Awesome content, this is exactly what I needed. I've had a RetroClinic MultiOS for a few weeks now and I'm finally getting around to customizing it, mostly so I can have MMFS built in and use the OS 1.2 and OS 3.x versions and ditch the separate 3.x ROM, and gain access to it in OS 1.2. Thanks for making this video, it explains everything quite clearly.
I've picked one of these up with an AP6/Plus 1 from Dave H on the back of this. Absolutely perfect video, I've watched it dozens of times and have learned a ton about how it all works. Thankyou a hundred times. One question though, is it possible to program MMFS onto the EEPROM if you don't have another SD cart plugged in (like the Elk SD Plus1)? I'm thinking the only way I'll be able to do it is with another MMFS rom in the AP6, and then that should expose the roms to program onto the AP5 ROM. Anyway, maybe I'll take this to the forums if I struggle. I can always manually program the EEPROM on my PC too.
This was another excellently paced and entertaining video, thank you! All the way through I was thinking "but surely the bottle neck is in displaying via the 8 bit hardware, so the speed ups can't be seen", and then wham you hit us with the pi vdu. Bravo
Absolutely excellent and well presented review. Thankyou for this. I knew it was going to be good when I saw the bottle of Laphroaig in the background at the start.
I use to do a bit of bit mapping on the acorn electron lots of maths working out the vdu data its quite simple its set out in the manual as user definable graphics
VDU stands for visual display unit.....you can change it to 640x256 and theres pokes for multi color but it uses over 20kb of memory...its in the user manual how to do this i remember coloring in mode 0 and using all the colors at the sametime on screen .i use to work my mums knitting patterns into an electron and it was using over 20kb of memory just for that mode leaving about 8000bytes freebl to program with i would use about 4-6 kb in basic programming although programing games in basic is something i almost got the hang of i just couldnt deal with the subroutines and poking around it memory it loaded in hex decimal values
Excellent Videos - I should learn how to do better ones myself. Any chance you can contact me? I've some details to pass on about the 2V2 AP5 board and the ROM support - Dave H.
Great video! Well done. Very informative. I've been trying to find the perfect configuration(s) for my Electrons for a long while. It's a shame there's no version of ADFS, with SCSI support, that keeps page at E00 for the Electron. If a similar solution, implementated like MMFS on the AP5 could be found, then ADFS becomes so much more useful. I do like my BeebSCSI hanging off the 1Mhz port. BTW, there's a 5v connector on the AP5 inside, that I use to power the BeebSCSI.
An ADFS with hard disc support and &E00 PAGE would be lovely! I can't use the 5V power output on the AP5 because it's limited to 100mA an the Pi draws way more than that. Something like a BeebSCSI is presumably much simpler, though, so won't need as much.
Contrary to the purists, I actually like that you've slowly upgraded your Electron to a hybrid monster more capable and powerful than a Model B. I had a Model B when I was younger which I miss. Never had an Electron, but all these mods are making me seriously consider purchasing an Electron as it's much easier to find a reasonably priced Electron than an even remotely affordable Model B. One of the things I think was great about the Acorn ecosystem was its expandability both in software and hardware. These sorts of mods are totally in the spirit of what these computers were meant to be!
The AP5 is a great bit of kit - not really had the chance to play with it fully, but getting the old Beeb user port for LED flashing and reading thermistors takes me back to 80s Comp Sci degree. I'm still holding out hope for a drop in replacement for the ULA. In terms of point of critical failure, it's the one that seems the hardest to overcome. The Blob ULA is pretty reliable (I have two motherboards, one socketed, and one blob) but it's getting old (as are we all). I've seen a few projects sort of fizzle out on Stardot, so, maybe it's not really doable.
Mine's a blob one and, so far, no issues. But you never know when problems will strike and it is worrying! I have a Plus/4 where the 8501 failed but fortunately there's a FPGA version which dropped in nicely and seems to work well (and adapter boards to fit a 6510, but they don't run the tape motor control).
Another nice feature I have used is to add a real time clock to the elk via the I2C bus on the AP5. Great video btw. Looking forward to more on the econet.
Someone on StarDot is trying to add the support for the RTC in the AP6 (which also uses I2C) and it looks like progress is being made, with a hope to get that integrated into the Plus 1 Support ROM. There's a thread about it here: www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28720
Hi. Thanks for a great video. As a result, I now have the same setup as you. A couple of questions though. You mention a disk interface, which allows use of a Gotek. I can’t find any such device that uses the plus 1. Also, I see you have several language roms and copro applications. Again, I’m having trouble finding them. Do you have any links ir something to these? Thanks.
For the Electron, you're probably best getting a Advanced Plus 3 or 4, or a Pegaus 400. Dave Hitchins sells a remake of the latter with PAGE &E00 DFS and ADFS here: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325963785261?hash=item4be4f4a42d:g:msIAAOSwvT9jZpsG&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4DpZxjIXcBr%2BnJVssqg3RtQMGJG%2FoKKl8F8CWUQiEMFmRaPAQ4PAf7dBFtztNAXC%2BqA2iB5kjDXXva2QWmLh8HfSVIOxkE35Yxz%2FKYqSH7ZpKEEnSKQQjajnr7U4RmsHwVfnsOWPG5w8SvJrZkw5nw4BzGcPA51sy3CTSay2rVNDrmxb6Wh2RYYYdIgf%2BU22eMKaxJHXleUfQS%2BL4PFShWxiLKoVp2aKqgIOLltNHa2wxbpOVCGUpwyJYLGUkmjm20pfeLB3KejWF33ciimPxiYOZD9eSQo8uq%2F4ZJMHhDgd%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4j2k8mwYw That'll let you plug in a normal 5¼", 3½" or Gotek and use that. The only thing you can't do is power it as the Electron doesn't do that. (You could also probably use a Plus 3 with the second disc drive port, but that's probably overly expensive, unless you really want one - and it doesn't come with DFS.) The best place to get ROMs is from Jonathan Harston's web archive: mdfs.net/System/ROMs/ - if there's anything you can't find, let me know or ask on StarDot. I do have some odd versions of things that might not immediately be obvious (like version 1.45E of The BASIC Editor, which you get from Tom Seddon's GitHub repository).
I have one of those in my Plus/4 to replace the 8501 that stopped working properly. I initially had one of the adapters and replacement ROMs to allow you to use a 6510, but that didn't control the tape. The 8502 FPGA version just works like a native chip and obviously doesn't affect the programming (which is the aim of it!).
Those of us who grew up with that sound at primary school in the early 80's got to love it again when it was a well used sample in the acid house scene in the late 80's
Brilliant video. One thing I would like to clarify, though with reference to interlace on/off in mode 0-6 (non-teletext). It would be easy to get the impression that, with interlace off one is losing out, that there is some part of the picture generated but never seen. This is not the case at all. The vertical resolution of the BBC micro graphics modes is 256 lines and those same 256 lines are send in every field regardless of the interlace setting. What the interlace setting does is affect where on the TV/monitor they appear, i.e. either in same position twice in a row or one row up/down compared to the previous frame. Teletext is different in that the SAA5050 chip was designed for TVs and generates a full interlaced output, i.e. the two fields, even with a static display, are different.
Fascinating - thanks for taking the time to create this video, in such high quality - much appreciated. I fall into the BBC B fans category, rather than the Master, so learning about the Integra was quite an eye-opener. Is Ken still producing these boards?
Thanks! Ken does make new boards occasionally - if he has them for sale, he posts in this thread on Stardot: www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17455&start=60
Would you say BBC basic is the best basic of the 8bit systems??? I’m a c64 “fanboy” but I’ve always had a soft spot for the BBC (as used it when in primary school BACK IN THE DAY)
I'm sure there were some better ones but I think it beats the Microsoft BASIC around at the same time - BBC BASIC had REPEAT...UNTIL, named procedures and functions with local variables, hex support and commands for driving graphics and sound. The C128 (and on things like the Plus/4) resolved a lot of those issues, of course. I think the BBC also benefited from a really well-designed OS with a clear OS-BASIC separation. Things like the filing system stuff and graphics, sound, etc. where in the OS, available for anything to use, including other languages. And that it all worked over the Tube interface was amazing for its time. All that said, I think once the initial buzz around home computers died off, it was games that mattered for the bulk of sales and the C64 beat the BBC in many ways, with the better sound, more colours and sprites. The difficult the BBC has doing things like shoot em ups with scrolling backgrounds is clear - Firetrack is a great game but the BBC really has to be pushed to do that, compared with Uridium and Parallax on the C64 (Uridium on the BBC is pretty good but it has fewer colours and isn't quite as smooth, I think).
It was very very fast (the basic and processor). Day to day programming was nicer too... easy on the eyes for long periods as you can see from the smooth mode7 font in this video. The keyboard was better for typing for long periods, and 80column text modes help sometimes. The i/o options made for some interesting potential projevts interfacing to other things
I can't think of a better dialect of BASIC - certainly not at the time. I was going to say BBC BASIC was unparalleled - but then it was paralleled, in the sense it could run over the Tube! PROCedures and FuNctions with an arbitrary number of mixed parameters were just awesome, and allowed you to write structured code that would pass muster today. BASIC V on the ARM-based Archimedes added some more nice stuff: e.g. REPEAT loops still had to be executed at least once (as is the case with FOR... NEXT...) but WHILE loops solved that problem. A trip to Cambridge's Computer History museum a few weeks back evoked more than a wave of nostalgia: I've gone back to my BBC emulator and started writing code to do real world stuff in BBC BASIC again. It seems quicker and more fluent somehow... helped by a modern editor such as Owlet at bbcmic.ro/
I can't think of a better dialect of BASIC - certainly not at the time. I was going to say BBC BASIC was unparalleled - but then it was paralleled, in the sense it could run over the Tube! PROCedures and FuNctions with an arbitrary number of mixed parameters were just awesome, and allowed you to write structured code that would pass muster today. BASIC V on the ARM-based Archimedes added some more nice stuff: e.g. REPEAT loops still had to be executed at least once (as is the case with FOR... NEXT...) but WHILE loops solved that problem. A trip to Cambridge's Computer History museum a few weeks back evoked more than a wave of nostalgia: I've gone back to my BBC emulator and started writing code to do real world stuff in BBC BASIC again. It seems quicker and more fluent somehow... helped by a modern editor such as Owlet: search for "Owlet BBC micro"
Every time I see the BBC micro, I just can't help but think about my school days. We had these things networked all over the place. I can even still remember my login details for econet. *I am 10.254 p110167(I think) 😄😄
Yup - I just made up a short cable with a 6-pin IDC connector on one end and an RCA plug on the other end, as described here: github.com/IanSB/RGBtoHDMI/wiki/Cables The ground (outside sleeve of the RCA) connects to pin 1 of the IDC and video (tip) connects to pin 4. I used a Mutant Caterpillar mod on the ZX81 to get a composite image. The problems I had in this video have been subsequently resolved by using a Clamp setting on the RGBtoHDMI, as that will automatically compensate for the varying voltage. I probably should do a short video about that but haven't had time!
BeebMaster has a lot of stuff about this on his website - www.beebmaster.co.uk/Econet/IWantanEconet.html - including a lot of screen-by-screen walkthroughs of things. If you get stuck, asking on StarDot is a good place to start, or I can answer simple questions here, but they're much more the experts!
Excellent stuff. Question: when I now switch my Master on all I get is a continuous beep at startup and I can't type on the keyboard. Any ideas? Regards Kevin
Indeed - it got all the upgrades that other manufacturers never delivered on. There weren't many 8-bit computers with floppy disc, hard disc, networking and second processor support! And it all worked fairly seamlessly with the operating system.
I've got a BBC Model B+ which can use 32kByte EPROMs, such as the 27256. You can program them with two sideways ROM images so, for example, I have View and ViewSheet stored on one chip, occupying one physical ROM socket but providing two 16kByte sideways ROMs. The 28C256 is an EEPROM, which can be reprogrammed without the need to be erased with UV light and is still being manufactured, which make it more convenient. It's also almost pin compatible with the 27256, but not quite. There are two pins that are different, so I made a small PCB with header pins that fit into a sideways ROM socket on one side and a surface mount SOIC version of the 28C256, a pull-up resistor and a pair of jumpers on the other side. If you set the jumpers to the Program position the chip is connected directly to the pins and you simply plug it into the programmer. When you've programmed and verified it you can put the jumpers in the other position and it looks to the Beeb like a 27256.
Don't think so - all the processors are listed when you do CALL &2000 on a 6502 copro, or do *HELP COPROS on the ARM Native processor, as shown here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AhAzVnUva-k.html
Woah... I last saw BBC BASIC on a Model B... this is all rather posh. I loved the assembler, in later years when I've used other assemblers, I always find myself thinking how much nicer/easier it would be if I had the BBC BASIC assembler.
Back in the olden days, I didn't have much interest in The Master... it was a bit too much of a word processing and spreadsheet machine for my liking. Watching your videos, I'm now finding out all the things I missed out on by being far too snobby.
Whenever I tell people I have a Master, nearly everyone says "is that the one with the numeric keypad". Maybe the most obvious, but probably the least useful and interesting thing about it!
