On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 at 15:31:31, Norman Dunbar wrote:
(ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
>
>>If she is like Ben, she will _use_ them. He has a PC and a QL in the
>>house networked to my office. An Atari ST is sitting there, and he is
>>just about to power up a Spectrum. That is not to mention the
>>Playstation, Sega Gameboy and the 4 Nitenendo Game Boys (three
>>auctioned
>>on the internet) and the linked Nintendo Pokemon linked to the games
>>on
>>the Gamegears. Oh yes, and the old 70s bat/ball/beep TV game he got
>>for
>>25p. .... and the Lego RCX .... and my old AST notebook. .... and
>>various bits we found in skips.
>
>
>Must be great having a dad who can fix things :o)
Ah now that reminds me......
The AST notebook I got when he was a baby so I could work on the move.
He destroyed a floppy drive with a screwdriver when he was 18 months -
while sitting on my knee. I replaced it under insurance. However the
new one blipped every few minutes - maddening. "You need a new bios"
they said. It was a PLCC plug in chip, so I did it, but I was new to
these sockets then, and cracked it. It worked though with a bit of
rubber holding the socket in. After about 6 years of this, I decided to
replace the socket, and damaged the pcb. I had a better notebook by
then, so was a low priority job. I asked AST for a circuit diagram. "It
is not our policy to provide these" "... but the machine is 8 years
old". Last year, after my practise on micro-soldering with RomDisq etc,
Roy Wood said "These any use to you" and presented me with the exact
PLCC SMD sockets needed for the AST. I carefully mapped out the missing
pcb tracks etc and succeeded in getting the AST going again.
... so Ben had a very appropriate gift, and they are the same age.
OK only a 386/20 60mb HD, but it was top of the range in those days and
cost a fortune.
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