Post pictures of your beeb setup

[george.h]

This one is not technically "mine" in terms of owning it, but it is mine in terms of being responsible for it. And it just makes an interesting piccy!

[Commie_User]

Whoa. What does the BBC actually do there?

[JudgeBeeb]

Whoa. What does the BBC actually do there?

That's obvious isn't it? It allows the operator to play Elite whilst waiting for the final maturation of the alien-brain chimera.

[daveejhitchins]

Love the plumbing . . .

Dave H

[JonC]

Whoa. What does the BBC actually do there?

That's obvious isn't it? It allows the operator to play Elite whilst waiting for the final maturation of the alien-brain chimera.

Ah, and there's me thinking it was a homebrew 3d Printer.

[DutchAcorn]

Ah, so that is how other ppl solve the retro-computers space issue. You simply store them at work someplace in the cellar and assign responsibility for them to one of your minions.

[george.h]

Whoa. What does the BBC actually do there?

Clever things! Allegedly!

In reality it does partial (semi-automatic) control of a chemical production process - when not being used to play Elite! It even has an internal DataCentre fitted! Not all of the other equipment involved is shown as it is stored to keep it ultra-clean when not in use.

[JonC]

Hmm,

Now where did I put my A5000, it's around here somewhere.

It's eventual home when I get it fixed.

[TopBanana]

This one is not technically "mine" in terms of owning it, but it is mine in terms of being responsible for it. And it just makes an interesting piccy!

BBC In Control.jpg

Are you in Breaking Bad George ?

[trixster]

Here's my setup, relegated into one small corner of the loft!

Currently it consists of:

BBC B iss 4: ifel rom/ram board, WE 32k ramcard, RPi2 CoPro, Viglen 5 1/4 drive, TurboMMC. Connected to the left monitor via a gbs8200.

BBC B iss 7 in a soldisk (I think) case with 2x 5 1/4 floppies. I have a matchbox copro to go in here when I fix the psu.

RPi2 running Jessie on the right hand monitor

Amiga 1200: Blizzard 1260 68060 at 80mhz, 128MB ram, idefix express with 2x 8gb cf cards, indivision AGA II on the middle monitor which is a dell 2001fp.

Amiga 500 with 512kb upgrade connected to the dell.

Acorn A3020 with 4mb and an Ethernet mini-podule connected to the left monitor.

C64 with 1541 floppy drive, sd2iec and fastloader cart connected via s-video to the dell.

Old Opteron pc with windows 10.

[Lardo Boffin]

Here is a photo of my very modest set up.

It is rather dark as I took the photo on my phone and it could either focus on the screen or the background but not both!

I have a model B with an internal datacentre from Retroclinic (hence the USB sticks), sideways RAM / ROM board and matchbox co-processor. Next to it is my Opus Challenger 3 with 512k that is now no longer used (due to the datacentre). And on top of that is an acorn cassette player! My cub 653 monitor has sadly developed beer-vision hence the temporary Tv solution.
The double disc drive was mainly bought as a monitor stand although it does get occasional use. The transformed is very buzzy and irritating though.

To the right is a 10 year old iMac used mainly for emulating an Apple iiE. Seems a fair usage!

Just visible on the left is a Spectrum 128k 'toastrack' (wonderful on cool winter nights). Plugged into its back is a DIVMMC SD card reader and kempston joystick interface (kempston competition pro joystick near by). On top of it are the instructions for Bards Tale.

Not visible is a Beeb that is packed up and ready to ship. I recently tried to rehome it on eBay but no one wanted to adopt it. Guess it must have been a 'lol price!' Seemed reasonable to me for what it is but there you go. I may just have to keep it.

Also not visible is a ZX81 with a ZXpand (awesome) and a rubber key Spectrum 48k.

Also off photo is a shelf full of books and several drawers full of games and 'bits' (Roms and a no longer used TurboMMC - again down to the datacentre).

Slightly lighter photo...

Lardo

[george.h]

This one is not technically "mine" in terms of owning it, but it is mine in terms of being responsible for it. And it just makes an interesting piccy!

BBC In Control.jpg

Are you in Breaking Bad George ?

Dear Top, all requests for quotes on product must be taken off line... LOL

How big do you want your rocks?

[Jeremy Grayson]

My modest offering to this thread, including one picture that inexplicably turned out like the cover of a shoegaze album:

gc

[JonC]

The last one looks like it's inside a washing machine on spin cycle!

[Commie_User]

A great period theme to the room. Not retro, which is typically exaggerated but nicely ordinary.

Can we have a clearer pic, as I think it may sum up our very existences.

[george.h]

BigEd has asked if I could post some pics of the other BBC B in use at work.... And here they are! Not very spectacular ones these but there are of of a Beeb earning it's keep, and looks it

Bit of background:

The first BBC setup, featured in my "Breaking Bad - Behind the Scenes" post posting.php?mode=reply&f=41&t=8148#pr148679 is used to control a photo-chemical production process - which is about all I can say about it with having a price put on my head by our Chairman.

The second BBC setup (featured here in "OMG! Who the hell built that?") is, or rather was until only a short while ago, used to make the masters for one of our hologram roducts (a multi-channel reflection stereogram). It's role was controlling the many exposures required for each master involving moving slits, advancing 70mm cine film, controlling laser shutters etc.

The are only a few pics of the part of the optical setup I'm afraid, partly because again I wish to live (!) but also because I never actually took any of the full setup before it was dismantled. The BBC and all the associated motion control stuff (stepper drivers etc) are now up in our Leeds outpost, being used to help develop another completely different optical system.

I wish to state for the record that I had nothing what so ever to do with construction of the horror story in the second pic. I merely inherited East London's version of "Old Sparky!"....

A BBC hard at work!

Don't ask! More important - DON'T TOUCH!

BBC Controlled 70mm Film Projector

On the bench being repaired.

Under it's skirt!

[BigEd]

That's great! The box on the left of the Beeb is presumably some kind of I/O interfacey thing connected to the user port, or 1MHz bus, or similar?

[george.h]

Hi Ed,

The monstrosity in pic 2 ("Old Sparky!") controls a one stepper motor plus the laser shutter. The much smaller (and less "lethal") black box beside the monitor controls the other main stepper motor. Inside the black box is little different to what is in the other one (same very basic RS stepper driver plus power supply) just built with at least some semblance of safety. Everything is connected to the user port via Old Sparky.

The small black "box" on top of the bigger black box is the case for my camera!

One additional function of Old Sparky is for one bit on the user port to control the mains power to both stepper drivers. This allows power to the steppers to be cut after they finished moving. Back in the dim and distant past somebody was not happy (I wasn't involved then) about the self heating of the motors while stationary. So under software control the power to them is only switched on just prior to any action, then switched off again afterwards. It isn't what you would call anything like precision stuff, and everything happily stays where it is without holding torque.

One good thing about this particular stepper "setup" is that it demonstrate a great many ways of how NOT to do things

[Commie_User]

I'm staggered this ancient, general purpose blocky-graphic micro - boxed only in plastic - still toils for real business purpose today.

All the way here in 2016.

[george.h]

I'm staggered this ancient, general purpose blocky-graphic micro - boxed only in plastic - still toils for real business purpose today.

All the way here in 2016.

Part of a secret trial of advanced government policies on changes to the state retirement age. We're next!

[poink]

I'm staggered this ancient, general purpose blocky-graphic micro - boxed only in plastic - still toils for real business purpose today.

There's very little that's as accessible for hardware control than a 1980s micro - Beeb is particularly well served; the C64 has a user port (very similar to the Beeb's) - but the Beeb also has a parallel port (IIRC, a further 9 digital outputs and 1 input).

The closest today, that's easy to get hold of, is probably something like an Arduino or parallel ports (probably on Linux[1]). Neither of which is quite as accessible as a couple of lines of BASIC, and neither of which has the degree of immediately available documentation encouraging experimentation.

[1] Because it comes with the driver to allow general manipulation.

[denni505]

This is mine a bit of a mess has am sorting some floppy out
Master 128 with sprows ethernet card
Eprom programmer printer works

[Jeremy Grayson]

The last one looks like it's inside a washing machine on spin cycle!

On one of my migraine days, it actually looks like that to me...

gc

[Jeremy Grayson]

A great period theme to the room. Not retro, which is typically exaggerated but nicely ordinary.

Can we have a clearer pic, as I think it may sum up our very existences.

There's stuff from all sorts of eras in there. The wall-mounted shelves were actually bought by the metre when Scarborough public library decided thirteen years ago that beautiful original-fitting oak shelving from the 1920s didn't offer the versatility of free-standing, shorter metal units, and sold off the former to make way for the latter. Hmmm. Ah well, I love them dearly, and they're well worth the enormous effort to (re)assemble whenever I move house, which hopefully isn't going to be for a while again.

The black unit full of Micros and disk drives is early-1990s Habitat, and probably shows. The white drawers are salvaged from a dresser mum and dad had had since at least the early 1970s, and that probably shows as well The little white telly is a b&w of 1970s vintage and was the first one I ever had in my own bedroom a decade later. Still gives a razer-sharp picture when used as a Beeb monitor, and I suspect it'll be this that I bring to Abug a fortnight hence.

gc

[Commie_User]

Well, that's the basis of authentic period - things of various ages, collected through the years.

I'd pick that as pop culture exhibit over something so stereotypically, overdone 80s, which fewer people had. BBC TV's Electric Dreams or Back In Time For Dinner, for example.

[kieranhj]

I could have posted this in "Today I received..." a nice glass topped desk from Habitat to host my Acorn collection. Shame the A3020 is just a shell without any innards - the motherboard is out of shot waiting to be plumbed back in (assuming I can remember the order of screws..)

I also have a cheeky PSOne mini so I can play Point Blank on the CRT with an actual light gun. Bliss!

[Zarchos]

You know I'm half crazy, but is it the good half ?

I thought for posterity, I should post a picture of my Archies setup ... well in fact one fifth of it, since I've got 4 other rooms very similar to this one.

If one day I've got some children, I think I'll never be able to shout to them 'Tidy up your bedroom' without bursting out laughing.

Get ready, shocking material follows ....
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And now you can show this to your Mrs next time she shouts at you for all your useless retrostuff everywhere in your home !
(Hers, in fact. It always becomes 'hers' once she's invaded your place. Ah ah !).

[flaxcottage]

What a fantastically sized man cave!

And you have 4 more rooms like that?!!?

Monsieur, you have a compulsive collecting problem even worse than mine.

[Zarchos]

What a fantastically sized man cave!

And you have 4 more rooms like that?!!?

Monsieur, you have a compulsive collecting problem even worse than mine.

To be honest I also have another house crammed with retro stuff ... but I'm not exactly proud of this state of things ... I recently questioned my sanity and came to the conclusion there's definitely sthing weird with me.
But as you say in English 'Apples don't fall far from the tree', and yes I'm my father's son, so this can explain that.

Full therapy is on my 'to do list' and here I'm very serious.
What I can say is that my museum should be a great one ...

[davidb]

To be honest I also have another house crammed with retro stuff ...

and ...

What I can say is that my museum should be a great one ...

I think you're onto something there. Put those two things together and voilà: one museum full of old computers and one "normal" house.