Galileo was entirely conceived within Online Media, and gave guaranteed QoS services. It was designed for uninterrupted video playback. RISC OS could handle video playback (the video was punched through so the OS isn't directly involved per video frame), but you need to feed the video and audio buffers regularly, and to reduce latency you want small buffers. Small buffers means it's more prone to glitching if the OS is otherwise busy.
It's much less of a problem these days, with accepted delays of a couple of seconds when you switch channel, and cheaper memory to allow larger buffers, but the OS had great potential for the hardware of the era. It could support simpler (and so cheaper) hardware, and fast channel switching (there have been many patents around this area in later years).
It became an ANC project, largely funded by Oracle so Acorn didn't have to stomp up cash for it, while RISC OS was a stop-gap solution (for ANC and OM). I'm unaware of any realistic plans to port a browser, but Oracle effectively funded Fresco being made cross-platform (which ANT later benefited from). Java and Flash were probably afterthoughts. As I've mentioned before, I don't believe ART had any concrete plans to use it, just vague ideas.
I can't recall exactly, but I seem to recall it was cancelled when Intel pulled the SA1500/SA1501 which was going to be its first outing.
I assume distributed in that context refers to a deployment of STBs in people's homes connected to a central server. Something that was less common before the interwebs.
It's much less of a problem these days, with accepted delays of a couple of seconds when you switch channel, and cheaper memory to allow larger buffers, but the OS had great potential for the hardware of the era. It could support simpler (and so cheaper) hardware, and fast channel switching (there have been many patents around this area in later years).
It became an ANC project, largely funded by Oracle so Acorn didn't have to stomp up cash for it, while RISC OS was a stop-gap solution (for ANC and OM). I'm unaware of any realistic plans to port a browser, but Oracle effectively funded Fresco being made cross-platform (which ANT later benefited from). Java and Flash were probably afterthoughts. As I've mentioned before, I don't believe ART had any concrete plans to use it, just vague ideas.
I can't recall exactly, but I seem to recall it was cancelled when Intel pulled the SA1500/SA1501 which was going to be its first outing.
I assume distributed in that context refers to a deployment of STBs in people's homes connected to a central server. Something that was less common before the interwebs.
Statistics: Posted by piersw — Fri Aug 16, 2024 7:46 pm