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Tom Stepleton

stepleton@oldbytes.space

<p>AI research engineer, glider pilot. Apple Lisa power user. Most of my posts will be about old computers; occasionally I&#39;ll mention flying.</p>

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    I think quite a few of these disks have come from Loftus Rosecroft School in Loftus, North Yorkshire, which closed in 2001 and has since been demolished. So far I have recovered several identical copies of a BBC Micro program called &quot;Moving On&quot;, which was licensed to the school by name. From the half of it that I&#39;ve explored, this barely-interactive (and somewhat patronising/admonitory) explainer on the basics of starting out in the working world could have been a pamphlet.

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    People on 68kmla are sharing stories of their first Mac. Many of them (especially mine) are pretty pedestrian, and I think that&#39;s just fine. Here are two about my Mac Classic: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/stories-of-first-mac-you-owned.53233/page-2#post-603211 https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/stories-of-first-mac-you-owned.53233/page-2#post-603303

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    A striking #mould colony on an old 5.25&quot; floppy disk (Verbatim DataLife 1S DD to be specific).

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    Is it live or is it Memorex? Well, it&#39;s actually kinda both... #mould

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    Last week at #EMFcamp I gave a talk about the nothing-like-it-on-earth RSRE Flex operating system for #PERQ workstations. I&#39;m very happy with how it came out! For a challenge, watch at 2X: https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2026-91-1-rsre-flex-reviving-an-innovative

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    Saturday 16:30 at #emfcamp Stage B: a talk I&#39;ve been looking forward to giving for over a year. It&#39;s ambitious but if I pull it off I think it&#39;ll be a lot of fun. I want it to be a treat for computer history, OS, and programming language buffs, and for everyone else too!

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    Can&#39;t wait to get my hands on one of these. It&#39;s been amazing to see Alex at work on this!

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    POV: #PERQ hardware debugging, as usual. The #Z80 (serving as an I/O coprocessor) is behaving strangely: fetching instruction bytes without toggling the M1 pin, jumping to random locations at around 47uS after coming out of reset; what&#39;s going on here?

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    45 days until #RetroFest 2026 in Swindon. #PERQ status: Flaky Z80-based I/O subsystem: sometimes the #Z80 jumps off the tracks and executes nonsense codeDisk boots fail: the microcode attempts to load blocks far beyond the end of the diskTrying today: DIY diagnostic microcode

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    &quot;So it keeps blowing these 1A 250V slow-blow fuses I&#39;ve got&quot; ... &quot;Have you tried a different make of fuse?&quot; ... &quot;Well, I&#39;ve got some, but they&#39;re the wrong size&quot;

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    Do you have 5.25&quot; and 8&quot; floppy disks that are spare, low-quality, degrading, or just generally in bad shape? I&#39;d like to take my floppy disk data recovery game to the next level. I have equipment, but there&#39;s no substitute for experience. Therefore I&#39;m looking for loose collections of old floppy disks to practice on. I&#39;m especially interested in working with disks where the binder affixing the media to the donut is starting to fail. I&#39;m in London; will pay shippi...