i have a broken plus3 with no floppy drive or adaptor. Now, do u think if i use a PC 31/2" drive with its own power supply, could the white normal elk adaptor run the elk &plus3? don't see why not, as my plus1 does not need a 'extra' adaptor

The 1770DC is pooped i think, so could i get an image, and just blow a blank eprom, and off it goes?? i read in the 'broken' rom with my beeb programmer, it was all '0's, so that why im thinking its broken. Or does it use different volt? hence the 0s?

Cheers, CM

I know someone was selling an elk with plus 3 (and plus 1) on ebay that only had the original elk power supply and he reckoned it worked (although it shouldn't and probably wouldn't be good for it!). Does the elk supply fit the plus 3 (I know the elk socket is blocked by the plus 3)?

mmm, think the guy on ebay is talkin crap, if floppy drive is on, then it would blow the original elk adaptor internal fuse!

the plug fits both, but your right, it does cover the elk socket, but i was going to open her up and put the cable straight to it!

its just, i really want to see the elk with the floppy going, as it will take ages playing 'tapes' out the laptopPC ear socket into elk.

If I remember there isn't really much at all in the Plus 3 adapter, just a step down transformer, the rest (rectification, smoothing etc.) is handled in the Plus 3. All you need is to buy something of the correct rating from Maplins etc. put the correct plug on the end and away you go.

Do you want me to get you the specs for the Plus 3 PSU ?

naa bud, just a working /image of WD1770DC

do u think its possible, per first post??

Oh, sorry missed that bit.

No you can't image the 1770DC as it's not a ROM. It's a dedicated circuit. It doesn't contain code or anything just circuits that make it behave as it does.

Impossible to image I'm afraid. You need a replacement

What makes you think it's bust ? Is it showing physical damage ?

Not sure where you'd get one apart from an old machine.

That's why your ROM reader didn't like it, as it's just not a ROM. In fact you may have damaged it by putting it in that device.

cheers, the guy (from here) that gave it to me said it was knackered, so i could not make it any worse!

was thinking of what u said, i suppose u cant read in an 8271 or 1770 piggy back
chip was same size, so thought it might.

ow well, back to tapes, project for when i find another wd1770 chip


PS some mobile phone chargers are the correct volt/amp to run a PC 31/2" drive

If you post it to me I'll swap it into my Master and confirm whether it is bust or not, how's that sound ?

sound as a pound mate but i don't want to wreck your master! or i suppose it will just Brrr-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee for eternity.

i will plug the plus3 into elk after my holidays , and see how things go

OK, I'll get you those power supply details in next couple of days or so.

Yeah - he probably just tested that it powered up which it would until you tried using a disk. I steered well clear anyway!

Tapes aren't so bad... 4 minutes or whatever really doesn't seem to take as long as it did when you were a kid (time's relative!) and you can always do something else like look about on the internet while it's doing it (and hope you don't look back to see a DATA? message!).

As for using discs with the elk, could you not get an advanced plus 3 or whatever to use 5.25 discs with your beeb drive?

Aye, I have one of those, an Advanced Plus 4 which connects to a 5.25" drive which is how I ran my ELK system back then. The AP4 was DFS (at E00).

But they are very rare. I've only ever seen one up on eBay in over 2 years and that went for £70+

its not Data? i get, its R?p@n?

Block? (Repton3 loading!)

i could use my beeb discs, but quicker with PC 31/2" drive and omniflop images in 1min!!


noticed a 'broken' one the other week, still went for £27ish
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Acorn-Electron-Ad ... dZViewItem

Elk Plus 3 0241,000 ISS 1,

It DOES Work (after fixing all the shorts!)
using normal cream adaptor & PC 31/2" drive with twist!!

Dont u just luv pressing CTLR-A-BREAK with a disc in,
magic sound! (br-bep, br-bep, br-bep, br-bep, BEEP)

The Superior Collection Vol 3 worked ok for first 4 games!.
but some of the games on the old elk did not work,
but worked on the 'newer1' ?? maybe a link had to be done for old?

Press Games1-6 did not work, i get at menu

as line 520
>BASIC

Mistake
>OLD
>PLOT

i has to do *DIR 1, CH."SS" to get some games to work

Does any1 else have a Plus3 working??
does the game Monsters with 3 monsters go slow, then when 1 monster, its faster??

Palace of magic worked,
Exile cracked screen came up, things flew about, then hanged
Crazee Rider got to PAGE=&1D00, ch."loader", then hanged.
Codename Droid loaded 2 screens, then hanged.

I take it its not that good , hence the T2P3 rom??
or is there a better ADFS, even a lovely DFS that WILL work???

PS, was using games discs from this site (ADFS), being
here http://www.stairwaytohell.com/electron/ ... e=homepage

Do you mean because of the Plus3? That happens anyway on a normal elk (from tape). Or does it go REALLY slow with 3 monsters? It's always faster with just one.

^^ ahh, must just be the Elk version of Monsters then

just been over to Elk world, looks like only PlayItAgainSam1 is there,
even though it did not work from the menu anyways.

why not 2-16? double stepping loaders again??

Yeh ive got 1, and ive got an AP4. Ive got quite a lot of 3.5" software now, using the information here and 'Electron World' it took me ages to transfer it all onto disk, but its woth it in the end. The suprising thing is how much you can now get for the Plus 3, back in the 80's I allways thought that due to the memory been altered that this was the main reason that games werent released for on 3.5" disk, but even large programs like Elite run fine!

A good piece of hardware to use is GoMMC you can transfer files back to ADFS or DFS depending on what you want to use. I find this much easier than Omiflop

Can u answer any of my questions?? ie DFS chips that work with it, menus not working like Press Games.

Not interested at all about goMMC, is its so '2000, i like the feel/amazement of old Acorns working with their original stuff 24years later

Will get a pic next weekend of it for ref, if any1 is actually interested

ADFS1.3 rom does not work, screen just stays black (not even lines), no beep, just a 'click'

ELITE
DaveE (ElkWorld) disc file HA-elit.ADF
shift-brk, gets to PAGE=&1D00 CHAIN"HAVEN", then hangs.
CH."elite" hangs without even the drive even going round.
*RENAME haven have, *RENAME elite haven
shift-brk game now works!!

Crazee Rider
*RENAME loader ldr
CH."ldr" game now works!!

LOAD"loader" drive does not spin &hangs
LOAD"loade" drive does not spin &hangs
LOAD"load" drive does not spin &hangs
LOAD"loa" works!!

So this got me thinking, is must be
file names >3chars gives it trouble!

So i tried SAVE, same thing, drive does not spin &hangs.
but SAVE"MEEE" works?!

Weenies game does not work.

Now, this is the mental bit, even the Welcome Disc (WelcomeDisc-ADFS_E.adf)
Gets to *BASIC, *LIB $.Library, *DIR $.Welcome, CH."INIT", hangs,
or get Bad Line 130.

Also used the 2.5meter 5v USB cable i made (to get power from laptop), does not make much difference to the speed of CTRL-A-BRK br-beeps,
seems a little more quicker, but same problems as last time,
so it Aint the cream adaptor underpower.

Here's some pics of the set up for anyone thats actually interested!?







EDIT :update pic links

Flippin' eck ! That's some weird problems your having there. Just reading the first three chars of file name... weird. I'm losing track here a little but have you got the ADFS ROM fitted now that came originally with a Plus 3 ?

thank flip someone is interested!

yeah, tried Acorn ADFS1.30, but no joy , so back to v1.00
did not have time to try DFS2.26 out beeb, but prob won't work

next mission, try DFS, and the Plus1!!

Do you want me to see what I've got in my Plus 3 ? I can probably download it to 3.5" disk and send it too you if you want to try a burn of it ? It'd be the weekend though.

One thought, what type of disk are you using DD or HD, I had problems with HD's in my Plus 3. I'm on DD's now.

i only use DD (1 hole for protection) mate, as HD is crap PC junk!
i figured that out ages ago when first fixed the 31/2" PC drive twist
I formatted them all to M 320k ADFS

no need for ADFS1.00 image, as have checked the actual rom to the files
in the archive here, using ADT rom command *FCOMP asdf1mine adfs1, and its exactly the same!

how enoying is it without *TYPE & *BUILD commands on the elk

figured why the Pres Games 1-6 menu does not work,

they are ADFS E00

Hi again.

The PRES E00 disk is for something different its to load the disk utilitys into sideways ram, so you can run games at the lower page address. It has nothing to do with the menus.

You've got a strange problem there, definatly hardware rather than software. ive tryed the PRES games from here as well as the Play It Again Sam one and they work fine.

BBC DFS 2.26 won't work in the PLUS3 I tryed it a while back and though the drive comes on it wont read disks. I did try swapping DFS's in the PLUS3 but without any success.

One thing I have done is take the ADFS out of a PLUS3 and put it in the spare rom socket on the AP4 this means ive got both DFS and ADFS on my Electron similar to a BBC Master. (No real help to you though! )

Have you tryed putting the original DFS back in and Formating a disk, then trying to write to it.

Are you 110% sure they were on an original Plus3, not your AP4???
The games work with a fiddle, but its the Menus that are a no go, ie they come up, press 1-6 etc, hangs, without drive spinning
Acornsoft hits 1&2 (on same disc now from elkWorld (DaveE)), i can play the first 3 games from menu, but moving to forth, the screen goes 'funny' and hangs.

More Pics! from left to right : -




any1 know what the LK1 link does?? (2nd pic, top, far right) sure had to fill it so ADT rom works, so i read ages ago

EDIT :update pics

Totally PLUS3 compatiable no mistake as the AP4 is on a seperate machine.

Did you try formating then saving your own program to disk?

^^ that would NOT solve the problems anyways, as
it does not look at disc at all, hence no spin/drive light, just hangs.

any idea on LK1?? is yours soldered across, or still got gap?
what issue is yours? are they ALL Iss 1

Had a look inside my plus 3 LK1 is gapped, and its issue 1 also.