Date   : Sun, 31 Jul 2005 10:30:57 +0100
From   : "BeebMaster" <beebmaster@...>
Subject: Re: Hello/Recognize this?

There's nothing wrong with the Acorn fever, we've all got it....

Talking of the Electron, does anybody know if there was an Econet
interface released, either by Acorn or a third party?

Best wishes,


Ian

----- Original Message -----
From: Dethmer Kupers
To:  <bbc-micro@...>
Sent: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 00:01:50 +0200
Subject: [BBC-Micro] Hello/Recognize this?

Hello folks,

just a (little) post to introduce myself.

My name is Dethmer Kupers, I'm from the Netherlands. Used an Electron from
(about) 84 till about 92 or 93, as a (great!) hobby. At school that time we
got 16 BBC B's to play with, so the posession of a 'real B' has been the
holy grail in my my life for the following years;)
Currently, my hobby (and now profession) led me to Delphi and of course the
PC-world.
I started with a normal Electron, but after adding some expansions during
the next years, a PC-case was needed. I've expanded the Electron with a
speedup from the Dutch 'Electuur' (electronics magazine) and an
expansionboard which contains a 1770 (although not working perfect, seems to
be a timing problem as far as i can remember, but is is usable), EPROMS (32K
EPROMS supported, so 1 eprom can contain two ROM-images at (for example)
position 0/1 or 2/3 etc), sideways ram, printer, serial and adc. It's a very
rare expansion, i've never seen or heard from it before. Also added a
powersupply from a PC to feed the expansion and the discdrive.

Pics: www.aqtion.nl/dethmer/electron_1.jpg till _4.jpg, 800x600. Big pics
(2592x1952): electron_1_big.jpg etc.

Picture 1: Electron from the front. The switches are used for en/disabling
the speedup and writeprotecting the Sideways RAM.
Picture 2: Top right the powersupply (wow, just cables lying around, did i
do that?). Bottom left a piece of the Electron, blue (under the
discdrive-housing) the speedup. Green PCB on top (under the drive-cable) is
the expansion.
Picture 3: The expansion. From left to right, bottom: the disc-logic. The
first 28p is the WD1770, then the DFS/ADFS in 1 EPROM (32K) appearing as ROM
0/1. Two empty EPROM slots (2/3 and 4/5). The Pres +1 replacement rom. 2x8K
Ram (6264). Decoding logic and fuse. Middle row: the ADC (gameport,
ADC0844), some logic for the printerport and the serial port (8533), jumpers
for the baudrate selection. Top row: ADC-connector, printerconnection, a
'general' expansion port (replication of the Electron Expansion port) and
the serial port.
Picture 4: Closeup of a piece of the speedup. It maps a piece of memory to a
6264 instead of the 'slow' default Electron RAM chips. For the 6264 the
Electron doesn't have to slow down. I'll remove the discdrive one of these
days and make a better picture of it.

I've also got the schematics for both expansions somewhere, if anyone is
interested i can put them under a scanner.

For years the Electron didn't do anything but collecting dust, but recently
i bought a default BBC B (no expansions at all). That was a stupid thing to
do, now I've got the Acorn-fever again;) Thats the reason i dug up the
Electron, after searching the net for BBC/Electron stuff.
I've equiped the BBC with a 1770 and two 3,5" drives now. More to follow i
hope (Sideways RAM, more ROM sockets and who knows what me and my soldering
iron can do, when time allows;)

See you around,

Dethmer.