To: 999 (all members)
From: K6N (Brian Raw)
Subject: 3.5" discdrives
Recently I purchased a 3.5" double
discdrive from SPROW aiming at making
the jump from 5.25" to 3.5" discs.
While this drive does work it is
somewhat steampowered and did not give
me the confidence to scrap my 5.25"
discs altogether.
Since my 386 was in bits and otherwise
redundant I thought I'd just try out
the 1.44M discdrive on the Master
using the case and powersupply of the
aforementioned drives.
I put it in place of drive 1 and gave
it a wizz and it worked! So then I
also have a 486 which was quickly
stripped of its drive and gave that a
wizz again as drive 1, this also
worked!
Next try them as drive 0 and drive 1,
one of the drives had a jumper on it
labelled DS0 DS1 , I switched this to
drive 0 , replaced it with the other
drive and it worked wonderfully.
Looking at the drive from the 386,
which I purchased new about 6 months
ago, I noticed that instead of having
a jumper for DS0 DS1 selection it had
a surface mount 0 ohm resistor which
would be a bit fiddley soldering job
should you require to switch drive
select on one of these. ( It seems all
PC drives have DS1 selected, the other
drive being catered for by a twist in
it's IDC cable. )
Now all this sounds wonderful but here
is the downer. Sound in my new found
knowledge that 1.44M drives work on
the Master and the fact I now had two
gaping holes in my 386 and 486 I went
to the local Computer Fair to get two
more, my only requirement being an
easily accessible drive select jumper.
No problem 15 pound each brand new.
Got them home tried them on the Master
and guess what? Yes, they didn't work.
Fortunately though they now have homes
on my aforementioned PC's.
Next step, to rig my two working 1.44M
drives as two twin setups paired with
a 5.25" discdrive. No problems here
once you have the correct adaptors and
mounting kit for a 5.25" case, these
cost 2-3 pounds each.
One of these rigs is now working
happily with my Master.
The second rig I wanted for my BBC B
which I still keep around for testing
compatibility of software I write and
also lots of the software around circa
198x will only work on the BeeB. There
is a problem though as I discovered by
trying out ( don't believe everything
you read!) that the 1.44M drives that
work on the Master do not work on the
standared BeeB i.e. fitted with a 8271
disc controller. But you correctly
deduce that they worked on a BeeB
fitted with a 1770 upgrade, I just
happened to have one of these lying
around (fortunate or what!).
Finally one last experiment. Take one
HD disc, cover the bottom right hand
hole with a piece of sticky tape, this
is the hole which tells the drive that
it is a HD and not a DD disc, so
effectively preventing it from turning
its extra biasing on, similar to DOLBY
Copy some files onto it and reload
off the disc, they seem well and truly
recorded to me!
Now having a modern discdrive fitted
allows you to run it at the fastest
seek time of 3ms if you have a 1772
fitted use *CO. FDRIVE 2
My 5.25" discs have now been superseded
EDITOR....... DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO USE
HD DISCS IN A BBC DRIVE! It is my
experience that the BBC will eventually
ruin an HD disc when written to
repeatedly, you will lose your data.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6N (Brian Raw)
Subject: 3.5" discdrives 2
The make of the two 1.44M drives I have
working on the Master are :-
Sony MPF520-1
Mitsumi D359T5
and the noncompatible one is a
Mitsubishi MF356F-250MG
If anybody else is in a position to
test other models then please do so as
I am sure this information will be
most useful in the near future!
It turns out that as for PC's you can
also have two discdrives set as the
same drive (0 or 1) the difference
between them being detected from the
cable which has a twist in it, no more
unscrewing of cases and adjusting
jumpers.
I have a single 3.5" drive on both my
Master and BeeB, now if I wish to do
some duplicating or I need a 5.25"
drive, I simply plug it into the spare
socket so then the drive appears as
drive 1.
Cable Diagram.
**************
P S S
L K K
U T T
G 0 1
1
3
5
7
INDEX
9
DR 0
11
DR 1
13
15
LD HD
17
DIR
19
SK SP
21
WRITE
23
WR EN
25
TRK 0
27
WR PR
29
READ
31
SIDE
33
P S S
L K K
U T T
G 0 1
There are several variations you could
do to produce this for instance build
a circuit board having three sockets
the third one being for the lead to
the computer.
Note that despite pin one normally
having the RED marker cable to it, it
is however connected to ground.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K6N (Brian Raw)
Subject: What's Wonderful
Has anyone been converted to the new
radio station in town "Talk Radio"?
Well on Friday afternoons between
3-4pm is what is known as the
wonderful hour where folk ring in to
air just what is wonderful to them.
What a breath of fresh air this
program is to be reminded for a short
while of those little things that make
it all worthwhile.
So, lets see if it can work on these
pages too.
To: 999 (all members)
From: L1X (Mark Usher)
Subject: Thankyou 1 & all
Hi.
As one of the newest new members,
( Chris tells me the first via the
Internet) I must say a big thankyou to
you all for the pleasure you have
given me already.
As Chris will be able to confirm, I
have been doing my homework and in the
last 6 weeks or so have read issues
29-55.
I am very much involved with the BBC
through the Internet, and have several
projects on the go, one of the main
being getting BBC documentation
together and putting it in electronic
format, before it all gets lost
forever.
One of the other things I've been
doing recently is building a circuit
that will enable you to connect a BBC
via the RGB to a VGA/SVGA monitor.
A few people have said that it can't
be done, but so far I've managed to
split the horizontal and vertical
syncs, and double up the output to
31.5kHZ. It's steady, but has two
thin vertical lines in the picture.
I hope to get this working someday
soon, and will let you all know the
results when I do.
If anyone else has experience with the
above, then please contact me, I'd
love to have a natter about this.
The best way to contact me as Chris
can confirm is via email - telephone
calls to Austria are a bit on the
expensive side.
Here is the email address...
marku@magnet.at
To: 999 (all members)+K8G
From: 0E7 (F.W.NEVIN)
Subject: Fate of 3.5" Disks.
Sorry I wasn't more explicit with my
earlier comments which were written
with the proverbial tongue in cheek
and were intended to be read as such
and had the general trend of PC's in
mind rather than being specifically
for the BBC.
I know that CD-ROMS are only available
now as information discs and that
CD-ROM disks are available to record
data and not I understand at the
moment reprogrammable but who can say
what future developements there will
be or what will replace the CD-ROM.
I realise this is most unlikely to
happen but who knows, perhaps next
week the CD-ROM's will be obsolete or
more likely computers as we know them.
Back to the ABACUS what!!!
Re 3.5" DD Disk Drives with PSU (I do
hope that I have got that politically
correct this time).
I would very much like to know the
name and address of any dealer who can
supply a suitable drive. There is no
problem in obtaining drives for a PC
but all enquiries have been met with
gasps of utter amazment and comments
such as, Whats that mate? or What
drives it? Steam!!.
If only one could see their faces as
the voice conveys utter disbelief.
Rather reminiscent of being in the
butchers during the war and some Lady
asks for two pound of the best fillet
steak and is not rationed with the
butcher and has no ration book to
boot.
The butchers face used to take on a
resemblence of fillet steak.
It was an experience not to be missed
and a joy to behold.
Ah well sorry folks got carried away
again what with the coming election
and all,life is just too hectic at the
moment.
It would appear to be possible
to obtain single drives very easily
and cheaply without a case for a PC
(Which I assume will not be suitable
for a BBC) but not for the BBC.
But no doubt someone out there knows
differently.
Cheers.
To: 999 (all members)
From: E2G (Derek)
Subject: World speed record
Don't know if anyone saw this in
the paper a while ago? But I thought
it might be of interest to some.
36m'Star Trek computer
shatters the world speed record
The fastest computer in the world
capable of making 125 million
calculations in the time it takes a
high-speed bullet to travel one foot,
has been built in America.
The 36million pound supercomputer
shattered the speed record by
performing more than one million
million calculations a second for over
an hour and twenty minutes. It is so
powerful it can peer inside human DNA
and simulate nuclear explosions. By
comparison, it would take almost 500
years for every man, woman and child
in Britain to perform one million
million calculations using hand held
pocket calculators!
One of the chief developers of the
project said it marked the beginning
of a computer age that would allow
incredibly powerful machines to be
assembled from simple building blocks.
"It's a baby step towards being able
to do a real simulation of the
physical world, which is what the
'holodeck' is all about on Star Trek,"
said Justin Rattner, an Intel
supercomputer expert.
Depending on the application, the
Tflops is up to 100 times more
powerful than the fastest machine used
today. The previous record was 3.68
gigaflops, or a thousand million
calculations a second, held by the
Japanese firm Hitachi.
The one-teraflops breakthrough,
considered to be the Holy Grail of
high performance computing, is notable
for not using customised supercomputer
chips. Instead, it crunches numbers
using 9,072 Intel Pentium
Processors, one of which is found in
many PCs today. The chips work
together in "massively parallel
processing. The computer is contained
in 76 large computer cabinets covering
1,600 sq ft, enough to fill a moderate
sized home."
Anyone got a spare 36 million
pounds to buy one?!
Actually I
personally find that I have a job
keeping up with my BBC most of the
time, let alone getting anything
faster!!!
Chau Vrrmmmmmmmmmmm.....!
To: 999 (all members)
From: E2G (Derek)
Subject: SCRABBLE
Dear All,
Thankyou to those that submitted
so much to the last issues. I've
enjoyed them.
Here is something that some may
like to take up...
1 3 1 3 1 4 1
A P R M E W A
1 S H 4
2 G S 1
1 O L 1
1 I O 1
1 N I 1
4 V P 3
2 D A 1
S N M L W A E
1 1 3 1 4 1 1
Elsewhere in this issue should be
a program that chooses 7 letters for
each of four players at Scrabble.
Well,above you will find four
sets of letters.
The challenge is to see who can
make the highest scoring word from one
of the four sets of letters.
Send it in for the next issue to
999 SCRABBLE. And they should all
appear together through the messaging
system.
Another question I would like to
ask is: would anyone be interested in
joining me in developing this program
further. In a sort of joint effort
just for fun?
The first thing would be a
board for example.. Which Mode would
be best? Only Mode 2 would give us
the right colours for example coupled
with the graphics capabilities that we
would need.
Each month we could present
something towards the project... say
an"8 Bit Scrabble game".
More next issue......
Bye for now Best Regards to
all
Derek Hill E2G
To: 999 (all members)
From: E2G (Derek)
Subject: HELP
A big thankyou to all who have
given me some great help over the last
few months.
I have sent thanks personally so
there is no need to mention names
here. Just to say publicly though
that if you are looking for help, it
is amazing the help that is
available through the user group. So
don't despair if you are stuck on
something, there may well be someone
out there who can help!
All for now,
Bye
Derek Hill E2G