Last night I acquired a new toy: a BBC Micro Domesday system, complete with laserdiscs (LVROMs), trackball, monitor, trackball and manuals. It’s been sat in a cupboard in a school for years, but almost works.
What needs doing:
- The laser needs re-tracking on the LVD player itself – apparently it has issues reading from the disks. This isn’t a big job I don’t think unless the servo itself is gone, but I’m sure I can source parts.
- The power switch on the monitor needs fixing – looks like the catch on it has either bust or come off. Not a big job.
The ROMs themselves appear in good state, as does the Beeb. I shall attempt to power it up over the weekend and get it going properly.
Update: More about the BBC’s Domesday Project here, and some info on CAMiLEON (the preservation of the Domesday data) here together with a photo.
November 16, 2007 at 9:47 am
Coo! I remember those! The trackball was huge, ISTR.
Using the system had such an effect on me that I blatantly stole some of it’s ideas for my third year major project at Uni, which was a virtual-tour-guide-system-type-thing.
I wrote it in tcl/tk (This was 12 years ago). You don’t hear so much about them these days.
I’d like a go on your Doomesday machine if you get it working…
November 17, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Is that a Philips monitor? I’ve had a couple of those with the switch break so it won’t stay in. It’s the on-off catch mechanism that wears out, and the switch needs replacing to fix it.
My 7-year-old son’s got one hooked up to his PlayStation 2. His fix was to put an Amiga A520 modulator between the button (on the back) and the wall, and push the monitor backwards so the button’s held in.
November 17, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Yep, the Philips monitor. I’ve taken the switch out and gone round to hunt for a replacement (it’s a Preh ME5A) but no dice, looks like they stopped making them a while back.
I have a couple of Acorn monitors which I was going to skip, but I’ll probably pull one of those apart and see if the switch itself is transplantable.