Subject: Re: New finds: enough Torch stuff to sink a battleship

From: Jules Richardson<[email-masked]>
Date: Tue Jul 1 16:48:00 2003

Rob,

> Brackets on mine:

yep, mine's the same. 

do you know the history of your machine? Just curious as we now know of two
machines with the same case (apart from the lettering) and almost identical
internals - just pondering whether both yours and my machine were prototypes
and yours escaped the workshop somehow! (the guy I got my machines from says he
knows for sure the Triple X system I have was a prototype, but not much is
known about my other two systems apart from all three coming from the Torch
workshop)

> they do look a bit ropey...

Check out the mounting for the UHF connector. On mine it's a mangled bit of
aluminium with a cardboard insulator underneath...

> > Mine appears to be complete - it has the modem (connects somewhere to the

I take it your modem has the round old-style plug on it? I have two different
sorts of spare modems (two of each) that came with this lot and even though I'm
never going to use a modem I'd like to put the right type back in the machine.

> ok, see earlier picture.  it doesn't say atlas on it, so presume it's an
> early one...  Oh well.

I've since found a Unix installation guide amongst the stuff I got which might
be what you need. Depends what of the install floppies I have still have
readable data on them I suppose!

> It's got a Torch SASI board in it, so it says, with another interface board
> underneath that I can't quite see, with the drives under that.

likely the same Xebec board underneath that I have then. 

> You should be able to get to basic by holding "B" down on a hard boot (ctrl
> + reset).  My machine has the standard OS, a standard BBC Basic, a standard
> DFS rom, and MCP 1.01 AT.  

thanks - I'll give that a try. 

> I've not powered it up yet .. I know it did work, but think last time I
> tried (after moving house) it didn't boot.  Will try again later, when got
> a bit more time.

mine makes that wonderful "jet engine warming up" noise and smells of warm dust
when powered on :-)

I found another doc today the suggests holding down caps-lock whilst powering
on will do a manual boot so I'll try that tomorrow and see what happens.

cheers

Jules

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