IBX-100 - where's the disc image???

What?

What I would like to do is provide you with a disc image of a boot disc. It would be provided as a sector-dump which you write to a blank iomega zip disc (how you do this depends entirely upon your OS: it is dead-easy under RISC OS, pretty trivial under Unix, and under Windows...?).

Why?

The Bush Box relies on the Argo zip disc format (it won't read 'standard' Acorn formats, and the PC 8.3 format is too restrictive to be of any use). Now, the problem with this is that anybody wishing to get any joy with connecting a Bush box and an iomega zip drive will need access to the Argo Interactive software. This might be a viable proposition if you have a RISC OS computer. For those who do not - it is more difficult.
Hence, a basic boot disc image would be a good way to get things going.

So why not?

Well, there are two options...

The first is to have an image of a blank disc. Let's face it, if you had a blank disc, it would be exactly no use whatsoever. If you need to download a boot image, this implies that you do not have a machine capable of handling Argo format zip discs. Therefore... no way to write the required data onto the disc. So...
...exactly. It's a non-starter.

The second, and only, option is a complete boot disc. This would contain the relevant part(s) of RISC OS 3.70 required to call up the desktop properly. I'd also be inclined to pop on !Flash, !VNC, a telnet client such as !FreeTerm, anything else that might be useful - both in running the box and in hacking it's innards.

&nbs;

Sadly, while the software mentioned above is copyable in this context, the parts of RISC OS 3.70 that may be required are covered by copyright and may not be legally stuck on a disc image and offered for download. It's a big no-no. Really.

What would be required is explicit permission to copy at least Wimp 3.98, DisplayManager, DragASprite, parts of the Filer, Pinboard, TaskManager, TaskWindow; the support files (Messages, Templates, etc) and any other useful things such as !Edit, !Paint, and !ChangeFSI...
...however this would require permission from the copyright holders of RISC OS 3.70. Who is this these days? Tematic, Pace, Castle, RISC OS Ltd?

If you are the copyright holder and you don't object to this - please get in touch! :-)

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