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Author Topic: RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface  (Read 5309 times)

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Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« on: Mon, 21 December 2009, 11:31:12 »
I noticed one or two people mentioning RISC OS, even version 3.11 in particular. May as well put in a shameless plug for those who have had the (mis)fortune to miss out on this most eccentric of operating systems:

RISC OS 3.11 GUI

Such a strange system, probably not even known on the western side of the pond. Most of the world are only aware of the ARM CPU family, which was created specifically for this range of computers in the mid 80s. (The ARM has long outlived the computers themselves!)

I don't have any manuals for it, so the more technical workings remain a completely mystery. I don't even know what version of RISC OS I had on the Archimedes 440/1 I picked up, only that without documentation, the OS is more intractible than UNIX! And about as willing to memorise any settings as a System 7 Mac with a flattery. (Seems hard to believe that you once had to store system settings in NVRAM because there was nowhere else to hold them, but this remained true even on machines with HDDs like my first Mac, an LC.)
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Offline timw4mail

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« Reply #1 on: Mon, 21 December 2009, 11:34:39 »
Wow...makes Mac OS 7 look very futuristic in comparison.
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Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 22 December 2009, 16:40:46 »
What about it makes you feel that way? It's got proportional scrollbars, a full colour interface, and in some senses a predecessor of the Dock, although it behaves more like the Windows 7 taskbar than anything else (the Icon Bar doesn't really have any true analogy in any other system -- it's unique).

Obviously if you read the article and see beyond the slightly dubious aesthetics (partially a holdover from the non-square pixel video modes inherited from its early 80s roots) you should be able to appreciate it for what it is.
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Offline ch_123

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #3 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 12:15:36 »
Interesting. There was an Acorn Archimedes in primary school with RISC OS, but I think it was a later version... Looked more like Win 3.11 or Mac OS.
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Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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« Reply #4 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 12:31:09 »
I'd be surprised -- RISC OS has barely changed in appearance since the day it was introduced. The only major change in appearance was the introduction of textured windows. (There wasn't a lot of difference between ArthurOS and RISC OS, except that the latter no longer resembled cartoon vomit.)

It's never had blue title bars, in-window menus, or a top menu bar. In fact, it has consistently looked unique from inception.
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Offline ch_123

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« Reply #5 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 13:08:28 »
It was like this -



Wiki informs me that this is RISC OS 4.
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Offline Rajagra

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #6 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 14:45:00 »
Quote from: Daniel Beardsmore;144192
I noticed one or two people mentioning RISC OS, even version 3.11 in particular. May as well put in a shameless plug for those who have had the (mis)fortune to miss out on this most eccentric of operating systems:

RISC OS 3.11 GUI


Some of those pictures look remarkably GEM-like, though that is possibly due to the font and low resolution.
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Offline tonywalk

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #7 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 14:58:17 »
Ah, fond Archie memories.

Started with an A3000 and migrated to an A420/1 that came from Watford Electronics with a free upgrade (memory + VIDC enhancer I think).

If it didn't come free, I bought the VIDC enhancer so that I could get the best out of my Taxan 795 multisync monitor. Think it did 1600 x something @ 25 FPS which was awesome at the time - hard on the eyes but great for proofing.

Impression from Computer Concepts was and probably is the best value and usable DTP package bar none, making ample use of RISC OS's vector font rendering engine. Couple this with the hardware card printer controller that talked directly to a Qume (I think) laser printer (wasn't laser though, it was LCD shuttered in a manner similar to OKI's LED tech.). Output was stunning in quality and came out probably quicker than modern day lasers.

Still have a StrongArm machine with a 4.x RISC oS on it and a copy of Impression that gets cranked up on occasion.
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Offline tonywalk

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #8 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 15:01:05 »
Quote from: Rajagra;144840
Some of those pictures look remarkably GEM-like, though that is possibly due to the font and low resolution.

Yeh, the raster based system font of 3.x makes it look very dated now. It was an OS way ahead of its time and was so fast and very memory frugal as most if not all of it was written in assembler - as was Impression that I mentioned in my previous post.
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Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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« Reply #9 on: Wed, 23 December 2009, 17:53:23 »
Heh, at 50p[1] it would be be worth trying a Model M just for the experience even if it would be far too noisy. (Ditto a clicky FILCO but those won't be going for 50p anywhere!) I love clicky!! :(

Personally I don't see the resemblance of RISC OS 3.11[2] to GEM, nor NewLook (the textured theme that in fact I did cover at the end of the article) to either Mac OS nor Windows 3.11. GEM itself is curious, in that, by 1985, like the Amiga, it already added proportional scrollbars that Apple failed to introduce until, what, Mac OS 8.5? GEM is also full colour. Funny how the different GUIs all exploded onto the world at once just after the Lisa and Macintosh were introduced.

The reason I wrote that RISC OS article is to preserve some of the knowledge of the innovation held within that system. Even Linux has an overt tendency to just rip off Windows and Mac OS GUIs, and I like to remind people that, although Apple and Microsoft were those fortunate to rise to the greatest prominence, they do not hold the monopoly of ideas, and so many great ones have become forgotten. (And then you have RIM, who seem to have gone out of their way to avoid even common wisdom. What's with opening a menu to submit a (the Enterprise Activation) dialog on a BlackBerry?!)

[1] Per tonywalk's signature which, to anyone reading this in the future, will say something different as nobody has thought of implementing COW for forum signatures yet.
[2] What is with "3.11"? I used to run Paint Shop Pro 3.11 in Windows 3.11. Version 3.14, though, I could understand.
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Offline bhtooefr

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #10 on: Sun, 31 January 2010, 21:19:29 »
Necroposting, but I've not been looking on Geekhack much lately, and decided to look around and see what I missed.

Here's an article I wrote, and while it focuses on RISC OS 4 and newer, many of the principles are the same for older versions: http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Introduction_to_RISC_OS
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Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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« Reply #11 on: Tue, 02 February 2010, 18:14:00 »
I don't honestly know whether to consider it a success or a failure that after all these years, the OS has remained so unchanged. I love how you can upgrade to 4.02 by CD-ROM but lose out on long filenames and more than 77 (!) files per directory.

Idon'tthinkthatspacesinfilenameshaveeverbeenallowedeither.
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Offline quadibloc

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RISC OS 3.11 graphical interface
« Reply #12 on: Wed, 03 February 2010, 18:46:25 »
Yes, RISC OS 3.11 looks a lot like GEM... and RISC OS 4 looks a lot like GeoWorks.
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Offline ch_123

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« Reply #13 on: Wed, 03 February 2010, 19:06:20 »
Fired it up in an emulator. It was good to be 7 years old again... heheh.

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Offline bhtooefr

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« Reply #14 on: Wed, 03 February 2010, 20:54:17 »
Spaces are at least allowed on 4.02, not sure about older versions.
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Offline Daniel Beardsmore

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« Reply #15 on: Fri, 05 February 2010, 19:13:40 »
Quote from: quadibloc;156070
Yes, RISC OS 3.11 looks a lot like GEM... and RISC OS 4 looks a lot like GeoWorks.


Would you be so kind as to give me some example screenshots for comparison, or some idea of what comparisions you are seeing?

Looking quickly back at the systems you mention, GEM has strong shades of the Atari and Lisa, and GeoWorks looks like CDE with its thick window borders. RISC OS has slight shades of the Amiga, but to me stands alone as a completely different system to anything else on Earth.
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Offline ricercar

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« Reply #16 on: Sun, 07 February 2010, 17:14:29 »
GEOS and GeoWorks were written in assembler. Ah, the olden days of real programmers.
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