Fired up an Acorn for the first time in years
Discussion
I've always had a soft spot for these, having cut my teeth at an early age with an A3000 at home. I've now acquired an A3010 that another family member had, and have finally got round to getting it going for a bit of a nostalgia trip 
After a bit of figuring out how I could get a 20+ year old computer to display on a modern LCD panel, it turned out to be more straightforward than I'd imagined. Initially I was getting a signal to the monitor by the virtue that it was not going into sleep mode, but still no display. After a bit of trawling the web, it turned out that the A3010 is VGA compatible, but having been switched off for the last 10 years at least it had lost all its settings and was booting into the supervisor mode. Holding down the 'R' key and switching on does a full reset, and the desktop that I was so familiar with displays once more
Not all good news however as the mouse doesn't work (I was warned this might be the case). All 3 buttons work, but when I try and move the mouse, the pointer jerks about slightly and that's it. I've taken the mouse apart to try to trace the cause, but it all seems fine to me. Any ideas?
Seeing it up and running again just reminds me how far ahead of time Acorn were with RISC OS & it's easy to see why the ARM architecture now is so successful.
Glad to have been a part of something different at a time when all my friends at school had PCs/Amigas/Nintendos...
After a bit of figuring out how I could get a 20+ year old computer to display on a modern LCD panel, it turned out to be more straightforward than I'd imagined. Initially I was getting a signal to the monitor by the virtue that it was not going into sleep mode, but still no display. After a bit of trawling the web, it turned out that the A3010 is VGA compatible, but having been switched off for the last 10 years at least it had lost all its settings and was booting into the supervisor mode. Holding down the 'R' key and switching on does a full reset, and the desktop that I was so familiar with displays once more
Not all good news however as the mouse doesn't work (I was warned this might be the case). All 3 buttons work, but when I try and move the mouse, the pointer jerks about slightly and that's it. I've taken the mouse apart to try to trace the cause, but it all seems fine to me. Any ideas?
Seeing it up and running again just reminds me how far ahead of time Acorn were with RISC OS & it's easy to see why the ARM architecture now is so successful.
Glad to have been a part of something different at a time when all my friends at school had PCs/Amigas/Nintendos...
Had quite a few games for the A3000, admittedly several were Amiga ports...
However, all my favourites were anything by The Fourth Dimension. Case in point: Saloon Cars - bloody difficult but absolutely loved thrashing that Astra GTE round Silverstone!
Hands up, who used to read Archimedes World??
Damn, I really need to get that mouse fixed: got a lot of old games to revive!
However, all my favourites were anything by The Fourth Dimension. Case in point: Saloon Cars - bloody difficult but absolutely loved thrashing that Astra GTE round Silverstone!
Hands up, who used to read Archimedes World??
Damn, I really need to get that mouse fixed: got a lot of old games to revive!
davepoth said:
But in the first instance I'd take the thing to pieces and see whether the rollers and optical wheel are clogged with dust.
Cheers for the links, will check them out. I've already had the mouse apart and everything looks to be where it should, nothing appears broken. Perhaps the optical sensors for each axis are misaligned?davepoth said:
You might also have a sticky ball. Fnarr.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff