The Southampton three

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rubber_jonnie
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 11:00 am I'm surprised that the output from your modulator is poor as the one which came with the TI99/4A I generated a pretty good picture on the telly:



IMG_2619.jpg


I also notice that the power supply brick you have is HUGE relative to the one I had. Still, yours is a later model, maybe that's why.
Wow, very nice picture there. Might be my TV, you never know.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by rubber_jonnie »

alexh wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 12:50 pm Looking forward to seeing the Acorn A5000 repair thread.

The most knowledgeable person for repairing A5000's (that I know of) is Ian Jeffray over at stardot.org.uk. He's fixed 10s of them since I started looking into it. If you get stuck he can help with suggestions, even sell you a PostBox, a device which connects to the A5000 serial port and interprets the messages sent via RiscOS boot process. Help narrow in on what is wrong.

I myself have an Acorn A5000 Alpha (33MHz) sitting on my desk waiting to be repaired.

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 16&t=22332
Funnily enough I have briefly spoken to Ian over at Stardot, he was very helpful.

I'm going to assess the damage first, there are definitely broken traces due to corrosion, and the IC55 PLCC socket is done for, so there may be more damage underneath, I'm working on removing it at the moment, but it's slow going.

The PostBox sounds interesting as I was wondering if it had anything like that going on like the ST. We'll see once I get to the point of trying to boot again when the repairs are done.

Ian pointed me at the schematics so I should be able to figure out what's broken, but I can say for sure the RTC area is not a happy place!!
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 11:00 am I'm surprised that the output from your modulator is poor as the one which came with the TI99/4A I generated a pretty good picture on the telly:
Well the component video cable arrived for the TI99/4a today, and wow what a difference!!

PXL_20220525_194025590.jpg
PXL_20220525_194025590.jpg (225.23 KiB) Viewed 1260 times

The picture has to rank amongst the best of standard video from machines of that era, it's really quite impressive!!

This is going to HMDI via my OSSC component input, which is input 2 and also includes sound through the OSSC too. I need to do some tweaking as it's a little washed out, but I am seeing this through not just the OSSC but the Retrotink too, though overall, it's very nice.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Arrived today:

PXL_20220527_115116267.jpg
PXL_20220527_115116267.jpg (259.62 KiB) Viewed 1232 times

SD card solution for my Dragon32.

Should take my mind off the A5000 for a bit :)
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Icky
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by Icky »

rubber_jonnie wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:22 pm Arrived today:

SD card solution for my Dragon32.

Should take my mind off the A5000 for a bit :)
Ooo. Let me know how you get on with that CoCoSDC.
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Re: The Southampton three

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Icky wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 7:51 pm
Ooo. Let me know how you get on with that CoCoSDC.
Well, first look is encouraging.

Loading disks is easy, there are 2 slots and the command structure is very DOS like, plus there are ROM banks you can write to as well. For the price (Compared to some other similar items) I think it's good value.

I've not properly run anything off it, but have tested loading images to drives and it all seems pretty good. I believe it supports multi disk if you configure the files in a specific way and there is a disk swap button.

I've attached the startup instructions so you can have a look at the commands for yourself, be aware that for the Dragon you need to use the SDRIVE command not DRIVE as it says.

If you are going to use on a CoCo, there is a small mod you might need to do to the computer, and it has some jumper config to do for the cartridge, though I bought from this guy on ebay: https://www.8bit-tronics.com/ and he asked what my use case was and set it up prior to posting to me.
Attachments
CoCoSDC Startup Instructions.pdf
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Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by Icky »

Thanks for the info @rubber_jonnie thats you got me buying more stuff :P
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: The Southampton three

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Icky wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:40 pm Thanks for the info @rubber_jonnie thats you got me buying more stuff :P
Not sure if you have a TI99/4a, but the same guy does FinalGROM 99 cartridges too, £47 :)

Not in stock right now but soon.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Icky
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Re: The Southampton three

Post by Icky »

rubber_jonnie wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:52 pm Not sure if you have a TI99/4a, but the same guy does FinalGROM 99 cartridges too, £47 :)

Not in stock right now but soon.
Thanks. No TI99/4a but it’s on my list. The Enterprise was my holy grail. Which is now completed.
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: The Southampton three

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Icky wrote: Sat May 28, 2022 9:22 am
rubber_jonnie wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:52 pm Not sure if you have a TI99/4a, but the same guy does FinalGROM 99 cartridges too, £47 :)

Not in stock right now but soon.
Thanks. No TI99/4a but it’s on my list. The Enterprise was my holy grail. Which is now completed.
Yeah, kind of a grail machine for me too the Enterprise, but given prices are silly I'll hang back for now. I want a TRS-80 Model 1 next.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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