Technology news and views http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13160&page=1#125539 Good for RISCOSbits. It sounds like a really good initiative. http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125538 Cut which line please? http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125537 I remember that not all HDs were usable on the RISC PC. If you tried to reproduce what RISC OS did to identify the HD, at some point it does request a special block of data from the drive providing a description of the drive (cylinders count, heads count, etc). For the Hitachi drive that I tried at that time, every odd (or was it even?) byte in that block was 0. http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125536 Wild speculation time - they might be trying to signal at 3.3V, whereas the Acorn IDE interface is 5V, or not able to drive the bus to a valid logic level for those lines which are shared (unbuffered). http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125535 Nearly all have either failed to be recognised, gave gibberish heads and cylinder count to HForm or HForm fell over at the end. IIRC only one seemed to format but then gave errors when writing to. Yes we've seen the conflict with some NICs. http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125534 What do you define as not working? Disc errors on writing? Conflict if a NIC using the ready line is fitted? Something else? I've given the Sandisk Ultra model number as a known good example, do you have a list of others? http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125533 I think it's also worth mentioning that like IDE hard drives not all Compact Flash cards will work on the Acorn IDE interface. We have a box of Compact Flash cards that will work on most IDEFS podules but not Acorn's IDE interface. http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125532 There were questions about which compact flash interface I was showing in the A7000+ during the meeting, but tricky to post links out loud from memory, so here are the details. http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13154&page=1#125531 Reminder that the meeting is this Monday (tomorrow!). Still happy to have more demos, either online or (even better) in the pub. Bring your old machines for a night out! http://roast.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=13152&page=1#125530 I have released my third hints & tips video entitled Long commands with Dr Wimp also Currency has just had a bug fix.