On Sun, 12 Jun 2016 18:02:08 +0100, Vir Campestris <
vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 12/06/2016 06:17, mail-veil@btinternet.com wrote:
Our web site: http://www.bmpg.org.uk/
I had a little look. Apparently you've done nothing since last autumn...
I'd like to see more about a computer that just pre-dates me.
Andy
I take your point Andy; I have not maintained records of our work on
the web site; most remiss of me and all down to other personal
demands.
Two key items have been working on the reliability of the performance
of the system and developing a Compact Flash card replacement for the Winchester disk which was the one item that put our entire system at
risk as we had only one drive left of this almost unobtainable
component. The major reliability problems were entirely down to
corrosion as the LCP had been left in a field with the door open
adjacent to the computer rack so a great deal of strip down, cleaning
and proofing was undertaken. As I said in my message we have been concentrating on preparation of the cabins for exhibition involving a
huge amount of paint stripping and rectification of corrosion; topics
which tend not to be attention grabbing.
I will make the effort to document more of what we have done on the
web site and exhibit photographs of the Argus 700 and the associated peripherals. Our next objective is to develop a replacement for the
tape drive as the cassette drive belts are very unreliable as is the
capstan in the tape machine itself.
The two drives involved with this system are:
Originally the hard drive was a CDC Wren 1 Model 9415-3 (FINCH
Interface).
There is a CDC Wren 1 9415-5 model which has a Seagate Interface,
this is not used on our Argus 700. The Wren 1 is lifed at 20,000 Hrs
or 5 years. We are certainly well over the 5 years and head crashes
have been the cause of failures of the spare drives we did manage to
obtain.
We later incorporated a SCSI ST31200N system developed by Syseca which
was unique to the Swiss at BL-64 museum and we developed it to work
with the ex-RAF equipment. We now have a CF card system developed in conjunction with PeripheralVision:
http://www.peripheral-vision.com/products/scsi-to-compact-flash/ .
The tape system uses a Cipher Quarterback, Model F420-90, 90IPS, 20MB,
8.0 using QIC-02 tapes.
Work on the overall kit can only take place on a Saturday so progress
is slow. We are fortunate to have an off-line Argus 700 test rig at
the house one of the BMPG members and the computer development is
almost entirely his work.
We are working from personal funding with no grants and no commercial
support so again we are constrained from that angle but at least we
have saved the system which is unique in UK. The only other working
kit is in Switzerland and the only other LCP is rotting away at the
Imperial War Museum, Duxford which is an utter disgrace for our
national museum to treat it with such disregard (my moan for the
day!).
Hope that gives you greater confidence that we are not sitting on our
rear ends doing nothing.
Mike
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