stardot.org.uk

As requested by anightin, Bitstik rom version 1.0

Apologies if it's already available elsewhere

Not sure if Bitstik ever came with an actual rom. Mine (fully boxed with manual etc, so presumably as sold) came with a labelled eprom. IIRC my prestel adapter also came with a labelled eprom. Perhaps Acorn only made real roms for the stuff they expected to sell a reasonable amount of? Happy to send...

Sadly, no.
Or an Econet/X25 gateway, which was apparently purple!

Probably forget a few: System 3 Atom x2 BBC Model A BBC Model B x4 BBC Model B+ 128 Electron BBC Master x3 (Turbo, 512, ET) Communicator Briefcase Communicator Cambridge Workstation x2 (one 32016, one ARM1) A310 x 3 A420 A540 A500 A680 A3000 x2 A3010 A4000 A5000 A4 R140 RiscPC x2 (600 & 700) ZX81 x2...

The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool has worked for me. Apparently, it can be a bit flaky under Windows 10, but I’ve never had an issue.

Will there be facilities for archiving floppies?

I’ve got Taos on 3.5” for the RiscPC and Dos+ with Econet on 5.25” for the Master 512 that I’ve not got round to archiving yet...

The before photo did look strangely appropriate for the thread title...

Paradoxically, if you’re used to looking at them, the scans are actually more disconcertingly graphic than the photos!

daveejhitchins wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 24, 2018 12:45 pm

Pardon

Dave H

£135 for an STD? That’s gonna sting!

If you want an example of poor video quality, take a look at 'Making The Most Of The Micro' Live (in full screen for the full horror). It has dreadful motion artefacts; on Facebook they are described, by somebody well qualified to comment, as "wobbly edged motion (interlaced content scaled as progr...

The 80x25 definitely is a System card. Don’t know enough about the eurobeeb to say if it’s compatible, but it may work in an atom - the expansion connector is the same, and System Econet and DOS boards certainly worked.

For Saturday night, I can highly recommend the Wrestlers on Newmarket Rd. Best Thai food in the area, but will need a reservation.

Put me down for whole weekend, with some kit.

IIRC they’ve got a working A680 there with appropriate flavour of riscix. Could do with cloning that onto my 680.

Is the C64 still available?

If so, please can I have it?

Interestingly, he seems to have several versions of the same items for sale, some of which are vaguely sensibly priced and some are extortionate.

The extortionate ones all seem to have a “P” prefix in the item name. Wonder if this stands for what he’s taking?

I’ve done a bit more experimenting. I use !sparkfs v 1.42. Compressing as zip (ie /zip) in fact allows me to nest archives (either zip or arc) within each other and all wirks fine. Don’t know why I’ve struggled before). Conpressing everything to a spark file (ie /arc) will allow zip files within it ...

I’m trying to move my software archive between machines (some HostFS, some ADFS). Previous attempts have led to corrupted file attributes for random files. The most bulletproof way to avoid this I’ve found is to compress them as a spark file and transfer that. The only drawback is that some of the a...

These cheap eraser units are okay. But just be aware of the limitations:- The timers are clockwork, so don't expect good accuracy Some units don't prevent the UV light from escaping, so if light does leak out, don't look at the light!!! Either fit a proper UK 13A plug (with a 3A fuse), or use a pro...

Have you checked the voltages on the auxiliary power connector, ie does it produce 12V? I’ve had a PSU where Q4 died. Despite appearances and labelling, it isn’t a transistor but some sort of comparator to regulate the 5V line. The symptom was that the 5V line was dead but 12V was fine. For the reco...

Did even Watford ever sell dual disc drives, in which the two drives were so blatantly mismatched?

A3000 version please
Can collect at Wakefield

I recently obtained a breadbin C64. Initially, it did nothing. Opening it up showed that the large glass fuse had blown. One replacement later, it gives the BASIC header and number of bytes free. However, there’s no cursor and the keyboard’s dead. Swapping the two 6526 CIA chips changed the problem ...

And if you opt for an NVME drive on the M.2 interface, the performance is positively obscene. The Samsung 960s come close to saturating 4 channels of PCIe 3.0.

Part of the problem is that both CPUs are pretty dire, with woeful Passmark scores. The P360 is low-end, but the 4355M is even lower. My old laptop is an 8 year old I5-430M (also HP), so hardly high-end or expensive, even at the time of manufacture. But even that CPU scores higher than those two. Wi...

Good suggestion, but I doubt it’d be strong enough.
These things are sheet steel with pretty industrial hinges/clips. Unfortunately, they seem to be less than precision engineered, so take quite a lot of force to open/close and even more force (I worry about using a weak screwdriver) to clip shut.

One of my (alleged) Cambridge Workstations came from inside Acorn. During it’s life, it’s had its 32016 board removed, along with the hinged aluminium carrier that the copro board usually sits on. What makes me suspect that it wasn’t originally an ACW is that it also has the Acorn mouse board fitted...

You may have hit on the reason why it was designed but never launched as a beeb in 1983. The 1985 Beebug review of the 128k upgrade claimed that the connector was never intended for sideways ram. It was originally there to take a different type of main ram should there be supply issues with the usua...

Agreed. So the bigger question is why it wasn’t rolled out as the Model C in 1983/4, when it would have been a much bigger hit? As it was, the July launch reviews all asked the same question. And when the Master came out the following February, the people who’d bought a B+ were foaming at the mouth....

Not sure if this counts as sage advice or just an example of luck triumphing over stupidity... Whenever I re-cap a PSU, I always test it off load. The voltages are always what they should be, and nothing bad’s happened. Yet. Maybe the few seconds it takes to test isn’t long enough to make me see the...

By the time the B+ came out (only six months before the Master), Acorn will have been well on the way to designing the Master. The prototype Masters were apparently originally called the Model C (I just missed out on one of the Model Cs from an ex-Acorn guy back in the mid-90s but did get lots of fu...

Lardo Boffin wrote:
I believe they are the Z80 co processor utility discs so will be on line, probably here

http://mdfs.net/Mirror/Image/AcornCPM/

Certainly look like them. IIRC, don’t they create about 13 or so discs of actual software?