We've had a glut of stories recently (is there a show coming up or something?) so I'll post these smaller ones together. First up, Castle will be showing off some Linux code running on their Iyonix machines at Wakefield: an ARM Linux port with support for X-Scale. There's still a way to go - for instance it boots from RAM or NFS discs rather than the hard drive - and runs kernel version 2.4.19, but work is "already underway to support 2.5", and everything else should also fall into place soon.

Link: Iyonix Linux page

Secondly, Stu Tyrrell has let us know of the release of his new "parallel printer thingy" in conjunction with ExpLAN Ltd. It's a USB parallel port adapter, which uses the standard RISC OS parallel printer drivers. If your printer port is being used by some other exotic hardware, or you have two printers, then a purchase of just under twenty of your earth pounds fully inc. could be handy. Using the parallel Zip drive using this USB to parallel converter apparently is slightly faster too. Simtec USB card required, etc. etc.

Links: STDevel / Explan

Finally, in a previous item I touched on Simtec's clearance sale, which included Hydra multi-processor cards. Gavin's got back in touch with more details:

The hardware is SA compatible (primary slot only, slave slots require modification with now obsolete components)

The software is not SA compatible, we'll be uploading various bits and pieces to the website in the next few days (probably next week!).

Performance - five ARM710 processors gave a four fold speed increase, slightly slower than a single StrongARM. Two StrongARMs gave a 1.8 times speed increase and that's as far as we tested it as we only had two SA cards at the time! It was unlikely that there would have been any significant benefit from a third CPU due to bus limitations.

If you have access to a bunch of ARM 7s, and can't afford a StrongARM, well, it might be worth a shout...

Link: Simtec clearance page