Tom Stepleton

Nice, that's what I use for all of my 8" floppy recovery activities. It's hard to clean the heads without removing the logic board, but otherwise it's worked pretty well for me.

I did blow one of the tantalums by the voltage regulator when powering it up for the first time, so be ready for that!

I don't really know for XMOS, but I'm reminded a bit of XMOS. A sequel to transputer with some of the same people. www.xmos.com/usb-multicha...

Congrats on leaving all the same. I just think it's funny how the X gang was even lazier than one might first think.

It's not X11, it's $\mathbb{X}$

A Lisa is a mere vestibule to pain, the gentle piedmont to the distant jagged massif, the dewy outpost to the foul raucous garrisons...

Get a PERQ.

Americans can vote. Wherever they are. Ensuring Service members, their eligible family members and overseas citizens can vote -- from anywhere in the world.

PSA for Jan 1: www.fvap.gov remains a fine way for US citizens living outside of the US to request an absentee ballot without winding up on somebody's mailing list.

can you, for the hypothetical benefit of folks like me who have put off claiming the last of their employer gift-matched donations to nearly the literal last minute, recommend a way that I can repeat my annual donation to IA despite it being offline?

PS: I'm in London. 2025 arrives in 73 minutes...

Some disk images for Lisa 1 and Lisa 2/5 systems Some disk images for Lisa 1 and Lisa 2/5 systems

How I got an Apple Lisa to play audio samples: lisalist2.com/index.php/to...

An extension of this technique: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlR...

using a method also speculated by Adam Podstawczyński forgottencomputer.com/retro/sound/...

I'm recruiting a PhD student for autumn 2026 on a project on accessibility in musical instrument design, in partnership with disability arts charities OHMI and Drake Music.

Application deadline 15 February 2026. More info and contact details: liss-dtp.ac.uk/project/inst...

Update 2: all sorted now; credit to friendly folks over on Mastodon :-)

Update: the CCH in Cambridge has it! Of course, online would be convenient... unless someone has a scanner :-) www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/3357/Uni...

Picture of a citation at the end of a paper. The citation says: 15. "Flex and the ICL Perq2" M.Stanley. University Computing Vol 8, No 2, Summer 1986.

Has anyone ever heard of a (UK?) journal called University Computing? Know where I could find archives? Long shot, but this paper could contain info that helps us open-source a remarkable operating system developed by the UK MoD in the 1970s and 1980s. Boosts appreciated!

Oh dear, could this be in regard to oldbytes.space/@stepleton/1...?

I'd never say lithiums don't leak (I've seen enough Maxells and Tadirans to know better), but I still quest to find a BR-2/3A cell that has. It's the only exception, so I ask out of disbelief. Or was a better world always possible?

Integral to the problem is that newspapers are more about volume men than area men these days.

This thread suggests its a thing but that some manufacturers are more susceptible than others: www.aussiearcade.com/topic/59944-...

I didn't know that... there's one in the Tek 4054A that's here. 4051s have five 6820 PIAs each --- do those ICs have the same reputation?

Sinclair ZX Printer Belt by aerobaticant A recreated belt to replace the original in the Sinclair ZX Printer that disintegrate with age.The service manual detailing how to replace the belt is here:https://spectrumforeveryone.com/wp-content/u...

I wonder if this casting approach would yield a superior belt for the ZX Spectrum printer than the TPU-based 3d-printed replacements that are available now: www.thingiverse.com/thing:4822567

The display from a broken Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ computer: inside a thick green border, eight alternating black and white vertical bands with a few small, coloured squares arranged on the left-hand side.

@breakintoprogram.co.uk so the problem with my Spectrum+ was the Z80, it turns out. The address bus was stone dead, +0V on all sixteen lines. Subbing in the CPU from my Jupiter Ace got it going; a replacement is now on order. Thanks for the chat on Sunday!

When doing electronics rework I don't put my soldering iron in ANY of my pockets...

When your reaction to learning about APL is "hold my beer"

Dr. Talboom isn't so new to the party... A few years ago she offered me advice and some connections for my own archiving project as well, which felt generous since I'm not an academic or affiliated with Cambridge. I'm glad she's around.

Roll Call Factba.se - Speech: Donald Trump Addresses Military Leadership in Quantico, Virginia - September 30, 2025 Full transcript of Donald J. Trump: Speech: Donald Trump Addresses Military Leadership in Quantico, Virginia - September 30, 2025

He really did mention it about fifty five hours before your post. rollcall.com/factbase/tru...

A circuit board with two DIP ICs and some passive components connects a VGA cable and two DIN-5 cables (top) to a DIN-4 cable, a DA-15-terminated ribbon cable, and a 75-ohm coaxial cable (bottom). The bottom cables go to a PERQ T2 workstation; the top cables go to mouse, keyboard, and display.

Just in time for #PERQtober ! An adapter to replace your missing or broken #PERQ T2 landscape monitor with a VGA display: codeberg.org/stepleton/pe... Thanks to @skeezicsb@oldbytes.space for early advice.

Worth trying. Cyclomethicone's main use is lubrication, but it's useful for cleaning if you can't remove the cookie to wash it in water+soap. It may do some work as a solvent by itself, but I think it mainly keeps dirt and your q-tip from scratching up the media as you wipe.

Amazon will work --- most people use cyclomethicone to make cosmetics at home, so I think the sellers are buying large quantities from chemical suppliers and repackaging into smaller bottles. Just be sure to get cyclomethicone and not dimethicone: you want the stuff that evaporates (eventually).

I've been doing a fair amount of 8" floppy recovery lately and tend to use cyclomethicone fairly liberally as a lubricant to avoid snowplowing. It seems to work well. More discussion from the late, great Chuck Guzis at the end of this text file: www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/...

The Olivetti Programma P203 (1967) uses a circuit construction technique known as "transistor jail"
(or "cordwood" [1]. Seen at [2].)

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed...
[2] www.thecomputerchurch.org

First time I think I've seen it, sorry!

I think you owe your good, dry luck to the fact that nobody pressed that MOIST button on the tape deck.

Skiatron - Wikipedia

It's like a semi-persistent skiatron! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiatron