The Qube RiscOS Server is here! - Page 3

prowler · 21 April 2009, 23:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie

@ prowler:
are you in CJE's employ?

Hi Charlie,

No, I'm not associated with CJE at all. I found it when I was searching for a RiscOS machine to buy and marvelled at what they can supply from stock.

My brother lives near there and next time I go down, I'll pay them a visit (I think an appointment is necessary, as they prefer to supply by mail order).

Trouble is, my brother's always busy (his in-laws own a vineyard and he works there), so I don't go down very often.

So no RiscOS machine for me yet...

prowler

TheCorfiot · 22 April 2009, 00:12

@Prowler

Thanks for the linky for the RPC EMulator...

Muchly appreciated.

@chiark

Congrats on the A3020, I have one of these fine machines courtesy of my great friend Charlie

I hope you enjoy this fantastic machine.
RISC PC's are quite regular on ebay and Superb to work with, class of their own.

@Charlie

Never knew there were so many Acorn fans on EAB my friend.

Maybe EAB is beginning to stand for English Acorn Board

Hope you are well & Best Wishes
TC

Charlie · 22 April 2009, 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheCorfiot

@Charlie

Never knew there were so many Acorn fans on EAB my friend.

Maybe EAB is beginning to stand for English Acorn Board

Hope you are well & Best Wishes
TC

I'm fine thanks TC - been a tad busy with the website...
...I really must stop shirking my duties over @ AmiBay.

Hmm,
The English Acorn Board...
...I like the sound of that, I like the echoes!

Methanoid · 22 April 2009, 11:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie

Hi Methanoid,
The max capacity HDD for OS 3.5 or older is 512mb.
Not restrictive in itself as RiscOS apps are so small - as you say its finding <512mb drives these days.
- IDE -> CF is perfect for these computers. (hopefully)
- You can 'waste' bigger drives as the OS won't see past 512mb anyway.
- There's also a dirty trick you can do to force >512mb on older Arc's if you're brave.

@ prowler:
are you in CJE's employ?

Thanks Charlie (as always) and Prowler..

Now I am in a bidding war for a mouse.. but what is the podule for? Analopgue joystick only?

TheCorfiot · 22 April 2009, 11:29

@Methanoid

The Podule has a User port and Analogue port on it, allows the use of BBC style analogue joysticks.
The Board actually carries a 6522VIA and the Beeb's ADC chip to provide the function.

TC

Charlie · 25 April 2009, 11:55

A quick update:

I've been flooded with requests (ok, one request) to start a small BB related to the content on the server and things RiscOS in general...
...so I have!
It's got some very simple rules as it will be largely unmoderated - I've got my fingers in too many pies ATM.

Not all the forum is visible to guests, so join! As usual I'm making this up as I go along so don't expect something as glorious as the EAB...
...Hopefully it will prove to be another useful aspect to the server.

I must say for the last few days my internet connection has taken a constant hammering, I guess the concept (not my idea I'm just hosting it) is already proving popular.

Charlie · 25 April 2009, 21:38

One final poor excuse for advertising:

All but one of the links is now live, including the new guest book feature - can you find it?
The one part that remains is the page for the 'The Qube RiscOS Server' link, then it's all done.

(I'm in negotiations with Porridge & TBITBBH but they want more money for their guest appearances)

So if you (or somebody you know) have an interest in RiscOS, have titbits to share or stuff to upload do have a look.

The Qube RiscOS Server

Hmmm,
I suppose I'll have to begin the thankless task of spreading the word round the Acorn community...

Charlie · 01 May 2009, 14:03

DAMN!!!

Weeks of work down the toilet!

I've had a (slight) electrical fire...
...taken out the Qube server, and my home server that had the backups on it - I suppose it serves me right that one was sitting on top of the other.

Weeks of work down the toilet, contributions gone... my own data gone.

:SIGH:

Time to survey the damage...
...my own server's toast as is the Qube, though amazingly it's mobo is still working - tough little b*stard! Sadly the logic board for the Qube's HDD is fried: That side of the HDD was screwed to the inside of the metal box - got a bit hot.

:SIGH:
(again)

I suppose I should be thankful I was in the house to smell the smoke so nothing else went up...
...I hope to God I can find a replacement logic board for the Qube's HDD & maybe resurrect the data. Does anybody know if the mechanical bits of an HDD can stand a bit of, um, roasting?

...find another Qube and start again.

:SIGH:
(yet again)

Hey! All my other stuff's fine!

TCD · 01 May 2009, 14:14

My sincere condolences to your Qube server mate

He's now at a better place... until you fix it

All the best that you can get it sorted and of course I will try my best to help you getting the stuff back

chiark · 01 May 2009, 14:24

Still trying to find a mouse

Had a play with the 3020 the other day again, and I think I need the mouse... There's a HD in it, but the configuration is knackered.

When I turn it on, there's no drive icons on the desktop bar, not even floppy

. I've f12'd and *cofigure'd an IDEDisc and harddisc to be non-zero, and now there's IDEDisc5 on there.

At this point I figure that having a mouse and using !configure might make configuration a little easier than trying to do it through divination: unlike the miggy, there's not a huge community out there!

Charlie · 01 May 2009, 15:40

@TCD: Thanks - I've just found a company in Hong-Kong that sell the very logic board I need (not cheep) - hopefully if the fire hasn't toasted the platters I'll be up again in a somewhat deconstructed state until I find another Qube to house it all in...
...now for my own server - hmm, maybe it's time I finished that RiscPC server as I now have a bit more room...

@chiark: Although Arcs will run from the command-line fine you are a bit buggered without a mouse.
If a 'proper' Acorn mouse doesn't turn up (pricey) STD do a very nice Arc-PS2 adaptor...
...still too pricey?
I'm about to zone some files you may find useful - keyboard mouse emulation & a serial driver for serial mouse.

If you're having trouble with set up of your HDD feel free to pm me...
...Q&A like this was meant for the Qube's BB! Ho, hum it will be back some time...

Methanoid · 01 May 2009, 21:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie

@TCD: Thanks - I've just found a company in Hong-Kong that sell the very logic board I need (not cheep) - hopefully if the fire hasn't toasted the platters I'll be up again in a somewhat deconstructed state until I find another Qube to house it all in...
...now for my own server - hmm, maybe it's time I finished that RiscPC server as I now have a bit more room...

@chiark: Although Arcs will run from the command-line fine you are a bit buggered without a mouse.
If a 'proper' Acorn mouse doesn't turn up (pricey) STD do a very nice Arc-PS2 adaptor...
...still too pricey?
I'm about to zone some files you may find useful - keyboard mouse emulation & a serial driver for serial mouse.

If you're having trouble with set up of your HDD feel free to pm me...
...Q&A like this was meant for the Qube's BB! Ho, hum it will be back some time...

Chaz, bad news on the server(s) and fingers crossed for the recovery. Hope it wasnt the Zonbu that fried!!

Do you know if the Serial-PS2 adapters work on Arch and if the PS2-USB adapters work? I'm wondering if both combined plus a nice PC optical mouse would be best for my new Arch

TheCorfiot · 01 May 2009, 21:50

Charlie !!!!!

OMG, my good friend I couldn't believe what I was reading

I am so sorry to hear about the incident but thank god you were at home to limit the damage. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.

What can I do to help, Please do let me know

Best Wishes always

TC

I've got files I can re-upload when you are ready

prowler · 01 May 2009, 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie

Does anybody know if the mechanical bits of an HDD can stand a bit of, um, roasting?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie

I've just found a company in Hong-Kong that sell the very logic board I need (not cheep) - hopefully if the fire hasn't toasted the platters I'll be up again in a somewhat deconstructed state until I find another Qube to house it all in...

Hi Charlie,

I'm desperately sorry to hear about your 'accident', mate.

From my experience, I think you could count yourself extremely unlucky if the hard drive mechanism is stuffed following this incident, unless everything was reduced to cinders. They're pretty robust, you know.

This should mean the money spent on a new logic board from Hong Kong is not going to be wasted.

Good luck with the rebuild.

prowler

03 May 2009, 00:15

Sorry to hear about that Charlie. Maybe we can try and mirror the content? I have a PC I use as a server that is on nearly 24/7. I'm constantly uploading with utorrent

so I can't offer the service you have, but I can at least try to keep a regular backup for you. I'm guessing the content so far hasn't even reached a GB yet? No problems if it's multiple GBs though.

Just picked up a few games off the bay so I'll try to have some more box scans etc by the time you are up and running again.

In reply to your PM a week or so ago (sorry for not getting back I've been busy playing Pandora's Box and doing lots of soldering projects) my biggest suggestion would be to create a .dat file for clrmame pro of all of the content. This would make it easy to see if people have the latest files and could help facilitate backups etc.

As a final note - how concerned is this project about Copyright etc? Specifically 4th Dimension Games as they are still being sold by APDL? Are we to assume that people will only download stuff they own the originals for?

prowler · 05 May 2009, 23:06

Hi Guys,

News about the new release RPCEmu 0.8.4 for Windows and ROOL RiscOS 5.15 IOMD ROMs are available here:
http://www.marutan.net/rpcemuspoon/

prowler

Charlie · 12 May 2009, 13:27

Hi chaps,
Thanks for the kind replies & offers of help - I appreciate it.

Sorry I've been a bit quiet, today's the first time I've loged-in anywhere I usually hang out in a while: Been having one of those 'Bloody poxy computers, mumble, mumble, if I never touch another computer... mumble, mumble' feeling sorry for myself sessions.

Been feeling a bit sorry for myself because I NEVER take backups & have always gotten away with it...
...I DID take backups this time because the data I'm hosting isn't mine, & look what happened: It seems the PSU in my own server caught fire & because it's a metal box that contained the fire long enough to thoroughly roast the contents of said server while heating up the Qube sitting on top of it and so kill it's HDD.

Anyway:
-Still awaiting replacement HDD logic board (HongKong -> UK is a bit slow)
-Further reading has me a bit concerned:
Segate HDD's seem to be:
1) VERY prone to popping their logic boards.
2) The chips tend to 'adapt' to the HDD mechanism in their drives so even if the platters are fine data recovery is iffy @ best. Great! I'll not be buying any more Segate drives - fingers throughly crossed.
-Having done some cleaning + testing of said logic board only one chip seems popped so if it's no-go I may butcher the replacement for the damaged chip & streach my meager surface-mount skills a bit...

@ Methanoid:
Prior to my little issue I did some testing...
...!SerialMouse is what you need - It WILL work with a PS2->Serial adaptor, I can't say about USB -> PS2 -> Serial. Sound's a bit iffy to me.

@TC:
Thanks, and thanks for the offer of help - if all goes to plan I'll be up again once the new logic board arrives...
...If I have to embark on some scary surface mount stuff (the pins are REALLY small on the seemingly dead chip) I could well be back in touch.

@prowler:
Thanks for the kind words & advice.

@eddebaby:
Thanks.
Copyright is allways a difficult area with 'abandonware' especially in the RO community where peeps are known to be a bit, um 'bolshy'..?
My attitude (hopefully agreed with by the other admins) is this:
-Is it actively supported / developed / sold material..? By this I mean there's at the least a functioning web-site where you can buy and get support, and have some hope for further development. Let's not do nice people out of their livelihood.
-EVERYTHING else is fair game!
It's a preservation resource & one of the big problems with ROS material is much of it is dissapearing into that limbo of 'it's not been released as freeware but neither is anyone actively supporting or selling'.

prowler · 12 May 2009, 13:38

Hi Charlie,

It's good to hear from you again even if it's not good news yet.

Don't be too discouraged by what you have read about Seagate drives. In my experience, they are among the best you can get and, significantly in this case, I've never had a problem with *any* hard drive that wasn't solved, at least for long enough to recover data from the drive, by replacing the drive electronics pcb (though the circumstances of your drive's 'failure' are somewhat unusual, admittedly

)

Chin up! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the replacement board from Hong Kong does the trick when it arrives!

prowler

chiark · 12 May 2009, 15:52

good luck charlie, keep your chin up. It's difficult to get the enthusiasm up to redo something you've already done, but your resource is still definitely valuable!

Fingers are crossed. As is everything else!

Charlie · 12 May 2009, 19:22

Thanks chaps.

01 May 2009, 14:03	#48
Charlie . . Mouse . . Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nowhere Age: 55 Posts: 1,792	Bugger... DAMN!!! Weeks of work down the toilet! I've had a (slight) electrical fire... ...taken out the Qube server, and my home server that had the backups on it - I suppose it serves me right that one was sitting on top of the other. Weeks of work down the toilet, contributions gone... my own data gone. :SIGH: Time to survey the damage... ...my own server's toast as is the Qube, though amazingly it's mobo is still working - tough little b*stard! Sadly the logic board for the Qube's HDD is fried: That side of the HDD was screwed to the inside of the metal box - got a bit hot. :SIGH: (again) I suppose I should be thankful I was in the house to smell the smoke so nothing else went up... ...I hope to God I can find a replacement logic board for the Qube's HDD & maybe resurrect the data. Does anybody know if the mechanical bits of an HDD can stand a bit of, um, roasting? ...find another Qube and start again. :SIGH: (yet again) Hey! All my other stuff's fine!

05 May 2009, 23:06	#56
prowler Global Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Sidcup, England Posts: 10,300	Hi Guys, News about the new release RPCEmu 0.8.4 for Windows and ROOL RiscOS 5.15 IOMD ROMs are available here: http://www.marutan.net/rpcemuspoon/ prowler Last edited by prowler; 06 May 2009 at 19:57. Reason: Added ROOL and IOMD details.

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22 April 2009, 00:12	#42
TheCorfiot Amibay Senior Staff Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Cardiff / Wales Posts: 1,302	@Prowler Thanks for the linky for the RPC EMulator... Muchly appreciated. @chiark Congrats on the A3020, I have one of these fine machines courtesy of my great friend Charlie I hope you enjoy this fantastic machine. RISC PC's are quite regular on ebay and Superb to work with, class of their own. @Charlie Never knew there were so many Acorn fans on EAB my friend. Maybe EAB is beginning to stand for English Acorn Board Hope you are well & Best Wishes TC

22 April 2009, 11:29	#45
TheCorfiot Amibay Senior Staff Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Cardiff / Wales Posts: 1,302	@Methanoid The Podule has a User port and Analogue port on it, allows the use of BBC style analogue joysticks. The Board actually carries a 6522VIA and the Beeb's ADC chip to provide the function. TC

25 April 2009, 11:55	#46
Charlie . . Mouse . . Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nowhere Age: 55 Posts: 1,792	A quick update: I've been flooded with requests (ok, one request) to start a small BB related to the content on the server and things RiscOS in general... ...so I have! It's got some very simple rules as it will be largely unmoderated - I've got my fingers in too many pies ATM. Not all the forum is visible to guests, so join! As usual I'm making this up as I go along so don't expect something as glorious as the EAB... ...Hopefully it will prove to be another useful aspect to the server. I must say for the last few days my internet connection has taken a constant hammering, I guess the concept (not my idea I'm just hosting it) is already proving popular.

25 April 2009, 21:38	#47
Charlie . . Mouse . . Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nowhere Age: 55 Posts: 1,792	One final poor excuse for advertising: All but one of the links is now live, including the new guest book feature - can you find it? The one part that remains is the page for the 'The Qube RiscOS Server' link, then it's all done. (I'm in negotiations with Porridge & TBITBBH but they want more money for their guest appearances) So if you (or somebody you know) have an interest in RiscOS, have titbits to share or stuff to upload do have a look. The Qube RiscOS Server Hmmm, I suppose I'll have to begin the thankless task of spreading the word round the Acorn community...

01 May 2009, 14:14	#49
TCD HOL/FTP busy bee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Germany Age: 46 Posts: 31,866	My sincere condolences to your Qube server mate He's now at a better place... until you fix it All the best that you can get it sorted and of course I will try my best to help you getting the stuff back

01 May 2009, 14:24	#50
chiark Needs a life Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: England Posts: 1,707	Still trying to find a mouse Had a play with the 3020 the other day again, and I think I need the mouse... There's a HD in it, but the configuration is knackered. When I turn it on, there's no drive icons on the desktop bar, not even floppy . I've f12'd and *cofigure'd an IDEDisc and harddisc to be non-zero, and now there's IDEDisc5 on there. At this point I figure that having a mouse and using !configure might make configuration a little easier than trying to do it through divination: unlike the miggy, there's not a huge community out there!

01 May 2009, 15:40	#51
Charlie . . Mouse . . Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nowhere Age: 55 Posts: 1,792	@TCD: Thanks - I've just found a company in Hong-Kong that sell the very logic board I need (not cheep) - hopefully if the fire hasn't toasted the platters I'll be up again in a somewhat deconstructed state until I find another Qube to house it all in... ...now for my own server - hmm, maybe it's time I finished that RiscPC server as I now have a bit more room... @chiark: Although Arcs will run from the command-line fine you are a bit buggered without a mouse. If a 'proper' Acorn mouse doesn't turn up (pricey) STD do a very nice Arc-PS2 adaptor... ...still too pricey? I'm about to zone some files you may find useful - keyboard mouse emulation & a serial driver for serial mouse. If you're having trouble with set up of your HDD feel free to pm me... ...Q&A like this was meant for the Qube's BB! Ho, hum it will be back some time...

01 May 2009, 21:50	#53
TheCorfiot Amibay Senior Staff Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Cardiff / Wales Posts: 1,302	Charlie !!!!! OMG, my good friend I couldn't believe what I was reading I am so sorry to hear about the incident but thank god you were at home to limit the damage. Just thinking about it makes me shudder. What can I do to help, Please do let me know Best Wishes always TC I've got files I can re-upload when you are ready

03 May 2009, 00:15	#55
eddebaby Posts: n/a	Sorry to hear about that Charlie. Maybe we can try and mirror the content? I have a PC I use as a server that is on nearly 24/7. I'm constantly uploading with utorrent so I can't offer the service you have, but I can at least try to keep a regular backup for you. I'm guessing the content so far hasn't even reached a GB yet? No problems if it's multiple GBs though. Just picked up a few games off the bay so I'll try to have some more box scans etc by the time you are up and running again. In reply to your PM a week or so ago (sorry for not getting back I've been busy playing Pandora's Box and doing lots of soldering projects) my biggest suggestion would be to create a .dat file for clrmame pro of all of the content. This would make it easy to see if people have the latest files and could help facilitate backups etc. As a final note - how concerned is this project about Copyright etc? Specifically 4th Dimension Games as they are still being sold by APDL? Are we to assume that people will only download stuff they own the originals for?

12 May 2009, 13:27	#57
Charlie . . Mouse . . Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nowhere Age: 55 Posts: 1,792	Hi chaps, Thanks for the kind replies & offers of help - I appreciate it. Sorry I've been a bit quiet, today's the first time I've loged-in anywhere I usually hang out in a while: Been having one of those 'Bloody poxy computers, mumble, mumble, if I never touch another computer... mumble, mumble' feeling sorry for myself sessions. Been feeling a bit sorry for myself because I NEVER take backups & have always gotten away with it... ...I DID take backups this time because the data I'm hosting isn't mine, & look what happened: It seems the PSU in my own server caught fire & because it's a metal box that contained the fire long enough to thoroughly roast the contents of said server while heating up the Qube sitting on top of it and so kill it's HDD. Anyway: -Still awaiting replacement HDD logic board (HongKong -> UK is a bit slow) -Further reading has me a bit concerned: Segate HDD's seem to be: 1) VERY prone to popping their logic boards. 2) The chips tend to 'adapt' to the HDD mechanism in their drives so even if the platters are fine data recovery is iffy @ best. Great! I'll not be buying any more Segate drives - fingers throughly crossed. -Having done some cleaning + testing of said logic board only one chip seems popped so if it's no-go I may butcher the replacement for the damaged chip & streach my meager surface-mount skills a bit... @ Methanoid: Prior to my little issue I did some testing... ...!SerialMouse is what you need - It WILL work with a PS2->Serial adaptor, I can't say about USB -> PS2 -> Serial. Sound's a bit iffy to me. @TC: Thanks, and thanks for the offer of help - if all goes to plan I'll be up again once the new logic board arrives... ...If I have to embark on some scary surface mount stuff (the pins are REALLY small on the seemingly dead chip) I could well be back in touch. @prowler: Thanks for the kind words & advice. @eddebaby: Thanks. Copyright is allways a difficult area with 'abandonware' especially in the RO community where peeps are known to be a bit, um 'bolshy'..? My attitude (hopefully agreed with by the other admins) is this: -Is it actively supported / developed / sold material..? By this I mean there's at the least a functioning web-site where you can buy and get support, and have some hope for further development. Let's not do nice people out of their livelihood. -EVERYTHING else is fair game! It's a preservation resource & one of the big problems with ROS material is much of it is dissapearing into that limbo of 'it's not been released as freeware but neither is anyone actively supporting or selling'.

12 May 2009, 13:38	#58
prowler Global Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Sidcup, England Posts: 10,300	Hi Charlie, It's good to hear from you again even if it's not good news yet. Don't be too discouraged by what you have read about Seagate drives. In my experience, they are among the best you can get and, significantly in this case, I've never had a problem with any hard drive that wasn't solved, at least for long enough to recover data from the drive, by replacing the drive electronics pcb (though the circumstances of your drive's 'failure' are somewhat unusual, admittedly ) Chin up! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the replacement board from Hong Kong does the trick when it arrives! prowler

12 May 2009, 15:52	#59
chiark Needs a life Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: England Posts: 1,707	good luck charlie, keep your chin up. It's difficult to get the enthusiasm up to redo something you've already done, but your resource is still definitely valuable! Fingers are crossed. As is everything else!

12 May 2009, 19:22	#60
Charlie . . Mouse . . Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Nowhere Age: 55 Posts: 1,792	Thanks chaps.

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