VOGONS


First post, by chootastic

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Just thought i'd post some images of one of the more interesting pieces of hardware i have...

For background on the Acorn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers

Reply 1 of 19, by WolverineDK

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chootastic wrote:
http://nathanielbaker.co.uk/ext/dbx/2.jpg http://nathanielbaker.co.uk/ext/dbx/3.jpg http://nathanielbaker.co.uk/ext/dbx/4.jpg ht […]
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Just thought i'd post some images of one of the more interesting pieces of hardware i have...

For background on the Acorn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers

Hey nice machine 😀, is there any way you can upgrade it ? sorry I have not read the wikipedia article yet. So I am just asking out of my arse instead of my head .

Reply 2 of 19, by chootastic

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You can upgrade the RAM and the OS, but thats about it i think. RAM comes on standard SIMMS, and the operating system is on 2 chips (See 3rd picture)

The CPUs are soldered on, but the HDD can be swapped out for any PATA.

If you want a date it'll boot both into Windows 3.11 (like with bootcamp) or RISCos 3.6

Reply 4 of 19, by chootastic

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Just to update, i was getting confused, it's more like a PC than i remember... The cpu is actually on a riser card, and what i was looking at were the north and southbridge 🤣.

Silly mistake.

It's also able to take a CD-ROM at the front as well as a FDD (Standard connectors).

Sadly, while as far as i know it works (Last booted it a few years ago), You rather need a mouse to run RISC OS, it's not optional as it is in windows, and there are no keyboard shortcuts, and i dont have the mouse....

Reply 7 of 19, by chootastic

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Thought id see if i could find anything about the article i read some years back.

As one of the major features of the system is that it could be expanded by adding modules to the top, Acorn decided to build the 'rocket ship' as a publicity stunt!

They saw fit to add a working, remote control sink, and a pizza oven!

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Reply 8 of 19, by Lennart

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It's nice to see someone else around here with a RiscPC. 😁

These machines are still very nice to use and you can upgrade them quite a bit. The CPU is indeed swappable, which requires you to take out the riser card and put another one in. The CPU in your RiscPC is probably the ARM710 @ 40MHz (hence the RiscPC 700 on the case). It's possible to use a 233MHz StrongARM CPU though, which will improve its speed considerably. Further upgrades include upgrading the RAM (up to 256MB); putting in 2MB of dedicated Video RAM; installing expansion cards (like USB-controllers and a card which interfaces certain types of ATi Radeon AGP cards with this machine) or putting in a second processor (up to a 586 CPU @ 133MHz) to run older versions of Windows. And if you run out of space for all these upgrades, why not upgrade the case itself? 😀 The design of this case is very modular, so you can enlarge the case by stacking multiple case elements, called "slices".

In retrospect this post actually looks a bit like a sales pitch. 🙄 Oh well, let's just say that I really like this machine.

Reply 9 of 19, by chootastic

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Im sure this is all true, and yeah ARM 710. Problem is I have no mouse for it.... It'll plug straight into VGA, and accept a PS/2 keyboard, but i cant find a replacement, the only thing i can find is an adaptor that cost's £25, and im not paying that for something similar to the adaptor that was provided free with early USB mice.

Reply 11 of 19, by Lennart

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Acorn used a proprietary mouse bus on this machine. The adapter you found was specifically made for this bus and probably contains more hardware logic than a regular PS/2 to USB-adapter. But if you'd rather not pay 25GBP, I'm sure you can find a replacement Acorn mouse for less than that on eBay.

As for using Radeon cards: yes, you can use a Radeon 9250 (I think) with your RiscPC if you have a Viewfinder podule. This website explains it in more detail: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink/home/ … finder/what.htm

Unfortunately the Viewfinder isn't produced any longer and thus they are pretty expensive.

Reply 13 of 19, by WolverineDK

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chootastic, I actually have a few PS2 keyboards. Which are with Danish keys which Æ Ø and Å. but the cool part there is also an umlaut ¨ on them . And I hope you know how to remove dust from the keyboards, and I could probably check to see how much it would cost me sending such a fellow to the UK, if you are planning on staying on this forum for a while.

Reply 17 of 19, by WolverineDK

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chootastic wrote:

Thanks anyway dude - sweet of you

with your language and all(dialect and so forth), you actually remind me of a Scottish friend I have.

Reply 19 of 19, by trevj

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chootastic wrote:

Problem is I have no mouse for it.... the only thing i can find is an adaptor that cost's £25

There's a s/h PS2 Mouse Mini adapter advertised here from Oct 2009. Dunno if it's still available. (Also, note that apparently the signals sent by bus mice - e.g. old Sun systems - are reportedly not compatible with RISC OS.) There's also a Refurbished Acorn mouse available for UKP15 but it may only be for sale if you buy the entire system! In the meantime, you could try using MouseKey, although you'd probably have to get it onto floppy and load it from the command line to begin with! In any case, I hope you get your RiscPC up and running soon.

Random... especially as i live in the south west 🤣

Where in the south west? You might be interested in a new mailing list for RISC OS users in the Bristol area! And tomorrow (Sat 20 Feb 2010) is the RISC OS south west show, although I sadly can't make it myself 🙁