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Binary Dinosaurs

@binarydinosaurs.co.uk

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Collecting, repairing and preserving vintage machines since 1998. W: https://binarydinosaurs.co.uk F: https://Facebook.com/binarydinosaurs M: @binarydinosaurs.oldbytes.space Favourite COBOL: https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/cblgold.htm

binarydinosaurs.co.uk

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 15h

Aside from The Adventure Game stuff they’re also similar to the pieces in Qwirkle, a matching shapes game.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 1d

Success with the Acorn A3000 and seeing an R140 working yesterday at the museum made me try powering mine up. Yesterday I tested the PSU and today tested the power rails.

Honking great tantrum on the 12v rail was shorted so I swapped it for a less explodey one and…

…it worked!

For 5 mins.

Overview of the Acorn R140 RiscIX machine showing the board on the left with the PSU in the middle showing power was on thanks to my light bulb load. The monitor on the right shows the supervisor prompt so IT’S WORKING!

Only now it isn’t 😆 Time to get the scope on the various busses tomorrow.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 1d

That's...different. I watched a 'history of the Buggles' thing on the youtubes recently and it mentioned this but didn't play any snippets. I don't think it would've lodged in my head quite the same way the later version did.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

🎶Twenty pints of Boddingtons every friday night.
Twenty pints of Boddingtons then we're outside for a fight🎵

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

Aye. I always make sure I've got the Special Black SCSI Terminator kicking around in case I ever fancy powering it up with external devices.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

I'm going to be singing Macc Lads tunes for the rest of the evening.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

Iain's a good lad, well into his retro stuff so we like him a lot.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

It's nice to see one powered up! Mine's been dead for so long I can't remember if it ever worked when I got it or if I thieved a PSU from one of my other IIs.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

Ah splendid, so there's hope for the cask version then.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 2d

Where's it being brewed now? Presumably Inbev like every other bloody thing. Sucked the life out of Broon Ale, they have.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

Coffee and currently deciding what to take to the 2nd Computer Club at @computinghistory.org.uk. No idea what to expect, might just be me and Will poring over a working Acorn R140. Perhaps I should take my Schrödinger one 😄

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

Barnsley grownups shove it in,
A gut stuffed full of gelatin.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

Rex is indeed a great game, probably the last one I was playing before I moved to Amiga.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

Moving quickly on to the Mac 512k which just needed a new RIFA, a clean and a few component reseats. Now where did I put my System 1 disk…

Pic of the front of a Mac M0001 512k edition, powered up waiting for a boot disk.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

1983, yes, the Dragon 32.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

*snort* 😆

Reposted by Binary Dinosaurs

Nanoraptor @nanoraptor.danamania.com · 4d

BBC Model Linear B

A picture of a very old BBC Microcomputer sporting a keyboard with markings in Linear B.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

That would be splendid if you did, a nice bit of provenance.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 3d

😆

Tsk.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 4d

I’m calling that a win. Your next challenge is to try and work out where this machine came from originally 😆

Overall picture of an Acorn A3000, still marked as ‘British Broadcasting Corporation’. It’s also stamped as belonging to Adran Addysg Dyfed Education Department.

It needs a clean, but that can wait. I have a RetroFest to prepare for.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 4d

New cable made of win (and cable) so let’s plug in the keyboard to test my trace repair and socket replacement.

Splendid. Time for a Gotek full of disk images perhaps. Keyboard is desperately in need of a clean but that can wait.

Screenshot of RiscOS2 with the HELP MODULES command results. Keyboard is good!

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 4d

Acorn A3000 is getting there. Last night was 'test the floppy drive' so I gave it a little servicing and by and large, nothing happened. 'Drive empty' said RiscOS. Discovered the battery leak had destroyed the cable internally so I thieved one from my R140.

It works! Time to make a new cable...

Overhead view of the internals of the A3000 now that it's largely reassembled. You can see the recently replaced RiscOS2 ROM chips to the left in a stack, the RAM sticking up vertically in the middle, MIDI/User Port board to the upper left and floppy drive on the upper right. White/black wires power the speakers and the red/white cable is for the floppy. There are stickers on top of the major chips where I noted the pinouts for various functions.

Screenshot of the first successful floppy format under RiscOS2 showing 800k formatted and two bad blocks mapped out. I'm amazed this worked actually, given the state of the floppy drive.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 4d

Equally fun fact - QLs themselves never got VARTA boardkillers, but when Sinclair gave up in 1986 a little Cambridge company called CST bought the remaining QL boards and produced a massively expanded machine called the Thor. Which had a boardkiller in. Fortunately I saved mine back in 2016.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 4d

I’d never played them, but last Xmas Steam had both of them on offer so I grabbed them and played both all the way through. Gave meself carpal tunnel so now I have to use an upright mouse for work and my Mac’s trackpad is now left hand only 😆

Bloody good fun though.

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 5d

I haven’t yet, it’s been on my list of things to watch all week. I do like his excited face on the thumbnail though 😁