Firefox as you probably know is a free browser developed for Windows PC use from Mozilla. It has been ported to GNU Linux and Peter is now porting it to RISCOS. Peter is an active RISC OS developer and I am sure this will be an important talk ... not to be missed. Please come along and show your support for this work which will give much improved browser functionality on our favourite platform.
We did indeed get a sneak preview of Wakefield. Jack brought along his latest project - hot off the press. He had been rushing to get it in a demonstrable form for us that evening. So we were honoured. Castle have expanded greatly in the last year or so with the opening of their new unit Tematic in Cambridge and moving into larger premises at Framlingham with an increase of Staff.
The project is a special (Signetics) box for "Digital Signage" which is a low cost way to interface monitors to a network. I understood these to be produced in Cambridge at Tematic . The monitors would then display a presentation akin to a rolling slide show of linked pages. The hardware for the demo consisted of an X100 IYONIX driving the signage box (I don't think a name was mentioned for it yet, so I'll just call it "the box") The output from the box was fed to a digital projector and onto a screen.
The hardware has an ARM9 processor (233MHz) running RO 5 with inputs from USB, card reader, and Ethernet ports, but no hard disk. The idea is that data is sent from a computer via the network and displayed on the monitor. Apparently the really clever bit is managing all the data so that each monitor in a network may have customised data supplied to it. The software also allowing rapid changes to be made to the information. The market is for use in airport lounges, railway stations and other public places. There could be different models for different customers, he mentioned possible Canadian customers.
Jack mentioned the term "low cost" several times but wouldn't be drawn on what "low cost" was saying it would be dependent on how many you order! My guess, for what it is worth, is < £100 per box. He did say that if he opened the box we would be surprised how little was inside it. (An inverse TARDIS perhaps!) The box will support PAL, SECAM and NTSC standards with composite video and S-Video outputs and is fitted with a SCART socket, physically, for the prototype, the box was 25cm x 6cm x 20cm in size and no fan is required. It looked a bit like a set-top box.
The software was fast code of less than 4MB in size written by Paul Reuvers.
The demo showed several screens of graphics rolling on top of each other a little like a semi-transparent roller blind with the graphics visible on the back of the roll as it unrolled if you see what I mean. Quite impressive and smooth.
The demonstration was fairly short although Jack was happy to answer questions about it he didn't go into any detail about the software.
There followed a general question and answer session about other developments.
Oregano 3 is almost ready for release and to quote Jack " a vast improvement over Oregano 2."
Asked whether there would ever be a RISCOS laptop Jack said it was very unlikely since production numbers (10000 cases) would not be sufficient enough to buy in a stable case design at a reasonable price. IYONIX versions now included the Panther and X100 designs in addition to the main tower design. There were also no upgrade plans for existing machines. Future machines would be based on 803·21 X Scale processors ( also known as StrongArm2).
Asked about DVD drives after Stefan Huber had said he was working on DVD Burn software Jack said they would use these as soon as the software was available. He said Castle always fitted Sony drives now as they consider them very reliable and conformant to established standards.
I asked him about relations with RISCOS Ltd and the multiple versions of RISCOS and he said that it was a private matter between Castle and their licensees and everything would be fine as long as everyone kept to the terms of the license. He agreed it was important to have only a single version of the operating system.
We also asked him, rather tongue in cheek, whether he could do us any special deals on Video projectors since as a club we were hoping to purchase one! However the don't market them as such and he just recommended us to buy a well known brand and thought that we might need to spend about £800 on one. We had more in mind £400.
Well, quite an interesting and friendly evening and we were grateful to Jack for sparing us the time from his busy schedule to visit us.
Following my purchase of a Nikon Coolscan III and problems mentioned last month. Frank very kindly lent me his Coolscan III and so I was able to verify that the software was working perfectly and that there was only a problem with my own unit causing it to give very out of focus blurred scans. I decided to open up my unit and very quickly realised that the optics, and in particular the lower mirror, were extremely dusty and dirty. So I decided to clean it. This entailed dismantling the unit in order to get closer access to the optics. However I succeeded and after reassembling the unit was able to obtain much improved scans.
| Date | Topic | Speaker |
| 1st June 2005 | "Firefox for RISCOS, and more!" | Peter Naulls |
| 6th July 2005 | TBA | TBA |
The Committee have recently met and discussed the future programme covering a range of topics including:
We shall be having another Committee meeting on 8th June when we hope to put together a more detailed programme for this year so please contact us if you particularly like the sound of one of these topics; and if you would like to present one yourself, please let us know.
We are also interested if anyone knows of a good alternative Social venue to the Crown at Manningtree in the North Essex area so that we can fix up our summer social evening.
Talks with Visiting speakers are shown in Red. We will give more details as soon as they are available.
Our meetings are held at the Bourne Vale Social Club, Halifax Road, Ipswich IP2 8NP , for a map and other details please see the website. http://icenicomputerclub.users.btopenworld.com
The first visit is free and subsequent visits for non - members is £2. The membership fee is £18 due from the AGM date in April, but may be reduced for those joining late in the year.
None this month.
Continuing our publicity for EAUG events their next meeting will be:
| 14th June 2005 | "e-Commerce". Speaker TBA |
For details of the above see the website
http://www.watsnees.demon.co.uk/fw/eaug/
Meetings are at the Great Baddow Village Hall,
opening at 7:30 p.m. for a start at 7:45 - 8:00 p.m.
For directions see below (note the new web addresses)
http://www.watsnees.demon.co.uk/fw/eaug/ven.htm
or 'phone one of the contacts on http://www.watsnees.demon.co.uk/fw/eaug/ppl.htm
See you soon!
Frank.
"ICENI does not have any Insurance cover for computers or other equipment so please be advised that you bring machines to the club at your own risk."
P.S. My insurance company have added my computer cover away from home with no extra premium required, yours might do the same.(Ed.)
I am open to suggestions on what people would like to have included in the new website. Our website URL has changed to
http://icenicomputerclub.users.btopenworld.com as a virtual domain,
it can also be reached using http://www.btinternet.com/~icenicomputerclub
Email to: iceni@woolridge.org.uk