1. RISC OS is still the best OS. The latest RISC OS version is open source and runs on modern ARM hardware, while seamlessly running apps from 1987, despite changing several companies and being forked.
2. It was designed by a trans girl, Sophie Wilson.
3. RISC OS is the next best thing after the Lisp OS. Yet if you port SBCL to ARM, then it will be the best thing.
4. Can run on the cheapest laptops, phones and under $100 pi400 computers at high speed.
5. Beside lovely userspace, a much better kernel design than Linux. No DLL hell, no dependency hell. Sophie Wilson solved it all in 1987.
I never tried it but I find it sad that everybody forgot that the A in ARM stands for Acorn. Acorns are cute.
if you port SBCL to ARM
I thought it was ported a long time ago
I thought it was ported a long time ago
Then why are you still on the x86 Titanic?
I bet you don't even use the old troonware you're trying to sell.
I can't find anything about Wilson designing RISC OS.
>>5
because it's Discord bullshit
>>1
As someone that doesn't know a lot about hardware and kernels,
what's so good about the kernel design of RISC OS kernel, and how does she solved the DLL/dependency hell ?
>>5
There's a message on Usenet where Roger Wilson implies he's taking part in RISCOS development
We are working on further developments of the OS, but there is not planned to be another major release for quite a while
https://groups.google.com/g/eunet.micro.acorn/c/8CKpK4p8myA/m/PiTAHX4jPfsJ
He also acknowledges it's polished turd
The Mac OS (like RISC OS) has many imperfections when compared to traditional OS design, and yet provides what users want in a friendly desktop computer.
I am aware that she worked on the OS, but the claim was that she designed it.
>>9
I don't buy it, I'll bite.
Nowadays, being trans is politically so important that no matter how significant your historical contributions to the design of an OS were, as a trans, you deserve all the credit alone. An oppressively underrated OS that solved all the past, present and future problems other non-trans OSes had, have and could have. That's how I've read OP, sorry I just think there was no subtlety whatsoever there. This is not really about RISC OS. It's all about testing the waters, identifying friends and foes, and making lists.
>>11
It's probably just a misunderstanding. Wilson is well-known for designing the instruction set of ARM1, one of the first RISC processors, and on which RISC OS originally ran.
How does it start and configure then?
There is a BIOS ROM.
Its job is to run the !Boot application.
!Boot always resides in the core if the FS.
BIOS also has basic flash/network/cdrom/floppy driver.
So if you damaged your !Boot, you can easily recover.
On simpler installation, without an external kernel, !Boot can be just a script or an executable, instead of a proper app.
Now the root !Boot folder has another !Boot (can be an app or a script). That !Boot loads all drivers, starts desktop and does user login. The root boot also has !Run, which runs when the user clicks the root !Boot to configure OS (akin to Windows control panel, but a bit smarter and much more flexible).
Each application also has its own !Boot, which can optionally be `seen` by the root !Boot, which registers all services and kernel modules associated with that application. That is how file associations and file icons gets registered, without cluttering the registry. Applications are also `seen` when the user enters their folder. Same way, newly connected devices designed to work with RISC OS can `hard-load` the application necessary to work with them. For example, GPU used to install its driver, so user wont have to do the installation.
Major variables, like boot method, are saved to CMOS, and everything else gets saved under !Boot, inside config files, which user isn't supposed to edit (compared to Linux with its /etc). If some service needs startup configuration, it should install its configuration app under !Boot.
File type can also have several apps associated with it, it all depends on which app is currently `seen` or `booted`.
It also has a few funny convention on how to switch association, without changing file name. For example to debug existing executable, you change its type to DebImage, which passes it to a debugger. That is nice since it doesn't change the name of the executable, which is a thing many Unix programs depends upon (i.e. grep could behave differently depending on its symlink name) and you don't need to start a debugger separately (like I do currently with GDB).
That is just one step before a semantic filesystem, or database filesystem, where each file can have multiple type tags or faces, depending on how it is used. These semantic filesystems are very good for modern LLM driven AIs, since they can easily look through thousands of files, as long as they are tagged properly.
RISC OS has no registry!!!!!!
Registry is for pedos and transphobes!!!
AFAIK, Sophie worked on the ARM instruction set itself and the kernel core, also explaining it to others. You know to test a CPU instruction set you need to have something to run on it. The RISC OS just naturally followed the clean ARM design.
>>15
Why don't you just make a thread listing the most significant trans computer scientists in the history of computing? If a field isn't lacking them that's CS, and their number keeps growing. Enemies and foes, I still reject the two mutually exclusive categories. No grey zone, no spectrum there? No out-of-spectrum otherkins. Lurking? Yeah, tiring.
https://textboard.org/sol/121
16
LadyHavoc. She rewrote Quake engine, which made a few transphobes mad:
https://hemebond.gitlab.io/darkplaces-www/
Near/byuu. Wrote SNES emulator. Transphobes got so mad they bullied Near to suicide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higan_(emulator)
Leah Rower (not to be mistaken with Leah Culver). Does some BIOS hacking, nobody outside of Britain cares about.
https://libreboot.org/who.html
>>17
Nancy Gold, author of Symta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhm8dE4vylI
Sarah Walker, Ph.D in chemistry, worked on PCEm (the best PC emulator) and other emus.
https://pureportal.strath.ac.uk/en/persons/sarah-walker
Sarah was bullied so hard for being trans, so she created a made-up male person to serve as maintainer, but the kiwifarms bullies instantly seen through her ruse and continued to bully her:
https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3723&start=60
As a result PCEm is no longer updated.
Dunno if she is still alive or joined Near.
Gamers are a bunch of ungrateful conservatives and toxic incels.
They will only bully and insult you for your hard work.
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=16441&start=760
"PCEm - now with accurate drama emulation!"
Go placidly among the system data areas and hardware vectors, and remember what peace there is in a total system crash.
As far as possible, be on good terms with page zero. Write your code clearly and concisely; and listen to the advice of others when they say that writing everything in SVC mode is a crap idea.
Avoid loud and aggressive compilers, they are usually fur coat and no knickers and output horrid bloated code, and are vexations to the mind.
If you compare your code with a compiler, you may become bitter; for always the code output by a compiler will defy logic, but get the job done.
Enjoy your code, think carefully, and plan it well.
Keep interested in your own code, however humble; it is a real elation when it does it's task properly and in the knowledge that you hand-crafted it all.
Exercise caution in your programming; for the OS is full of weirdness (especially the font manager). But let this not blind you to what virtue there is in the simplicity of the ARM processor. Many persons strive for high ideals, you should too.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not rip off other people's code when you can't figure out why yours does not work. You learn nothing that way. Neither be cynical about the code of others, for in the face of vectors and interrupts, there is much to learn.
Take kindly the counsel of the PRMs, gracefully surrendering the code that they say shouldn't be used.
Nurture your code, and make it bomb-proof to shield you from the idiots that don't bother to RTFM.
But to not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of trying to make a RISC OS 2 only utility fully 32-bit compliant!
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
Your code is a chunk of the universe, no less than the SWIs and the vectors; and it has a right to be executed.
And whether or not it is clear to you, each bug found is another lesson learned.
Therefore, be at peace with RISC OS (whatever you imagine it's insides to look like), and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of a reboot, keep peace with your soul and persist. To shut down and watch the telly is a million potential lessons missed forever.
With all the sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, there is still a beautiful processor.
The ARM processor.
Enjoy it's design.
And above all else, back up regularly, whether you are programming or not!
Fuck off Nikita.
