All-day 'Virtual' Acorn session #1, Saturday 11th April 2020, 9am - 5pm

[klintworth]

Hello Paul,

Yes, there is a playable prototype in this thread viewtopic.php?f=53&t=18459.

Edit. It a sideways ROM image, but not actually playable online as such.

It's still a work in progress, but the game is playable.

Enjoy!
Jeremy

Thanks!

[TimoHartong]

May I also join. I'm busy for a bluetooth stack for RISCOS and wrote a WIMP program to convert BBC B screen dumps to sprites

[nudelooney]

Hi guys,

I know you've settled on Zoom, and thanks to the last few months, I bet a lot more people are familiar with it ... but it might be worth giving Jitsi a look, too. It's completely free and open-source, and has no limit on call length. If we ever fancied having an almost indefinite-period meeting room, where people just roll in and out as they see fit, then it might be worth an experiment.

[BigEd]

(I gave jitsi a quick try a week or so back, and it seemed OK, although perhaps a little less featureful than zoom. There's a free-for-all server at https://meet.jit.si/ or it's possible to host your own server.)

[z0m8ied0g]

I might try and join at some point, depends on various factors.

[sydney]

I've added everyone upto z0m8ied0g to the list, 14 in total so far.

My RiscPC died with a red screen today and Daniel and I narrowed the problem down to a failed solder joint repair that I then made worse while diagnosing the problem. I'd have fixed it today but I seem to have ran out of solder. If my solder order arrives by Saturday I'll be doing a live repair on it as well as the ARM coding.

[EdwardianDuck]

Just a thought, but I listened to the latest ANTIC podcast yesterday and one of the hosts reported that he'd attended a virtual interactive fiction meetup via Zoom and they'd been "Zoom Bombed" by a deliberately disruptive individual who'd stumbled across the meeting number. After a while they just gave up and ended the meeting.

So what I suggest is that we required a password for the meeting which can be issued via PM and/or enable the waiting room feature. For anyone who wants to join during the day who isn't on the list of users who have expressed intention to attend can just post here and be sent the password via PM.

Does this seem like a reasonable approach?

Settings below.

Jeremy

[Rfairman]

Good idea
The meeting host has the power to turn any participants video and audio off
But sending meeting I'd and password via pm increases security
If a Zoom meeting is scheduled in advance the the ID and password are generated and can be distributed

[dp11]

I'll pop along to this too.

[BigEd]

I used zoom last night, and the default now seems to be that participants arrive in a waiting room, and don't get to join until the host approves them. I think this should solve the problem of disruption, although it might still be an annoyance if bad people keep turning up just to wait.

(The host can nominate someone else to be host, so it's possible to share out the workload over the course of the call. The original host remains in charge, in the sense that they can grab host-ship back if they need to.)

[sydney]

Mark has scheduled the meeting on zoom and I have the Id and password which I'll pm to everyone on the list today once the kids get off the laptop. Could be a while!

[hoglet]

Please can you add me to the attendance list, I'll be available 10am-5pm.

I don't have any thing in particular to talk about, but I'm happy to answer questions on any of my past Atom or Beeb projects.

I've just this week started work on a Frame Buffer + Blitter for the 1 MHz Bus FPGA Adapter if anyone is interested. This will have:
- 640x480 VGA output with 8 bits/pixel
- programmable palette to map this to 12 bit RGB
- 1024x512 screen memory, so there is some off-screen memory for bitmaps etc.
- 8x8 Character ROM, giving a 80x60 text display with a simple OSWRCH driver
- Blitter that runs at 25M pixels/second

All of this is "work in progress" but it's getting there...

Dave

[sydney]

I've pm'd everyone on the list with the details for the meetup. If you've not recieved the pm please let me know and I'll get it sorted out.
Please keep the details private so that only those onthe lust will be able to join the meeting. I've you'd like to join in but are not on the list please post in this thread.
Thanks,
Simon

[dp11]

I'd like to join in please.

[BigEd]

A hot tip for anyone hosting a zoom session: if you see someone you don't recognise in the waiting room DO NOT EJECT THEM! If you misidentify and eject a friend, they cannot then rejoin at all. Better to leave them waiting and use other channels to see who it is. They can't do any harm sitting there waiting.

(This just happened to me as I was signed in with my other half's account. Even signing out and in as myself did not lift the ban. It also happened in a family meeting where someone had connectivity problems: infinitely better for them to leave and rejoin than for them to be bounced.)

[anightin]

I'd like to pop in and out to listen please between 9-5 Please.

Happy to contribute and answer any relevant Acorn questions that I might be able to help with. I'll be working on my System 5 build in the background whilst listening.

[anightin]

Please can you add me to the attendance list, I'll be available 10am-5pm.

I don't have any thing in particular to talk about, but I'm happy to answer questions on any of my past Atom or Beeb projects.

I've just this week started work on a Frame Buffer + Blitter for the 1 MHz Bus FPGA Adapter if anyone is interested. This will have:
- 640x480 VGA output with 8 bits/pixel
- programmable palette to map this to 12 bit RGB
- 1024x512 screen memory, so there is some off-screen memory for bitmaps etc.
- 8x8 Character ROM, giving a 80x60 text display with a simple OSWRCH driver
- Blitter that runs at 25M pixels/second

All of this is "work in progress" but it's getting there...

Dave

Sounds fun Dave, is there enough capacity in the FPGA to coexist with the Music 5000 project too?

[Shift Lock]

I am able to pop in and out, and if I get my Beeb area tidy by then I could demonstrate cleaning of a floppy disc with IPA prior to export to the datacentre, as was discussed on the forum recently with a new member.

If this isn't too basic a demo for most members I'd love to join in to see this as I'm the new member Simon's talking about. I'd also be interested to know how to find the heads in a 5.25 inch drive and how to clean those, again if that isn't something too basic to be covered (a decent YouTube video would work instead if anyone knows where I can find one!).

Rich

[Rfairman]

I disagree I would love to learn how to clean my discs What may be too basic for some may be just right for others
Regards Richard

[sydney]

I've added the next three members to the list and pm'd them.
There was an issue with the url so please don't use that and just join in the normal way through the zoom app.
It's probably a good idea to use your stardot name follwed by, if you wish, your real name. I'll be joinimg as sydney - Simon.

[BigEd]

Please beware: it's not necessarily easy to join with a preferred or chosen name! I've just uninstalled zoom in the hope of losing track of the 'wrong name' but not everyone is going to be able to do that. I suggest anyone who finds themselves in the 'waiting' state for too long sends a PM to the host.

I just spent two hours in a zoom call I was accidentally banned from, on speaker phone to a phone held next to a participant's laptop. Not fun.

[sydney]

Which client were you using to join the meeting? On both windows and Android I simply click on my name to edit it.

[BigEd]

It was the application, on a Mac. I've always been able to change my name once I'm in a meeting, but this predicament applies to being in the 'waiting room.'

[JudgeBeeb]

When I launch Zoom on my Mac as an app (rather than clicking on a hyperlink), I get this:

If I click on 'Join a Meeting', I get this:

I can then edit my name:

Before entering the 'Meeting ID', and clicking on 'Join':

Hope this helps.

[BigEd]

Thanks - it may be that joining through a link in an email was bypassing those choices.

Have you ever signed into zoom on that machine? I've a feeling that even when 'signed out' it may have remembered some things which it shouldn't have.

[JudgeBeeb]

I only use that machine. Although, I have never changed my name before. We are going to have a practice session today. So, I will report if there are any problems.

[JudgeBeeb]

markjw, Sydney and I had a dry run with the Zoom platform today and everything looks like it should work OK. The three of us will act as moderators during the meeting (albeit Sydney's role is somewhat contingent on his getting round his ISP's rather extreme firewall).

In terms of display name, I can confirm you can change your name at login in the way described above. Also, if there are any difficulties, we can change your name for you after you have joined the meeting.

We will set up a number of breakout rooms where smaller groups can talk about a particular topic without being bombarded with everyone else's chat. If you want to be allocated to a breakout room, just ask during the meeting and we will set it up for you. Once allocated to a breakout room, you can move freely between the breakout room and the main session without asking a moderator. You can only be allocated to one breakout room at a time. But we can easily move you to a different breakout room if you ask.

I hope this is all clear. This is a very novel venture. So, we are all very much learning as we go along.

Thanks once again to Sydney for organising it and to markjw for hosting us on his account.

See you all tomorrow.

[JudgeBeeb]

I should also add that we should all keep an eye on this thread during the course of tomorrow, in case there are any updates or problems. Also, if you are having any problems with Zoom, please post in this thread or PM the three of us.

[sydney]

My problems with the ISP seem to be sorted in that I'm getting a different error now! I'm pretty sure it'll work now though.
Anyone on the list who doesn't have pm access and needs it just leave a message in this thread and I'll get that sorted asap.
See you all tomorrow.

[1024MAK]

When I launch Zoom on my Mac as an app (rather than clicking on a hyperlink)...

I took part in a video meeting yesterday using Zoom. From the first screen I selected “Sign In” to connect. Using this method I left the “Your Name” showing the default name, which is the name that you registered (on Zoom) with, in the “Join Meeting” screen (which comes much later in the sequence).

Whereas if I follow the “Join Meeting” selection from the first screen, the “Your Name” box defaults to your OS log in name (at least it does on Windows 10).

Yesterday we had fifteen connections (some people shared) and even though we were only using the free service, the meeting lasted two hours. Some people had a few teething problems, such as unable to mute, forgetting to unmute, or no video or no sound. A range of different devices (including tablets and mobile telephones) were used.

On a PC at least, using the controls in the App, you can test your camera (and see what others will see), and test if your microphone is working.

I do recommend you have a play before connecting tomorrow

There is also a text message chat facility and private text messaging.

Mark