Alan Richardson of New Zealand mentions JAFA (EUG #6) - he is still in business. I spoke to him about his ROMPLUS-144 cartridge only a couple of days ago. However, he has changed his address and it may be that Alan wrote to the old one. The new address is:-
Christopher Chadwick mentions in his letter re: DFS/ADFS that it is possible to put a Hard Disk onto an Elk. I am very interested in this and would be pleased if he could give any further information. In answer to his queries about AP2s, mine is v1.23 but not having any knowledge of v1.17 or v1.19, I cannot say what, if any, differences there are.
Andrew Balhatchet of Northampton asks about the merits of Slogger's RX. As I have said, my unit is an RX and it makes for a very tiny arrangement (apart from still having my tape recorder separate). However, there is a need to beware of the Plus 2 board which fits between the Electron and Plus 1. The Plus 2 gives you an additional 7 ROM spaces (four in the two additional cartridge slots and three sockets) but I found that putting a battery-backed cartridge into either of the Plus 2 or Plus 1 slots crashed the machine. Further, the Plus 2 would not accept my AP34 interface in either slot - the machine crashed. I finally settled for the interface in 00/01; RAM cartridge in 02/03 and two Eprom cartridges in the Slogger slots and ROMs in the 3 sockets. But I still had problems and so eventually removed the Plus 2 and re-inserted my AP6 and User Port cartridge.
I appreciate that I have lost one ROM space and the convenient User Port, but I am now working without problems. The RX was simple to assemble, mainly slotting edge connectors and bolting to the base. The disk drives are bolted to a supplied frame (although I had to make a front plate to take my PC 3.5" as the Slogger one was too large). I made a tin shield to cover the Electron and Disk transformer in case of later interference. There is no intricate soldering to the boards. As a safety feature, I fitted a red pilot light in the front of the RX to indicate the machine was alive. For my own benefit, I removed the loud speaker and now run a larger one in an external box. All in all, the RX is good from an appearance point of view and convenient to maintain, having only four screws to undo to remove the cover. I like it and think it was worth the money (without buying the additional Plus 2).
Dennis Parker
Chris Chadwick has been unable to write a piece on connecting a hard disk to an Electron as I borrowed his crayons and failed to return them in time! However, Gareth Babb who has a full set of felt-tips and a Yogi Bear sketch pad, has written the article instead!
1st December 1992