New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

As most will know I've just purchased an Acorn Archimedes 410/1. It came with a CJE Micro ARM3 CPU Booster upgrade, all the ram banks full, ide podule along with 170meg hdd, a printer podule and RiscOS 3.x roms. It's obvious it was put to some serious back in the day.

I've removed the cover, front panel and drive shelf so I can access the battery area. The corrosion has been cleaned up-I used Silk "Thick & Extra soft" Quatity wipes which cleaned everything up quite nicely. An ice block stick was used to get under the battery holder itself thus avoiding drilling out the pop rivets. Came up threat- the Aloe Vera and Chamomile is great stuff . Gunk from the old batteries had seeped around one rivet down though the base lifting about a 1.5 square cm area of beige paint underneath-not a show stopper.

I suspect the DD fdd is past its use by date-no sign of when a disk is placed in it or on start up. The hdd on the other hand makes all the right noises. Out of curiosity I hooked up a spare hd fdd and that lit up indicating to power and controller should be ok. These machine use DD drives only though. What does concern me though is there is no tone from the speaker on startup. Not having a suitable monitor doesn't help but good things take time and I'm in no hurry.

If you are in Auckland, I might have a suitable Acorn monitor for you. Other things to try on this machine are holding down Delete or 'R' when you power it on will reset the CMOS and might get things going. Also, watch the floppy disc drive light after power on. If it's flashing, it indicates a fault and the flashes are the error code. I've also had success with using a 9 pin to VGA converter cable or plug with these machines.

Cheers,

Mike.

Cheers for the offer Mike. I'm in Palmerston North.

Progress though. I get a speaker start up tone now. Caps lock switches off also. No fdd light still though.

caluser2000 wrote:I'm in Palmerston North.

Just round the corner then. I'm in Fielding.

I have a Philips CM8833-II monitor that was the popular cheap option for Acorn A3000 users. Just used it on my 410, and the picture is good. If you need to borrow it for your machine, well, that's the offer! I want it back when you source your own!
(And a moment ago some X2s just let go, so I'll be making PSU repairs sometime this week!) I won't be needing it for the immediate future.

And this has reminded me of some issues with the 'design' of the Archimedes. The venting fan is in the wrong way round. If you have a hard disc in, the heat it generates will be blown onto the floppy drive, which causes them to fail, so turn the fan around to vent the warm air out of the case. Take the filter element out and throw it away as it blocks stupidly quickly. Pooh, what a stink now that it is outside the case ;o)

Ta man. I think I got some 72 pin simms off you a while back. Really only need to plug the begger and start it up. 10mins should be enough.

I've notice there's a bit of flex in the mobo and it can touch the bottem of the case quite easily. I'll be putting a few extra nylon stand offs/pads in place to stop this happening in future.

caluser2000 wrote:Ta man. I think I got some 72 pin simms off you a while back. Really only need to plug the begger and start it up. 10mins should be enough.

Well, then that works out to the better, you know the routine and the address. You are welcome any time. Phone first to make sure I'm in! (Tomorrow I may be out for most of the morning so try after 2pm).

I've noticed there's a bit of flex in the mobo and it can touch the bottom of the case quite easily. I'll be putting a few extra nylon stand offs/pads in place to stop this happening in future.

Yes, Motherboard is only supported at the rear and half way along it's length (at the edges). Support is absolutely minimal, flexibility absolutely assured. The old red pink sponge stuff that PC mobos used under the solder side when shipping is a highly recommended addition to any Archimedes case. It's a great barrier for use here - I can't claim the credit for this hack, and I haven't got any in my machines 'cos I've never had a large enough sheet to use - I suppose I should just glue an AT sized chunk in the front where the biggest concern might be, but I don't do gymnastics on the desk while the computer is plugged in so it's never been a problem, shouldn't really be an issue for anybody under normal operating conditions, these machines are 20+ years old, and it never seemed to get much press in the 80s when they came out. Again, another design issue. Have I got more complaints, you betcha. Just as well I like Acorn machines, I forgive you!

Blow this PSU cap. thing for a joke. (pun intended). I'm going to have to get a slitting saw set up on a milling machine or similar just to take this PSU thing apart neatly to fix it. Since it still powers the computer, and the smell is gone, I'll just use the PSU as is.

LOl I've got a Union Jack stashed away somewhere I should it hang up as a backdrop for my small Acorn stash.

Burning smell could be a fried cockroach left over from the last "Doctors" visit having escaped from the TARDIS.

Good tip about the pink sponge. You can get that from RS supplies/ Element 14. I do dispatch at work and the odd bit turns up with components shipped in from oversees. With all this apparent sudden rekindled interest in Acorns maybe there should be a "Nut Fest" Mind you we might get a "my nut is bigger than your nut" situation. Can't have that...

Found a 9pin to 15 pin vga cord in the shed. Held down the monitor type 3-3 key on the numeric keypad on startup and hey presto!! Its Alive!! Its Alive!!

Altered the screen to SVGA(256 colours)

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum ... post269222

Next it'll be getting the Green on sync issue sorted. I'll get some AA batteries tomorrow so the settings can saved.

More progress. Got the fdd going. Turns out someone had fitted the ribbon cable around the wrong way before I received it.

The hdd appears to have died waiting for attention.

Had a play with the 410/1 on the weekend trying to get one of the xtra 420meg hdd Kendall sent me up and running. I'd previously formatted this in dos and get an error from !HForm. Ill hook it it up to a 486 or 286 mobo, remove any partition info try a zero fill and give it another shot sometime this week and see how that goes.

caluser2000 wrote:More progress. Got the fdd going. Turns out someone had fitted the ribbon cable around the wrong way before I received it.

I had the exact same thing happen to me with a twin speed CDROM drive on the weekend.

Wasted almost two hours swapping sound cards, installing drivers, turned out the cable was in backwards when I received it. Bah.
Glad to hear the floppy is going again.

Thanks. Looks like like the PO or someone previous to me had it to bits on a number of times looking at the state of some screw heads. I guess they gave up and tossed the thing. The upgrades make up for any inconvenience though as I mentioned earlier performance is on par with an A4000. If it wasn't for the them I wouldn't have even bothered to bid on it.