Getting a RISC OS desktop on the Bush IBX-100

Ingredients required

Bush IBX-100 or other internet STB or television
Iomega 100Mb parallel zip drive - must be one of the old PPA models
A desktop RISC OS computer, preferrably running RISC OS 3.5, 3.6 or 3.7
The Argo zip drivers for RISC OS machines (optional)

The idea is basically to softload the parts of RISC OS required to use the desktop from a zip disc. These come in the form of various modules (and their associated resources). I’ve successfully used the modules extracted from RISC OS 3.71, other versions may work as well.

Downloads available from this site

zipimage.zip (96 Kb), zipimage.bz2 (0.3 Kb) - An image I’ve made of a zip disc formatted using the Argonet RISC OS driver. It has been confirmed that this can be successfully written to a zip disc using Norton Diskedit on DOS (although very slowly), or using Linux with a command such as:
```
bzcat zipImage.bz2 > /dev/sda
```
Where /dev/sda is the device representing your zip drive. Make sure this is correct before executing the command, especially on a SCSI based system. I accept no responsibility if this wipes your hard drive or otherwise breaks your computer.
izform.bbc (2 Kb) - A program to be run on the Bush box which formats a zip disc to Argo format. Thanks to Dom Wright for providing this. The (rather dodgy) method of getting it from a PC to the box is to take a blank PC formatted Zip disc, save the file to it, start the IBX in BASIC with PPADriver and IZipFS loaded, put the disc in and type:
```
SYS 318856, , , 229888, PAGE, 2749
OLD
```
This should read the file straight from the disk into BASIC program space.
keyrat.zip (0.6 Kb) - A module to be run on the STB which sets the right shift key to act as the middle mouse button, and the “]” key to act as the right mouse button as the squidgy remote control keyboard doesn’t have middle or right mouse buttons. This module is Copyright © Martin Dann <Martin@f451.freeserve.co.uk> and may not be distributed further without his permission.

How to extract the necessary modules and resources:

To get a RISC OS desktop running on the STB, you need to softload various modules from a RISC OS desktop machine. These are easily extracted using Zap (http://zap.tartarus.org/). The modules I softload are as follows:

Filer 1.85
FilerSWIs 0.03
ResourceFiler 0.14

Filer and ResourceFiler also need resources (Messages and Template files) which can be found in Resources: on a desktop machine - click on Apps on the iconbar, then adjust-close this window to open Resources:$. Copy the Filer, FilerAct and ResFiler directories (at least), and you’ll probably also want to grab a copy of the Wimp sprites from the Wimp directory (most of these are missing from the STB).

Other apps you’ll want

Almost anything you want to run will require !Scrap and !System. I got copies of these from the RISC OS 3.1 applications disc one, available at http://acorn.riscos.com/riscos/releases/riscos310/. Draw, Paint and Edit are basic applications bundled with every desktop RISC OS machine. They are usually supplied in ROM - but in RISC OS 3.5 they weren’t, and the disc-based versions available in part2.arc at http://acorn.riscos.com/riscos3/35/35DiscArchive/ work nicely on the Bush box.

Putting it all together on a zip disc

There must be dozens of ways of doing this, and you probably won’t want to do it the same way as me. However, to get you started, here’s how it all fits together on my zip disc (which is named “Jack”):

The root directory of the zip disc contains the applications !Scrap, !System and !Zip (the Argo drivers). It also contains an Apps directory (with Draw, Paint and Edit), a Modules directory (containing all the modules ripped out of RISC OS 3.7 and the KeyRat module), and a Resources directory (containing the resources for Filer, FilerAct and ResFiler directories).

To get it all going when you turn the box on, you need an obey file called “Auto” in the root directory of the zip disc. Mine reads as follows:

RMLoad IZipFS::Jack.$.Modules.FilerSWIs
RMLoad IZipFS::Jack.$.Modules.Filer
Set Filer$Path IZipFS::Jack.$.Resources.Filer.
RMLoad IZipFS::Jack.$.Modules.ResourceFi
Set ResFiler$Path IZipFS::Jack.$.Resources.ResFiler.
RMLoad IZipFS::Jack.$.Modules.KeyRat
IconSprites IZipFS::Jack.$.Resources.Wimp.Sprites
Desktop IZIPFS::Jack.$.!Zip

To set the STB to boot from zip discs when you turn it on with a zip drive attached, turn it on holding down shift and run the EnableZip program (in !Boot.Utils).

That’s all for now - let me know if you have problems, suggestions, etc.

Links to other websites with info about the Bush STBs

http://www.earth.li/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/bush-hacking - Mailing list for people interested in hacking the Bush boxes
~~http://www.kentwebnet.com/bush/~~ - Information on changing the ISP used by the Bush boxes
~~http://cgi.malpasroad.force9.co.uk/bush.php~~ - More information on changing the ISP, and accessing other hidden features of the Bush boxes
http://www.camilla.org/stb/ - Photographs of the IBX-100 (external and internal), with some information about the internals
http://www.kyllikki.org/hardware/bushstb/ - Loads of information about changing and adapting Bush STBs. Various hardware mods, including changing the CPU clock & adding sound capabilities, and also about getting Linux running.