My visit today to TNMOC was great all of the other researchers are now aware of what I am doing and why I was so obsessed with the sound side of the machines and I got to talk openly to them about what I was doing. Again I was helped by John Sinclair, he showed me the “double 5 shift” procedure on the Elliot 803 twice so I could memorise how to do it, and I finally did.

The other day I went into the storage area where they keep the museums excess computers, it was like going shopping in the 80’s. I picked up a Atari 800XL, Dragon 32, Oric Atmos, Oric 1, Grundy Newbrain, and ofcourse a BBC Micro and a few others, and assembled them in my workshop area. I also dug out a Sord CGL M5, the x and the l key was jammed down, so I had to open and clean it. It now works perfectly and is ready to be used for some serious chip tune music.

Apart from the Atari 800xl and the BBC Micro, “Obsolete?” will feature mainly computers that I have never used before, so to get the project done I am having to learn my way around about twenty new machines, yes alot of them are z80’s and 6502’s but they all have their unique quirks to them.

So today I mainly spent poking at a Dragon 32, making go beep, quite simple yet enjoyable stuff, I did however notice that the clock sped up and down only by milliseconds but still noticable. I must remember to try out POKE 65495,0 which effectively doubles the BASIC ROM Interpreter speed.

Next week will will be an intensive week of working on these machines and I am quite excited about it.