Acorn RiscPC 600 (OT - only 5 years old) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

11 May 1999

On May 11, 22:04, Pete Joules wrote:
...
  Subject: Acorn RiscPC 600 (OT - only 5 years old)
 Sorry for the post about a machine too young for the list but it is the
 first of its kind in my collection.  The chips seem to be from 1994 and the
...
  RiscOS (v3) splash screen also says 1994.

 This machine came to me as a box only having been an insurance write off
 because it jumped downstairs but there only seemms to superficial damage.
 It boots OK but the mouse which appears to be necessary in order to use the
...
  OS is missing and appears to have a proprietary
connector.  Can anyone tell
...
  me either if the mice are available? 
It should be a 9-pin miniDIN, it's a proprietary mouse.  The original one
for a machine of that vintage was a badged Logitech OEM mouse, but any
mouse that outputs raw quadrature signals (fours signals for X0,X1, Y0, Y1)
and three buttons (left, middle, right) will do.  CPC
(http://www.cpc.co.uk/home.htm) sell Archimedes-compatible mice, as do
several Acorn dealers.

...
  Alternatively is it possible either to
 persuade it to work with a serial mouse  or to wire in a PS/2 socket in
 place of the original one so that I can use a PS/2 mouse? 
HENSA have some software packages that allow you to use a serial mouse on
the serial port (http://micros.hensa.ac.uk/platforms/riscos.html).  You
can't use a PS/2 mouse directly.

...
  it seems to have 4M of  RAM as 1 72 pin SIMM and 1
other memory board which
...
  looks like a miniature DIMM.  It also has a HDD with
59 Mb used and 159Mb
 free so it must be about 220Mb altogether, this make windows look a bit
 bloated as there appear to be some apps there as well - it also seems to
 boot very fast compared with modern machines. 
Minimum sensible RAM is 4M, but it will hold up to 256MB, in 72-pin fast
page mode SIMMs (it doesn't need parity, but parity SIMMs will work), 70ns
or faster.

The other memory board is dual-ported VRAM for faster video access.  Not
essential.

...
  Does anyone know what processor it has and how fast it
is? 
Originally, an Arm 610 on a daughter board.  A 710 or 810 or StrongARM will
also work.  Many people bought upgrades when they came out, so you often
see 610s or 710s for sale for ten quid or less.  Or ask on one of the acorn
newsgroups; they're common enough and cheap enough that people often din't
bother to advertise them, and still have them lying around.

There's a fairly good Acorn FAQ which you can get from the usual sources,
and is posted to the Acorn newsgouops (comp.sys.acorn.*) regularly.

You really don't want this machine.  I suggest you parcel it up and send it
to me :-)

-- 

Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Dept. of Computer Science
						University of York