Date   : Fri, 09 Jul 2004 11:23:44 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Atomness (Was: Re: BBC Spares)

On Fri, 2004-07-09 at 08:14, Chris Richardson wrote:
> Hi All
> Pete Turnbull mentioned about small screws for the BBC motherboard. I have a
> large selection of rescued bits collected over many years. I have a box of
> those screws and washers. Free to anyone that asks

If you have six Atom case screws they'd be much appreciated! I've got
one machine that's viable as an as-new Atom and another two that could
be made to work but have tatty cases (and are currently missing half of
their chips). None of them have any case screws though - and unlike
BBCs, Atoms fall apart too easily without the screws :-)

This may be off-topic (one of my Atoms does have the BBC Basic board
though! :) but...

I asked this on the Acorn hardware group but got no reply. Anyone know
what the differences are between the Atom issues? The museum has an Atom
with a broken key which is in excellent condition otherwise. That's an
issue 3; the two spare tatty machines are issue 4's. Only way to replace
a key seems to be to desolder the *entire* keyboard - so unless an issue
3 is historically more valuable than an issue 4, it might be easier for
me to do a complete board swap to get a working museum machine in a
decent case.

Couple of Atom questions:

a) Did Acorn sell power supplies for Atoms, or were you expected to find
your own? I've never actually seen one!

b) Were expansion bus connectors an optional cost extra? They don't seem
to be present on most Atoms, any I'm not sure why not.

c) Anyone got an original Atom box or a photo? One of these Atoms is
boxed, and the polystyrene bits inside certainly seem to be intended for
the Atom. It's a plain cardboard box though, with a large sticker on the
front which is unfortunately ripped. Writing I can make out:

  Introductory Package
  8K + 5K ACO...
  Plus Four Introductory Cas...

Seems like it is a proper Atom box. I'm more curious as to whether it
had a colourful outer sleeve at one time or whether Acorn weren't into
doing that back in the early days...

cheers

Jules