Jenny’s Daily Drivers: RiscOS 5.28

November 8, 2023 by Jenny List 35 Comments

On a mundane day at some point in late 1987, though I didn’t grasp exactly what it would become at the time, I sat in front of the future. My school had a lab full of BBC Micros which I’d spent the previous few years getting to know, but on that day there was a new machine in one corner. It was a brand-new Acorn Archimedes, probably an A300, and it was the first time I had used an operating system with a desktop GUI. The computer was the first consumer application of the ARM processor architecture which has since gone on to conquer the world, and the operating system was called Arthur, which hasn’t. That’s not to say that Arthur is forgotten though, because it was soon renamed as RiscOS, managed to outlive both Acorn and the Archimedes, and still survives as a maintained though admittedly niche operating system to this day. So my Daily Driver this month is the current generation of RiscOS, version 5.28, and the machine I’m running it on is a Raspberry Pi 4. For a computer with an ARM core that’s designed and sold by a company based in Cambridge just like the original Acorn, it’s the most appropriate pairing I can think of.

Probably the Smallest OS In This Series

A beige desktop with no monitor, keyboard and mouse in front. It shows signs of yellowing with age. — The first ARM product, an Acorn Archimedes A310. mikkohoo, CC BY-SA 4.0.

At one point the Raspberry Pi folks even featured the Pi version of RiscOS on their website, but for those missing it there it’s freely downloadable as a disk image from the RiscOS Open site. Having spent most of its life as a closed-source product it’s been opened up over the last decade, and you can grab the source if you’re interested. When it’s normal for an OS download to run into the many gigabytes, it’s a bit of a shock to grab one that’s a shade under 140 megabytes and can be written to a 2 gigabyte SD card. This makes it probably one of the quickest operating system installs I have ever done, with all steps completed in a very short time. Sticking the SD card into the Pi it boots to a desktop in about 32 seconds which is only 5 seconds less than the latest Raspberry Pi OS image, so sadly that compactness doesn’t net you any extra speed. Continue reading “Jenny’s Daily Drivers: RiscOS 5.28” →

Hackaday Links: November 5, 2023

November 5, 2023 by Dan Maloney 5 Comments

As I write this, Supercon 2023 is in full swing down in Pasadena — 80 degrees and sunny at the moment, as opposed to 50 and pouring rain where I am, not that I’m bitter. Luckily, though, we can all follow along with the proceedings thanks to the livestreams on the Hackaday channel, which of course will all be available once they’re edited in case you miss anything live. There are a ton of interesting talks coming up, so there’ll be a lot to catch up on when the dust settles. And that won’t be far from now; by the time this post publishes, Supercon will be all but over, which makes it the Thanksgiving dinner of cons — all that work and it’s over in just a few minutes.

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This Week In Security: CVSS 4, OAuth, And ActiveMQ

November 3, 2023 by Jonathan Bennett 4 Comments

We’ve talked a few times here about the issues with the CVSS system. We’ve seen CVE farming, where a moderate issue, or even a non-issue, gets assigned a ridiculously high CVSS score. There are times a minor problem in a library is a major problem in certain use cases, and not an issue at all in others. And with some of those issues in mind, let’s take a look at the fourth version of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System.

One of the first tweaks to cover is the de-emphasis of the base score. Version 3.1 did have optional metrics that were intended to temper the base score, but this revision has beefed that idea up with Threat Metrics, Environmental Metrics, and Supplemental Metrics. These are an attempt to measure how likely it is that an exploit will actually be used. The various combinations have been given names. Where CVSS-B is just the base metric, CVSS-BT is the base and threat scores together. CVSS-BE is the mix of base and environmental metrics, and CVSS-BTE is the combination of all three.

Another new feature is multiple scores for a given vulnerability. A problem in a library is first considered in a worst-case scenario, and the initial base score is published with those caveats made clear. And then for each downstream program that uses that library, a new base score should be calculated to reflect the reality of that case. Continue reading “This Week In Security: CVSS 4, OAuth, And ActiveMQ” →

2000-Year Old Charred Manuscripts Reveal Their Secrets

November 2, 2023 by Lewin Day 38 Comments

Imagine trying to read a 2000-year old scroll from an ancient civilization. Now imagine that scroll is rolled up, and in a delicate, charred, carbonized form, having been engulfed by the fiery eruption of a volcano. The task would seem virtually impossible, and the information in the scroll lost forever. Right?|

As it turns out, new developments are changing that. Modern scanning techniques and machine learning tools have made it possible to read fragments of the heavily-damaged Herculaneum scrolls. Hopes are now that more of the ancient writings will be salvaged, giving us a new insight into the ancient past.

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Fancy Gyroscopes Are Key To Radio-Free Navigation

November 1, 2023 by Lewin Day 49 Comments

Back in the old days, finding out your location on Earth was a pretty involved endeavor. You had to look at stars, use fancy gimballed equipment to track your motion, or simply be able to track your steps really really well. Eventually, GPS would come along and make all that a bit redundant for a lot of use cases. That was all well and good, until it started getting jammed all over the place to frustrate militaries using super-accurate satellite-guided weapons.

Today, there’s a great desire for more accurate navigational methods that don’t require outside communications that can easily be jammed. High-tech gyroscopes have long been a big part of that effort, allowing the construction of inertial navigation systems with greater accuracy than ever before.

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A woman with a black vest and pink shirt with curly hair stands behind a podium in front of a projected presentation. She is speaking and has her hands moving in a vague guesture.

Supercon 2022: Carrie Sundra Discusses Manufacturing On A Shoestring Budget

October 31, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 2 Comments

Making hardware is hard. This is doubly true when you’re developing a niche hardware device that might have a total production run in the hundreds of units instead of something mass market. [Carrie Sundra] has been through the process several times, and has bestowed her wisdom on how not to screw it up.

The internet is strewn with the remains of unfulfilled crowdfunding campaigns for tantalizing devices that seemed so simple when they showed of the prototype. How does one get something from the workbench into the world without losing their life savings and reputation?

[Sundra] walks us through her process for product development that has seen several products successfully launch without an army of pitchfork-wielding fiber crafters line up at her door. One of the first concepts she stresses is that you should design your products around the mantra, “Once it leaves your shop IT SHOULD NEVER COME BACK.” If you design for user-serviceability from the beginning, you can eliminate most warranty returns and probably make it easier to manufacture your widget to boot. Continue reading “Supercon 2022: Carrie Sundra Discusses Manufacturing On A Shoestring Budget” →

Saving Australia’s Ants With Age Of Empires II

October 30, 2023 by Lewin Day 14 Comments

Australia’s native meat ants are struggling. Invasive species of foreign ants have a foothold on the continent, and are increasingly outcompeting their native rivals for territory. Beyond simple encroachment, they pose a hazard to native animals and agriculture.

Scientists at the CSIRO have been investigating the problem, hoping to find a way to halt the invasion. Charged with finding a way to help Australia’s native ants fight back, they turned to one of the most popular battle simulations of all time: Age of Empires II.

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