My Econet Timeline
| 2002 | The first BeebMaster Econet, consisting of Stations 1, 128 and FileStore E01 254, which lives upstairs and was connected together with cable and SJ Research socket boxes. |
| 2003 | The first major expansion came in March 2003 with the addition of Stations 200 and 201 with extra cable and socket boxes. In May 2003, I added a FileStore E20 hard disc unit to the E01. |
| 2005 | I dismantled the whole of the wiring at Easter 2005 with the object of re-wiring it in a more professional manner. One of the problems was that the FileStore clock didn't reach Stations 200 and 201, although the external clock did. The plan was to fix the socket boxes to the wall and add further Econet outlets to aid future expansion. It never happened, as I couldn't get the new wiring I'd started to work properly, and I didn't have a wired-up network for some weeks. Initially as a temporary fix, I attached it all together again using T-pieces and Econet DIN leads, and that's how it remains to this day. |
| 2009 | The next major change happened in 2009 when I converted Station 200 from a workstation into a file server station by adding a Retroclinic CF Hard Drive and running the Level 3 file server software. Station 200 remains the principal file server on the BeebMaster Econet. |
| 2010 | For some years, I ran a second Econet downstairs, which was assembled and dismantled ad hoc using whatever Econet hardware I needed, but always used my MDFS as the file server, which lived right at the back of the BeebMaster workshop (aka Dining Room) under the window, the coldest part of the house. I relocated the MDFS in 2010 to the warmer environment of just in front of the radiator in the hallway under the stairs. From this point onwards, the MDFS has been used only intermittently, as Station 200 is now the main file server. |
| 2011 | Just before Christmas 2011, I added a major expansion to my Econet cabling to join the MDFS onto my main upstairs network, by adding an extra length of cable with a socket box at each end. The upstairs socket box plugs into the end T-piece using an Econet DIN lead, and the MDFS plugs into the socket box on the downstairs end of the cable, with the other outlet on the socket box being occupied by a terminator. This allowed me to access the MDFS from the upstairs stations for the first time. |
| 2012 | In early January 2012, I continued the expansion I had started just before Christmas by adding another socket box to the downstairs end of the network. The socket box I used was already modified with the addition of terminating resistors, so it meant I didn't need to use up an outlet for a terminator plug. Therefore, my Econet now has 4 sockets downstairs, 1 for the MDFS, and 3 for any ad-hoc stations I might want to add. For the first time, downstairs Econet stations could use the main file server at Station 200. |
| 2013 | A significant catastrophe occurred to the BeebMaster Econet in February 2013 when the first compact flash card in Station 200's CF Hard Drive partially blanked itself. Although any data loss appears to have been minimal, I haven't yet resolved the problem. A complete overhaul of Station 200's Level 3 Econet storage is on the cards, but hasn't happened yet. I made a start in December 2013, which you can see here. |
| 2015 | In January 2015, I started work on rebuilding my Econet file server. Here's the first step, surveying what was left. In February 2015, I added an Econet Module Podule to my RISC PC. September 2015 saw another Econet disaster, as I found that my main MDFS had decided to expire whilst I'd been on holiday. |
| 2017 | January saw an extension to the downstairs leg of my Econet, which you can see here. In June 2017, I decommissioned my FileStore E01 and E20 which subsequently went into storage. |
| 2018 | In January, I moved to the next stage of rebuilding my Econet file server, beginning with an early attempt to copy the remaining files to a new Sunfish share, which you can see here. |
| 2020 | The next stage in rescuing my Level 3 file server, in February 2020, which you san see here. The following month came the next steps in the effort, in three stages, which you can see here and here and here! And more in April. |