Virtual Acorn have announced the availability of Virtual RPC-SE - the Windows based RISC OS emulator that powers the MicroDigital Alpha notebook - as a standalone product. Now owners of Windows desktop or laptop computers can run RISC OS 4 (provided with VRPC) and RISC OS Select (for paid-up subscribers) easily and legally.

Paul Middleton of RISCOS Ltd said "I am pleased that we have now reached agreement to allow a fully licensed copy of RISC OS to be shipped with the Virtual Acorn Emulator program. Whilst it is regrettable that the RISC OS market has not seen the launch of the planned RISC OS portable computers, this Agreement will allow RISC OS users to continue to enjoy the RISC OS experience on a range of platforms."

This is a remarkable turnaround from RISCOS Ltd's response at last year's AGM, where threats of legal action were rife concerning the Virtual A5000 software. RISCOS Ltd were certainly less than positive about the prospects of emulation in their 2002 annual report. Perhaps this is now a sign of greater co-operation between the new owners of RISC OS, Castle; desktop developers RISCOS Ltd; and their end product partners; which has to be good news.

The release brings into question once again the consequences of emulating RISC OS on Windows/Intel machines instead of running natively on ARM chips, particularly for the future of our software and hardware markets.

Virtual RPC-SE is priced at £159 (£139 upgrade from VA5000), a price that reflects the costs of the RISC OS licence and the emulator's continuing development.