Zorin OS 18 Hits over a Million Downloads

If you doubt Linux isn't gaining popularity, you only have to look at Zorin OS's download numbers.

WROCC December 2025 talk on Wednesday - Amcog Games

The December 2025 WROCC talk is on Wednesday 3rd December and starts at at 7.45pm on Zoom.

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Wraight brings us Clarity

Many thanks to Chris Wraight for high new theme for RISC OS users and experiment with funding new developments (It's not too late to send us yours).

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - new Frosted theme from Martin Eastwood

Many thanks to Martin Eastwood for bringing us a beta preview of his forth-coming Frosted Theme (It's not too late to send us yours).

TUXEDO Computers Scraps Snapdragon X1E-Based Laptop

Due to issues with a Snapdragon CPU, TUXEDO Computers has cancelled its plans to release a laptop based on this elite hardware.

b.log 2025/12/01 - Range panic.

Range panic.

RISC OS 'Advent' Calendar 2025 - Chris Hall tackles the Hydra

Many thanks to Chris Hall for bravely tackling this beast for the benefit of all RISC OS users (It's not too late to send us yours).

b.log 2025/11/30 - Tea!, Final mow of the year?, The hardship is over, Making bread, Fun with SCSI, Another security camera, Lidl condemned for deceptive advertising, Fire and tower blocks.

Tea!, Final mow of the year?, The hardship is over, Making bread, Fun with SCSI, Another security camera, Lidl condemned for deceptive advertising, Fire and tower blocks.

DME Project: Porting a lot of Themes to the new ExtTheme!

While the DME project slowed down due the need for a better development environment for which I have designed UltimaVM for, the parts I can continue to work on are still moving forward, here is an updated with pictures of Themes ports to the new DME ExtTheme! Intro Before we dig into the cool bits, […]

RISC OS North 2026 show date announced

Richard Brown and Andrew Rawnsley, the organisers of 2025’s inaugural – and successful – RISC OS North show, have announced the date of the second show to be held in Warrington as 21st March, 2026. The second show will take place in the same venue as last year: Village Hotel Warrington,110 Centre Park Square,Warrington,WA1 1QA. More details will no doubt appear in due course, but for the moment… write (or type) that date into your diaries, and get those travel plans sorted.

AMCOG delivers witness statement about Hugh Bowman to WROCC – 3rd December

The guest speaker for the next Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) meeting, which takes place on 3rd December, is Tony Bartram of AMCOG Games. Tony released his latest game, Hugh Bowman PI, at the London Show just over a month ago, with its more general release (with some updates) just a few days ago, and that will be the first part of what he will be talking about to WROCC. His talk will be more than just a look at the game itself, however, and will also include the…

This Week on The Analog Antiquarian

Chapter 8: An Elliptical Universe

November 2025 News Summary

Some things we noticed this month. What did you see?

Drag'n'Drop 15i1 edition reviewed

The latest edition of Drag'n'Drop magazine was released at the recent London Show and should be with subscribers now. Congratulations on reaching Volume 15!

AIM 65 other hardware page added

For the AIM 65 it was not only Rockwell that produced hardware like video,serial and FDC cards, others also amde hardware for the AIM 65. I have a page devoted to AIM 65 hardware with new photos, updated and cleaned up documents: – Comelta S.A. Spain RAM and ROM cards – Cubit – Rhines and […]

Hugh Bowman PI opens his RISC OS detective agency

Initially launched at the recent London Show, and now available to buy from !Store, the latest title from AMCOG Games is Hugh Bowman PI. In the game-noir, you play a private investigator called Hugh Bowman, and can take on one of three cases – all of which involve breaking into Professor Von Sparks’ compound. Once in, you can drive around the area, and enter individual buildings to search for clues and – eventually, hopefully – solve the case. In the compound itself, there are robots to avoid, although they temporarily…

Clarity theme in development with (mini) crowd funder

Chris Wraight – aka Little Yellow Moon – is developing a new theme for RISC OS, called Clarity. His aim is to create a comprehensive new look for the desktop, to include window furniture and backgrounds, system icons, and a wide selection of common file types. There is a mini crowd-funder for the theme up and running, with a modest target of £250 (with, at the time of writing, 26% already fulfilled) – Chris explains that this is experimental; an investigation of using Ko-Fi to provide a small amount of…

Test your flag knowledge with FlagQuiz

If you have a familiarity with flags and want to test your knowledge of them, or if you find yourself flummoxed by them and want to try to learn a few, Kevin Wells has a new piece of software that might be of interest. As you might guess from its name, FlagQuiz is a simple flag-based quiz. The application will display a flag, selected at random, and present you with four options for which nation it belongs to; choose one, and see if you got it right – and after…

KIM-1 Marquee

This has been waiting some time to be published. Udo Juerss wrote in 2024 a program KIM-1 Marquee to display running text wit a near complete alphabet on a KIM-1 or clone LED display. Here the source and binaries. See also:KIM-1 connectors: beware the Chinese cheap variants!The KIM-1 needs 2 edge connectors. The specifications are: […]

Coding a Fortran program on RISC OS

If you were wondering what to do with that new Fortran Compiler in the latest DDE, Sprow has a very timely article for you....

Jolt replica by Scott LaBombard

Scott LaBombard started many years ago on a replica of the Jolt. Quite a challenge, since only photos are known. He succeeded in finishing a working replica as shown on this page. See also:KIM-1 connectors: beware the Chinese cheap variants!The KIM-1 needs 2 edge connectors. The specifications are: card edge; PIN: 44; 3.96mm When you […]

b.log 2025/11/23 - Mamie Fletcher's House for Linux!, Bread maker, Keeping warm.

Mamie Fletcher's House for Linux!, Bread maker, Keeping warm.

b.log 2025/11/22 - Yikes!, Getting that Lidl pocket printer working with Linux, Befuddlement, The day the United States capitulated, Mental hiccup, Translating Mamie.

Yikes!, Getting that Lidl pocket printer working with Linux, Befuddlement, The day the United States capitulated, Mental hiccup, Translating Mamie.

Live Coding with Gerph on Sunday

If you were intrigued by Gerph's Monday ROUGOL presentation, or just want to improve your coding skills, then you are in luck!

Debian Unleashes Debian Libre Live

Debian Libre Live keeps your machine free of proprietary software.

Mr Roberts Goes to Hollywood, Part 1: A Digital Anvil

This article tells part of the story of Chris Roberts. What I’d really like to do is a game where you could travel from planet to planet — and there would be hundreds of planets — with full 3D action. You could go down and explore each planet in detail and interact with all sorts […]

Fireside developer chat on saturday night

It definitely feels like the bleak mid-winter. So why not have a cosy saturday night in. Throw another log on the file and join some very informal and friendly chat with other RISC OS developers online.

Episode IV - A New Hope

Not only did 1977 see the release of space opera Star Wars – A New Hope, but it was also a year famous for the release of Fortran 77, the follow up to Fortran IV and ’66.

Your compliance is imperative

Fortran is one of a family of imperative programming languages, and was originally short for For mula Tran slation. Finding applications in scientific fields such as modelling of weather systems, molecular structure, and of course calculating star ship propulsion vectors.

Image available as wallpaper from r33v01v3 via Steam

As described in our FAQ the imperative languages are in the class of languages that the Norcroft compiler supports, and we’ve long known from odd scraps of evidence such as the RISC iX User Guide that there was a Fortran version at one time which went alongside the C language we’re so much more familiar with.

With help from Codemist a search of their archives managed to locate a partial copy last worked on in the 1990s on a backup tape stowed inside an old R2-unit.

Joining the Fortran front end – the part of the compiler which deals with language specifics – with the rest of the contemporary tools creates the f77 compiler. In addition, a brand new 200+ page manual describes its use in detail, along with ANSI runtime library.

Announcing the TIB 2025 Advent Calendar

For the last 2 years, TIB has run an advent calender over the festive season. And we are looking to our readers to contribute again to make it 3 in a row....

b.log 2025/11/19 - Presentations of The London Show, Sheiny Spammy.

Presentations of The London Show, Sheiny Spammy.

Valve Announces Pending Release of Steam Machine

Shout it to the heavens: Steam Machine, powered by Linux, is set to arrive in 2026.

November 2025 Rougol report - Gerph is back

It's been five years since Gerph last talked to ROUGOL so he was back with an update. And he's been busy—his presentation included 51 information-packed slides!

Rebecca Heineman has died

"Burger Becky" did a lot of great games, first at Interplay (Bard's Tale, Wasteland), then later at Logicware, where she and others did some great Mac ports including Jazz Jackrabbit and their Half-Life MacOS port which never actually saw the light of day, the infamous 3DO port of Doom, and of course the initial work on the IIgs version of Wolfenstein 3D. Naturally these are just the highlights that come to mind of a very long tenure in the computer gaming world. She was very complimentary of TenFourFox back in the day when I was still developing that, and I'd long hoped she would release Mac Half-Life like she did 3DO Doom for the archivists to pick over. Sadly, word has come out that she has finally succumbed to some sort of aggressive form of pulmonary adenocarcinoma. It's not a good way to go, and I hope her last moments were at peace.

Happy Birthday, ADMIN Magazine!

ADMIN is celebrating its 15th anniversary with issue #90.

Developers’ fireside chat – 22nd November

The next friendly fireside chat for people interested in RISC OS software development will take place at 7:30pm on Saturday, 22nd November. Taking place online via the Zoom video conferencing service, these meetings are intended as an informal way of allowing RISC OS programmers, and anyone interested in the subject, to get together online to discuss relevant matters. There is no set agenda for these online meetings, and instead the discussion is steered by what people want to talk about. People are free to ask questions or bring up (and…

Alternative Junior Monitor

Udo Juerss minimized the original monitor written by Alois Nachtmann by removing the socalled “assembler”. And added Intel Hex and MOS Technology papertape upload.. Furthermore some routines can be use in own programs like: TTY_INIT, TTY_PUTC, TTY_PUTS. Here an archive with the source, binary and documentation. See also:KIM-1 connectors: beware the Chinese cheap variants!The KIM-1 […]

London Show 2025 talks are now online to watch

The recordings of the talks at the recent London SHow are now available on youtube.

When UPS charged me a $684 tariff on $355 of vintage computer parts

I try not to write anything even vaguely political on this blog because we have a variety of views on a variety of subjects and no one is here for that. We can all enjoy our geriatric little silicon artifacts together regardless of your electoral persuasion. But I was hopping mad this week, and the reason is actually on-topic, because I got hit with US Customs tariffs close to double the cost of the vintage items I was ordering and more than the items were worth. This eventually got straightened out, but it wouldn't have happened without my complaint and some time on the phone.

Although we make regular trips down under, your humble author is based in California and so is the Floodgap computer lab. For newly manufactured items and parts it has generally been my policy to buy parts from United States sellers even prior to the tariffs, mostly because that gets around various irregularities and it arrives more quickly. If they're going to drop-ship then it's their problem, not mine, because they advertised it was already here. Since such items are typically newly produced, the current tariffs would logically apply and this policy thus has the additional benefit of me not having to deal with that directly: any tariff should already have been paid to get them States-side.

But for NOS and used parts, especially if you are a collector like I am for certain systems, you buy where you can find them. Coincidentally I wanted to buy a second Apple Network Server logic board since my ANS 700 is acting a little weird (don't say caps) and I still want a good spare for the ANS 500. These don't exactly grow on trees but, as it turns out, the seller I bought my current spare logic board from (pre-tariffs) had another in stock. The logic board doesn't come with the regular ANS AIX ROM SIMM nor cache, so we'll want one each of those just in case, and he also had an Apple BTO Twin Turbo video card (I believe originally for the Power Macintosh 9500) which might also be nice for one of the other beige PCI Macs. These are all new old stock items in their Apple Service packaging because obviously Apple hasn't made nor sold any of these parts in decades. Per the seller, they came from the teardown of new machines which Apple was unable to sell and got turned into official surplus new stock. The seller is in an European Union country, so we're not talking some shady Shenzhen shop operating off an alley liftgate. (I'm not naming the seller because none of this is his fault and I'm sure he'd not like to be contacted about this.)

The items came to €296.00, about US\(355 at the spot exchange rate, plus €48.10 for UPS shipping. This would have been well-under the prior _de minimis_ exemption even with the shipping rolled in. We had to do UPS because his particular country's postal service limits shipment value to the United States to US\)100 due to the tariffs, causing him to spend a substantial amount of time at the UPS drop-off depot and on the paperwork, which was way more than he was required to do and I very much appreciate. For any import you need to come up with a Harmonized System code for what you're shipping, which then maps to a Harmonized Tariff Schedule code specific to the United States. These parts are all populated PCBs and most populated boards are, by prior rulings, classified with an HTS code of 8473.30, which is what the seller tagged all four items with. This code is for "Parts and accessories of the machines of heading 8471 [Automatic data processing machines and units thereof]." If you look under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule search engine for this code, you find a duty rate for certain subheadings that at most would be 35 percent, or even if these were products of the People's Republic of China (they're old enough that I don't know their exact provenance, but I have no evidence to believe these were originally), then maybe, maybe, maybe an additional 25 percent. The declared value was the purchase price in euros and he even picked up the insurance. The package left the depot uneventfully and worked its way across the continent.

The first sign of trouble was over the weekend when I got an unexpected message.

The UPS shipping agent had indicated the parcel was subject to Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, which required me to fill out a UPS-specific form attesting to the steel and aluminum content of the package. (This is an important distinction because Section 232 is not currently part of the present matter before the U.S. Supreme Court (PDF), only reciprocal tariffs under the IEEPA.) There should be little or no aluminum in these because the board and traces would be copper. However, a PCI card is probably going to have a steel bracket, so I looked at the typical mass for those and picked a sufficiently high number of 149g, almost certainly an overestimate but that's always safest with this stuff, then looked at the spot price of stainless steel and based on that weight computed a steel content value of $0.48. I marked "not applicable" for everything else and sent it back. They accepted that.

In the background, all this goes into a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Form 7501, also known as an Entry Summary. It is important to realize that in this circumstance, with UPS as the broker, you are not actually the importer of record — they are. You are the "ultimate consignee." Based on the information provided and the judgement of the broker's agent, then a tariff is assigned and added to the paperwork, which is "assessed" by CBP but in practice is being assessed by the broker based on what they expect CBP would charge under current regulation. Ordinarily you don't see this form. CBP does spot-check these but the majority just go through. Since UPS is the importer in this situation, they also pay the tariff they computed "in advance" to clear customs, and then they charge you for that plus their broker fee.

It took several more days for the actual tariff bill to arrive, which was early Monday morning. Now, the initial E-mail said this:

Yes, the initial bill was for US\(711. When I logged in, however, it gave me a total of \)698 because it hadn't yet been delivered, which included a $14 brokerage fee.

Time was of the essence, however, because it was arriving that day. I was absolutely incandescent to have to do it, but I paid the entire charge in full on the spot, and this is the correct thing to do. The last thing you want is for your package to get redirected to a warehouse pending your payment, because any shipper will start tacking on storage fees and they have no incentive to get it out of storage quickly. For UPS, a direct quote from their own agents, "Warehouse charges will be added on shipments that are held in our warehouse over two business days at a rate of \(20.00 per day and \)0.04 per pound. ... On the 15th day, all shipments will be eligible for General Order warehousing by U.S. Customs. Any shipment moved to a G.O. warehouse will be assigned additional warehouse fees over and above any UPS warehouse fees. If imposed, these fees must be paid in full before the shipment can be removed." Obviously I wanted no part of that.

After I had been advised by the system the package would be delivered as scheduled, I then relentlessly abused the AI chatbot on UPS' home page until it asked for my phone number and I got a callback into their phone support line. The first person on the line advised me they didn't handle tariffs and transferred me to another department, after which I spent (not an exaggeration) 45 minutes on hold until it was answered. This new agent said that this was dealt with through a specific subgroup on the UPS post entry team that didn't do anything by phone. (These brokerage teams generally operate out of the Kentucky UPS Worldport hub at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, formerly Standiford Field, hence its IATA code of SDF that also turns up in UPS documentation.) He gave me an E-mail address that looked like line noise but I confirmed it twice with him and also that I had to put the tracking number into the subject line with the magic words "Disputing Duties and Custom Charges." I indicated in the message the fees were paid but that I believed they were unreasonable and incorrect, and also pointed out I submitted the Section 232 paperwork when requested.

It took a day to get a reply, then came the United States Veterans' Day holiday, and finally I heard back yesterday from a second agent that they had "corrected this shipment." What they had done was file an amended Form 7501 and this 7501 they actually sent me so I could see the results. The declared value was changed to US\(342 (I presume a difference in the spot exchange rate at the time of filing) and now it had two HTSUS numbers. The entire \)342 was attributed to 8473.30.2000, a slightly different code for "Parts and accessories, including face plates and lock latches, of printed circuit assemblies" which might be referring to the bracket I declared in the Section 232 form. There was no tariff on this ("FREE"). However, a second code 9903.02.20 was added, a long-winded way of saying a tariff (in this case 15%) on "articles the product of the European Union." This was $51.30 and the final tariff.

Everything arrived safely, by the way, and in excellent condition (though I cracked open the antistatic bag on the ANS board to take off the Maxell battery which Apple always shipped logic boards with back then). However, I would like to point out for the sake of accuracy that the ANS logic board, ROM SIMM and cache DIMM have no country of origin printed on them. Only the Twin Turbo card does, and it says ...

.. but since it wasn't the major part of the order it seemed like I'd be wasting even more time over ten or fifteen bucks to appeal this too. Your mileage and motivation may vary.

Now that UPS was into me for $632.70, the revising agent said, "Any difference between the amount paid and the amount now reflected will be auto-refunded to you. Most of the time, this is done by check sent to the billing address, you can expect this between 2-6 weeks." They didn't say when they don't use a check (I paid with a credit card), but they did give me a phone number for accounting, which I'll call if UPS fails to pay back this particular interest-free loan.

So that's the sordid tale. Even though UPS (mostly) made this right, I'm still unhappy with them for screwing up so badly in the first place because I'm out the money until they get around to reimbursing me. You'd think someone would have noticed that a thumping big duty like that seemed a little weird for a transaction of this size and maybe called a supervisor or something. The fact it could be so promptly appealed — and reversed in a few days, something that hardly ever happens with the federal government — pretty much demonstrates it was their call to ding it for that much in duty in the first place. I'm also unhappy with them for only alerting me to the final cost of the tariff when the shipment was inbound and due for delivery instead of earlier when it was assessed, because they have you over a barrel at that point unless you want to take your chances with their brokerage warehouse. This obviously nets them more money with the people who won't pay up immediately, but it's undeniably pretty bad customer service. Unfortunately, my unscientific survey of reports in the UPS Reddit indicate I am far from the only person to get a disproportionate assessment of this type.

Regardless, if this happens to you — whether it's FedEx or DHL or UPS or whatever — pay it and then appeal it. Don't let your shipment go to a warehouse and don't bounce it back to the sender; since odds are the shipper (because they are likely the importer of record) has already paid the duty, they're going to want their money back and you'll be out the money and the items. But, by golly, appeal it: just because you might agree with it politically doesn't mean they did it right.

Pyromaniac Evolution at ROUGOL – 17th November

Your next opportunity to attend a RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL) meeting is Monday, 17th November, where Gerph will be discussing the evolution of RISC OS Pyromaniac. If you don’t already know, RISC OS Pyromaniac is an online resource developed by Gerph that provides a semi-hosted re-implementation of RISC OS, capable of running 32-bit programs with a focus on testing software. Gerph first talked about the system to ROUGOL five years ago this month, with the last follow-up talk four years ago – and if you want to…

Theatre talks from the London Show now on YouTube

The RISC OS London Show, which took place a few short weeks ago, maintained the usual format – a main hall where the exhibitors had their stands, and a show theatre for a selection of exhibitors to deliver short talks. If you couldn’t attend the talks on the day – or the show itself (shame on you, unless you have a good excuse) – you can now watch them online thanks to the recording and editing efforts of Leo White. If you want to watch them all in one long…

Rockwell AIM 65 additions

The Rockwell pages on AIM 65 have had some updates. There is a new page on AIM 65 hardware produced by others, like video cards, dataloggers and more. See also:KIM-1 connectors: beware the Chinese cheap variants!The KIM-1 needs 2 edge connectors. The specifications are: card edge; PIN: 44; 3.96mm When you search for those, ...Magazines: […]

Rougol November 2025 meeting on monday - Pyromaniac update

The November 2025 Rougol meeting is on Monday and features Gerph.

Another Linux Malware Discovered

Russian hackers use Hyper-V to hide malware within Linux virtual machines.

KIM-1 Simulator 1.5.4 published

A fresh version of the simulator. New functionality 1. The audio tape routines interception can be switched off and on in settings. So no more popups if browsing in the -003 ROM 2. The console window stays open untouched when the LED display is chosen. When switched back to the LED display, the LED lights […]

Moving back to Linux RPCEmu on my Mac

I am a big fan of RPCEmu which provides an excellent RISC OS environment on my Mac when I am travelling. In this post I am going to explore why I have switched back to the Linux version and cover some of the issues I encountered.