MAUG - M/c Acorn User Group

MAUG Logo

Last report added on 12th June 98 and more updates are unlikely until after the Summer holidays when meeting should start again either September or October.

Report on June Meeting

The last meeting of the Manchester Acorn User Group before the Summer break was held at 6:45pm on Tuesday 9th June (Main Debating Hall - Manchester University Students' Union Building.)

Russell Scoates and Dave Walker from Acorn brought along (unfortunately) a non-working Phoebe 2100 prototype. At a demonstration the week before in Holland - 'The BigBen Club Show?' - the Vidic20 had blown.

However the talks given by both and the full and frank way in which they answered many questions about the new hardware and software made the meeting very informative.

Apart from a few areas where 'non-disclosure' agreements held back the free flow of information a number of details of the new machine were clarified.

The first batch of a hundred or so machines will go to software developers and suppliers.
The second batch of two hundred and fifty should ship in late August giving a final chance to sort out any last-minute problems before ramping up to full scale production.
Hopefully September or possibly early October - but definately in time for the Acorn show - Phoebe goes into full production.
The machine will definately ship with a 6.4 Gig Harddrive.
At least four PCI cards software drivers are already being developed - PC,SCSI,Graphics and Video.
The speed of the serial links will be doubled to 200,000 bps.
The speed if the Vidic chip is also doubled to 200Mhz (1600 by 1200 in 256 cols hopefully.)
The Risc OS 4 will be in 4Mbs of ROM but this will soft load into Ram on boot-up to give faster operation.
There is a link on the motherboard that would allow the ROM to be increased to 8 Mbs.
As well as side access to the inside of the machine it is possible to lay the machine on it's side and then the bottom panel can be flipped back to allow the motherboard to side out.
A CD Rom with a full copy of the software shipped on the harddisc is very likely. Also being considered is loading a large batch of Shareware and Demo software on the harddisc.
Some decisions have yet to be made on other software to be included free ie Replay3.
Also being considered is whether some form of upgrade voucher will be provided ensuring a fixed cost upgrade to a higher spec StrongArm daughter-board if or when one becomes available.

Report on May Meeting

At the May meeting of MAUG Steve Furber, Professor of Computer Engineering at Manchester University, gave a talk entitled "From ARM to AMULET",and also answered questions.

Steve was a principal designer of the BBC microcomputer and the ARM processor, as well as the hardware architecture of the Archimedes.

He is currently working on the AMULET processor, which is an asynchronous ("no clock speed") version of the ARM. He brought a real live AMULET processor along to the meeting to demonstrate.
Steve spoke for over an hour to an hour and a half before answering questions and this was followed by discussion on both the Amulet and the early days at Acorn.

Report on April Meeting

The April meeting was on 29th April '98. Guest speaker - Mike Cook

Last Meeting (29th April) started at 7:15pm at M/c University Student Union.

Mike Cook gave a personal history of how he became involved with computers and writing for Acorn magazines.

After a short break Mike talked about some of his lastest projects including a virtual oscillator and a foot-pedal controlling 'added harmonics' to recorded instruments .

Although much of this was quite technical Mike managed to keep it all light-hearted.

Also during the break a short video of the last Manchester Acorn show was viewed - followed by hints of one to come - ???1999 perhaps???

In all a good night that was very well attended.

Report on March Meeting

March Meeting (17th March) started at 7:15pm at M/c University Student Union.

Paul Beverley gave "A Personal History of Acorn"

Paul Beverley of Norwich Computer Services, editor of Archive Magazine, gave a talk on the history of Acorn from his point of view, he drew on his experiences as an Acorn dealer and magazine editor. As well as talking about the past, portables computers and handheld devices, the recent Bett show and the latest re-shuffle at Acorn.

He also gave his thoughts on the new Risc Pc II and after a short break took part in a long question and answer session.

In all a good night that was very well attended.

If you live near Manchester (England) and are interested in all things Acorn why not checkout the website of the newly formed 'M.A.U.G' (Manchester Acorn User Group) at:-

CyberNexus : Manchester Acorn User Group (MAUG)

Click here for Home page