RISC OS machines are a "whole different ball-game" to anything most of us are used to (i.e. PCs amd Macs) and the A9Home is not a 'bare-bones' machine coming from nowhere - it comes from a long series of RISC OS computers such as the Iyonix PC - and, further back, the Archimedes series that were very successful in the UK education market until Xemplar 'climbed into bed' with Apple (they should have known better) and Apple, in running Archimedes into the groud shot themselves in the foot and the vast majority of school computers are now PCs running MS Windows.
The specs for the A9Home look really retro (400 MHz) from the point of view of the likes of me (with my out-of-date G4 dual 1.27 GHz Mac) - but, as far as I understand it these machines, owing to the OS being stored on a chip, are lightning-fast. What is really more the point of my previous message is that I see a tendency for some RR-users to be straying away from what I would best describe as the "Hypercard patch" (primarily educational stuff) and into all sorts of 'other' computing areas. Now while RISC OS has some stake in education in "eccentric little countries" like the UK (I am a British citizen), what is more significant is the RISC OS base in embedded systems - and to develop control mechansims for RISC OS embedded systems one needs a RISC OS computer. At present MC/RR is available for Linux/Unix/Mac & WIn - which covers a lot of the installed base. However, while I, personally, only believe that a bunch of rather odd people are going to have a RISC OS PC sitting in their bedroom at home; I do see that RISC OS is a significant force elsewhere. Sincerely, Richmond __________________________________________________ See Mathewson's software at: http://members.maclaunch.com/richmond/default.html _______________________________________ --------------------------------------------------------------- The Think Different Store http://www.thinkdifferentstore.com/ For All Your Mac Gear --------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ metacard mailing list metacard@lists.runrev.com http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/metacard