Acorn Electron AP5 review

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A review of Dave Hitchins New Advanced Plus 5 (AP5) cartridge for the Acorn Electron Plus 1 expansion unit. I replace my ElkSD Plus 1 and ATI with ABR for an AP5 to provide the functionality of both products in a single cartridge.
As always, many thanks to everyone on StarDot, especially Dave Hitchins and David Banks, who helped sort out my various odd problems.
StarDot thread about the New AP5:
www.stardot.org.uk/forums/vie...
ADFS 1.30E source code:
github.com/mincebert/ADFS130/...
StarDot thread about MMFS and the Pi1MHz JIM RAM:
www.stardot.org.uk/forums/vie...
Latest Pi1MHz source and releases:
github.com/dp111/Pi1MHz

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Опубликовано:

8 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 18

@himselfe 3 месяца назад

Contrary to the purists, I actually like that you've slowly upgraded your Electron to a hybrid monster more capable and powerful than a Model B. I had a Model B when I was younger which I miss. Never had an Electron, but all these mods are making me seriously consider purchasing an Electron as it's much easier to find a reasonably priced Electron than an even remotely affordable Model B. One of the things I think was great about the Acorn ecosystem was its expandability both in software and hardware. These sorts of mods are totally in the spirit of what these computers were meant to be!

@0xC0DE 3 месяца назад

Your Electron videos are very interesting and useful to me, so please keep up the excellent work!

@stevek548 3 месяца назад

I haven't even heard of the AP5! That's a very cool upgrade for the humble Elk. Thanks for the great video.

@Ffinity 3 месяца назад

I do all my retro computing on FPGA devices these days but it's always great to see new hardware for these systems.

@trevorboys9140 3 месяца назад

Excellent video as always. There's a whole set of functionality I didn't even think about using my AP5 for!

@ukwebb 3 месяца назад

Lovely case on that ElkEconet board :) great video too

@lsbyte 3 месяца назад

Thanks - it is, indeed, a beauty! And where might I order one, if I didn't already have one?

@XTronical 2 месяца назад

As others have said, excellent video.

@WistrelChianti 3 месяца назад

Holy this is hardcore...

@RetroMarkyRM 3 месяца назад

Another nice feature I have used is to add a real time clock to the elk via the I2C bus on the AP5. Great video btw. Looking forward to more on the econet.

@lsbyte 3 месяца назад

Someone on StarDot is trying to add the support for the RTC in the AP6 (which also uses I2C) and it looks like progress is being made, with a hope to get that integrated into the Plus 1 Support ROM. There's a thread about it here: www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28720

@RetroMarkyRM 3 месяца назад

Thanks a lot. Keep up the good work!@@lsbyte

@rog2224 3 месяца назад

The AP5 is a great bit of kit - not really had the chance to play with it fully, but getting the old Beeb user port for LED flashing and reading thermistors takes me back to 80s Comp Sci degree. I'm still holding out hope for a drop in replacement for the ULA. In terms of point of critical failure, it's the one that seems the hardest to overcome. The Blob ULA is pretty reliable (I have two motherboards, one socketed, and one blob) but it's getting old (as are we all). I've seen a few projects sort of fizzle out on Stardot, so, maybe it's not really doable.

@lsbyte 3 месяца назад

Mine's a blob one and, so far, no issues. But you never know when problems will strike and it is worrying! I have a Plus/4 where the 8501 failed but fortunately there's a FPGA version which dropped in nicely and seems to work well (and adapter boards to fit a 6510, but they don't run the tape motor control).

@DickyB706 3 месяца назад

Great video! Well done. Very informative. I've been trying to find the perfect configuration(s) for my Electrons for a long while. It's a shame there's no version of ADFS, with SCSI support, that keeps page at E00 for the Electron. If a similar solution, implementated like MMFS on the AP5 could be found, then ADFS becomes so much more useful. I do like my BeebSCSI hanging off the 1Mhz port. BTW, there's a 5v connector on the AP5 inside, that I use to power the BeebSCSI.

@lsbyte 3 месяца назад

An ADFS with hard disc support and &E00 PAGE would be lovely! I can't use the 5V power output on the AP5 because it's limited to 100mA an the Pi draws way more than that. Something like a BeebSCSI is presumably much simpler, though, so won't need as much.

@markfisher696 Месяц назад

I've picked one of these up with an AP6/Plus 1 from Dave H on the back of this. Absolutely perfect video, I've watched it dozens of times and have learned a ton about how it all works. Thankyou a hundred times. One question though, is it possible to program MMFS onto the EEPROM if you don't have another SD cart plugged in (like the Elk SD Plus1)? I'm thinking the only way I'll be able to do it is with another MMFS rom in the AP6, and then that should expose the roms to program onto the AP5 ROM. Anyway, maybe I'll take this to the forums if I struggle. I can always manually program the EEPROM on my PC too.

@daveejhitchins 3 месяца назад

Excellent Videos - I should learn how to do better ones myself. Any chance you can contact me? I've some details to pass on about the 2V2 AP5 board and the ROM support - Dave H.