12 Jan
2003
12 Jan
'03
12:05 p.m.
Worked on the Acorn after supper and got it working! Yippie!
At 12:59 AM 1/13/03 GMT, you wrote:
It might have but I didn't try removing the BASIC ROM and leaving in the DNFS ROM.
I was removing and replacing them in the order that they're installed in the machine.
In this one the order is (unreadable label), View, DNFS, US BASIC and an empty socket.
I guess that's what I'll do but the short ground jumper for the keyboard was
in there too :-( I found some PC screws that fit the PSU and I didn't have the main
PCB out so at least they're bolted down.
Thanks for your help and the website references. I've been finding lots of
interesting info on there. I was impressed with the Acorn's versatility and the number
of different interfaces that the Acorn has. You can even use 8" floppy drives with
it! Nothing in the US comes close AFIK. I also searched E-bay for "BBC Acorn"
and found loads of interesting goodies for it. It looks like the Acorn users are still
very active in the UK.
Joe
On Jan 12, 18:38, Joe wrote:
You bet! I saved all the messages until I could work on it.
BTW I been finding some interesting things in it. First, I was screwing around with the
keyboard and hit Shift Break and it shifted to an 80 (?) column mode and reports
"Econet Station No 1 No Clock". I looked and it does have the 68b54 ADLC IC. It
also has the 8271 Floppy Controller IC. Also I think the unmarked ROM is an AVIEW ROM. I
poped up with a message about Aview while I was testing it. Also it has a DNFS (Disc and
Network OSs?) ROM in it.
I looked at the pictures on the websites that you recommended and this Acorn is VERY
different inside than any of the ones shown on the websites. All of the ICs are arranged
completely differently and the IC numbers are different.
Well the Acorn is alive again. I finally got
around to fixing the
power supply. That also took care of the buzzing sound that was
coming from the speaker. I'm also now getting a prompt. Before the
PSU blew I was getting the ROM messages but no prompt. Now I'm
getting "Acorn OS", "Acorn DFS", "BASIC" and
">" with a blinking
underline prompt after that. However it's still not responding to
the keyboard (except for the Control-Break).
Well, that's a fair amount of progress, even without the keyboard. Do you
still have the description I wrote about how it works? Just for the hell of it I tried powering it up
with different
ROMs removed. With the "US BASIC" ROM removed it asked "What
Language?".
Of course since the keyboard wasn't working I couldn't tell it anything.
You wouldn't have been able to anyway. Without a language ROM of some
sort, it won't listen to you. unless you have a Second Processor unit
installed, and it drops to the "*" prompt.
With both the "US BASIC" and
"DNFS" ROM removed it reported "View A2.1",
"No Text", Editing No File", "Screen Mode 7", "Printer
Default" and a
"=>" prompt. Looks like I fell into some kind of monitor program.
Still can't do anything due to faulty keyboard.
That's not a monitor prompt, it's the command mode of VIEW, which is a word
processor.
This is slightly odd. View is, in Acorn OS terms, a language, equivalent
to BASIC, COMAL, LOGO, FORTH, Wordwise, or any number of terminal emulator
ROMs. So removing BASIC but leaving View and the DNFS should have resulted
in your getting the View prompt, just as it did when you took out both
BASIC and DNFS. I cleaned up before Christmas and misplaced the
bag with the screws
for it, *&^(&%%!
That's all right. No proper BBC Micro has screws, except three M3 machine
screws to hold the PSU in place, and *possibly* some mushroom-head
self-tappers to hold the PCB steady. The keyboard screws should be
replaced with PCB clips for quick access, and the case screws should be
thrown away ;-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York