ABUG SOUTH 1 to 3 June 2018 (Hampshire) BOOKING THREAD

[Elminster]

Not sure I will get time between now and June to revive my other distracted project of Master Telnet.

It's an ideal opportunity to get a full day (or two) to work on it!

True but I use an imac27, don’t fancy lugging that about. Although I should have a pi-Top up and running soon, once postman delivers it.

[tricky]

I'll be there, but maybe two day trips.

[Bagpuss]

I know this a bit off topic, but I just wanted to put out a request for some help during the meet.

One of my best friends passed away just over a year ago from a brain tumour. We'd worked together at Sun for many years, and I regularly stayed with him and his family when I was working out of the Camberley offices. In fact, I'm going to be staying with his family during the meet.

When I was helping his widow go through his tech stuff, I found the computer which started it all for him... his Apple II.
I've not yet looked at it closely, but I know that caps in the PSU will need to be changed before we can try to power it on.

His family would very much like to get the computer working again, and it's with this, that I'd really appreciate some help.
Does anyone who's attending know much about the Apple II?

Thanks,

Andy.

[JudgeBeeb]

Most of the Apple II's, in particular, the Apple II Europlus (which is what I suspect your friend had) had Astec PSUs that were very similar to those in Beebs and have very similar RIFA paper capacitors. I do have some books on the Apple II that may cover this in a bit more detail.

The main problem with the Apple II is that in many of the PSU's the metal cover is held in place with rivets which will need to be drilled out to open it up. I understand that this is quite easy to do. However, having never drilled a rivet out of anything before, I don't propose to start with someone else's computer that has huge sentimental value.

[Prime]

Certainly my Apple //e has the Rifa caps, one of them is the same type as the Beeb ones, but the other is a much bigger value (and still needs changing).

Would probably help to have some pictures of the machine in question.

I'm sure I could be pursuaded to bring my drill and bits with me.....though having drilled the rivits out I'm not sure how to go about safely fixing the PSU shut again....luckily the //e has screws in it's PSU......

Cheers.

Phill.

[flibble]

Can I book a table for Saturday and Sunday, I should be able to make this one

[danielj]

My apple ii had screws, nothing to drill out.

d.

[jgharston]

I'm sure I could be pursuaded to bring my drill and bits with me.....though having drilled the rivits out I'm not sure how to go about safely fixing the PSU shut again....luckily the //e has screws in it's PSU......

After drilling out the rivets you could use cold rivits to replace them. You need some cold rivetys and a cold rivet gun. link I was quite adept at cold rivetting on my electrical engineering course 25 years ago.

Tho' my preference would be for replacing the rivets with nuts and bolts.

[Prime]

I'm sure I could be pursuaded to bring my drill and bits with me.....though having drilled the rivits out I'm not sure how to go about safely fixing the PSU shut again....luckily the //e has screws in it's PSU......

After drilling out the rivets you could use cold rivits to replace them. You need some cold rivetys and a cold rivet gun. link I was quite adept at cold rivetting on my electrical engineering course 25 years ago.

Tho' my preference would be for replacing the rivets with nuts and bolts.

Ahh we called them pop rivets, and I do have a riviter somewhere.

Phill.

[daveejhitchins]

Ahh we called them pop rivets, and I do have a riviter somewhere.

Beware - sometime the mandrel can work loose - you don't want them rattling around in the power supply

Dave H

[helpful]

Right, I've booked into the hotel for the Saturday night, so please put me down for a table for Saturday and Sunday.

Bryan.

[JudgeBeeb]

The time has arrived when I need to ask people for payment. There is a one off cost of £15 per person. This covers the cost of the room hire plus the provision of tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks. Preferred payment is by PayPal. I will send everyone a PM with my PayPal details. Please can you make sure you select the 'Sending to a friend or to family' option when completing the transaction (otherwise I will be charged a fee by PayPal).

In order to avoid some issues that arose at the last ABUG, I think we need to set a couple of reasonable ground rules:

1. No alcohol is to be consumed on the premises unless purchased from the venue.
2. No hot food is to be consumed on the premises unless purchased from the venue, unless you have strict dietary requirements that the venue cannot cater for.

We are getting the venue at a considerable discount in the expectation that people will make use of the facilities and I think we should be fair about this. I have tried the food and it is very good. (The Sunday carvery is highly recommended.) The venue is in a rural area and if you don't want to purchase meals on-site, you can always bring a picnic and eat it outside.

[thomass]

Hi,

I would like to come along, could you please put me down for Saturday. I'm not bringing any kit.

Thanks,

Thomas

[JudgeBeeb]

Hi,

I would like to come along, could you please put me down for Saturday. I'm not bringing any kit.

Thanks,

Thomas

Excellent. I am sure you will have a great time.

I will send you a PM about payment.

[thomass]

Hi Robert,

Thanks, looking forward to it. I've just sent payment.

Regards,

Thomas

[SarahWalker]

Will there be the usual amount of soldering type equipment around? My A3000 has died, and I have a greater chance of fixing it using decent equipment and with knowledgeable people in the vicinity

[JudgeBeeb]

Will there be the usual amount of soldering type equipment around? My A3000 has died, and I have a greater chance of fixing it using decent equipment and with knowledgeable people in the vicinity

I will probably bring my kit along.

[JudgeBeeb]

For those that are extra enthusiastic, the venue has confirmed that the room is not being used during the day on Friday, so we can go in as early as we like. However, at present, I am planning to be to be there by about 3pm.

Otherwise we have the room from 8am each morning and we have to be out by midnight each night.

As you can see, there are still plenty of spaces left. If anyone knows anyone who may be interested in coming (perhaps someone who has never been before) do recommend it to them. I have sufficient money in the kitty, so last minute attendees can pay me on the day. There are still a handful of rooms left at the hotel. £145 inclusive of breakfast for the two nights.

[Prime]

As we still have places available, I just mentioned the ABUG meetup in the Dragon FB group, as a lot of them seem to also be into beebs as well......

Hope this was ok to do.....

Cheers.

Phill.

[Elminster]

Phil has jolted my memory, for people who have been before probably obvious, be it abug or Dragon users! Suddenly occurred to me I probably need to dig out some extension leads.

Also does the venue take plastic for food&drink, assume it does but worth checking or I might be very hungry/thirsty.

[JudgeBeeb]

Phil has jolted my memory, for people who have been before probably obvious, be it abug or Dragon users! Suddenly occurred to me I probably need to dig out some extension leads.

Also does the venue take plastic for food&drink, assume it does but worth checking or I might be very hungry/thirsty.

Extension leads - yes please. I will be bringing a few, as will others, but we can never have too many.

Yes, the venue does take plastic for food and drink.

[JudgeBeeb]

As we still have places available, I just mentioned the ABUG meetup in the Dragon FB group, as a lot of them seem to also be into beebs as well......

Hope this was ok to do.....

Cheers.

Phill.

Thanks. It would be great if we could get some people from the 6809 community along.

[Elminster]

Extension leads - yes please. I will be bringing a few, as will others, but we can never have too many.

Do we need 'long leads' or loads of 4 gangs, or both? Will have a look what I have.

It would be great if we could get some people from the 6809 community along.

I shall bring my new 6809 boards for my RC2014, I have 2 spare if anyone would like one at cost. Then I can be part of both communities! As long as I dont have to pay £30

[JudgeBeeb]

In terms of extensions, if you have both, please bring both. But I think long leads are likely to be the more important. It is a big square room, with power points only on the walls. I don't yet know how we will lay out the room, but as the number of people is fewer than I had hoped for, we will have some flexibility in this respect. I could probably put all the tables around the edge. My view, however, is that the big empty space this will leave in the middle might feel a bit miserable. I think it may be preferable to put some tables in the middle of the room to make things feel a little more intimate. That being the case, we will need long extensions to reach the middle.

[Note to self: need to bring duck tape to tape the leads down to prevent trip hazards.]

Please do bring your 6809 boards. You will not be charged extra. However, you may be burned at the stake as a heretic.

[BigEd]

Thanks. It would be great if we could get some people from the 6809 community along.

In the same vein, if we find ourselves with a comfortably large venue, this time or in the future, is there a Commodore community we could reach out to? KIM, PET, VIC and of course C64 are all 6502 machines of the right kind of vintage. Previous ABUG events have represented several kinds of interest: fixing machines, inventing new hardware, coding, playing games, making music, chatting about 8-bit topics. I would think all of those would happen in other nearby communities.

Same goes for Atari and Apple 8-bitters.

But we'd want to be confident that everyone can get along ... so this is only a thought, not even a suggestion.

(I did already take the liberty of noting this meetup on 6502.org, but that's rather a small world likely to yield at most one or two extra attendees. Hopefully uncontroversial.)

[Prime]

I seem to remember we have had at previous meetups at some point or other :

Dragon : 6809,
Apple II : 6502
Einstein : Z80
Sirius : 8086
UK101 : 6502
Olivetti PC : 8086

I also remember seeing a couple of Spectrums / C64s along the way not so much being used as being diagnosed / worked on.

I will also be bringing the recently bought CMS system along with me this time, though this is at least related to the Acorn eurocard systems, using the same bus (for the A side at least). And running BBC basic with a very beeb like MOS...has decidedly more I/O though 7x6522, 4 of them on the same card......

I'll also bring along the caps to do the X2 Apple PSUs plus the normal soldery stuff, anything else anyone wants me to bring.....

Cheers.

Phill.

[BigEd]

On these lines... I have a Vectrex, which doesn't quite work. Does anyone have the bravery and inclination to investigate? It makes the right noises at boot, so digitally it's fine. The CRT's heater element does glow, but there's no image at all. I thought possibly it could be an HT failure or CRT failure, but hoglet says CRTs rarely fail. So it could be one of the output amplifiers or DACs is broken. I haven't dared to look, because of the HT hazard - once the case is open, everything is just there right next to everything else.

[1024MAK]

Although it's rare for CRTs to fail, in TVs at least, the failure of the line output stage (horizontal drive) was fairly common. Often being a dry solder joint on the output transistor or the LOPT, or a failure of the output transistor. In TVs, secondary supplies were generated from the LOPT, plus there often were protection circuits, which shut down some of the circuitry (so you get a blank screen).

I don't expect the Vectrex is anything like a TV (due to the completely different horizontal and vertical drive systems), but still well worthwhile looking for dry solder joints, or any signs that capacitors or large transistors have suffered any stresses.

Mark

[BigEd]

It's easy enough for me to bring it, and as it hasn't been powered for years, it won't have any high voltages inside. Until we test it!

[kieranhj]

A non-sequitur, I will be attending but on Sunday only. As I’m relatively local I’m hoping to get over early doors and stay for the duration.

Look forward to seeing everyone there!