An informal Q&A involving the following programmers:

Introduction from Mel:

Ah, SoftMachinery, with the incap fixation. Some will know it from the cryptic ..SofMac in the bottom right of telesoftware pages. What? You went and made a cup of coffee while it was downloading? Shame.

SoftMachinery existed sporadically before Acorn, but it grew to a massive four people. It even had a technician but he got car sick and left.

SoftMachinery was the company behind The Gnome @ Home (TG@H) written by Gnomey, T'GG and TMWFK. SoftMachinery did do other things, mostly to make money.

SoftMachinery designed nearly every Prestel modem in the UK, helped Acorn win the BBC Micro contract, got them to put red functions buttons on the Beeb, and designed the Teletext Decoder.

If you used a Beeb for Prestel you used software written by SoftMachinery. Everywhere. The terminal software, the Acorn modem ROM, most of the updating of Prestel pages. Gnomey even wrote a game.

Three quarters of SoftMachinery played Essex MUD. Only one became a wizard. And loved a witch.

Without the incap fixation, SoftMachinery is a sensible company.

Not quite. Prepare to be uncled.

Rob Sprowson will discuss developments in RISC OS over the last couple of years and will give a glimpse into the future of the platform. Demonstrations will be given of various current and development machines, including the ARM Cortex A8-powered Beagleboard. Visitors will be welcome to come and speak to Robert after the presentation.

RISC OS Open Ltd (ROOL) is an organisation run on a largely voluntary basis. The group are managing the process of publishing the source code to RISC OS, which can be found at www.riscosopen.org. They also offer professional services to anyone who is interested in developing commercial products using RISC OS.

Professor Stephen Furber - a principal designer of both the BBC Microcomputer and ARM microprocessor - will discuss The Heritage of the BBC Micro.

Topics covered will include construction of the prototype BBC machine that was demoed to staff at the BBC, as well as the design and manufacture of the ARM microchip.

Stephen will also give an insight into his current research interests, such as the SpiNNaker project: a bold attempt to emulate the interactions of the human brain, utilising an estimated one million ARM processors.

The talk will last for one hour and there will be an additional 30 minute provision to allow for questions.