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The Icon Bar: Games: The Olympics
 
  The Olympics
  ulaggy (16:01 23/4/2014)
  arawnsley (17:14 23/4/2014)
    ulaggy (18:45 23/4/2014)
      richw (21:54 23/4/2014)
        ulaggy (16:06 24/4/2014)
          richw (19:44 24/4/2014)
            ulaggy (20:20 24/4/2014)
              swirlythingy (21:28 24/4/2014)
                ulaggy (21:35 24/4/2014)
                  swirlythingy (22:38 24/4/2014)
                    ulaggy (17:45 25/4/2014)
                      swirlythingy (16:04 26/4/2014)
                        ulaggy (09:38 27/4/2014)
 
Alun Millard Message #123206, posted by ulaggy at 16:01, 23/4/2014
Member
Posts: 20
I was visiting my folks over the weekend and my Dad mentioned they had a box of old PC games that they were going to get rid of. We're talking games from around 98-02.

So I had a look around, dismissing pretty much all of them as games that will no longer work or have had re-releases to work on modern PCs. Anyway, I'm shuffling through the box and stumble across this

User Included Picture

User Included Picture

Please tell me I'm not the only one that remembers this absolutely awesome game? I couldn't tell you how many hours I put into it!

I'm going to have to fire up the A5000 soon and see if the years of storage have left me with working floppy disks. Oh I hope so!

[Edited by ulaggy at 17:01, 23/4/2014]
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Andrew Rawnsley Message #123207, posted by arawnsley at 17:14, 23/4/2014, in reply to message #123206
R-Comp chap
Posts: 593
Sadly I was always hopeless at this one. Quite liked the canoeing I think!
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Alun Millard Message #123208, posted by ulaggy at 18:45, 23/4/2014, in reply to message #123207
Member
Posts: 20
I'm trying to think who had what World Record. Pretty sure my Dad had the WR for Javelin, and I possibly had it for Pole Vault. My Sister might have had WR in stuff, but I played the most out of all of us.

Don't think I was too fussed with canoeing!

Edit: I went to give it a try and I think it looks like my A5000 has joined the scrapheap in the sky :'( From googling the error - going to the Supervisor prompt, typing desktop not doing anything, etc - I decided to open it up. I think the CMOS battery has died, leaked a little and caused some corrosion damage on the motherboard. I wasn't sure how to get right at that part of the system for a proper look (Hard Drive and stuff in the way) but from what I could see, there was a bit of furriness on the bottom of the battery, and on some bits on the motherboard.

Not going to lie, I'm a bit gutted!

[Edited by ulaggy at 21:33, 23/4/2014]
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Richard Walker Message #123210, posted by richw at 21:54, 23/4/2014, in reply to message #123208
Member
Posts: 66
You may be able to clean it up. And do a delete-power-on to clear the CMOS ram.
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Alun Millard Message #123211, posted by ulaggy at 16:06, 24/4/2014, in reply to message #123210
Member
Posts: 20
I couldn't work out how to take apart that side of the A5000 to get proper access to the battery. But I believe little bits of metal on the motherboard has corroded enough that it is coming off - certainly when I was gently trying to wipe at some green bits with a cotton bud, little flecks of metal just lifted off unhappy
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Richard Walker Message #123212, posted by richw at 19:44, 24/4/2014, in reply to message #123211
Member
Posts: 66
Hmm... If it doesn't work at all, then it depends if you can trace where the broken tracks should go and replace with wire. Not easy! The A5000 is probably a good Archie to use, but doesn't have the retroness of an A300/400.
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Alun Millard Message #123213, posted by ulaggy at 20:20, 24/4/2014, in reply to message #123212
Member
Posts: 20
As I say, it just sat at the Supervisor prompt, and it seems the Desktop module thingy has gone. I'm not clued up on the technical side of things Acorn related, sadly and things like soldering and what not are well beyond me! I've made a post last night about it, offering it free (if collected, else P&P would be needed) to anyone that can use it for spare parts or something. Maybe even fix it, if they have the ability to do so!
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Martin Bazley Message #123214, posted by swirlythingy at 21:28, 24/4/2014, in reply to message #123213

Posts: 460
Did you try holding down Delete when powering on, as suggested?

Does typing *rommodules list any as unplugged?

As far as the Supervisor is really quite an impressive result for a "dead" machine. In its current state, you should theoretically be able to load and launch your computer game from the command line, if you still want to play it! That's assuming it isn't a desktop game, of course.

[Edited by swirlythingy at 22:30, 24/4/2014]
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Alun Millard Message #123215, posted by ulaggy at 21:35, 24/4/2014, in reply to message #123214
Member
Posts: 20
I tried both R & Del, several times!

I've just fired it up and tried *rommodules. I can't see the top of the list as it disappears off screen but the massive section I can see has most modules unplugged with a few dormant
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Martin Bazley Message #123217, posted by swirlythingy at 22:38, 24/4/2014, in reply to message #123215

Posts: 460
I've just fired it up and tried *rommodules. I can't see the top of the list as it disappears off screen
Press Ctrl+N before typing it. After that you can use Ctrl and Shift to 'page' through the output. (I think that's roughly how it works, but you'll have to experiment.)
but the massive section I can see has most modules unplugged with a few dormant
Try typing *RMReinit <module name> for each of them, one at a time. This will be tedious, but I'm not aware of any convenient way to do a mass re-plugging. Also, I would have thought a Delete power-on should have taken care of all of that.

Is your hard drive functioning? (Although access to it may be prevented by whatever driver it needs currently being unplugged.)
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Alun Millard Message #123218, posted by ulaggy at 17:45, 25/4/2014, in reply to message #123217
Member
Posts: 20
I tried RMReinit with desktop several times after reading to do that somewhere. When I then typed in desktop, it'd give some kind of SWI& error, which I read meant there was possible / probably damage to something or the other!

Whilst I can build a PC from scratch, I'm completely clueless with Acorns, as it's been such a long time since I used them reguarly!
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Martin Bazley Message #123220, posted by swirlythingy at 16:04, 26/4/2014, in reply to message #123218

Posts: 460
"SWI &something not known" means that the system tried to call a SWI provided by a module which isn't loaded, probably because it has been unplugged.

After RMReiniting everything, what happens if you do a hard reset? Do they stay RMReinited? Does the result change?

Do the modules revert back to their unplugged states if you power off and back on?
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Alun Millard Message #123224, posted by ulaggy at 09:38, 27/4/2014, in reply to message #123220
Member
Posts: 20
I tried RMReiniting a few things, then doing Rommodules, and those that I'd RMReinited still showed up as unplugged. So I don't know if that's normal behaviour, or it may be that's it isn't initialising at all - one or two I tried threw up errors such as not enough memory.

I'm pretty sure, at this point, that it needs seeing to - my decision now is whether I want to go ahead and pay to have it fixed, or pass it on / sell it on as is for someone to fix themselves. I'm limited for space here anyway, and with my girlfriend moving in next week, the space taken up by the A5000 could be used better. Shall have a think!

Thank you though, to everyone who has offered help and advice!

[Edited by ulaggy at 10:39, 27/4/2014]
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The Icon Bar: Games: The Olympics