Floppy Days 102 - The BBC Micro, Part 3

Dec 21, 2020

The BBC Micro, Part 3 with Daniel Jameson

Hello, and welcome to episode 102 of the Floppy Days Podcast for December, 2020.  I just love these old machines and love to learn and talk about them.  The year is 1981 and we are talking about the legendary BBC Micro or Beeb as it’s affectionately known.  This is the final episode on this incredible machine, where we will be covering Ads and Appearances, Modern Upgrades, Emulators, Buying One Today, Community, and current Web Sites.

Again, as with the last episode, since the BBC Micro is a British machine I thought it only right that my co-host for these episodes should be someone from the UK.   Daniel Jameson, a prominent member of the stardot forums, graciously agreed to help me with this and provide the “color” commentary during this episode.  I think he adds a lot to the show.

Before getting into the details of the Beeb, I will talk a bit about new acquisitions and what I’ve been up to, a very brief mention of any upcoming shows, and then right into the meat of the episode.

New Acquisitions

• PC Junior VGA video card - https://www.ebay.com/itm/164149429851 
• C64 TapeCart - https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Tapecart 
• FujiNet for Atari 800/800XL - https://fujinet.online/shop/ 
• book “Beneath Apple DOS and ProDOS 2020” By Don Worth, Pieter Lechner - https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/pieter-lechner-and-don-worth/beneath-apple-dos-and-prodos-2020/paperback/product-g9kwzm.html?page=1&pageSize=4 
• MVT100 - https://bitchin100.com/wiki/index.php?title=VT100 - Steve Adolph 
• Apple IIC composite cable - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-IIc-2c-DB15-Color-Composite-Video-amp-Audio-Cable-Tested-/233772943854?nma=true&si=tHD2mKl633oUtVis3c7Y7F3AfKY%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 
• ZXpand+ - https://www.sellmyretro.com/ 
• MISE/FreHD cases: re490
• • https://www.ebay.com/itm/Custom-3D-Printed-2-color-Case-Enclosure-for-TRS-80-MISE-w-Pads-screws-NEW-/124383293703?hash=item1cf5d27107 
  • https://www.ebay.com/itm/Custom-3D-Printed-2-Color-Case-Enclosure-for-TRS-80-FreHD-w-Pads-screws-NEW-/124383299365?hash=item1cf5d28725 

Upcoming Shows

• April 9, 10 & 11, 2021: Vintage Computer Festival East 
• June 11-13, 2021: http://southernfriedgameroomexpo.com/ 
• August 7 & 8, 2021: Vintage Computer Festival West 

Feedback

• Adam Trionfo - Computer and Videogame Collection - Video 1 - Books, Books and More... Books! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GhMBeqkfB8 

Ads and Appearances

• Starring the Computer - http://www.starringthecomputer.com/ 
• 1980s BBC Micro Used By Everyone/The Story of Daphne Ad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6GQaC4Em8E 
• ads at 8bs.com - http://8bs.com/othrdnld/manuals/ads.shtml 
• ads at vintagecomputing.com - http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/657 
• Vintage PC Ads - https://twitter.com/vintage_pc_ads 
• https://twitter.com/vintage_pc_ads/status/938943770065764355/photo/1 
• https://twitter.com/vintage_pc_ads/status/954526425599676416/photo/1 
• 4Corn Computers - http://4corn.co.uk/8bit.php 

Modern Upgrades

• RetroClinic’s “INTERNAL RASPBERRY PI 1GHz MULTI-CORE CO-PROCESSOR KIT” uses a Raspberry Pi to emulate a number of the Tube processor expansions - https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/retroclinic 
• TheFutureWas8Bit “SD2BBC BBC Micro SPI SD Card Interface” - SD2BBC 
• SPROW Ethernet Adapter - http://www.sprow.co.uk/bbc/masternet.htm 
• Acorn BBC Micro RGB SCART - Cool Novelties 
• Acorn BBC Micro RGB SCART - RetroComputerShack 
• RGB to HDMI directly using RPi Zero
• • https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14430&start=90 
  • https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20404 
• GreaseWeazle - https://github.com/keirf/Greaseweazle 
• modern USB mouse adapter - SmallyMouse - https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=245 

Emulation

• BBC Micro emulators - Emulation General Wiki 
• B-EM - The BBC Micro Emulator , https://github.com/stardot/b-em 
• BeebEm - BBC Micro and Master 128 Emulator 
• BeebEm For Mac 
• BeebEm for UNIX - http://beebem-unix.bbcmicro.com/ 
• JSBeeb:
• • JSBeeb - Javascript BBC Micro emulator 
  • https://github.com/mattgodbolt/jsbeeb 
  • The Complete BBC Games Archive a website holding nearly all software for the BBC Micro, most with links to play online for free in JSBeeb.
  • Matt Godbolt’s blog and videos - https://xania.org/Emulation 
• model-b, a BBC Micro Emulator for Windows 
• b2 - https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13081 , https://github.com/tom-seddon/b2/releases 

Community

• Facebook
• • Acorn Computer and BBC Micro Enthusiasts - https://www.facebook.com/groups/AcornAndBBCMicro/ 
• Mailing Lists - BBC Micro mailing list - http://lists.cloud9.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/bbc-micro 
• Twitter - BBC Micro (@acornproton) - https://twitter.com/acornproton 
• Forums
• • AtariAge - http://www.atariage.com 
  • stardot.org.uk 
  • 6502.org - http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3482 

Current Web Sites

• General Info
• • BBC Micro - Tips
  • BeebMaster
  • BeebWiki
  • BBC Micro - Wikipedia
  • Inside The Master 128 - Motherboard picture
  • mdfs.net - Software and documentation covering such subjects as Acorn BBCs, Econet and networking 
  • R. T. Russell: The home of BBC BASIC
  • The BBC lives!
  • Sprow's webpages - BBC Mecca
  • The Retro-Kit Collection
  • Yellow Pigs BBC Computer Pages
  • BBC and Master Computer PD Library
  • 8 Bit Acorn Webring 
  • The BBC micro as a `multi-multimeter' - https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989PhyEd..24...44T/abstract 
  • Vic from the 10pence Arcade podcast recently teamed up with Kingy from the RGDS podcast presenters to talk about some of the games for the BBC Micro
  • The Press Play on Tape podcast also did an episode on Acorn a few years back
• Stores
• • RetroClinic | eBay Stores - Mark Haysman
  • Cool Novelties - BBC Micro & Acorn - Retro Gaming, Electronics and Novelty Gifts
  • DataServe Retro - repair BBC PS - Steve Gledhill