Bbc Micro Computer

[Daffy D]

In the spirit of “PeaceBlondie” pleas for more intelligent discussions on Thai Visa. Probably not the best topic for general interest but I think there are enough computer people to give the topic some life. After all we all use a computer to be here.

Who remembers the BBC Computer of 1980’s ? who will admit to actually owning one?

I for one was fascinated with the whole concept of computers and what they could do, and when the government at the time started the “Computer for every school” project it really started the ball rolling for Joe average to get to learn the basics.

I bought a BBC Model B, sometime in the early eighties if I recall. When I say computer it was just a box with keyboard and motherboard inside. No monitor or drives of any sort, no hard drive and an external 5in floppy drive was an additional add on. 32K Memory.

I plugged mine into the TV so you can imagine the quality of the resolution.

To load a program one had to use a cassette tape that took an age to load and if there was a problem you had to start all over again. Of course when you switched off you lost everything.

The BBC at that time was screening a weekly TV program dedicated to learning about the BBC Micro, there were not many computer magazines around at that time so the knowledge gained from those programs was invaluable. They also had weekly radio program where at the end they would broadcast a short computer program that you could record on the cassette tape and then load up.

The download was all whistles and squeaks a bit like phone download now, and I thought it absolutely fascinating that you could grab those whistles and squeaks out of the air and then see a program on the screen.

After the BBC Micro I progressed onto the Acorn Archimedes which was a great improvement with more memory and better graphics and 3in floppy disks. WoW!

About this time Microsoft was starting to be dominant with programs and magazines geared to it. The internet was starting to make it’s self available to all and the poor Acorn just could not compete. It was a sad day when I joined the masses and bought a computer with Microsoft operating system.

[niller74]

I had one.. The BBC and the ZX-80 gave me my first computer and programming experiences.

Still think I have the ZX somewhere. The BBC died and was sold on a flee market some years later. Should never have done that and instead have it fixed.

[phazey]

I'll "admit" to owning one - played Elite the best out of all the other formats anyways.

[Goshawk]

i had a model B+

it had a whopping 64k memory..

ahh.. 'Killer Gorilla'

memories...

[Insight]

I had one! Had two actually - Model B and a Master.

First machine I used to learn real programming - 6502 assembler. It was the PC of its day - I always had the top off it. Was also hooked on Revs for years.

No doubt you could find a BBC emulator that works on your mobile nowadays. How we've moved on...

[Slip]

I dreamed of owning a BBC. I had a ZX81 and it was crap even for then. You had to hit the keys with a force of about 500 psi just to make those rubbish keys work. I remember lusting after the 16k RAM pack but my parents were too tight to buy it for me, which if I remember correctly left me with a massive 1KB of RAM.

Do you know the name of that game you have pictured? I remember playing that on my mate's BBC.

[Cuban]

B, B+ and a Master.

Also a Z80 add on unit.

Any one else have an Eco-net ?

The RS 432 was ahead of it's time.

...played Elite the best out of all the other formats anyways.

Fantastic game.

http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/About.html

Edited July 31, 2008 by Cuban

[Cuban]

....which if I remember correctly left me with a massive 1KB of RAM.

But your coding was tighter and use of the stack more efficent for those constraints. Compared with the buggy applications written needing install from CD and Gigs of RAM.

I think tape was a bad move - oh for a punched card reader.

...so there will be a good handful of punch card coders out there, but did anyone have one of these:

a Ceed7b.

Oh for the noise and smell of hot oil!

PS Ops - just noticed the image is missing the paper tape reader unit which was a bolt-on extra on the right hand side. Stuff SDSL 45.5 Baud - that was hi-speed !

Edited July 31, 2008 by Cuban

[Crossy]

Stuff SDSL 45.5 Baud - that was hi-speed !

OMG, I did a lot of work on those when I was with the RN.

50 or 75 Baud (change gear) at 75 Baud they really did push the mechanics, occasionally the beast would get its knickers twisted during setup all sorts of bent bits resulted. 5 bit tape (Baudot code IIRC) used the same codes for numbers and letters with a control code to switch between the two, miss a control character and you got garbage. Had a (very unreliable) box called RATT which sent your messages over HF radio and another box which took your plaintext and 'literalised' it, converting into groups of 5 numbers ready for encryption.

And yes, I had a BBC B.

One of the UK P2P sites has both 'The Computer Program' and 'Making the Most of the Micro' for download, definate blast from the past.

Edited July 31, 2008 by Crossy

[dave_boo]

I got started in computers a bit later than y'all (and on the other side of the pond obviously!), but the first 'computer' I had was the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Yep, I had the speech synthesizer, and the tape drive. However, I had to utilise the TV as a monitor. Got me started on BASIC, but grandma was insistent I not turn into a zombie, so I was forced outside quite a bit.

After that it was on to the Amiga 2000. What a hel_l of a computer, even without the hdd; as I recall, that option would have nearly added some 50% to the price. However, I did finally get a proper monitor! Also, as I remember, the serial and parallel ports both used DB25 (serial was male and parallel was female) and both the external floppy (mine was kinda high-speed since it had dual internal 3.5" floppies) and the monitor used a DB23 with the monitor being male and the floppy being female. Was quite sad that Commodore seemed determined to run them into the ground. Was so far ahead of the other systems at the time that I really thought it was going to be the future. Well as we all know I was very wrong.

And on and on. But those are the two systems I hold most dear, after that it was on to IBM clones and the general crappiness that spews from Redmond. Well at least till I found Linux.

[phazey]

The game pictured is "Chuckie Egg"

Complete list of owned machines for my own humour really:

ZX81

BBC-B

Speccy48k

Commodore 64

Amiga 500

Amiga 500+

Amiga 1500

Amiga 1200

Amiga 1200 w/68040/6881 @ 40mhz

Amiga 4000

PC Dx4/100

Consoles:

Binatone thing

Phillips Videopac

AtariVCS

Atari Lynx

Atari Jaguar

Sega Genesis

Sega Portable

Super Nintendo

Sega Dreamcast

NintendoGameboy

Nintendo 64

Sega saturn

Sony Playstation

Sony Playstation 2

Playstation portable

Xbox 1

Xbox 360

Nintendo Wii

[monty]

Started out on the TI 99 4/A as well.

An uncle working in the travel industry brought it over from Taiwan for me where it retailed at half the price it was in Europe!

I actually still have an "extended basic" module lying around over here

Stuck around with it a long time and then went straight to an 8086 PC, onwards to 286, 386, Pentium etc...

[singa-traz]

Mine is still at home and I must admit I downloaded a BBC simulator.

[pampal]

my first computing experience was punch cards handed into the teacher and the printout was returned 3 days later. Then it was working with a Commodore PET, Vic 20, Atari 400,Atari 800 256KB ram and then proper computers came along.

[grtaylor]

In the spirit of “PeaceBlondie” pleas for more intelligent discussions on Thai Visa. Probably not the best topic for general interest but I think there are enough computer people to give the topic some life. After all we all use a computer to be here.

Who remembers the BBC Computer of 1980’s ? who will admit to actually owning one?

I for one was fascinated with the whole concept of computers and what they could do, and when the government at the time started the “Computer for every school” project it really started the ball rolling for Joe average to get to learn the basics.

I bought a BBC Model B, sometime in the early eighties if I recall. When I say computer it was just a box with keyboard and motherboard inside. No monitor or drives of any sort, no hard drive and an external 5in floppy drive was an additional add on. 32K Memory.

I plugged mine into the TV so you can imagine the quality of the resolution.

To load a program one had to use a cassette tape that took an age to load and if there was a problem you had to start all over again. Of course when you switched off you lost everything.

The BBC at that time was screening a weekly TV program dedicated to learning about the BBC Micro, there were not many computer magazines around at that time so the knowledge gained from those programs was invaluable. They also had weekly radio program where at the end they would broadcast a short computer program that you could record on the cassette tape and then load up.

The download was all whistles and squeaks a bit like phone download now, and I thought it absolutely fascinating that you could grab those whistles and squeaks out of the air and then see a program on the screen.

After the BBC Micro I progressed onto the Acorn Archimedes which was a great improvement with more memory and better graphics and 3in floppy disks. WoW!

About this time Microsoft was starting to be dominant with programs and magazines geared to it. The internet was starting to make it’s self available to all and the poor Acorn just could not compete. It was a sad day when I joined the masses and bought a computer with Microsoft operating system.

Ah, I remember it well! It was through the Model B and BBC Basic, writing a program for conjugating Latin verbs, for a teacher at the school where I was teaching, that I got into the whole IT business! I have a lot to thank it for!

G

Edited July 31, 2008 by grtaylor

[slackula]

My first was a mighty Compukit UK101 that I had to build from a kit my father bought me one christmas:

CPU 6502@ 1MHz, 4K RAM expandable to 8, 1K VRAM, man I spent hours on that thing.

I had a ZX-81 later and used to spend hours typing in games from magazines only for the 16K memory pack to shift from a knock or something and have to start all over again. I even had one of the little thermal printers to go with it. It was fun but the keyboard was absolutely horrible.

[Insight]

I got started in computers a bit later than y'all (and on the other side of the pond obviously!), but the first 'computer' I had was the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Yep, I had the speech synthesizer, and the tape drive. However, I had to utilise the TV as a monitor. Got me started on BASIC, but grandma was insistent I not turn into a zombie, so I was forced outside quite a bit.

After that it was on to the Amiga 2000. What a hel_l of a computer, even without the hdd; as I recall, that option would have nearly added some 50% to the price. However, I did finally get a proper monitor! Also, as I remember, the serial and parallel ports both used DB25 (serial was male and parallel was female) and both the external floppy (mine was kinda high-speed since it had dual internal 3.5" floppies) and the monitor used a DB23 with the monitor being male and the floppy being female. Was quite sad that Commodore seemed determined to run them into the ground. Was so far ahead of the other systems at the time that I really thought it was going to be the future. Well as we all know I was very wrong.

And on and on. But those are the two systems I hold most dear, after that it was on to IBM clones and the general crappiness that spews from Redmond. Well at least till I found Linux.

(pics removed)

As much as I loved Amiga's I always found myself leaning towards the Atari ST more - think it was the built in MIDI ports that done it.

It was a shame how Amiga royally screwed up considering the advantage they had - very capable machines all in all.

Would be interesting to note what posters on this thread are outside of the UK. As far as I know the BBC was predominately sold in the UK?

[sniffdog]

I owned a Tandy TRS-80 .. can't remember which year it was (1980?) ... it had 4K and then I upgraded it for US$200 to a whopping 16K. Also owned a Commodore 64 and later a Atari ST.

Edited July 31, 2008 by sniffdog

[Meerkat]

Started programming at school on a TRS-80 Model 1, Level 1 (4k RAM, 4k ROM) and then ZX80 and '81s. RAM-pack wobbles with the latter of course, but never did have the guts to see if I really could fry an egg on it!

First computer I owned was an Oric 1. Remember that one - the Spectrum "killer"! Actually was technically superior to the Speccy, but suffered from "Betamax" syndrome. Finally admitted defeat and joined the dead-flesh crowd. Then onto an ST which I still have somewhere. Memories also coming back of using FORTH on a Jupiter Ace at some point...

Have an Speccy emulator for my Mac now - occasionally fire it up and reminisce over a game of Sabre Wulf or Starquake...

[hughden]

I have an Atari 400 sitting on the shelf. Still works, apart from the "N" key. The 16k memory modules are huge!

[CCCP]

I had a Philips G7000 in the 80's. They keyboard was flat, and you needed a cartridge for it to work. Back then the games still cost around 25-40 UK pounds, the best game being pick axe pete.

After that I upgraded to a Toshiba MX. At the time was better than the sinclair but it never took off. The Philips was a dissaster.

Edited July 31, 2008 by CCCP

[Daffy D]

“Slip” Wrote:-

Do you know the name of that game you have pictured? I remember playing that on my mate's BBC.

“phazey” beat me to it yes the game is “Chuckie Egg” One of my favorites at the time.

For anyone interested a lot of those old games are available to play on Windows.