ROOL Forum: Recent Posts

Building a RISC OS machine from a dead PC

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 22:41:22 -0000

and the neater solution of powering the USB hub from the PC PSU isn’t deemed sensible?

There is still the potential problem that the total load may still not be enough to satisfy the PC PSU.

I stress that it’s a potential problem (no pun intended) in that no-one has stated what the minimum load requirement of the PC PSU is, nor has anyone stated what minimum load the OP’s kit will impose – and let’s not forget that that figure needs care in measurement, because the load will vary.

I don’t know if it’s a problem for the OP, but a multi-output PSU typically exibits two problems:

Running everything off a single rail, powered by a PSU that is not excessively over-rated, is the best way to get a reliable result.

Building a RISC OS machine from a dead PC

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 22:29:35 -0000

Well a powered USB hub would be needed for that which comes with its own rather chunkier wall wart.

and the neater solution of powering the USB hub from the PC PSU isn’t deemed sensible?

cc 5.88: Unix-y include paths on the command line

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 21:06:33 -0000

One could argue that if something has worked for some thirty odd years (going back to Norcroft release 4 at least), then that is the standard and the documentation is what needed to change.

But, then, having the thing be so brain-dead that it translates “s.filename” paths as “blah.s.s.filename” and needs a ^ to get things to work, that to me sounds like the sticking plaster.

Building a RISC OS machine from a dead PC

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 20:14:33 -0000

Well a powered USB hub would be needed for that which comes with its own rather chunkier wall wart.

cc 5.88: Unix-y include paths on the command line

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:12:59 -0000

. Talking of weird/changed behaviour with filenames… ObjAsm was fiddled with1 in 2019. Had to fix all of my MakeFiles to get stuff working again

1Polite way of saying “broken”.

One could of course regard the change as a move to a standard, which required users to remove the sticking-plaster modifications :)

Getting the current ISO-639 and ISO-3166 locales

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:09:21 -0000

Is there an easy way to look up the ISO-639 and ISO-3166 language and country codes for the active territory?

I hate to say it, but until we have a meaningful i18n/l10n system for RISC OS beyond the braindead Territory system, I would recommend just returning a hardcoded enGB, which will be right in around 99.73% of cases anyway.

Building a RISC OS machine from a dead PC

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:09:10 -0000

Instead of using dummy loads with some old inefficient power supply, I’d just rip it out and use a Raspberry Pi wall wart. One of the main points of the Pi is it uses next to no power, so you can leave it running 24/7. It rather defeats the object to use more energy heating up a dummy load.

  1. That was the main idea behind my suggestion of one of the smaller form factor chassis
  2. I believe the OP was intending to use storage devices that take somewhat more than a mere wall wart can deliver – which barely matches the power demands of the later Pi models

cc 5.88: Unix-y include paths on the command line

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 13:32:48 -0000

Talking of weird/changed behaviour with filenames… ObjAsm was fiddled with1 in 2019. Had to fix all of my MakeFiles to get stuff working again.
https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/11/topics/13224

1 Polite way of saying “broken”.

cc 5.88: Unix-y include paths on the command line

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 11:56:48 -0000

I may be having brain fade but didn’t

cc -c -I../.. foo

where c.foo does #include "whatever.h" that’s on the (Unix-y) include path use to work?

The Acorn C/C++ manual suggests that it is supposed to in the section on Include files where it talks about filename translation for #include "../whatever.h":

In the same way, the lists of directory names given as arguments to the compiler’s Include and Default path SetUp options (see below) are translated to RISC OS format before being used, in the rare event that this is necessary.

cc -c -I^.^ foo

does, of course, work.

StrongMen 1.27 released

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 10:33:38 -0000

Ah, OK :)

Building a RISC OS machine from a dead PC

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 08:39:59 -0000

Instead of using dummy loads with some old inefficient power supply, I’d just rip it out and use a Raspberry Pi wall wart. One of the main points of the Pi is it uses next to no power, so you can leave it running 24/7. It rather defeats the object to use more energy heating up a dummy load.