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what I modelled was 355 x 92 x 63 mm and even that had to go on diagonally. The good news is that the actual item is usefully smaller than that. It's crudely 350x80x26, and it will fit diagonally onto a build plate that is 300 x 300. The overall volume (not necessarily the quantity of plastic) is l...

Thanks for checking! It looks like your estimate wasn't too far off.

It certainly would fit on the Ender 5 because the real item is precisely 350mm long. I don't know why I didn't think of putting it diagonally... I'll work out what the minimum size of bed would need to be.

🇨🇦, please. Apologies! I actually wasn't assuming you were from overseas at all, a few people over here spell it that way as well. Normally it's obvious what they mean from the context, but this time it wasn't. Those Canadian spelling differences are interesting - I wasn't aware of them, even thoug...

I'm interested to see what Dave says, as he'd know for sure, but personally I'm a bit surprised you have got it working from 12V. The Plus 1 pretty much doubles the size of the PCB, and more than doubles the number of ICs, so I reckon you would definitely need a better PSU. I run mine from a commonl...

The overall width might be a problem: most 3d printer beds are only 220–250 mm across. Large ABS prints need an enclosed printer, as it warps and shrinks terribly if there's a draft. Large enclosed printers are not cheap. I wasn't sure what you meant here - I'm familiar with the term "draft" in rel...

I found my prototype board was sensitive to timings, but it worked with an NMOS 6502A. These seem to be the most tolerant. The new board worked straight away for me, even with a 65C02P4. I note that all my bus buffers are ALS245s which I believe are the fastest available. I don't think this is stric...

Thanks for the advice - you're coming up with roughly the same sort of concerns I was expecting! The easy one is the condition of the existing front panel. It doesn't exist! I wasn't planning on printing it on someone's home printer as I realise it's too big. Splitting it into two parts could be an ...

I am working on restoring a Master Compact, the most tricky aspect of which is sourcing a new front panel. My plan is to get one 3D printed. I have drawn up the item in Google Sketchup (OK, the truth is, I got my daughter to do it because I'm useless with 3D design tools :lol: ) and the result is th...

Hey Dave, what was the story behind STH's creation? I remember that there were several BBC micro sites in the early days of the internet, each one having various positive and negative aspects, but none being really good across the board. There was, I recall, a big concern over distributing game imag...

What you've said is all correct, except I think you must be holding the memory map upside down!

32k of ram is at the bottom, not the top. Then it's the 16 sideways rom or ram banks (only one 16k block visible at a time), and finally 16k OS rom at the top.

I am taking advantage of having the wrong colour, to experiment with actually using the dye (on margarine tubs!). So far, I have adhesion issues, but then I realised that I hadn't read the website instructions... that'll be why then!

My daughter has given it a good go. She found a bug in line 2330 which I have fixed in the disc image below. Apart from that, the game played fine. Interestingly, she didn't need any guidance on how to drive it, which I was impressed by!

Hello Tim and welcome! I agree about Chuckie Egg, and Repton. Your best option for the time being is to dig out a PC with a "real" floppy drive (not USB) and get hold of Omniflop ( http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm ). This is a piece of Windows software which allows you to write .S...

I found some colour samples on the web, and created this. Both TRG and Brillo make a "Bone" colour, and they appear to be different.

OK, I received the Brillo "Champagne" dye today and tried it out on the plastic lid off a tub of butter. I'm glad I tested it, because it's not the right colour. It definitely goes in the right direction, but it goes too far - it's too dark, and looks a bit like a milky cup of coffee. Crucially, it ...

I found the floppy datasheet on Bitsavers, along with a couple of other useful documents - the product brochure for the range of floppy drives used on the Compact (which shows the F63 is just a faster version of the F53), and also a Chinon datasheet for the double-sided version of the drive used in ...

To find out for certain what effect (if any) connection of this pin has, you need to find the floppy drive manufacturers drive specifications... Whilst I couldn't find the F63 datasheet, I was able to find the equivalent for the F53, which looks physically the same. It says that the drive does requ...

Next - the drives. The base unit of the Compact is not strictly necessary, and has been viewed (including by me) as pretty useless. However, the availability of Gotek drives changes things a bit, because they need to be powered and the Compact's PSU can of course do that neatly. In fact just one 13A...

My daughter loves playing Canasta, I could probably persuade her to try it. She knows all the rules and so if there's a problem with it, she'll find it.

Mind you, a new Wii game has turned up today so it does have some stiff competition!

It's not just the lighting that has an effect, it's also what other colours are immediately adjacent to the thing you're looking at. I'm not sure exactly how this works, eg if the background is "warm" does it make the object look "cold", or "warm", but it's definitely real and demonstrated by variou...

That was interesting! The photo below shows (clockwise from left): - A Master that has never seen any UV. - Compact base unit, sprayed in RAL1015 - Insides of Compact trim pieces - Electron, bit yellowed but I think I Retrobrited it. - AP5 - Interior of BBC B case, the exterior is a bit yellowed and...

You can for paint. But for vinyl dyes, there seem to be two brands and their colour charts are what they are, so you can't colour match except by giving it a go. What I was getting at was that certain products are available with different colour system specifications and so it would be handy to know...

Well done! I was wondering how you were getting on.

I think my 6502 is actually a p4, I’ll have to check.

That's a BS4800 colour reference Dave. There are online convertors which give the equivalent RAL colour reference for a given colour in a different system, but there isn't a straightforward equivalence in this instance. 10B17 is definitely "greyer" than RAL1015 - but that doesn't mean that either ar...

I did wonder about Natural, so its useful to clear that up. I might give Champagne a try then, and I'll report back on how it goes. I might also try their glossy overcoat, because the Compact's trim bits are meant to be shiny. I have tried Retrobriting over the last few sunny days, and whilst it is ...

Hello Alan, I have been reading about your vinyl dye experiments with interest. Having just resprayed my Compact case using RAL1015 colour paint, I'd like to get the plastic trim bits to match it reasonably closely. "Bone" definitely looks a bit lighter and pinker, but "Champagne" looks a perfect ma...

Next, the painted metal case top. The existing paint finish didn't look too bad from a distance, but closer up it's a different story. There are some bits that have flaked off, plus some nasty blistering. Basically manky. IMG_2846sm.jpg I decided that the only way to fix this was to sand all of it o...

The next thing I wanted to sort out was the missing foot. The original feet are rubber, 18mm diameter and 18mm tall. They are secured to the base with a screw and washer. IMG_2868sm.jpg Although loads of rubber feet are available on Ebay, I struggled to find 18mm ones of the right shape. However, I ...

One of the most helpful documents I have found is the Service Manual, which is available online at Chris' Acorns and elsewhere. This contains, among other things, advice on how to get the base unit apart. I was worried that I would almost certainly destroy the remaining plastic by attempting this, b...

I decided recently that with all the stress and upheaval of the Coronavirus pandemic, it's nice to have something reassuringly Beeb-like to read on Stardot as a form of escapism. So I decided to contribute a story of my own, which is all about my ongoing attempts to restore the drive unit from my Co...