ABUG Canada West Meet Up #23 July 8 2022

[KarateEd]

So, here we are at a full blown Canadian style ABUG meeting, expectations are high and goals are numerous.

Today was to be a mostly Turtle ABUG with testing and aligning and figuring out how to work the programs to both program and run the turtle through the BBC Micro. Let's see how we made out then, shall we?
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Here we are, face to face with each other's turtles. It would seem a competition might break out but, alas, my turtle wasn't charging properly so I lost by default.....also spoiling the ability to test my device out.

Paul wasn't trusting in his memory to always be able to be consistent with the instructions to run his turtle using the 2 needed programs so.....he wrote them down to our mutual benefit.

Program 1 is now loaded and ready to go. This is the logo program I believe, Paul if that isn't correct, please do correct me.

And this is I believe the Turtle program and drivers, same caveat as before Paul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVZvw7IYxo
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The video above is running a test for the turtle through the valiant software on the Beeb.....seems to work well.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftI4VH3zhk0
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This is more of the above.....
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7hcvaRIOc4
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This video shows the turtle hesitating at various places and it was a cause for concern, Paul can write more about his findings here.
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Paul is investigating in his private eye way to see if he can spot the issue at hand.

It seems a bit of Meteors is need to kind of finish off the day.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZx6C3lxhGI
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WOW!! Paul is getting pretty animated in this video while playing Meteors.
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Thought I'd try this on hardware too. I'm not as good on hardware with this game as I am on Beeb-Em.

Well, he's up to no good that's certain. I'm trying to figure out on my Master how to run the programs that Paul is running on his. I'll probably have to take his advice and look at the jumper settings to see if that's what's cause me to be unable to properly run them.....especially the adl program.

It's been too long since I've been playing with my Master and Data Centre so I'm in a short learning curve.....but it's coming.

I decided that since I was having no luck getting the turtle software to work (really only the adl file) that I might try to burn a couple of EPROMS to OS 1.2 and BASIC 2. I had little luck here too, I'd forgotten some important steps. Note that later on after Paul left I was able to find some documents I'd saved from *. to do this and burned one last night and one today. It's all good.

[KarateEd]

Last but certainly not least is Paul's gifts to me and our usual ABUG WC selfie. It was so good to see you Paul, that's the best gift of all but also thank you for the very nice gifts of a full RC cap kit, 2 berel pens for my turtle and a delightfully humorous book with retro ties. Thanks very much for all of these.
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Very nice gifts of 2 berel pens for the turtle, a humorous book for off retro hours and a RetroClinic full cap kit for one lucky Beeb.

Here we are in our finest pose yet, the Blues Brothers, so to speak......but very HAPPY Blues Brothers.

[Arcadian]

Thanks for another nice write-up and for the pics, Jake, Ellwood.

Great to see those old Valiants are getting some use!!

FYI video links are set to private so it's not possibe to view ...

[KarateEd]

Thanks for another nice write-up and for the pics, Jake, Ellwood.

Great to see those old Valiants are getting some use!!

FYI video links are set to private so it's not possibe to view ...

Yes, sorry, forgot to answer the compliance questions.....it's done now and you should be able to see the vids.

[klintworth]

Another ABUG Canada West which was very overdue! On arrival I was greeted with the familiar Hybrid music demo playing - it reminds me that I haven't used my Hybrid M500 for a while - I'll add it onto the list! As Ed mentioned, the main theme was robotics, so I set up my BBC Master along with the turtle. I'd tested my Valiant turtle earlier in the week with my Master Compact, and I'd charged up the rechargeable batteries. It's been a while since I used the Master with the turtle, and it took me a while to remember how to load in the Logotron LOGO image. The solution was to change the sideways RAM links on the Master!! Bingo, then the s/w was loaded. I was also using a new RGB to VGA adapter that I'd recently picked up, which only works with 15khz monitors - it certainly does a good job.

Turtle set up

RGB to VGA adapter

Initially the turtle was 'stuttering' in it's movement. The reason is that the screws were not tight on the battery compartments, and were dragging on the ground affecting the turtle's movement. As Ed suggested, I really need to change the screws to flat head, or countersink them.

Round screw heads on the battery covers

First up was checking calibration, so the turtle drew a square to check. Using the calibration guide I made an adjustment, then tried a more complex image. The code I used was repeat 8 [repeat 4 [rt 90 fd 100] bk 100 lt 45] by Frank Caggiano. As you can see from the final image the turtle still needs some calibration!

Drawing a more complex image

Final image

We then enjoyed a relaxing lunch on the deck in the sun, along with Mitch the cat on his favourite cushion. Sorry, I forgot to take his photo! After more Acorn talk and putting the world to rights (ha ha!) I then set up my new Trekker robot. The main difference with the Trekker is that it's wired (umbilical User cable), and it also has sensors. I'm amazed at what it can do, and I'm certainly planning on learning a lot about BBC Control and Monitoring using the Trekker. The User Manual is brilliantly informative, and the whole design very well implemented (thanks for your contribution, Phil M!!)

Trekker set up

https://youtu.be/pUOHudokInY
Trekker Demo

Ed was very kind to me, and I think he'd been reading my mind!! He gave me a Star dot matrix printer, as well as fanfold paper. I've been mulling printer possibilities for a while now!!

Looking forward to testing this!

Calli says "Thank You" for her dog treats!!

All too soon it was time for me to wend my way back to Vancouver, and what a beautiful sunny journey home, especially with mountain and Howe Sound views! Until the next time, and it had better not be so long!!

[roland]

Good to see that you have your meetings again. Keep up the fun!

Today we'll have our retro-computerclub meeting in Stein (LB, in the south of the Netherlands) where some Acorns will meet again. I have also heard some rumors that there will be another TechSat meeting in September

[tricky]

I love hearing about your meet-ups, even if they do make me feel like I achieve nothing at ours except for a lot of chatting

[richardtoohey]

Good to see you fellows still going strong, keep it up!