ABug NORTH, 20/21/22 November 2015, Bolton

[JudgeBeeb]

I just wanted to say how much I hugely enjoyed the weekend. It was clear that many people had know each other for many years and yet us n00bs were made to feel so welcome. My worries that I might have felt overwhelmed by the amazing things others were doing were entirely without foundation.

Having successfully completed my (simple) BBC BASIC project to write to and read from the user port by Saturday morning, I took up the challenge from the assembled (pun intended) gathering to rewrite it in machine code. And, by Sunday lunchtime, some 31 years after selling my original Beeb, 20 years after my last serious attempt at coding anything and having never previously successfully completed anything in machine code before, I had it all working with just the two mandatory lines of BASIC left.

Code: Select all

10 CALL MAIN
20 END

It may have been a simple program, but it was an achievement for me. There was just an atmosphere that seemed to encourage success.

Also, I learned loads about how the Beeb works, the history of Acorn and about other related kit. I have never seen so many different Acorn computers, including several Atoms. And thanks for all the amazing demos of what an Econet can do.

Finally, special thanks to Simon for organising it and to Gary for the all the facilities and all the splendid snacks (although I may now be suffering from an overdoes of Doritos and Wotsits).

Can't wait for the next event – easily well worth the gruelling 7 hour drive up and the slightly less gruelling 5 hour drive back.

Thanks again.

[IanS]

Sorry, only a few photos. Did anyone else take any?

[JudgeBeeb]

Curiously devoid of people:

[Multiwizard]

Yes, some pictures, wish I was there...

Looks like a great weekend, and I saw some Atom's too...


Greetings, Wim...

[BeebMaster]

I took about 95 pictures on the Saturday, that will translate eventually into a picture set of about 35-40 (there are still 147 to come from August!) I didn't take my camera on the Sunday, due to a soporific miscalculation, so I didn't get any pictures of Arthur.

I did notice that of the four ROMs in the Arthur A310, the left-most two were marked Arthur 1.1, the right-most two didn't have any recognisable markings apart from part numbers, but the machine itself announced as Arthur OS 1.20.

[JonC]

I took about 95 pictures on the Saturday, that will translate eventually into a picture set of about 35-40 (there are still 147 to come from August!) I didn't take my camera on the Sunday, due to a soporific miscalculation, so I didn't get any pictures of Arthur.

I'll bring it along again to the next meeting, don't forget your camera!

[jgharston]

After swapping ROMs to test an early EPROM programmer we had a BBC up and running OS 0.10. ! We forgot to take a photo though.

Code: Select all

>*HELP

Bad command
>*.

Bad command

>*FX 0

OS 0.10 EPROM
>

[jbnbeeb]

Hi,

Firstly - a big thanks to Gary for hosting us once more!! with ample space and power for our projects, sofas, super fast internet connections and nigh-on infinite quantities of tea, coffee, soft drinks and Doritos, what more could a Stardotter wish for!!

it was good to see old and new faces and some interesting projects taking place - didn't get to see all of them as I was working on one of my own ; loved seeing Arthur on JonC's Arc on Sunday morning. I like lazarusr's idea of wanting to run arduino shields via a circuit plugged in to the Beeb (user port?)

I got the double buffer 8k screens going for my WIP game (as per another thread on this forum) - but wasn't able to rework my plot code to work with them (some weird corruption going on one of the screens). Once I've got it debugged I'll post a disk image on the forum.

Earlier this year, I was given a C64.. which didn't seem to produce any sound (and no, a stardotter HADNT taken the SID out beforehand!) .. I tried it on 3 different TVs to no avail. Anyway, I brought it along to ABUG for investigation. Phill was expecting to have to get his scope out to see if the SID was alive.. but on plugging it in to his TV and typing in a test program..it produced sound. So it was probably just poor tuning via UHF. I shall now purchase a SCART cable for it and also an SD2IEC SD card disk drive emu. And I ought to get an EPROM blown fora faster DOS so that programs load a bit faster than a BBC cassette, as advised by danielj. So thankyou for testing that out Phil!

And.. thanks to Danielj for updating my matchbox copro via his software and Sydney's bespoke hardware (upthread ) At some point, I'll have a go at doing some Elite-style wireframe 3d on it..but which CPU should I use...hmm choices choices!

Also thanks to Sydney for wiring up an MMC card (and the lift from hotel on Sunday morning whilst I was feeling a little fuzzy ) ..We thought we'd be able to get it going via a MartinB EUP card plugged in to an Elk with Plus1. Sadly, the Elk didn't want to know. Sometimes it would show up on boot, but hang..othertimes not at all. This is a shame as I'd really like a cheap solution like this for the Elk.


Anyway, it was great fun to hang with everyone... we had a good curry on saturday night (most of us ..some didn't like curry but we couldn't actually find a non-curry place to accommodate all of us!) .. I had a few drinks and entertained everyone (possibly) by being a bit loud and overly exuberant as a result..I was bit more subdued sunday morning!

Looking forward to the next one

[jgharston]

I can't remember their name, but somebody was asking about adding files to ResourceFS.

ARMLib.zip has a handful of useful RISC OS library commands including AddToResFS which adds a file to ResourceFS. Syntax: AddToResFS <source file> <dest file>.

For example, AddToResFS blahfs::adisk.$.file $.Resources.BlahApp.Messages will add blahfs::adisk.$.file to ResourceFS and it will appear there as a file called $.Resources.BlahApp.Messages. As with *RMLoad, files added later take priority over files added earlier.

This is how you can override the default messages files in ResourceFS. For instance, doing AddToResFS NewMessages $.Resources.NetFS.Messages before the Desktop starts will effectively cause NetFS to use NewMessages for its messages instead of the default messages.

Note, I'm not in front of my A5000 at the moment, so the exact syntax and paths above may be slightly out.

[BeebMaster]

Yes, it was me. Thanks for that, I'll try it.

[sydney]

It's a long shot after all this time but has anyone found a copro cable as I've finally gone through my stuff after Bolton and can't find it.
Cheers,
Simon.

[daveejhitchins]

Simon . . . I'll make you one, if it doesn't turn-up. pm me . . .

Dave H

[flynnjs]

An even longer shot here, at the *previous* ABUG I had a pink anti-static bag with a USB Econet and USBDM board in that went walk about.... if anyone finds it in their toybox I'd be grateful of it back.

[sPhilMainwaring]

Sydney

I was just about to post that I hadn't seen jason's econet thing but that I did pick up something foreign at ABUG, then I spotted your post above

Somewhere I seem to have acquired what looks like an IDE cable with "Comp Side" and "Programmer Side" written in black felt tip on it

Is this what ye seek?

[sydney]

Sydney

I was just about to post that I hadn't seen jason's econet thing but that I did pick up something foreign at ABUG, then I spotted your post above

Somewhere I seem to have acquired what looks like an IDE cable with "Comp Side" and "Programmer Side" written in black felt tip on it

Is this what ye seek?

That's the one Phil!
I'll pm you.