RISC OS
<operating system> (Reduced Instruction Set Computer Operating System)
The operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers for their
Archimedes family of personal computers.
RISC OS replaced the Arthur operating system used on the first Archimedeses.
It is written in ARM assembly code and distributed on ROM so it takes up no disk
space and takes no time to load. It supports cooperative multitasking with
memory management and includes a graphical user interface or "WIMP". It is
written in a highly modular style and makes extensive use of vectors so it is
easy to modify and extend by loading new modules in RAM. Many system calls
(called "SWIs" - software interrupts) are available to application programmers
and some of these are available as user comands via a built-in command-line
interpreter. RISC OS also supported outline fonts when only bitmap fonts were
available on most other platforms.
Following the virtual demise of Acorn, development of RISC OS 4 was taken over
by RISCOS Ltd on 1999-03-05 and released on 1999-07-01.
Current version: 4.39, as of 2004-09-21.
(2004-09-21)
Nearby terms:
RIPEM « RISC « RISCiX « RISC OS » RiscPC »
RISC System/6000 » Risk Based Testing
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