Musus Umbra's Computers

I have four main machines (two 'workstations' and two servers), and a collection of sundry others that I keep around for old times' sake. I even have a PC, but that's just one of my foibles, I guess.

The most notorious machines are:

Frinkle

Frinkle is a StrongARMed RiscPC 700 and my pride and joy.

Frinkle currently has:

Many things you read/download here have passed through Frinkle. Indeed, much of it was written/created on him.

Anubis

Anubis is my main Linux box. He can dual-boot Windoze but, hey, we all have embarrassing little skeletons in our closets so let's not hold it against him. Anyway, it's a sad fact that some games (I do play games, you know) are only available for Windoze...

Anubis currently runs kernel 2.4.14 and SuSE Linux 7.0, with many tweaks/updates/etc. to suit my demands.

Anubis has:


Susan

Susan is my second RiscPC, really, but since she's much more useful to Charis she earns her daily charge working for her.

Susan currently has:


Binky

Binky is my wife's spare machine, really, although we're modern parents so tend to take an equal hand in looking after him. He's an upgraded RiscPC600.

Binky currently has:


Sidney

Sidney is an R260, which is basically the same as a high-end A540.

Although when Sidney came to live with us he was running RISCiX (Acorn's flavour of Unix), he was heavily dependent on the University network he used to be part of. So, it seemed kindest to simply remove RISCiX from his hard disc, install some RISC OS 3 ROMs, and start afresh. Certainly Sidney seems happy with this.

Sidney has:

Sidney is mainly used for testing software under RISC OS 3.11, etc. and also for writing CDs when Frinkle is otherwise occupied.


Bizchquoin

Bizchquoin (also known as "the Bitch") was my very first 32-bit Acorn machine, some eight or so years ago now.

Having served me well for many years, Bizchquoin is now semi-retired and used only for playing the occasional game, compatibility testing, etc.

In her glory days, Bizchquoin was much expanded. Sadly, due to lack of funds, many of her upgrades have now migrated to other machines (towards the end I was careful to choose upgrades that would be transplantable in this way).

Currently, Bizchquoin has:

She used to have the following, but donated them to other machines:

Bizchquoin has now needed surgery two or three times, and I'm not ready to give up on her. No way.


Janet

Janet is a somewhat upgraded A310 and originally came to live with me courtesy of the lovely SMulder.

Janet has:


Poota

Poota is my token PC, and basically only used for demonstrating to parents how to use Windoze, etc.

Poota's other main fuction is running the DOS version of Frotz so that I can compare my port with the original.

In the past, Poota was used almost exclusively (by my wife) for playing Minesweeper, Solitaire and SimCity. Now she has Binky, and my Automine, poor little Poota hardly gets a look in anymore.

Poota has (prepare to turn green with envy!) :

Origianlly Poota had only one 40Mb hard disc, and a 5.25" HD floppy drive. Needless to say, 40Mb is nowhere near enough space - even for a lowly 286, so I removed the 5.25" drive and added a second hard disc... You don't want to know how much effort and time that took - this PC was clearly designed, but I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to the age of the child responsible ;)


Slave

Slave is a BBC Master 128 series 8-bit machine that I saw for sale for a price that I simply couldn't refuse. Anyway, I'd been wanting a (reliable) machine to play Exile on ever since my original Beeb went the way of all silicon (ie. up in blue smoke).

Incidentally, I bought a brand-new copy of Exile from Superior (miraculously still trading!) especially. Exile must surely be one of the finest games of the 80s, and very possibly the century.

Slave is very much still in use, although since I got 6502Em from WSS, he's slightly less in demand for the sake of nostalgia ;)


Astra

Astra is a Master Compact. For those that care, the Compact is very much the same as a Master 128, but in a two box design. All the major gubbins are in the keyboard, with only the floppy drive and PSU in the 'main' box.

I just had to have a Compact; the keyboard is far nicer than the standard Beeb/Master one, and they are soooo cute :)

Many thanks to Nad!


Lazarus

Lazarus is an issue 3 BBC Micro (model B) - you know, the one with all those lovely patches to the motherboard...

Originally, Lazarus was known as DaPolga for reasons too complex to go into here, but was ceremonially renamed after she survived a truly horrendous accident (not her first, either) that should have fried every chip in her; Here's what happened...

I'd just made a little interface that allowed me to connect an old IBM-style greenscreen monitor to her (don't ask why), and had connected the monitor to the beeb.

Sadly, the monitor was (quite badly) out of adjustment, and so I had to remove the back and tweak it to get the picture to display properly.

Whilst adjusting the monitor (and I did know exactly what I was doing, by the way), it developed a fault and gave me a very nasty (electric) shock... which also managed to get into the video circuity and thence to my poor little DaPolga.

Obviously, I survived the incident... DaPolga didn't fare so well. When I connected her back up (to a normal monitor this time), she was well and truly dead. No beep, no nothing.

I examined the motherboard and discovered to my horror that a section of the 5V rail had been vaporised by the shock... actually vaporised, gone... it'd even left a small crater on the PCB.

So there I was with my trusty beeb micro having had a rather large voltage thrust through every chip on the board... I didn't even expect to be able to salvage anything for spares.

Ever the optimist, however, I bridged the missing track with a length of wire, turned the power on, and...

Brrrrr....Bip! - DaPolga had risen from the dead! I was sorely tempted to settle down and watch the Dr. Phibes films to celebrate ;)

Incidentally, this incident first earned me the name Frankenmoogle... a name spoken in hushed voices every time a 'dead' appliance is brought once more back to serve its masters... [if your browser supported it, and if I could be bothered, there might be some maniacal laughter here. But it probably doesn't, and I certainly can't, so there definitely isn't. So there.]


Leviathan

Leviathan was a PDP 11/83, and lived in the hallway. Most of the hallway, in fact.

When he was due to be scrapped by the company that owned him I couldn't bear to think of such a proud beast rusting in a skip and so with the help of my father brought him all the way from Yorkshire to Newcastle.

Miraculaously, he survived the journey and was, until recently, still operational.

Leviathan's key strong-points included:

Leviathan was lovely. Quite apart from anything else, he booted slightly more quickly than Win95 (a mere 10 minutes, or so) and was virtually unusable (again, an improvement over Win95).

I did once spend an afternoon booting him from the tape drive... I know: I'm sick.


Other machines & oddness

Other machines and peripherals I keep around include:


[ Isis Astarte Diana Hekate Demeter Kali Inana ]

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