Iyonix Issues
Matt Thompson
Select on the Iyonix
Since the last issue of RISCWorld there has been some movement in the continuing saga of getting RISC OS Select on the Iyonix. The recent online pledge set up at www.pledgebank.com for getting 100 people to sign up to to Select reached it's target and the current total is 112, but I would imagine it probably won't go much higher than this. I'm still sure that there are other interested people out there who didn't sign up to it for whatever reason. I should point out that this pledge is totally independent of RISCOS Ltd, but it certainly indicates that there is a demand for this product.
The beta version of Select for the Iyonix has been doing the rounds at the various recent shows and according to recent reports there may be something released as early as the second quarter of 2006, we shall see.
As previously mentioned if you are interested in seeing RISC OS Select appear on the Iyonix, and haven't told RISC OS Ltd, then make your interest known by e-mailing developer@riscos.com.
Software updates
There have been a few software updates since the last issue, first up we have another update to Vice - the collection of Commodore emulators, is now at V1.18 and this new version can be found at www.viceteam.org.
Starfighter 3000 has also had another update, now up to V3.07 this new version just fixes a few bugs, but good to see continued development of this great game. To download the new version go to www.starfighter.acornarcade.com.
Aemulor
The update to Aemulor and Aemulor Pro was released as promised, the current version of Aemulor is now V2.32. It's a free upgrade to all existing users, and includes a number of emulation and GUI enhancements, some speed improvements and bug fixes. For further information check http://buyit.spellings.net/prod_info.php?id=1. Unfortunately Wizards Apprentice still doesn't work properly, it almost does but gets stuck at the end of the first level - perhaps it's just not going to happen !
EasiWriter
The ongoing development of EasiWriter continues with the release of V8.50 just before Christmas. This is a payable upgrade and the cost is variable depending on which version you are upgrading from, for me an upgrade from V.8.43 costs £30.00 - there are a number of significant improvements in V8.50 - see www.iconsupport.demon.co.uk/Latest/850.html for a full description of the features in this new version.
This is not a definite list of new versions of software this month, just new versions of software that I have and use. So if you have a new version of some Iyonix compatible software and want the Iyonix community to know about it, then drop me an email at iyonix@riscos.org.
Geminus
The Geminus graphics acceleration driver, which was recently beta released, has now been officially released, to join the existing Geminus enhancements, there are five planned feature of which three have been released so far :
Multi Monitor Support - This allows several graphics cards to be installed, and then your desktop can be spilt across several screens.
Screen rotation - This allows the desktop to be rotated in any direction.
Graphics acceleration - This allows hardware acceleration and caching to speed up desktop graphical operations.
For more information and prices for Geminus, see spellings.net.
Making Z80em fully 32bit compatible
!Z80em is a ZX Spectrum emulator for RISC OS, and was recently updated and made to run on the Iyonix without the need for Aemulor. However there is still one problem with it and this is to do with the sound module 'AYSound'. Unfortunately this module is not 32 bit compatible and therefore has caused a few problems, the new Cronosoft games for example run in silence, despite having sounds and music, and also there are a number of 128K games which fail to load.
In short this module needs to be made 32bit compatible, the problem is that the author of it Darren Salt does not have an Iyonix and therefore is unable to make it 32bit compatible. However he has kindly supplied me with the source code for this module and is happy to let anyone make it 32 bit compatible on the condition that any modifications are sent to him and the author of !Z80em Michael Borcherds.
The request is can anybody out there do this? Is it even possible to do? The module is only about 8K in size so there shouldn't be masses of code to go through, although I don't know whether that makes it any easier or not to convert to 32bit though.
If anyone is able to do this it would be excellent and make !Z80em fully 32bit compatible which will be beneficial to both Iyonix users and A9 users as well, please contact me at iyonix@riscos.org if you can help, it would be very much appreciated.
RISC OS 5 ROM update 10
The RISC OS 5 ROM is currently in release 10. This is a beta release and is to fix problems with the 'Pyjamas' problem that have been reported. It also incorporates a few other fixes. I'm not sure what 'Pyjamas' actually means but I'm guessing it is the white lines I see when a do a hard reset with CTRL/Break, whilst they don't affect the running of the computer they look a bit odd - release 10 of the ROM is on the Iyonix website www.iyonix.com in the beta software section.
Castle address change
Iyonix Headquarters have recently moved premises and they can now be found at.
3 Signet Court
Cambridge
CB5 8LA.
There are also new phone numbers for sales and support, the email address remains the same as sales@iyonix.com - the full list of contact details are on www.iyonix.com in the contact us section.
A few months ago a patch for Twinworld was released which makes it run natively on an Iyonix. You need to have version V1.60 of Twinworld which is available to download from Acorn Arcade then apply the patch. I cannot remember where I downloaded this patch from, but I still have it, so if anyone is interested then email me and I will send it on.
Finally if anyone missed it, two commercial games from Psycore - Big Bang and Revolver were recently released as freeware and are available from Acorn Arcade Acorn Arcade the reason for mentioning this is that Revolver is fully 32bit compatible and will run natively on the Iyonix, Big Bang will need Aemulor Pro to run.
And so we reach the end of another Iyonix issues column, if you have any Iyonix related comments or software announcements or anything useful to any other Iyonix users, then the Iyonix column can be contacted at iyonix@riscos.org.
Matt Thompson