No more IYONIX computer...

[Charlie]

Not sure if this is news, scene, or even OT:
@mods: Feel free to move.

25th September 2008

IYONIX Ltd

IOYONIX Ltd would like to announce that from the 30th September 2008 it will not be possible
to order an IYONIX computer. There are however very limited supplies of IYONIX computers
available for supply and where possible we will be delighted to supply computers before this
date (orders will be dealt with on a first come first served basis and are limited).

>From 1st October 2008 support for the IYONIX computer will continue through:
1. the IYONIX dealer network
2. the IYONIX website (www.iyonix.com)
3. by email (sales@iyonix.com & support@iyonix.com).

In the meantime Jack Lillingston & John Ballance would like to thank all their customers
for their business and support over the last 15 years. IYONIX Ltd will continue to trade
until stocks of IYONIX and other Acorn RISC OS parts and accessories are exhausted.

The opening up of the RISC OS source code through ROOL is unaffected by this announcement.

Jack Lillingston


Fax: 0870 705 8879
web: http://www.iyonix.com
email: sales@iyonix.com
support@iyonix.com

What..?
Since Acorn went to the wall several manufacturers have developed & marketed hardware for the RiscOS platform. Arguably (unlike the Amiga) RiscOS has remained a viable platform since the parent company folded. Now there's only one company remaining in the RiscOS hardware business...
A9Home

...looks like the end is nigh for yet another 'things could have been so much better' platform.

I sincerely wish:
Advantage6
RiscOS Open
RiscOS ltd
Virtual Acorn
...and the many other contributors to the RiscOS platform all the best for the future.

[xc8]

bad news,
I was Archimedes user too...

The major problem was the HIGH prices of them, even the A6home , nice machine
but too pricey!!..

chris

[Bloodwych]

RISC OS was probably the best OS of all for general public use. It was elegant and simple to use and understand.

It's a shame it didn't become more mainstream after its introduction into British schools. I think it would have gone on to be a very productive office platform.

It's a surprise they've been able to keep it going this long; all the best to RISC OS supporters.

[Harrison]

I didn't know that RISCOS was still being actively developed and that new platforms were still being made.

I used to be an Archimedes user back in my school/college days and thought the system and OS was great. The Arch was actually more advanced than the Amiga by quite some way, but just didn't have the backing or market share to compete in the home market.

It is a shame to see another company closing.

[alexh]

RISCOS is still a viable embedded OS. It's extremely low overhead and high speed coupled with being written in assembler for a processor that is more or less still used today makes it ideal.

I wonder what condition it is in and how inexplicitly linked to the original Acorn hardware / 26-bit ARM's it is?

[Bloodwych]

Originally Posted by Harrison

The Arch was actually more advanced than the Amiga by quite some way

It was a great machine wasn't it - full 32bit environment on a ROM. I really wanted one back then, even though I had an A500! Didn't have the games or software support of the Amiga however.

I wouldn't say it was more advanced in all areas, but it's certainly a nice computer for its time (and British Yeah!). It had better sound capabilities with eight channels and nice fast CPU, power supply was built in, the ROM OS was nice and fast to boot (better virus protection?), 256 colours as standard, high capacity floppy, efficient resource and memory usage, but its biggest let down was its video hardware - no blitter or special support for effects. Just relied on its powerful RISC CPU to do Amiga ports!

Had the Arch had some dedicated video hardware, like the Sharpe 68000, it would have been a beast!

alexh, yes I agree it must still have uses today.

Time to dig up my old thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=5268

The Arch was a great machine. None of this messing around with registries and bloatware we have today! As I said above - simple and elegant.

[xc8]

..and the good thing about RiscOS = very easy WIMP programming, I got a little book caleld "WIMP for all" and started WIMP applications quickly in that amazing BBC BASIC.

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by alexh

RISCOS is still a viable embedded OS. It's extremely low overhead and high speed coupled with being written in assembler for a processor that is more or less still used today makes it ideal.

I wonder what condition it is in and how inexplicitly linked to the original Acorn hardware / 26-bit ARM's it is?

I wholly agree - sadly it's funny how so much of the 'good stuff' from the computer business never becomes properly mainstream.

RiscOS is now fully 32bit & is no longer Acorn-chipset dependant so will run on the new 32bit ARM cores.
RiscOS 5 is written to an 'ideal platform' to run on top of a small hardware abstraction layer.
RiscOS 6 is written more 'traditionally' with an eye on modularity for the components that interact direct with hardware.

Both are still under active development...

[xc8]

btw, there is a Archie/RPC emulator for pocketpc, but I never managed to find this...