ABUG Canada West - July 30 2019 Meetup #13

[KarateEd]

Well we started out with high ambitions but those slowly trickled away.

Items of interest to us were seeing if we could get Paul's Olivetta behave like a Master Compact - no luck there, we need 64k chips to make that work.

Try to get Paul's power switch to work on his Compact. It should work but there seems to be a track that needs another cut. We'll have to go to the source for the track to cut.

Try a network card on my A7000+......we never even got to it.

Replace my 1st Master with a Meanwell supplied by Steve. Completed successfully......thankfully, something achieved.

Play Thrust..... success upon success.

Ok, a couple of pictures of our day out here in Squamish. It wasn't a typical summer day, quite cool....it was nice.

Paul drove up with his computers and they were what you see on the table in this picture.

Meet my brother from Italy.....

Next was the attempt to change an Olivetti into a Compact.......

On those chips were MOS/DFS and BASIC

We tried to figure out the power switch issue with the Compact (sorry no pic) but it seemed like it should work. Paul will talk with the OP he got the info from to try to determine what is missing.

Time to relax......with......some Fortress and Thrust....

I was doing ok in this one but then, I've had 2 weeks practice.

Getting Thrust ready to go.

Paul is pretty good at this game. He's barely played any rounds and is moving up quick.

Not my best score but sure is fun

So, break time is over and we've not really accomplished much.......

Next Post.......

[KarateEd]

Ok, back from the break and we will now fix something we hope.

My 1st BBC Master has always had jitters and I suspect the capacitors, other than the usual ones, may need changing out.

I decided I would put a Meanwell in there for now and refurbish the other portion of the PSU at some later day......another project put of successfully.

First, a picture of Steve's excellent kit to do all this....

This is my second kit. I got another one earlier for a Beeb PSU that wasn't working well.

The next steps were to remove and take apart the old PSU from the Master. The next few pics will show some of that work.

Removing the retainer screws for the PSU

This circuit board bends pretty well, doesn't it?

It's a mess but it always is when removing the innards of these things.

A wee bit of an ugly wiring mess inside.....

Skip forward to getting ready to plug in the harness to the MB.

One needs a sledge hammer to get new blades to go on the MB.....holy smokes!!!!

I wrote a small program that looped to see if it would flicker.....she's rock solid.....one successful operation.

The cats stole the Beeb and I caught them playing Fortress on it.....smart cats.

and what would an ABUG be without the mandatory club membership picture?

The followup on the Olivetti will be to purchase some 64k EEPROMs and do the job right.
Paul will follow up on the power switch for his Compact.
I have a network card coming from the UK for my A7000+ and will get that working before next ABUG

Thanks Paul for a great day. I know things didn't go exactly your way or get resolved today but we'll get those things sorted. I think you had fun getting better at Thrust and seeing how you go through the screens in Fortress and helping me with my PSU project.

I can say it was very nice to have you here and thank you for the gifts of an Acorn User May 1984, 1 pound in those days, an article called 'Return of the computer dinosaurs' written Tuesday, 17th October, 2000 in BBC News and last but not least, a 3D printed ashtray cover for my Beeb.

[klintworth]

Another fun ABUG time in Squamish, followed by curry at the pub - must be in heaven! As Ed said, we examined my newly arrived Olivetti PC128S which is pretty much plain vanilla - no additional ROMS or mods.

Inside the Olivetti

Interesting carrier for the 5050 video chip

I then played Thrust on my Master Compact which has a good ROM set

Volume control mod on my Compact

Next mod up - add a sound line out

And thanks Ed for the two PSU power switches - I'm missing one on an old Beeb PSU so another project to do!

Looking forward to more summer ABUG fun!
(written in a erush before I teach Makerspace Summer Camp to 6 yr old kids!!

[tricky]

Even on a poor day, you guys get more done than I do on a good day - keep it up

[KarateEd]

Hey Tricky.....it was really a good day, the 512 chips are already ordered and we'll get them burned for Paul once they are received. There is a good chance I'll be in Kamloops when they arrive but hopefully sooner. Though we didn't get everything done we wanted, we were pleased with our 'discoveries and gaming experiences.

Any day a person can have a Beeb day, is a good day, even if they don't accomplish everything they might want.