One of the great things about being a staff writer for PR is that it gives me the illusion that people will actually _read_ what I write Â… bearing that in mind, I thought today IÂ’d chuck out 900 words or so without saying very much of any value


A while back (seems like ages but was probably only a week ago) I asked everyone on my buddy list for some help with research for a “PR Retrospective”. A big thanks to everyone that contributed Glitterkill has offered some “hard” history in the form of the development history of PR, so when that comes in it’ll hopefully give me a framework to hang all the personal recollections off.
If you were asked but haven’t yet contributed, please think about doing so – the more input the better.

For the next few weeks at least, IÂ’m going to try to do a few things on regular days:
* Fridays will see the return of the caption competition, an idea that IÂ’ve shamelessly stolen from Darksamurai;
* Saturdays will see the continuation of the tool guides Â… with hopefully nothing as controversial as the last one, where I nearly started a Dremel / Jigsaw Holy War;
* Sundays will be the rest of my very basic HTML tutorials Â… IÂ’ve already learned some useful stuff from the comments left in the thread of the first one.

Other than that, I’ll be pontificating on the usual mix of carp – some of it even computer related! I’m also going to throw a few health related pieces into the mix too.

I’m always after ideas for future pieces, so if you’ve got any ideas you can always PM – I’ll try to remember to give you credit … don’t be disappointed if I don’t use it straight away, it can take a while for ideas to develop into an article.


Modwise, my Amiga 1200 “Chickenhead” project continues …

Continues to give me grief, that isÂ…
The copper sheet, which IÂ’d initially raved about has turned out be rather tricky in use. In fact, itÂ’s been a complete & utter fatherless son of a goat !!!!

IÂ’d hoped that I was going to end up with a super shiny finish that would gradually age, and it would also be perfectly flat (so I could secure it with double sided tape) Â… but no.
The big problem is that you only have to look at it sideways for it to get a mark on it, and anything you do to make it better actually makes it worse.

On Saturday, I spend 3 hours painstakingly filing the first fan grille. It all looked good, until it came to flattening it out. Hammering it between two heavy sheets flattened it all right – but also squashed it thinner in places – one corner in particular gained in size by a couple of millimetres (!). It got even worse when I got it on the bench polisher – it looked great – for the 10 seconds it took to oxidise right in front of me!
“Seriously uneven” doesn’t even cover it – at that point, I belted it repeatedly with a hammer, screwed it up & threw it across the shed into the bin. Then immediately regretted it & straightened it out – doesn’t look half bad with a bit of battle damage – now it’ll match the paint

On future pieces, IÂ’m just going to give the edges a quick sand, apply some oil to stop fingerprints instantly etching the surface, bend out any large wobbles with my fingers, then secure the panels on with rivets Â… and not panic too much if I get the odd tool mark on it.

I’ve also been planning for the future. You may remember that I got a bit overexcited about the possibility of doing a scratchbuilt AT-AT case – the main problem as I saw it was just how big it was going to have to be to get everything & still have it in scale, it would have to be around 7 feet tall for an ATX mobo…
Well, technology has come to the rescue … I’d obviously considered smaller motherboard formats, but I’d ruled out the current VIA Eden boards as not powerful enough. However, the latest generation promises speeds of up to 1GHz, which is much more like it. The forthcoming 120 x 120 mm Nano-ITX form factor means a much smaller “case” is a realistic option. I’ve settled on a final 62cm (just over 2 feet) height, which will hopefully give me enough space inside.

Consider this picture as me marking my territory (like a cat whizzing up a fence) more publicly that I did before in the forums Â… itÂ’s my idea, ok ? Even if itÂ’s going to be a long while before itÂ’s finished.



As you can see, IÂ’ve got the plans sorted Â… next step is to make a cardboard mockup & make adjustments (simplifications and a lot of extra details) as required.

After that, it’s a “simple” matter of cutting it all out of plywood and/or MDF, putting it together with lightweight framing, painting … & then waiting for the technology to arrive. Or, more likely, the funds to let me buy it.


Kudos to Shunichi Makino for developing the plans in the first place – his site is www.linkclub.or.jp/~shun-pop/.

You can get Mini's now with p4m processors (around 2ghz). The mini's are getting better!

Quote: Originally posted by Fantazmic2 ... p4m processors ...

get thee behind me, intel !

AMD mobile's are better, lol, so, Jonny, is it me, or do those plans look like some sort of thermal-nuclear device?

Quote: Originally posted by hawklen AMD mobile's are better, lol, so, Jonny, is it me, or do those plans look like some sort of thermal-nuclear device?

it's definitely you, hawky

Quote: Originally posted by Jonny English it's definitely you, hawky

Hrmm, looks similar to my plans for one, except mine is in crayon.

and yes they also have mini boards with AMD processors, but they are harder to find!