Abort on data transfer.
Ambiguous (disc) name.
Ofla Ofla Ofla.

Endless possibilities :)

Ofla Ofla Ofla.

Oh yes! I’ll take a mug dedicated to the God of Ofla.

Oh you are ôflå but I like you

This is perhaps going too far back.

This is perhaps going too far back.

Had to Google, as it predates me!

I don’t know about you, but I predate Google…

We all do, around here, don’t we?

I used to AltaVista, but jumped ship because it was slow and bloated and full of advertising and spammy results that weren’t relevant to what you were looking for…

…which kind of describes Google these days.

We all do, around here, don’t we?

I suspect many here pre-date desktop computers never mind personal network connectivity to another town/city.

I suspect many here pre-date desktop computers

Most of us, is my guess.

As adults. (but not ‘grown up’ – because that would be boring :) )

I shall be 70 in five weeks’ time. I’ve recently become a grandfather for the first time – just a week ago. I’m still wondering what it would be like to be an adult.

I’m still wondering what it would be like to be an adult.

I think that I have the mind of a teenager, the heart of a child, and the body of a crusty middle aged git.

Such is life…

My first “PC”, and what got me started on comms with its zippy 1200 baud modem, was an unloved Amstrad PPC640 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPC_512

Dual floppies, 640K RAM, knock off processor (V30), odd little LCD, and it ate C cells like you wouldn’t believe.

ZX81→ZX81→ZX81→BBC B→Psion LZ64→M128→ET→A305→Psion 3a→A310→A5000→Psion MC600→RiscPC→Psion 5→Psion Netbook→VRPC

And many, many faceless PCs running Windows and Linux. Blimey, Mandrake. Remember Mandrake?

I also have various A3000-types, but I can’t remember why. Show demos I think.

Hmm…

BBC B → A3000 → Amstrad PPC 640 → BBC B (2) → A5000 → 386 podule → A310 (Arthur!) → FileStore/MDFS → Electron → P75 Presario → RiscPC → 486 co pro → A3000 (2) → 486 laptop → Celeron laptop → P2 box → Psion 3a → better P2 box → EeePC 901 → Beagle xM → Pi1 → P4 box → Pi1 → Pi Zero → Pi 2.

Plus a bunch of other bits like a 65C02 co-pro, an Oric-1, and probably a generic PC or two I’ve forgotten.

Sad thing is, most of this crap is still around here someplace, though no doubt in various states of non-operational?

Crikey.

I had the use of various machines at Uni and at various places of work, and an A440 on loan from Acorn for a while, but the first machine I actually owned was an A5000. Then later I got 12 RiscPCs and an A4 for a song from the Physiological Society, after they abandoned the operation after I left. Then a couple of PC laptops (spit) and now a Mac Mini and a couple of Pis. Still have the Mac, the Pis, and one of the laptops, although I’ve not used the laptop for ages and may well never again.

At one point I had about 25 Master ETs, and I’ve still got about ten RiscPCs in the garage somewhere.

I was in two minds about including all the second processors. <leans to mic> In. Two. Minds. oh please yourself

8~)

One of my RiscPCs had a 2nd processor, which my assistant occasionally used but I never did. Two of them had StrongARMs.

My first “PC”, and what got me started on comms with its zippy 1200 baud modem, was an unloved Amstrad PPC640 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPC_512

I had the PC20 (listed at the bottom of that page). I remember playing Alley Cat and either Prince of Persia or Karateka on it (maybe both?) and that’s about it. Dad also came up with a clever hack to get Turbo Pascal to run without a hard drive.

The first computer I used was my father’s Victor/Sirius “business” computer. It played a mean game of “Air Raid” that I remember even now ;) Eventually he added a full x86/DOS/CGA expansion to it for modest PC compatibility… an early “PC card”?

To get me to stop hogging his “work machine”, they bought me a BBC B a couple of years later, and are probably still regretting it to this day!

Now you have me thinking of the Christmas (or possibly birthday) when my present was a printer – hidden under several boxes of cornflakes. I didn’t especially like cornflakes at the time, but six packs got you a Lego model or some such (some sub-conscious part of me says it was a Lego-knock-off called Tente Combi). I thought my present was six boxes of cornflakes… turned out there was a dot matrix printer underneath!

Just smashed my most important piece of RISC OS equipment, my java container. Yes, my ROOL mug is no more!

Speaking of mugs, I spotted an auction for Acorn mugs tonight. Anyone know if these are legit or if they’re just reproduction print-your-own mug things? The reason I’m suspicious is that I thought the legit Acorn-era ones only came with squared handles. The same seller has a few more Acorn mug auctions.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acorn-Computers-Retro-Mugs-Set-A/254380776568

Gavin – Whilst I can’t say for definite, the one on the right looks very much like the Acorn much I gulp my tea out of on a semi-regular basis. However, the packaging being identical for both mugs gives me pause for thought. Entirely possible (since Acorn would probably have used the same mug-supplier), but made me wary.

ZX81→ZX81→ZX81→BBC B→Psion LZ64→M128→ET→A305→Psion 3a→A310→A5000→Psion MC600→RiscPC→Psion 5→Psion Netbook→VRPC

In my case (no pun intended) it was HP25C→Compukit UK101→Nascom 2→BBC B→BBC Master→Atari 520ST→A310→A410→Risc PC→Iyonix→VRPC→A9home→Beagleboard XM→Pandaboard ES→Raspberry Pi→ARMX6→IGEPv5→Titanium→ARMbook (leaving out the many Windoze machines).

I had a lot of difficulty hooking up a dot matrix serial printer to the Nascom 2 because I had not realised that the Nascom 2’s serial output was TTL levels and the printer’s input was RS232. So I wrote my own serial driver and added an input pin that looked at the printer’s red error light. When a line of text caused an error, the driver waited while I pressed the ‘cancel’ button on the printer and then automatically sent the line again. It worked like this for some months until I added a -5V line to the serial output. Not sure whether that is a hardware solution to a hardware problem or a software solution to a hardware problem.

The Nascom 2 had a very strange quirk. The shape of the 4MHz clock signal to the CPU was slightly wrong, in spec but occasionally caused a selected few machine code instructions to stumble in a predictable way. This caused BASIC to report a string error occasionally (and was therefore called the string bug). It caused more exotic errors in the Z80 assembler mistaking the instruction lenth of LD (HL),A as LD (IX),a (recollection hazy). The hardware solution to this problem was to overdrive the inverter chain producing the clock signal beyond the chip’s output specification by adding a low value resistor to the output. The socketed hex inverter chip had to be replaced every 10 or 20 years.

Nascom 2: two 35-track floppy discs running NAS-SYS and CP/M, 48k of RAM and 16k of ROM (16k of memory cost £75 at the time, worth £400 now). Microsoft CP/M BASIC compiler and M80 assembler on an 8" floppy (copied to a 5.25" 35 track floppy by the supplier). Rewrote the CP/M operating system to add file date stamping and the ROM BASIC to add WHILE/WEND, REPEAT/UNTIL etc.. Built a board to drive an IBM terminal golfball typewriter (which were cheap as chips as they were being scrapped) which used an EPROM to select the right output drives for various golfballs.

It wasn’t until about 1989 that I acquired a hard disc (20Mbyte ST506 interface) for the Archimedes although I had thought about getting a SASI Winchester drive for the Nascom 2, they were too expensive.

Ebay seller does state the box was damp and he has bought individual boxes for posting.

Andrew, could you take a look at the base of your mug to see if it says something like Staffordshire Tableware or similar to suggest it was made in Stoke-on-Trent, or at least the U.K. (Make sure it’s empty first!) :-)
Most stuff is produced abroad these days.

Anyone know if these are legit

Pretty sure they are. They look just like the ones I used to have. I have no idea if I still have them, but I remember them as having round handles. Knowing merchandise manufacturers, you are guaranteed to get the finest what-we’ve-got-in-the-warehouse-this-week, and any reorder is likely to be different to save a few pennies.

The really sad thing is that I had a china Acorn mug that was really nice. Steph didn’t realise it was anything special and used it in the garden and I haven’t seen it since :(.

BTW if this looks weird, I’m testing in a new build of OWB right now.