Is the pi 400 a new Archimedes?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ธ.ค. 2024
- Dan Wood said something interesting in one of his videos. That the Raspberry pi400 is "a new archimedes". I wanted to have a look at this and had a look around RISC OS. I did have a go at archimedes emulation as well with it.
Dan Woods video about it: • Acorn Archimedes RISC ...
Great video. RiscOS has always been really fascinating to me because it works and looks so different from anything else I've used.
Yes. If I hadn't researched a bit prior to using it I think at least the saving bit and the launching of programs would had given me some head scratching.
I had always hoped that the Haiku Project would have picked up the Raspberry Pi as their main platform of support to carve a niche market for itself. But all these 'smaller' projects could do with a lot of help. I would have loved to have had AROS running native on the Pi 400 as the official platform, it would have been, much like the RISC OS support, a replacement of sorts. Still, nice to see all these projects getting some love, even if it is some more than others :)
Haiku works on standard PCs doesn't it (if you cherry pick the components)? but would be nice to have it on a SBC with standard components like the pi400.
I did look at the nightly builds of AROS and it seems to be a raspberry version at least. but no idea what versions and how good it work. Would be awesome if AROS got some momentum and I agree with you. I think RPI could be what gives it that momentum to be a goto platform for desktop amiga use.
I agree it is disappointing. That said, Haiku is basically Unix, and one can run a few different Unix distros on the Raspberry Pi SBCs. It is a very common misconception that Haiku is not a Unix. It's debatable whether or not BeOS was a Unix OS, but I think by most standards it was: the `fork()`-based process model, UNIX-style file descriptors.
Haiku has all the bits BeOS had, of course, but it has far extended the POSIX compliance: it has mmap, but also pthreads, and /dev/ (including all the staples, like /dev/null, etc.) These aren't mere compatibility wrappers, but often the "native" APIs; some of the Be APIs are implemented on Haiku using them (while others use lower-level APIs.) There is no "POSIX compatibility layer" in the kernel, it's just natively POSIX all the way down.
I did not know it was a POSIX compliant kernel i Haiku! Thanx for the information :) I will now jump into that rabbit hole and read up on it :D
I had no idea that the modern arm processor is a derivative of the old acorn processor. I always learned something new when I watch your videos. I hope to see a lot more content from you.
As long as I enjoy it there will be a lot more. And so far I enjoy a lot making videos :)
ARM was developed by two people at Acorn in a ridiculously short time period. They even created a virtual ARM CPU on the venerable 8 bit Acorn BBC Micro (which they had both also helped create) to test their designs out. Years later Acorn was split up, and ARM was now a separate company, becoming Advanced Risc Machines, rather than Acorn Risc Machines. Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson should be as famous as Wozniak, Jobs and Bill Gates.
Nice video! SOMEDAY I’d really like to dig into the Archie and the modern RiscOS variants, not least to learn ARM assembler, but there’s never enough time, it seems… But luckily I have you showing me stuff, saving me the time to learn everything myself :-) Thanks!
Aaah life has a way to fill the blanks in the schedule? Hope you find a way to make time for hobbies. Cheers
I would say that it's both.
In his one of his interviews, Eben Upton said that it was his Amiga 600 that
got him obsessed with computers and coding.
And that he wanted to bring back those feelings for a new generation of
people (via the Raspberry Pi).
However I would also agree that (at its core) the Raspberry Pi is very much
the "Spiritual successor" to the Archimedes.
I used the Archimedes back in high school in the UK myself, and enjoyed them.
Much better than the older BBC Micro's, faster and more powerful.
(Hardly surprising as the jump from 8-bit to 16-bit was a quantum leap at the
time !)
RISC OS is an interesting (if somewhat quirky) British take on the GUI
and OS's in general. They were great machines.
However I always preferred using my Amiga at home !
It is a bit quirky by todays standards at least. Did it feel quirky back then as well? As an operating system I do prefer Amiga as well from that era. But the archimedes hardware is geoundbreaking stuff I never heard about back then.
@@proteque Although it did feel "a bit quirky" it wasn't massively so.
I don't know if that was due to me being a geek, and happy to try different things
with computers and OS's or "just how things were" BITD ?
ARM / Archimedes had some very interesting design choices.
(RISC has proved them right in a number of different use cases)
Again, as you say - Almost every modern phone / smartphone (and the new Mac M series)
uses an ARM chip of some description).
I just found the Amiga's OS made "more sense" to me.
Hugely powerful, modular, and I found using it was a joy.
However (even at the time) I would have gladly had an Archimedes computer for myself too.
It too, was a powerful machine.
Yeah, I'm always interested in how people used computers in other countries -
What machines they used growing up ?
Were they the same or different to what we used in the UK ?
What did they think of the British computer scene ?
Did they lust after any of our machines ?
Stuff like that, I find it all fascinating.
The insight is very accurate. The importance of this video cannot be overstated. Well done. Edit: the Archimedes had a *much* better keyboard
@@esra_erimez thank you. It is an important part of history not everyone has heard yet. So the more people telling it, the better.
I hope I will be able to test a real one at some point. Touch and look is important when experiencing a system (for me). I have no doubts the keyboard of the archimedes was a lot better than this.
+1 for that keyboard comment. I bought maybe 6 of these and ALL the keyboards were simply too bad to be usable by a regular user i.e. some random keys need to be pressed twice as hard as the others to register a keypress so you're constantly mis-typing. So the main feature of this particular Pi is a bust really.
@@ViewBothSides that sounds very annoying. Luckily I have been spared of buttons not working like they should etc. So it is more a "not comfortable" issue for me.
Very cool! There was a raytraced image of i think brick walls and glass and plastic spheres that captivated my imagination back in the day. I think that was rendered on the Acorn machine you pictured. I always wanted one. Well i still do haha. Thank you for showing this!
@@Rezzin8 most welcome! It was fun to dig into and make as well.
I had much the same experience, but could follow it, with 2d art from demosceners. That got me into the world of pixeling in dpaint on the amiga (as that is what they where using).
Takes me back. We had Archimedes in later school years.
I have a Risc PC here, I should play with it some more and make another video.
Old school Elite is surprisingly hard. I do remember playing quite well on a BBC Master and Amstrad CPC, though.
oh thats nice. The stackable one? I have one of those cases on the way in the mail for a modern ARM build (the computer was broken and sold as parts). I hope you make a video about it and showcase it. I would love to see that!
And yes. Elite is hard! I have never managed to be any good at it (like most games tbh)
Cheers!
best Amiga ever.
Nice video. From 1989, at ten years old, I was using Acorn Archimedes at school. We already had the 8 bit BBC computers for some educational uses, but the Archimedes were shiny new mouse operated computers. I carried on using a mixture of BBC, Archimedes, and PC through education until probably 1995 or so when everything went over to solely PC (boring). I remember at the age of ten being given the task of demonstrating the Archimedes to a couple of American guys who visited my school, i have no idea who they were or why they were there, and they were particularly interested in my funny accent I recall. My best friend was lucky enough to afford an Archimedes A3010 at home. Sadly, Acorn didn't last much longer after that. I was still on my ZX Spectrum+ 48k at home at that time until a little while afterwards I was introduced to Amiga, rather late, just as Commodore went bust... impeccable timing.
Thanx for sharing this part of your history! It was an exciting time this. With everything being so different depending on where one lived. At my school they had something named Tiki 100. It also had BBC Basic actually (and it's own CP/M compatible operating system). I have never seen any of them again in the live after that period. Rare machines I think.
The Archimedes is one of those computers that never made it up here. Even the spectrum was a computer I never saw around here back then. It was all Commodore VIC20/64 and later Amigas! So my knowledge about the Archimedes is purely from emulation, youtube and reading about it. Not at all like actually using it in it's time.
I had to search and see what a Tiki 100 was. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing your school computer history too.
@REVERIT
I'm a similar age (a couple of years older than you).
At first school (juniors) I stared with an BBC Micro
At home we had a ZX Spectrum 48K
At high school (comprehensive) we used Archimedes computers.
At home we had an Amiga A600
Do you remember using the BBC Micro with the "Turtle" and the pen
trying to draw shapes on a huge piece of paper on the classroom floor ?
I enjoyed using the Archimedes at school, it was an interesting view on the
GUI paradigm, and like Proteque said - all the different companies were trying
all sorts of different ways to interact with a computer.
However I always preferred using my Amiga.
Such an elegant design and so very powerful (for the time).
@Geordie-Jedi-77
I very much remember programming the turtle and drawing shapes onto giant sheets of paper. An unforgettable experience for a child. I also remember some of the games on the BBC. I was pretty terrified of the witch in Granny's Garden.
I went from ZX Spectrum to another 8-bit in the form of Amstrad PCW for a brief time before i made a new friend at my new school after moving house. He was into Amiga and showed me what it was capable of and how I could buy one relatively cheaply. I had to convince my parents that selling the PCW to buy an Amiga was necessary! They agreed, and I used the money from the sale of the PCW to buy an A1200. On that A1200 I rendered an animation of a space craft flying by in a star field, all modelled by myself and it took a massive amount of time to render. It had a ram expansion but no accelerator. I wish I could remember the software I used, but I can't. It was the only CGI animation I ever did. I've rendered plenty of engineering related images for my work but never anything like I did at that time on the Amiga - my friend was amazed by it and at first didn't believe it was my own work. Thinking back, I can't have had an Amiga all that long, perhaps a year and a half before I decided it was time to move to PC which had begun to be reasonably affordable if you built it yourself, but I did a lot with it in that short time.
@@REVERIT. Sounds like great memories. You should try to relive them if tinkering with computers still is something you enjoy using your free time for :)
i loved my archie and regret getting rid all those years ago , not only because they are worth a small fortune today , but it was so good at what it did at the time
@@firsteerr that sellers regret hurts. I sold off most of my Amigas as well back in the days. And I really regret it. However, at the time I needed the money for new computer so it made sense back then. It does hurt a lot now though. Are they obtainable i your area? I have read they suffer a lot from leaking batteries that ruins them.
I bought an Amiga A1200 for £50 around 2014/5 to relive the old days, then I realised the old days were not as easy as I remembered and sold it for £50 shortly afterwards. Oops. Happy with my A500 Mini for now.
@@REVERIT. I just got a pi400 and I am running risc os on it , get back into the swing and it's brilliant
@@firsteerr I almost bought a Pi400 last year, then a lot happened in life and the A500 Mini seemed like a no-brainer at the price I paid. The only thing I don't like about the A500 Mini at the moment is that I can't change the HDMI output to 4:3 mode to suit my 4:3 screen I recently bought. Annoying. Pi400 is a really neat product.
@@REVERIT. i will check my pi later and let you know what aspect ratios it can perform
you can also run a few other OS es (does that sound right ?) on it including linux so its a cheap way to find out if you like something before committing to changing your PC and devices i believe you can run spectrum on it both 48K and 128K emulation
A Pi 400 can be a way to take a quick trip to cutting edge 1987 personal computing prowess - an alternative universe of what could have been
Absolutely. On a lot of platforms. I hope for a 500!
True, but then any computer can do that, through the use of emulators or virtual machines. Pretty much any old computer can be experienced. Acorn gave us the ARM chip, designed by two people, initially released as a second processor for the BBC Micro, then in the Archimedes and RiscPC etc, but sadly, their long intended replacement for RiscOS never appeared. That would have made a difference. Their R&D costs were too high, and they couldn't compete with the big players, so Acorn went the way of the Dodo. But they had the last laugh... ARM chips are everywhere.
It's cool that they include a emulator for the Acorn Archimedes itself too, very neat.
I agree. It did give me a few hours of joy looking around. Need to get myself some more software for it and get to know it. A whole new platform for me so everything is new. Gotta love that!
Awesome, RiscOS is so good. You should probably swap your wooden shelf though for a metal supporting rack or it might end up like Dr. Chris's recent disaster where all his Amigas crashed off a shelf on their own :(
Probably would need some supporting wood on the panel side to make it look good or fake wood etc.
Just an idea since I want your hardware to stay good forever :)
@@samuelbanya ouch. Thanx for pointing out. I have the rest of them in metal rack! And these two dont way much. But better safe than sorry.
I don’t use RISCOS for the same reason I don’t use Mac OS 9 and previous “classic” Mac OS versions: cooperative multitasking sucks. Preemptive multitasking is the only good solution for multitasking.
Amiga knew this and Amiga OS is true preemptive multitasking (in an era where the only other OS available with preemptive multitasking was Unix).
This is a fact! But it was fun to give it a visit though. I have the same view on older macos. Nice to visit, but nothing I would actually use. Not then, not now. So RISC OS will not be my goto hobby platform. That is and will stay AmigaOS (and variants).
I have started to get some interest on revisiting the Linux distros I used when I was "younger" in the late 90s though. I get a lot of joy from that as well.
@@protequein the mid-1990s I spent days to weeks installing and configuring Slackware Linux to run on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, yes it could be time consuming and frustrating but anything was better than Windows or classic Mac OS 😂
@@danielktdoranie hehe agreed. Did the same the first years. It was a joy when debian was starting to mature a bit and I could start using binaries.
Presumably you never used DOS and/or Windows up to 98/ME, which were fairly primitive task switching systems too? Personally, I think that unlike today, the majority of people didn't make much use of pre-emptive multitasking back then. It's something we Amiga fans were keen to show off, but most things we did didn't require it, and often suffered if you did use it. Even an A1200 with 33MHz '040 and a bucket load of RAM couldn't make the most of it. I remember my Amigas would still slow to a crawl, lock up certain apps for many seconds at a time, or indeed guru out.
Hardware wise what is needed is a comodity desktop ARM motherboard in a common form factor, say mini ATX, so cases are readily available at varying price points and quality, and with PCIe slots. Pi 400 in contrast whilst an excellent entry offering feels more like the modern day ZX 80/81/Spectrum in so far as it's all there at an entry point price and cased but it's no frills and cannot benefit from the PCIe expansion cards ecosystem from other architectures. Currently the nice ARM desktop route is probably Apple Silicon repurposed but this speaks volumes re there must be a gap in the market for a cheaper but "proper" desktop solution.
I agree! I did have a go at the rock 5b which also is available in ITX form (made a video about it if you are interested in seeing. I did not use the ITX version though. It is one of my latest videos). This worked very well for everything except for when one need DRM support for netflix and stuff (I blame netflix, not the computer for this off course).
There are a number of such ARM boards out there, but they are mostly development boards, and therefore not mainstream nor cheap. If consumer demand for such devices were bigger, it would soon be filled. But much of the potential market is already seviced by numerous x86 based boards, which whilst not perfect, in general offer more bang per buck. Unless you really need super low cost, power efficient chips, which is where ARM still dominates. Everyrhing else is dangerous territory for ARM, who have seen off x86 in the 'mobile' arena but have very few practical and economical advantages elsewhere. Today Apple can afford to take the chance, they've been around and doing things differently for a long time. Others perhaps cannot. Time will tell.
I still have an original RiscStation 7500+, which I bought 20+ years ago. I loved the idea that RISCOS was revived for the Pi, and I have two 400s and a Pi4B just for this purpose. Unfortunately, the RPi 5 is 64 bit only and has essentially killed of RISCOS. I don't know if it will recover. RISCOS 5.30 has a new wifi module that isn't working for me. Previously, all RISCOS versions didn't have wifi functionality. I used a Vonets ethernet to USB bridge adaptor on RISCOS Direct, so I returned to using it. I love the way RISCOS does things and I think the system should be rewritten for modern hardware.
The transformation from 32 bit into 64 bit is no small task for a niche operating system. I hope they manage to do it, but I fear you are right. Better stack up with those 400/4?
Thanx for the tip about the usb ethernet. Will look into that. Riscos direct is a lot more handy than building my own setup
@@proteque It's worse for RiscOS, because it was pretty much all written in ARM assembly. Apparently ARM 64 is nothing like ARM 32, so conversion is problematic. And few people are fluent and willing to tackle such a huge project.
There are still plenty of RiscOS compatible boards around, and they won't disappear for a long, long time. By which time, your average PC will emulate a Pi4 at warp speeds. 😉
@@another3997 I'm already looking into Pi emulation myself. The problem is that this is only a very niche solution for a very niche operating system. How many people actually run Mac OS 8 on Basillisk or Os 9 on Sheepshaver as their daily driver? Totally usable and lightening fast, but sadly its still a 30 year old system.
Ah, the good old days when OS updates where many years apart and involved swapping ROM chips.
I both miss, and don't miss that part of it. The excitement of modern computers and OSes is gone now, at least for me.
I wanted to run RISC OS, but nether version would go online. I can pull up WiFi, and it sees the connection, but times out. Perhaps I could try with an external dongle.
Enjoy your beer.
I didn't even test wifi. And only got ethernet to work on the official version. Not really sure why. Tried to redownload the image and tried again. same result.
That's not surprising, as WiFi support in RiscOS is virtually non existent. A simple network cable to your router or access point should work without issue.
Will the Pi5 Emulate an Amiga?
It does. My latest video (prior to this one) is about the pi5 emulating Amiga. The video about AmiKit. It works absolutely perfect for it!
I can’t recall if the free “Pimiga” distro supports the Raspberry Pi 5 yet (I think it does but I could be mistaken) but it definitely does support Pi 4
pimiga does support Raspberry pi 5. So pimiga is a quick way to get a "loaded" setup ready in no time.
@@proteque The big problem with Pimiga is just that. It is too big! It is a huge download and full of things you would be unlikely to ever use. For me, AmiKit makes far more sense on a Pi.
Pi5 will run amiberry and fs-uae very well. If you don't fancy the set up then the Pimiga project will give you an all bells and whistles "modern" amiga desktop with everything set up for you.
Check out the Orange Pi 800.
looks like a cool "version" but for this it is not supported. Only raspberry + a few other boards are. The Orange Pi not one of them.
In general I have not had the best experience with orange pi due to the software that supports them fully (lack of). gpu drivers is an issue etc. Or have those things improved now?
nice Pebble SPeakers
@@MrAlan1828 i quite like them. Okay sound, active, looks okay and they where cheap.
riscos user needs a 3 button mouse !
@@jyvben1520 it does. And now it just poped into my head I did not mention that and how to use the menu. I forgot about it!
I really should have a script. Hehe
Most modern mice have three buttons. Just press down on that little spinny thing on top. 😂
@@another3997 correct, but i am using a rollerball mouse
I still remember the announcement for the Archimedes 500. Boy was i jealous. 32 bit RISC system, blowing everything out of the parc (sic ;-)
1990. i was like 13, all my friends had their amigas and i held onto my C-128 (Explaining to everybody that they abuse the Amiga as a glorified game console, while i can do so much better stuff, like calculating what day of the week ceasar was stabbed 😀. And we where all waiting for the C-256 (or C-65) to hit the market. But commodore gave Bill Herd the stupid treatment apparently and shelved it to not endanger the success of the Amiga line. And then there was this little brittish monster doing everything commodore promised (in 3 years... pinky...)
It was a very exciting time to be into computers. I never even heard about the archimedes here where I live (Norway). It was all Amiga and Ataris at that point. And some PCs as well.
I am glad I was there when all this happened. Espessially (for me) the years when commodore whent bust, escom bought the Amiga etcetcetc. I was really passionate and cared a lot about what was happening. Big dreams, lot's of reading magazines.
The C65 was always going to be dead in the water. Once they had seen what Atari and the Hi-Torro people were developing, there was little commercial point in making such a machine. 16 bit machines were the way ahead, and you could still buy a C64. It's the same with the MGT "SAM Coupe", a huge upgrade to the popular Sinclair ZX Spectrum, but maintaining a lot of backwards compatibility whilst offering much better capabilites. But few actually wanted an 8 bit 'Super Spectrum' when the Amiga and Atari ST would wipe the floor with them. Sadly, the Acorn devices were outliers, without the global popularity of the other manufacturers. PS. British only has one "T" in it. 😉
Not entirely sure why that build of Direct broke as badly as it did for you? Ive not been involved with it for a few years now - RISC OS Direct was my creation and it morphed out of 'Wi-Fi Sheep RISC OS' which was a fork (Although identical ROM image) of the official RISC OS Pi build you used later on in your video...I was also the one to include the emulator and 3.1 ROMS for 26bit Arc software....
My gut feeling is either you didn't flash the SD card correctly ... or .... the current image is very broken ... or .... Not all Pi400 are the same later batches post Covid (so 2021 on wards) used different ICs to the 2020 release models which cased RISC OS issues. So that would explain the behaviour you showed.
I can't say it broke badly? Only the ethernet problem + one crash of the store (which hasn't happen again). I will try to redownload and reflash the sdcard and let you know how it goes.
Thanx for including the 26 bit emulation enviroment. That gave me some joy (been looking around off camera as well)
However I did read quite a lot of posts about others having the same problems (in this comment section as well, with tip on a ethernet dobgle). So could also be some minor changes on the later board? I did add the updates available at the download page. Did not look for wifi option as I lack wifi in that building!
Took me a while to get around to it. But I did redownload and reflash on another SD-Card with same result. No working network. it did work on the rpi3 when I tested there. So it could be something weird going on with my pi400? I don't know sadly. (works with official risc os build)
@@proteque Yeah so not all Pi400 are the same, the first 2020 batch used a different network chip to the later build units, and this tripped up RISC OS at the time. Im assuming the direct build has not been updated in a few years so is probably still using this older ROM image, hence why the official RISC OS Pi build works.
@@WiFiSheep that mystery sorted then. I will keep my fingers crossed for a new updated direct.