I have my master! Obviously I can't do much with it yet due to the lack of tape leads (have you sent those off yet DaveM?), but it seems to work!

The space key is a bit dodgy (the bits that hold the space bar up on either side have disappeared leaving only the middle one - anyone got any tips on how to sort this out?), I needed to hammer the V key about 100 times before it would work (I really needed that key, I'll come onto that later), but other than that it works.


Of course, when I got it it was hopelessly deconfigured, but I'm not sure whether this is thanks to the battery running out or something else, since it didn't do what I'd expect and start with all the bits set to 0 or 1 (instead it had some really odd configuration that looked like it might have been part of a network once upon a time). The TV configuration was especially out - it was 5 lines above what it should have been!

Anyway, I've unplugged it and I'll leave it for about 10 minutes to see if it keeps the configuration. If it does, then I know it's not the battery (but I'll still try to replace it ASAP). I've managed to get the configuration sorted out (not sure if this will last as I said), but there's still a problem. When I turn it on, this is what I get:


Acorn MOS

Searching
Bad command

BASIC

>_



and it works as normal. The worrying thing is that the error message appears where the disk controller message is on my emulator - does that mean someone's ripped out the disk controller? I hope not! I don't have a drive to test it on at the moment.





EDIT: Actually, it doesn't look good:


Acorn MOS

Searching
Bad command

BASIC

>*ADFS

Bad command
>*DISK

Bad command
>*DISC

Bad command
>*DFS

Bad command
>*TAPE
>_


It appears to only have a tape interface! Is there any way to fix this?






EDIT2: I've thought it might only work when I have a drive plugged in. Is this the case? I don't have a drive yet.

OK, it's even worse now. I found out that the romchips were "unplugged" from typing *ROMS, so I inserted them, and am now left with this:

Acorn MOS

Acorn ADFS

_


Doesn't respond to key presses, the only thing I could find was to press ctrl + F, break, and that didn't work.

Fixed it all thanks to http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/CompNyb ... ml#Battery







Will try to make a replacement battery pack.


I've found out it also comes with an extra INTER-WORD ROM - undoubtedly one that the previous owner put in. How do I access this? It's in slot 8.

Interword is *IWORD. It's probably fitted as the built in version of VIEW is crap (I've got Interword in my Master for that reason).

Now get yourself a disc drive! You'll drive yourself insane waiting for Beeb tapes to load.

I found the manual in the end and figured that out.

Does it use the same disk drives as PCs?

Oh, and I discovered that it works with Amstrad monitors! That's great news (I have one)!

Battery is definitely dead. Well, time to make a new one!

You can make a PC drive work if you can set it to ID0 instead of ID1 (assuming the drive has jumpers on it). It may be easier just to buy a Beeb drive though - you could use eBay, or Beebmaster has a few - http://www.beebshop.co.uk/#Drives

TomW: I really meant a 5.25" floppy drive (I would like to be able to run original software).


In fact, did original software come on floppies? If so, how many tracks did they usually have? I'm not quite sure whether to buy a 40 or 80 drive, or one that can switch between the two.




Anyway, I've got the batteries sorted. I seem to have a weird Master; rather than having a self-contained, sealed battery pack, it actually had a AA battery holder. It was definitely the original one because it had a label on it saying something to the effect of "Do not replace batteries. Instead, buy an Acorn-approved battery pack." Needless to say, I just replaced the batteries

That's what I was pointing at - BeebMaster has 40 track 5.25" drives for sale as well as the 3.5" drives.



A switchable drive would be best, but most (all?) disc software will run on 40 track. Don't think I've ever seen an 80 track only drive, though I'm sure they exist.

I found a command *DRIVE that was obviously intended for 80-track only drives - so they must have existed. It allows you to place a drive in 40 track emulation mode, where it gives you read-only access to 40 track disks in an 80 track drive by skipping every other track when reading. So an 80-track-only drive would be fine too (obviously I wouldn't need to write to 40 track disks).

For the reference, the syntax, if anyone every happens to find one, is:


*DRIVE <drive number> [<number of tracks on the current disk>]


It's the same command used to change the current drive being used, so obviously it caters for both uses.



EDIT: That seems to only work with DFS. Can anyone find an ADFS equivalent? Or does it work with ADFS and it's just not listed in the reference manual?

ADFS discs were mainly 80 track, so a track-skipping command would be mostly irrelevant.

From the way Acorn set up the Welcome disc (40 track on one side, 80 track on the other, selected by poking a directory pointer in the root catalogue (?)) and not providing a double sided counterpart to the S format, dual tracking support was presumably absent from ADFS and frankly, becoming obsolescent.

--G

Its an old message I know, but it never did get answered.



The solution is to put two dead keys in the holes, preferably keys you've dismantled to remove the contacts from.