Wonderful to see everyone as usual
Unlike past meets where I've (mostly) wandered around looking at what everyone else was doing, I had 6 or 7 tasks to work on this time and, while they weren't all achieved, progress was made in all endeavours
They were; in no particular order:
* Get my Valiant Turtle to do a self portrait - Not achieved using a pen but almost working on screen. Many thanks must go to Simon Inns for the communicator unit which will allow me to do so after the main turtle unit has received a bit of TLC!
* Upgrade Raspberry Pi RiscOS Pico to run my Enigma Emulator software - Completed! Thanks to JGH for the downloads, recompilations and installation setting
* Upgrade one of my Atoms to be able connect to an econet network - Completed! Massive thanks to Ian S for both providing and installing the upgrade and for the cable and clock to allow me to make, test and continue to investigate "econettyness"
* Continue development work on HTeMuLator - Not completed but showed the pre-release MMC menu and emulator with the MMC archive implemented by Kees Van Oss to a few people. This was mainly for the purposes of sparking "econet conversations" with Daniel J, JGH and Jason Flynn who has been working on an econet to USB unit which could be used to facilitate econet "cloud storage" for both real hardware and also for hardware and software based emulators - TO BE CONTINUED!
* Fix some broken keys on one of my Masters - Partially completed, with thanks to Mark H for bringing and supplying master keys in addition to confirming that they could easily be changed on a key by key basis. Thanks also to Tricky for facilitating!
* Upgrade my Master with an MMC card to act as a file server for the newly "econneted" Atom - Completed. Big thanks to Tricky for supplying the MMC adaptor, SD Card and MMC ROM. The cheque is in the virtual post!
* Thanks to Dave M for sorting a second Master which will become a local file server for educational workshops
* Thanks to Rob C? for all his time and effort helping to resurrect a colour palette upgrade for the BBC Micro which was developed by the company I worked for - Clwyd Technics - way back in 1982. It is my understanding that this predates another product which did something similar by about 7 years - Partially completed - we sussed out the wiring and that the button was for providing pass through video and loaded up the host machine (Rob's master) Although we didn't get it working Rob was going to continue to try back home and may post a write up and photo's/Videos at a later date
* Thanks also to the mystery donor of the Acorn User magazine (who's name escapes me!)
Great to see that there is now a "solid state" version of a Domesday system - New hardware mouse adaptor and tracker ball, new SCSI interface, new VFS and serial output, new FPGA co-pro and "virtual" (currently laptop based) laserdisk player
The genlocking was almost there but as this is (relatively) trivial and could be combined into the functionality of the virtual laserdisk on a Raspberry Pi this is all but complete. There is already an FPGA BBC Micro - if the FPGA "bods" extended this to be an FPGA BBC Master there could exist, in theory, a completely "solid-state FPGA/new hardware based" Domesday system. This would comfortably fit inside an emptied BBC Master case with keyboard as a backup for Domesday owners who wish to use the system and avoid further wear on their preserved systems -Huge QUDOS to Simon Inns, Ian S and any and everyone contributing in many different ways for helping to realise this wonderful project
I said it a few times over the weekend and will say it again here ... the ABUG group has such a wealth of skills, knowledge and resources that would be nearly impossible to achieve in other ways
and, finally, many thanks must go to Alex for organising this ABUG meeting and to anyone else who helped set everything up
Amazing weekend