[Application] RISC OS on the Pandora


Have try. Hold [Shift] boots in to a pure desktop: All choices in !Boot are ignored.So it should be possible to look at the card.
But if the card is corrupt, save the time and made a new one ;-)

My Risc PC works with 4.39 ... but 4.xx and Six is a other (death) fork of RISC OS. Any things are different. No boot menu in 5.xx.
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Magic Sam said:
Hi all :)

@Raik : I tried again from the Pandora, after zeroing the SD card completely, but still no luck... Pressing "ESC" does get me to a 640x480 desktop though. I pressed F12 and entered Wimpmode 28, but that didn't change the resolution. The device 0: also appears to be empty...

Well, can't wait to get my hands on a new USB SD card adapter :D

Cheers, Magic Sam

P.S: the touchscreen doesn't work. Is it to be expected ?
Click to expand...

640x480 is mode 28. Often the system is jumping to 800x600 if you try [ESC] or other breaking keys. Then you need the wimpmode command to see the iconbar.
If the device is empty, looks like you have a non compatible card. Is not often but any times :(
Have you look at the card in WIN? WIN destroy often the card.

You can also boot from USB Pendrive but it needs a other CMOS ans is a bit fiddely. I can send. But booting from card is the better way.

Sorry touchscreen is not working. RISC OS is not really a touch-OS. I have a working solution for my DIY PiTab but I think is not for the "masses" only for enthusiast like me ;)
I have not try to port the driver. I think my knowledge is not enough.
 
Raik said:
My Risc PC works with 4.39 ... but 4.xx and Six is a other (death) fork of RISC OS. Any things are different. No boot menu in 5.xx.
Click to expand...
As I recall at the London show where they changed the license, either Steve Revill or Richard Brown announced that the two companies were talking and a merger of the codebases looks likely, and then we can forget that whole unfortunate episode.
 
RISC OS Developments is owner of Castle Technology Ltd and with it the RISC OS Operating System. RISC OS Developments Management is Andrew from R-Comp and Richard from Orpheus...
I'm a (free) member of ROD. Have realized any projects with Andrew at the past e.g. ARMini, ARMiniX, ARMx6... For me it is only hobby and I have fun summary ;-)
Quote Andrew: We have also been in discussion with VirtualAcorn/3QD/RISCOS Ltd and we are sure you will be pleased to hear that historical grievances have been put aside, and that a co-operative future is planned.

Good news or not, we will see at the future.

Maybe the codebase can be merged. I use !Paint (more options) and !Draw (SVG export) from a9home (RISC OS 4.42) on my new hardware (RISC OS 5.24+)... so anything is possible.
I think it is a good idea to bundle and organize. We have not enough programmer so wie should avoid double work.
 
Hi all,

@Raik : I bought a new USB SD card adapter yesterday. No luck with RISC OS on the Pandora so far :(

I'm trying one last time with a brand new SD card. I'll keep you all posted.

EDIT: just dd'ed the image to the new SD card (/dev/sdb). Looks like Linux sees 2 partitions, sdb1 and sdb4. Only the first vfat partition of ~100 MB is mounted. I presume the other partition is RISC OS specific, and can't be mounted on Linux.

EDIT 2: that one is booting fine !!! :D

EDIT 3: just donated £20 to this bounty:

https://www.riscosopen.org/bounty/polls/29

It's not much but it's all I can afford at the moment. I hope it'll help to get WiFi working on the Pandora :)

EDIT 4: according to the wiki, the Pandora uses this touchscreen:

http://www.ti.com/product/TSC2046/description
https://pandorawiki.org/Display

I don't know whether there are any useful bits in there for a port of your driver to the Pandora though. Maybe @notaz could give you a hand on this one ?

Cheers, Magic Sam
 
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Sounds good.

Only the first vfat partition of ~100 MB is mounted. I presume the other partition is RISC OS specific, and can't be mounted on Linux.
Click to expand...

Is fake ;-) That make problems anytimes.
The card is filecore, the RISC OS format. I come back later to it.

Any generally things...

RISC OS needs a 3-Button mouse.The options are not really changed since the beginning of the 90. I use RISC OS since 1992.

The nub do the following:

Left - one click
Up - double click
down - menu (you get a app or os related menu wherever the mousepointer is placed.)
right - is the right mouse button. Has special options. Named Adjust in RISC OS.

Folder are folder like in other OS.
Apps are folder with a pling at the beginning e.g. !App.
You can open this Apps with holding [shift] and doubleclick.
Inside you find all the most stuff are needed by the App e.g. a file named !Boot, a script witch is started if the App was seen by the filer e.g. to display the icon.
!Run ist the script witch is start by doubleclick (without [shift])...

Back to the filesystem.

In the main directory you find !Boot. Is the system-folder. Inside the settings and resources are needed by Apps...
In !Boot you fnd a folder named "Loader". This is the "FAT-Partition". Inside the bootfiles, the ROM named RISC OS... Please not remove or what ever or change the content of the folder if you not know what you do ;-)

Hope you find it useful. If you have a question, feel free to ask. ;-)
 
On a side note, would you recommend the User Guide on sale at ROOL ?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you need a paper one.

In Documents.books of the distro you should find a pdf.

There was a User Guide pdf downlod at the past but the link I found was broken. Will look at again tomorrow.

Have fun,

Raik
[doublepost=1541995488,1541972551][/doublepost]Looks like the download is gone since the new user-guide is ready.
For the first steps you find a lot of old guides here.
The old 3 guide should be enough for the most "problems". 4.39 and Six is for the other fork.
 
EDIT: @Raik : do you think you could try to port your touchscreen driver to the Pandora / Pyra ?
Click to expand...

Is not my driver but is free source. I not miss a touchscreen driver for the Pandora.
Maybe it is possible to port. Is it a I2C device? Have you a link to the linux sources?
What should he do? Pointer move and "click"?
 
Sorry, looks like not.
Is the same chipset etc. like the Always Innovatin TouchBook use. I have try to change the driver for this ... I'm to stupid.
Have send a question to Jeffrey (has a comparable status in RISC OS like notaz (have also contact from time to time)). Maybe he has a good idea because he has a Rebirth and a Touchbook.
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Silent-Hunter said:
I'm interested, I hope it will run on the Pyra too!
Click to expand...

There is a other thread about this ;)

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/riscos-on-pyra.75280/#post-1327038

The OMAP5 port is stable. We need a Pyra to finish...
 
Magic Sam said:
As far as I understand, the Pandora is i2c compatible:
Click to expand...

I2C is not a problem. Three lines Basic in a loop list the I2C devices... Have use my latest Distro. The new one comming soon ;)

Pan_i2c.jpg


Magic Sam said:
And there's also some documentation regarding the touchscreen at TI:
Click to expand...

Thats the problem. SPI is not I2C, I mean. Or is one of the addresses in the screenshot from touchscreen?
Sorry, as a programmer I'm not the brightest light under the sun. ;)
 
Magic Sam said:
Hi all :)
As far as I understand, the Pandora is i2c compatible:
Click to expand...
He's asking if the touchscreen device is connected to the CPU over i2c. Every computer since about 1990 has had an i2c bus inside of it, for things like the RTC I think.

I think his last post was saying the touchscreen driver seems to be the same as used in another device, and he needs to rewrite the driver for that, but I may be misunderstanding it also.

Edit: Ninja'ed by Raik himself.
 
Hi all :)

@Raik: glad to read a new version is on its way ! Which RISC OS version will it be based upon ? 5.26 or 5.27 ? Regarding SPI now, I found this in the dmesg output:
pandora:~$ dmesg | grep touch
[ 7.644775] ads7846 spi1.0: touchscreen, irq 254
[ 7.645690] input: touchscreen as /devices/platform/omap2_mcspi.1/spi_master/spi1/spi1.0/input/input5
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what it means... Need to read more about SPI :p
And I'm not a developper (obviously), so you won't have any criticism from me :)

@levi: thanks for the details regarding I2C, I had really no idea how common it is :)

Cheers, Magic Sam ( /me going back to reading wikipedia articles on the aforementioned technologies :p )

EDIT: found the following SPI documentation online:

https://www.byteparadigm.com/applic.../22/Introduction-to-SPI-and-IC-protocols.html
https://www.mct.net/faq/spi.html
https://www.corelis.com/education/tutorials/spi-tutorial/

EDIT 2: I'm having "some" fun turning the touchscreen on and off with echoing a simple 0 or 1 in /sys/devices/platform/omap2_mcspi.1/spi_master/spi1/spi1.0/disable ;) (yeah, my life sucks, I know...)
 
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Magic Sam said:
@Raik: glad to read a new version is on its way ! Which RISC OS version will it be based upon ? 5.26 or 5.27 ?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. Any tests needed.
5.24 is the last stable release. 5.26 at this time is only for RPi Noobs. The only changes are the new licence, I mean.

5.24 is "closed". With the 5.27 sources I can build my own ROM with any small changes inside. So I think 5.27 if it works stable for me with a additional 5.24 ROM to change if needed.

Magic Sam said:
And I'm not a developper (obviously), so you won't have any criticism from me :)
Click to expand...

I'm also not. Hardware ok, software not but I will look at.

Hope I find the time soon.

PS: Have play around with the PiSPI module in RISC OS at the past to use it in an other project but it was not successful.
 
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