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This Week I Received....

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 9:05 am
by robheaton
I won an ebay auction for an Aurora & Super Gold Card machine - https://goo.gl/nh3ZES

It arrived on Thursday of this week and I've been tinkering with it ever since!
Sadly the included hard drive was faulty and the QubIDE didn't recognise the drive was attached, I've replaced this with an IDE DOM & this seems to be working fine.
The floppy drive also seems to have failed, although it worked initially when it arrived, now it tried to read a disc, but constantly returns a 'not found' error. (Though the drive light does light up) - I've tried another floppy drive and this works fine.

This is going to be my Christmas project, to try and complete the machine and restore it to full working order.

Here is a full list of what the machine compromises of;
  • Aurora Mainboard, with 3 serial ports attached
    Super Hermes, with AT port attached for the keyboard
    Minerva MK2 1.92, with what looks like a PS/2 port attached (Not sure what this is for)
    Powered Backplane
    QubIDE
    IDE DOM
    Super Gold Card
    Internal Speaker
The rear of the case has been modified with two headphone style sockets, not sure what these are for yet, network sockets maybe?

Here are some pictures of the internals;
1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
4.jpg
5.jpg
6.jpg

My next job is to get SMSQ/E up and running, then organise a suitable mouse.
I have the mouse that came with the auction, but I've not tried it yet, I also have an Amiga mouse & adapters to convert it to an Atari pinout.
Has anyone got any recommendations here?
I've read several pieces of info about mice, some mention BUS mice, some mention serial, but the Aurora manual says an Amiga mouse can be used. (Although I'm not sure if it needs adapting in any way.)

No doubt I'll have lots more questions, but should be a fun project & learning curve!

Re: This Week I Received....

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:33 pm
by 1024MAK
Atari ST / TT mice, Amiga mice and Acorn Arc (but not the later machines, which use PS/2) mice are all bus mice. Most third party mice for mouse interfaces for 8 bit machines also use bus mice (for example, the Genius GM-7 Bus Mouse). The Atari and Amiga mice both use a 9 pin D connector with almost the same pin out (two lines are swapped, that's the difference between the two). There were also bus mice for PCs at one time. But these are not very common.

Mark

Re: This Week I Received....

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 7:34 pm
by robheaton
I've built an adaptor to use an Amiga mouse. (As Amiga mice are readily available)

I did cheat and avoided any soldering, by using these;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200549323885? ... EBIDX%3AIT
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190530356315? ... EBIDX%3AIT

But this does mean I can still use the mouse with an Amiga!

Re: This Week I Received....

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:42 pm
by Pr0f
Wow - that was my old rig !

I sold it to the fellow in Godalming ! The PS/2 port is i2c port from Minerva, wired to the same specification pin out as the I2c kits that appears in Elektor magazine.

It did have a switchable mouse with it - Amiga and some other mode - can't remember exactly. The case was a tight tight fit and used to house a rather naff Amstrad 8086 PC.

The 2 3.5mm jacks are Network - tested working with another QL.

Good to see it lives still :-)