More new toys!

From: Philip Pemberton <philpem_at_dsl.pipex.com>
Date: Fri Sep 19 01:51:00 2003

In message <200309182329.h8INTLeP030891_at_onyx.spiritone.com>
          "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh_at_aracnet.com> wrote:

> OK, even with me looking to get rid of most of my collection, I'm incredibly
> GREEN with ENVY!
Heh. Incidentally, Acorn's logo is/was green (well, the "Acorn" text was
black, but the actual acorn "nut" was green). They are incredibly nice
machines - I'm using an Acorn StrongARM RiscPC to type this message. Aside
from the occasional bit of lag, the SARPC "feels" as fast as a Pentium-233.

> I'd be happy just to be able to get my hands on a nice RISC OS machine,
I might be able to get you an A3010 or an A3020 ("all in one" machines, the
"keyboard" contains all the circuitry). They cost around ?20 over here, but
shipping would be a bit expensive. I'd be tempted to put some ESD-proof
bubblewrap inside the casing (to stop it getting smashed), put the case cover
back on, then put a few layers of normal bubblewrap on the keyboard and
cover the whole lot in a few more layers of... You guessed it, bubble wrap.
Drop the box on the floor. If the machine survived, send it on its merry way.

> a Laptop would be *really* cool! I've been wanting to play
> with RISC OS for years, but you just don't see the systems in the US.
If you want a RISC OS system, you could try asking in the
comp.sys.acorn.hardware newsgroup - there are a few RISC OS users in the USA,
one of them might have a spare machine for sale.
Failing that, there's always Ebay.
IMHO, an ARM610 RiscPC is about the minimum you should consider. Make sure it
comes with a mouse, otherwise you'll need to shell out another ?20 for an
adapter. Power cables, monitor cables, etc. are all standard, just plug in a
standard PS/2 keyboard and monitor, plug it in and hit the power button.
One gotcha that might catch you out is that most of the newer CDROMs won't
work on the internal IDE interface. Most 24x (and slower) IDE/ATAPI drives
will. I had a Samsung CD-Master 24E in my RiscPC for a while; a Panasonic
CR-583 works just as well (if a little slower).

Later.
-- 
Phil.                              | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem_at_dsl.pipex.com              | ViewFinder, Ethernet (Acorn AEH62),
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/  | 8xCD, framegrabber, Teletext
... The current limits placed are based on resistance
Received on Fri Sep 19 2003 - 01:51:00 BST

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