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Oo, plywood and perspex.

Classy!

It may work. It depends largely on whether the VCR has the full SCART pinout wired up - quite a few only had composite or s-video, and nothing on the RGB inputs. However, is it worth it for the quality you'll get? UHF input was okay for the low-resolution modes, but 80-column was pretty much unreada...

Thanks for the reassurance. I usually power the wedge before the computer anyway, but will make doubly sure now.

I’ve customised a defunct teletext adapter wedge as an expansion unit. It’s comfortably taken a datacentre complete with CF reader, plus a Pi 3A+ co-pro. There’s space left over for a BeebSID. Everything is powered by the 5V output from the wedge, with the link removed from the PiTube module so no p...

My bare board arrived yesterday (thanks GadgetUK164). Can anyone confirm whether the SWinSIDs available on Ebay work correctly with it these days? In the past, results seem to have been mixed... Are any mods required to use one? I do have a non-working C64 that I can cannibalise if needs be, but I’d...

They’re VIDC1 (production Arcs used VIDC1a) in the rear-right corner and early MEMC near the ARM. Not sure if ARM1 and 2 are pin-compatible, but my A500 (ARM2) is an Issue B board. Could be that Issue A was socketed for LCC chips (ARM1) and Issue B for PLCC (ARM2)... edit: Just checked the ARM Famil...

Both mine are 8625 and Autumn as well.

Neither has a proper serial number, but one has a “51” label on the board, the other “56”. I’m guessing this was Acorn’s internal serial system. If so, it gives a minimum to the number if Arm1’s made.

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...