General Stuff(tm)

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rubber_jonnie
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: Sun Nov 14, 2021 5:14 pm Floppy adapter and controller daughter board built, tested and boxed up. I can post it tomorrow.

The F2 ROM most definitely seeks the drives itself, so no need for the ATTiny85 on this board, just some bridge wires in the socket.
Sounds like you have some cool stuff going on with regards to Apricot world :)
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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stephen_usher
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

It's someone on the RMC discord who picked up a couple of motherboards from eBay for about a tenner and similar amounts for the other parts, 'cos they looked interesting. Might as well help someone get more machines running. I sent him the ROM images last night, he just needs to write them to a couple of 27128 EPROMs. The seller on eBay is asking £30 for the originals! Silly money.

Talking about silly money someone's trying to sell an F2, monitor, keyboard (seemingly battery damaged) and trackball/mouse (very battery damaged) for £375. After I "watched" it he sent an offer for £300 which I ignored. Seeing as I picked up an F2 with keyboard for £30 and monitor for the same in the last few months he's just asking silly money.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
Steve
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by Steve »

Stephen, would you be interested in testing RaSCSI with your TT?

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =29&t=4844

If we can get Daynaport emulation going, it would be a very powerful all-in-one solution. It even has an easy configurable web interface where you can create/mount drive images. With a click of a button it can also install a proxy-server that converts modern web to easily understandable http 1.0 for older computers etc. The thing does so much... and your skills would be worth-while especially when testing with MiNT.
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stephen_usher
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

I could look at using it in an external drive bay at some point.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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stephen_usher
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Location: Oxford, UK.
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

I was rummaging through my draws whilst at work this afternoon looking for a specific cable and opened one of a filing cabinet i'd not opened for a while. Given the date of everything inside, that would be 1995 then...

Along with out of date documentation were these:

IMG_2465.jpg
IMG_2465.jpg (47.98 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

I'd forgotten that I'd rescued them at the time we decommissioned the Mac IIs in the admin offices.

They've come home with me this evening.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
Steve
Posts: 2569
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:49 am

Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by Steve »

Ohh I bet they smell fresh =)
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stephen_usher
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

I got the second shelf unit put into the storage unit today and it's made a world of difference. Beforehand I could hardly get in there, now I have lots of floor space and spare shelf space for Stuff(tm). :D

IMG_2469.jpg
IMG_2469.jpg (62.87 KiB) Viewed 1755 times

These shelf units were less than £40 each from Screwfix and are rated at 250Kg. Definitely cheap mild steel but once put together reasonably sturdy.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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stephen_usher
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Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 7:19 pm
Location: Oxford, UK.
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

Seeing as I'd moved the Apricot stuff into storage until the new year I thought I'd check on the Acorn A4000 which had suffered VARTA damage but was mostly working. It was keeping the NVRAM settings but not running the clock.

Anyway, I took it down from the loft and checked the voltage from the battery over to the clock chip. 200mV... That's not right, as the batteries are outputting 4.5V. There was something fishy going on around R60 as it seemed to have a far higher resistance than it should.

I checked the traces, very high resistance on the one going out from the resistor and also across the resistor itself. After doing some clean up suddenly the trace had a break. I wondered if I could bridge with some solder... Erm, that made things worse. The resistor stopped working at all, so I hoiked it out.

After a bit of Googling I found the schematic for the clock circuit at least. R60 should be a 180R. Seeing as (a) I don't have any surface mount resistors, and (b) one of the pads had gone anyway, I decided to bodge with a through-the-hole resistor and solder it to the spare battery connector pin.

Now I'm getting the proper voltage at the clock chip when the machine is powered down and the clock keeps running. Result!

IMG_2470.jpg
IMG_2470.jpg (40.73 KiB) Viewed 1742 times

Note that the resistor isn't held on with hot-glue, although the solder does look a lot like it. The hot snot was for holding the pins in place when I soldered them in. :-)
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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stephen_usher
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Location: Oxford, UK.
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Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

Not that I doubted it but it's still working and still keeping the time. :-)
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
User avatar
stephen_usher
Posts: 5535
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 7:19 pm
Location: Oxford, UK.
Contact:

Re: General Stuff(tm)

Post by stephen_usher »

Oops! I seem to have bought another Apricot...

Apricot Portable, working, with manuals but no software. However it does have keyboard and *MOUSE*!

£130 via Facebook Marketplace, which is a reasonable sum.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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