Crashed

It's Sunday. Don't think about work tomorrow. Think about an ancient computer that no-one has ever heard of... unless you follow me on BlueSky in which case you will have heard of it because I won't stop banging on about it. crashedfiesta.blogspot.com/2026/10/if-t...

Had a breakthrough with the Torch Triple X emulator. While trying to get sound up and running I 'accidentally' fixed the colour palette issues. Adding the 6303's input capture interrupt meant the ROM handler does it's thing and away we go. 😁 youtu.be/pgUduy3eguY

Completely reworked the terminal 'wrapper' on the Torch. It's more 'front end' now as it runs a single sh instance with additional functionality rather than running a new sh instance for every command (hey, I'm not a professional developer - it seemed a good idea at the time!). #torchtriplex

Just sitting here, casually browsing the news on my Torch Triple X emulator... #torchtriplex #retrocmputing

A short and text heavy blog post about telling the time with a Torch.... crashedfiesta.blogspot.com/2026/10/tick...

Torch Triple X emulator update. I've been working hard on the wrapper for the 'sh' terminal. Added 100 entry history per user, lines can now edited, exe and folders are identified by * and / respectively, prompt includes username & current folder. 😁 All that for a user base of 1 (maybe 2).

How big is big enough? Managed to make a 1gb Torch Triplex disk image. Not sure I can go much bigger with the filesystem limitations of the day... 😆

More Torch Triple X emulation shenanigans. Now with added github! crashedfiesta.blogspot.com/2026/09/you-...

Must be getting old. The only person who I have heard of in the Strictly lineup this year is Delta Goodrem. Not that I follow it. It's just the first sign that winter is coming (and the 'C' word).

By the way, here's the link to the github page for the Torch Triple X emulator. github.com/Crashedfiest...

FFS Google. I only asked 'who said that they were standing on the shoulders of giants?'. Apparently you think that Isaac Newton, who famously lived in the 1700's and died in 1727, sent a letter to his buddy in 1975. JFC.

And for my next trick (or descent into insanity), a text based web browser on the Torch Triple X emulator. Ta-daa! It's barely more than a 'get html' function at the moment but I'm learning lots. And it's something to do as I wait for my new man cave (shed) to be installed..

It's Monday. The summer is almost over. You know what you need. A superficial description of of an ancient Unix PC emulator, and how I've fiddled with it after standing on the shoulders of the most excellent person who actually originally wrote it. crashedfiesta.blogspot.com/2026/08/when...

WTF duo??

Been a bit quiet as we're on the move from Crashed Towers to Crashed Twouptwodown and discovering that 18 years in one location is a great way to accumulate enough pointless crap (i.e. non-retro computing related) to fill a small stadium. Warm, dry storage has been procured for the important stuff.

Got the network running properly on the Linux version of the Torch emulator. More a configuration issue than a code issue. But telehack.com works great. 😁

"My message to the people of the UK is that I'll train the new guy but you're going to have to stick with one of them eventually."

More fiddling with the Torch Emulator. Now it's just like the real thing! Well, booting up looks right now anyway. 😁 #torchtriplex #stillnotfixedtherealone

What's that you say? The Torch Triple X emulator? Running on Windows? Why, yes. Yes it is. 😁 #torchtriplex #notfixedtherealoneyet

A great evening writing a wrapper for the very basic Unix terminal on the Torch emulator. Added some history functionality (previous commands etc) and managed to get su working via a tiny script (called tsu), and cd works properly too. It behaves a lot more like bash but isn't actually... 😁

I got a PS4 on day 1. I asked the man in the Sony Centre when I pre-ordered if they were doing a midnight launch. "Good god, no." came the unguarded reply. 😂 Anyway, I skipped PS5 for reasons. But I won't be doing PS6 with no disc drive. Licensing is not owning. See Sony/StudioCanal for details.

Don't normally follow the world cup. But let's just check in on England. Ah. Situation normal. Maybe 2030.

Happy Father's Day! To celebrate, why not read about my adventures in trying to fix a most unreliable vintage computer? It has PCBs in it... crashedfiesta.blogspot.com/2026/06/clin...

Am I the only one who finds this lack of attention to detail annoying? Or am I (as Mrs Crashed says) just a grumpy old man? #grammar

Checkup on the Cifer to make sure he's still working before I pop him into storage for a little while. I hope the Retro Overlords will forgive my use of hot glue to stick the front panel in. I spent hours 3D printing it but got the lugs in the wrong place and I was desperate. Don't judge me.

So. Good news and bad news. Good news - new limpet works and I managed to boot all the way in. Wa-hoo! 😁🥳 Bad news - my motherboard requires a startlingly big concave bend in it to work.... 😬 By chance I found if I wedged something under the right side it would boot. A weird mechanical bug....

First signs of life... ...but showing exactly the same symptoms as with the original Limpet. Bugger.

Torch Triplex Limpet board looks great. And I found the second error. I missed a whole track that should link all the write enable lines on the DRAM. Oops. Bodge wire installed but it still doesn't work. 🙁

I didn't spend far longer than necessary making sure the caps all face the same way. (Maybe I did.) 🙂

I might've caught the coding bug for vintage computers... After several hours I have managed to get 'vi' working on the Torch Triple X emulator. The stack is too small for when vi starts (something funky happens) so by making it bigger, vi then works. Nice. Next stop, proper floppy support.

Had a great time at RetroFest 2026. 😁 #retrofest2026

Away from Crashed Towers for a few days so I can't connect to my pi-hole. The internet is a completely unusable pile of smelly brown stuff these days, isn't it?

Torch Triple X knows. #RetroFest26

It's official. My Torch Triple X is no more. There is some fault with the limpet board which I can't track down. All RAM is OK. All tracks are OK (or repaired). I suspect a failure of one of the PAL chips which did get quite warm. Ultimate unobtanium. Without it, the Torch won't boot. Arse. 😢

Oh. My. Gosh. The Torch is playing with me now. I had about six hours of flawless operation. Then I started compiling uemacs code. Two minutes later, kernel panic with memory management error. And I'm back to where it was before. At startup, a single flash from the limpet and then nothing. Gahh!

Annnd were back in the room. I have spent hours going over this bloody computer. Beeped out every trace on mobo and limpet. Nothing missing. Then I moved the black plastic down a bit on the new long pins to keep them more together. Booted first time. 🙄 That bloody connector... 🤬 But, yay! 😁

F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. F*CK. Torch is dead. After battling intermittent RAM issues for months I think the Limpet board has died. My last resort is to de-socket the motherboard RAM and see if it's actually the sockets causing issues there. #bugger

Couldn't work out why I couldn't mount the disk image on the Gotek once I'd formatted it. I am an idiot. Should've remembered that 'format' is low-level and I still needed to 'mkfs'. Doh! But now I can copy files and create disk images til the cows come home. Moo.

Uemacs porting efforts to the Torch are on hold due to a persistent RAM fault. I am removing the sockets I installed on the limpet and putting the chips directly on the board as they're a liability (the sockets). Things like this don't help though...

Darnit. I'm 99% certain the Torch issue is the limpet connector. The question is, do I persevere with the constant kernel panics and crashes or do I install a fixed arrangement that is permanent? 🤔 It would make maintenance a pain in the arse. But, if I'm right, it would solve the RAM issue.

Compiling code on the Torch could be said to be 'torch-ure'. 😁 (I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing.)

Found the cause of the memory issue In the Torch (more or less). I'd used multiple turned pin sockets stacked to create a connector to the limpet. But with the motherboard and limpet removed it was obvious I'd used one too many. With it removed, the Torch boots far more reliably...not 100% though.