What's new Pussycat too?

Jeez, guys... doom news indeed. I'll try and lighten it up a bit though I share your concerns re. the state of the world, what we're doing to the planet and military/security issues, media manipulation and the number of disasters lining up to shaft us up royally...

BOUGHT FOR A TENNER - can anyone guess which micro is lined-up to pair with this big boy?






CLUE (if you should need one).... educayshun, educayshun, educayshun...

 

The Cubs were always with the BBC range...

 

Well done, Paul - spot on - and...



IT WORKS!

Just need to lift the lid on the Beeb and work out why its solid state MMC disk drive isn't booting up properly.

It always does this (after leaving it unbooted for 12+ months).

It's ruddy sulking

 

Not much lurve for the Beeb on here, I believe, but never mind.

I had a sesh last neet til about midnight and enjoyed these two old classics plus a few others, once I got the internal MMC drive and chip reseated:









OK, no I wasn't pished - I had the camera taking one handed pics at a "jaunty" angle!

Beeb Beachhead's graphics aren't as good as the Atari's or CBM's but a decent effort all the same.

It brought back a stack of memories for me (mainly 32K)

Also, I didn't get into any trouble with sleeping Bev's... thanks to a nice headphone mod on my Beeb and some Atari headphones lying around spare...

 

PS. If any of you guys are interested in the solid state disk that gives Beeb owners all this software, then there's a guy fitting such a chip and plug in interface here:



PPS. Another Acorn coming soon to the Baz stables but the little brother aint well... it might well be one for Rich to cast his lurving mitts over... I know he has a spot spot for Elks

 

I don't hate the BBC series, I just never used them, at all. I was a gamer and those machines were PUSHED as totally educational and as you saw from that Johnny Ball bit you posted, kids likes being educated with more of a gaming sense rather than boring old text guessing games. Also, it was all about the disk file system, I have never been a big fan of loads of typing, hence my love of the Amiga, a GUI, that's the ticket. As a machine the Beeb was pretty powerful and when someone bothered to make arcade stuff for it, then it shone more.

It looked the part, but I never took an interest in it...For me, it's a bit later to give it a go, my love affair with the old machines is now at the separation stage, it may even end in a divorce....Who knows..

 

Sorry to hear, Paul, yer out of love with the old micros.

I love em just as much as before and have begun a flirtatious relationship with a little Beeb or Acorn Elk which Richie knows a little about but is keeping it quiet from my missus.... just in case fur/keys fly

The Beeb was probably the most powerful 8bit machine and when it was put to the test, it did indeed shine through with some excellent results - it was just so stereotyped as being education and scientific only which was really only part of the story - I must post up some of the great arcade conversions as some are 99.9% matches for the real deal.

 

I'm a big fan of the BBC range. Even went as far as having an Archimedes back in the day!

The MMC is a nice solution and gives you access to some really good titles. The Beeb had some pretty good arcade conversions to its name. A lovely versatile and expandable machine indeed and built like a tank

As for that CUB monitor Andy, brilliant find! I'll give you £10.50 and a packet of polo mints for it if you ever decide to sell...

 

Careful Andy, it's a Scot, those mints will have been pre sucked!!

 

That's so sucking true

(it's actually just the middles that are left)

 

Cheers, Al and Paul... you guys keep my chuckle muscles moving... and by god I can still smell and TASTE that mud from yesterday... ;-)

 

Taste?

You don't have to take drugs at a gig...

Re drugs, it always made me laugh when you booted a USA game in Mame and were greeted with "Winners don't use drugs" for the US government re it's sports stars etc, only to find out that most of them DID...

 

THE ATARI CONNECTION...

Hey, fellas, just acquired this rather lovely old Atari 8bit classic mag in very neat condition for a fiver, from the winter of 82/83.

Just scanned in a few pages to give you a mere "taster".

Might make a new thread from this buy at some point as there are some great articles within which cover a lot of user APX software and I for one didn't sample more than 2-3 progs over the years (Eastern Front, GTIA Demo and Lone Raider? Not sure about the last one), and there's clearly....1000s.

Any road, enough rambling and more posting, Baz:







Bootiful, just bootiful, lads.

What you played on your Atari today?

Mags like this just make you want to BREAKOUT yer whole collection and get blasting!

 

Nice mag, I wish I still felt that urge..I keep trying a bash here and there but I just stop...So weird..

 

Brilliant find Andy, I love an old magazine. Especially the adverts.
Need to sort mine out at some point but that's a project for another day!

Also spotted your Atari 800XL mouse mat, very cool. I'm hoping to visit the shop that makes them when I'm down in Wales and buy a few bits.

 

Cheers, Al, me too - just love trawling through and seeing what gems are within these old reads... and the latest thing to come crashing through the doors here?

RETURN OF THE ELK!

A poorly one, me mate Mog says, not had chance to look at her, so she could well be heading Rich's way, once I get a mo:

 

It's a coo little machine. Sort of reminds me of the 600XL.

 

Yes, mate, you've got it - much smaller footprint than the Beeb though - I would say maybe a third or even a quarter the size - I'll photograph them side by side or look for an image online. The 600XL is a wee bit smaller than the 800XL but I wouldn't say by any huge margin, no?

 

Ah, here we go.... definitely much smaller the Elk here versus the Model B:



The Elk's about half the size of it's elder brother.

The 600XL vs the 800XL a nearer match for the two siblings?

 

Anyways, here's a turnip, sorry, turn up for the books.

Been a bit busy of course this past week or so and I've only just been able to check out the Elk and its PSU - Mog had been using a supply with the wrong voltage - it was a 9V 3rd party power supply.

I'm going to try the little devil now with a 12V unit (think they usually have an 18V cream PSU but online forums say 12V should be OK, what do you say, Richie?) and I've had the lid off and there are a few signs of corrosion but mainly around the ribbon keyboard connection:





Anyway, tried a basic clean and check over and will now have a little play test and see how we get on...
gonna try switching her on and loading a game next.

See how we get on and then pack her off to Rich if she locks up with the corrupted graphics... we'll see...

 

Ah well, worth a try... the system locks up after about 5-8mins being switched on







and anything on screen freezes and on resetting you get this...



My gut feeling is a component overheating..?

If you leave the machine for another 10-15 mins then it boots up fine again and you can use it once more... for another 5-8mins until it freezes...again.

Over to you, Richie, mate.

Elk and PSU parcel in the post next week.

Cheers, buddy.

 

A small squirt of vinegar to neutralise the corrosion won't hurt, then a good wipe with 99% isopropanol alcohol to clean off the residue. It's probably bad ram, when it's on have a feel for extremely warm chips, ie burning hot. The fact that it can boot and work, if somewhat briefly, says that the actual CPU and surrounding logic seems fine.

Internal corrosion is never good, it can eat traces or VIA's as I believe they are called these days(?).

Richie is your man here, good luck..

Just had a zoomed look, nice that it's standard 4164's, ie still available and quite common even now. So if it is one or more of them, then it's a 15 min fix. The worst work is the desoldering of the old ones. Odd though, Texas one's are not known for failure, but it's a 40+ year old machine, anything is game now.

 

Cheers, Paul.

As you say, let's hope it's an easier fix in the range of things that can go wrong and not something tough to find like the Elk ULA faulty or some dry/cracked solder joint somewhere obscure...

It's just gone out the door to Richie... at the same time an Oric-1 arrived back from the great man... like a bleedin turnstyle here some days.

Celtic winning 4-1 so someone will be happy on here! Have a good weekend, guys.

 

Doubt it's the array, but let's hope Richie finds the gremlin..

 

Ended up 4-2 for Celtic, but it was a funny one with Brendan Rodgers being back. I miss big Ange

Still, Rangers got beat 1-0 so a good first day all in. Plus Norwich won as well and Pompey managed not to lose lol