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Quite addictive this RiscPC stuff. |
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Bonez |
Message #122109, posted by Bonez at 07:22, 24/3/2013, in reply to message #122064 |
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Found a 9 pin to 15 pin vga cord in the shed and connected it to the 410/1 and Trinitron monitor. Fired it up holding down the 3 key on the numeric keypad and its good to go, allbeit with green on sync issue. The fdd works after I reversed the ribbon cable. The Hdd appears to be faulty though. Anyway I'm generally pleased with the outcome. I'll install the full length ethernet card I've aquired eventually
It has 4 megs of ram and is running Risc OS 3.x. Performance seems on pretty close to the A4000.
[Edited by Bonez at 07:31, 24/3/2013] |
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Bonez |
Message #122320, posted by Bonez at 21:58, 26/4/2013, in reply to message #122109 |
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Come across another A4000 and RiscPC. This time the RiscPC has the last revision board with the built in 16 bit sound, 710 fitted, 3.6 roms, 64 megs of ram, 486sxl-40 card fitted, higher rated psu and of course the detuned graphics capability. Easily fixed but I'm going to leave it stock. It completes my RiscPC round up as well.
The A4000 has ram maxed out and 420 hdd and it'll be going into dry storage.
Now to track down an A7000 or A7000+ unit. Not my holding breath though as they seam to be quite scarce over this side of the planet.
[Edited by Bonez at 23:14, 26/4/2013] |
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David Holden |
Message #122321, posted by apdl at 07:30, 27/4/2013, in reply to message #122320 |
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The A4000 has ram maxed out and 420 hdd and it'll be going into dry storage. If that means what I think it means then don't.
That's the reason why so many Acorn computers are now defunct. As long as they're being used regularly they last pretty much forever. As soon as you take them out of service the CMOS cell slowly discharges and when it goes completely flat it starts to leak. This inevitably leads to damage on the motherboard.
Removing the cell avoids this problem but introduces another. If it has no power for a long(ish) period the RTC stalls and often can't be re-started. So the clock stops when the machine is turned off. Better than a scrap motherboard but not ideal.
There's no set time for how long it takes for leakage to occur. It depends on the condition of the cell in the first place, but I think 6 months is a reasonable guess as a lower limit, assuming the cell isn't 100% to begin with. So if you've got any Acorn computer with a rechargeable cell (i.e., anything except the A300 and A400 series) then make sure you run it for about 12 hours every 6 months or so to keep the cell charged. DON'T wrap it up carefully and put it in the loft; it could well be scrap when you get it out again.
Last year I acquired a large batch of A3020s which had been removed from a school where they'd been in daily use for more than 15 years. They were then stored for nearly 3 years. All but 3 were scrap. The batteries had leaked so badly that they'd eaten away the tracks to the floppy drive and combo chip, so although I managed to get more of them to actually fire up they were useless.The 3 I managed to repair also had damage but it wasn't so extensive and I managed to repair them. |
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Paul Vernon |
Message #122322, posted by PaulV at 10:06, 27/4/2013, in reply to message #122109 |
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The Sync on Green issue is why I ended up designing my own VIDC Enhancers in the way that I did...
I started out with this:
http://www.retro-kit.co.uk/page.cfm/content/Modifying-an-Archimedes-A4101-to-use-a-VGA-monitor/
Then I built this:
http://www.retro-kit.co.uk/VIDC-Enhancer/
Finally I built these:
http://www.retro-kit.co.uk/Ultra-VIDC-Enhancer/
The last of these allows you to run all three standard VIDC clock speeds on the older Arc's *AND* overclock the VIDC chip if you want to as well.
They all provide support for fixing Sync on Green by way of a jumper. Acorn FCO2022 suggests just cutting the leg of the chip or cutting a track. My solution requires no such cutting of legs or tracks and is easily reversible 
Paul |
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Bonez |
Message #122329, posted by Bonez at 04:49, 29/4/2013, in reply to message #122322 |
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Don't panic Dave. I do intend to fire it and the others I have up every few months or so. Its just that they're not going to be on 24/7 All the batteries have been replaced recently and I'm going to mod one by fitting a remote battery holder like the 410 has.
I've admired your work Paul. It's a low priority for me at the moment. Was just happy to see the 410/1 up and running.
It is on my "things to get list" though.
[Edited by Bonez at 06:49, 29/4/2013] |
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Bonez |
Message #122580, posted by Bonez at 00:03, 25/8/2013, in reply to message #122329 |
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Got an A3000 on the way. Not too sure of the history but likes like it has been well looked after. Might look at upgrading the ram to 2-4megs at some point.
Anyone do any serious modding to these. Just curious that's all. Oh and got your page bookmarked Paul.
Am I correct in assuming these can use the same RiscOS 3.1 roms as the A4000? If need be I have one of those, have three, I can sacrifice for this project.
Find a really nice tutorial http://www.waitingforfriday.com/index.php/Restoring_an_Acorn_A3000_computer
[Edited by Bonez at 01:06, 25/8/2013]
[Edited by Bonez at 02:14, 25/8/2013]
[Edited by Bonez at 02:15, 25/8/2013] |
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Andrew |
Message #122582, posted by asm1 at 13:39, 25/8/2013, in reply to message #122580 |
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http://www.waitingforfriday.com/index.php/File:Keyboardremoved.JPG
If you look here you will see 4 rom chips, the A4000 uses two chips I think, so no the Chips cant be used on the A3000, Although it can be upgraded to 3.1, it uses the same set of 4 chips as the big box machines....
Charlie, the guy that runs the Qube server has a pretty pimped A3000.
http://qubeserver.com/Qube/home.html
lots of guides and tasty pics.... |
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Steffen Huber |
Message #122583, posted by hubersn at 14:49, 25/8/2013, in reply to message #122580 |
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Anyone do any serious modding to these. Just curious that's all. Oh and got your page bookmarked Paul.
I once upgraded a few A3000's with the TurboA3000 upgrade by Ingmar Weigelt. Basically, this speeds up the CPU and system bus speed to 12 MHz or 13.3 MHz or even 16 MHz if the other stuff is happy with it (RAM, MEMC, ROMs).
This is a cool upgrade if you don't have an ARM3.
Other cool things you could do to your A3000:
- HD floppy upgrade
- VIDC Enhancer
- Gamer's upgrade (an I2C-based 4-joystick-port upgrade by a German company called IOC (or later Pulse Computer))
Am I correct in assuming these can use the same RiscOS 3.1 roms as the A4000? If need be I have one of those, have three, I can sacrifice for this project.
I think the A4000 has two ROM chips (like the A3010 und A3020), while the A3000 has four of them (like the A5000 and the A3x0/4x0/540). |
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Bonez |
Message #122590, posted by Bonez at 07:34, 26/8/2013, in reply to message #122583 |
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Cheers for the correction and ideas guys. I've got a hdd mini podule already so hdd or cf card aren't out of the question in future. |
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Bonez |
Message #122595, posted by Bonez at 06:01, 27/8/2013, in reply to message #122590 |
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Fired up the A3000 using a 9pin to 15 pin vga cable though a monitor selection box. Resetting the cmos and pressing 3 on the numeric keypad bought up the screen, which was mostly shades of green.I managed to determine that the machine has RiscOS 3.11 roms fitted which is a plus. Confirmed it's only got 1 meg of ram and no hdd. Determined the the fdd is functioning correctly as well.
The outside of the machine is in pretty good condition. I'll pull the top cover of this weekend if I get the chance.
[Edited by Bonez at 07:12, 27/8/2013] |
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Bonez |
Message #124766, posted by Bonez at 01:31, 27/3/2020, in reply to message #122595 |
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Gidday. It's been a while and I'm surprised I remembered my password. Being on lock down here in New Zealand because of the virus pandemic it is a good time to get the old kit out.
My trusty 18.5" IBM CRT which worked perfectly with all my Acorn stuff finally died. I have a Dell 19" crt and it isn't syncing nor are any of my lcds screens. Primarily want to get my A600 in action.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks |
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Bonez |
Message #124802, posted by Bonez at 06:08, 18/4/2020, in reply to message #124766 |
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Well got it all sorted in the end by doing a bit reading of the manual. So 5 out of 6 RiscPCs sorted now. |
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Simon Willcocks |
Message #124803, posted by Stoppers at 18:24, 18/4/2020, in reply to message #124802 |
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Well done. We'd have answered, except for the, uh, 22 day time difference!  |
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Bonez |
Message #124830, posted by Bonez at 03:17, 14/5/2020, in reply to message #124803 |
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Ok another one to sort out.RiscPC running 3.6 roms. Initially it was only loading to the * prompt with an error with a directory fault. Got that sorted out and it now boots to the desktop with UniBoot but just one error to eliminate. It comes up with "Expression is a string" error and you click cancel or hit enter to get past it to get to the Desktop.
I'm quite rapped I've gotten this as I initially was having all sorts of issues but found a newer version of SparkPlug which allowed me to install UniBoot. It's been a lot more stable with UniBoot as well.
Appreciate any help.
Bonez NZ
[Edited by Bonez at 04:27, 14/5/2020]
[Edited by Bonez at 04:50, 14/5/2020] |
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Bonez |
Message #124836, posted by Bonez at 08:23, 16/5/2020, in reply to message #124830 |
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Bit of playing today. Got a set of x86 software runnining decently with the TI486SLX40 co-processor card. Loaded PCDos 6.3 which came with the card and played with ramboost. Quite nice really. Then copied the Banana.com Dos terminal software to the C: drive via floppy. Set up getty on my Linux test setup, a K6-2 266 with 300ish megs of ram running Duvian Jessie, then connected a null modem cable to the RiscPC and the Linux setups serial ports. Loaded up bcom, logged in to linux and ran irssi. Connected to irc.slashnet.org and joined the #retrodreams channel. It's bridged to Discord which I find too busy even on a decent system. Prefering plain ol irc clients instead.
Nattered on there for a few hours.
Is there a good serial terminal program for RiscOS 3.6 up? I'm finding using search engines these days to be absolutely hopeless compared to about 5 years ago.
https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=83216&mode=view
[Edited by Bonez at 09:32, 16/5/2020] |
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Richard Walker |
Message #124837, posted by richw at 12:55, 16/5/2020, in reply to message #124836 |
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Try Connector.
It is included in the ROOL HardDisc4 image. |
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Stuart Painting |
Message #124839, posted by paintings at 22:44, 16/5/2020, in reply to message #124837 |
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Connector is in the ROOL "Bonus binaries" package, not HardDisc4.
https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/Software%20information:%20Connector |
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Bonez |
Message #124874, posted by Bonez at 06:11, 7/6/2020, in reply to message #124839 |
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Thank you guys. |
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