TNMoC Fixathon - NEW DATE - 18th & 19th November

[Issue7]

Hello everyone,
After a couple of false starts with the date, we we are planning another Fixathon event at TNMoC in Bletchley this November. It is Saturday and Sunday 18th and 19th November 2023.

We plan to go through some of our stored machines and check them over, doing some light restoration and testing. We’d love it if you can along and lend a hand, and we’re looking for all skills from basic cleaning to surface mount repair.

This time we will be concentrating on 32-bit Acorn machines, from common A5000s to uncommon A500s. Our most important task is to make sure their batteries are removed and we neutralise any damage. We’ll also see if we can image a few hard discs to discover any unusual software.

The event is being held over the weekend, and you are welcome to come along for just a few hours to the whole weekend. We will provide you with refreshments.

Please could you book on Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bbc-acor ... 9458428257. Early bookers will get to see a new and innovative spelling of Archimedes! Note it looks like Jacqui has set the ticket levels for single day events quite low, if you can't book a single day, please let me know and I will ask her to make more tickets available.

Tom
TNMoC Acorn Curator

[danielj]

I'm in!

[Ukwebb]

oh
I'm coming down for work on the 29th/30th - so close

[IanS]

I've booked a ticket

[Cruxinc]

hi! would it be ok to book a ticket? im 15 and cant solder with very limited electronic knowledge (fixing wise) but would like to learn and clean stuff
i would come with a family member. would it be ok to come along? thanks a lot!

[danielj]

hi! would it be ok to book a ticket? im 15 and cant solder with very limited electronic knowledge (fixing wise) but would like to learn and clean stuff
i would come with a family member. would it be ok to come along? thanks a lot!

I'm going to tag in

issue7

But I'd be fairly sure it'd be fine!

[Cruxinc]

awesome thanks!

[Issue7]

Hi Cruxinc,
Yes, please do come along, you and your adult family member will be most welcome. We will have plenty to do for most skills. Except perhaps brain surgery - but I'm sure that translates well to PCB surgery!
Thanks
Tom, TNMoC Acorn Curator

[Cruxinc]

brilliant thanks a lot!

[Vee]

Any of the other regulars coming along?

[Paul]

I can come to both days!

Paul.

[marrold]

I can probably do one of the two days, any idea which would be best?

Cheers

[Cruxinc]

im going on the saturday… what day is everyone else doing?

[baz4096]

I'll be going to both days. Not sure how useful I'll be, but I'll bring some keyboard surrounds to donate, along with my cleaning kit

[flibble]

I've booked myself in for both days, looking forward to visiting again

I'll pack my bits for imaging harddiscs, I can do IDE and SCSI easily ... theoretically I might be able to do ST506 (I do have the ST506 podule and can hack the software to do it) but I've no discs to test it against

[SarahWalker]

I should be there at least one of the days. What would be useful to bring?

[Issue7]

Hello everyone,
One week to go now, so I'm starting to get excited! Looking forward to seeing you all, and there are still places available if anyone else would like to come.

As always, we will take over a couple of rooms at the museum and there's a variety of things to do at all levels of skill. Repair work starts from dodgy keyboards upwards. We will be doing assessment and preservation of Archimedes machines that are in our warehouse. We need to make sure we have been through all of our collection and checked the batteries.

As before, we will have a separate room to repair monitors. Our monitor reliability has improved a lot since our last blitz of overhaul activities, but there's still a few dead ones - possibly ones we didn't overhaul. If you would like to join in and have monitor competence, please let me know, your skill will be appreciated. Our monitor guru will be there for at least one day.

It would be handy if you could bring your own toolkit. We do have shared toolkits, but not enough for everybody. If you are skilled at soldering, please bring your own iron.

If you've no skills with a screwdriver, but can sort out files on a BBC, we have our SJ server filled with over 50Mb of random files, so if you can help us make it less random that would be great.

Our official start time is 9:30 on the Saturday, although I would urge you to arrive from 10:30, otherwise you may get roped in to help us collect machines from our warehouse! For those interested, we can go for a meal on Saturday evening in a local pub.

Regards
Tom
TNMoC Acorn Curator

[helpful]

I'm planning to drop in on the Sunday, just grabbed a ticket. I have no soldering skills but happy to help sort through and test stuff.

Warning - I will also be trying to grab people for my Archimedes event!

Bryan.

[pelago]

Looks like I'm coming on the Sunday. Not been to one of these before so I'm not quite sure what to expect.

What's the start time on Sunday?

[Issue7]

I'll be there from about 10.00 on Sunday. See you then!
Tom

[Issue7]

We've made a start...

That's three carfulls of computers from the warehouse

BBC Miicro PET tester

A5000 - battery cancer job we started onthe last event

A680 prototype - not started this one yet

[Paul]

Here's a high res photo taken by a BBC Micro. Great fun!
Paul.

[Cruxinc]

absolutely loved taking part in this! thanks to everyone for being so freindly and helpfull, and especially tom and jaqui for organising. will definitely be back for the next one! getting pizza for dinner so thats a bonus!

[friesian7]

Here's a high res photo taken by a BBC Micro. Great fun!
Paul.

Has a certain 70s progrock album cover vibe...

[Cruxinc]

issue7

hi tom! really enjoyed the fixathon yesterday.
i was talking to my parents about volunteering.
would i be able to volunteer one saturday a month? i know its not a lot but with gcses i dont ahve much time to spare.
i would love to help.
please let me know if i should go through the normal tnmoc volunteering email.
thanks!

[Issue7]

Thanks to everybody that came to our event this weekend. It went very well indeed, and we have done a lot to improve the condition of our colllection.

We removed a pile of batteries and got a good few machines working, which was excellent. I was particularly pleased to see the A500 prototype work, one of a few Acorn prototypes we are lucky to have.

It was great to meet you all, and a few of you expressed an interest in volunteering. I'm really excited by this, and even if you live a distance away, we think there's things you can join in with. We'll be writng to everyone separately about this.

Elliot, thanks for your offer, that's great news. As you are under 16, we will have to make special arrangements for you, for your safety. I will have a chat with Jacqui and someone from the museum will get back to you.

Thanks again everyone.
Tom

[baz4096]

We removed a pile of batteries and got a good few machines working, which was excellent. I was particularly pleased to see the A500 prototype work, one of a few Acorn prototypes we are lucky to have.

Next time we'll get the M4 and the A680 running Sadly no HDDs for any of these found yet, but there's still hope

This weekend was a blast. Looking forward to the next one! Highly recommended if you enjoy tinkering with old Acorn machines.

Some more photos:

[danielj]

Thanks Tom - a pleasure as always! Glad more order was brought than chaos created

d.

[maniacminer]

Shame I missed this one. I've had a very busy couple of weeks. I was going into the museum during the week, but it was closed on that very day for a film crew. I've got to spend time checking on the stuff I curate (specifically spare PSUs)

[Cruxinc]

Thanks to everybody that came to our event this weekend. It went very well indeed, and we have done a lot to improve the condition of our colllection.

We removed a pile of batteries and got a good few machines working, which was excellent. I was particularly pleased to see the A500 prototype work, one of a few Acorn prototypes we are lucky to have.

It was great to meet you all, and a few of you expressed an interest in volunteering. I'm really excited by this, and even if you live a distance away, we think there's things you can join in with. We'll be writng to everyone separately about this.

Elliot, thanks for your offer, that's great news. As you are under 16, we will have to make special arrangements for you, for your safety. I will have a chat with Jacqui and someone from the museum will get back to you.

Thanks again everyone.
Tom

great! if you want, i can submit the voluneteer form so you will have me and my parents email. thanks!