As the launch of RISC OS draws nearer, so more information becomes available on exactly what users will get in their upgrade kit. One of this month's articles makes an attempt to pin down the major software enhancements in RISC OS, and to give a shortlist of the applications software which will accompany the ROMs - though shortage of space on the new Welcome discs may mean that some items, such as the additional fonts, may not after all be included.
As far as documentation is concerned, Acorn plan to include two manuals with the upgrade: a new Welcome Guide, and a RISC OS User Guide. This latter will detail the Archimedes' major star commands, including of course those new with RISC OS, and will provide an introduction to multi-tasking and the Desktop. Neither manual will cover the Basic language, which remains virtually unaltered. Such new features as have been introduced will be covered in subsequent editions of the Basic User Guide for the machine.
Acorn are also working on a new version of the Programmer's Reference Manual, which will probably run to three volumes, and will not be available for some months. Neither this nor the Basic User Guide will be offered as an upgrade, though the whole of the present Basic User Guide is totally applicable to RISC OS, and virtually everything in the present Programmer's Manual similarly applies.
This underlines the nature of the RISC OS upgrade, which provides features in addition to those currently available under Arthur 1.2. In fact, even though RISC OS may be installed in your machine, you can virtually ignore it, and use the machine as if it still contained the old 1.2 OS, with almost all software running as it did before. Once you make use of the new features however, you have something akin to a completely new machine, with a set of extremely powerful and impressive features.
The only downside to the new operating system is that it has become significantly more complex from a programming point of view, and this particularly applies to the whole WIMP system, which is now central to the machine's operation in any multi-tasking application. But this is where RISC User comes in. In the coming months we will try to throw some light on the more important features of RISC OS, though without of course compromising our coverage of other aspects of this first class machine.
This month's telesoftware password is strawberry.
(see BEEBUG pages on Micronet)