ABug North 18/19/20 November 2016, Bolton

[IanS]

During Pizza consumption.

[1024MAK]

Absolutely no work taking place...

A PC that thinks it's an Atom running BBC BASIC

Ian looking pleased after having an Arc fixed

Bob prepairing another noise bomb...

Simon is working really...

People working, what? Where?

How much can you fit in a Beeb?

How much can you fit in a Beeb?

Mark

[1024MAK]

Now, which bit goes where?

Daniel making a BeebOPL

Phill has a RAM crash... :-(

Mark

[Jeremy Grayson]

Just come back from a night out round the future stepmum-in-law's (much JW Lees Harvest Ale was consumed) and now moving my Beeb stuff downstairs in readiness for the morrow. Quite excited.

One small note of concern which has just come to light is that I appear to be down to my very last working lead for a Cub Monitor - or at least, the last with the required number of teeth.

Is anyone likely to be selling these tomorrow? If so, please put me down for several.

Ta in advance,

gc

[Multiwizard]

Thanks for the pickies, wish I was there...

Advise, upload more pickies...

Have fun you guys and keep well...


Greetings, Wim...

[tricky]

Thanks for the pickies, wish I was there...

Seconded.

[1024MAK]

It's 09:28 and a little cool, at about 3oC outside. A few more people have arrived, including Roland who reports it is a 10 minute walk from his hotel. So some more pictures soon

Mark

[flaxcottage]

Good Show! Sorry I missed it.

[jgharston]

Need....

tea....

[1024MAK]

Hoglet and Roland at work...

Victor waiting for use

Two MDFS's open, ready for repair work to continue

Domesday system and RISC PC

RISC PC ECONET adapter cards

RISC PC with the lid still off after having a ECONET adapter installed

Dave's work area

Close up of Dave's work area showing work in progress

[1024MAK]

And more...

The Victor 9000 and a mystery hand...

Close-up of the screen

Phill's work area with some FDD's that he's testing

Yes, we even had some Beebs working ;-)

Hoglet used his GODIL to help with the fault finding :-)

Mark

[danielj]

Great to see everyone! Hope everyone's got safely to where they're meant to be!

d.

[IanS]

Did the key that was found get reunited with its owner?

[hoglet]

I made it back to Bristol in one piece.

Thanks all for a very enjoyable weekend.

It was great to finally meet Roland, and also see a few new faces.

My one action item is to make sure the next version of the Matchbox firmware has both 3MHz and 4MHz speeds. Duly noted!

Dave

[1024MAK]

Great to see everyone! Hope everyone's got safely to where they're meant to be!

Yep

I made it back to Bristol in one piece.

Thanks all for a very enjoyable weekend.

Absolutely
And thanks everyone for the welcome and friendly atmosphere

Mark

[BeebMaster]

I had a great weekend, it was good to see several of the usual crowd and some new faces as well.

Victor was my favourite thing, and I was glad I didn't set anything on fire this time.

My large stock of "items requiring repair after having been repaired by me" is gradually decreasing.

[jgharston]

Made it back to WHitby with an hour's diversion in the dark around an accident on the A64 between York and Malton. Will have to look on a map and see where I went.

[roland]

Hoglet and Roland at work...

Yes, I recognise my left knee

Great to see everyone! Hope everyone's got safely to where they're meant to be!

Yes I got home at about 16:10 (Bolton time). The plane left on time but when landing I got the idea that it was the pilots first landing. This was confirmed by a very bumpy "hitting the ground" - it felt like the plane really dropped to the ground. Nobody got hurt and all was well. But if this had been my first time in air plane, then it would also be the last time

Although driving on the left side of the road was scary during my first tour from the Bolton station to the hotel, I got used to it .... I almost took the first roundabout in Eindhoven in the wrong direction

Thanks all for a very enjoyable weekend.
It was great to finally meet Roland, and also see a few new faces.

It was a very enjoyable and educational weekend. It was great to meet some of the famous names on StarDot. And I have a few new projects for my Atom:

1. a new VDU driver using the Pi Zero. I now know how it works (at least I have a start)
2. BeebOPL for the Atom (I can use the tube interface for a start, the pinning is different but similar, I only have to add a wire for IRQ)
3. A new I/O extender board for the Atom so that it has a printer port, 1 MHz bus port, tube interface (including optional level shifters), a user port and the Atom bus connector. Actually porting the Beeb's interfaces to the Atom (why don't I set up my Beeb then?)

Let the rain season start

Thank you for organizing these meetings! I really enjoyed it.

[mattyj]

Got back to Bristol at about 7.00pm.
Roads were a little slow.

Had a great weekend!

Roll on the next event!

Matt

[z0m8ied0g]

Was great to meet everyone, even though it was just for the Sunday.
Will definitely try to get to this in the future, was really interesting.
Great to see lots of like minded (and very clever) individuals doing pretty cool stuff with old kit.

[JudgeBeeb]

Although driving on the left side of the road was scary during my first tour from the Bolton station to the hotel, I got used to it ....

I think it was more to do with my driving than the side of the road we were on.

[JudgeBeeb]

I had another great weekend. Thanks to everyone especially sydney for organising it and supply the pork scratchings and to Gar2293 for so generously hosting us once again.

[jbnbeeb]

Hi,
It was a 5 hr drive back yesterday but well worth it.
As usual I had great intentions of doing something productive and then failing. I did show off Tequila Worm (did any one take any snaps of that?) .. but didn't get the MGC code running. I'm now on a mission to debug and finish up as Dave's MGC is an excellent piece of kit.

Thanks to sydney for organising the meet and ferrying me ("the drunkard") to and fro to Arcade Club and back.
Thanks to Garry for the use of his office - with top quality heating as well as internet access!
Thanks to hoglet for his time and effort in fixing my matchbox co pro. I didn't even realise there was anything wrong with it before the meet, but testing proved this to be the case. A couple of capacitors were added and LO! I could boot up GEM desktop on the 286 co pro image

Great to meet old and new faces. See you all at the one after next (can't go to Leicester one).

Cheers,
jbnbeeb

[VincentVega]

Thanks to everyone who helped me out on Saturday (my very first meet-up - I was rather nervous), in particular:

* Sydney, for showing me around and introducing me to people.
* Dave H., for looking at my poorly Electron.
* Daniel, for repairing my poorly RISC PC.
* Ian and Ian, for helping diagnose why it wouldn't then boot properly (misaligned VRAM).
* Gary (though we weren't introduced), for a splendid venue, with plenty of space and first-rate lighting.

My RISC PC is in the midst of being reassembled, which is being made more difficult by the fact that I don't have a suitable monitor to hand: the Sony TV I tried to hook it up to yesterday won't give a picture and complains about there being "No sync", no matter what configuration settings I try (monitor type/sync/mode/etc). I've ordered some new VGA cables from Amazon and will get my old Eizo LCD out of the loft to see if it works with that. I may try out my Extron 204 box to see if that helps.

I had an interesting time, though most of what was going on was above my level of understanding. It's nice to see people keeping old Acorn kit alive.

[1024MAK]

Hi Tim

I've found that often TVs only have a limited number of VGA "modes" that they will work with. My two TVs that have VGA inputs don't like non-standard "modes". Even some "proper" VGA monitors don't like the video output of retro computers if the signal does not properly comply with the VGA specification (some years ago I tested all my VGA monitors, both CRT and LCD with some of my Atari STFM and STE machines in hi-res mono mode).

So if you have a VGA monitor, try that first.

And I'm glad that you had a good time.

Mark

[jgharston]

I'm terrible with names, so: the electrician chap I was sat next to and had breakfast with (see!): IEEE7671 473-01-02 allows supply tails to be protected against overcurrent at the consumer switchgear end instead of at the supply end. I knew I hadn't imagined it!

[daveejhitchins]

Did the key that was found get reunited with its owner?

In the post back to Jason.

Went from Bolton to Manchester, to see my eldest daughter and family. Monday morning I had a dental appointment at 10:30, back home in Newton Aycliffe. So set off from Manchester a 7:45 - usually a 2 hour drive . . . I want to know how anybody, in Manchester, gets to work? It took 30min. to travel 1 mile to the motorway . . . Then another 3.5 hours in stop/start traffic and appalling weather to get home - missing the dental appointment

But, had a great time, over the weekend, as usual, despite a pulled muscle in my back (thanks for the lift - big box in boot - guys). Didn't accomplish what I set out to do . . . but what the heck, that's what tomorrows are for

Looking forward to Leicester now

Good to catch up with everyone, as usual . . .

Dave H

[JudgeBeeb]

I'm terrible with names, so: the electrician chap I was sat next to and had breakfast with

That will probably be mattyj (whose avatar is a bit of a giveaway).

[BeebMaster]

I must admit I'm getting worse with names. I think for the next one we should re-introduce name badges (if I can find mine).

[mattyj]

I'm terrible with names, so: the electrician chap I was sat next to and had breakfast with (see!): IEEE7671 473-01-02 allows supply tails to be protected against overcurrent at the consumer switchgear end instead of at the supply end. I knew I hadn't imagined it!

Hello Jonathan

That's an interesting regulation.
Out of interest which edition of BS7671 are you referring to?
I had a look in my current regulations book (BS7671:2008 amd no.3:2015), and the one before (BS7671:2008 amd no.1 & 2: 2011), which are both the 17th edition and found that regulation 473-01-02 has been discontinued.

The problem with that old regulation is that a user can replace the fuse / cartridge with a higher value.
Interesting regulation though!

I may have a chat with an NICEIC inspector to find out the history behind it's omission from the current regulations.

Thanks

Matt