The bulk of this £850 is leaving the RISC OS market (most to an uncredited clone manufacturer, some to Microsoft then (and only then) the rest to ROL/VA and presumably some too to MD (presumably for sourcing the PC portable manufacturer and removing the obligatory "Designed for Windows XP logo" from the case).

Really guys this is *not* a good idea, less damaging (though still not very desirable IMHO) is to sell Select 3/VA as a *software only* product. If people have PC laptops then they can dip in (and spend *less* leaving more likely hood that their spare cash may *someday* be spend on *real* RISC OS hardware).

Regards

Annraoi

;)

Annraoi

Neil

MD probably could have taken their skills elsewhere, but did not, probably because they genuinely want to help the RO market. Their PR is woeful, but I guess they have their reasons.

The Alpha is maybe a tad pricey, but how many are they going to sell? Considering Select has less than 1000 users, and this probably represents the very keen enthusiasts, how many takers will there be for what is by even SA RPC standards, crap on a stick. Yes you get a PC too, but big whoop.

My moral is, MD are doing their best, and probably trying very, very hard to get something out the door, but unfortunatly their enthusiasm to satisfy the userbase has led to unrealistic deadlines and (for whatever reason) total silence to the press. It's also led them to try and get a laptop out the door which has not very much merit, and seems to have the split the comminity in terms of opinion on whether it's a 'good thing'.

This product is a Windows XP home portable PC that just happens to be able to run RISC OS under emulation.

It's also telling that Windows XP is available as an "upgrade" - so in effect MD are selling Windows upgrades as well.... all in all not good I would have thought.

When people "asked" for a RISC OS portable I am pretty sure that they *meant* a machine running ARM hardware and running RISC OS native - not one where an emulation is run on a compeditors hardware and os.

... still if people are prepared to accept off MD what they wouldn't off RiscStation fine - so be it.

Rgds

Annraoi

Acorn built not one but two portable (colour) device prototypes - Newspad (a precursor of the Tablet PC) and Stork.

The inhibition on producing a portable is *not* down to RISC OS not being open source but the cost of producing/sourcing the expensive bits of a portable device (e.g., a Case, 2.5" HDD, LCD panels, miniature keyboard and so on).

The same problem would happen if you had Linux there, the only difference is that the *risk* you'd be seen to take might appear less extreme to the bank manager asked to underwrite it (he/she'll have heard of Linux and might be more inclined to "stumpf" up the money). It's all down to setup cost - get over that and a RISC OS laptop or sub-notebook are eminently do-able.

In fact RO5 already has a fair bit of hardware abstraction built in and can handle later (faster) xScale chips like the IOP321 - RO5 would be the best candidate for such an endeavour - older RO versions could be used instead but that would limit your choice of processor to 26bit only ones (probably the now archaic ARM7500).

The big question is: does Alpha reduce the number of potential buyers of a *real ARM* based portable to such a level that the risk is too great for anyone else to take on... and that may make things so risky no one else may even try....

Rgds

Annraoi

Oh also you missed the Acorn Artisan (97ish) and IMS Peanut(98ish) from the list of laptops that didn't make it. One might think there wasn't a big enough market or something.

The barrier to entry is lower - if you have a nice device that you've either done yourself or you've acquired from some other company, and if you have the expertise, you can download the code and get started right away. One can avoid having to sign some kind of agreement (insert picture of greased palms and smiling suits), struggle with the supplier (insert picture of frustrated developer while the supplier won't let them fix their software and won't fix it to make it work on the device in question), and then decide that the whole thing just isn't viable.

It seems to me that what the RISC OS scene actually needs is more people taking a shot at adapting the operating system to new and interesting devices, rather than sitting back and listening to all the hype that has come out over the years about its supposed suitability for various applications.

So why didn't it happen ? Probably a combination of the extra cost of producing a case, producing a rather small PCB and doing all of this without being absolutely certain that they'd recoup the cost.

The same applies to Castle (if they opted to do a HAL based xScale portable).

The issue is *not* a technical problem but one of confidence and monetary consideration - the technical one's already been cracked by Acorn (at least twice).

Rgds

Annraoi

Oh: And my eyes are fine now ;)

Re Paul V's suggestion that RO be run on a Windows laptop but with Windows somehow made unusable is a bit odd IMHO, who would buy a laptop with just RISC OS rather than one which had RO and Windows, along with the advantages of Windows (far faster as not under emulation, good web browser, email etc.)?

I think the Alpha is an all round 'not very good thing' simply because most users unaccustomed to RISC OS' ways would probably pick Windows over RO. We can all rant about how great RISC OS is, but try explaining to a normal user why they should use it over Windows (taking away any anti-MS bias).

The real issue is that the current RO manufacturers (who let's face it are living hand-to-mouth) are not inclined to take the risk (and I can understand that) - and I'd point out that that's not quite the same thing as saying the market is *actually* too small - it's whether the RO hardware companies are prepared (litterally) to risk it all to find out or not.

Having RO run on "smaller" pre-existing devices (as thegman suggests) is probably a minimal risk stategy that companies *might* be prepared to consider. The other point is if the demand is great enough perhaps then they'd consider aiming towards the laptop (but on actual ARM hardware running RO5).

I don't worry about people "switching" from RO to Windows just because RO is running on a PC emulation - it's more from the point of view of how much money is being drained from the RISC OS market and moved into the PC market. Anyone not fiercely keen on RO would have browbeaten into moving to Windows long ago those remaining are unlikely to be swayed to move to Windows by XP's crayon colours and long boot up sequence....

Rgds etc.,

Annraoi

Basically my opinion is this: a dedicated RISC OS notebook is not going happen given the size of the market, and if it does, it'll probably be crap and overpriced. Also RISC OS is far better off trying to displace WindowsCE, Embedded Linux, and Symbian on sub-notebook devices than it is trying to compete with a Powerbook G4 or IBM Thinkpad, because IMHO, it can't. If RISC OS can get onto xScale devices costing (say) £500-£600, I'd buy one in a second, not only that, if it sold say 10,000 units to newcomers to RISC OS this would make a huge impact on software development and also give ROL more sales than they have had in the entire history of the company.

Sorry for the long rant, but as long as Castle,MD and RiscStation make the products they are (or say they are), the market will continue to decline. Their intentions are great and I wish them all the luck in the world, but how many people here can honestly say their products are going to turn this platform around?

Martyn

Martyn

Martyn