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Compukit UK101

K

kickback999

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Joined
Nov 16, 2009
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15
Hello
New user on this forum but I wonder something.
Are there any UK101 users on this forum?
They seem so few and I was hoping for information on this computer (my dads first machine!)
Though I do seem to fit here also got an ST and Falcon:D
Anyway nice to visit the forum some interesting stuff on here, like it.
Cheers, Lee.
 
I don't have one, I lusted after one when I was a kid. There is one however (with huge provenance) just up the road from me in the entrance hall of "Watford Electronics" in Luton, it's in a very dusty case in a corner under a laptop, and probably is the reason that "Watford" started off, back in the days when they were a "proper" outfit.
 
Ah brilliant.
Isn't that the watford electronics that went bust or something a while back?
I read on a site that they produced upgrades for the uk101 (though my dad made all his own half on stripboard)
There current site looks very similar to ebuyer, been looking to build a new pc recently.
Anyway I was hoping to learn some about the microchips on the system, and identifying the add ons (my dad has forgotten these things)
Apart from of course the 6502 and the custom sound card he made with an ay-3-8910 a lot of the chips I can't find any info on at all.
 
kickback999 said:
Ah brilliant.
Isn't that the watford electronics that went bust or something a while back?
Click to expand...
They do seem to do that sometimes!

Yes they produced loads of stuff in the 80s not to mention all the upgrades for the BBC Micro.

I can't tell you anything more about the system though, sorry (!) except to check out the Ohio "Superboard", I AFAIK they had a lot in common
 
Ah the BBC brilliant computer.
Was the most popular in school compared to 486's with win3.1 or Pentium 3's with windows 98 because it had chuckie egg!
I had hours of fun on them until I left Junior school in 2002.
But anyway I will check out the ohio machine am quite interested in working out whats what on this UK101.
Plus do some programming etc if I can get it running properly again (some of the wires have become loose and stuff).
 
I didn't know you actually had a machine, be very careful working on it (i.e. don't make too many guesses!), they're quite collectable.
 
I know, I am unwilling to do anything until I find a good source of info be it a person or webpage or whatever.
I have also a box of tapes with programmes my dad either made or typed in from mags and stuff, including the space invaders clone he wrote that won him a dot matrix printer!
One of the expansions on the system (not sure which one) must be a printer interface which he had to make himself to actually use the damn thing.
I would just love to see if any of the tapes still work and the extended OS thing he wrote to take advantage of the ram upgrade he put in (think I know which one that is), it doubled the ram to something like 16kb.
 
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Great to hear you have a machine. I sound like I was in much the same position as your dad - I built extra RAM cards (piggy backed the 2114 RAM chips on the back of the originals on the board), upgraded the video to 32x48 chars, built a printer interface with a 6522 chip, new keyboard and even added a 48K RAM board I think.

Sacriligiously I think I took it all to the tip about 15 years ago - have regretted it ever since!

I ran a tiny software business selling adventure games for the thing back in 1981/82 - made enough money to buy myself a printer and a few other bits and pieces (business was called 'Adventure 10')

I have a copy of the space invaders game I think...wonder if it was the one that your dad wrote!!

Anyway - I knew the machine pretty much inside out (I even used to be able to program in HEX which is pushing the nerdy envelope somewhat!) so would be more than happy to help out if you need any advice!
 
Yea I've got a machine, maybe even the space invaders (if one of the tapes in the loft is it and it works) game to see if its the same as yours.
Well I have found the joystick he made that has a few wires cut off from when he at some point removed it they are still in one of the boards.
I will have to make a list of what wires are not connected to anything and what they are actually connected to, what seems to be missing a wire etc and any suspect components. From there hopefully we can figure out what needs soldering to what (as I am fairly certain thats the nature of the problem)
Cheers, Lee.
 
Yes, I have one. If you want any help with the UK101, I have lots of stuff about it, including the articles that were published in Practical Electronics magazine. My machine has the standard 32 line modification, faster RAM to allow 2MHz operation, and an expansion ROM board that includes most of the extra ROMs that came out: CEGMON, BASIC 5, BASIC X, and an Assembler Toolkit as I recall. I also had switchable baud rates, but generally found 600 was the highest reliable rate. I've got quite a few tapes somewhere too, and a sound card with the AY-3-8910 chip, but last time I tried that expansion board out, it wasn't working.

Among the mass of documents in a ring binder, the treasured page is one of the articles about the UK101, but the treasure is the obverse page, which is entitled "Semi Conductor News", where preliminary news of the Motorola 68000, with a 16-bit architecture and speeds up to 5MHz is followed by the editors comment (almost verbatim) "Very good, but will there ever be a demand for that kind of processing power?"

Andy
 
Is it better to fire up a new thread to see if there is anyone still working with UK101, rather than hope that they notice new posts on old threads?
 
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