Hello,

This is a bit of a long shot, but I've been a fan of Acorn hardware for
ages and I was wondering if anyone had an old System One or spare boards
or parts knocking around and in need of a good home? Please let me know!

Thanks,

Philip.

On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:04:19 +0000, Philip Plant wrote:


*cough*

Actually, having said that, they do seem a little more common that later
System machines - possibly because the latter don't get rescued as
comparatively few people know what they are (whereas System Ones tended to
have been privately owned and subsequently get passed around between
collectors and enthusiasts)



I did wonder how difficult it'd be to produce a modern equivalent in the
spirit of the original. In other words, source a suitable keypad, use a
bunch of LED starburst modules, 6502 and related parts from a scrap BBC
etc. (yes, something like a FPGA could be used no doubt, but that's hardly
"spirit of the original"!)

A slightly newer SRAM chip could replace the 2114s in the original, and an
8kbit ROM or something to replace the original ROM...

cheers

Jules

"Jules" <julesrichardsonuk@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
newsan.2006.09.25.15.30.41.87048@remove.this.yah oo.co.uk...


A bloke at work collects antique radios.

More the mahogany case era than bakelite era, and so they have some
intrinsic beauty from their cases alone.

I asked if he restored them he said no because by the time you do, it is
less of the original machine anymore.

It is arguable either way: either you have the complete original which
doesn't work (and is in practical terms junk), or you have something working
but diluted.


Personally I'm place little value on the original parts because they are not
intrinsically valuable. If they have a rarity value, it is because they are
no longer worth making.

I think the "spirit of the original" was to have a gadget that could do
something useful or be educational to a hobbyist.

If an original machine had shortcomings and becomes unreliable with age, I
have no regrets donating it to you replacing it with a modern clone in FPGA.
Eventually, all original machines will stop working, and the only way future
generations can experience them will be through software emulators or
hardware clones.

In fact, I've had more fun creating and extending FPGA clones than I ever
had with the originals! :-)

Right now I'm working on an Atari STe clone project - the chipset has been
cloned and I'm now trying to bind them into a single system chip...

Which reminds me I should get back to it now..

K.

On Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:17:19 +0000, Kryten wrote:


Oh, I agree - I dislike that sort of "restoration". In the case of the
System One though I'd be more interested in something that was a total
made-from-scratch item but still kept as many of the things that were
interesting about the original (glowing LED displays, the 6502 CPU, System
bus, nasty keypad etc.)


Actually, most of the time it's possible to restore something back to
functional condition; for anything electrical/electronic this side of
(say) 1920, working parts are usually obtainable (even if they have to be
taken from one or more basket-case units). It's the restoration of the
cosmetic side that often couldn't be achieved without reproduction bits.


I'm sure it was at the time! I suppose it's something that, now,
different people look upon differently though. I rather like glowing LED
displays and chips that need a little encouragment to work sometimes, and
run far too hot and use silly amounts of power :-) There's something nice
about belts-and-braces technology that, although it needs a little
tinkering sometimes, is otherwise built to last and can be understood
entirely with only a little knowledge.


Oh, sure. I suspect most 80's hardware can't be kept running past another
50 years or so - beyond that natural chip decay will kill them and any
spares stock. But in the meantime it'll be far easier to source the sort
of commodity components used in 80's and earlier hardware than it will the
custom (and typically totally undocumented) parts used in more modern
equipment.

It's something of an interesting problem for any technology museum.
Looking ahead, it's going to be very hard to maintain the current
generation of products except as static exhibits, whereas older items tend
to be more understandable, have a better spares supply, and be much
better documented - plus they're often of a much higher quality such that
they require less *complex* maintenance in the long term.


I can definitely understand that; I suppose I get a similar buzz from
coaxing some ancient bit of kit back into life :-) There is an issue with
modern recreations of original equipment though in that it only tends to
recreate the operation of the original at some low level; you miss out on
the look or smell or sound of the original somehow.




Far as I know the Colossus guys are making progress in documenting
everything by the way, so you may well get a chance to do an FPGA Colossus
one day...

cheers

Jules

"Jules" <julesrichardsonuk@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
newsan.2006.09.27.16.50.04.846692@remove.this.ya hoo.co.uk...


It is on my to-do list.

I have a suspicion that it is essentially just a very simple bit-stream
cross correlator and a counter to record a figure of merit.

An impressive machine made from valve technology, but it could probably be
done with a handful of logic chips these days.

Though if they said so, maybe fewer visitors would be awestruck by the
Colossus exhibit.

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 18:10:20 +0000, Kryten wrote:


I know


Oh sure. Although up until the mid-90s or so, it was still faster at the
job it did than a modern (for the time) PC, which was a nice demo of the
fact that modern commodity computers aren't always the answer to
everything (building a custom bit of hardware from a FPGA to do the task
is a different matter :-)


I doubt it, actually - most visitors seem to come for the sheer size of
the beast, or to see the obviously huge amount of work that's gone into it
(and hence the originals), for the heat of all those glowing valves, the
constant clicking of the relays and selectors, the noise and sight of the
tape system whirring round etc.

What the machine actually *does* is only a tiny part of the attraction for
most people - which is why we have a duty to keep any of the original
equipment running as long as possible.

cheers

Jules

On 27 Sep 2006 Jules <julesrichardsonuk@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I find it really ironic that in 100 years times, probably none of the
original 8bit, 16bit or early 32bit microprocessor systems will be working
due to leaching of the doping in silcon chips, which renders the gates
inoperable after more than 50 years. However its quite likely that 150 year
old valve systems will still operate.

But then again there are parallels with printing. Ancient texts printed on
parchment can last a thousand years, but modern paper will have yellowed and
turned to dust in a couple of hundred years.

In the digital domain, so much information is going to be lost, even if its
continualy copied from old to new storage media to avoid degredation and
physical incompatibility (remember nothing will have a floppy disc very
soon), you'll find that you can no longer run some proprietary program to
access the data. Just doing a backup on the Iyonix last night I noticed a
the names of some video clips, and their no longer play because the codec
hasn't been ported to 32bit and may or may not run under Aemular.

---druck

--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
The 32bit Conversions Page - http://www.quantumsoft.co.uk/druck/

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 17:46:52 +0100, druck wrote:


Indeed - as civilisation progresses there seems to be a trend toward
ever-more-omplex, shorter-term solutions to problems, rather than ones
that are simpler but longer-lasting and easier to maintain without
specialist training.

In the case of the silicon/valve example, you could just as easily draw a
parallel between earlier mechanical and later valve systems - the latter
requiring knowledge that far fewer people possess at both manufacturing
and maintenance stages.

I suppose the upshot of that is that any device should be as simple as
possible provided that it gets the job done - but sadly that often isn't
the case these days.


Absolutely. At the very least, people should be using openly-documented
data formats rather than proprietary ones, and ideally should be including
that documentation alongside backups of their data so that there's always
going to be a way of getting the 'raw' data back again. Of course then
there's the issue of where you document the backup format used :-)

cheers

Jules

In article <zNgSg.42218$wo3.9659@newsfe7-gui.ntli.net>, Kryten
<kryten_droid_obfusticator@ntlworld.com> wrote:

[Snip]


[Snip]


[Snip]

As an electronics/radio/computer 'hobbyist' for over 60 years I
have a large collection of components which I am now very
unlikely to need. I really don't want to throw the lot into a
skip and wonder whether they might be of use to any contributor
to this interesting thread? I could give some information about
these components but really I don't want to have to do too much
picking and choosing; I would rather someone takes the lot for
the cost of transport. Email me if interested at the address
below.

Brian.

--
__________________________________________________ ____________

Brian Carroll, Ripon, North Yorkshire, UK bric at f2s dot com
__________________________________________________ ____________

"Brian Carroll" <bric-nospam@argonet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4e6d9c23fcbric-nospam@argonet.co.uk...


Well, it would be nice if there was some kind of antique component-store
museum were you could donate/request such stuff. Maybe even at antique
prices like six shillings for a triode valve, and a gruff old codger with a
moustache mumbling about there being a war on.

Jules - I think that's an idea for Bletchley Park eh?

It depends on what components you have. A box of dried up electrolytic
capacitors is of little value, but valves in mint condition may be just the
thing for people like my workmate looking to restore a radio with authentic
parts.