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Brief history

BBC B

For a couple of years I had only occasional access to my brothers machine, so I bought my own in Mar.'85, originally using my tape cassette player with it. An early purchase was VU-FILE a data base programe on cassette by a little company called PSION, but very soon up-graded by buying a 3.5 inch floppy disc drive and an ADFS ROM chip. Around the same time I bought Acorns View Word (for letters etc.), also View Store (a database) to replace VU-FILE (which was DFS only) so couldn't be used on ADFS. [BBC B foto]
a BBC model B

But by early '93 space on the 600kb floppy disc's was becoming a problem, I had looked into up-dating the Beeb with a Winchester hard drive, but decided that an A5000 was a better option, but as usual with my luck they bring out a new model just after i've made my purchase.

Brief history
BBC B
For a couple of years I had only occasional access to my brothers machine, so I bought my own in Mar.'85, originally using my tape cassette player with it. An early purchase was VU-FILE a data base programe on cassette by a little company called PSION, but very soon up-graded by buying a 3.5 inch floppy disc drive and an ADFS ROM chip. Around the same time I bought Acorns View Word (for letters etc.), also View Store (a database) to replace VU-FILE (which was DFS only) so couldn't be used on ADFS.	a BBC model B
But by early '93 space on the 600kb floppy disc's was becoming a problem, I had looked into up-dating the Beeb with a Winchester hard drive, but decided that an A5000 was a better option, but as usual with my luck they bring out a new model just after i've made my purchase.

A5000

[Acorn A5000 pic]
My 25Mhz Acorn A5000 went very smoothly, as the BBC B was also fitted with ADFS the Floppy disc's were compatable, and I was still able to use my View files (under emulation) on the A5000 with the aid of !65Tube and the View ROM images. Though I later bought !Datapower when visiting Acorn World '93 at Wembley. I replaced the original 120mb Conner drive in Sept'95, with a 425mb drive also a Conner, and in the Oct of '95 I splashed out on a RiscPC. Soon after I bought a s/user 270mb Syquest drive and a s/u SCSI podule (so I could swap disc's with the RiscPC) with its larger capacity disc file size wasn't as limited.
This arrangement lasted only until I bought an Ethernet podule, and a Hub, plus a Ethernet Nic creating a home LAN with the RiscPC.
In April '93 the new A5000 computer arrived, this was a 25Mhz machine (not the 33Mhz Alpha that had been annouced previously), fitted with 4Mb memory and a 120Mb hard drive. The transition

RiscPC

In Oct '95 a new RiscPC700 arrived, this was one of the twin slice machines, and is fitted with an Acorn PC486 2nd processor card, along with Windows 3.11.
(This spec couldn't have been afforded, if it was not for Acorns 20/20 purchase scheme).
Within weeks I had installed a 4x CDROM Drive.
And in Dec I joined the WWW with an Argonet Acc. (YOU DO remember argonet ?). Additionally I've fitted a PowerTec SCSI 2 card (later updated to SCSI 3), and attached to this, is installed a 270Mb Syquest drive (this was so files could be transfered between this drive, and another drive in the A5000, without the floppy's size limitation). And in Feb '99 I bought and fitted an Ethernet Nic along with a 5port Hub and a podule (for the A5000), this gives me a small home LAN, with the A5000. And the memory has gone from 8mb, 24mb, 48mb to the present 160mb. You'll find the original RiscPC700 specs here.
[RiscPC 700 pic]
a twin slice RiscPC700 similar to mine.
In Sept 1998 as Acorn first cancelled its new computer (Phoebe) on the eve of its
launch (become know as Black September), then the October "Acorn World" show,
this left a bit of a void. So I decided, that if I couldn't examine or buy a new machine,
the only option then, that I could see would be to upgrade the existing computer.

StrongArm

And so in Nov '99 I upgraded the RiscPC to StrongArm status by replacing the existing ROS3.6 ROMs with the new ROS4.02 ROM chipset, and the Arm710 Processor replaced by a 233Mhz StrongArm (REV T) processor card (It's listed separately here, as after upgrading, it has a significant speed increase, and much improved responsiveness, it feels like a new machine). In Feb 2000 I treated myself to a Mustek SCSI A3 Scanner, and further upgradings have been a 3-way serial card (this allows a Bar Code reader to use the machines port), then a 56x CDROM drive, and the last addition is a fully featured UniPod (this replaces the Ethernet Nic), all my machines are now networked via my home LAN to a Netgear BroadBand router. And I'm still using View Word & View Store, yes even on this vastly upgraded RiscPC. (could this be a record ?). ;-)
I caught only glimpses of the Iyonix Demo at the Guildford show, and decided (if this wasn't vapourware) i'd get one.

IyonixPC

[Iyonix pic]
An Iyonix similar to mine On 1st. Dec. 2002 (having seen the demo) I logged on to the Castle Technology Web site, and ordered the IYONIX from there. I was expecting a long delay before ever seeing it, so was very surprised when it turned up on the 11th (just 10 days later).
I have now up-graded all my regular Apps ie. !CallerID, !Organizer, !Prophet, !DialUp & !Pluto, but alas although its been annouced there is still no sign of !ImpressionX.
I'm extremely glad I plumped for this machine rather than the Omega, and I am very pleased with it, not least because the back-up and support from Castle has been and continues to be exemplary.

HP Labtop

In June 2006 I finally bought a Laptop, but alas, this ones an IBM compatable (I had waited many years for a native Risc OS laptop, but this has proved not to be). It's an HP Compaq model R4155EA with an AMD^TM Athlon 64 processor (see I don't like Intel), from the HP Renew shop on ebay, and the first thing I did after installing Firefox & the AVG Grisoft anti-viras install, was to obtain and install !Virtual RiscPC SE. Great I now have a mobile Acorn compatable. grin :-)
Now all I need is to get !DialUp to function, for when out in the field. [an HP Compaq]
an HP Compaq R4xxx series

IyonixPC Kit

[an Iyonix mobo]
An Iyonix motherboard [ATX case]
the ATX Desktop Case On 1st. Nov. 2007 I bought the DIY Iyonix kit (I didn't think these were still available), but I picked up a leaflet at the Guildford show. I mulled this over for a while (i'd always fancied a desktop Iyonix, but not that provided by Castle), then when I finally decided I'd get a kit, I ordered it from Castle. I found after a search a suitable ATX desktop case, this was sourced from CCL Online.
To go with this build I added:-

a Panasonic floppy drive
a 160Gb WD hard drive
a LiteOn SOHW-1673S-02C DVD±RW drive
a Chicony Std. USB keyboard with 2port USB hub
a Logitec Optical Wheel Mouse
a ViewSonic VA702 LCD monitor
An account of how this was all put together will follow.

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