The Acorn PCW? Well, not quite...

Hold up! Before anyone gets too excited, no, we're not talking about Acorn making an actual equivalent to the computing legend that was, and is, the Amstrad PCW. No, what we're here today to talk about is the form factor due to an intriguing little nugget from the Business column of Acorn User's January 1995 issue. Something to make you think, what if...?

Not the original PCW 8256, but something more akin to the aesthetic of the era... ish.

By that point in Acorn's life, it was becoming clear that the range of machines launched in 1992 - the home-focused A3010, the school-centred A3020, and the slightly up market (and designed for business/higher education) A4000 - were in need of replacement. Times they had a changed, and whilst the '92 range were not exactly underpowered, their capabilities were starting to look a little stale. For example, sure, they could handle 640x480 at 256 colours in Mode 28, but higher resolutions such as the more prevalent 800x600 of the DOS/Windows world were limited to 16 colours rather than the PC's 256. This mattered to serious users, and the Business column had some thoughts...

Could Acorn have done it? Absolutely.

Did they do it? Obviously not!

Would it have worked if they had? Well...

To be fair, it wasn't a silly suggestion back then, but for those unfamiliar with either the original Amstrad PCW or the 1990's Compaq Presario all in one's, here's a brief refresher. 

Although there were many computers that could have been described as fairly inexpensive as and of themselves in 1985, adding printing to the mix was not cheap at all. Amstrad tackled this issue with the PCW (Personal Computer Word-processor), shoving a Z80 running CP/M into an all in one design rocking a 90-column display and a bundled printer, all for £399 ex VAT. Despite feeling a tad cheap, it and its successors sold by the bucket load because many people wanted the ability to print their works. Previously that had meant either dealing with the limitations imposed by the cheaper home micros, or the added expense of an MS-DOS PC, as well as pricing in a printer. The PCW bridged the gap nicely and thus sold like proverbial hot cakes.

The later Presario 460, but the form factor was the same for the 425.

Cut to the early 1990's, and Compaq were experimenting with the all in one concept with the original Presario 425, a 486SX machine running at 25MHz that would do what every other Windows 3.1 machine could do, just with the gubbins in one, fairly un-expandable, box. 

The "Family" PC.

That was 1993, and by late 1994, multimedia was king in the world of the PC compatible, and thus the Presario CDS 520 became a thing (as seen above in this December 1994 advert in Personal Computer World). Naturally, given the all-singing, all-dancing nature of the machine, it was pricey, so the ad leaned heavily into the "Family PC" concept because paying north of £1,500 to play Doom was worth it back then, 'onest, G'vnor! Having said that, despite rocking a ton of CD software and an integrated 9,600bps modem (think Virgin Media fibre on an average day...), the end result still felt compromised - only 4Mb of RAM, and that 486SX/2 might be running at 66MHz, but was seriously missing the D - that's the maths co-pro of the DX, you dorty minded porvorts!

So the question raised by the AU comment if Acorn had gone for an all in one form factor, what would the result have been? 

Undoubtedly the same specs as the A7000 that eventually did launch in the summer of 1995. A 32MHz ARM7500 that in effect made the A7000 equivalent to an unexpanded original Risc PC. The case was compact, offering space for either a CD-ROM or an expansion card, and yes kids, the CD-ROM would have been the better option for most, and all for roughly £1,100 inclusive of VAT for the 2Mb RAM, 425Mb hard drive model. That also included Acorn's AKF60 monitor, so actually fairly close to what the business column hinted at. Educational prices were somewhat lower - that bundle coming in at £799 ex VAT, but that was strictly educational only!

Acorn User's feature on the then new A7000.

Of course, if it were an all-in-one, the design would have been a smidge different. Expansion might have been a little better considering the extra space fitting the 14-inch display into the case would have entailed. The footprint of the CDS 520 was something like 36x38cm compared to the A7000's 36x28cm (rounded figures from what I have read), so a couple of podules and the CD-ROM could have been do-able. Some may have had concerns over that display size since users would have been stuck with it built-in. However, a quick check of a contemporary Watford Electronics ad in Personal Computer World shows a £40 difference between their own brand high end 14-incher and a 15-inch display. Not much, but still additional cost to Acorn if they'd have plumped for the extra inch - and yes, I am aware of the difference between consumer pricing and manufacturing costs. The difference would have been negligible but not zero. Also, let's also not kid ourselves here, 800x600 was going to be the sweet spot for the ARM7500 and fourteen inches was good enough. 

It would have been a reasonable offering for the new entry-level/mid-range RISC OS machine, fitting in quite nicely below the more expandable and powerful Risc PC700. However, there would be no room for a cheaper "headless" offering, and the cost of entry in to the world of RISC OS, already higher than it was when the A3010 was released, would have been kept relatively high due to nature of the all-in-one design. I also don't think Acorn had the resources or the desire to have two near-identical models to muddy the entry point market, either.

There was also the issue of price competition from the PC market. Using the CDS models alone, by the autumn of 1995, those pricey 1994 specifications were no longer as expensive. As you can see above and below, the CDS range was cheaper and re-spec'd by the time of these ads in the October 1995 issue of Personal Computer World. The SX model (sans modem) was now just £799 ex VAT, and a proper D-equipped computer (stop it, all of you!), although more expensive at £1,039 ex VAT, was still some £250 cheaper than the older CDS 520. The slightly re-jigged DX offering (the CDS 523 below rather than the CDS 524 above) could be had from another dealer for even less - £899 ex VAT. The point being that aside from changing the designs, there was no way Acorn could compete against the speed at which the PC market was advancing specs and lowering prices. That was the nature of the beast for every non-DOS/Windows platform, but raises the question as to how could Acorn reduce costs when one of the biggest considerations was the display. It made far more sense having just a box, and not only for ease of manufacture, logistics, and pricing flexibility. This also allowed the customer the freedom of using an existing display or Acorn being able to tack on a self-branded monitor for them to get a few extra quid for the balance sheet.

An all-in-one would have been funky, but nothing so great as to attract non-RISC OS users to the fold. It would also have done nothing to make the Acorn range price competitive for long against the juggernaut that was the PC. The fact that someone thought it might have been a go-er is still something to consider, and as we have seen here, park it in the "hmmm, interesting..." folder for reference.

P.S.

An all-in-one could have been an option in 1992, replacing both the A3020 and the A4000, but that thought doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. The A3020 was the new school machine, leveraging the same design as the A3010, with economies of scale for design and manufacturing. The A4000 was a business machine rocking a business-like case and EU-compliant separate keyboard. Their price points were similar, but not the same, as the A4000 offered a slightly bigger hard disk for serious users, and the A3020 could be had minus a hard drive anyway for those who just wanted a network machine. And what if you already had a perfectly good monitor but wanted something more than an A3010 but without the expense of the A5000? No, the 1992 range as it was made perfect sense for the time, and an all-in-one would have been pretty redundant. So effectively the same as 1995 then.

Voices From A Future Passed by Robert Napier - Book Review

Acorn Computers remains for many of a certain generation the quintessential British computing company. From its scrappy founding at the tail end of the 1970's to its (almost) inevitable demise just shy of the millennium, Acorn Computers rode the wave of the 1980's personal computing rush. Yet up until now, there hasn't been a truly personal perspective on just how the little company that could achieved such success. With this oral history from Robert Napier, now is your chance to find out.

At nearly 300 pages in length, Voices From A Future Passed contains the recollections of a multitude of people connected to Acorn. Some names are instantly recognisable to the follower of computing history: Sophie Wilson, Steve Furber, and Christopher Curry to name but three. Yet the sheer breadth of the contributions within this fine tome encompasses BBC staff, hardware developers, distributors, and more. As you can see from the below images, there's a lot of them!

This was an easy read, and because each memoire is presented from the point of view of the interviewees, the style never feels stale. Individual voices shine through the text, and because each chapter is effectively self-contained, makes reading through the book linearly or just dropping in here and there a choice of six and two threes.

In addition to the above, there are additional chapters on the Radcliffe Report which led to the BBC's Computer Literacy Project, a pocket history of general computing up until the rise of Acorn, a BBC Basic primer, details of the Cambridge/Manchester rivalry, and a guide to the various machines Acorn did, and did not, release.

By the time I reached the back cover, my knowledge of Acorn, its people, and its history had been greatly expanded, and I have no qualms at all in recommending Voices From A Future Passed to anyone with even a passing interest in the history of personal computing. I know this will become a fine resource for future reference. 

There are, however, a couple of observations that require noting. And when I say observations, I mean, observations, not criticisms.

The first is that there is, by the very nature of the format, a lot of topic repetition. Individuals who worked at Acorn at the same time were often involved with, or aware of, the same projects, so you'll hear a lot about fruit machines. However, each addition to the narrative exhumes more information, so you never truly feel like you're experiencing Groundhog Day.

The second is that even with nearly thirty contributors, we barely get out of the 1980's. That is not a weakness of the book per se, just that if you were wanting to know more of the Acorn post-Archimedes release, then there's pretty slim pickings here. Maybe an opportunity for another volume perhaps?

Voices From A Future Passed is a terrific read. For the period it does cover, there is depth and detail galore, making it an essential purchase, and one that can be made from Amazon here. There's also the author's website here. You can buy this book in person from a quartet of computing museums, who will also receive a donation from each sale regardless of where the copy was bought from. There's more info at Riscository here. 

All that remains for me now is to prepare for the RISCOS North show which is happening this weekend in Warrington. If you want to keep up with news about RISC OS goings on, check out The Iconbar and Riscository. There's also two continuing publications that are essential RISC OS reads: Archive Magazine and Drag 'N Drop. 

Expect a show report next week along with a few pictures.

RISC OS? But why???

So came the cry the other day whilst at work as I was chatting to one of the developers about my RISCOSbits purchase from a few months ago. A gentleman of a similar vintage to myself and an owner of multiple Raspberry Pi’s, he is not afraid of a command line and is a self-confessed Linux nut. Naturally, being at work, we were obviously discussing a piece of code I was to test when the subject “maneuvered” towards RISC OS. He was quite interested in that, like me, he had experienced RISC OS back in his school days and was aware of it’s availability on the Pi.

“It’s pretty horrible and clunky,” he opined, “and I wouldn’t like to fight with an OS just to get something done”

Well, thinks I, this is not what I feel and so we pitted pro’s and cons for a good twenty minutes before a tiresome sprint review called us away. It did get me thinking though. I could explain to someone with a passing knowledge of RISC OS why I think it’s a lovely little OS but how could I pass on that enthusiasm to someone who had never touched it in their lives? Hmmm…

The basic desktop.

Let me be clear from the outset, RISC OS is going to be a bit of a culture shock for anyone used to Windows, Mac OS and Linux and it is not for everyone. The three button mouse configuration and the thought processes behind it will take a bit of effort to embed and even I sometimes slip with muscle memory recalling a Windows mentality. What the RISC OS set up gives you is control and subtlety. That three button mouse layout (Select/Menu/Adjust), the method of window management and the sheer common sense approach of true drag and drop functionality: all add up to make RISC OS, for me, a lovely operating system to use. True, it originates from the 1980’s and that is (sometimes painfully) obvious now – consider how Windows and macOS have changed over that period, but that it not to say RISC OS is bad. In fact, whilst toolbars have taken over screen space (which isn’t such a problem with modern day high resolution displays), it just looks far cleaner to have the menu structure behind a mouse button press. It’s lightweight and offers little frippery. It can look “busy” as the screenshots attest but I was aiming to have quite a few folders and programs open at the same time. The main question though, is can it be used as a primary computer OS in 2020, and for me that answer is… mostly...ish.

Many, many windows.

Look at it this way. In this age of always connected, online dependent computing experiences, RISC OS harks back to a time where you didn’t have or need an internet connection. Troubling for some that statement may be, this is computing how it used to be before, say, 1994. Is that a bad thing? Well, it depends upon what you want to do. As an aside, you will need an internet connection in this day and age just to get new software, but once you have the software, for many tasks, you don’t need that connection any longer. In day to day use, RISC OS just doesn't need it.

For me, I want a content creation machine, something I can generate blog posts, general writing, the odd spreadsheet and a bit of coding on the side – hey, I’m a software tester who dabbles in the dark side. Know thine enemy, I say :-) Out of the box, my RISCOSbits machine covers that pretty well. Edit is a great little text editor but if you prefer something more feature filled, the announcement that Impression Style (not the fully featured Impression X) is now free was a boon. With Pipedream covering the spreadsheet duties and enough programming tools already on board, I feel most bases are covered. What helps here is the Pling store, where a decent variety of software is available for free or modest cost – think the Apple App store but a lot smaller. Size isn’t everything though and what is on offer should cover all of your needs. There is a fly in the RISC OS ointment that needs addressing though and this impacts what I do a lot with regards to Blogger and Wordpress...

These cover a lot of needs without resorting to additional software.

Web browsing. The included browser, !NetSurf, is basic in the extreme and isn’t suited to the modern day internet. This is a well known issue with RISC OS and is being sorted with the development of two new browsers, OWB and Iris. Both are in development at the moment and as such, not ready for the prime time just yet but they are more capable than !NetSurf and the situation is improving. 2020 looks like the year that RISC OS could be a replacement operating system for me. Rather than create blog posts and reviews for RVG in RISC OS and then transferring to Windows via a memory stick, I’ll be able to post online as per my usual Windows PC. This may also mean a new toy.

Impression Style 

For a couple of years, a lot of my writing has been completed on a venerable Alphasmart 3000. A brilliant little typing device, it offers distraction free writing and a stellar battery life (only changed the three AA’s twice!). However, transferring text to my PC is slow and can’t be done without monopolising the Libre Office window that the document will occupy, so I can’t set the transfer away and move onto something else. Also, it’s starting to fail in little ways: the space bar is becoming less reliable (double spaces are a bane), the screen has a couple of minor issues and overall, whilst I feel it’s still a lovely machine, its time is probably due. At present I am using a three year old Lenovo Yogabook convertible running Windows alongside a Logitech wireless keyboard. I really think the halo keyboard on the Yogabook is a great idea, but it’s just not comfortable or accurate enough for sustained typing. This set up, using Libre Office, is quite nice, but really requires a table or rest to use properly and the USB OTG cable for the wireless keyboard adapter hangs in an awkward manner if I use the Yogabook in tent mode. It works, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a bit of a kludge and the Yogabook itself lacks ports and is woefully under-powered. Even using it with the wi-fi switched off (so purely as a text entry device and not typing directly into Wordpress or Blogger) has seen a drop in the battery life of the machine and where once I was getting 8 hours or so, it’s now down to about 4 before I need to reach for the charger – which also takes up the single micro-USB port so no more wireless keyboard for a couple of hours at least. Sadly, taking all of that into account means that, despite being a lovely little set up and one that is very portable too, I can’t see it lasting another couple of years.

This is where RISC OS comes in. When one, or both, of the new browsers are released in a stable fashion, my intention is to combine those with a new Armbok (Armbook but hey, typo’s). For a touch over £400, this will provide a native RISC OS laptop and proper access for my online needs. Yes, I could buy a Windows laptop for less, but I have worries there which I’ll get to in a moment. I like using RISC OS and am getting very used to how it works. And that’s the thing, it just works. No updates, no constant harrying from a notification centre and little privacy intrusion. Part of me would like to dip back into the macOS world but frankly the cost of entry is too high for me. With a new Armbok, I could centre my daily domestic computer use to RISC OS and only have to dip into Windows for the odd game and specific software packages.

So why not a new Windows machine? As noted above, there are a number of issues I have here. One is cost. Wait, you cry, £400 can buy you a decent laptop. True, but for one with the combination of performance and spec that would last a few years, you’d have to spend a bit more than that. Indeed, 8GB of RAM seems to be the standard acceptable now and if you want that much memory, the cost starts edging upwards. Then there is the bloat, the constant need to update and the sheer intrusiveness of information gathering in the OS. You can tinker with these but in the end, Microsoft’s recent history with Windows updates does not fill me with hope that the situation will get any better. Apple seems a bit better in this respect but then again, wanting £1k plus for your basic Macbook Air (ignoring the discounted 2017 model which is probably near the end of it’s life) is just too much. I am a tekkie but even I have limits on how much I’ll drop on kit.

So this brings me back to RISC OS. The operating itself is very resource frugal in both memory and  storage. The hardware, certainly for desktops, is easily repairable (remember, the RISCOSbits machine I have is just a cased Raspberry Pi 3B+ which costs in the region of £35…) and in regards to the Armbok, a lot of thought and testing seems to have been done in getting this to market. I am not saying RISCOS is for everyone – the very fact that it is not an on-line centric operating system would probably scare quite a few people off. The fear of not being connected at all times might do that, but consider this – how much of your day do you spend at a computer that does not require a connection? Ok, if you run a website, online business or need tools like Office 365 or Google’s online suite then obviously, you’ll need that but if you don’t need a network connection, then why have one? I know I get more work done when I am not online, and I suspect many other people do too and this chimes nicely in with the Armbok. Once the browser situation is sorted, I can work offline with a laptop offering 12 plus hours of use then quickly hook up to post what I need to. Overall, that feels like a tempting way of working and as a second machine that will do a fair bit of travelling, the Armbok fits the bill.

You don't even have to spend as much as I did to get started in RISC OS

You may think me a bit of a Luddite, harking back to an operating system that to this day lacks native wi-fi connectivity, but that would be to miss the point. I don’t need a 24/7 online connection and for the majority of my non-gaming computer needs, I don’t need a lot of what Windows and macOS offer. The Armbok will cover that and I will be using software that works for me. As noted above, RISC OS is not for everyone, and to be fair, it is a niche OS, but given a little bit of thought and use, it is a more productive OS compared to Windows/macOS, at least in my humble opinion. That it is still under active development and has new hardware being released for it speaks volumes. There is also an active show scene for users, and there are  a number of active content creators in YouTube - check out WiFi Sheep's videos for example, where you'll find show reports, introductory videos and much more. The market isn’t huge but then again, the cost of entry isn’t either. If you have an interest in alternative OS’s, or just fancy giving something less mainstream a try, then give RISC OS a chance. It’s not a perfect OS by any means but it is improving. You never know, you might find it useful for a second machine...

Low RISC Computing

Many, many moons ago (2017, which feels like a long, long time ago), I posted a couple of pieces about alternative operating systems, one of which was RISC OS. I noted then that I would keep an eye on the format and as time has passed, there have been several positive developments in the RISC OS world (unlike the Amiga OS world which, well, who knows what's happening there).

The major one was the announcement last year that RISC OS Developments would take on the intellectual property concerning RISC OS and that RISCOS Open Ltd would continue the development of the operating system which is also now open source. This meant that there would be stability on the OS side of things.

Other developments included new, more powerful Raspberry Pi Single Board Computers (though that does not include the recently released Pi 4 as RISC OS needs porting to it due to a change in the ARM cores from the Pi 3) as well as other SBC's that RISC OS can run on, plus the continued sale of complete systems by the likes of R-Comp, CJE Micros and RISCOSbits. Indeed, R-Comp are in the process of developing an ARMBook laptop that, when out of beta testing, might prove a good replacement for the seven year old Chromebook that languishes in the corner of a drawer somewhere.

With that in mind, and thinking that it was a good time to re-visit RISC OS, I began searching for a suitable machine. Now I have said before that it's simple enough to cobble one of these together yourself for not much money but I really wanted to see what a pre-built system would be like. As a starter machine, I didn't want to spend too much but also didn't want to skimp on the spec, so finally settled on the RISCOSbits piHARD. You may have noticed the naming convention for RISCOSbits products is a bit tongue in cheek but hey, look at the name of this blog!

Disclaimer here: This computer was bought with my own funds and RISCOSbits have had no input or overview of this post. The opinions given are my own and I have not received any compensation whatsoever.

Once settled on the machine, I spec'd it out with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ (1GB RAM, 1.4GHz CPU, usual selection of ports), a 120GB SSD for mass storage and a battery backed real time clock. For the case, I chose the Deuce case which, as you can see, is rather tidy (and definitely tells you where it came from!). Once I had submitted the request for a quote, Andy at RISCOSbits was very quick with a reply and, with my agreement to the quoted price, the order was submitted. A couple of days later came the invoice, and, after settling that via Paypal on a Thursday evening, I waited for my new computer. I didn't have to wait long as a small box containing the well packaged PiHARD arrived on the following Monday.

During the intervening period, Andy was kind enough to suggest a power supply for the PiHARD, seeing as it uses a 5v 3000mA micro USB supply. That was ordered on the Friday and delivered the following day (from a well known river-based online supplier) so I was all set when the machine itself arrived.

Shiny, shiny... and some subtle branding :-)

The case is nice, roughly 6 x 6 x 2.5 inches and shiny. It's very light and you might mistake that lightness for fragility but once it's set up, you're not likely to move it again and the case certainly feels good enough to handle day to day knocks. Be honest here. How often do you move your desktop PC? The worst thing I can say about it is that it attracts dust like nobody's business. Incidentally, one of the options (which I didn't take) was for a front mounted USB port, hence the cut out visible above to the right.

Plenty of ports: Micro USB, HMDI, audio out, 3 x USB 2 and Ethernet.

There were no instructions in the box but, to be honest, they aren't really needed. Plug in the micro USB power supply, a keyboard, a mouse (you'll need a three button model or a mouse with a clickable scroll wheel - RISC OS relies upon three buttons) and an Ethernet cable for internet access and you're all done. WiFi is possible with RISC OS but that does require additional hardware at present so cabled networking is the easiest way forward at the moment. Now, the moment of truth. After a start up screen, RISC OS 5.24 boots up in seconds and gives you this rather green desktop.

It's a bit cropped (my fault with the screenshot), but you get the idea.

As you can see, the PiHARD sits rather nicely under the monitor and outputs a rock steady 1920x1080 resolution with 16.7 million colours at 60Hz. For those wanting some help starting out, there are plenty of documents and stored web pages in the OS to get you going. These can also be found online.

As for downsides, well, it's pretty much the lack of expansion. The issue here is the use of Single Board Computers as a basis of RISC OS machines. By their very nature, they are not expandable in the traditional PC sense, so what you get is, well, what you get. However, this is not the handicap you may think it is, as RISC OS runs extremely well on a Pi 3B+ and if extra storage is required, then you have plenty of USB ports to hang stuff off. Certainly, this issue cannot be laid at the feet of any of the hardware vendors. If there were to be new, dedicated motherboards for RISC OS, then maybe the situation would be similar to the Amiga OS market where the only new dedicated hardware readily available is £1,800.00! One niggle about the USB ports. They are all in a row and quite close together, so if you attach a USB stick directly to the computer, chances are that unless it is a slim design, you'll interfere with access to the remaining ports. The solution here is to use a USB hub and they are cheap enough. This isn't an issue that RISCOSbits are in control of and in no way is it a deal breaker.

Cable management to be sorted out later...

I'm not going to delve into using RISC OS in this post. Nor, in future, will I be delving into how-to guides either as there are plenty of those about. No, what I will be doing is an occasional series on how I find using RISC OS on a regular basis, how it can fulfill most general computing needs and basically how much fun computing can be outside of the usual Windows/Mac/Linux arenas. This first post though, is purely about the hardware and I must say I am very impressed, not only with the price paid but also the build quality, the speed  of delivery and the communication from RISCOSbits. If you ever do feel like dipping into the world of RISC OS, I wholeheartedly recommend them. I am happy with my PiHARD and the initial steps into RISC OS after 25 years (and RISC OS 3). I'll keep you updated as to how things go but from initial impressions, that ARMBook is looking more and more tempting by the day...

Computing from the past??? 2 - The Acorn Risc-OS family

Depending upon where and when you went, chances are that, if you attended school between 1989 and 1996, you would have had the pleasure of using an Acorn Archimedes. Following the success of the BBC Micro, Acorn followed up with the Archimedes range to decent praise and sales, primarily but not exclusively to the UK education market.

The Archimedes range was powerful for their cost and offered a viable alternative to the Mac and DOS/Windows computers of the time. However, marketing, perceived abilities plus some god-awful business decisions meant they remained a minnow to other formats. A legacy does, however, exist in the form of the ARM processing architecture, used by a huge proportion of mobile tech today. ARM, meaning Advanced Risc Machine used to stand for Acorn Risc Machine.

As a quick comparison, here are three screenshots, showing the desktop systems of 1993:

Windows in all of it's glory, still residing upon DOS

System 7 for the Mac

Risc OS 3.11

Now, from a personal point of view, I have always liked the way Risc OS looked. It felt clean and relatively uncluttered compared to the other main desktop operating systems of the time. Indeed, apart from the low screen resolutions that people just had to deal with, the current RISC OS is still a pretty sharp looking OS.

Modern day Risc OS

It also had what still to this day seems to be a very straight forward and versatile mouse set up: three buttons - select, menu and adjust. I have used both Windows and Mac systems since the 80's and still, to this day, the slight amount of extra effort needed to deal with three buttons is more than made up for by the sheer versatility of the set up compared to one and two button systems.

Hardware wise, I only ever owned one Archimedes, the A3000, picked up as a surplus machine when my old school was disposing of them. Although large compared to the similarly styled Amiga 500/Atari ST, it was built like a tank and the example I had still worked perfectly even after several years service.

The A3000 - not the one I owned.

The computer carried over the red function keys of the BBC Micro, a look that was discarded by the follow-on A3010 and A3020 where red gave way to a sickeningly bright green. The keyboard itself, as I recall, was a little spongy but it was robust. The operating system and basic apps were held on ROM chips, allowing them to be upgraded by swapping the chips out. The machine came with a single 3.5 inch floppy drive, no hard drive but did have built in networking (Econet). The system itself was very stable and practically crash proof, something that could not always be said of the Amiga (Guru Meditations, they were called on the Amiga, f***ing annoyances was my term).Whilst they were a tad pricey compared to the 16-bit competition, they offered 32-bit/26bit RISC processing power (32-bit internal to CPU, 26-bit address to the rest of the system - I believe, correct me please if I am wrong). This also meant they compared well to the more expensive DOS/Windows and Mac systems of the time. In fact, in some areas, these other formats were left far behind. They also came bundled with BBC Basic, which in my humble opinion, is the best Basic ever to grace a computer. The Comprehensive school I attended had two networks connected by Econet and I gained a decent grounding in networking because of this. Moving to PC's in the mid-90's seemed very much like a retrograde step compared to the Econet days.

As with the Amiga, there is still a Risc OS community in being today, with quite a few hardware options from the likes of Armini and Raspberry Ro and the operating system itself is supported by two vendors, one covering version 4.29 and 6, whilst the other covers the more open sourced version 5. Version 5 seems to be the most up to date and available version of the OS, which may seem strange but there was a fork in the OS history when two companies developed separate versions and they have kind of travelled in parallel. There is also CJE Micros, who stock an exhaustive range of Risc OS related hardware and software.

Modern hardware is based on ARM based dev boards or the ubiquitous Raspberry Pi. Basic systems can be had for a couple of hundred pounds and it's not beyond the ken of many to do it yourself - source a Pi, grab a download of the OS (which is very cheap) and then off you go. The Raspberry Ro Lite is the aforementioned £200 system and whilst it may lack in the area of storage (easily remedied) and Wi-Fi (Risc-OS doesn't have support for this yet), it's a good beginners option and it can form the basis of a decent main system. The low cost of the hardware makes this a tempting hobby machine for anyone interested in alternatives to Windows, Mac-OS and Linux. If you want something more substantial, the Titanium board based systems can be bought which, if you must have the best, are a very good choice.

Personally, I am tempted by the Ro Lite, it being cheap enough but well-spec'd enough to act as a hobby/secondary system to tinker and get to grips with. And, unlike the Amiga, replacement hardware (the Pi) will never be extraordinarily expensive.

What has struck me with the retrospectives on the Amiga and Risc OS is that both formats remain, to this day, very capable alternatives to the mainstream formats. That is not to say you should bin your existing PC, as there are several areas where even the most up to date versions of OS4 and Risc OS 5 cannot compete It is, however, interesting that despite the passage of time since their originating companies closed their doors, there remains a substantial hobbyist market that keeps these older operating systems ticking along. Certainly, I will be keeping an eye on both formats in future.