www.riscos.com Technical Support:
This manual gives you detailed information on the RISC OS operating system, so that you can write programs to run on Acorn computers that use it.
Part 1 introduces you to the hardware used to run RISC OS, and to the fundamental concepts of how RISC OS works.
Parts 2 to 5 inclusive give you more detailed information on separate parts of RISC OS:
We've laid out the information in these parts as consistently as possible, to help you find what you need. Each chapter covers a specific topic, and in general includes:
The Appendixes contain:
The tables gather together information from the whole manual, giving lists that you will find useful for quick reference.
The separate volume of Indexes contains:
Certain conventions are used in this manual:
Hexadecimal numbers are extensively used. They are always preceded by an ampersand. They are often followed by the decimal equivalent which is given inside brackets:
This represents FFFF in hexadecimal, which is the same as 65535 in ordinary decimal numbers.
Courier type is used for the text of example programs and commands, and any extracts from the RISC OS source code. Since all characters are the same width in Courier, this makes it easier for you to tell where there should be spaces.
Bold Courier type is used in some examples to show input from the user. We only use it where we need to distinguish between user input and computer output.
Special symbols are used when defining the syntax for commands:
Many of the examples in this manual are not complete programs. In general:
For how to set up and maintain your computer, refer to the Welcome Guide supplied with your computer. The Welcome Guide also contains an introduction to the desktop which new users will find particularly helpful.
For details on the use of your computer and of its application suite, refer to the RISC OS User Guide and RISC OS Applications Guide supplied with it.
If you wish to write BASIC programs on your RISC OS computer you will find the BBC BASIC Reference Manual useful.
Your Acorn supplier has available the Acorn Desktop C and Acorn Desktop Assembler products, which you can use to write programs in (respectively) C and ARM assembler. Both products run in a desktop environment with full supporting tools. The manuals for both products are available separately if required: they are entitled Acorn ANSI C Release 4 and Acorn Assembler Release 2.
If you have any comments on this Manual, please email email@example.com.