RISC OS South East Show 2005 - The talks
A quick round up of the lectures given at South East Show
I've already covered the exhibitors at the SouthEast show, but for once I though it would be worth writing a few words about the various talks that went on in the lecture theatre.
Castle Technology Ltd
The first talk of the day came from Jack Lillingston of Castle Technology Ltd. Instead of the hoped for information on CTL's plans for the future the theatre got a slightly odd talk. Jack came in with a number of PC cases and unpacked them. He then showed how you could fit an Iyonix motherboard. This section of the talk was covered by a close up camera which had the unfortunate effect of making his presentation look like a bad program on a cheap home shopping channel. I could imagine the voice over..."As you can see the motherboard is decorated with real cubic zirconia with gold contacts making an heirloom you'll want to pass on...".
Jack then went on to talk about USB2 support and to extol the virtues of the Iyonix, which seemed quite fair. Although trying to pretend the Iyonix was compact when the A9Home was being demonstrated later was pushing it a bit. In the end a number of those watching seemed a bit nonplussed with the talk especially as it was similar to ones given at user groups earlier in the year. In the end I got the impression that a demo of the new Geminus features would have attracted greater interest.
Quercus
John Cartmell gave a talk about Qercus magazine. He gave away free copies of the current issue (would that be May? - HJ) and covered some of the topics that had been featured recently. He also explained that some of the delays in getting copies to subscribers was due to the move to a new office but that things would be back to normal as soon as possible. He also announced an initiative to offer free advertising space to small developers and a service to allow people to test their software on an A9 and an Iyonix at the Qercus premises.
RISCOS Ltd
The main talk of the day was from RISCOS Ltd. Paul Middleton decided to bring along an Iyonix running Select, much to the suprise of a few vocal critics, one of whom seemed disapointed to see that Select for the Iyonix had been worked on and was demonstratable. After running few a number of features that did work Paul then showed some that didn't. It was clear that if Iyonix users wanted Select for their machines that they would have to stump up money at some point. Paul also explained how RISC OS development was funded, explaining that Advantage6 had paid their own development costs and that the Select subscribers had contributed towards producing a general 32bit RISC OS not tailored to any particular hardware.
Paul then went on to explain some of the history behind RISC OS and pointed out that RISCOS Ltd has been in charge of RISC OS for nearly as long as Acorn were. As part of the talk Paul handed out leaflets listing some of the features of Select4. You can find a copy of this from the main index page in this issue. To conclude Paul went on to add that in a small market the users need to contribute towards the development of the OS. This seemed to be understood by the vast majority and a number of them renewed their Select subscriptions.
A9Home
The A9Home presentation got off to an amusing start as Chris Evans of CJE micros couldn't be found. In the end an announcement came over the PA system asking if someone could get him out of the toilet, why? Was he stuck round the u-bend? Apparently not. Anyway Matt from Advantage6 turned up with a small bag, containing a complete A9 setup, including a tiny LCD monitor, roll up keyboard and a tiny mouse. Matt then went on to demonstrate the machine and connected a USB camera. The machine seemed to perform very well and certainly attracted a lot of interest. What wasn't forthcoming was a full release date but Chris Evans seemed exceptionally positive about the machines potential.
So that's a very brief rundown of what happened in the lecture theatre. The next show is in February in the South West, it will be interesting to see what's shown in the lecture theatre there.
Aaron