Date : Sun, 05 Mar 2006 13:08:11 +0000
From : Fragula <fragula@...>
Subject: Re: Warning: Sad case on list!
Well Howdy Phil!
Long time no... I'd thought you'd deserted totally for the Linux camp!
Was taking your name in vain only recently, for spotting a redundant
byte in some 6502 code! (The X/Y/Zmodem thing IIRC.)
How did you find life during your visit to the colonies?
I found Cambridge fairly entertaining. But mostly due to the "canteen".
Wasn't expecting a decent diet. Just as well, never did find the curry
house, but did find Life-On-The-Street fairly interesting after 11pm,
particularly the 24hr drunken-punt-stealing brigade. Apparently
everybody could swim though, even the girls with thin
transparent-when-wet dresses, so I didn't get a chance to practice CPR
<sigh>
Phil Blundell wrote:
> I can send you a copy of the original FDFS boot disk (or, perhaps more
> conveniently, an image of it) if you need to break in to your server.
I have a "clean" duplicate (i.e. the one you sent me many years ago) at
hand, but only as a last resort, as I consider that cheating, does
nothing for the post-apocalyptic computer addict survival skills.
Its been stored safely, so should be o.k. Never needed to use it since
we first set it up. (The FDFS is still running from the same copy of the
boot disk!)
> I'm pretty sure I have a pile of spare Master Econet boards as well if
> you want one.
Ah.. I know I have a box with two, someplace<tm>. Its just figuring out
where.
Since you visited, I discovered Radio Rallies, and a couple of good boot
sales, which is how I managed to discover the art of getting up in the
morning. £50 sobs goes a /long/ way, if you are patient, sharp eyed, and
like walking around amidst hoards of sweaty radio hams.
The problem is that sometimes there were no beeb-related items, and
there were other old machines and bits that took on a sudden
irresistable aura. <sigh>
So now there are positive mountains of the stuff. I don't think the
joists will take much more, and knowing where things is (especially with
Son#3 getting involved, and putting things back in
not-quite-exactly-the-right-place, its all getting a bit mingled. I.E.
the #1 cheese-wedge box was underneath a (boxed) Amiga 500+ and another
box with a brace of Dragon 32's. When I originally stacked them, there
were whole different floor areas for:
Acorn (the largest section still, but that's mostly due to the cubs.)
U.K. Classics (Micro and Mini)
U.S. Classics (Micro and Mini)
PC/DOS classics
With the bit by the ladder reserved for ACT/Victor/Sirius stuff, which
apart from one rare all-white example (most were brown or two-tone),
which I spotted yesterday (Could have sworn I'd given it to Ron
Westerman not long before he passed away), is probably mostly all gone
now. (i.e. I think it is, but its hard to tell!
Each area is filled with stacked boxes filled with parts wrapped
seperately inside. each box is inside a bin bag to prevent dust/moisture
ingress. It took a month of weekends just to box and wrap the stuff,
which was a crisis brought on when Ron (Westerman, used to Fido)
relocated to Germany for a few years, and I had to find room for all the
stuff I had stashed out at his place (the ground floor of which was the
warehouse, and the middle floor a workshop) plus all the stuff he didn't
want to take and couldn't find other homes for, which included a literal
warehousefull of Victor 9000/ACT Sirius spares (probably all gone by
now...) Victor/Sirious was Ron's main bag, but he Acorned a little, and
I Siriused a little.
The problem is not so much having it, as locating it. What i really need
is a warehouse. One of which has been remaining just beyond the end of
my nose for about five years now.
Ahh.. One of these days I'm gonna figure out how to list stuff on Ebay
without getting distracted and buying something.
Yesterday, for example.. There was a Hybrid Music System(2000, 4000 and
5000 with all the knicknacs.) that got away (I was at Son#1's, a slowish
ADSL connection that had only been live for 7 minutes!, so couldn't get
a third sniper bid in on time. Then there was the IEEE488 adaptor which
went down for £25 due to me getting distracted with this list. :-} Ya
lose some, but win some too.
My luvverly, but now somewhat precarious, refuge, a early 80s spinny
tilty seat in black leather ("We've been expecting you, Daughter#1",
"You expect me to talk?", "No Mister Dad, I expect you to drink coffee")
decided that one of its five prematurely-health-and-safety conscious
legs was no longer suitable for supporting my moderate weight on a
Friday evening, somehow depositing me doubled up on the floor beneath
the chair, with my face pressed into the fader bank of the old studio
mixing desk i use as a keyboard support for the PC.. Perhaps fate is
telling me not to buy the 32016 wedge, or something. Certainly tells me
I should have recording CCTV in here.. Could have made a fortune
flogging the clip. <sigh> Apart from finding this list, its not being a
good weekend.
The Beeb (the same one) now has a BASIC2 chip in place, and worked for a
while, until some oxide on the legs of the DFDC decided to entertain me
by doing a very good impression of an insulator. Thats fixed now. I'm
wondering which DFS is best to use for both 80186 2p AND Econet/FDFS
compatibility.. Or maybe I'll have to use a seperate NFS? The Integra is
out at the moment, needs a battery transplant, so sadly I'm resorting to
using actual ROMs.
Anyway, as you have in the past demonstrated your general
fount-of-all-wisdomness, how fast an 80186 should I use with fairly good
quality 120nS DRAMs?
Cheers!
M.