7 ms·

The original ARM operating system

numeric83 2mo ago
I guess technically that'd be Arthur rather than RISC OS. My high school had a particularly well connected compsci teacher who managed to get his hands on one of the first Archimedes to be sold (using his own money it must be said ...). At that stage it shipped with Arthur because, or so we were told, the "actual" OS was still in development. As it turned out, that OS was eventually cancelled and instead Arthur was upgraded (in practice ... replaced by) RISC OS. I still have fond memories of playing the demo that would become Zarch (aka "Virus" on the Amiga/ST/Spectrum/etc.).
- codeulike 2mo ago
  Yep, I think of Arthur as a sortof Beta for RiscOS I had an Archimedes A305 which launched with Arthur, when I upgraded to Risc OS (which arrived on ROMs, if I remember correctly, you ordered the ROMs and then your local dealer would fit them onto the motherboard) it wasn't really _that_ different, everything I'd written continued to work, etc. Like it was a major upgrade but fundamentally the same "thing".
  - mattkevan 2mo ago
    I had that same model, except I fitted the chips myself. The first time I’d really ever looked inside a computer and very exciting for me age 11. The old Arthur ROMs were a prize possession for quite some time afterwards.
- sillywalk 2mo ago
  > At that stage it shipped with Arthur because, or so we were told, the "actual" OS was still in development. I think this was ARX[0], which was overambitious. Arthur apparently stands for A Risc by THURsday[1] EDIT: a detailed article[2], linked from lproven's article[3], about the history of ARX / Arthur / RiscOS. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARX_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARX_(operating_system) [1] https://www.theregister.com/software/2022/06/23/how-risc-os-happened-as-told-by-original-acorn-arthur-lead/265803 https://www.theregister.com/software/2022/06/23/how-risc-os-... [2] https://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2012/PaulFellows/ https://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2012/PaulFellows/ [3] https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/73983.html https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/73983.html
  - lproven 1mo ago
    Oh, thank you! I could come back to the "modernising RISC OS" piece and update, as things are now actually happening. Although I was pessimistic for its prospects, it's becoming reality. I know of 2 main efforts... * Merlin, an all-new OS in Rust, aiming for a very simplified modern design and backwards compatibility. * The RISC OS Open team is rewriting it in C. I also know of an effort involving running an Arm64 hypervisor and then running the current 32-bit RISC OS kernel in a whole-machine VM. I lack any tech details about it so far, though.
- lproven 1mo ago
  > I guess technically that'd be Arthur rather than RISC OS. RISC OS was Arthur version 2.0: they renamed it with a more internationally-market-friendly name.
sys_64738 2mo ago
Arthur 1.2 I believe.

I guess technically that'd be Arthur rather than RISC OS. My high school had a particularly well connected compsci teacher who managed to get his hands on one of the first Archimedes to be sold (using his own money it must be said ...). At that stage it shipped with Arthur because, or so we were told, the "actual" OS was still in development. As it turned out, that OS was eventually cancelled and instead Arthur was upgraded (in practice ... replaced by) RISC OS. I still have fond memories of playing the demo that would become Zarch (aka "Virus" on the Amiga/ST/Spectrum/etc.).

codeulike 2mo ago
Yep, I think of Arthur as a sortof Beta for RiscOS I had an Archimedes A305 which launched with Arthur, when I upgraded to Risc OS (which arrived on ROMs, if I remember correctly, you ordered the ROMs and then your local dealer would fit them onto the motherboard) it wasn't really _that_ different, everything I'd written continued to work, etc. Like it was a major upgrade but fundamentally the same "thing".
- mattkevan 2mo ago
  I had that same model, except I fitted the chips myself. The first time I’d really ever looked inside a computer and very exciting for me age 11. The old Arthur ROMs were a prize possession for quite some time afterwards.
sillywalk 2mo ago
> At that stage it shipped with Arthur because, or so we were told, the "actual" OS was still in development. I think this was ARX[0], which was overambitious. Arthur apparently stands for A Risc by THURsday[1] EDIT: a detailed article[2], linked from lproven's article[3], about the history of ARX / Arthur / RiscOS. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARX_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARX_(operating_system) [1] https://www.theregister.com/software/2022/06/23/how-risc-os-happened-as-told-by-original-acorn-arthur-lead/265803 https://www.theregister.com/software/2022/06/23/how-risc-os-... [2] https://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2012/PaulFellows/ https://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2012/PaulFellows/ [3] https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/73983.html https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/73983.html
- lproven 1mo ago
  Oh, thank you! I could come back to the "modernising RISC OS" piece and update, as things are now actually happening. Although I was pessimistic for its prospects, it's becoming reality. I know of 2 main efforts... * Merlin, an all-new OS in Rust, aiming for a very simplified modern design and backwards compatibility. * The RISC OS Open team is rewriting it in C. I also know of an effort involving running an Arm64 hypervisor and then running the current 32-bit RISC OS kernel in a whole-machine VM. I lack any tech details about it so far, though.
lproven 1mo ago
> I guess technically that'd be Arthur rather than RISC OS. RISC OS was Arthur version 2.0: they renamed it with a more internationally-market-friendly name.

sys_64738 2mo ago

Arthur 1.2 I believe.