BBC Micro sideways ROMS
Roland Perry
Holidays <r...@argonet.co.uk> writes
><>Still selling sideways ROM/RAM cards ? :-)
><
><Weren't they something for the BBC computer? Solidisk was the company
><wasn't it? :-)
>
>Yes - they were RAM cards to load languages, applications and operating
>system enhancements into. Lots of firms made, or sold them, Solidisk,
>as far as I know, invented them, but most other implementations were
>much simpler / more /reliable / easy to use.
Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
implementation.
--
Roland Perry
Al Grant
> Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
> Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
> implementation.
Did _anyone_ ever produce cartridges for the ROM cartridge
socket on the left hand side of the keyboard?
Hugo 'NOx' Tyson
David Damerell
>Al Grant <ag...@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>>Did _anyone_ ever produce cartridges for the ROM cartridge
>>socket on the left hand side of the keyboard?
>/ROM cartridge socket/ashtray/
IIRC, someone made a gadget that attached to one of the internal ROM
sockets and provided you with a ZIF ROM socket there instead, so you could
change ROMs without opening the case or damaging the pins.
--
David/Kirsty Damerell. dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
CUWoCS President. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/ Hail Eris!
|___| "Life is short and love is always over in the morning." |___|
| | | Temple of Love - The Sisters of Mercy. | | |
David Anthony
I believe that it was a built in design feature of the BBC's after the
release 7 board, (like the OS64, etc). I think the third party
implementations were brought out after that to upgrade older release 7
boards. The BBC master also came with a larger SWRAM. The ram was used
to load rom images (i still have 30 or 40 rom images on disk!) as well as
other information, such as speech information for some speech
applications. Also, if you had a ROM chip in your computer you could
create a rom image on disk by copying the memory range directly to a
file, then reload it into the SWRAM from the disk. This didn't work on
all roms, as some roms (like INTERWORD, the wordprocessor) also had som
74 series logic chips on a small daughterboard along with the rom chip.
i hope this info is of some help
david
> In article <na.99244149...@argonet.co.uk>, Russell Hafter
> Holidays <r...@argonet.co.uk> writes
>
> ><>Still selling sideways ROM/RAM cards ? :-)
> ><
> ><Weren't they something for the BBC computer? Solidisk was the company
> ><wasn't it? :-)
> >
> >Yes - they were RAM cards to load languages, applications and operating
> >system enhancements into. Lots of firms made, or sold them, Solidisk,
> >as far as I know, invented them, but most other implementations were
> >much simpler / more /reliable / easy to use.
>
> Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
> Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
> implementation.
> --
> Roland Perry
>
>
return of the mega .msg
when a man lies, he murders some part of the world
these are the pale deaths, which men miscall their lives
all this, i cannot bear to witness any longer
cannot the kingdom of salvation, take me home?
i have fallen from grace, and my ashes are scattered
no longer a passion in flesh
my flame is alive, though my wings have been shattered
they've layed my body to rest.
Al Grant
> I believe that it was a built in design feature of the BBC's after the
> release 7 board, (like the OS64, etc). I think the third party
> implementations were brought out after that to upgrade older release 7
> boards.
Sideways RAMs were around before that. It was easy to make
them, you soldered together two 8K RAM chips, one on top of
the other, with a NOT gate on the top address line, and plugged
it in a spare ROM socket.
There was a hacked version of DFS which loaded into sideways
RAM, and used the spare as buffers, freeing up low RAM.
Once it was loaded (from disk) you could remove the DFS ROM.
Alasdair, Cambridge, UK
control capabilities to BBC Basic. Popular with rat psychologists, but not
so popular with the rats.
Al Grant <ag...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in article
<375E3BBF...@cam.ac.uk>...
David Anthony
through watford electronics. The viglen device was pretty much the same
thing, but it was supplied with a number of little black cases with an
edge connector circuit board in them. You put your rom chips in these
little black boxes, and you could sway them in and out of the little
viglen edge socket. I think this was to stop you from pushing incorrect
chips/ fingers/ wires into a zif socket and destroying your computer (not
that it was actually possible to destroy a bbc!)
david
Doug Weller
ag...@cam.ac.uk said...
> Roland Perry wrote:
>
> > Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
> > Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
> > implementation.
>
> socket on the left hand side of the keyboard?
>
Doug
--
Doug Weller Moderator, sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to: sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email me for details
Adrian Kennard
> >
> > > Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
> > > Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
> > > implementation.
> >
> > Did _anyone_ ever produce cartridges for the ROM cartridge
> > socket on the left hand side of the keyboard?
>
>
> Not AFAIK.
Acorn sold a speech unit that used this - worked nicely.
I had one. Mind you I also had a beeb with Z80 and 6502 2nd
processors inside the same case as the BBC, stuck to the lid
with a switch on the back to switch between them and also
all 14 spare ROM slots filled with RAM (piggy backed 32K
RAM chips).
I dont remember what I did with it !
--
_ Andrews & Arnold Ltd, Bracknell, Berks, RG42 1ZZ
(_) _| _ . _ _ Discount ISDN equipment if we order your BT line
( )(_|( |(_|| ) Professional Office telecoms/ISDN http://aa.nu/
Alastair France
it had never really been designed onto the board, and retro-fitting the
memory card made fitting a disc interface to early Beebs seem quite easy :-)
The very first beeb boards supported sideways ROM - (that is a bank of four
ROMs one of which could occupy the memory map from 0x8000 to 0xBFFF) but it
wasn't supported in the operating system until version 1.0. The earliest
release OS 0.10 was originally supplied in four 2732 EPROMs which could be
fitted in those sockets with links swapped around.
Solidisk's sideways RAM board was quite interesting - if rather good at
freezing the system if it was jolted. Its biggest problem from my experience
in the early days was that there was a fairly large 5v plane on the topside
back of the circuit board. For those that remember, that was right next to
the TV modulator when fitted. A little solder resist wearing away and ooer
missus...
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.990609124000.29541A-100000@leofric>, David Anthony
<URL:mailto:d...@coventry.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Roland Perry wrote:
> I believe that it was a built in design feature of the BBC's after the
> release 7 board, (like the OS64, etc). I think the third party
> implementations were brought out after that to upgrade older release 7
> boards. The BBC master also came with a larger SWRAM. The ram was used
> to load rom images (i still have 30 or 40 rom images on disk!) as well as
> other information, such as speech information for some speech
> applications. Also, if you had a ROM chip in your computer you could
> create a rom image on disk by copying the memory range directly to a
> file, then reload it into the SWRAM from the disk. This didn't work on
> all roms, as some roms (like INTERWORD, the wordprocessor) also had som
> 74 series logic chips on a small daughterboard along with the rom chip.
>
> i hope this info is of some help
>
> david
>
>
> > In article <na.99244149...@argonet.co.uk>, Russell Hafter
> > Holidays <r...@argonet.co.uk> writes
> >
> > ><>Still selling sideways ROM/RAM cards ? :-)
> > ><
> > ><Weren't they something for the BBC computer? Solidisk was the company
> > ><wasn't it? :-)
> > >
> > >Yes - they were RAM cards to load languages, applications and operating
> > >system enhancements into. Lots of firms made, or sold them, Solidisk,
> > >as far as I know, invented them, but most other implementations were
> > >much simpler / more /reliable / easy to use.
> >
> > Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
> > Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
> > implementation.
> > --
> > Roland Perry
> >
> >
>
> return of the mega .msg
> when a man lies, he murders some part of the world
> these are the pale deaths, which men miscall their lives
> all this, i cannot bear to witness any longer
> cannot the kingdom of salvation, take me home?
>
> i have fallen from grace, and my ashes are scattered
> no longer a passion in flesh
> my flame is alive, though my wings have been shattered
> they've layed my body to rest.
>
>
--
Alastair France
afr...@stet-os.demon.co.uk
Alastair France
<URL:mailto:d...@coventry.ac.uk> wrote:
> the zif socket you could fit to the side of the keyboard was supplied
> through watford electronics. The viglen device was pretty much the same
> thing, but it was supplied with a number of little black cases with an
> edge connector circuit board in them. You put your rom chips in these
> little black boxes, and you could sway them in and out of the little
> viglen edge socket. I think this was to stop you from pushing incorrect
> chips/ fingers/ wires into a zif socket and destroying your computer (not
> that it was actually possible to destroy a bbc!)
>
I did find one that it wasn't sensibly possible to repair at component level
- but that was one in several hundreds. It had suffered a lightning strike
on an econet cable. Not only had several chips been fried, but a number of
tracks on the circuit board had gone too. Normally it was only the 75159s
that died, but this one was particularly special.
--
Alastair France
afr...@stet-os.demon.co.uk
Alastair France
<URL:mailto:dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Hugo 'NOx' Tyson <h...@cygnus.co.ukx> wrote:
> >Al Grant <ag...@cam.ac.uk> writes:
> >>Did _anyone_ ever produce cartridges for the ROM cartridge
> >>socket on the left hand side of the keyboard?
> >/ROM cartridge socket/ashtray/
>
> sockets and provided you with a ZIF ROM socket there instead, so you could
> change ROMs without opening the case or damaging the pins.
Oh yes, that one. Used to give endless sources of income to those of us
fixing the things (before I turned gamekeeper and actually worked for
Acorn). Along with various other "roof" mounted cards and other bits and
pieces. I had one machine which the owner claimed was a bit unreliable which
had in excess of 1m of ribbon cable in various forms carrying the 6502
databus. You could almost measure the capacitance in microfarads -
absolutely amazing it ever worked at all.
Those were the days (gets old nostalgia hat on)... fault finding to
component level didn't need all the fancy stuff - a kitchen table, scope,
DMM and a soldering iron. Probably didn't do my eyesight any good though!
(oh, and mentioning the "ashtray" you wanted to give the kitchen table a
good clean after opening many folks Beebs. Quite amazing what you could find
in the case)
--
Alastair France
afr...@stet-os.demon.co.uk
Martin Walker
Strangman) wrote:
>On Wed, 09 Jun 1999 13:44:55 +0100, Al Grant <ag...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Sideways RAMs were around before that. It was easy to make
>> them, you soldered together two 8K RAM chips, one on top of
>> the other, with a NOT gate on the top address line, and plugged
>> it in a spare ROM socket.
>
>I put a switch in mine so that stuff which refused to
>run if it found itself in RAM would still run.
I did a bit of copy protection on a rom I wrote, it was an 8Kb
rom and address wise you would find thta if you address the top *kb of
the 16kb space you would see the bottom 8Kb, if you loaded into
sideways ram that would not happen. The rom was "Scythe".
martin
Martin Walker
Stephen Harris
: In article <na.99244149...@argonet.co.uk>, Russell Hafter
: Holidays <r...@argonet.co.uk> writes
: >Yes - they were RAM cards to load languages, applications and operating
: >system enhancements into. Lots of firms made, or sold them, Solidisk,
: >as far as I know, invented them, but most other implementations were
: Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
: Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
: implementation.
The BBC came with Sideways ROM slots, yes. But the idea of putting RAM
into them wasn't an Acorn idea. They later did it with the B+ series.
Different versions of sideways ram boards existed. I quite liked the original
Solidisk one where &FE62 and &FE60 (I think - umm, ?&FE62=15 ; ?&FE60=bank)
were used to select the bank for writing. The standard Acorn decided on
eventually used the standard bank select line for write access via &FE30,
so whatever bank was being read was also available for write. Not as
friendly IMHO because it made it harder for one bank to access another.
The Soldisk DDFS had a nice feature:
*LOAD IMAGE 78000
would load the image into bank 7. It copied the idle-loop code into
page &D after the NMI handler, and selected the SWR bank mentioned in
the load address. After the right number of bytes had been copied,
it swapped back to the DDFS ROM bank, and jumped back into the ROM to
finish off. Made for much quicker loads without corrupting base memory
than the *SRLOAD that Acorn came up with.
I like the Beeb. Still got mine working. I wrote a wonderful management
ROM for that thing. "BBC Computer 160K" greets me if the banks are available
for writing :-)
--
rgds
Stephen
Ben Holme
have seen the spider boxes in the flesh!!!
Alasdair, Cambridge, UK wrote in message
<01beb27d$48790760$3200a8c0@alasdair>...
>Paul Fray Ltd did a cartridge (called "Spider") which added real-time
>control capabilities to BBC Basic. Popular with rat psychologists, but not
>so popular with the rats.
>
>Al Grant <ag...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in article
><375E3BBF...@cam.ac.uk>...
>> Roland Perry wrote:
Andy Burns
>Mind you I also had a beeb with Z80 and 6502 2nd
>processors inside the same case as the BBC
I've still got a 6502 "tube" 2nd processor, but no BBC anymore, but with
BBC emulator for PC's you can still play defe^H^H^H^Hplanetoid :-)
--
Andy At Burns Dot Net
Duncan Barclay
sw...@mpn.com (Stephen Harris) writes:
> Roland Perry (rol...@perry.co.uk) wrote:
>: In article <na.99244149...@argonet.co.uk>, Russell Hafter
>: Holidays <r...@argonet.co.uk> writes
>
>: >Yes - they were RAM cards to load languages, applications and operating
>: >system enhancements into. Lots of firms made, or sold them, Solidisk,
>: >as far as I know, invented them, but most other implementations were
>
>: Surely Acorn 'invented' them, as they were a design feature of the BBC
>: Micro. We'd need a historian to tell us who marketed the first
>: implementation.
I built a little board with a Hitachi real time clock chip on it for my
BBC. Spent ages developing the management code etc, and then code a
Watford sideways ROM/RAM card. It inconviently masked writes to the ROM
sockets which meant that the clock ROM wouldn't work, and I had cleverly
designed the board so that it didn't fit into the standard sockets.
Sigh
Duncan
--
________________________________________________________________________
Duncan Barclay | God smiles upon the little children,
dm...@ragnet.demon.co.uk | the alcoholics, and the permanently stoned.
________________________________________________________________________
Daniel Lyon
Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of Chuckie Egg
coming on.....
Dan.
Andy Burns
>Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of Chuckie Egg
>coming on.....
I'll dig out my bookmarks, but incase they're all gone I do have it
somewhere ...
the only problem is that you need images of the DNFS and BASIC ROMS, Acorn
have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMS to be distributed ...
Vicky Larmour
>thats a scary blast from the past. I *used* to work for Paul Fray Ltd and
>have seen the spider boxes in the flesh!!!
Me too :-) I had a Summer job there in 1993 working on Arachnid, the
non-graphical version of the Gloria language (which I wanted to call
Victoria, in keeping with the "Gloria" theme, but sadly we couldn't think
of a suitable expansion of the acronym, so we went back to the insect
theme).
Vicky
--
vicky.larmour[at]camcon.co.uk All opinions mine.
Piglet was still a little anxious about Tigger, who was a
Very Bouncy Animal, with a way of saying How-do-you-do,
which always left your ears full of sand.
Brian Cockburn
> The Soldisk DDFS had a nice feature:
> *LOAD IMAGE 78000
> would load the image into bank 7. It copied the idle-loop code into
> page &D after the NMI handler, and selected the SWR bank mentioned in
> the load address. After the right number of bytes had been copied,
> it swapped back to the DDFS ROM bank, and jumped back into the ROM to
> finish off. Made for much quicker loads without corrupting base memory
> than the *SRLOAD that Acorn came up with.
Stephen,
A nice feature indeed. But sadly it ONLY worked with that filing
system because it is a filing system extension. The OS provided
*SRLOAD had to work with ALL filing systems past and future.
Cheers, Brian.
Alasdair, Cambridge, UK
I moved to Cambridge in 1987 thinking I was going be doing technical
support and applications software, to be given a heap of 3-year-old bingo
cards on my first day and told to cold-call them.
Didn't sell a sausage, although I did give one customer his money back, so
sacked after 3 months.
Happy endings though,
Al.
Vicky Larmour <vicky....@camcon.co.nospam.uk> wrote in article
<7jqkiu$7ck$1...@andromeda.camcon.co.uk>...
> In article <7jp4vu$6k0$1...@lure.pipex.net>,
> "Ben Holme" <ben....@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
> >thats a scary blast from the past. I *used* to work for Paul Fray Ltd
and
> >:
> :
Brian Watson
news:3772bfc7....@news.demon.co.uk...
> Daniel Lyon wrote:
>
> >Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of Chuckie Egg
> >coming on.....
>
> somewhere ...
>
> the only problem is that you need images of the DNFS and BASIC ROMs, Acorn
> have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMs to be distributed ...
Ridiculous attitude!
Amstrad have no problem with any of their old 8-bit computers being emulated
even where this involves the use of their ROMs' images, but request an
acknowledgement in the programs.
Nice people to do business with.
The same applies to emulating the 8-bit versions (disc & ROM) of our
programs for use with CPC and PCW emulators. We can even direct would-be
users to download sites.
--
Brian Watson (for Protext Software)
Rupert Moss-Eccardt
by working for Micro Support at the University :-)
Hugo 'NOx' Tyson
"Brian Watson" <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Andy Burns <an...@burns.net> wrote in message
> news:3772bfc7....@news.demon.co.uk...
> > Daniel Lyon wrote:
> > the only problem is that you need images of the DNFS and BASIC ROMs, Acorn
> > have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMs to be distributed ...
>
> Ridiculous attitude!
Yes. But does it matter any more? Acorn is gone; no more; it is an
ex-Troubled Cambridge Micro Maker[1].
Either Pace or e14 or nobody now owns the rights in those ROMs. Anyone
from either of the first two care to comment whether Acorn's anal
policies[2] are being continued?
- Huge
[1] as was always Acorn's epithet in the trade rags.
[2] ignoring the bit in the contract that requires me, for example, to
travel anywhere they like in perpetuity at my own expense to assist in
defending Acorn's rights in software including ROMs that I (co-)wrote.
While I was happy at the time to create an affidavit that Watford DFS was a
rip-off of Acorn DFS, it mattered then; it certainly doesn't now.
William Turner
<URL:mailto:br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Andy Burns <an...@burns.net> wrote in message
> news:3772bfc7....@news.demon.co.uk...
> > Daniel Lyon wrote:
> >
> > >coming on.....
> >
> > I'll dig out my bookmarks, but in case they're all gone I do have it
> > somewhere ...
> >
> > have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMs to be distributed ...
>
> Ridiculous attitude!
>
> even where this involves the use of their ROMs' images, but request an
> acknowledgement in the programs.
Indeed. But then, Amstrad hold the copyright in entirety. AIUI, Acorn don't,
and it's not Acorn that's the stumbling block. Can't remember who exactly co-
owns the copyright though (may be partly the BBC too), as it's several years
since I looked into it.
w
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Senior Software Engineer,
ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ Pace Micro Technology PLC,
|,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Cambridge, England.
'---''(_/--' `-'\_) Email: wil...@eh.org
Steve Kimberley
Al Grant wrote in message <375E61C7...@cam.ac.uk>...
>
>Sideways RAMs were around before that. It was easy to make
>them, you soldered together two 8K RAM chips, one on top of
>the other, with a NOT gate on the top address line, and plugged
>it in a spare ROM socket.
Now you mention it, I remember doing this...and accessing Prestel through a
1200/75 (V23?) modem...
Steve
Al Grant
> "Brian Watson" <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> writes:
> > Andy Burns <an...@burns.net> wrote in message
> > news:3772bfc7....@news.demon.co.uk...
> > > Daniel Lyon wrote:
> > > the only problem is that you need images of the DNFS and BASIC ROMs, Acorn
> > > have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMs to be distributed ...
> >
> > Ridiculous attitude!
>
> Yes. But does it matter any more? Acorn is gone; no more; it is an
> ex-Troubled Cambridge Micro Maker[1].
> Either Pace or e14 or nobody now owns the rights in those ROMs. Anyone
> from either of the first two care to comment whether Acorn's anal
> policies[2] are being continued?
Is this perhaps due to Acorn's various financial troubles?
Something about being legally required to take any opportunity to
maximise value for shareholders, creditors etc.? Just a guess.
The BBC BASIC ROM had a neat set of software floating point
routines, this might still have some intrinsic value. Though when
Acorn were in their prime and I was selling a language ROM for
the BBC, I asked them if I could extract the floating-point code
from BASIC and use it in my ROM. Acorn wrote back saying I
was free to use the code and wished me success with the product.
Roland Perry
<wtu...@e-14.com> writes
>Indeed. But then, Amstrad hold the copyright in entirety.
Are you sure? I'd have expected the copyright in the BASIC half of the
ROM to belong to Locomotive [or successor].
--
Roland Perry
Sophie Wilson
news:pt3dzyv...@masala.cygnus.co.uk...
>
> "Brian Watson" <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> writes:
> > Andy Burns <an...@burns.net> wrote in message
> > news:3772bfc7....@news.demon.co.uk...
> > > Daniel Lyon wrote:
> > > the only problem is that you need images of the DNFS and BASIC ROMs, Acorn
> > > have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMs to be distributed ...
> >
> > Ridiculous attitude!
>
> Yes. But does it matter any more? Acorn is gone; no more; it is an
> ex-Troubled Cambridge Micro Maker[1].
Fallen off its perch to join the choir invisible?
Does this make Element 14 some sort of parrot ghost???
> Either Pace or e14 or nobody now owns the rights in those ROMs. Anyone
> from either of the first two care to comment whether Acorn's anal
> policies[2] are being continued?
Pace gets most of the traditional IP. Element 14 is trying to take only
the things we might need.
> - Huge
>
> [1] as was always Acorn's epithet in the trade rags.
"Troubled Acorn"... They don't seem to have dredged that up this time
- now that its too late, people are saying we were kind of good and
that they liked our products!
> [2] ignoring the bit in the contract that requires me, for example, to
> travel anywhere they like in perpetuity at my own expense to assist in
> defending Acorn's rights in software including ROMs that I (co-)wrote.
> While I was happy at the time to create an affidavit that Watford DFS was a
> rip-off of Acorn DFS, it mattered then; it certainly doesn't now.
Well, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter will wind up Acorn, so the validity
of any such contract is going to be interesting. Can't help thinking
that the chances of another rip-off of DFS or ADFS are low!
--
--Sophie
Chief Architect & VP Silicon Architecture; Element 14.
| Words are like rocks: they weigh you down. |
| If birds could speak, they wouldn't be able to fly. |
Mike Trinder
Lyon) wrote:
> In article <376817c7....@news.demon.co.uk>,
> an...@burns.net (Andy Burns) writes:
> > Adrian Kennard wrote:
> >
> >>Mind you I also had a beeb with Z80 and 6502 2nd
> >>processors inside the same case as the BBC
> >
> > I've still got a 6502 "tube" 2nd processor, but no BBC anymore, but with
> > BBC emulator for PC's you can still play defe^H^H^H^Hplanetoid :-)
>
> Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of Chuckie Egg
> coming on.....
Somewhere, somewhere, I have the level layout specs for Chuckie Egg. I
remember redesigning the whole game to be much harder after a friend
played for 15 hours continuously and it stopped getting harder. Those were
the days :)
--
Mike T -- mpb...@spam.ac.uk (that's cam not spam)
Vicky Larmour
:-) In our "Sixth Form Entertainment" that we put on for the other kids when
we left school, we had one skit set in the school computer room, which had
the music from Chuckie Egg playing constantly in the background. Not too far
off reality! :-)
Vicky "those were the days" Larmour
Brian Watson
Roland Perry <rol...@perry.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6brT0hAQ...@linx.org...
Both Cliff Lawson (for Amstrad) and Howard Fisher (for LocoScript Software -
as they are now) regularly get involved in discussions in
comp.sys.amstrad.8bit
It appears that the only thing LocoScript Software still "have an interest
in" is their implementation of CP/M for the CPCs and PCWs, as they still
supply replacement discs commercially.
Apart from that, their message is "emulate if you like, *preferably* with an
acknowledgement message."
--
Rick Payne
Daniel> Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of
Daniel> Chuckie Egg coming on.....
Look at:
ftp://ftp.netcom.net.uk/pub/Micros/BBC/Emulators/Xbeeb
Rick
Roland Perry
Watson <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> writes
>It appears that the only thing LocoScript Software still "have an interest
>in" is their implementation of CP/M for the CPCs and PCWs, as they still
>supply replacement discs commercially.
>
>Apart from that, their message is "emulate if you like, *preferably* with an
>acknowledgement message."
Which suggests that Locoscript Software do own the rights in the BASIC,
or they would not be in a position to issue the waiver?
--
Roland Perry
Alastair France
<URL:mailto:vicky....@camcon.co.nospam.uk> wrote:
> In article <mpbt100-1106...@m-trinder.arct.cam.ac.uk>,
> mpb...@spam.ac.uk (Mike Trinder) wrote:
> >In article <7jqdo5$on9$1...@wave.cam.uk.internal>, dan...@uk.uu.net (Daniel
> >Lyon) wrote:
> >> Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of Chuckie Egg
> >> coming on.....
> >
> >Somewhere, somewhere, I have the level layout specs for Chuckie Egg. I
> >remember redesigning the whole game to be much harder after a friend
> >played for 15 hours continuously and it stopped getting harder. Those were
> >the days :)
>
> :-) In our "Sixth Form Entertainment" that we put on for the other kids when
> we left school, we had one skit set in the school computer room, which had
> the music from Chuckie Egg playing constantly in the background. Not too far
> off reality! :-)
>
> Vicky "those were the days" Larmour
>
at uni I remember missing lunch because I was playing Chuckie Egg and it
didn't have a pause - I missed dinner with the same game. I don't actually
think I missed a lab or supervision - it was probably after full term. Great
game at the time...
--
Alastair France
afr...@stet-os.demon.co.uk
Peter Maydell
Brian Watson <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Both Cliff Lawson (for Amstrad) and Howard Fisher (for LocoScript Software -
>as they are now) regularly get involved in discussions in
>comp.sys.amstrad.8bit
>
>It appears that the only thing LocoScript Software still "have an interest
>in" is their implementation of CP/M for the CPCs and PCWs, as they still
>supply replacement discs commercially.
But it clearly says in the manual that the first thing you should do with
the CP/M disks is make a backup to use, and keep the original disks in
a safe place. Surely everybody reads the manual? :->
Peter Maydell
[used to have a CPC 6128...]
Gary Cowell (QI'HoS)
>In article <WJb*1o...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, David Damerell
><URL:mailto:dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> Hugo 'NOx' Tyson <h...@cygnus.co.ukx> wrote:
>> >Al Grant <ag...@cam.ac.uk> writes:
>> >>Did _anyone_ ever produce cartridges for the ROM cartridge
>> >>socket on the left hand side of the keyboard?
>> >/ROM cartridge socket/ashtray/
>>
>> IIRC, someone made a gadget that attached to one of the internal ROM
>> sockets and provided you with a ZIF ROM socket there instead, so you could
>> change ROMs without opening the case or damaging the pins.
>
>Oh yes, that one. Used to give endless sources of income to those of us
>fixing the things (before I turned gamekeeper and actually worked for
>Acorn). Along with various other "roof" mounted cards and other bits and
>pieces. I had one machine which the owner claimed was a bit unreliable which
>had in excess of 1m of ribbon cable in various forms carrying the 6502
>databus. You could almost measure the capacitance in microfarads -
>absolutely amazing it ever worked at all.
>
>Those were the days (gets old nostalgia hat on)... fault finding to
>component level didn't need all the fancy stuff - a kitchen table, scope,
>DMM and a soldering iron. Probably didn't do my eyesight any good though!
>
>(oh, and mentioning the "ashtray" you wanted to give the kitchen table a
>good clean after opening many folks Beebs. Quite amazing what you could find
>in the case)
I took a look in my local primary school whilst voting in the Euro
Elections and spied a BBC B still in use there...
Seemingly very durable machines.
uF on a data bus!! coo.
G
stephen roberts
an...@burns.net "Andy Burns" writes:
> Daniel Lyon wrote:
>
> >Emulator, emulator, Where ?? I feel the need for a game of Chuckie Egg
> >coming on.....
>
> I'll dig out my bookmarks, but incase they're all gone I do have it
> somewhere ...
>
> the only problem is that you need images of the DNFS and BASIC ROMS, Acorn
> have taken a stance that they cannot allow the ROMS to be distributed ...
>
aAs far as I recall a site called www.filepile.com has various
emulators for PC and loads of games.
--
steve roberts
Alastair France
Heh heh. We used to say to the children in primary schools that the
computers were older than them. I wonder if we'll get to the stage where
they will be older than the teachers...
Provided they're used in the right way, they are still extraordinarily
valuable tools in helping to deliver the curriculum.
> uF on a data bus!! coo.
well - I was overstating that, of course, but the effect of 1m of ribbon
cable could certainly be identified on a scope.
>
> G
>
--
Alastair France
afr...@stet-os.demon.co.uk
Brian Watson
news:7js7h9$plf$1...@watchdragon.demon.co.uk...
Ha-bloody-ha!
Their point is that they don't want "third parties" selling (or distributing
freely to their financial loss) copies of CP/M or LocoScript on disc/k for
use on the actual CPC/PCWs when the nitwits who *didn't* read the manual
mess up their master copies.
Also, there is still quite a commercial demand for LocoScript upgrades, and
CP/M sets where people have bought the machines second-hand *without*
booting disc/k sets.
As far as using and distributing .dsk images is concerned, they have no
problem with it as long as the "thanks to..." message is included.
We treat Protext the same way.
There are "proper" PC, Atari and PCW versions still commercially available
and supported through us, but we have no problem with anyone using .dsk
images of the Amsdos (CPC format) versions under an emulator.
As it happens, just yesterday I was in Peterborough handing over copies of
the source code to a CPC club for their use. They will be putting a team
together to develop the CPC versions further and the .dsk images of the
latest versions are, or will be shortly, downloadable from their website as
well as appropriate emulators.
> [used to have a CPC 6128...]
Obviously a man of considerable intellect. Hang on, did you say "used to
have"? Hmmm.....
:-)
Wookey
<afr...@stet-os.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Solidisk's sideways RAM board was quite interesting - if rather good at
>freezing the system if it was jolted. Its biggest problem from my experience
>in the early days was that there was a fairly large 5v plane on the topside
>back of the circuit board.
No, the bigget problem with those was the nasty tin edge contacts -
thoroughly unreliable after a while - I had to fettle mine several
times. I still have it in a box of 'really useful items', waiting for
me to finally get fed up and solder it permanently in place. As it
happens I got my beeb upgrade to a B+, which I think has the built-in
equivalent, so I suppose it's surplus now - anyone want a solidisk
sideways RAM card - somewhat unreliable :-)
--
Wookey
Newmarket Rd, Cambridge,UK http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/
Andy Burns
>anyone want a solidisk sideways RAM card ?
If this threadlet continues much longer I'll have to propose alt.bbcmicro
and all because I mis-remembered solidisk as solwise :-)
SL
I have a file with the beeb roms in if anyone wants to email me
privately, plus emulators etc.
Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
floppies on a PC, or even how to link a beeb (I still have several) to
a PC to transfer the other stuff, then I'd be happier ...
Sigh .. when I think how much I paid for my 20Mb hard disc for the
Econet server ...
Tim Dean
> If this threadlet continues much longer I'll have to propose alt.bbcmicro
whynot ???
there is lots of them in daily use inculding my bbc b with wordwise and a
cub monitor.
tim
--
--
td...@argonet.co.uk.com
..Internet access for all Acorn RISC machines td...@argonet.co.uk
Suporter of Bring back buffy to terrestial tv
http://buffy.acmecity.com/cordelia/98/campaign.html
Andy Burns
>Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
>floppies on a PC, or even how to link a beeb (I still have several) to
>a PC to transfer the other stuff, then I'd be happier ...
I transferred some stuff off the beeb years ago by writing it down the
serial port (since I had no comms s/w on the beeb itself I just wrote a
quick and dirty block based protocol in BBC-BASIC at one end and GW-BASIC
at the other)
Allan Reynolds
All to often people dismiss older equipment as dead and best forgotten but
it can still do the job it was built for and in a lot of cases a lot faster
that modern stuff i.e. £2000 PC running windows and MS word over a BBC
running view or wordwise... Lets face it just how much CPU time do you need
to type a letter??? :)
Allan
Tim Dean <td...@argonet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:na.a9c701491...@argonet.co.uk...
Stephen Harris
: Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
There's a program called BeebDisk for PC's that will read various format
BBC disks. I've got a copy around somewhere, but it's somewhat less than
reliable. Of course, you need a 5.25" floppy drive on your PC :-)
: floppies on a PC, or even how to link a beeb (I still have several) to
: a PC to transfer the other stuff, then I'd be happier ...
Serial of course. There's a kermit for BBC, so you can use the kermit
file transfer system to transfer files. I keep meaning to build a cable
to do this, but never get around it to. Lazy...
The BBC User Guide describes the pinouts for the serial port, but I seem to
remember someone telling me it was rotated 90degrees, so wasn't _that_ useful.
--
rgds
Stephen
Brian Watson
Tim Dean <td...@argonet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:na.a9c701491...@argonet.co.uk...
> >
> > If this threadlet continues much longer I'll have to propose
alt.bbcmicro
>
> whynot ???
cam.net.support.bbc is still listed as a newsgroup, though it's probably not
for this sort of thing.
Also there are at least 14 other Acorn newsgroups to choose from.
And the relevance to uk.telecom?
*snip*
:-)
--
Brian
Ben Hutchings
SL <sand...@innocent.com> wrote:
<snip>
>Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
>a PC to transfer the other stuff, then I'd be happier ...
I had some success with a DOS program called `AnaDisk'. I haven't yet
got round to actually using the disk images yet. I think they may
require a bit of fiddling to de-interleave them before they can be
used with an emulator.
I can mail copies of AnaDisk on request if it's not readily available.
It's shareware with a registration fee of $25.
--
Ben Hutchings - wom...@zzumbouk.demon.co.uk, http://www.zzumbouk.demon.co.uk
Team *AMIGA* | Jay Miner Society | Linux - the choice of a GNU generation
Humans are not rational beings; they are rationalizing beings.
Niall
>The BBC User Guide describes the pinouts for the serial port, but I seem to
>remember someone telling me it was rotated 90degrees, so wasn't _that_ useful.
>
I got fed up with that non standard socket (I know, it wasn't strictly
RS232 anyway) and cut a wide slot in the back of the case and fitted a
D25 wired to the back of the DIN port. What I can't now remember was
what on earth I wanted to connect it to...
--
Niall
Tim Dean
bbc b's and masters where often run as bulitin boards for people to axcess
data from...
Tim
Tim Illingworth
sand...@innocent.com "SL" writes:
>On Sat, 12 Jun 99 21:32:16 GMT, ST...@chigtow.demon.co.uk (stephen
>roberts) wrote:
>
>Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
>floppies on a PC, or even how to link a beeb (I still have several) to
>a PC to transfer the other stuff, then I'd be happier ...
Kermit and a serial lead.
Tim
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Illingworth t...@smof.demon.co.uk Go not to Usenet for advice, for
Coveney, tim...@compuserve.com they will say both 'No' and 'Yes'
Cambs, UK 10014...@compuserve.com and 'Try Another Newsgroup'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kira L. Brown
Tim Dean <td...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:
> bbc b's and masters where often run as bulitin boards for people to axcess
> data from...
<mrskrabappel> Pretty lame, Milhouse, pretty lame. </mrskrabappel>
Sorry, Tim, but that's too weak.
kira.
--
This is a tagline.
SL
wrote:
The most amusing use of the serial (RS423?) socket I saw was when I
was working for Micronet, and got called up to the accoutns dept
because they had a BBC that was giving a completly green screen on
their monitor. Somehow, they had managed to find a cable that would
plug one end into the back of the CUB monitor and the other into the
serial port. No wonder it didn't work.
Micronet .. Ah those were the days .... 1200 baud wasn't a problem
when every page you viewed was no more than 768 bytes....
Niall
>
>The most amusing use of the serial (RS423?) socket I saw was when I
>was working for Micronet, and got called up to the accoutns dept
>because they had a BBC that was giving a completly green screen on
>their monitor. Somehow, they had managed to find a cable that would
>plug one end into the back of the CUB monitor and the other into the
>serial port. No wonder it didn't work.
(Fairly) standard DIN audio cable. Problem with "borrowing" connectors
from other standards, there will be leads about which don't do
sensible things. Bit like those D25 SCSI ports with the big "Don't
plug a PC printer cable into this!" warning stickers.
ISTR the original intention of the 5 pin 360 RS423 port on the beeb
was that the "reversibility" of the connector would make it easy to do
null modem sorts of things, but the pin allocations went wrong
somewhere, certainly on production machines the result of plugging it
in the other way around was not in any way useful.
--
Niall
Mike Trinder
(SL) wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 20:49:30 GMT, nia...@btinternet.com (Niall)
> wrote:
>
> >On 14 Jun 1999 10:56:33 GMT, sw...@mpn.com (Stephen Harris) wrote:
> >
> >
> >>The BBC User Guide describes the pinouts for the serial port, but I seem to
> >>remember someone telling me it was rotated 90degrees, so wasn't _that_
useful.
> >>
> >I got fed up with that non standard socket (I know, it wasn't strictly
> >RS232 anyway) and cut a wide slot in the back of the case and fitted a
> >D25 wired to the back of the DIN port. What I can't now remember was
> >what on earth I wanted to connect it to...
>
> The most amusing use of the serial (RS423?) socket I saw was when I
> was working for Micronet, and got called up to the accoutns dept
> because they had a BBC that was giving a completly green screen on
> their monitor. Somehow, they had managed to find a cable that would
> plug one end into the back of the CUB monitor and the other into the
> serial port. No wonder it didn't work.
>
Slightly more serious was a friend of mine who was bored waiting to use
the BBC... the person using it had just loaded a game from tape and
unplugged the tape recorder to play some music on, leaving two 3.5mm jacks
and one of those rounded 'figure 8'/'infinity symbol' AC leads. Said
friend discovered that the 3.5mm jacks fitted quite snugly in the two
holes of this lead :)
Poor guy using the machine didn't quite fly across the room, but he was
somewhat perturbed by the sparks and smoke coming from the keyboard.
I've never seen people vacate a computer room so quickly, and with such
innocent faces as well.
--
Mike T -- mpb...@spam.ac.uk (that's cam not spam)
Doug Weller
>
> On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 11:43:57 +0100, hi...@mojo.org (gARetH baBB) wrote:
>
> > Are the Micronet-inspired foreign spinoffs, like Laser in Italy, still going?
>
Good old Micronet -- and DialTalk! Those were the days.
Doug
--
Doug Weller Moderator, sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to: sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email me for details
Ian Henden
2penn'orth in to say
>SL (sand...@innocent.com) wrote:
>
>: Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
>
>BBC disks. I've got a copy around somewhere, but it's somewhat less than
>reliable. Of course, you need a 5.25" floppy drive on your PC :-)
>
--
Ian Henden
stephen roberts
t...@smof.demon.co.uk "Tim Illingworth" writes:
> In article <3764333d....@news.btinternet.com>
> sand...@innocent.com "SL" writes:
>
> >On Sat, 12 Jun 99 21:32:16 GMT, ST...@chigtow.demon.co.uk (stephen
> >roberts) wrote:
this was not me
> >
> >Now if someone can tell me how to actually read all my old beeb 5"
> >floppies on a PC, or even how to link a beeb (I still have several) to
> >a PC to transfer the other stuff, then I'd be happier ...
>
> Kermit and a serial lead.
>
--
steve roberts