Saturday 6 December saw the Midlands User Group's RISC OS Christmas Show in Birmingham. The show was held at Birmingham University's Guild of Students, and was attended by a steady stream of people throughout the day. What follows is a brief report and some photos from the event.

The main announcements for this show were from RISCOS Ltd. who had their new RISC OS Upgrade CD available, along with a "RISC OS Virtually Free" CD, which for a few quid gives you a licensed copy of RISC OS 4 to be used with emulators, and comes with instructions for some emulators on how to get started.
 
RISC OS Open Ltd. had an Iyonix which was running a ROM image built from the publicly available sources, and were selling calendars, t-shirts, mouse mat and coaster packs and source CDs.
 
Orpheus and RISC OS Now were also present, notably with free mince pies for the punters (which were yummy!). A new issue of RISC OS Now was available, albeit in A5 size instead of the usual A4 size booklet. Paul Vigay took along an Acorn System One to show off, along with an Enigma Machine kit, which were on display on the Orpheus stand.
 
NetSurf were in attendance showing off the latest builds of the open source browser, including a Linux build with support for tabbed browsing. CJE had their mini-tardis at the show for all the spares you could need, and R-Comp had their usual selection of RISC OS products for punters, ranging from Games to laptops.
 
The Acorn through the Ages display contained working examples of Acorn kit from days gone by, from the Atom through to the Omega (although the Omega had an amusing sign on the top stating "Microdigital Omega - Non working". The BBC Model B on display sadly went up in smoke during the afternoon, leaving the unmistakable smell of burning electronics hanging around that half of the room for the afternoon.
 
Shortly before the show ended, the raffle was held. Each punter who entered had a number on their ticket (I was visitor number four!), and the number was picked randomly by a programme on Graham Shaw's computer, with source code available for anyone who wanted to check it was all above board. The winning number, as I recall, was 20.
 
Shortly after the raffle, the show drew to a close as crowds thinned out. Overall, it seemed a productive day. There were plenty of people at most of the stands throughout the day, and it looked from my viewpoint at the NetSurf stand that a fair amount of money changed hands around the room. Next year's show will be on the 5th of December. I'll leave you now to peruse the photos below from today's event. For those who missed them, the live feed and its photos are still available for the time being, here.

Show photos

Click a photo for a larger view

The show venue		The show is this-a-way
		Exhibitors getting ready	Punters start to trickle in
	Paul Vigay looks like he's up to something...	He's got an Acorn System One, and a built Enigma kit	ROL look ready for Christmas
Paul Vigay shows off his kit to Drobe's Photographer and ROOL	CJE get busy	RISC OS Now was popular with the punters (and exhibitors!)	Advantage6 had some A9 all-in-ones
	ROL check out the opposition	John Cartmell looking amused	Despite this photo, the Atom was working
This BBC B later went up in smoke, leaving the smell of toasty electronics hanging around for a while	Archimedes and A3010 on display	A5000, A7000 and RiscPC	A portable BBC Master
R-Comp had lots to sell	Orpheus special offers	NetSurf	A rather dark MW Software (sorry Martin!)
Microdigital Omega. Non working	Home-Made portable	Another look at that non working Omega	A9 Home in a briefcase, and a VA-running laptop
Kinetic RiscPC in a tower case	ROOL goodies		Meteors, anybody?
Linux port of NetSurf with tabbed browsing	Iyonix running a ROM image built from publicly available sources	General show atmosphere	Another look at PV's Acorn System One and Enigma kit
Electron		Another look at the Omega
		Paul Vigay had free mince pies!	I decided to not ask.
	The show starts to wind down		Artworks and Easi/TechWriter highlights
R-Comp find a quiet moment	Just after the raffle. The chap behind the chap in a suit won.