RISC OS on the Bush IBX200 Internet.tv box

Thanks to the Peter(fibble) over at the stairwaytohell.com BBC Micro forums, he gave The Centre for Computing History a Bush IBX200. The internet service hosted by Bush and Virgin.net is no longer available – so the box is quite useless…. or is it?

Thanks to a guide on Chris’s Acorn site, I managed to get this box booting into Risc OS. most of the information below is taken from his site.

To boot RISC OS, you will need the following :

Starting on the donor system:

• Connect the Zip drive the the donor system and install the Argo drivers, if they are not already installed. Put a disc in the ZIP drive and start !Zip.
• Open the ZIP disc, create 2 directories. Resources, Modules
• Click the Menu button on the Apps icon and select Open $. Copy the following files to the Resources directory on the ZIP disc: Display, Filer, Pinboard, ResFiler, ResourceFS, Switcher, TaskWindow
• Copy the Wimp directory across too – Sprites, Sprites22, Tools as the majority are missing from RISC OS-NC.
• Using !Zap (or whatever), save the OS ROM modules from memory to the Modules directory of your Zip disc, the modules are: DisplayManager (as DisplayMan), DragASprite (as DragASpr), Filer, FilerSWIs, Pinboard, ResourceFiler (as ResourceFi), TaskManager (as TaskMan), TaskWindow
• You need some sort of utility to fake the mouse buttons. Use Martin Dann‹s keyrat module, available from Chris Sawer’s site. It runs on the STB and sets the right shift key to act as the middle mouse button, and the “]” key to act as the right mouse button as the remote control keyboard doesn’t have middle or right mouse buttons. Download and copy keyrat into the Modules directory.
• Most RISC OS applications require !Scrap and !System so copy these from the RISC OS 3 Applications Disc.
• Create an Obey file called “Auto” which contains the following:

Set Filer$Path          IZipFS:$.Resources.Filer.
Set ResFiler$Path       IZipFS:$.Resources.ResFiler.
Set DisplayManager$Path IZipFS:$.Resources.Display.
Set Pinboard$Path       IZipFS:$.Resources.Pinboard.
Set Switcher$Path       IZipFS:$.Resources.Switcher.
Set TaskWinRes$Path     IZipFS:$.Resources.TaskWindow.
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.FilerSWIs
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.Filer
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.ResourceFi
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.DragASpr
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.DisplayMan
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.TaskMan
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.Pinboard
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.TaskWindow
RMLoad IZipFS:$.Modules.KeyRat
IconSprites IZipFS:$.Resources.Wimp.Sprites
ToolSprites IZipFS:$.Resources.Wimp.Tools
Desktop -file IZipFS:$._DeskStart<

• Create a Desktop (type &FEA) file called “DeskStart” which contains something like:

WimpMode 15
%Set Edit$Options f9 b8 l2 m2 h12 w12
Filer_Boot IZipFS:$.Apps.!Paint
Filer_Boot IZipFS:$.Apps.!Draw
Filer_Run  IZipFS:$.Apps.!Edit
Filer_Run  IZipFS:$.Apps.!CloseUp
Filer_Run  IZipFS:$.Resources.!FreeMem
Backdrop -tile IZipFS:$.willow21
Filer_OpenDir IZipFS:$

• The IBX100 does not have the standard RISC OS Apps in ROM, so you can create and Apps directory on the ZIP disc and copy the standard applications from the RISC OS 3 Applications disc. Also if you want Edit Paint & Draw, copy them from RISC OS 3.50 either from !Boot.RO350Hook.Apps or the RISC OS 3.5 Disc Image.
• Now you have a suitable ZIP disc to boot the Desktop from on the IBX100. Dismount and detach the Zip drive from the donor system and attach it to the IBX100. Start up the IBX100 and go to the main options screen and type zipdebugging to enable booting from the ZIP drive and reboot the box to get a RISC OS desktop.

Thats it – you should now have RISC OS running on your internet.tv box.

There are more photos of the Bush IBX200 on this flickr page.