > What are the remnants of Acorn at Pace currently doing? > > Well - according to Kevin's last post, 'trying to decide what the mouse > buttons do.' :o). Umm... no. That's what the engineers at PARC, *used* to do! :-) Kevin said that the current Pace people are doing something 'wacky', whatever that means! :-) -- Richard. "I got something to say that might cause you pain." ###### From: Stuart Halliday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> Organization: The Acorn Cybervillage Lines: 39 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.02) X-Processed: Monty (v.1.24) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:50:36 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.79.180 X-Complaints-To: abuse@clara.net X-Trace: nnrp3.clara.net 998837776 62.31.79.180 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:56:16 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:56:16 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!nnrp3.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88486 In message <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> Richard Walker wrote: > In message <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> > Stuart Halliday wrote: > > > In message > > Terry Blunt 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. -- Stuart Halliday The Acorn Cybervillage http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/ Remove 'takeoutthisbit' to reply to my mail. ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 15:53:01 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998846046 mail2news:22428 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 24 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!212.74.64.35!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88506 In article pete@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes: > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris wrote: > > > > I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a > > supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel). > > > > Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim > "where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :) I know that afc is abounding in old farts (myself not excepted), but how many of those are genuinely old enough to remember that famous farce "Charlie's Aunt" to which you seem to be alluding? Is there some deeper agenda? -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@dsl.co.uk "We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr- easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs ###### From: "Rich Mackin" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Lines: 27 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:17:16 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 213.104.33.89 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news6-win.server.ntlworld.com 998849941 213.104.33.89 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:19:01 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:19:01 BST Organization: ntlworld News Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!72113!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed.germany.net!newsfeed.easynews.net!easynews.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news6-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88424 "Stuart Halliday" wrote in message news:cd6322b04a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid... [snip] > > > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone. > > > > Are you sure that was CC? > > Oh yes. > It was kept very hush, hush at the time for obvious reasons. > It was dropped before it was finished. Any screenshots around? [snip] > > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought > > Arthur > > was dreadful. > > Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box. Again, any screenshots of this in existence? ###### X-Posting-Agent: Hamster/1.3.22.103 From: Nick Spalding Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Reply-To: spalding@iol.ie Message-ID: <8chiotk9o16aq7fdoqlpr5h89ehlhji2tq@4ax.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.553 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 25 Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:54:06 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 193.203.147.76 X-Complaints-To: abuse@iol.ie X-Trace: news.iol.ie 998852046 193.203.147.76 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:54:06 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:54:06 BST Organization: Ireland On-Line Customer Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-han1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!do.de.uu.net!newsfeed.esat.net!194.125.2.178.MISMATCH!news.iol.ie!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88516 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote, in <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk>: > In article > pete@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes: > > > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris wrote: > > > > > > I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a > > > supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel). > > > > > > > Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim > > "where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :) > > I know that afc is abounding in old farts (myself not excepted), but how > many of those are genuinely old enough to remember that famous farce > "Charlie's Aunt" to which you seem to be alluding? I am afraid I remember it very well. 70 next birthday. > Is there some deeper agenda? Not so far as I can see. -- Nick Spalding ###### From: "Dom Wright" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:40:01 +0100 Organization: BT Internet Lines: 17 Message-ID: <9mbmpg$kot$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <10187baf4a.crok@crok.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: "Dom Wright" NNTP-Posting-Host: host213-1-131-122.btinternet.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2479.0006 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2479.0006 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!212.74.64.35!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet-feed5!btnet!mendelevium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88621 "alex_taylor" wrote in message news:m77i7.25135$_71.1371989@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. > > Aha, not meaningful names like Fred, Jim, Sheila, Annabel, Albion etc. then? Dom. ###### From: Stuart Halliday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> Organization: The Acorn Cybervillage Lines: 42 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.02) X-Processed: Monty (v.1.24) Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:56:49 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.31.79.180 X-Complaints-To: abuse@clara.net X-Trace: nnrp3.clara.net 998859591 62.31.79.180 (Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:59:51 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:59:51 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!newsfeed.online.be!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!nnrp3.clara.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88628 In message "Rich Mackin" wrote: > "Stuart Halliday" wrote > in message > news:cd6322b04a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid... > > [snip] > > > > > Yes, they even partly developed a PC RISC OS 2 clone. > > > > > > Are you sure that was CC? > > > > Oh yes. > > It was kept very hush, hush at the time for obvious reasons. > > It was dropped before it was finished. > > Any screenshots around? nope. > [snip] > > > > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought > > > Arthur > > > was dreadful. > > > > Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box. > > Again, any screenshots of this in existence? Yes and no. Yes - if you want a picture of a Icon. No - it was just a single module and had no GUI. -- Stuart Halliday The Acorn Cybervillage http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/ Remove 'takeoutthisbit' to reply to my mail. ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 21:31:09 -0000 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: Sender: Pete Fenelon References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk> <8chiotk9o16aq7fdoqlpr5h89ehlhji2tq@4ax.com> User-Agent: tin/1.5.8-20010221 ("Blue Water") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.3-STABLE (i386)) X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com Lines: 25 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!3635026!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88600 In alt.folklore.computers Nick Spalding wrote: > Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote, in <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk>: > >> In article >> pete@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes: >> >> > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris wrote: >> > > >> > > I was under the impression that Arthur was named after ACN1, because it's a >> > > supervisor (as opposed to Brazil, which is a kernel). >> > > >> > >> > Given Brazil's origins inside Bell Labs, you could also claim >> > "where the nuts come from!" is a fair explanation of the etymology :) >> >> I know that afc is abounding in old farts (myself not excepted), but how >> many of those are genuinely old enough to remember that famous farce >> "Charlie's Aunt" to which you seem to be alluding? > > I am afraid I remember it very well. 70 next birthday. > Hmmmm. As a mere youth in my mid-30s I now feel *very* old :) pete ###### From: Stefaan Claes Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 00:18:19 +0200 Message-ID: <4ab04b5958sclaes@aaug.net> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> User-Agent: Pluto/2.03e (RISC-OS/4.02) NewsHound/1.42 X-Platform: A7000+ X-Processor: ARM7500fe Organization: home Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: uu212-190-162-39.unknown.uunet.be X-Trace: 998865305 news.be.uu.net 12228 212.190.162.39 X-Complaints-To: abuse@be.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!194.213.69.151!news.algonet.se!algonet!f.de.uu.net!lnewspeer01.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewsifeed03.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewspost00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!news.be.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88529 In article , Kevin Bracey wrote: [snip] > As far as I know, from speaking to some of the original Arthur/RISC OS 2 > designers, the ARX team were too busy writing specifications, designing > outlandish architectures and generally mucking around in cloud-cuckoo land > to actually produce any working product. As someone said to me, when they > were closed down, they still hadn't decided what each mouse button should > do. Dave Walker told me a few months ago (Wakefield 2001) someone (probably) still has the sources of ARX. Does anyone know who this might be? Is there a list of the people of the ARX team, or is this (still) top secret? ;-) -- Stefaan Claes, Hove, Antwerpen, Belgium, Europe, ###### From: Richard Walker Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Message-ID: <24588cb04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> Lines: 35 User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.11 (MsgServe/1.11) (RISC-OS/3.70) NewsHound/1.42 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 11:07:55 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.254.91.68 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news11-gui.server.ntli.net 998907115 62.254.91.68 (Mon, 27 Aug 2001 11:11:55 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 11:11:55 BST Organization: ntl Cablemodem News Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer0!btnet!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news11-gui.server.ntli.net.POSTED!riscpc.ntlworld.com%richard Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88608 In message "Rich Mackin" wrote: > "Stuart Halliday" wrote > in message > news:cd6322b04a.stuart@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." ###### From: Robert Richards Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 12:15:49 +0100 Lines: 28 Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-26.seaborgium.dialup.pol.co.uk X-Trace: news5.svr.pol.co.uk 998926630 5455 62.136.73.26 (27 Aug 2001 15:37:10 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 15:37:10 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net User-Agent: Messenger-Pro/2.50a (MsgServe/1.50) (RISC-OS/4.02) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!richards44.freeserve.co.uk%robert79 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88526 In message Stuart Halliday wrote: > In message <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> > Richard Walker wrote: > > > In message > > <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> > > Stuart Halliday invalid> wrote: > > [snip] > > I saw screenshots of that somewhere, in an advert for Hugh Symons (ex- > > Acorn distributor) > > > > As has been said already, the CC OS was to be 'Impulse' - they thought > > Arthur was dreadful. > > Yes, that was their alternative OS for running on a Acorn box. > I thought the alternative OS was called Zebedee, whereas Impulse was to be some applications suite. -- Robert Richards at home www.richards44.freeserve.co.uk Sent from a StrongARM RiscPC running RISC OS 4 - www.riscos.com ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk> <8chiotk9o16aq7fdoqlpr5h89ehlhji2tq@4ax.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 30 Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:02:23 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 998939001 129.85.24.56 (Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:03:21 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:03:21 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!Amsterdam.Infonet!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!skynet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88626 On Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:54:06 GMT, Nick Spalding wrote: >Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote, in <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk>: > >> In article >> pete@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes: >> >> > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris 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 ;-) 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 ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 27 Aug 01 11:29:56 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 24 Message-ID: <889.639T2842T6896139@nowhere.in.particular> References: <9m6dd7$ssv$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <10187baf4a.crok@crok.demon.co.uk> <9mbmpg$kot$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-868.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!147399!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88684 In article <9mbmpg$kot$1@neptunium.btinternet.com> DomWright@btinternet.com (Dom Wright) writes: >"alex_taylor" wrote in message >news:m77i7.25135$_71.1371989@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. > >Aha, not meaningful names like Fred, Jim, Sheila, Annabel, Albion etc. >then? 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. -- cgibbs@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs) I'm switching ISPs - watch this space. ###### From: "Chris Holgate" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 22:54:38 +0100 Lines: 63 Message-ID: <9meff3$cjn$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <4ab04b5958sclaes@aaug.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-107.marine-betta.dialup.pol.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk 998949155 12919 62.137.39.235 (27 Aug 2001 21:52:35 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Aug 2001 21:52:35 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net User-Agent: Pan/0.9.7 (Unix) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newscore.gigabell.net!isdnet!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88667 In article <4ab04b5958sclaes@aaug.net>, "Stefaan Claes" wrote: > In article , > Kevin Bracey 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. ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <998957193snz@dsl.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk> <8chiotk9o16aq7fdoqlpr5h89ehlhji2tq@4ax.com> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 998960042 mail2news:7093 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 49 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-was.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88706 In article alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes: > On Sun, 26 Aug 2001 18:54:06 GMT, Nick Spalding wrote: > > >Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote, in <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk>: > > > >> In article > >> pete@fenelon.com "Pete Fenelon" writes: > >> > >> > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Harris 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?) -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@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 ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <998841181snz@dsl.co.uk> <8chiotk9o16aq7fdoqlpr5h89ehlhji2tq@4ax.com> <998957193snz@dsl.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 14:40:21 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 999024096 129.85.24.56 (Tue, 28 Aug 2001 14:41:36 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 14:41:36 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88915 On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote: >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... -- [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### From: Steven Pampling Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 20:27:13 +0100 Message-ID: <4ab143621fsteve.pampling@argonet.co.uk> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <9m5f19$5ik$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <1b99aeaf4a.stuart@cybervillage.takeoutthisbit.co.uk.invalid> <8b0f08b04a.richard@riscpc.ntlworld.com> User-Agent: Pluto/2.03e (RISC-OS/4.02) NewsHound/1.42 X-No-Archive: yes Organization: Que? Orga-what Lines: 31 NNTP-Posting-Host: usercl99.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: 999027404 news.dial.pipex.com 234 62.188.154.240 X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.csl-gmbh.net!newsfeed2.news.nl.uu.net!sun4nl!bnewspeer00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!bnewspost00.bru.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88867 In article , Robert Richards wrote: > In message > Stuart Halliday > > > 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. Impulse is a single module to support data exchange between applications. If people care to look on the hensa archive (IIRC) they will find it and a couple of demonstration applications for it. A typical use was to help interaction of Impression with database applications or spreadsheets or... (get the idea). Impression mail merge or similar would /pull/ data from the database rather than having to explicitly export/report out of the database in a format Impression could understand like CSV. Ovation Pro has an applet that enables it to interact with Impulse, should anyone get around to sorting out the links to other apps this could be quite useful. -- Steve ###### From: bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:07:53 GMT Organization: Dragonhill Systems Ltd Message-ID: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> References: X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 999078507 mail2news:20942 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!dsl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.31 Lines: 22 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88912 In article alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes: > On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, bhk@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. -- Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk@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 ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 27 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:15:38 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 999109012 129.85.24.56 (Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:16:52 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:16:52 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88884 On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:07:53 GMT, bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote: >In article > alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes: > >> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, bhk@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! 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. -- [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### From: Giles Todd Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:27:27 +0200 Organization: None Lines: 15 Message-ID: <7scqot8m8vmm27di8je0v74seqe502qgtf@4ax.com> References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> Reply-To: gt@at-dot.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lart.bofh.org (212.136.214.115) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 999109650 2744014 212.136.214.115 (16 [65249]) X-Orig-Path: private!nobody Cancel-Lock: sha1:S7ieSXGBJq7S2IGXcoQwbYjeMMk= X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 X-No-Archive: yes X-NFilter: 1.2.0 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!130.133.1.3!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!lart.bofh.ORG!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88932 On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:07:53 GMT, bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote: > 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. Fortunately, help is at hand, in the form of Kevin the White Witch: http://www.kevwitch.co.uk/page7a-win.html It's all supposed to be happening next Monday as well. Giles. ###### From: Sam Yorko Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 13:42:14 -0800 Lines: 28 Message-ID: <3B8D61B6.207AA84B@computer.org> References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: symsj01.sj.symbol.com (206.61.138.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 999117701 2627640 206.61.138.2 (16 [71567]) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!symsj01.sj.symbol.COM!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88919 Alexandre Pechtchanski wrote: > > On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 07:07:53 GMT, bhk@dsl.co.uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) wrote: > > >In article > > alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes: > > > >> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, bhk@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! > > 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. > Didn't Orson Wells do a really surreal version? ###### Message-ID: <3B8D9F23.29AA0551@ev1.net> From: Charles Richmond Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net Organization: Cannine Computer Center X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 24 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:06:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.179.111.125 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news2.rdc2.tx.home.com 999129997 24.179.111.125 (Wed, 29 Aug 2001 17:06:37 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 17:06:37 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news2.rdc2.tx.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89097 Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > > In article > alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes: > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, bhk@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. > So what happens if the play being performed *is* "McBeth"??? -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: Giles Todd Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 02:37:06 +0200 Organization: None Lines: 26 Message-ID: <6k2rot8aj3ml5k4a1pfv0ri4atssrq6svm@4ax.com> References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> <3B8D9F23.29AA0551@ev1.net> Reply-To: gt@at-dot.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lart.bofh.org (212.136.214.115) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: fu-berlin.de 999131845 2818199 212.136.214.115 (16 [65249]) X-Orig-Path: private!nobody Cancel-Lock: sha1:Td+RUAuXiObXI3JaAolNR1DHKNU= X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 X-No-Archive: yes X-NFilter: 1.2.0 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!130.133.1.3!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!lart.bofh.ORG!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89115 On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:06:37 GMT, Charles Richmond wrote: > Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote: > > > > In article > > alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu "Alexandre Pechtchanski" writes: > > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:06:33 GMT, bhk@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. > > > So what happens if the play being performed *is* "McBeth"??? It is referred to as "The Scottish Play", as mentioned above. Giles. ###### From: cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:25:01 +0100 Organization: Honest Chris' Sysadmin Emporium Message-ID: References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> <3B8D9F23.29AA0551@ev1.net> <6k2rot8aj3ml5k4a1pfv0ri4atssrq6svm@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: teabag.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: teabag.demon.co.uk:193.237.4.110 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 999171537 nnrp-10:12864 NO-IDENT teabag.demon.co.uk:193.237.4.110 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: cbh@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) Lines: 17 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!195.158.233.21.MISMATCH!news1.ebone.net!news.ebone.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!dispose.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!teabag.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:88981 According to Giles Todd : > > > 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"??? > > It is referred to as "The Scottish Play", as mentioned above. 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. ###### From: mirian@trantor.cosmic.com (Mirian Crzig Lennox) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> <3B8D9F23.29AA0551@ev1.net> <6k2rot8aj3ml5k4a1pfv0ri4atssrq6svm@4ax.com> Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.4 (Linux) Lines: 22 Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 15:08:02 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.58.189.187 X-Complaints-To: abuse@shore.net X-Trace: news.shore.net 999184082 209.58.189.187 (Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:08:02 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:08:02 EDT Organization: Shore.Net, a PRIMUS Company (info@shore.net) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.shore.net!mirian Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89117 On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:25:01 +0100, Chris Hedley wrote: >According to Giles Todd : >> > > 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"??? >> >> It is referred to as "The Scottish Play", as mentioned above. > >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. Of course, the bad luck came anyway... :) --Mirian ###### From: paul@boddie.net (Paul Boddie) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.acorn.misc Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: 31 Aug 2001 03:49:17 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 58 Message-ID: <23891c90.0108310249.a36bc2f@posting.google.com> References: <9m43bf$j7n$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <4ab04b5958sclaes@aaug.net> <9meff3$cjn$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 193.212.93.33 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 999254957 10724 127.0.0.1 (31 Aug 2001 10:49:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 31 Aug 2001 10:49:17 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89079 "Chris Holgate" wrote in message news:<9meff3$cjn$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>... > In article <4ab04b5958sclaes@aaug.net>, "Stefaan Claes" > 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 ###### From: "Roger Johnstone" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Not A RISC By Thursday Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 15:57:20 +1200 Organization: ihug ( New Zealand ) Lines: 39 Message-ID: <9msanh$or5$1@lust.ihug.co.nz> References: <999068873snz@dsl.co.uk> <3B8D9F23.29AA0551@ev1.net> <6k2rot8aj3ml5k4a1pfv0ri4atssrq6svm@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p49-max1.inv.ihug.co.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: lust.ihug.co.nz 999403058 25445 203.173.222.177 (2 Sep 2001 03:57:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@ihug.co.nz NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 03:57:38 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!204.94.211.44!enews.sgi.com!news.xtra.co.nz!newsfeeds.ihug.co.nz!lust.ihug.co.nz!ihug.co.nz!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:89273 In article , mirian@trantor.cosmic.com (Mirian Crzig Lennox) wrote: > On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:25:01 +0100, > Chris Hedley wrote: >>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. > > Of course, the bad luck came anyway... :) > > --Mirian > Courtesy of 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?