ABUG Canada West Sept 21 2019 Meetup #14

[klintworth]

Slight hiatus since our last meetup due to family illness so we missed last month - now hopefully back on track! It was great to get together again and we had a long list of projects to attend to! Once Ed arrived he set up his RiscOS Pi and showed me how to use ADFFS and various disc images.

Ed playing Stafighter 3000 on the RiscOS Pi

I was keen to show Ed my new (to me) 3.5" disc drive working with my Master Compact. There were no links to set the drive so once I'd entered *DRIVE1 then all was good. Since 2001 I'd had some educational 3.5" disks that I'd bought on Ebay Australia and never used them. They all worked fine with the new cable I'd made for the Compact to connect to the 3.5" drive. I also worked out that I could use a mobile battery to power the drive, as well as my Gotek.

Granny's Garden running from 3.5" Compact floppy disc

Next up was changing the Olivetti PC128S System ROM for the Acorn chip. Sadly the ROM did not work, despite Ed following careful instructions when he was burning the chip. I'm going to need to do further research on how to dump the Acorn System chip. Ed had also burnt a DFS chip for me; once I'd put it a different socket (first one didn't work, not sure why) all worked well. Now my Olivetti has both ADFS and DFS!

DFS is now working on my Olivetti (Acorn Compact)

After lunch of a Jamaican Patty ( !) it was time to move on to the next project - checking my newly acquired Music 500. I wasn't sure about the audio cable I'd bought on Amazon, and checking the wiring it was definitely wrong. I soldered the wires according to a diagram I found on Stardot; unfortunately I'd reversed two of the wires! Ed was quick to find my error by checking continuity. Once I'd re-soldered the connections all was good and I have a working Music 500! The next step will be to upgrade it to Music 5000 capability - Ed's going to burn the Ample ROM for me for our next ABUG - thanks Ed!

Music 500 in action!

Ed kindly gave me some Hybrid Music manuals - now all I have to do is source a Music 4000, ha ha

Next up Ed helped me by fixing a grommet on my Meanwell PSU installed on a Beeb. I'd given up after trying numerous times - Ed persevered and got the job done!

No more trailing cable out of my reserve Beeb!

Then it was High Score Challenge time. The current game is WetZone, which neither of us has spent too much time on. At least I got my High Score (which is still very poor compared to the scores that others have posted on Stardot!!)

Game time on WetZone! The music is very loud, but at least I have a volume control on my Compact. Ed's going to have to fit a volume control on his Master!!

So for me it was a very enjoyable and productive day. Thanks Ed for good company and good Acorn fun. Looking forward to next month!

ABUG Canada West gang with WetZone in the background

[roland]

Thanks for posting your report about this meetup. It is always nice when people with the same interests meet. Even if there are only two people. Helping and getting help is always fun. Enjoy your future meetups as well!

[KarateEd]

Ok Folks, Paul and I accomplished a lot at our ABUG yesterday. Paul had several things that he wanted to do and I had a few as well. I think we did well.

First on the list was when I entered Paul's home I was greeted with this music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA1NkLhLqGA

The next section is where I was showing Paul some of the software I have loaded onto my Pi.

Paul having a go at WetZone for a new high score for him.

This is on my Pi - RISC OS 5. It's called Solitaire which is certainly misleading but fun anyway....now what move should I do next?

A demo racing game on RISC OS 5 on my Pi, I think it's a 2.

A mouse played version of Jet Set Willy only it is called Starfighter on the RISC machine.

This is Star Fight 3000 which is what I thought the previous game was initially from it's title (it's been a while since I had my Pi running).

This is a really difficult game. Controls are ok once you get used to them but it's not clear exactly what you're to do other than explore. I also think there are things you have to do on each level that affects the next level. I don't have instructions for it which of course blocks your progress if you don't get them done, or at least I've experienced that.

Once we dispatched the Pi, we put up the Master for various possible tasks. This gave us our machine setup for the rest of the day - A Master, Beeb, Master Compact.

This was a sweaty job. It was very muggy here today and the pic doesn't show it well but there was sweat involved...and grommet in place..and SUCCESS!!!!!

ok, game break......I think I'm going to get through this level......yes!!!!

Arggghhhhhhh!!!!!!! - Nope!!!!

There is one more set of pics to come showing the 3D printer setup happening and so forth so until then.......

[KarateEd]

One thing I wanted to get done was figure out why my Music 500 wasn't outputting sound properly any more. Because Paul had a working one (after fixing his cable) I now had a way to swap and test.

Basically we did the swap and determined there is a problem with either the unit itself or possibly the cable. I will take the cable off and do a continuity test on all the pins to ensure it's good. If it is then I'll be on the *. site with the problem to try to find a solution. Stay tuned for more on this in the 8-bit hardware thread.

The other most important thing for me was to get my 3D printer set up and working with Paul beside me because he has quite a bit of experience on this very printer. It proved to be a wise move as there were several things I would not have known how to do just get started. Once again Paul, thank you for coming to the rescue.

Also, thank you very much for lunch today Paul, it was delicious......

What was going on here was adjusting of the pad to ensure a good level print job.

For the most part this seemed to work very well.

The following video shows the printer in action doing the base the model will sit on. I said a few moments at the end of the video....yeh, right!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ7ikY7jYR0

Paul's gift to me was some spool ends. It's significant because the model we printed today was done with most of one of those spools. Thanks Paul, this will help me tremendously in my practice models.

This took about 3.5-4 hours to complete but it did a very nice job. The texture was very smooth. The model was a preloaded one on the little card that came with the printer.

Well, another entertaining and fun ABUG from Western Canada is done. We accomplished quite a lot this month and are very pleased with results. Goodbye from us for this month and we'll see you again next month with more bits and bobs from Canada.

[tricky]

Its always great to hear how you two have got on and even on your least productive day, you still get more done that me with all my ABUGs combined

[KarateEd]

Its always great to hear how you two have got on and even on your least productive day, you still get more done that me with all my ABUGs combined

Thanks Tricky. I think we have different agendas. It's unlikely either of us are going to do what you do with software but you'll probably be able to do what we do with hardware.

It's all good and thanks for the kind words.

[jgharston]

Ed had also burnt a DFS chip for me; once I'd put it a different socket (first one didn't work, not sure why) all worked well. Now my Olivetti has both ADFS and DFS!

The Compact's internal sockets are:

Code: Select all

+---------+
|    3    |
+---------+
|    2    |
+---------+
|    8    |
+---------+
|   0/1   |
+---------+
|MOS/D/E/F|
+---------+

so a 16K ROM should have worked in any of the top three sockets. They don't overlay RAM banks with enable links like on the Master.

[klintworth]

Great, thanks! That explains it, good to know!