Date   : Thu, 28 Jul 2005 09:19:50 +0100
From   : Rob <robert@...>
Subject: Re: TorchNET

At 00:58 28/07/2005, Jules Richardson wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 00:39 +0100, Rob wrote:
> >
> > I've got a "Torch 68000 hard disc" machine...  BBC B, 68000 co-processor,
>
>I really don't need another one :-)
>Hmm, you don't have Unix install media for it do you? (it's not actually
>clear whether Torch ever released Unix for these - they did for the much
>nicer 725 machine, which was basically the same hardware but with a SCSI
>rather than SASI controller)

I'm afraid not; no media at all in fact.  The HDD did have a lot of CPN 
stuff on it though (or what looked like CPN anyway); I never really played 
much with it - if it had run a unix-like OS then I might have done more..


>I've got schematics for both flavours of Torch 68K boards by the way
>(and the SASI controller), in case anyone wants to take this machine on
>to fix it and needs copies. I think I might even have a service manual
>somewhere... and probably the BBC-side hard disk formatter for them...

I suspect it's possibly just a loose/dirty board/connection issue rather 
than anything more deep; it was working as recently as early 2003 but with 
the occasional intermittent fail to boot up.  The next time I tried it was 
late last year, after it'd been moved around the house a few times, and 
then didn't boot up at all.  (Powered up, but had trouble with the hdd, I 
think -=- memory is a bit fuzzy.)  I didn't have time to do more than a 
quick test before it ended up in the cupboard it was being moved to..

Rob