General Stuff(tm)

[stephen_usher]

Well, the rotary encoder finally turned up today.

Other than having to clear a couple of hole, soldering a header and increasing the size of the hole in the case from 6mm to 8mm it was plain sailing to fit.

Anyway it's done now and doesn't look too bad.

IMG_2405.jpg (46.47 KiB) Viewed 2706 times

So, after testing that, it's back to the 520STM.

I've got the SD2SCSI virtual Quantum Prodrive 105S reformatted and the ICD hard disk driver installed. Partitioned into three and converted the last partition into a Mac one for Spectre GCR. Got Spectre configured and System 6.0.3 on the drive.

I know people will ask awkward questions about the Third Coast Technologies FaST hard disk unit as I currently have an old CDROM drive in there merely to block the hole in the front.

IMG_2406.jpg (60.66 KiB) Viewed 2706 times

I still need to load a few application on the ST side which will run in mono mode and some others on the Mac side as the machine will be connected to my SM124 for the display.

[JezC]

I know people will ask awkward questions about the Third Coast Technologies FaST hard disk unit as I currently have an old CDROM drive in there merely to block the hole in the front.

My first hard drive for my ST was a TCT one...and like you it currently sports a CD-ROM to fill the 5.25" cut-out in the front panel (but it's SCSI and has the hard drive inside, so it's not purely cosmetic)

[stephen_usher]

More work on the exhibit tonight, but mainly on the Mac side of things. In preparation I'm duplicating Mac install disks to Spectre format ones. The more duplicates the better for safe keeping.

IMG_2409.jpg (70.71 KiB) Viewed 2679 times

[stephen_usher]

A true Jackintosh.

IMG_2410.jpg (208.79 KiB) Viewed 2668 times

[stephen_usher]

This morning I watched the first two episodes of the Asimov "Foundation" series now playing on Apple TV+.

It's very well done.

The designs of the ships are highly influenced by the 1970s artwork often seen on the novels too.

My only quibble so far is that the small number of "love scenes", which are in no way explicit, go on too long. They could be cut to a third of their length and still had the same impact. I kept thinking, "OK, you've made your point now. Move on."

[rubber_jonnie]

This morning I watched the first two episodes of the Asimov "Foundation" series now playing on Apple TV+.

It's very well done.

The designs of the ships are highly influenced by the 1970s artwork often seen on the novels too.

My only quibble so far is that the small number of "love scenes", which are in no way explicit, go on too long. They could be cut to a third of their length and still had the same impact. I kept thinking, "OK, you've made your point now. Move on."

I loved the Foundation series of books when I was younger, might use it as an excuse to try Apple TV

[stephen_usher]

This afternoon I did another photo shoot for the RMC charity calendar (retro computers behaving badly).

I took the Apricot F2 into the library at work and set up a few books around it. It was easy to get an error on the screen by putting an old Atari formatted disk in there. When it tries to boot it'll give error 99.

I took quite a few picture but many were focused upon the wrong point. Still, one picture came out nicely:

DSC_6037.jpg (43.02 KiB) Viewed 2619 times

It has shown that I will have to clean the top floppy drive heads. The drive runs continuously as long as there's a disk in the drive. After the 20 minutes or so that the session took I discovered that the surface on the floppy had been completely worn away!

Anyway, on other matters, once I got home I boxed up the 520STM, SF314 etc. and moved them to the staging area in the living room ready for the festival in a fortnight. The F2 and Apricot monitor are staying there too.

This has freed up the tablefor the soldering up of the Mk.II Apricot memory board.

[stephen_usher]

Following yesterday's upload of the CPU relocator/switcher ROM board to Github I've been uploading some more stuff and tidying up a bit.

The latest upload is a project I finished today after about 18 months, the vDrive sound board. This sits inside either the vDrive ZX or vDriveQL Sinclair Microdrive emulator and plays a recording of a real Microdrive whenever the drive is active, using the LED voltage to switch a transistor to power the microcontroller. The microcontroller automatically starts playing as soon as it's powered up.

My first version, built in April last year, was done using Vero board and a socket. Today I finally got around to creating a PCB and sending it off to PCBWay for manufacture. Hopefully the boards will arrive in time for me to make a few up for the retro computer festival and fit one into my vDriveQL. (The first is in my vDriveZX.)

[stephen_usher]

It's been a busy week at work so I've been too shattered to even look at the retro stuff for the festival in a week's time.

Today I've been distracted by the MiSTer project. I've got myself a DE10 and have been playing about with it. It's interesting if limited if you don't have the extra SDRAM module.

Anyway, I'm back to the retro stuff this evening as I only have a few days/evenings left. I'm cataloging the QL's microdrive images which I have on the vDrive SD card this evening I've also verified that my second LCD TV is still working, so that's a bonus. I'll have to pop into work and borrow a couple of large 8 way power socket extensions to take with me.

I think tomorrow I'll be bringing the Memotech MTX machines down from the loft and verifying that the MTX500 still works OK and find a way to keep the polystyrene box inserts for the MTX512 together as I don't have a box for that.

Then it's going to be back to the Apricot, making usable disk images for the display rather than the ramshakle test ones I have at the moment.

[sporniket]

Today I've been distracted by the MiSTer project. I've got myself a DE10 and have been playing about with it. It's interesting if limited if you don't have the extra SDRAM module.

Yes, that's exactly how I dived into the H5, the initial investment is lighter (at first ), plus the fun of soldering things.