The Icon Bar: Moving to RPCEmu for RISC OS on my Mac

The Icon Bar: News and features: Moving to RPCEmu for RISC OS on my Mac

Moving to RPCEmu for RISC OS on my Mac

Posted by Mark Stephens on 07:44, 13/3/2020
Software, Reviews

In a previous article I wrote about how the new version of MacOS would no longer run my current emulator. While there are some hacky work arounds for Virtual RISCPC, there is no indication of an update which will allow it to run on the new MacOS release.

As a result I have been running RPCEmu on my Mac to provide me with a version of RISC OS when away from my Titanium at home. After several months usage, I think its time to make some comments....

I am actually running the Linux version of RPCEmu. I find this more polished than the Mac version and it also had the new easy to use Networking features when I setup in October. I use Linux (Mint) extensively on my Mac using Parallels so it is just as easy to use for me personally.

I am really impressed with the compatibility of RPCEmu. All my software runs nicely, including MPro which connects from wherever my laptop is. The RPCEmu team did a really amazing job with the easy networking support.

I share my documents with my Titanium via PCloud, and the one weakness I would say is the speed of file copying. This may be due to the multiple levels of abstraction (Mac-Linux-RISC OS). I gave up trying to copy my software library across but it is fine for small files.

A really nice bonus of being on RPCEmu is that it is RISC OS 5. VirtualRPC was running RISC OS 4 (or you could upgrade to RISC OS 6 but not 5).

Overall I am using my Mac as a second RISC OS machine as much as I did when I was running VirtualRPC and can recommend the switch to anyone who needs to upgrade to the new version of MacOS and wants to carry on running RISC OS.

In terms of improvements, I would really like to get ShareFS up and running for easier integration with other RISC OS systems.

What are your experiences of RPCEmu?

RPCEmu website

	Moving to RPCEmu for RISC OS on my Mac
	Bucksboy (14:21 13/3/2020) markee174 (16:08 13/3/2020) dchen (17:22 13/3/2020) sa_scott (19:12 29/3/2020) helpful (21:32 29/3/2020) sa_scott (22:29 29/3/2020)

George Greenfield	Message #124754, posted by Bucksboy at 14:21, 13/3/2020
Member Posts: 91	Thanks for an enlightening article, Mark. I'm not currently a MacOS user (though I might be joining the ranks at some point this year), but it's encouraging to know that RPCEmu works well on your setup. I'm using 0.9.2/5.27 to send this (wirelessly from a Win7 laptop) and I find it works splendidly; in fact some apps, notably Photodesk, are more stable under RO5 on RPCEmu than on native hardware (a Pi3 in my case). I have used VRPC on this machine but IMHO it has three serious drawbacks - lack of memory generally, and the 28MB file size limit (I've got the cooking version); rather nasty mouse pointer behaviour; and of course an obsolete version of RISC OS (OK, I could use RO6, but I prefer to have desktop commonality with my native hardware). Finally, pCloud: speed can be greatly increased if, instead of accessing it directly from RPCEmu, you install it on the MacBook, share the drive, and access it via LanMan98. This works very well for me and increases max. transfer rates from c.125Kb/sec to around 4Mb/sec. The only snag: you'll have to re-share the pCloud drive every time you restart the MacBook.
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Mark Stephens	Message #124755, posted by markee174 at 16:08, 13/3/2020, in reply to message #124754
Does all the work around here Posts: 154	Many thanks for the speed tip. I will give it a try. My biggest issue with VRPC is that is no longer updated which is always going to cause issues when Apple updates the OS once a year. I have also been using VNC to access my Raspberry Pi3 remotely to provide a RISC OS desktop on my Mac. Presumably I will be writing this option up in due course as well along with some updates on RPCEmu... I really like the Mac as a base system (and indeed write a Mac column for Archive). I have just upgraded to the latest 16inch MacBookPro which is very nice. Having 8 cores makes it much smoother running both Linux and MacOS together. [Edited by markee174 at 16:09, 13/3/2020]
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David Chen	Message #124756, posted by dchen at 17:22, 13/3/2020, in reply to message #124755
Member Posts: 5	Just curious - where is the Mac version lacking polish? There have been some patches created for it and made available as an unofficial build recently, which give it networking support, etc. This saves having to run it in a VM, and does look like a proper Mac application. [Edited by dchen at 17:22, 13/3/2020] [Edited by dchen at 17:23, 13/3/2020]
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Stephen Scott	Message #124769, posted by sa_scott at 19:12, 29/3/2020, in reply to message #124756
Member Posts: 73	After some months, I finally repaired the hard drive to my 2014 IMac, and installed Catalina on it. It would be great to get some up to date guide on installing the latest RPCemu on it, using the Linux build. I do remember installing a previous version way back in 2015, but Catalina changes all that. Does anyone know a good resource on installing this to Mac OS, using the Linux build? ________ Steve Scott, SAS Squad www.sassquad.com
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Bryan Hogan	Message #124771, posted by helpful at 21:32, 29/3/2020, in reply to message #124769
Member Posts: 255	There's this thread on the ROOL forum: https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/10/topics/15050 Plus lots of recent discussion on the RPCEmu mailing list: http://www.riscos.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rpcemu (fixed url) [Edited by helpful at 15:26, 31/3/2020]
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Stephen Scott	Message #124772, posted by sa_scott at 22:29, 29/3/2020, in reply to message #124771
Member Posts: 73	Thanks Bryan. btw, your mailing list URL was slightly incorrect. It's http://www.riscos.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rpcemu ________ Steve Scott, SAS Squad www.sassquad.com
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The Icon Bar: News and features: Moving to RPCEmu for RISC OS on my Mac

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Moving to RPCEmu for RISC OS on my Mac