BeebRoom 2024

[BeebMaster]

Well, having now moved, which took 6 vanloads in all, but now yet having even started on my storage room, maybe I'm closer to that ratio than I thought!

I finally managed to find my desktop computer and set it up temporarily, so I could pay the removal men! And then come straight here of course.

I won't go into all the details of why I'm not staying with Virgin and have had to get Sky broadband for the next 18 months instead, which feels like 1990s dial-up internet by comparison (though I should be happy about that I suppose). There's no Ethernet cabling in this new house at all, so for now I am having to rely on my old power-line adapters for wired internet.

[Cruxinc]

ouch, no ethernet sounds tough! glad you seemed to have a succsesfull move though!

[shifters74]

Was that 6 van loads just for the beeb stuff?

Shifters

[Cruxinc]

beebmaster

hello ian, i just want to let you know that i’ve emailed you as i fear my email may have gone into spam (ive had this before with others!) if not, sorry for bothering you! have a good day

[flaxcottage]

The Flax Cottage man cave has been reduced by at least 50% and with no loss of functionality.

During the process I discovered lots of stuff that I did not know I had but I suppose that is par for the course.

If we have to move now the man cave will easily fit into one van. I don't know about the shed though ...

[daveejhitchins]

If we have to move now the man cave will easily fit into one van. I don't know about the shed though ...

Hmmmm! You haven't said what size van . . . there are huge vans out there!

[BeebMaster]

The new BeebRoom has been looking very sad this last two and a bit weeks...

Until today! After I sacked the previous workman who didn't turn up twice, and got a new workman:

At last, I have Beeb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[growntree]

Very nice!

I hope your cup of tea didn't go cold whilst taking the pictures.

[BeebMaster]

Yes, just got it down in time.

The lighting is terrible in the new BeebRoom, I am going to have to do something about that.

Station 112 has been playing up, doing the insert random carriage returns or other keypresses into the keyboard buffer, which is usually in my experience a sign of bad contacts on the cartridge sockets. In this case it kept doing it even after I removed the ROM cartridges, so next I suspected the ZIF sockets in my test Econet module, which didn't help. Then I pressed on the MOS ROM and she went wild for a bit but is now stable, so it must have been coming loose.

The hard drive isn't being recognised in my Winchester test rig, but the Akhter hard disc and Pi SCSI both work, so I need to sort that out. I'm trying to get everything fully working before I move on, so this is going to be a long process if everything plays up from having been moved!

[growntree]

This kind of light seems an improvement in my kitchen and garage, so might help... https://www.screwfix.com/p/4lite-advant ... 240v/939kk

I've got all the hard drive fun to come. I've just got one of Ken Lowe's 1MHz level boards which I can fit as soon as I've soldered the header on my latest pi zero, then I've got the job of converting my retroclinic multios from IDE to SCSI. I gave it a go a few days ago, but now MOS3.5 doesn't like the pi-copro, so I think I'm going to have to go back to the backup copy and have another go, lol.

[IanJeffray]

NewBeebRoom2024-10.jpg

Do tell me that's structured Econet cabling?

[BeebMaster]

I had all the trunking at ankle-height put in by an electrician, and I asked for mains double sockets to be alternated with face plates for RJ45 connectors, and at his suggestion, these "brush" face plates you can see, which I hadn't been aware of before, where I can poke my own cables through. When he was doing the work (before we moved in), he asked if I wanted Ethernet cable running to the RJ45 points, so I said yes, and the ends of those cables emerge from the end of the trunking, but I haven't worked out yet which cable goes to which socket! Hopefully my RJ45 tester will come in useful for once.

I haven't decided yet whether to use the Ethernet cabling for Econet or not. I think I probably won't; whilst I think it would work, it's a slightly illegal topology as all the ends would have to plug into a hub of some sort, so it would be a kind of star-shaped layout. As far as I know, the individual RJ45 face plates aren't linked together, which is how Econet would have it working. And I wouldn't want to mix up Ethernet and Econet by mistake.

The original idea was just to have Ethernet in there for when I need it; the Pi and RISC PC will need it, and maybe a couple of other machines. Also at the time, I wasn't sure where my main PC was going. For the first couple of days after we moved in, the PC was in there, but it's now in a different room, whereas previously it was always in the old BeebRoom, so I need to connect it to the BeebRoom somehow.

(initially it will have to be by using powerline adapters until I can get some Cat 5 cable out of the BeebRoom under the carpet, or floor, into the "office" room, but the network speed of the powerline I am using in my "office" room is shocking, only a third of the actual internet speed. The speed I got from a powerline using the BeebRoom trunking when the PC was in there was 100% speed though, so it goes to show how much of a difference the dodginess or otherwise of mains cabling makes to the powerline performance.)

The brush plates really are intended to feed the Econet cable through, and also HDMI cables so I can reconstitute my screen capture setup eventually.

[BeebMaster]

This kind of light seems an improvement in my kitchen and garage, so might help... https://www.screwfix.com/p/4lite-advant ... 240v/939kk

Yes, in fact I had these exact lights in the old BeebRoom (and kitchen and garage!) Whilst they are very bright, they don't glare at all.

I had 2 in the old BeebRoom, and in fact one of them went on the blink in under a year and had to be replaced. It started flicking on and off, and initially you could turn the power off for a short while and it would stop doing it till the next day, but eventually the flicking became so regular I had to have it replaced. The only problem with them is that when they do conk out, the whole unit has to be replaced, it's not as simple as changing a light bulb.

[BeebMaster]

And then there were 2...

I've had to postpone the further Station 112 Winnie fault-finding, nothing I can do will make it speak to ADFS. I do find that older Winnies do do this from time to time, so it may just be a question of waiting till it decides to starting listening again. The floppy drive was on the blink as well, giving Disc error 50 on any load attempt. I could tell it wasn't stepping the drive, so I re-connected the floppy drive cable about 5 times before it started working again. I hope everything isn't going to be like this!

Still "No clock" as I can't find the PSU for my Econet clock (though I do have about 30 new ones...somewhere...!)

[BeebMaster]

Starting to take shape now:

This wall is almost a replica of the equivalent wall in the old BeebRoom, except that the two Archimedes (A5000 and A3010) aren't there. The A5000 was behind Station 112 on the right hand side, and the A3010 was on top of neighbouring Station 130's Cub. I was never really happy about the two of them being plonked where they were, so I will have to think about their new homes, although A3010 is on yet another Caledonian holiday.

The other change is that Master 128 Station 114 replaces Domesday II, as I am not going to be able to fit every machine I had permanently exhibited in the old BeebRoom, so I am going to need to decide what to do about the ones that don't fit, and whether I have a "guest pod" where I can rotate the machine in use every few months.

Domesday II does need a bit of attention as there is a sound problem with the VP415, but Domesday I still works, which is a bit of a miracle:

I had intended to keep the same monitors for the Domesday Machine and Station 114, intending to continue using the Sony Trinitron TV as a television set. But the TV setup here is different, as the old BeebRoom had a Sky aerial, but here it's digital TV aerial, so I am using the DVD recorder attached to the Domesday Machine to receive television. I had intended to use a SCART splitter out of the Sony DVD Recorder so that it could feed the picture to the Alba TV for Domesday and also to the Sony TV so that when I switched DVD recorder inputs from SCART to TV I could have the TV picture through the Sony set, but when I had both TVs connected, and Station 114 on at the same time, all kinds of wackiness started happening to the picture, so I have had to swap the TVs around.

It makes Station 114 look rather dinky by comparison to everything else now, but as there is no real reason to have a television set there any longer I may change it for a Cub eventually.

[flaxcottage]

Looks great, Ian.

Your sparky guy though did not put in nearly half enough mains sockets. The same problem with my man cave. Mind you, when it was originally built it was a bedroom. It has now got 48 mains sockets!

[BeebMaster]

I always intended to have extension strips mounted on the wall, each socket on those then generally powers a whole individual setup so they can be turned on and off easily. Maybe I should have had wall sockets put at eye-level, but it would have meant digging out the walls, and I think trunking at that level wouldn't have looked right.

The Domesday Machine setup is now so high though that after I swapped monitors I could no longer see the strip I'd put behind it, and had to move it along 6 inches to the right!

[1024MAK]

Trunking in office environments is often just above desk height.

Mark

[BeebMaster]

Today I had so many internet problems with my PC I decided enough was enough! There's something pretty odd going on, if a device is using the internet, and taking up the whole download speed, then it seems to hog the line and not let any other device get a go. I wonder if this is some feature of the Sky hub that doesn't allow multiple devices connected at once to share the speed. All very odd. At various points today I couldn't connect to the internet on my PC at all whilst other devices were doing things (eg. the television downloading videos to play instead of being a television and using the aerial.)

What hasn't been helping is only getting at best a third of the internet speed to my Desktop PC because of the powerline adapter I am having to use till I can get Ethernet wires from the Sky hub downstairs to all the technology upstairs. I'm not sure how I am going to do that yet. An alternative is to move the Sky box upstairs, as the telephone wire goes along the wall in the BeebRoom underneath the carpet, and comes up through the floor at one point and goes out down through the floor at another point, but there isn't actually a telephone point in the BeebRoom, or anywhere upstairs, so I'm not exactly sure of the purpose of all the telephone wire! I had the idea of cutting the wire and splicing in a telephone socket box so I could plug the Sky box into it, but knowing my luck I will break the telephone line and not have the interweb at all, so I probably won't do that. Maybe. There's also a small possibility that all the wire isn't telephone wire at all, but is burglar alarm cabling, but again, it's a bit strange as it doesn't go anywhere as such.

As an interim measure, as I had already discovered that using the powerline in the BeebRoom, I can get 100% internet speed, I decided to run Ethernet cables from there into the office room where the PC is. I also remembered that I would need HDMI cable running between the two as well so I can continue doing the screen capture to the PC from the BeebRoom, so I ran the wires under the carpet, prised the carpet plate up from the BeebRoom door hole, took it under the carpet in the hall way and under the door in the office then round the back of the units to the PC.

All good, getting 100% internet speed in here now at last and also this has enabled me to do my first new BeebRoom screen capture at Station 201 which I set up last night:

What I didn't remember was that I also need a USB cable running from the BeebRoom to the office for the footpedal I use to take the screen captures, so I can have it connected to the PC but on a long USB cable so the pedal is actually underneath the machine I am recording. I don't want to take all the carpet up again, it's getting a bit raggy around the door plates now, so I'll be in dead lumber when that gets discovered, and anyway I don't think I'll be able to get another cable under the door plate, so alternative solutions are now invited!

I think I've seen a wireless system where you plug one bit into the end of the USB lead which would normally go into a computer, and then you plug a second bit into the computer USB port, and this then joins the two unconnected halves up. Is that a thing which would work in this situation?

[paulb]

Today I had so many internet problems with my PC I decided enough was enough!

I think you are at risk of becoming the modern day Jerry Pournelle. I'm not suggesting that your new residence should be called Chaos Manor, however, nor that you need to develop your science fiction writing career.

[BeebMaster]

This reminds me - I still haven't got to the bottom of what has gone wrong with the Winnie rig at Station 112! I'll have to have another go at it at the weekend.

[BeebMaster]

A bit of good news tonight... I have fixed the Winnie rig at Station 112. It didn't work with a SCSI drive connected straight to the host adapter, so I checked the 34 way ribbon cable several times and the SCSI drive eventually mounted. With the Adapter board and ST506 drive connected back again, it all works.

[growntree]

That's good to hear. Are you all set up now?

[BeebMaster]

Getting there, although I only have space for one more machine. Eventually I will extend the shorter bench hopefully to fit two more. The remaining space should be for an Archimedes really, and probably will be the RISC PC, as it's the most useful if not the most beautiful.

Tomorrow work starts on the BeebGarage, so I am hoping it will be much improved by the end of the week from this:

[davehill]

Tomorrow work starts on the BeebGarage, so I am hoping it will be much improved by the end of the week from this:

Nice benches! Perfect for BeebMaster Beeb repairs

[BeebMaster]

Unfortunately the benches are going, in fact they have already gone, as the main use of the garage when it's all insulated and dry and warm is for storage. But there will be space in the middle for a portable repair bench I think.

[gavinlew]

Today I had so many internet problems with my PC I decided enough was enough! There's something pretty odd going on, if a device is using the internet, and taking up the whole download speed, then it seems to hog the line and not let any other device get a go. I wonder if this is some feature of the Sky hub that doesn't allow multiple devices connected at once to share the speed. All very odd. At various points today I couldn't connect to the internet on my PC at all whilst other devices were doing things (eg. the television downloading videos to play instead of being a television and using the aerial.)

What hasn't been helping is only getting at best a third of the internet speed to my Desktop PC because of the powerline adapter I am having to use till I can get Ethernet wires from the Sky hub downstairs to all the technology upstairs. I'm not sure how I am going to do that yet. An alternative is to move the Sky box upstairs, as the telephone wire goes along the wall in the BeebRoom underneath the carpet, and comes up through the floor at one point and goes out down through the floor at another point, but there isn't actually a telephone point in the BeebRoom, or anywhere upstairs, so I'm not exactly sure of the purpose of all the telephone wire! I had the idea of cutting the wire and splicing in a telephone socket box so I could plug the Sky box into it, but knowing my luck I will break the telephone line and not have the interweb at all, so I probably won't do that. Maybe. There's also a small possibility that all the wire isn't telephone wire at all, but is burglar alarm cabling, but again, it's a bit strange as it doesn't go anywhere as such.

As an interim measure, as I had already discovered that using the powerline in the BeebRoom, I can get 100% internet speed, I decided to run Ethernet cables from there into the office room where the PC is. I also remembered that I would need HDMI cable running between the two as well so I can continue doing the screen capture to the PC from the BeebRoom, so I ran the wires under the carpet, prised the carpet plate up from the BeebRoom door hole, took it under the carpet in the hall way and under the door in the office then round the back of the units to the PC.

All good, getting 100% internet speed in here now at last and also this has enabled me to do my first new BeebRoom screen capture at Station 201 which I set up last night:

Screenshot 2024-03-12 22-56-56.png

What I didn't remember was that I also need a USB cable running from the BeebRoom to the office for the footpedal I use to take the screen captures, so I can have it connected to the PC but on a long USB cable so the pedal is actually underneath the machine I am recording. I don't want to take all the carpet up again, it's getting a bit raggy around the door plates now, so I'll be in dead lumber when that gets discovered, and anyway I don't think I'll be able to get another cable under the door plate, so alternative solutions are now invited!

I think I've seen a wireless system where you plug one bit into the end of the USB lead which would normally go into a computer, and then you plug a second bit into the computer USB port, and this then joins the two unconnected halves up. Is that a thing which would work in this situation?

Have a look at the TPLINK Deco mesh Wifi networks, I use these here , my Sky Hub is downstairs with a Deco attached to it, upstairs is another Deco to form the WIFI mesh, the Deco's also have LAN ports on them. More reliable than Powerline and saves having to relocate PSTN lines or run cables. ITVx is being streamed to the Sky Q box downstairs and im getting 67.20/18.47Mbps on a speedtest from the upstairs network.

[BeebMaster]

Will have a look at that if I have any more trouble; it's been a lot better since I reorganised things although I am still using the laptop a bit more than I usually would, with wifi, which I don't normally use on my machines at all. Sky is a temporary measure (though I am stuck in an 18 month contract) till I can go back to Virgin (who let me down rather badly during the house move by putting back my arranged install date by a month, potentially leaving me with no internet for 3 weeks after moving in unless I went to someone else) in which case I will have a speed at least 6 times faster, so the slowness of the powerlines shouldn't really matter any more at that point.

In tonight's exciting developments, I have filled the final pod with Station 129, my issue 2 BBC Model B, which I like to think is one of the oldest Beebs still in regular use:

[BeebMaster]

BeebGarage was finished:

and soon filled up:

The shelves have been filled now with 24 boxes from the house, which used to be in the old garage or loft, so I have still got to make room for 50-odd more boxes from storage, plus monitors, if I am to fit everything in the new garage to be able to close down the storage room!

[BeebMaster]

I was unhappy at not having any Archimedii in the new BeebRoom, so I had the second bench extended by 4ft. The idea was to replace the worktop piece with a completely new full length piece, but the workman said it wasn't possible to manoeuvre the full piece into the BeebRoom as the hallway is too narrow. So I had to have a join after all!

Now it's looking better:

From left to right:

Acorn A4 Station 44
BBC B (issue 2) Station 129 with dual floppy drives and 6502 cheese wedge
A5000 Station 50 and RISC PC 700 Station 60 sharing the monitor, but not sharing keyboard or mouse!
Master 128 (actually Master 512, but very rarely used as such) Station 201 with MOS 3.50 and quad drives, L3 RTC dongle remake and external PiTube
Pi4B Econet Bridge Station 254, running Pi Desktop so I can use it for basic modern computery tasks as the same time as being an Econet file server

There's one pod remaining to the right of the Pi which might become the "guest machine" pod I spoke of previously. First up I think I will use it for my A305 and A420/1 sharing an Acorn AKF monitor. This would complete the replication of my setup from the old BeebRoom, with the exception of Domesday II which I haven't found room for yet.