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Acorn Arcade forums: News and features: Call for questions: All About Acorn
 

Call for questions: All About Acorn

Posted by Richard Goodwin on 13:01, 12/11/2001 | ,
 
We've got the opportunity to do a Slashdot and forward on questions to an ex-Acorn employee. Tell us what you want us to ask, the best questions will be emailed off, and we'll write up the responses for all to see.

Our contact (who shall remain nameless until we see what questions you put forward so that he doesn't cop flak from his present employers) helped develop the hardware that we all know and love, and is a mine of information on the subject. He's graciously agreed to share this knowledge with us, and so that we don't waste this opportunity we're opening up the discussion on questions to all of you, our lovely, intelligent readers.

I've just started a forum thread on the subject, or if you haven't got an account you can use the news comment facility to add questions.
 
  Call for questions: All About Acorn
  This is a long thread. Click here to view the threaded list.
 
guy Message #89401, posted at 17:21, 21/11/2001, in reply to message #89400
Unregistered user aw c'mon ralph, we underwater swimmers really want to know - we live in hope of coming up for air.
Also, remember this is a hardware bod and political questions will not be answered.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest3 Message #89402, posted at 08:48, 22/11/2001, in reply to message #89401
Unregistered user Was it true that back in about '88 that Amstrad was going to create a games machine based on the Archimedes. I remember reading about it in a games magazine at the time.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Lee Johnston Message #89403, posted at 09:34, 22/11/2001, in reply to message #89402
Unregistered user Ralph - maybe some of us asking those questions are actually interested in OS design in general and are interested in knowing just how "wrong" Acorn got it.

RISC OS makes an interesting case study in OS design - even if nowadays, it's for the wrong reasons
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Ralph Simons Message #89404, posted at 16:23, 22/11/2001, in reply to message #89403
Unregistered user That question about Amstrad - now that's interesting! I remember reading about that in one of the weekly computer papers just before the A3000 came out. The rumour was that Amstrad would sell the machine at, say, 300 pounds. Instead it came out at 600 pounds and the rest is, as they always have to say, history.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Ralph Simons Message #89405, posted at 16:25, 22/11/2001, in reply to message #89404
Unregistered user And another Amstrad type thing: what happened to the ARM2-based games console that some of the magazines talked about in the late 80s/early 90s. And I'm not talking about the 3DO! It could have been an Acorn product. What about that?!
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest3 Message #89406, posted at 20:15, 22/11/2001, in reply to message #89405
Unregistered user Ralph, your stealing my questions!!
Make your own up ;)

How about, what was Acorn's xmas parties like? Any stories to be told?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
james Message #89407, posted at 17:02, 26/11/2001, in reply to message #89406
Unregistered user There was this one time, when the workstation staff got really high and decided on the colour yellow... oh boy, wild times!
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Simon Message #89408, posted at 04:46, 29/11/2001, in reply to message #89407
Unregistered user was that at band camp? :)
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Simon Willcocks Message #89409, posted at 15:26, 3/12/2001, in reply to message #89408
Unregistered user So, no more questions for a while; any answers?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Rachael Message #89410, posted at 15:28, 3/12/2001, in reply to message #89409
Unregistered user 1) How close was acorn to actually releasing the RPC2 and, how much of "ursula" is reflected in RO4?

2) If versions of RiscOS to date were 26 bit, why were the machines marketed as 32bit OS machines?
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Richard Goodwin Message #89411, posted at 09:23, 4/12/2001, in reply to message #89410
Unregistered user I recently collated all the questions into theme-based sections and sent them by email. I'm awaiting a response, which might be a while given the number of questions I shoe-horned in ;)
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #89412, posted at 20:24, 7/12/2001, in reply to message #89411
Unregistered user Damn, I do hope you sent the question asking what Pete Bondar was smoking.

Incidentally, the product which had even more features removed than Browse was surely Phoebe.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #89413, posted at 10:42, 19/12/2001, in reply to message #89412
Unregistered user So, who's the "mystery employee" then? Rumour has it that it's someone who's never actually worked for Acorn...
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Guest Message #89414, posted at 14:01, 31/1/2002, in reply to message #89413
Unregistered user Any word back from the Ex Acorn Employee??
I demand answers.

  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Blind Moose Message #112639, posted by Acornut at 08:30, 2/1/2010, in reply to message #89373
Acornut No-eye-deer (No Idea)

Posts: 487
http://backwater.vetonline.vic.edu.au/pdf/
Link broken RageCrybaby
Also, this threads' reply is taking a long time?..wink

[Edited by Acornut at 15:31, 2/1/2010]
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Alan Robertson Message #112643, posted by nytrex at 15:17, 2/1/2010, in reply to message #89402
Member
Posts: 118
Was it true that back in about '88 that Amstrad was going to create a games machine based on the Archimedes. I remember reading about it in a games magazine at the time.
Yes I remember reading an article in C+VG (computer and Video Games) about that.

Also, I heard a rumour that Sony was interested in using RISC OS for their new console (the Playstation) in the early 90s, but Acorn refused to license it. Would love to know if that was true or not.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
Rob Kendrick Message #112644, posted by nunfetishist at 17:50, 2/1/2010, in reply to message #112643
nunfetishist
Today's phish is trout a la creme.

Posts: 525
Also, I heard a rumour that Sony was interested in using RISC OS for their new console (the Playstation) in the early 90s, but Acorn refused to license it. Would love to know if that was true or not.
Every fibre in my being suggests "absolutely not". If only because there simply wasn't any hardware in existence (or could be bought into existence in the timespan of the project) that could run RISC OS and gave them the performance they wanted. Additionally, the rather lightweight requirements of a older console's OS would have made it easier to just roll their own.
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Eric Rucker Message #112645, posted by bhtooefr at 18:47, 2/1/2010, in reply to message #112644
Member
Posts: 337 		Another way to put it... RISC OS 3.11 would've likely been impractical to use on the 3DO, due to lack of RAM, and the 3DO was a much more advanced system than the SNES or the SNES-CD.

Granted, you could strip it down and run it from ROM, but IIRC, 3DO ended up going with a microkernel anyway. Why have all the cruft for a desktop environment, when this isn't a desktop?

It's only recently that consoles have started using general purpose OSes. The Dreamcast had games that ran in WinCE, the Xbox was basically a Windows PC, the PS2 could run Linux, although most games didn't run in it, the Xbox 360 uses a very heavily modified derivative of the Xbox Windows, and the PS3 has plenty of stuff that runs in Linux.
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Peter Howkins Message #112646, posted by flibble at 18:53, 2/1/2010, in reply to message #112645
flibble

Posts: 892
Another way to put it... RISC OS 3.11 would've likely been impractical to use on the 3DO, due to lack of RAM
Infact it would have been impossible to run any version of risc os (past or present) due to the ARM60 CPU not having an MMU.
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Blind Moose Message #112648, posted by Acornut at 20:36, 2/1/2010, in reply to message #112639
Acornut No-eye-deer (No Idea)

Posts: 487
http://backwater.vetonline.vic.edu.au/pdf/
Link broken RageCrybaby
Oki! Doki! Found it here grin
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Trevor Johnson Message #119465, posted by trevj at 22:11, 7/1/2012, in reply to message #112639
Member
Posts: 660
I recently collated all the questions into theme-based sections and sent them by email. I'm awaiting a response, which might be a while given the number of questions I shoe-horned in wink
Also, this threads' reply is taking a long time?..wink
Seconded. And must the contact remain nameless after 10 years (unless all was revealed in another thread)?
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qUE Message #119522, posted by qUE at 23:54, 23/1/2012, in reply to message #119465
qUE

Posts: 187 		What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
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Blind Moose Message #119523, posted by Acornut at 10:33, 24/1/2012, in reply to message #119522
Acornut No-eye-deer (No Idea)

Posts: 487 		What do you mean? An African or European swallow? laugh
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Trevor Johnson Message #119524, posted by trevj at 11:11, 24/1/2012, in reply to message #119523
Member
Posts: 660 		Huh? I... I don't know that.

Auuuuuuuugh.
  ^[ Log in to reply ]
 
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Acorn Arcade forums: News and features: Call for questions: All About Acorn