News from RISCOS Ltd No. 19 January 8th 2002 ================ Happy New Year from RISCOS Ltd ------------------------------ We wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year. Foundation Risc User Issue 7 ---------------------------- Issue 7 of the Foundation Risc User was sent out during December to all current subscribers. If you haven't received a copy yet, please let the Foundation Secretary know mailto:foundation@riscos.com The RISC OS Web Sites --------------------- The demand for downloads from the RISC OS Select Web Site was so high that we decided to transfer our hosting from a shared server at Argonet to a new dedicated server at Demon. All the RISCOS Ltd Web Sites are now hosted there. We have a Cobalt RaQ 3i server with a 512Kb link, which will enable us to expand our services during 2002. One of our first aims will be to supply on-line processing of Credit Card Orders for Foundation renewals, RISC OS 4 upgrade orders and RISC OS Select subscriptions. The current RISC OS sites are:- http://www.riscos.com/ The main site for everything general about RISCOS Ltd. http://select.riscos.com/ The new home for the RISC OS Select Scheme. This replaces the old site at http://support.riscos.com/Select/ http://support.riscos.com/ The site for all support software relating to RISC OS 4. http://foundation.riscos.com/ The RISC OS Foundation Site including the Private members area. http://productsdb.riscos.com/ The RISC OS Products Database. This is where we try to offer a Database of every product that has ever been produced for RISC OS, both hardware and software. If you spot anything errors or omissions from this site, please let us know at mailto:admin@riscos.com http://acorn.riscos.com/ The contents of the old Acorn public ftp site and other software for RISC OS 3 Users. http://developer.riscos.com/ The site for Registered RISC OS Developers and Authorised Installers. All the public programming resources are now on the http://support.riscos.com site. Email contact ------------- Since we have moved to a new server it seems to have cured the problems we were having with certain email addresses within RISCOS Ltd not being recognised by some ISPs. Please try and use the correct email address if contacting us as follows:- If an issue relates to the Foundation please send it to mailto:foundation@riscos.com and please quote your membership number on all correspondence with the Foundation as this will speed up our administration and avoid confusion over people who have the same name or address. If you have a sales enquiry, then please send it to mailto:sales@riscos.com If you have a technical support query, then please send it to mailto:support@riscos.com (Please note that we do not guarantee to be able to reply to support queries within any set period of time.) RISC OS Select SmartGroup ------------------------- If you have not received an invitation to join the RISC OS Select SmartGroup, it is probably because we do not have a valid email address for you. If you have subscribed to RISC OS Select and would like to join the Group and have not received an invitation then please send an email to mailto:select@riscos.com and you will be sent an invite. Membership Renewals ------------------- Since its launch at the Acorn SouthWest Show in February 1999 we have had over 1500 people join the Foundation. I hope you all enjoy the contents of the CD produced by Richard Hallas and the other contributors and find the articles useful and informative. We are however changing the costing of the Foundation as from 31st May 2002. To cover the increased cost of sending CD's overseas there will be different charges for non UK members according to standard postal zones. There will also be a rise for UK based subscribers. Subscriptions to European Community countries will be raised to £35.00 + VAT = £41.13 Subscriptions to Non-EC countries in Europe will be £35.00 (No VAT) Subscriptions to Zone 1 Postal Countries, such as South Africa will be raised to £37 (No VAT) Subscriptions to Zone 2 Postal Countries, such as Australia will be raised to £39 (No VAT) UK subscriptions will be raised to £33 + VAT = £38.78 Forthcoming Shows ----------------- The next RISC OS Show is the RISC OS South West Show at the Webbington Hotel, Loxton, Near Weston Super Mare on Saturday March 2nd 2002. http://www.argonet.co.uk/acornshow/sw02/ We shall also be supporting the German market by visiting the German Hobbytronic Fair at the end of February. User Group Meetings ------------------- I visited the London M25 User Group at the start of December and gave them a presentation on the RISC OS Select Scheme. It was a small venue above a pub just down from London Bridge station which made for a happy event. The next User Group meeting I am attending is the SASAUG meeting in Horsham on Monday 14th January. If other User groups would like a visit please contact me mailto:paul@riscos.com RISC OS emulators ----------------- There has been much discussion on newsgroups recently about programs designed to emulate an ARM based computer running on Wintel based PC's. Until recently these programs have been released as shareware and were only capable of running RISC OS 3 based software. However recent releases have been promoted as being capable of running RISC OS 4 and even RISC OS Select. These programs raise serious questions regarding RISC OS licencing as all current ROM versions of RISC OS are only licenced for use on one machine and there is no allowance for RISC OS being copied out of ROM from one machine for use on another computer. ( The RISC OS Select Scheme is different as it allows use on multiple machines owned by one person which have RISC OS 4 installed in ROM on each machine.) RISCOS Ltd has the worldwide licence to the RISC OS Operating System for use in the Desktop Computer Market and I have to report that no-one has a written licence to distribute any version of RISC OS for use with PC based emulators. Any unlicenced sales of any version RISC OS means that the income from those sales only goes to those who are pirating RISC OS and does not go into further developments of RISC OS. If you have bought an emulator in the expectation of running RISC OS on it then there is no product which is legally licenced to do that at present. RISC OS 3.11 in particular has not been placed into the public domain and Pace as copyright holders of RISC OS have made it quite clear that they reserve all rights to take action against anyone who abuses the RISC OS rights by illegal distribution of unlicenced copies of RISC OS. If you have paid for any form of Acorn emulator which includes any version of the RISC OS Operating System then we strongly suggest that you return the product to the supplier for a full refund until such time as legally licenced copies of RISC OS are available from RISCOS Ltd for use with such emulators. Other News ---------- Herman Hauser ------------- Herman Hauser, one of the original founders of Acorn Computers has received a CBE in the New Years Honours list. Full details are available at :- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1734000/1734860.stm Herman now runs Amadeus Capital Partners who invest in companies such as Element 14. Repairs for Acorn Computers --------------------------- Reflex Electronics unfortunately ceased trading in late September 2001 but some of the staff have formed a new company to carry on Acorn repairs and supply of Acorn spares. The new company is ITC-UK (Not to be confused with ITC Television) They have a very limited web site at http://www.itc-uk.co.uk/ Dave Lumley can be contacted at 0709 2000 590 for enquiries. P O Box 101, St Ives, Cambs, PE27 3WB UK Government plans ------------------- UK GovTalk is an interesting site run by the UK Cabinet Office. http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/ It contains many documents and Government RFCs covering the many issues related to the Government goal of establishing e-Government where everything related to Government can be done online. The QinetiQ report on the impact of Open Source Software makes for interesting reading. http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/interoperability/egif_document.asp?docnum=430 Replying to queries from this Newsletter ---------------------------------------- If you are responding to a specific query in this newsletter please use the appropriate mailto: address to reply rather than replying to the sender of this email. Also don't reply to the general foundation or admin email addresses as your enquiry may not get dealt with promptly. We try to reply to all enquiries within 5 days. But at peak times it may take longer to reply. If you have received this email in error, or wish to be removed from this list then please send an email to mailto:foundation@riscos.com with the subject REMOVE regards -- Paul Middleton RISCOS Ltd ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright ©2002 RISCOS Ltd. RISC OS is a trademark of Pace Micro Technology plc. Certain other product names, brand names, and company names may be trademarks or designations of their respective owners.