Hello All

[inshallah573]

Hi geeks,

Just found the site and thought I'd sign up. I have just found some of my old kit while up at Mum's. I found my old Acorn Atom, which is what I learned my hacking skills on (failing my O-levels and not doing homework while writing compilers and interrupt driven task switchers in the early 80s).

I haven't tried booting the Atom yet (not been powered up for 20 years). I also have a BBC master that doesn't boot, an Apple ][ with double disk drives and monitor, and a late '70s HP 85 computer with inbuilt screen and printer and a load of ROMS, like PASCAL and BASIC.

I think I also have a copy of 'Splitting the Atom', the advanced atom manual kicking around. I have seen it in the last couple of years. It had hex dumps of the ROMS and details of all the OS calls. Would anybody be interested in this if I scanned it in? Is that legal?

For newer stuff, I have an Apple Colour Classic (Rare, and ex Apple UK) and an HP C180. I used to have loads of Sun Sparcs and a few DEC Alphas but they went in the skip a few years ago. (I also have tons on Solaris 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8 manuals which I'm burning for fuel at the moment - if anyone wants them shout quick before they turn into hot water and ash)

I found the site while searching for an Atom colour card. I found a thread about someone building some. I might be interested if the Atom boots. I could only dream of a colour card when I was 14.

Also, does anyone know about the copyright and availability of Atom ROMS? There were various available. Watford Electronics made one I think, and I'd love Atom FORTH and LISP. Are they out of copyright, and can anyone on the forum burn them? I'd also like a 6522.

There's also someone on ebay selling flash disks for Atoms. Anyone tried them? Is it someone on here selling them?

Anyway, yes, Atoms. Everyone needs as hobby....

[Phu]

Nothing wrong with Atoms

Will you be joining us at our retro weekender? There's a "naked" Atom that was assembled from a blank PCB that has an SD card interface fitted (with nod to SirMorris, who makes these ).

6522s I'm afraid I'm a bit thin on... I had a supply of about 8 or so, but I used most of them to repair Vic-20s, Orics and 1541 disk drives.

However, I can burn ATOM ROMs if you supply the chips. Note that the ATOM PCB expects mask ROMs for the OS and BASIC which have a slightly different pinout, so you'll need to fiddle the wiring to make it work. Sadly, I can't program the 2532 EPROMs which have the ideal pinout

Technically scanning documentation is illegal without the copyright owner's permission, however all materials and code belonging to Acorn concerning 8 bit technology is now under the legal control of PACE microsystems, who have publicly stated they are not too bothered, as  long as you don't try to profit from it. This is why most BBC Micro emulators now come with the ROMs.

Incidentally, the 32bit stuff (Archimedes, Risc PC et al) is now owned by Castle Technology and is licensed to RiscOS Ltd. Since (for reasons best known to the Dalai Lama) Castle Technology believes there is still profit to be made in RiscOS the 32bit materials are subject to a "don't you dare" statement. This is why Archimedes emulators do NOT come with ROMs.

Oh and yes... I'm still looking for interest in brand new colour cards. I have 3 registered interests so far, but I need at least 5 to make it worth while financially.

-- Richard

[inshallah573]

Thanks for your reply. I'll try and boot the atom this week and let you know about the colour board. I might be interested in the weekend event. I'll see how work goes.

Cheers