Date : Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:14:47 -0000
From : "Mike" <profpep@...>
Subject: Re: Warning: Sad case on list!
>
> Think we've been through the SCSI side of things on this list a few times
in
> the past and I can never remember the exact ins and outs, other than it
> probably won't work without modifying ROM code, and even then you need a
drive
> that'll handle 256 byte sectors - which isn't many of them.
Need to become a master of Mode_Sense-Fu. I managed to persuade a 5.25
Seagate 80 Meg to run on my BBC. Still using it. I did it with the BBC
command stuff : equal volumes of coffee and tears as I rememeber. I think a
lot of the IBM (now Hitachi) SCSI drives will work too, (they're into
backward compatability - you can link a lot of them for 4G limit I think).
>
> Well this was Mikes (as in profpep's) baby, not mine - he mentioned on
here
> that he had 8 beebs hooked together once rendering fractals on one screen.
> Strikes me that it'd make quite a cool retro display in its own right, and
> it's not like there are a shortage of BBC micros about!
>
I did admit to being a sad case.... I think I was embroied in Julia sets or
Pickover fractals, and needed lots of ops. I did learn a lot about how not
to do clustering.... Machhine number one always got the most work, none of
this fancy load balancing stuff. BTW Jules, I did fnid a few more pages of
scribble that look something like the link drawings
> > Its not fast though. Summit like 6 hours per screen
Luxury! Some of mine ran two days. I did a 'dump to / resume from' disc
routine in case of crashes, though that was more a workaround for the Feline
Foot Interrupt hazard, (cats like warm places to curl up in.... ).
> Hmm... probably need something that'll run in about 2 hours or so I
suppose,
> so that it'll do several passes each day and visitors can come back to it
and
> see how it's doing. Of course with several beebs it should go pretty
well...
Did you ever see 'PsycheBrot', done as a charity fund raiser? (I'll try and
find the guys name, I think he was called Chris Reynolds), fabulous
animated Mandelbrots: a small programming masterpiece. I may even still
have a copy and I think the 'Donations to Mind' caveat will still hold. We
used it at some small raves, with a job lot of cheapo tele's from repo TV,
all running the same picture from a bbc into an aerial amp. Prog was burned
into a ROM under ROMFS and set to auto boot. I've still got the machine
here, and it still runs!
> Acorn Z80
> Acorn 6502
> Acorn 32016 (256KB/1MB)
> Acorn 32016 ('large' - 4MB)
> Acorn 32016 (Master Scientific)
> Acorn 80186 (Master 512)
> Acorn 80286 (ABC 3xx)
> Acorn 65C102 (Master Turbo)
> Acorn ARM1 (ARM Eval kit, with or without mem expansion)
> Acorn A500 (not to be confused with A500 separate machine)
> Torch Z80
> Torch Z80 Tosca (the one with the local serial port)
> Torch 68000 Neptune
> Torch 68000 Atlas
> Torch Graduate
> Casper 68000
> Cumana 68008
>
> ... plus this Transputer board.
The transputer was by Flight, (now flite http://www.flite.co.uk )
electronics. They also do a 68000 board which seems to be a modded version
of Magenta electronic's 'Kaycomp' 68000 experimenters board, (Still
available see http://www.magenta2000.co.uk/kits/621.htm )
There was a guy called Andy Sparrow who did a meta assembler for the BBC -
it would do 68000 as I remember. I've got a leter, (dongled) PC version.
I've seen the ROMs on line - does anyone have the docs and discs?
The transputer board was, I think, serial port driven. Not a tube in sight.
Tube to Inmos serial link anyone? Then there's the small matter of the
folding Occam editor on a BBC...... Think I'll stick to the Cray 1 idea.
Fragula has got me wondering about a tube to 64 bit array. Having seen the
startup for the later Cray VME IO rack, (which had several VME 'crates'
within it), As well as the tales of actually getting hold of UniCOS, I'm
wondering if some notes on CAL might fall off he back of some notable
instsitution in the near future. One of my mates from down Reading way has
offered to chip in some actual programs, their data, and the 'official'
results. Some RAM has just come my way courtesy of a scrapped broadcast
framestore/standards converter. It seems to be configured as interleaved
10nS pairs, but I hadn't actally realised just how exponential the FPGA
price curve gets.
> Master Scientifics did exist, but I don't know of anyone who has one.
I heard some were sighted in Salford uni. Though the scallies will probably
have had 'em all melted down by now, I guess.
> There are a few unofficial copros about too - I think JGH had a PDP TUBE
link
> (*pokes JGH*), and Graham Toal built a 6809 copro, and then there was an
> article published way back when for using a Dragon 64 as a DIY 6509 copro.
> > BTW I know a chap, another FidoNutter way back when, who claims to have
> > an *386* internal co-pro in his attic. He promised it to me years ago,
> > but I don't like to nag.
>
> This of course assuming that it's an official board and not just someone's
> homebrew project!
If we're talking homebrew, perhaps we ought to fill in some of the gaps. How
about a Mips - you can get a core for that from www.opencores.org or
perhaps a dig into a Playstation might be interesting. By the way, you can
get the Playstation Linux kit from http://www.linuxplay.com/ for 149
euro, or 99 if you can persuade them you're a student. It includes the hard
disc, though Linux on 32Meg RAM might be interesting.
A thought. Does the legendary X.25 packet switchstream adapter count as a
processor or an add-on?
> I'm something of national collector of Torch stuff it seems having ended
up
> with the contents of their workshop from when they went under... (I can
hear
> the creaking from the loft)
I remember an advert for a Torch 'Unicorn' which seemed to be a 68000
running SVR3, or was it just anohther myth?
> Can't remember exactly what we have, but there's definitely a 555 'scope
in
> the pile, along with a transistor curve tracer. Lots of our old test gear
is
> currently on loan to the gunpowder mills down at Waltham Abbey, so you'd
have
> to go down there to see it all...
Minor drool over the curve tracer - I've been asked to do some retro
distortion units with germanium transistos, and it would be good for
consistency! Test gear is another serious technofetish. The MD of a company
I did some work for asked why I'd brought my 'toolbox' into his office. I
explained it was a new Tektronix LogicScope, (I had it on loan). "So what's
it doing on my carpet". 'well, you know that new Merc of yours you've been
swanking about ? I can get two of those for the price of this'. I may have
omitted to offer the fact that it wasn't mine....
||\/||ike