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Acorn Arcade forums: General: I'm back...
 
  I'm back...
  tribbles (19:29 7/8/2017)
  CJE (10:55 8/8/2017)
    tribbles (19:19 8/8/2017)
      CJE (10:24 9/8/2017)
        tribbles (15:02 9/8/2017)
          nytrex (01:44 10/8/2017)
            tribbles (05:41 11/8/2017)
  markee174 (17:08 10/8/2017)
    tribbles (05:53 11/8/2017)
      markee174 (07:02 11/8/2017)
        tribbles (20:06 17/8/2017)
          helpful (14:55 13/9/2017)
 
Jason Tribbeck Message #124125, posted by tribbles at 19:29, 7/8/2017
tribbles
Captain Helix

Posts: 929
Or rather, I would've been back yesterday...

It's been around 10 years since I've done anything with RISC OS - but I got my RiscPC yesterday, with the aim to re-learn RISC OS programming, albeit using a cross-compiler.

First problem: riscos.info decided to go down yesterday (routing problem, which I suspected from my analysis of the problem), so I couldn't get GCCSDK.

No problem - I'll power up the old RiscPC and make sure it works. Except I couldn't find any power cables that weren't in use.

No problem - I'll install RISC OS onto a Raspberry Pi. Except I couldn't find a spare HDMI cable, nor a power supply with a long enough cable.

So today, I acquired some mains cables from work, got another Pi power supply and HDMI cable, and got the RiscPC working.

Well, sort of.

It didn't like any of the IDEFS disks, and it keeps on thinking that there's only one ADFS hard drive. I think the battery is on its way out (it does look a bit ... furry). And after a reboot, it didn't want to come up at all.

I diagnosed that as a dodgy memory stick, so I removed it, and it's now working a bit better - including the IDEFS disks.

I'm making some backups of some files now, but then I'll look at changing the battery (there is a possibility that the clock isn't working either - I'll remount a new chip, since I've got all that gear at work).

Although I might end up leaving it on for a while so I can make sure I've backed everything up that I want to (it's so much though!)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Chris Evans Message #124126, posted by CJE at 10:55, 8/8/2017, in reply to message #124125
CJE Micros chap
Posts: 228
Welcome backbig smile
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Jason Tribbeck Message #124127, posted by tribbles at 19:19, 8/8/2017, in reply to message #124126
tribbles
Captain Helix

Posts: 929
Ta - had to order some bits from you to get the RiscPC going. Hope you noticed smile

Its PSU turned itself off overnight last night; it did recover after two attempts with the power switch, so I guess it's on its way out.

I decided to replace the broken memory as well, and sort out the furry battery (it's annoying having to increase the ADFS disks each time).

I'm also going to take some disk images of my HDs in case there's a problem with them down the line.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Chris Evans Message #124128, posted by CJE at 10:24, 9/8/2017, in reply to message #124127
CJE Micros chap
Posts: 228
Ta - had to order some bits from you to get the RiscPC going. Hope you noticed smile
I did thanks very much. (The courier has just collected it!) I nearly mentioned above we sell the batteries but thought trying to flog you stuff as my response wasn't appropriate.

I noticed from the delivery address where you work. From their website I see they like a lot of acronyms and marketing speak :-/
I suspect that is not your department.

[Edited by CJE at 11:27, 9/8/2017]

[Edited by CJE at 11:27, 9/8/2017]

[Edited by CJE at 11:28, 9/8/2017]
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Jason Tribbeck Message #124130, posted by tribbles at 15:02, 9/8/2017, in reply to message #124128
tribbles
Captain Helix

Posts: 929
I did thanks very much. (The courier has just collected it!) I nearly mentioned above we sell the batteries but thought trying to flog you stuff as my response wasn't appropriate.

I noticed from the delivery address where you work. From their website I see they like a lot of acronyms and marketing speak :-/
I suspect that is not your department.
Excellent, thanks.

Unfortunately, I won't be working here for much longer - I was made redundant a couple of months ago, and I'm just working out my notice period (end of August). Being the only remaining hardware engineer in a software company for the past 6 months meant it was likely that I was going to go, and especially as the last 4 of those 6 months was spent finding outsourced hardware developers, the writing really was on the wall.

My (current) company is really what remains of Argogroup - in 2008 we were bought by Ascom, and last year our division of Ascom was bought by InfoVista.

The whole chain goes The Serial Port -> Vertical Twist -> VTi -> Argonet -> Argogroup -> Ascom -> InfoVista.

I know there is a bit of irony in being a hardware designer and ordering the stuff from you, but I did it for three reasons:

1) Support a real Acorn-born company
2) I want my RiscPC working quickly
3) It's *my* RiscPC, and I really want to make sure I've got the data off it. If I miscalculated anything, then it could be a lot of doodoo...
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Alan Robertson Message #124131, posted by nytrex at 01:44, 10/8/2017, in reply to message #124130
Member
Posts: 101
It's good to see a such a well known name return to RISC OS, or at least the iconbar forum.

Do you have any RISC OS plans? OS development? music software? games?

BTW, sorry to hear about your job situation. Hope the redundancy payout was a good one.
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Mark Stephens Message #124133, posted by markee174 at 17:08, 10/8/2017, in reply to message #124125
Does all the
work around here

Posts: 142
Would you like to do an interview for Icon Bar?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Jason Tribbeck Message #124134, posted by tribbles at 05:41, 11/8/2017, in reply to message #124131
tribbles
Captain Helix

Posts: 929
It's good to see a such a well known name return to RISC OS, or at least the iconbar forum.

Do you have any RISC OS plans? OS development? music software? games?

BTW, sorry to hear about your job situation. Hope the redundancy payout was a good one.
There is a RISC OS project that I've been asked about, and I'm just at the preliminary investigation stages to judge its scope and complexity.

Unfortunately, I can't say much about it because there's a fair degree of secrecy about it.

Getting my RiscPC working is the first step - mainly to make sure that all the source I have for all of my projects is safe. And then I want to see if some of them will compile (and run) with GCCSDK.

Redundancy payout will be okay (still 3 weeks left to go, and then another fortnight until I get the money). I do have another job lined up (a dream job, by the sounds of it), but there's some external checks which will take a few weeks.

And it's in that time that I want to be looking at this.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Jason Tribbeck Message #124135, posted by tribbles at 05:53, 11/8/2017, in reply to message #124133
tribbles
Captain Helix

Posts: 929
Would you like to do an interview for Icon Bar?
Again? smile
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Mark Stephens Message #124136, posted by markee174 at 07:02, 11/8/2017, in reply to message #124135
Does all the
work around here

Posts: 142
Sounds like a lot has happened and also your impression on returning to RISC OS?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Jason Tribbeck Message #124138, posted by tribbles at 20:06, 17/8/2017, in reply to message #124136
tribbles
Captain Helix

Posts: 929
Okay - can do - just give me a couple of weeks more playing...

What I've achieved so far (bit of a ramble; my apologies)...

TL;DR: I've done stuff smile

My RiscPC's video is now dead (out of 12 times, it only appeared twice - and both times there were vertical bars - I suspect me cleaning the tracks actually caused some problems), but I have made copies of the disks onto another disk that Linux can mount successfully (although IDEFS has partitions on the disk, so I can only see the first partition). However, as I have the source to IDEFS, I should be able to split the disks off. Although that is assuming the source is on the primary paritition... Not worried at this moment in time (although the RiscPC is in kicking distance of my desktop).

The Raspberry Pi is working well with RISC OS - a lot more happily than I remember trying it a while ago (although that was on a RPI 1, and I'm now on the 3). The Pi won't mount a copy of the copy of one of the disks (keeps on saying it's not formatted - I'll experiment with some DiscOps to see if it's reading the right data). I have only tried one disk though. It might be the disk reader (USB to IDE/PATA adapter that actually worked very well reading the IDE disks).

GCCSDK has now built on my Linux VM - and I've been able to cross-compile my old ROVLib application development library, and also built a couple of the tutorials successfully. They run on the Raspberry Pi quite happily.

Although most of the documentation wants to make it part of the packaging system, but there's a lot more overhead to it than I like (on my initial glances at it). Messing around with Makefiles is more my kind of thing smile

As a result I had to jump through a number of hoops to do this; not helped by riscos.info going down a couple of times, and AsAsm's insistence on not setting the correct ELF flags for soft float (even though I don't use any floating point anywhere [that I recall!]).
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Bryan Hogan Message #124151, posted by helpful at 14:55, 13/9/2017, in reply to message #124138
Member
Posts: 249
Anyone in the London/South East area who would like to welcome Jason back in person should come along to the next ROUGOL meeting on Monday 18th September:

http://rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/index.html

You can buy him a drink and ask all the questions you want big grin

[Edited by helpful at 15:55, 13/9/2017]
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Acorn Arcade forums: General: I'm back...