BBC Model B Computer "stuff"

Soldato
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N. Ireland
Fully boxed too. I collect em!
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what else you got.....that's got my nostalgia hormones on overdrive!
 
Man of Honour
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Ahh, memories!

I had an Electron first (wanted a BBC’B but £399 in 1984 was a lot of dough for the basic machine) then, my father got an interesting trade in for an Amstrad 1512 which comprised of a BBC’B, Acorn DFS (Intel 8271 controller) Torch Z80 2nd Processor, Watford Electronics sideways ROM Board, twin Torch 80 track disc drives and a Microvitec Cub monitor.

I added “Disc Doctor” from Computer Concepts and had endless fun changing text in numerous games to highly inappropriate messages and then giving my mates copies of said games, gained Elite status on the disk version of Elite and played Revs endlessly, fond memories of battling Johnny Turbo and Hugh Engine on the hangar straight, then bought Revs 4 tracks but couldn’t get my head around the different circuits.

Fantastic machine,my favourite computer by a long way, I intend to get another at some point.

Never really gelled with the Electron myself - dunno why it just felt even at the time kind of clunky and limited - wasn't a fan of the older Archimedes either like the 400 series - wasn't until RISC OS 3.10/.11 that I really felt like it was a complete system.
 
Soldato
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London
You guys are evil. I'm now considering getting some retro gear. I'd love to play Chuckie Egg and Repton on a beeb again. The disk drive noise is so satisfying.

How do those disks even work after so many years!?

What was the load command again.. chain"" or something?
 
Caporegime
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On the road....
Chain "rocketraid" or whatever the program was named, non pheasants simply hold shift whilst pressing break.... ;)

With BBC basic / Acorn OS the chain command told the machine to load and then run a program, otherwise you used load but then had to tell it to run the program, chain dispensed with this requirement.
 
Soldato
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Haha great.

I sometimes think it'd be fun being an IT teacher using older kit to show kids how things have evolved. :D

When I did IT at school it was crap like doing spreadsheets, basic databases and stuff. I learned more at primary school where one teacher taught us BASIC and other cool stuff. At least doing machine code for Z80 and others at college made up for it.
 
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Soldato
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8 Jun 2013
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i started off w/ an Electron, wanted the BBC but it was £399 and totally out of reach. Loved Elite on it, despite being a cut-down version. got the BBC a couple years later. loved the ELBUG and BEEBUG magazines, used to watch the program on [iirc] early Sat mornings w/ Ian McNaught-Davies. absolutely loved the BBC BASIC, think messing about w/ that and doing stuff helped my logical approach to testing and coding in my real job years later.
 
Soldato
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22 Oct 2008
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Lisburn, Northern Ireland
I still have a working Beeb! The monitor though (pictured below) went bang a couple of years back. The image began to blur so that the text was illegible. So kinda related to this thread - what would I need in order to connect the Beeb to a standard HDMI monitor? I want my 1981 legend to continue. Well probably 1981 but I got it 2nd hand in 1986, so its age could be anywhere between 22 years old and 27 years old :D

RN0Hu2J.jpg

HuGB2OF.jpg

Repton 3

Passwords
Level Password
A. Prelude 56882
B. Citadel 44544
C. Morning 13330
D. Awkward 33023
E. Fritter 24656
F. Lawless 8515
G. Ration 3447
H. Tobacco 2303
A. Toccata 48042
B. Upstart 6527
C. Octagon 27492
D. Chaotic 20312
E. Majesty 1356
F. Revenue 16713
G. Foresee 50190
H. Reserve 65280
A. Finale 27246
B. Enliven 24937
C. Contest 3200
D. Illegal 19786
E. Appease 3346
F. Student 20055
G. Average 16660
H. Phoenix 51762

You're welcome :D

Repton around the world was the hardest one iirc. I had all the reptons for my BBC B+ and BBC Master 128k
 
Soldato
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Scun'orp
I also had to slum it with an Electron initially, my first computer aged 14. When I went to University and had some cash I went to buy a Beeb from a newspaper advert, only to find the guy selling it was a lecturer at the uni, and he flat out refused to sell it to me after I mentioned I went to the same uni. He made up something about it being unethical or something. I was like what the hell? It wasn't even remotely the same course, or even discipline. I found out later he was in the computer department, whist I was doing engineering, and it has only just occurred to me this second that he may have been pilfering BBC B's from his uni building and flogging them off :)
 
Commissario
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In the radio shack
I added “Disc Doctor” from Computer Concepts and had endless fun changing text in numerous games to highly inappropriate messages and then giving my mates copies of said games, gained Elite status on the disk version of Elite and played Revs endlessly, fond memories of battling Johnny Turbo and Hugh Engine on the hangar straight, then bought Revs 4 tracks but couldn’t get my head around the different circuits.
You've just described exactly what I did on the Beeb!
 
Caporegime
Joined
25 Nov 2004
Posts
25,830
Location
On the road....
You've just described exactly what I did on the Beeb!
:D

I also had to slum it with an Electron initially, my first computer aged 14. When I went to University and had some cash I went to buy a Beeb from a newspaper advert, only to find the guy selling it was a lecturer at the uni, and he flat out refused to sell it to me after I mentioned I went to the same uni. He made up something about it being unethical or something. I was like what the hell? It wasn't even remotely the same course, or even discipline. I found out later he was in the computer department, whist I was doing engineering, and it has only just occurred to me this second that he may have been pilfering BBC B's from his uni building and flogging them off :)
I remember my school “upgrading” from a full BBC’B network with Winchester servers to RM480Z’s - they skipped the entire BBC setup but kept the Cub monitors, a mate of mine went back after hours and recovered as many as he could and sold them all in “Micro Mart” - made a tidy sum.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
91,147
Fully boxed too. I collect em!
29863350393_931e410a1f_b.jpg

Seeing this again makes me sad - my 3010 was stored in not the best conditions while I moved out/away for work and when I came back to it a few years later the PCB was all corroded and the HDD seized :( lost a ton of programs and games I'd made.
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2009
Posts
7,747
Repton!

Awesome, memories!

Repton 3, the best version. I once completed every single puzzle on a single playthrough all 88 levels, was too late to enter the competition though.

You guys are evil. I'm now considering getting some retro gear. I'd love to play Chuckie Egg and Repton on a beeb again. The disk drive noise is so satisfying.

How do those disks even work after so many years!?

What was the load command again.. chain"" or something?

On a tape, yes. "" (empty string) won't work for disks.. well it will but it could boot anything.

Chain "rocketraid" or whatever the program was named, non pheasants simply hold shift whilst pressing break.... ;)

With BBC basic / Acorn OS the chain command told the machine to load and then run a program, otherwise you used load but then had to tell it to run the program, chain dispensed with this requirement.

Disk again! If you could afford a disk drive you were wealthy (pheasants not withstanding).

Sold the Electron and the BBC master died a long time ago. :( Emulators work well though.
 
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