Date   : Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:26:32 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: 380Z on eBay

David Hunt wrote:
> I know it's kind of OT, I used one of these at school
> 
> <http://cgi1.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8772159973>
> 
> My Father had one late 70's with a miniscule hard drive in another case,
> that had a colour card in it and a speech card (pretty crappy), kept me
> entertained. I gave it away to a collector in 1990, the hard drive was
> making an awful grating noise until it warmed up!

Strewth.

I've got one myself with the hard disk (plus another 380Z, seven plastic cased 
480Zs, a metal cased 480Z, and a 480Z floppy disk unit). I'm still looking for 
a blue 380Z and a white one (yeah, right...)  Did I mention that I collect RML 
stuff as well as Acorn and Torch? :-)

Are you still in touch with the collector? I've never heard of anyone else 
having the hard disk unit, and I've been looking for someone who has one for 
the last ten years or so since I got mine. I badly need the formatter utility 
(it would have been on floppy, obviously), because when the current hard disk 
in mine dies I've got no way of building a new system :(

The disk systems run MP/M rather nicely - all my 480Zs have network boards in 
(coax connection, none of this clock box gubbins!) - just plug 'em in, tell 
'em to boot from the network, and off they go!

My system came from Alan Calder circa 1995, who I believe still pops up on 
c.s.a.h every now and then (assuming it's the same one!) - I keep on meaning 
to say hello...

> Beebs are better though...

Remember that the 380Z was around in the late 70's though, whilst Acorn were 
still futzing around with the System One - it was definitely long in the tooth 
by '83 or so, but was probably the "BBC of its day" (until the BBC came along 
:) in terms of expansion flexibility.

S100 bus systems of the time (Northstar etc.) with the same sort of ability 
tended to be a lot more expensive.

Plus of course RM are still going, which is pretty unusual for a UK computer 
company! :-)

Bloody nice machines, just shame they didn't provide a bit more in the way of 
graphics ability...

cheers

Jules