Talk:RISC OS

Template:Find sources notice

Icon bar article merge suggestion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was No consensus. --Trevj (talk) 14:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

---

• Oppose User:Kvng, what are your reasons for suggesting the merge of the article? Over the years the icon bar article has been neglected somewhat; if you look back to September 2008 you'll see that originally there were several images of the icon bar (one per major OS release), along with descriptions covering any important functional aspects of the bar. This seemed to be in keeping with other bar-related articles (e.g. the Taskbar article). But those images were later deleted by a bot due to not having the correct copyright tags, which then resulted in the associated text being deleted sometime later. So if you suggested that the article should be merged simply because the current version of the article is a bit rubbish, then I think we should at least consider trying to fix it first (Especially since we now have the RISC OS WikiProject to help keep on top of things like this) Phlamethrower (talk) 20:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose merge suggestion. The article will be improved and images again included (e.g. following advice at WP:MSWIN/Licensing). Merging with RISC OS would result in the pruning of information. If and when the RISC OS article becomes too large, it may then require splitting up again (as mentioned above). --trevj (talk) 16:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Kvng, are you seeking further clarification on opposition to the merge proposal? Do you still hold the view that Icon bar should be merged into RISC OS? Although progress on improving this article is slow, it will be improved. As you've made no comment here, the recorded discussions lean towards consensus to keep the article. What do you think, please? Thanks. --trevj (talk) 10:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The Icon bar is an integral component of the RISC OS and can be covered in this article. Potential justification for having a separate article is that this article is too long or, as is the case with Taskbar, Icon bar was a topic that wasn't so OS specific. --Kvng (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The content of Icon bar is currently of comparable length to that for MS Windows within Taskbar, and is longer than the sections on KDE and Gnome in that article. If Icon bar were to be merged with RISC OS, a considered summary of content would require including at Taskbar. Perhaps a longer term solution would actually be to split the content for MS Windows, KDE, Gnome, etc. into separate articles (stubs in some cases). Taskbar could then be a much more generic article, perhaps including a comparision of features between different OS implementations. There would subsequently be little need for OS-specific detail in the text of the article, except perhaps the use of some examples. If this were to be pursued, discussion could be initiated at Talk:Taskbar. --trevj (talk) 14:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, but that's about Taskbar. I still support a merge of Icon bar. WP protocol is that if we can't reach a consensus, things remain as they are. Unless someone new has something new to say, that's probably how it will go down. --Kvng (talk) 19:54, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Following the argument that The Icon bar is an integral component of the RISC OS and can be covered in this article, it would also be appropriate to propose:

• merging Start menu into Microsoft Windows and X window manager
• merging Dock (Mac OS X) into Mac OS X

I don't think that such proposals would meet with consensus approval. --Trevj (talk) 14:54, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BBC BASIC

BBC BASIC isn't currently within the scope of WP:RISCOS, although it could arguably be included. I'd like to suggest that BBC BASIC link to RISC OS under the relevant section, rather than Acorn Archimedes (discussion at Talk:BBC BASIC). --trevj (talk) 09:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Converting from list to prose

The {{Multiple issues}}/{{Prose}} tag means we still need to address a few items. I'm considering the following:

• Bundled applications

could be moved to List of RISC OS bundled applications (and included in Category:Lists of software)

• Features (OS core/The Desktop) was split into subsections in 2009 and has its origins in 2006

either rewrite entirely in prose, or move to list(s) as above

• RISC OS 3 was expanded and converted to list form in 2006

revert to prose

• Work post-Acorn by RISCOS Ltd large content rewrite includes some list items

could possibly be addressed similarly to 'Features' above?

prose for shorter lists?

--trevj (talk) 10:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Also worth noting WP:EMBED. --Trevj (talk) 14:57, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

 Done Features reworded, Bundled applications split out. RISC OS 3 and Work post-Acorn by RISCOS Ltd now at History of RISC OS. --Trevj (talk) 15:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

References

I'm undoing this edit. The tag was dated Sept 2006 (persumably originating with this tag), and many references have recently been added + some dubious claims removed IIRC. However, the article still lacks some refs, as noted around just one week ago. When we've managed to address these issues, I think the tag could legitimately be removed once more. In the mean time, I'm sure that any reviewing editor from elsewhere would share the view that the tag remain. I hope that makes sense. --Trevj (talk) 06:56, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguous use of the term "Arthur"

The opening sentence now reads "...RISC OS (/rɪskˈoʊˈɛs/) (initially named Arthur)..."

Could this be phrased better? It seems ambiguous to me, as was RiscOS supposed to be Arthur 2, or does the statement mean that the operating system was originally, ie pre-RO2, called Arthur? I'm confused. a_man_alone (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Both, Arthur 2.00 was renamed RISC OS 2.00 before publication. --Egel _Reaction? 17:52, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It can't be both. In fact, I've thought about it a bit more, and RiscOS was originally called Arthur 2 - pre RiscOS OS systems were called Arthur full stop. I've made a slight change. a_man_alone (talk) 18:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it now makes more sense than my ambiguous contribution. Thanks. --Trevj (talk) 06:59, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

A9home

I've moved the bulk of this content out to A9home, per WP:CFORK. This should make it easier to maintain things. If anyone feels strongly otherwise, please move it back in and/or discuss here. Thanks. --Trevj (talk) 09:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Font Manager

There are some potentially useful references at the bottom of this post. Neil Raine, David Seal, William Stoye and Roger Wilson also presented at the USENIX Computer Graphics Workshop, Monterey, California, 1989 --Trevj (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Release version commit dates

ROOL's site provides the following commit dates, but AIUI we can't use them within the article because it would count as original research.

•  9-Sep-88 2.00
• 17-Sep-91 3.00
• 17-Feb-94 3.50

Therefore, does anyone know if this kind of information has been previously documented elsewhere, e.g. interviews/articles? --Trevj (talk) 11:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Problem is those dates are a) window manager only (not the OS date) b) the code freeze dates, not the dates they started shipping. So from a public point of view the dates are generally a few months later than that. Anyway, here's some more dates for you ... http://marutan.net/db/modules.php?kModule=12 http://marutan.net/db/modules.php?kModule=1 --Flibble (talk) 13:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the other release dates. Yes, it's true that the above ROOL dates are just for the Window Manager and I guess that other parts of the OS required for the respective shipped releases may have been finalised after those dates. (The ROOL MOS dates can also be checked.) Anyway, the reason I've been thinking about dates is because I'm currently reading Andy Hertzfeld's Revolution in the Valley. Therefore, I wondered if it would be interesting from a(n) historical POV to include dates of completed code for functionality included in the major OS releases. Aspects of any large software project presumably have code freezes a considerable time in advance of the product being shipped. In the case of producing ROMs, the fabrication/testing process is probably longer than for magnetic/optical media. But as I said above, it's all WP:NOR AFAIK ATM - unless someone digs something up. Cheers. --Trevj (talk) 09:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I collated a set of useful refs for arthur to 3.7 by combing through Chris's Acorns, the highlights are here User:Flibble/Acorn_Stuff#Refs_per_version, give some dates for some versions.--Flibble (talk) 19:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Nice one. Will see what can be done with that when I get some uninterrupted time to wade through it all. --Trevj (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Arthur written in BASIC?

http://productsdb.riscos.com/admin/riscos.htm states You may like to know that Acorn's first release of the Desktop in 1987 was written in BBC BASIC! Can this be verified? It sounds implausible but perhaps there's truth in it. Which published articles are there which refer to the work of Paul Fellows and his team? --Trevj (talk) 10:50, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

The desktop environment was indeed one BASIC program, with what we would now call 'apps' loaded as BASIC libraries. I wrote my own extensions and modified it quite a bit. Of course it relied upon the fledgling WindowManager module (or whatever it was called then) to do the WIMP stuff, but that didn't do task switching back then. nemo (talk) 09:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

That's useful to know. I've retrieved my old Micro User and A&B Computing mags from '87 but haven't found anything yet to back this up in reliable sources (that's not to say that you're not a reliable source, but I'm sure you know what I mean!). Is this stuff documented anywhere so that it can be included? Thanks. --Trevj (talk) 11:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, one could purchase the Classic ROMs Collection from RISC OS Ltd (it’s a tenner) which includes two versions of Arthur... but I’m tempted to remain unreliable and £10 better off. ;-) nemo (talk) 12:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Entry at Comparison of operating systems

Now done (first stab). --Trevj (talk) 14:56, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Added it to the security section.--Flibble (talk) 16:05, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

NCOS merge suggestion

Given, the shared kernel, most of the modules, developers and hardware. I suggest moving the NCOS page into a section on the RISC OS page. With a redirect setup on NCOS.--Flibble (talk) 16:15, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not so sure that this would be helpful to readers following the (admittedly small number of) links from articles outside the Acorn/RISC OS subject area. They would then end up at a subsection of RISC OS when following a link to NCOS. Although the kernel, modules, developers and (internal) hardware are very much shared - isn't the OS itself distinct, as it was developed with a different purpose to RISC OS? The merge of Arthur (Operating System) seemed more logical, as it was a previous version of RISC OS, used for the same purposes i.e. desktop computers. NCOS is notable as a standalone article (there are additional references to it, but ISTR that some of these are behind paywalls). Merging the content into RISC OS would probably mean rewording the lead to avoid duplication of stuff like 'It was adapted by Acorn Computers from its own RISC OS, which was originally developed for their range of Archimedes desktop computers.' This would result in the context being less obvious to readers following links to NCOS. Conversely, if this information were to be retained, it would be unnecessary for readers of the main RISC OS article. Additionally, it should be noted that NCOS has been listed elsewhere as a 'Missing encyclopedic article'. --Trevj (talk) 09:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)