RISC OS, frosted — ROMs, desktops and documentation from RISC OS Technologies
Posted by RISC OS One Mon, 26 Oct 2026 16:17:50 GMT
One of the Acorn favourites is getting a refresh, with high-end graphics and music provided by FontSound for RISC OS 64. And yes, 32-bit users won’t be left out either!
Downloads will be ready by the end of the month!
Posted by RISC OS One Mon, 26 Oct 2026 16:08:49 GMT
No. Our plans include both 32-bit and 64-bit RISC OS.
We plan to release a new 32-bit version of RISC OS written entirely in C, together with its source code, from January 2027, ahead of the 64-bit release.
This will give users who prefer to stay with 32-bit RISC OS access to some of the exciting features being developed for the 64-bit operating system. Moving to 64-bit is a significant step, and we recognise that some users will want to wait until it has had time to mature.
We aim to share more details before Christmas, once we have worked through the plans with RISC OS Developments and, we hope, RISC OS Open.
Our intention is to develop both versions so that 32-bit and 64-bit users can benefit from the work and move forward together.
We currently have 32-bit builds for the A9Home, i.MX6, Titanium and Raspberry Pi in testing. Iyonix and RiscPC builds are also planned. Keep an eye on the website for future updates.
Posted by RISC OS One Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:25:38 GMT
The Bluetooth stack for RISC OS 5 is now open source.
The source code is available on GitHub: Bluetooth-RISCOS32.
Posted by RISC OS One Mon, 26 Oct 2026 09:27:07 GMT
The London Show was a great success. The theatre was full, and the response to 64-bit RISC OS was outstanding. Developers who had never used RISC OS before were keen to help take it forward, and several of them left with development kits so they can get started.
Bringing the 64-bit project together has been a real pleasure, and I’m grateful to the many members of the community who have offered their time and expertise. So I was disappointed to see the familiar negativity return to the RISC OS Open forums after the show. I’d like to clear up some points from those discussions.
We developed DiscMedic for 64-bit RISC OS because the developer of DiscKnight has said clearly that he won’t support an operating system whose filesystems were developed with the help of AI. That left us needing a disc repair tool that supports UFS2, the filesystem RISC OS 64 now uses. This was a practical decision, not the result of a falling-out, and suggestions on the forums that it was are unfounded.
We’ve also released DiscMedic to RISC OS 5 users, so they can choose whichever tool suits them. Competition is healthy, and RISC OS usually has two of everything these days anyway.
The 3D acceleration driver is built on Mesa3D, which is released under the permissive MIT licence. The GPU support uses a userspace UNIX-based driver. It does not use a Linux kernel driver. I’d ask people to wait until the source code is released before forming an opinion, rather than spreading inaccurate claims. Speculation of this kind on the forums has caused real distress to members of the community for many years.
RISCSurf is based on the NetSurf web engine. NetSurf development has been slow for some years, so I contacted the NetSurf team directly, offering to support their work and help maintain the browser. I received no reply.
NetSurf’s licence permits anyone to develop the engine further and release it under a new name, provided the licence terms are kept and the licence is included with the application. RISCSurf has been developed on that basis and will continue to be, and its source code is available at https://gitlab.com/martin.eastwood82/netsurf. My offer still stands, and if the NetSurf developers would like to work together, I’d welcome an email from them directly rather than comments made on their behalf on the forums.
If you have concerns about the development of 64-bit RISC OS, please contact RISC OS Developments directly, or contact me at RISCOS Technologies.
The response in London showed that most of the community is excited about the next few years. It’s worth remembering that without AI-assisted development, 64-bit RISC OS would have been a decade-long project.
Posted by RISC OS One Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:00:00 GMT
RISC OS Technologies will be at the RISC OS London Show on Saturday 24 October 2026, 11am to 4pm, at the Harrow District Masonic Centre, Northwick Circle, Kenton, Harrow HA3 0EL. Details are on the show website.
Come and see Bluetooth running on the RISC OS desktop — and we have major RISC OS news to announce on the day.
Bluetooth now has its own plug-in in Configuration, and a Devices window that scans for, pairs and connects devices: mice and speakers alike, with Low Energy devices found alongside the classic ones. Sound is carried by SoundDMA, so everything the machine plays comes out of the Bluetooth speaker or headset rather than one application at a time.
Bring a device along and pair it with RISC OS on the stand.
The announcement itself is staying under wraps until the day. Some of what will be running on the stand, though:
That is as much as we are saying before the 24th. Come and see the rest.
In testing, for release around the show. Pinboard 3 takes another big step. The unified Toolbox was finished along the way, and Toolbox-aware programmers are wanted to help test it. The Filer rewritten in C has FilerFind built into it, searching every filing system including the network, and the Font Manager in C is in testing too.
Being worked on now. Bluetooth, above, and OpenGL: VXMesa drawing into ordinary desktop windows, several at once, and WebGL in a browser rendered by the Raspberry Pi's VideoCore IV GPU.
Out now. The Frosted ROMs for the Raspberry Pi, Iyonix, i.MX6 and Titanium, with the theme, HardDisc4 image, browsers and Viewer, are all on the downloads page. LanMan98 v3 gives you SMB 2 and 3 file sharing with modern NAS drives and Windows, Linux and Mac shares.
New on the site. The Shield theme, a light counterpart to Frosted, with !ThmeSetup for changing theme without a reboot. !Connect, our VNC suite for RISC OS, Mac, Windows and Linux, is coming soon. And you can boot RISC OS 3.71 in your browser, right here on this site.
The full picture is on the status page. See you on the 24th.