Failing Slowly...

Have managed to do very little on anything over the last few weeks.

Did however meet up with some of my friends for a weekend of drinking and was given these...

Have spent the evening archiving as many as I can, its slow work but I've now got through about a quarter of the first disk box.

Slow start...

Well I've been on holiday for the beginning of the month so have had a slow start. Can't believe we are half way through already and I've barely done anything.

ViewData Demonstration Machines

Have managed to get the machines I'm going to use together, they need cleaning and the caps replacing in the power supplies but all of them work ok.

Ordered the parts for the power supplies and they arrived yesterday, next job is to dismantle the units and replace the caps.

Got another PABX to use so that I can keep the one on my desk and have one specifically for the ViewData BBS setup.

Kryoflux Imaging

Did a run of imaging yesterday, started with a few Archimedes games.

Created a raw copy and a disk image for emulation.
Opened the created disk image on RiscPCEmu.

2016/10 RetroChallenge...

I'm going to try fairly simple tasks this time round, the intension is that I actually complete them.

ViewData Demonstration Machines

I want to setup a set of 3 demo machines that can be used for connecting to my ViewData BBS. The idea is that I want to have a set of machines setup to show the "Internet" in 1985.
Each setup will consist of a BBC Micro, Cub Monitor and Acorn Prestel adapter. I also want to get a nice 80s TV that can sit on the side showing clips and videos from 1980 - 1985.

Each machine will need...

1) Cleaning
2) RetroBriting
3) Fixing / refurbishing (Probably power caps etc)
4) Configuring

Kryoflux Imaging

For the last RetroChallenge I setup a PC to do my software imaging using a Kryoflux. I have since sorted the machine and it now has all the software I need to image disks.
I have a large amount of software that needs imaging, I'll start with some of the BBC titles and then continue with the Archimedes software.

Pimped Out Master

I currently have a BBC Master on my desk but I'd like to fully pimp the machine out.
I've also looked at doing a custom black paint job on the machine (I have special Vinyl paints so may give that a go).

So there are my goals, we'll see if I can actually accomplish any of them next month :)

KryoFlux Imaging Machine

So putting one last push to actually get something done.

Got the machine i'm going to use for parts to make my KryoFlux imaging system.
The idea is that I have a single machine for taking images of floppy disks so that I can start on the task of imaging the large quantity of Acorn software that I have in my collection.

The machine will have both 3.5 and 5.25 inch floppy disk drives and will copy all images to my NAS storage or USB.
I will initially RDP to the machine to take images of floppy disks using the KryoFlux software but when I have the time I want to create a remote front end so that all I need to do is insert the disk and it will image and create the appropriately named files.
So that I am keeping the full copy of the disk I will store both the KryoFlux raw data and a image suitable for use with emulators. Any disks that are copy protected can then be re-written using the KryoFlux raw data.

Donor PC

The donor machine is an intel Core 2 duo PC, this used to be my main machine back a long time ago and has now just been in storage doing nothing.
Due to the case being a full tower one I want to move the motherboard to a new desktop case that will fit under my desk out of the way.

The machine had a pretty good graphics card at the time but this is now pretty obsolete compared even to a lot of embedded chipset graphics processors.

Extracted the motherboard.

Assembling The New Machine

To get the board into the new machine I had to remove the extra funnel for the processor fan and take out the filter that is fitted to the new case as the fan goes right out to the case lid.

Had a spare internal SSD with adapter kicking around from another project.

Fitted the KryoFlux into this space, will fit it properly but need some longer floppy drive cables and more power for the 5.25 inch drive.
The KryoFlux needs to be plugged into the USB, I may rob a USB front panel from a case to use internally.

All assembled in the case.

The 2 floppy drives for archiving.

Things To Do

Need to sort out the floppy cable and either make one the correct length or get one of the nice round ones I have in storage. Not sure if I have one with a 5.25 inch drive flat connector.

Currently installing the operating system so that I can actually image disks.

OS is now installed and I can remote desktop to the machine so that I don't need it connected to a monitor to use.

Fix the KryoFlux in properly (I have some PCB stands somewhere) and fit an internal USB to the machine so I can connect the KryoFlux without any external cabling.

This now has an internal USB header on the board which connects to the Kryoflux.

Image all of my disks (this may take a while).

Started this but its going to take a fair bit of time.

Goodbye Retro Challenge...

So this is the end again for another Retro Challenge, as has been common in the last few challenges my 11 month old has got in the way so I've not really got a lot done.
I am happy that I've manage to do some of what I set out to do. Mainly sorting my storage locker so that I can easily access machines and other stuff so that I can start to clean and fix them one at a time.

Enjoyed looking at everyone's blogs and hope to see you all next time.

Well we are at the end of another year. This means several things, opening presents, new years resolutions to be broken and of course Retro Challenge!!

My Challenge...

This time around I'm not committing to too much. I have a week off at the start of the month so want to take as much time as possible doing the following...

Sort Out My Storage Locker

My collection of machines is no longer welcome in our house :)

It therefore lives in a secure lockup location just round the corner from our house.
Due to me moving out of my house and into my fiancées I have moved a lot of my possessions into storage. The problem is that I really need to get things like the shelving built and sort out various boxes etc to organise everything in there. I am currently having to climb over monitors to get to anything.

Update Machine List

I have started to create a list of machines that I own. I want to index all the other equipment etc so that I can decide which to do maintenance on first.
Several need looking at fairly quickly to sort issues such as leaking batteries or other problems that can't be put on hold.

Fix Machines Needing Urgent Attention

Several machines need urgent attention to stop damage to boards etc.

A while back I removed the batteries from most machines as they are the main issue in the Acorn product line. If left to leak they can eat through the board and damage machines beyond repair. A few of the machines I've been given recently are damaged beyond repair due to this problem.

Archive Machine

I bought a KryoFlux unit quite a while ago and want to use it to take archive images of my floppy disks.

I started to build a PC designed to be a standalone machine for this job. The machine has a 5.25 and 3.5 inch disk drives attached to the KryoFlux internally. I just need to finish installing an old motherboard and OS to run the software.

Backup Software

I have a pretty large collection of Acorn software, I started to backup discs a while ago and have a lot of them imaged as standard disk images. I want to use the KryoFlux unit to create archives of each disk. While doing this I intend to take high resolution images of the boxes and disk labels.

Other stuff...

If I manage to get anywhere with all of that then I will probably do some more work on my BBS software, since the Retro Challenge I have moved it to a database driven system and re-written some of the back end.
I really need to start loading pages into the system to create a usable BBS.