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New developments - RISC OS 2 and the revised Archimedes (1989)
Following the third major release of Arthur (version 1.2), Acorn started working on a new, much more advanced, release of Arthur, provisionally known as Arthur 2. When this was finally released in April 1989 it had been renamed to RISC OS 2. (This name change is rumoured to have been prompted by the release of the Dudley Moore film "Arthur 2 - On the Rocks".)

RISC OS 2 was a vast improvement over Arthur. For a start, RISC OS allowed multitasking of programs to occur, with certain limitations. (It wasn't possible to format a floppy disc and use another program at the same time, and only one BASIC program could be executed at a time.) However, with properly written windowing applications, which conformed to the programming specifications, multitasking was possible. The application suite provided with Arthur was also completely rewriten. The Draw, Edit and Paint applications were introduced, along with an upgraded version of Maestro. A selection of other software was also supplied, including the "Patience" card game, a simple calculator, a magnifier and an alarm clock. An updated version of the Model B 6502 emulator, 65Host, was also included, and a new emulator, 65Tube, was introduced, which emulated a BBC Master Turbo and allowed Tube-compatible programs to be run. A large number of bugs in Arthur 1.2 were fixed, and a new 800 Kb floppy disc format, "E", which was more tolerant of disc errors, was also included