Obtaining legal RISC OS ROMs for emulation

[Samwise]

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn.misc
From: Paul Middleton <riscos@paulmidd.demon.co.uk>
Subject: "RISC OS Classic ROMs Collection CD" now available from RISCOS Ltd
Date: 4 Mar 2011 10:34:05 GMT

RISCOS Ltd Press Release 03/03/11


"RISC OS Clasic ROM Collection CD" for use with Emulators now
available from RISCOS Ltd.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

RISCOS Ltd has today announced the immediate availability of the
new "RISC OS Classic ROM Collection CD" for use with Emulators
(Virtual Computers). The CD costs just £10 and provides fully
authorised RISC OS ROM images and supporting Floppy Disc images.

The CD provides ROM images and Floppy Disc data for:-
Arthur 0.30
Arthur 1.20
RISC OS 2.00
RISC OS 2.01
RISC OS 3.00
RISC OS 3.10
RISC OS 3.11
RISC OS 3.50
RISC OS 3.60
RISC OS 3.70
RISC OS 3.71

RISCOS Ltd Managing Director Paul Middleton explained that ..

"We have received lots of requests to provide a source for officially
checked and approved older RISC OS ROM images for use with Emulators. Many
people want to be able to relive the original classic Acorn Computers
experience from the A300 series onwards. This CD now provides a full set of
ROMs and associated floppy disc images for those users to enjoy again."

The costs of the "RISC OS Classic ROM Collection CD" are:-

Download version - £10 from website (from Monday)
CD version by post £11.50 in the UK and £12.50 overseas.
CD collection at the Show £10.

Orders can be placed by telephone 02920 619942
or by email to sales@riscos.com
or by fax to 02920 213156.

CDs will be available to take away at the RISC OS South West Show 2011
on Saturday 5th March 2011.

Online ordering with payment via PayPal and a range of debit and credit
cards will be available via the RISCOS Ltd sales website at:

(http://sales.riscos.com/)

from Monday 7th March 2011.

--
Paul Middleton
Managing Director
RISCOS Ltd
Tel +44 (0)29 2061 9942 Direct, Fax +44 (0)29 2021 3156
Web http://www.riscos.com/

RISC OS
Built by RISCOS Ltd - Powered by ARM® Technology
ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited
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classicriscosromscollection.jpg (56.22 KiB) Viewed 22417 times

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn.apps
From: Paul Middleton <riscos@paulmidd.demon.co.uk>
Subject: RISC OS "Virtually Free" announced
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2008 00:09:57 +0000 (GMT)

RISCOS Ltd Press Release 06/12/08


"Virtually Free" RISC OS 4.02 for use with Emulators.
-----------------------------------------------------

RISCOS Ltd has today announced the immediate availability of the
new "Virtually Free" version of RISC OS 4.02 for use with Emulators
(Virtual Computers). The licence to use RISC OS 4.02 on a single
computer now starts from only £5.

RISC OS "Virtually Free" is a fully licensed complete package.
It consists of a single 4 MB zip file containing a RISC OS 4.02 ROM
image with the !Boot structure and other necessary applications and
utilities. It is designed to be unzipped and installed in the emulator
itself with most of the work being done from within the host
environment.

Simple step by step instructions are provided for a number of
emulators designed to run RISC OS.

This package is not suitable for use with "real" RISC OS
computers. Those with "real" computers should take a look
at the RISCOS Upgrade CD, which was announced earlier
this week.

RISCOS Ltd Managing Director Paul Middleton explained that ..

"We have been looking at ways of making a low cost, or 'Virtually
Free' version of RISC OS available for some time. With RISCOS
Ltd having now confirmed it's ownership of all versions of RISC OS
produced since February 1999 we are now in a position to
offer a low cost product that acts as an introduction to RISC OS."

The costs of the "Virtually Free" RISC OS 4.02 are:-

Download version - GBP5 from website (from Monday)

CD version by post GBP10 in the UK and GBP12.50 overseas.

Orders can be placed by telephone 02920 619942
or by email to sales@riscos.com
or by fax to 02920 213156.

CDs will be available to take away at the MUG Show on Saturday 6th
December 2008.

Online ordering with payment via PayPal and a range of debit and credit
cards will be available via the RISCOS Ltd sales website at:

(http://sales.riscos.com/)

from Monday 8th December.

--
Paul Middleton
Managing Director
RISCOS Ltd
*Note new phone numbers from 1st April 2008*
Tel +44 (0)29 2061 9942 Direct, Fax +44 (0)29 2021 3156
Email: mailto:riscos@paulmidd.demon.co.uk Web http://www.riscos.com/

RISC OS
Built by RISCOS Ltd - Powered by ARM Technology

ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

virtuallyfreeriscos402.gif (51.01 KiB) Viewed 22417 times

[Samwise]

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn.apps
From: "Steve (ROOL)" <srevill@riscosopen.org>
Subject: New IYONIX ROM release, and other releases
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:33:50 +0100

RISC OS Open (ROOL) are pleased to announce the immediate release of the
very latest RISC OS ROM image from Castle Technology (Castle) for the
IYONIX pc desktop computer.

This is an official release from Castle and represents the first formal ROM
release to include changes and improvements which have been fed back into
the shared source project.

You can download your copy of RISC OS 5.14, either as a softload (to try it
out) or as a ROM programmer tool, from the page below.

Users should be aware that whilst every effort is made to ensure this is
fully functional, there is a (small) risk of an error creeping in during the
merging of the sources released originally to ROOL and the sources used to
build the previous official RISC OS release from Castle

We have also published a number of other releases on our web site, including
the prototype A7000 ROM image, the prototype BeagleBoard ROM image and a
collection of new source code archives.

<URL:http://www.riscosopen.org/content/downl ... r-zipfiles>

Thanks,

The ROOL team

--
Stephen Revill, Director Tel: +44 (0) 1353 740 267
RISC OS Open Ltd http://www.riscosopen.org
4 Townsend Mews, Wilburton,
Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB6 3SQ

Andrew Hodgkinson (6) said about 7 hours later:

Please note that only the IYONIX pc ROM is official and usable.

The 5.15 ROMs, especially the OMAP and IOMD (RiscPC / A7000) ports, are works in progress and are not yet usable. They are not finished – you are unlikely to be able to get as far as the Desktop and many basic features are missing. Only developers are likely to be interested in downloading them at this stage.

You can keep up to date on progress of the various ROMs through the forums and we’ll make news page releases if anything significant happens, so watch this space!

rool_cog.png (4.3 KiB) Viewed 21639 times

It is probably worth mentioning that RISC OS 5, which is suitable for a RiscPC emulator is available legally, and for free.

You need the IOMD version from http://riscosopen.org/content/downloads/other-zipfiles

The drawback to using RISC OS 5 is that software running on it needs to be 32-bit compatible to run. RISC OS 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 4.x, etc all run the older 26-bit code too.

On the other hand, the boon for using RISC OS 5 (apart from it being free, and its source code being available for developers), is that under emulation it runs software that has been made 32-bit compatible faster than when running a 26-bit compatible version of the OS.

This is simply because 32-bit mode is less work to emulate.