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<\/a>Domesday86.com would like to thank the small team of individuals that helped make this discovery possible.<\/p>\n
Permission to image the machine was given by Xavier Louis Tardy (the present owner of the machine). Many thanks to Xavier for kindly sharing this important discovery and his long running commitment to the preservation of Acorn history.<\/p>\n
The hard drive image and ROM images were extracted by Ian Stocks. Many thanks to Ian for his work on this and for supplying details on the images and how to use them.<\/p>\n The following file is a zip archive of the original MFM format hard drive found in the development A500.\u00a0 All files and time-stamps should be preserved.\u00a0 Please see the additional notes contained on this page (and in the zip file) for details of how to configure ArcEm for this image:<\/p>\n A500Logica MFM ADFS hard drive image (zipped)<\/a><\/p>\n The hard drive image provided above can be directly mounted using ArcEm.\u00a0 To use the image simply copy it into the correct directory and alter the ArcEm hard drive configuration to use the following parameters (for the drive geometry):<\/p>\n MFM disc The following zip file contains a full *EX listing of the original hard drive contents:<\/p>\n *EX Listing of the hard drive contents<\/a><\/p>\n The original Arthur ROM is available from the following link (this ROM image is zipped and will need to be unzipped on a modern PC before use):<\/p>\n A500 Arthur ROM image (zipped)<\/a><\/p>\n By combining both the hard drive image and the original ROM (in ArcEm) it is theoretically possible to recreate the original development environment and recompile the software contained on the hard drive (however this has not yet been attempted by the author).\u00a0 The original ROM image does boot in ArcEm, however there seems to be various problems with the ArcEm emulation that prevent the desktop from being loaded correctly (the various WIMP files are available in the $.wimp and $.wimp.desktop directory - it is necessary to run !Boot from the root of the hard drive before running these programs though).<\/p>\n The SparkFS archive included below was created on a RISC OS 3.10 machine.\u00a0 Please note that the time-stamps of the files has been preserved however, the time-stamps of the directories was replaced by SparkFS during archiving.\u00a0 This compression format is not compatible with modern PCs (and is a nasty proprietary closed-source format) and is therefore only suitable for use on a RISC OS machine.\u00a0 In order to ease downloading of the sparkFS image it has been placed in a compressed zip archive.\u00a0 You will need to decompress the zip archive on a modern PC and then use SparkFS or SparkPlug on a RISC OS machine to decompress the actual files:<\/p>\n LogicaA500 SparkFS archive (zipped)<\/a><\/p>\n The following file is the same archive (and should be decompressed under RISC OS to preserve the filetypes) however the archive is only zipped (avoiding the need to use SparkFS):<\/p>\n LogicaA500_riscos_zip<\/a><\/p>\n The following ZIP archive is provided for browsing the hard drive's files on a modern PC and also includes host FS style filenames for compatibility with various Acorn emulators:<\/p>\n LogicaA500 Host FS zip<\/a><\/p>\n An in depth analysis of the disc's contents has not yet been performed.\u00a0 However, the following notes may be useful when delving into the contents in more details:<\/p>\n The machine was fitted with an Acorn SCSI interface believed to be used to interface with the Philips VP415 Domesday laserdisc player.\u00a0 The original SCSI podule is shown in the following photographs:<\/p>\n The machine was fitted with a RGB conversion card.\u00a0 The exact function of this card is presently unknown however, it is likely to be a form of clock and line-level conversion card that takes the output from the A500 video and makes it suitable for the Philips VP415 laserdisc player's genlock and video mixing functionality.\u00a0 The card can be seen in the following photographs:<\/p>\n The A500 keyboard can be seen in the following photograph:<\/p>\n The back panel of the A500 can be seen in the following photograph.\u00a0 The ports across the bottom of the panel are sound, RGB video, composite video, Econet (based on the pinout and the presence of a M68B54 IC on the motherboard), serial port (based on PCB markings) and a 26-pin IDC printer port.<\/p>\n The following photograph shows the internal view of the A500 with the expansion podules removed:<\/p>\n Overview In an exciting turn of events an Acorn Archimedes A500 machine has been discovered that contains a wealth of source code and other Domesday related files including a version of VFS for the Archimedes.\u00a0 The machine is a prototype Acorn computer and seems to have belonged to Logica (the company that developed the Domesday software for the BBC).\u00a0 The Continue reading Acorn Domesday A500 Development Machine<\/span><\/a>Files for download<\/h1>\n
Hard drive image (MFM format drive suitable for ArcEm)<\/h2>\n
\n1 612 4 32 256<\/p>\nArthur 1.20 ROM image<\/h2>\n
<\/a>SparkFS archive<\/h2>\n
Modern PC ZIP archive<\/h2>\n
Overview of the contents<\/h1>\n
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Additional information<\/h1>\n
Prototype SCSI card<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/a>RGB conversion card<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/a>A500 Keyboard<\/h2>\n
<\/a>A500 Back panel<\/h2>\n
<\/a>A500 System internals<\/h2>\n
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