Pimp My BBC Micro
github.com
github.com
When the BBC micro arrived at my tiny rural school the elderly teacher had been given instructions for how to type in and run a simple "hello world" style program to demonstrate what this amazing machine could do.
She began copy-typing in the program and then invited each of us to sit at the keyboard and add our names to what I imagine was a simple print statement.
Finally, after quite some time going around the whole class one by one, the program was ready and she pressed return and ..
Syntax error
The machine was promptly powered off and put back in the box.
It would be a few years before it reemerged and, thankfully, captured my interest.
...It was only some time later I learned about loading pre-written programs (games) on it.
https://blog.steve.fi/how_i_started_programming.html
But the reason I started coding in BASIC was because when we received a ZX Spectrum for Christmas one year the cassette player was broken - no preloaded games for us.
I was always more interested in programming, and hacking games for infinite lives than actually playing games!
Does make me wonder how kids of today just start coding, without having to fuss about dev environments. Listening to my young nephew talking about doing python at school sounded encouraging, but python is hardly "I want to learn to python, starting coding in python". Lots of fiddling about. Still he seems to enjoy it.
https://briansmithonline.com/computing/national-curriculum/c...
Placing this under the DTI, instead of Ministry of Education, suggests the intention was to encourage success stories precisely like yours; build skills for future employment in industry and building IT literate professionals to enable future UK trade. Surprisingly forward looking for any government department!
We were lucky enough to have both the 380Z and the BBC Micro (plus some Acorn Atom's as budget alternatives and a number of Apple ][ that pre-dated the whole computers in schools program) plus ECONET ! Our Computing Department head was involved in setting up the program, so we lucky and got a bit of almost everything except the Spectrum. We also had a few different languages available, Comal, Pascal plus the obvious BBC BASIC. I also got to play with a BASIC Compiler (Apple ][ Expediter if I recall the name correctly). I was incredibly lucky as a result of the teacher being involved in setting up the program and the early Computing courses and examinations.
> Surprisingly forward looking for any government department!
Indeed!
We also transitioned from actual typewriters to beebs in typing class, and I ended up writing a user(/idiots) guide for the beeb word processor.
Wikipedia's history doesn't mention anything about politicians being involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro#History
I'll look into this some more and check back.
... Yes, Kenneth Baker was appointed Minister for Information Technology in 1981, by PM Margaret Thatcher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Baker,_Baron_Baker_of_... [wikipedia]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=kenneth... [lots of good links here]
source: I'm old, and Google is still awesome.
A few years ago UK schools were flooded with BBC:Micro Bits - everyone in my son's year-group received one.
I think the idea was similar, seed a new generation with technical know-how. I'm not sure if it will work this time - I guess we will have to wait and see.
Second to learning to read, that machine probably had the largest influence on my career
Mostly in BASIC (a better implementation than most common 8-bits had: proper procs & functions rather than just GOTO/GOSUB and decent variable name length limits) but later with a bit of 6502 assembler added in for sprite drawing/moving & similar (BBC BASIC had a built-in multi-pass assembler – another significant point in its favour).
I doubt I'd be where I am today if I'd not had that (and my parents had not had the foresight to let me stretch bed-time rules when doing something learn-y rather than just playing games!).
BBC Micro was the first computer I ever used, in 1986 upon entering primary school. I remember learning DART and programing the turtle to move around using LOGO (we actually had a physical version too from what I remember).
My elderly year 1 primary school teacher disliked the computer, however, and told us we needed to spend the time learning to write in pen because "we wouldn't be able to carry a computer on our back for the rest of our lives"!
My parents soon bought an Acorn A3000 (32bit home computing in 1988!) and I would type out BASIC programs from books from the library and then later edit them to discover I could do my own programming. I don't think there was any free/open source (what we used to call 'shareware') WIMP tools so being about 10 years old my programming was strictly relegated to BASIC as that's all we had.
I'm a bit depressed to think that Margaret Thatcher had a direct impact on my career in tech, however :/
So did I. Were they the Usbourne books? I found the books again online a few years ago. Don't have a link unfortunately
This whole thing is a great read and an amazing labor of love.
It probably doesn't need to be an almost perfect replica like the 64 Maxi, but having the keys in the same places (even if there is no ESC key - looking at you, DEC LK-201). On my desk, my two daily drivers are a Sun Type 7c (Type 7 is in storage, waiting for its rotation) and an IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp PC-122 Model M, and I can say each of them provides a unique experience, tactile, spatial, and, on the Model M's case, auditory.
I'm thinking about learning how to build keyboards and make a couple DIY ones. Switches can't be the same, but, at least, physical layout, keycap shapes, labels, and colors can be matched.
They are well known to anyone that was interested in Elite. BBC Micro has the best Elite version, after all :)
That said, that ATX4VC thing looks fantastic. I have recently restored a MSX computer back to life, but I think the power supply is unstable and crapping up when the machine warms up. It also contributes significant noise. Maybe it's time to replace with a modern PSU instead of spending time trying to fix the wimpy transformer-based PSU.
EDIT: I realize that cheap devices like this already existed. But this one seems to be much more complete (and trustworthy!). It's too bad that many printers use 24V rather than 12, otherwise this would be helpful for those scenarios too.
These days we can re-live it easily in the browser: https://bbc.godbolt.org/?autoboot&disc=sth%3AAcornsoft%2FEli... Although I can also recommend "oolite": http://www.oolite.org/ which is an open source modernised elite with game play kept quite faithful to the original (I'm currently hooked on this and wasting more my life trying to get that "Elite" rating all over again)
After that experience, I got into the world of build-your-own IBM clones, and I don't remember what ever happened to the 64. Kinda sad.
The original company Computer Concepts, now renamed Xara GMBH are amazingly still around! Wonder if they did a 40 years in business celebration?
The power ATX power supply also supplied -5 volts. Why did they need to use a linear regulator to on the -12v line derive -5v?
Edit:// my question was previously asked an answered.
Most recent power supplies no longer provide it.
A major piece of Beeb history was also the manual. Without a doubt the most important book of my childhood.
No kidding!
BBC micro and econet were amazingly hackable and still have fond memories.
Bruteus you in this thread? It’s Apollo here!
(Bruteus and Apollo fucking owned our econet. Until we got suspended and banned of course. Hard to emphasize how scared of computers and our superior ability with them our teachers were).
Great way to make a Beeb more practical to use as well as give it some drip!
Now, if you could add USB storage and an HDMI adapter ...
https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI - HDMI adaptor - works nicely with the beeb https://www.gotekemulator.com/ - Floppy emulator that lets it use USB storage
There are similar addons that can use things like the 1 MHZ bus via SD cards too.
To be clear: that is an amazing project and I don't want to take anything away from it, just wondering.
Also since the desktop market is pretty much servicing mostly gamers at this point, can you even get a ATX PSU under 500W anymore?
Reminds me of mikeselectricstuff monster beeb
What I didn't understand was why there is a need for a 7905 to convert -12V to -5V. It looks like that pin 20 should be providing the -5V already?
-12V is still mandated and on all ATX PSUs, so it’s more compatible to get -5V out of that.
The rest of the system only sees the 12v DC or less which remains completely safe to touch. The PSU can not (and will not due to fuses) supply enough current to risk fire (like a 12v car battery).
guiltily look at few raspberry pi I have lying around
> beating even the original IMB PC!
> low and behold