On Jan 12, 18:38, Joe wrote:
> Well the Acorn is alive again. I finally got around to fixing the
> power supply. That also took care of the buzzing sound that was
> coming from the speaker. I'm also now getting a prompt. Before the
> PSU blew I was getting the ROM messages but no prompt. Now I'm
> getting "Acorn OS", "Acorn DFS", "BASIC" and ">" with a blinking
> underline prompt after that. However it's still not responding to
> the keyboard (except for the Control-Break).
Well, that's a fair amount of progress, even without the keyboard. Do you
still have the description I wrote about how it works?
> Just for the hell of it I tried powering it up with different
> ROMs removed. With the "US BASIC" ROM removed it asked "What Language?".
> Of course since the keyboard wasn't working I couldn't tell it anything.
You wouldn't have been able to anyway. Without a language ROM of some
sort, it won't listen to you. unless you have a Second Processor unit
installed, and it drops to the "*" prompt.
> With both the "US BASIC" and "DNFS" ROM removed it reported "View A2.1",
> "No Text", Editing No File", "Screen Mode 7", "Printer Default" and a
> "=>" prompt. Looks like I fell into some kind of monitor program.
> Still can't do anything due to faulty keyboard.
That's not a monitor prompt, it's the command mode of VIEW, which is a word
processor.
This is slightly odd. View is, in Acorn OS terms, a language, equivalent
to BASIC, COMAL, LOGO, FORTH, Wordwise, or any number of terminal emulator
ROMs. So removing BASIC but leaving View and the DNFS should have resulted
in your getting the View prompt, just as it did when you took out both
BASIC and DNFS.
> I cleaned up before Christmas and misplaced the bag with the screws
> for it, *&^(&%%!
That's all right. No proper BBC Micro has screws, except three M3 machine
screws to hold the PSU in place, and *possibly* some mushroom-head
self-tappers to hold the PCB steady. The keyboard screws should be
replaced with PCB clips for quick access, and the case screws should be
thrown away ;-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Sun Jan 12 2003 - 18:56:00 GMT