Any Acorn computer experts? I need help troubleshooting

Pottsey · 5 Nov 2007 at 12:27

We still have 3 Acorns (A7000's) for the more severe disabled children as they can do pretty much anything and until today never break it. One restart later and it all works.

Today Oxford reading tree level 5 starts giving an error message. Internal error no stack for trap handler. Illegal instruction PC=021446cc: Register at 0003A80C any ideas what this means or how to fix it? I tried reinstalling the program which is about all I can do on an Acorn. No luck.

Bit of a long shot I guess not many people know about Acorns anymore.

misterPK · 5 Nov 2007 at 12:53

Wow, its been ages since I played around with an Acorn, there's one gathering dust in my parents loft.

I wouldn't class myself as an expert, and I'm not sure if this will help, but the first thing I'd look at is the memory settings and where it's allocated.

Thanks for causing me to have a nostalgic moment anyway!

PK!

Pottsey · 5 Nov 2007 at 13:14

Memory settings, hrrm right click, middle click not the green acorn? Now you mention it I seem to recall font size memory often needed boosting.

Rroff · 5 Nov 2007 at 13:21

I've seen the old "iconsprites" virus cause this but its so long since I've touched RISC OS that I can't remember details... the VGA port on my old Acorn stopped working years ago - which does give me an idea - if I can put it back together I can probably hook it up to my projector via the TV-Out heh...

Is this happening on all machines at once or just one machine? if so it could indicate hardware failure on that machine - most likely the memory shot? they are getting on so its not suprising.

Pottsey · 5 Nov 2007 at 13:54

Just one machine. Virus is unlikely, as nothing has changed, no network, no new disks. Big problem if it is, as all the virus checkers don’t work anymore. Could be hardware but no reports of other programs not working. Then again it is a teacher perhaps they didn’t bother to tell me. Time to gather more intel.

misterPK · 5 Nov 2007 at 14:29

I seem to remember when my virus scanner on my acorn went out of date, I just changed the date setting back and it worked again. Ah simple times...

PK!