Ever since Jeffrey Lee began work on porting RISC OS to developer boards such as the BeagleBoard and IGEPv2 there's been interest in putting a case around them to make them into proper computers. Both ports are still firmly in progress, so a finished-off A9-style computer isn't likely to appear for some time. That hasn't stopped some hobbyists having a go at making their own. This one looks particularly impressive:
 

 
There are more pics and description here on the ROOL forums. The nutBOX comes hot on the heels of Dave Thomas's lego housing for his IGEPv2 here, first reported on riscos.info.
 
There's still some way to go before the RISC OS OMAP port is stable enough to drive a general purpose computer suitable for everyday use, but in the meantime, plenty of people are having fun with what already exists...
 

One of the frustrating things about being a RISC OS user, is its lack of support for commonly-used video formats, other than its own dedicated Replay system.
 
A few attempts have been made to remedy this situation, but, until recently, they have come to nothing.
 
In the mid-1990s, Innovative Media Solutions produced a range of Acorn readers for PC-format, educational CDs, such as Microsoft Dinosaurs and Dorling Kindersley's The Way Things Work. These readers included dedicated versions of ARMovie, which could convert the CD’s AVI files to Replay format on the fly.
 
Unfortunately, the work that IMS had done, did not result in the release of a souped-up version of Replay, which could play all Quicktime and AVI movies, despite the fact that RISCOS Ltd seem to have done some work in this area about five years ago.
 
But now, with the release of the open-source applications, Murnong and FFMpeg, by Chris Martin, things have started to take a turn for the better.
 
Although RISC OS still does not have a proper media player, which can play all the common video formats, we do now have the next best thing - an application that can capture a YouTube video stream as it arrives, and convert it to an MPEG file, which can be played using KinoAmp.
 
 

After hearing the news that videos from the recent RISC OS London Show are now available online, I decided to take a look at what RISCOS Ltd had to say in their presentation. The results I found to be quite shocking...
 
Disclaimer: Although I've obviously been doing a lot of work for RISC OS Open recently, I am not a member of ROOL, nor am I speaking on behalf of ROOL (or The Icon Bar). The opinions expressed below are mine and mine alone, and any likeness or resemblence to any other person's opinions is entirely coincidental.
 
 

For several years now, the need to get RISC OS running on faster hardware has been pressing. It may not be the platform's worst headache (lack of developers is surely the biggest problem), but the Iyonix and A9 hardware are now well past their prime. Even on release they weren't blisteringly quick, and cheap PCs have now left them far, far behind. Things that are taken for granted on a Windows or Mac OS machine, such as watching video, are simply impossible on current generation RISC OS hardware.
 
 

RISC OS users may be left without updates to NetSurf unless a suitable programmer can be found to continue development.
 
Although the RISC OS version of the web browser has more features than other platforms it has not been actively maintained for over two and a half years. Many of the features which were specific to the RISC OS version are now being moved to the multi-platform core which is being actively worked on.
 
NetSurf contributor Michael Drake told The Icon Bar that it was "a big shame ... no-one really wants to drop RISC OS support but there's no-one to actually keep it working at the moment." The team has made an urgent appeal for a C developer with knowledge of the WIMP to get involved.
 
The open source project began in 2002 and the first major release was in 2007. NetSurf was voted "Best non-commercial software" four times in Drobe's annual RISC OS awards. It has been ported to Linux, BeOS and AmigaOS, and the team are participating in Google's Summer of Code.
 
Link: NetSurf
 

Hugh Robinson has contacted us to let us know that he's converted classic Acorn platformer Asylum to C, using the SDL library. With full support of original author Andy Southgate, Hugh's source code has now been released under the GPL, and is available to download from the SVN repository on the SourceForge project page.
 
Although a quick look at the source suggests to me that it's fully converted, there are still some bugs and compatability issues to sort out, so feel free to send any fixes Hugh's way if you manage to get the game running. Although the source to Asylum has been available on asylum.acornarcade.com for a few years now, this is the first known port of it to any other platform (and could potentially form the basis of a back-port to RISC OS, to produce a fully 32bit compatible version).
 

In this article we look at some of the programs and projects - some obvious, others less so - that influenced the history of the RISC OS platform and its users. These are our suggestions, not a top ten and certainly not in any particular order. What other applications would you add to the list?
 

Previously, on Bob and Trev: Resurrection...

Game over, man
 
The competition is nearly at an end, which can only mean one thing - tomorrow's article will be the conclusion, and will (hopefully!) feature a copy of the game to download.

...and here it is.