We've heard that in a recent email, Jack Lillingston of Iyonix Ltd and Castle Technologies Ltd. has announced that the Iyonix PC is to be no longer available for ordering from 30th September 2008 (only a few days from time of writing).  Iyonix Ltd (formed as a separate division by Castle to sell the hardware) will cease trading once existing stocks of hardware and accessories are exhausted.  There are apparently very limited stocks available, that can be supplied on a first come, first served basis until the 30th.

This announcement puts to bed any wishful thinking that Castle were going to produce an Iyonix 2, and for the moment at least, leaves the market with one choice of native ARM-based computer; the A9Home.

All is not lost for native ARM hardware, at its last public outing (in April at the Wakefield Show) the A9Home was progressing towards RISC OS 6 support and it is believed that development has continued since then.  There was also the technology demonstrator, small touch screen device developed by Simtec, although this was not running RISC OS at the time.

In addition to native ARM hardware, there is still the software solution from Virtual Acorn on either Windows PCs or Apple Macs in the form of Virtual RiscPC.  This solution is capable of running RISC OS 6 also.

The original email quote is below:

25th September 2008

IYONIX Ltd

IOYONIX Ltd would like to announce that from the 30th September 2008 it will not be possible to order an IYONIX computer. There are however very limited supplies of IYONIX computers available for supply and where possible we will be delighted to supply computers before this date (orders will be dealt with on a first come first served basis and are limited).

From 1st October 2008 support for the IYONIX computer will continue through: 1. the IYONIX dealer network 2. the IYONIX website (www.iyonix.com) 3. by email (sales @ iyonix.com & support @ iyonix.com).

In the meantime Jack Lillingston & John Ballance would like to thank all their customers for their business and support over the last 15 years. IYONIX Ltd will continue to trade until stocks of IYONIX and other Acorn RISC OS parts and accessories are exhausted.

The opening up of the RISC OS source code through ROOL is unaffected by this announcement.

Jack Lillingston

Fax:0870 705 8879
web: http://www.iyonix.com
email: sales @ iyonix.com
support @ iyonix.com

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