exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

PaulJ wrote: 21 Apr 2021 15:50 @rubber_jonnie , I just noticed the picture below in one of your posts. Do you see anything suspectious about this picture? For me it looks like the vicious soldering iron has put out bait. You innocently goto pickup the board up and ZAP !!! the iron will strike and who knows what damage will occur to your remaining fingers. Please exercise extreme caution Rj... you only have ten fingers.
:sigh:

MB_Underside.jpg

It wasn't bait, it was the NC100 pooping out a dead fuse :)

That iron is temporary until I get my workshop back, so I really have to keep an eye on it, as I don't know just how vicious it is yet! Soldering irons are a bit like cats, they lure you in with fluffy cuteness, then when you least expect it, bite the heck out of you!

@rubber_jonnie , just pay attention.. all those irons talk.. the one that injured you may have put a hit out on ya.:dizzy:

PaulJ wrote: 21 Apr 2021 16:07 @rubber_jonnie , just pay attention.. all those irons talk.. the one that injured you may have put a hit out on ya.:dizzy:

Well it certainly won't like being boxed up in storage right now, so I'll keep an eye open for mischief!!

Especially for you @PaulJ

I recognise the BBC...looks like the later video ULA in there as well!

My Beeb originally had the older version with the heatsink on top...but even then it would overheat during the epic Elite sessions, so I had to replace it with the newer one.

JezC wrote: 21 Apr 2021 22:24 I recognise the BBC...looks like the later video ULA in there as well!

My Beeb originally had the older version with the heatsink on top...but even then it would overheat during the epic Elite sessions, so I had to replace it with the newer one.

Sadly it doesn't power on, I just get a click from the speaker....

More to come on my BBC thread.

Oh, that's not good. That means that the sound chip isn't working at all as the initial beep is caused by it powering up in a random mode and unconfigured by the system. It could be the op-amp circuit, check the -5V. I had one of the smaller caps go in the PSU and it sent the -5V into a bad state. It could also be the ULA near the cassette port, which interfaces with the op-amp chip. Try removing it.

@rubber_jonnie , you f#$% with the bull and you get the horn! Need to be careful Jon.. you're not playing with a full hand of fingers anymore. :dizzy:

PaulJ wrote: 21 Apr 2021 23:17 @rubber_jonnie , you f#$% with the bull and you get the horn! Need to be careful Jon.. you're not playing with a full hand of fingers anymore. :dizzy:

Roger that, I've stepped away from the iron!

Well about a month ago I couldn't stand it any longer so I purchased a Mac mini with the Apple M1 ARM processor (SOC), 16 gb memory, and a TB disk. I couldn't believe the hype about the thing but it all appears to be true. It is blindingly fast... sucks the the paint off my 12 core 2012 Mac Pro and trashcan Pro, not a little faster.. it's a lot faster. Its single core performance is very good. If you're looking for a reasonably priced machine the M1 is it. And if you consider the power it's using beating up all the Intel chips it uses a maximum of 35 watts, guess it idles at 3-5watts. When I switched my electric bill went down 40+ dollars a month. It has an x86 emulator that is totally transparent and you can't tell when it's running native or emulated code unlike Java apps which make it obvious with doggy performance on Intel based machines. You can't tell this machine is running by putting your hand on it.. cool to the touch even after re-encoding a number of DVD's...


The M1 shows well against a 2019 MacPro with 28 cores and costing many times what the mini costs not to mention the power required by the 2019 required to best the Mini is at least 10 times greater.