Wakefield's August speaker was Paul Reuvers from XAT in the Netherlands, talking about his 42 years of Acorn and RISC OS.
Like many, he fell in love with the BBC in the 1980s. He worked for several tech Companies (including briefly IBM) before setting up his own Company in 1987. He started with the original A305/ARTHUR 1.20 and using them for creating presentation software for Mars Corporation. Software became Presenter Story (sold by Lindis). This was well before PowerPoint and Keynote....
Updated in 1989 to use RISC OS 2. Also moved into bigger offices and visited by Gordon Tayler.
Developed CableNews and sold to Local TV stations and Mars.
Discovered what a roadmap was from attending meeting with newly created ARM.
Received a pre-release version of A3000 to debug software and Acorn launch was done using Cable News.
Brought into the development team for Risc PC to advise on features and also able to test software before release. Early releases had SCSI before shifting to IDE.
X-Ample represented many RISC OS companies in the Netherlands, including WIld Vision, ANT, Atomwide, Spacetech, Millipede and Computer Concepts. Sold lots of equipment/software to printing businesses. Moved into 3rd office for more space. Took stands at Big Ben Club.
Wrote own software as well running on Acorn hardware- Sports TIming for TV, CarPilot, CueMaster, MediX
Ported software onto Iyonix which added USB hardware. Ended-up writing his own USB software (USBinfo and HID) to help.
Original MediX did not succeed as not on Windows. Approached in 2006 to write a new version (MediX 2.0) which was more successful with an HTML front end. Still in use with 93,000 patients!
Pollux is a database engine spun off from MediX and used in lots of other custom software products.
Has also worked on other RISC OS products including PhotoDesk and TracerPro.
XAP also develops Embedded software for ARM processors such as Weed-IT for intelligent weed control, test equipment, alarm systems.
Paul has also developed a Crypto Museum developed on RISC OS. Will be releasing a new version of !Enigma (his free RISC OS enigma machine emulator).
Has created a new !Watermark RISC OS application to add proper watermarks to images.
Paul is also a co-owner of ROD as keen to see RISC OS become Open Source.
The talk featured many photos from the Acorn days and lots of history...
As usual, the talk was on Zoom with an audience from all over 'global' Wakefield. Talk was recorded if you missed it.
Details on all meetings (and email address to ask for a Zoom link) can be found on the WROCC website
