Forthcoming Cambridge CfCH events: RetroComp.Sale Sun 26th Feb, RCF-Japan 1st&2nd Apr

[TonyDuell]

AFAIK the Colour Genie was a Z80-based machine and had nothing much in common with the CoCo/Dragon.

I feel the 6809 was the best of the 8 bit processors but came out too late to have much of an impact on the market. I wish the BBC Micro had used that processor rather than the inferior 6502. Interestingly Acorn did make a 6809 processor Eurocard for the 'system' machines, which I assume pre-dated the BBC micro.

The CoCo 1 and 2, and the Dragon, were essentially based on an application circuit for the 6883 SAM chip in a Motorola application note. The Coco 3 (never sold in the UK, although there was a PAL video version sold in Australia) used a custom chip to replace the SAM and 6847 video display generator chips and had 80 column text, 640*200 graphics, 512K RAM, etc.

HP used the 6809 a lot, but not in general purpose computers. There's one in the 9114 HPIL disk drive and in most of the HPIB-interfaced disk and tape drives (9121, 9122,9133, 9142, 9144, etc). An excepton is the 9145 tape drive which has a 68000 inside.

It also turns up in HP instruments, my 1630 logic analyser is controlled by a 6809 with a 6829 MMU chip (only time I've seen that device used).

A rare computer with a 6809 inside is the HH Tiger. It's a Z80-based CP/M machine with a 6809 for I/O (!)

[ortek_service]

Originally Posted by Pernod70

Did you go? I'm curious to hear about it and whether it was worthwhile.

Yes, I did go to this (I had been meaning to post something about it, once I'd had chance to sort-out some photos)
I got there about midday, finding one of the 'Visitor' car parks (just avoiding one on-site road that was Buses etc. only and not sure could get a fine for going down!). Although strangely all the spaces in it were marked 'reserved for staff' or EV's only, so had to park in a 'Staff' one, assuming this didn't apply at weekends (like the only 2hrs free parking restriction, that only applies Mon-Fri).
It's been many years since I last went to this site - to 'The Forum' for a night time music gig, and spent a while walking around the site trying to find the 'Chapman lounge', as I couldn't find any signs to that or for this event. I did find a Technology / Engineering building, and assumed this would probably be where it was. So went in a side door and kept walking down a corridor until finding signs to a 'Chapman (art) gallery', so looked like it might be nearby. And going down some stairs, I eventually discovered the 'Chapman Lounge' cafe area (seems I missed the main entrance / reception of the building this was next to).

There wasn't any trouble getting in without a pre-booked (free) ticket, and they had a reception table to welcome you with some free sweets and tell you what was there.

The first table was a display of few vintage laptops - A 1995 RM Notebook Professional, and similar vintage Apple Mac Powerbook etc. Although these were being displayed only and running.

The next table had a few drones on there, they had people working on, but I didn't really look much further at these.

Then there was a couple of (University of Sheffield?) robots - A (known as Pepper) more conventional human like one with voice-recognition (that didn't work too well in this quite-noisy environment) and the (known as Nero?) 'pet' (cat?) that apparently responded to be being stroked (as well as some limited audio recognition). It seemed this were mainly designed to work with a (only latest version) Android App on a Smartphone. and 'Scratch' / C++ was used to program them, when I asked about programming language (thinking their may have been some specialist AI-type ones like Prolog / Miranda etc text based query ones in the 80's). It seems the University normally had these in a house mock-up, for research into home assistants, where 'Pepper' would fetch things for you etc. and showed a video of this.

Then at the end of the (reasonably-large) area, on the left was the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) Computers Society, formed in 2018 in partnership with CfCH and working jointly on the history of the LEO - The world's first 'business' computer (as previous ones were for military and academics)
And currently have 750 members / were offering free membership there.
They have been working on an iPad virtual recreation of a LEO/ it's room, and an Android version is due in the next few weeks for use on tablets running that. See their website: www.leo-computers.org.uk


Finally, on the right-side was a table with a Spectrum +2, a Spectrum +3, a ZX-Uno+ (Xilinx) FPGA Spectrum etc. emulator and a 'Mister' FPGA emulator of the Amiga / ST etc. And I spent over an hour reminiscing about Spectrums and 80's with the guy who brought all of these (who'd also got an original rubber-keys spectrum, with him), who'd actually group-up in Spain with these, but had been working and living locally to Hatfield for the last 10years.
He was aware of the RCF at CfCH, and is considering going this year, plus I told him about our forum, and active early-Sinclair MK14 plus VCFED websites.

These were all running various games, with the 'Mister' emulator connected to an 8bitDo arcade type controls box, via its WiFi link: https://www.8bitdo.com/

HDMI LCD-Monitors / Interfaces were being used. With the Spectrum +3 having having a ZX-HD HDMI (Pi-Zero based with sllot for microSD card) Interface, as well as a 'Multiply' Joystick etc. interface.
The ZX-Spectrum +2 had an unusual SD-Card / WiFi/Joystick + Reset & NMI buttons etc. interface.
He did mention that you had to be careful with plugging in the multi-supply DIN Plugs to the computers on these, as couldn't guarantee supplies connecting together / in the right order. So it was best to only turn the PSU on (with originals not having their own Power-switch) afterwards.

The ZX-Uno+ (the first time I'd seen one of these running, since starting to build the blank ZX-Uno PCB I bought), was connected to a standard PC Keyboard / Joystick.


So, in summary, there wasn't really that many computers at this event - not a regular one at a fixed time of year, and only the second time they've held it, with the previous one before COVID (Not sure what that looked like, as I never knew about it).
Talking to one of the organisers, it seems this was the first Hertforshire-BCS area physical meet-up, since COVID, and they were having trouble persuading people to come to physical events after all the virtual webinar type ones.

It seems most others were quite-local to it / were families bringing their children to see the 'toys', play on some of the vintage computer games.
But I don't regret going to it the once at least to see what was there - Luckily, it was 'only' a (albeit 50 mile) detour for me, as I was heading to a Music festival event in South Oxfordshire afterwards.
They could probably have done with quite a few more people bringing along and setting-up other retro-computers, but it did rely on having people wanting to do this from their 'Call for Exhibitors' original notice. And maybe this event isn't that widely-known about (although I did mention it here and at Work to publicise it a bit more).

Some photo's attached - Although I didn't manage to get too many / some came out a bit blurred, but may be others out there on the 'net.

[ortek_service]

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

AFAIK the Colour Genie was a Z80-based machine and had nothing much in common with the CoCo/Dragon.

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Thanks for info - I did recall the Video / Colour Genie, was very-similar to the TRS-80, but it seems it was the original Z80-based ones, and not the later TRS-80 'Colour' Computer 6809 ones (that you'd logically thought the Colour Genie might have been similar to).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Genie
https://www.classic-computers.org.nz...nie_review.htm

And that there's not many 6809-based home computers at all, from this list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...home_computers

With the TRS-80 Colour Computer and the Dragon being the most well-known.

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

>>
I feel the 6809 was the best of the 8 bit processors but came out too late to have much of an impact on the market. I wish the BBC Micro had used that processor rather than the inferior 6502. Interestingly Acorn did make a 6809 processor Eurocard for the 'system' machines, which I assume pre-dated the BBC micro.

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Although the Acorn System (the System 1 standalone 6502 Eurocard + Top Keyboard / display / cassette interface board) and rack / backplane-based System-2 at least) range originally pre-dated the Beeb (and the Atom), it did carry-on after the Beeb was out for many years - with Control Universal (who made many cards for it), eventually buying the rights to produce these.
The later system 4's / 5's (most similar to Beeb's), were more for industrial / Professional Labs use, costing quite a lot more than a Beeb.

So the 6809 Processor card for System racks was probably released rather later than 1981 when the Beeb (adapted from Acorn's originally-conceived and under development Proton) was being produced.
And IIRC, the (Control Universal?) System 6809 card was an alternative processor card for the system (to run OS/9 / Flex?), with the 6809 never being one of Acorn's 2nd Processors - Although CMS (as well as Control Universal, using a mult-board rack system), did produce ones for a Beeb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit

Acorn had probably jumped straight to 16/32bit processors by then (like Sinclair's 'Quantum Leap' and others using the 'proper' 16bit databus 68000), using the 32016. But after being disappointed by its (and also 68000) actual per MHz clock performance, went on to design their own, inspired by the 6502's small design team. And so starting the ARM - which does have a more 68000 / maybe 6809-like instruction set (and also many more / uniform register set like the 68000, compared to 6502) - RISC-revolution.

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

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It also turns up in HP instruments, my 1630 logic analyser is controlled by a 6809 with a 6829 MMU chip (only time I've seen that device used).
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Yes, I have seen the 6809 being used in a few items of commercial / test Equipment - Particularly HP.

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by ortek_service

Although the Acorn System (the System 1 standalone 6502 Eurocard + Top Keyboard / display / cassette interface board) and rack / backplane-based System-2 at least) range originally pre-dated the Beeb (and the Atom), it did carry-on after the Beeb was out for many years - with Control Universal (who made many cards for it), eventually buying the rights to produce these.
The later system 4's / 5's (most similar to Beeb's), were more for industrial / Professional Labs use, costing quite a lot more than a Beeb.

So the 6809 Processor card for System racks was probably released rather later than 1981 when the Beeb (adapted from Acorn's originally-conceived and under development Proton) was being produced.
And IIRC, the (Control Universal?) System 6809 card was an alternative processor card for the system (to run OS/9 / Flex?), with the 6809 never being one of Acorn's 2nd Processors - Although CMS (as well as Control Universal, using a mult-board rack system), did produce ones for a Beeb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit

The 6809 processor card for the System racks that I was referring to was certainly an Acorn product. It says 'Acorn' in the silkscreen and the manual is simlar to that of other Acorn boards. It certainly ran Flex, I've never seen OS-9 for it

And no, there never was a 6809 second processor for the BBC micro. The 'cheesewedge' second processors were, I think the 65C02, Z80 and 32016. And a little later the ARM 1.

There was a 6809 expansion board for the Apple ][ called 'The Mill' I think. It ran either the UCSD p-system (which Apple used for Pascal and Fortran on that machine) or OS-9.

[ortek_service]

Originally Posted by ortek_service

Thanks for highlighting this event, Which I wasn't aware of until this post / recent tweets from 'Here Be Dragons' on X-Twitter (Where I see ZXspectrum - as well as Commodore - are currently trending) summary emails I get.

And I may well be tempted to go to it, as I did finally acquire a complete & working Dragon 32 (/ 64?) a few years ago, after previously only having some surplus Modulator PCB's and the odd interface for these.
Although all my TRS-80 stuff is all Z80, rather than the 6809 their Colour Computer was (with it being similar to Colour Genie?)

It always seemed that the 6809 should have been adopted much-more, as it had a rather extended (compared to earlier 6800 etc. / the 6502) instruction set, making it much-nicer to program. And this instruction set (which probably influenced their later 68000) could have made it the best 8bit uP. So will be interesting to see what other lesser-known computers used it, outside use in some arcade machines (often along with 6502 etc).

I've not been to the Cambridge Museum of Technology before, so it will be interesting to visit this and the Pye collection - I did once go to a radio rally at the old Pye Telecom site after it moved from Addenbrookes. But unfortunately, since many years at Wood Green, now seems to have disappeared.
And I'll need to investigate nearby parking, if there's none on-site that CfCH has, as usually find there's not much free on-street until the evening.

Hopefully CfCH will have re-opened (I wasn't aware it had closed) in time for the annual RCF, next month, as will be good to go to that again.

I saw a few hours ago on my 'local' (Look-East) news, that there's also a special 'bit of a retro' exhibition just opened at the Cambridge University Library (which probably isn't too far away) of the original Spitting Image TV-programme puppets etc, that might be of interest to some (especially those of us who went to the BBC 100years one in Cardiff, earlier this year).

And a major A428 road-upgrade has just started around Beds/Cambs border, near the notorious (has it's own website!) 'Black Cat' roundabout (which may now be closed), with a 12mile! diversion in place. So might need to avoid that route, if possible.

I also found on the "Museum of Technology" website, some info about free-parking on some nearby roads / some nearby retail parks that can park for upto 4hrs free, if using.these - but may not be enough time for this event and looking at other parts of the museum. As well as the Park 'n' Ride.

Also, I only just noticed that strangely this 6th Dragon meet-up event seems to run for an extra hour on the Sunday (compared to the Saturday), when guided-tours by a former Pye employee of that exhibition are also available:
https://www.museumoftechnology.com/whats-on

[cmjones01]

Originally Posted by ortek_service

I also found on the "Museum of Technology" website, some info about free-parking on some nearby roads / some nearby retail parks that can park for upto 4hrs free, if using.these - but may not be enough time for this event and looking at other parts of the museum. As well as the Park 'n' Ride.

Without getting too OT for the forum, in my experience the Tesco car park right next door from the Museum of Technology is so enormous that it never fills up even on a Saturday. There's at least one vehicle rental business and a car wash which operate from the same car park in order to make more use of the space. You may be able to access the museum through the back entrance on Cheddar's Lane which runs alongside Tesco, or if not you'll have to walk down the cycle/pedestrian path to the river and then turn right and you'll be at the front entrance of the museum. It's the one with the big chimney

Chris

[ortek_service]

Originally Posted by cmjones01

>>
>>
Without getting too OT for the forum, in my experience the Tesco car park right next door from the Museum of Technology is so enormous that it never fills up even on a Saturday. There's at least one vehicle rental business and a car wash which operate from the same car park in order to make more use of the space. You may be able to access the museum through the back entrance on Cheddar's Lane which runs alongside Tesco, or if not you'll have to walk down the cycle/pedestrian path to the river and then turn right and you'll be at the front entrance of the museum. It's the one with the big chimney

Chris

Thanks for this info. Although I'd probably park there as a last resort, as many Tesco etc. sites have ANPR-camera enforced parking time limits so could get a £100 'fine' for staying just a minute longer than max. allowed 2 or 3hrs etc.


I've now dug out my Dragon from its 'Lair' box of Dragon stuff. I think it was 'only' the more-common? 32k one, but I did also acquire 3off Dragon main-boards with the 32K RAM expansion sub-board fitted. And I also have a couple of the Dragon TV-Modulator / PSU boards - Just a shame I haven't picked up yet any spare Dragon cases or Keyboards, to restore these back to a complete unit.

As well as some boxed Altai Joysticks for the Dragon and some books on it, I also found a few Dragon software cassettes (Inc. some Amateur Radio Progs), and may bring some along (Most likely on Sunday) if anyone will have a cassette player there - Not sure if there's a good online collection for Dragon software, to see what might be good to transfer that's not in an archive.
Plus, I think I've also got a stash of Dragon User mags somewhere, so will have to look to see what I've got.

[ortek_service]

A little late, but for info I actually found quite a few free spaces on Cheddars Lane on that Sunday afternoon.
In fact I parked virtually opposite the rear entrance of the Museum of Technology (although I'm sure the gates on it weren't open until I left via there, as I hadn't realised it was there and it took me some wandering around paths / streets by the adjacent Tesco trying to follow where it was on Google Maps, until I found where the main entrance to the site was).

And I hadn't realised at the time that it was quite close to the CfCH Coldhams Lane site - So it might be useful to park there, if struggling to find a space on the CfCH site / somewhere down the road / might also save a lot of queuing in traffic around there (I spent nearly an hour today stuck in standstill traffic travelling only 5miles from other side of Cambridge Uni Library to the CFCH site. With lots of traffic lights seemingly causing gridlock in Cambridge / lots of queues around the retail park near the CfCH).

Although, as it happens when I got to the CfCH today mid-afternoon, I found there were actually a couple of free spaces at the CfCH (albeit one was marked as for the Garage next to it, but seemed closed - So others at the the CfCH were using these as I'd often found in the past). Whereas I have often ended-up parking down the road

However, when I went into the CfCH museum, asking to buy a ticket for entrance, the person on the desk said I needed to have have pre-booked! as it was 'unusually busy' (well it would be more busy than normal with a special event of extra stuff there), so they weren't allowing 'walk-ins'. And told me to to come back tomorrow when it wouldn't be as busy (not sure how they can be that sure? although I have in the past usually gone on a Sunday / have usually bought a ticket on the door just in case I couldn't make a particular day I'd bought an advance one for.)
And I've heard others were also turned away today.

It did appear that one or two were leaving, when I got there, so would have thought they could have had a one-in one out policy like other busy venues, rather than turn people away - I was by myself, so it wasn't like there was a large group of us trying to get in.

[Phil__G]

A brilliant weekend, great to meet up again, and to finally meet the two Ians, Realtime & Coolsnaz... glad Sunday worked out Owen, would have been a great shame to miss it... (BTW I have my old EACA Colour Genie in front of me now, needs some TLC!)
Looking forward to the proposed 1970s Spring 24 event!

[Phil__G]

It was great to meet Chris Oddy, what a fine piece of engineering the MK14E is, and an impressive array of acorn widgets...
I stayed on Monday and went sightseeing in Cambridge, saw the very tree where the Apple][ was invented (or something...)
Architecturally an amazing city but much of it off limits to visitors... walked my legs off
Must do the Tech Museum next time.

[cmjones01]

I was there on the Saturday afternoon with a group of friends. We'd pre-booked, fortunately, and it was pretty busy inside. We all really enjoyed the festival and the museum, even those among us who weren't into vintage computing (or computing at all, for that matter). I also spent an enjoyable while discussing matters Acorn and Econet with Chris Oddy, and found the neighbouring display of 1980s French computers (apologies for forgetting the exhibitor's name) fascinating, like looking in to a parallel universe!

Chris

[Realtime]

I had a very enjoyable Sunday at the CfCH. Met with Ian, Phil, Tim, Owen, Chris and I'm sure a few others that I'm afraid I didn't get the names of.

Highlights for me were being able to put the fully working LCDS on display (running Kitbug+),


Chris Oddy's table full of amazing replica HW. It was great to see the SOFTY2 up and running.


Owen's Introkit that he picked up for an obscenely small amount of money


and just the vibe of people that were genuinely interested in the exhibition and the museum.


I wanted to find out more about the Orton ASR 33 terminal on Tim's table but never got around to asking. Maybe Tim can fill us in?

[Mark1960]

There is a sticky thread in homebrew equipment that you might not have seen with a few of Karen’s amazing creations, includes a link to her post on the ASR33.

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...86&postcount=1

[Timbucus]

You can also see it in action at this point in my Video of all her SC/MP projects I am looking after:

https://youtu.be/mZY5Q_jzRxs?t=1389

Hopefully someone with a bit of TV skill on here can talk me through fault finding the single white dot I had so could not show the machine - which was working fine before I left. I assume it is to do with the deflection coils/circuit... I will open a thread in a suitable spot - perhaps in the Homebrew section...

[Realtime]

Ah, very nice. So Is that Karen’s original on Tim’s table?

[Timbucus]

It was the original - I was entrusted to look after all her computer creations as she asked me to do so before she passed.

I wanted to start bringing them along to shows so that everyone can experience them. It had to be the only one with a CRT for that show due to its nature but, it obviously didn't like the journey up... so I now need to repair it...

Tim

Originally Posted by Realtime

Ah, very nice. So Is that Karen’s original on Tim’s table or did Tim build one?

[SiriusHardware]

As a general rule, if you have something which
-Worked before it travelled
-Doesn't work now

...Look for heavy things which are usually attached to the PCB only by solder joints, most especially the line output transformer but also other transformers and top-heavy semiconductor devices mounted on heatsinks. Ring shaped cracks in the solder on the pins of those items are what you would be looking for.

Your particular fault may just mean that the connections to the scan coil assembly have managed to unplug themselves from the PCB while in transit. If it isn't a straightforward fault it will make for quite an interesting repair thread, being as it is a one-off prototype.

[Phil__G]

G, I think a top priority for next year is that we need to persuade you to go

[SiriusHardware]

I do really like the Centre For Computing History, I should try to get down there again some time. I'm sure Tim or one of the other Youtube regulars will do a video on this year's event so I should hopefully get to see a little bit of what went on.

[ortek_service]

Yes, it was good to finally get in and catch-up with a few of the RCF etc regulars - as well as some I hadn't seen before.
I didn't get much time to explore much else in Cambridge whilst there, other than going to the impressive-looking Cambridge Uni Library building for the free Spitting Image original artifacts that they've now had donated to them exhibition there. Plus discovering where you can actually park unrestricted for free, just under 2miles / 20min walk from there rather than £1 per 15mins cost (often 2hrs max. and worrying about how much you need in advance), much closer-in.
I'd only really been into centre of Cambridge during the day for Radio rallies at Philips Telecom and Addenbrookes ambulance station in the past.
Normally only going to the occasional music event in the evenings, when there's quite a bit of nearby free parking.


Although I did recently go to the Cambridge 'Museum of Technology' for the Dragon / 6809 systems meet-up (+ guided tour by an ex Pye-employee of the recently created Pye-musuem building there) - I thought it quite ironic, that considering Cambridge is renowned for its leading-edge Technology Innovation & Scientific discoveries, that the Dragons etc. were was the most-modern thing I saw there! - with most of the museum being large steam engines that ran the water pumping site it's based-at. So that's maybe really more of an Industrial heritage place, like Ironbridge etc. Although I'm sure many of us do appreciate some good old Victorian solidly-built-to-last Engineering.


A summary of all that was planned to be exhibited at the RCF and by who (mostly the same regulars each time), can still be found on the event ticket-booking webpage for this year:
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/...-5th-november/

as well as last year (Apparently celebrating 40yrs on from 1982, although was many much-more vintage items there):
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/...-6th-november/


I've seen a few tweets from the RCF 2023 with some photos from the CfCH / RCF-exhibitors on X-Twitter:
https://twitter.com/computermuseum
- which may still be viewable without needing to be registered on (that FB (and Instagram?) probably mostly requires.


I managed to take a few photos (although not much video) of most of what was there just for the RCF this year, so need to sort through these
- No Introkit's or Newbear's (other than mine, I put out on end of Chris's table) that were there last year (nor SWTH 6800's / Northstar Horizon's) - as well as a few of the newer CfCH more-permanent items.
Although Tim had has SCRUMPI again, which was fortunate as he was kindly able to verify that the now v.expensive SC/MP-I PMOS CPU in my Introkit does in-fact still work OK. So many thanks for that, and with me previously-verifying the MM5204 EPROM, I just now need to find out what's wrong amongst all the remaining single-rail IC's, that seems to be stopping it running as expected.

But this time there was a rather-rare NS IMP-16 system (see attached photo), three (A black-cased and a white-cased original + Chris's PCB-only replica) Softy-2's, an AIM-65 (Might be a replica?).
And also Realtime's LCDS (on the Sunday, which I believe had everything that was on Saturday apart from John Newcombe unfortunately having unexpectedly having to leave this time before the Sunday).