> When a program needs to allow the user to choose a file, drag and drop is again used, with the window providing a drop area to collect the file<p>The neat part was you could "save" from one app into another, without having decided to actually save the file yourself yet at all.<p>I have to echo the comments about the mouse button "Adjust". Being able to move windows about while they preserve depth position without some obscure shortcut was very useful.<p>Over the years I've grown to appreciate the extent to which whatever vision there may have been behind RISC OS originally the lack of a proper GUI toolkit and serious OS internals held them back such that by Win95 Windows really was better. At exhibitions in 94/95 Acorn devs themselves were conspicuously more interested in running NetBSD than RISC OS, and it always seemed a shame they didn't make a more serious effort to get some descendant of the RISC OS desktop ported over to a UNIX like kernel, rather like a more serious shot at the ROX desktop, but in truth Win95 won the late 90s desktop paradigm war convincingly.
I searched for "ARM" and didn't see it in the article. The Acorn ran on ARM (that's what the A in ARM stood for anyway, Acorn RISC Machine)<p>You can run RISC OS on a Raspberry Pi which is also ARM based.<p><a href="https://www.riscosopen.org/content/sales/risc-os-pi" rel="nofollow">https://www.riscosopen.org/content/sales/risc-os-pi</a>
Thanks to the author for writing about their exploration and learning. I'm also of the mind that user interface designers should dig deep into the past: System 7, RISC OS, BeOS, OS/2, Amiga OS, FM Towns, X68000, GEM, etc. So much good stuff.
I grew up with the RISC OS desktop, and it's one of the biggest reasons why I'm so comfortable with the multi-window interface of the GIMP, because it's very reminiscent of how things worked on RISC OS.
To those here familiar with RISC OS (like, having used it as daily driver for extended period, past or present), what about it would you regard as most worthy of preservation?<p>Things about its low-level internals? Specific aspects of how its parts inter-operate? Particular nifty features in the UI? General look & feel / user experience?
I do like the "Adjust" mouse button.<p>EDIT: especially that you can use it to do multiple menu selections without actually closing the menu.
> The Save dialog is normally presented as a menu, into which you enter a filename<p>> This menu however is deeply confusing.<p>No, this is the greatest piece of the RISC OS UI. It makes all other systems save dialogs seem like total nonsense. You just put files where you want them. The only thing is that the OK button shouldn't exist.