Talk:BBC Micro

NewBrain

Clive Sinclair had long lost the NewBrain by the time the BBC project was involved. When Sinclair Radionics was failing the NNEB offered the NewBrain to Newbury Labs, who took it on. The BBC was encouraged to write their specification around the NewBrain. Newbury failed to recognise what was on offer and never approached the BBC, which is when Acorn then approached the BBC. Newbury's continued failure to develop the NewBrain meant that, despite advertising its imminent release in 1980, it was not until 1982 that the NewBrain was released, by its new owners, Grundy. Grundy continued the history of poor exploitation of the NewBrain.

For the BBC, and Acorn, Newbury's failure was fortunate. The NewBrain was a 1970s design, and was expensive to produce. It did not feature sound or colour. The BASIC was an extended version of ANSI Minimal BASIC and was greatly inferior to that of the BBC. The NewBrain retained only two advantages over the BBC - mathematical support, and hardware flexibility. Since maths was a small aspect of the BBC usage, and the BBC maths package was comparable to other computers, this did not greatly matter, while the hardware flexibility only affected hardware designers, not end users. For the end user there was probably no difference - hard to be sure, because the NewBrain had little additional hardware developed for it, other than by Grundy. Since Grundy closed in 1983 they delivered little in the way of their new designs.

Photograph

By the way, I did adjust the colour of the case when producing the photographs. Since it matches what you can see in many other photographs of the BBC Micro, I can only presume that the case is prone to "yellowing" to a certain extent. --StuartBrady 02:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

They actually started off fairly yellow - apparently the cream colour was more 'humane' or something. HiddenInPlainSight 12:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Graphics mode list and table

The table of graphics modes is inconsistent with the preceding list of the modes; the two should be controlled and edited (maybe the table as such doesn't need to be included, it seems to me to become superfluous as soon as its extra info (memory use) is put into the preceding list). --Wernher 23:24, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I commented away the graphics mode list and tried to insert the table in the overall specifications list instead. This was successful apart from the following curious fact: the table seems to upset the list hierarchy level in such a way that below the table all items insist on belonging to a deeper level than they should. Is this an error in the coding, or a Wikipedia list format bug, or what??? --Wernher 01:32, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Note that the modelist seems to be for the UK version, at least in memory usage. *US switched the machine to a resolution more compatible with NTSC and the high-res modes used 16K for video RAM; *UK switched to slightly higher resolution (more vertical lines) using 20K. I never checked if this changed the actual TV output between NTSC and PAL. This was on my US-built Model B; I never saw it documented anywhere but noticed that the only piece of UK software that displayed properly had *UK as part of its boot sequence--once I did *UK manually other stuff worked. Oddly enough this setting persisted across hard break (ctrl-break). --Jnik (talk) 18:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The US MOS differences (including screen changes) are listed in the unofficial Advanced User Guide, appendix G. I can't tell you whether it goes to PAL or squeezes the lines into the NTSC screen. -- Regregex (talk) 01:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

IT'S VANISHED! - I can't find a section edit button for it, and it doesn't appear anywhere when editing the whole page either. Can anyone throw us a bone on how to get access to it? It's only a minor change I was going to do, so it's not worth major stress... just that as far as my maths goes, a 40x25 character grid with 6x10 characters works out to 240x250 pixels (or maybe 256x256 with a set of invisible 8- and 3-pixel borders?), not 480x500 as is currently listed...193.63.174.10 (talk) 14:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

If you try to edit that section (or the whole page), you'll see that when you get to that table it points to Template:BBC modes. The edit summary for the change to 480*500 says "Resolution of mode 7 is 480 x 500, due to 5050's character rounding function". If you have any questions on that, it may be worth raising them on that template's talk page. David Biddulph (talk) 15:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The font definitions in the SAA5050 are indeed 5x9 within a 6x10 cell. But because the 5050 has a character rounding function, which produces half pixels and generates different output on odd and even fields, the effective character resolution is doubled in both directions. A 240x250 bitmap made out of the raw character definitions would look far more pixelly and crude than the BBC's output — you need 480x500 to accurately reproduce it. Many more modern Teletext TVs, and indeed the original Archimedes MODE 7 emulation, are pixelly and crude like this, but the BBC Micro's SAA5050 output is much smoother. The difference is clear. --212.44.20.129 (talk) 14:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Function keys?

Was this the first use of the function keys left to right above the keyboard? If not I am pretty sure it was the first popular use of this. Intrigue 01:43, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No. a look at the computer museum http://www.old-computers.com and you'll see other manufacturers did this before the BBC Micro

"The Beeb" nickname

After trundling about on the web to gather some evidence, I've found lots of BBC Micro scene folks' sites referring to the computer as "the Beeb" -- so I reverted a recent removal of that fact in this article. --Wernher 20:50, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

"The Beeb" was already in general use in the UK to refer to "the BBC" as an organisation. The use as a nickname for the BBC Microcomputer reflects this. NickS 13:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

reliability claim in market impact

the claim

The BBC Micro was also a far more reliable and durable machine than Sinclair's ZX Spectrum, being able to cope with all the abuse that schoolchildren could throw at it.

needs to be supported by a citation, or it will be removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.179.93.207 (talk) 10:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC). In my experience it's true - I had both and the Beeb outlasted the Speccy by years (the RF modulator in the Spectrum crapped out within a couple of years)Paul E Nolan 19:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The Beeb is certainly durable in construction, but in my experience it isn't very reliable. I have two dead BBC Bs, one of which died 2 days after I got it... Every Speccy (around 10 from the 48K to 128K +3) I own still work, except for 1 48K board which died. The BBC Master is the only working Beeb I own now. Anyway, that statement should be removed, it can't be supported by any verifiable facts. —Pixel8 20:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The keyboard was a good tactile one, but in my experience the spacebar used to always go on the blink under heavy use.92.8.120.131 (talk) 12:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)Lance Tyrell

The keyboard is specifically not tactile: it uses linear keyswitches, suspected to be Cherry. Ghiraddje 00:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghiraddje (talk • contribs)

A major problem was the type of power connector used - these were chunkier on later versions but initially were undersized and flimsy. NickS 13:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The hundredth issue of BBC/Acorn user has a mention that a school for epileptics used the Model B specifically for its durability: they needed something that would last when someone had a seizure at the keyboard. If I find the thing in my basement I'll add a citation. --Jnik (talk) 18:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

IIRC, Cherry keyboards were also used in the Apple II series and at the time were regarded as very high quality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.215.177 (talk) 18:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

"I have two dead BBC Bs, one of which died 2 days after I got it..." - then you should have taken it back to the shop who would have had to either replace it or give you your money back under the Sale of Goods Act 1979. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.52 (talk) 17:19, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Citations needed

I agree with some of these and have provided links for a couple (apologies for not setting up and filling out a Citations section), but I would dispute "citation needed" for the fact that Allen Boothroyd designed the case - it's not disputed in the Wikipedia article on him. NickS 13:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The underside of the BBC Micro says "Industrial design by Allen Boothroyd", but no mention of a company. The Cambridge Product Design site, however, does state that they produced "the case, PCB connection layout and organised aluminium tooling in 7 weeks." Ghiraddje 18:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Definition of optional extras

The page demonstrates inconsistency about the meaning of "optional extras" and how it differs from specifications. For example, Econet is listed as an optional extra under the Specifications section. Did it not require soldering, and thus qualify it for being an "optional upgrade, soldering required"? The disc interface is not noted as requiring soldering either, despite requiring numerous components adding to the motherboard.

However, the speech kit is listed separately in the dedicated Optional extras section despite being, as I recall, nothing more than two chips being added to pre-allocated slots on the board. That is, the machine was designed to take the two speech chips. The speech kit should qualify as an "optional upgrade" since this is how all similar features are listed -- those that the board was designed to take.

I don't see any distinction that would have the speech kit separated out into another, non-encylopaedic list. It was a planned feature. Things that I do consider to be wholly separate updates are ones that connect to a generic port (e.g. all the 1 MHz bus and user port devices) and unplanned motherboard alterations such as all the sideways boards.

The only thing I can think of, is that the specifications list only covers standard concepts, and a computer that ships with a speech synthesiser is not something that belongs in a standard specifications table. Is this why it was done this way? However, this would require other non-standard concepts like the 1 MHz bus and Tube to be removed from the specs table, or to be given new headings that clarify their purpose. For example, Econet's heading is "Network" -- so you can quickly find its networking capabilities -- but the Tube simply has "The Tube" as its heading, as if everyone automatically knows what a "Tube" is in this context. Ditto the 1 MHz bus.

Anyone know of a more consistent way to approach this?

Ghiraddje 19:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

As a side note - I worked in the Acorn shop in Covent Garden (on weekends whilst still at school) and there was a BBC Micro with a 10Mb Winchester Drive (i.e. Hard Disk) attached to it in the basement. This was used to store files and application for demonstration upstairs in the showroom. I thing this was 1983/84/85. I guess the BBC Micro attached to the drive had been seriously modified, but it was possible/done. Anastrophe (talk) 16:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

No modifications necessary, the Beeb supported standard SASI hard discs (or mor usually, an ST506 drive with an adaptec controller card) on the 1MHz Bus via an adapter board. Software support was included in ADFS. Several suppliers made them, as well as the official Acorn units. They were generally partitioned and used with Econet fileservers, but it was quite possible to just have a massive ADFS drive on a single user machine. 87.81.12.15 (talk) 11:44, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A bit of clarification -- the drive itself likely contained two boards (mine did) -- a SASI drive controller board, and a 1 MHz Bus host adapter, along with a PSU and fan, in a full-height external 5.25" case. All the computer needed was the ADFS ROM. I thought I read somewhere that a BBC Micro also needed a hard drive driver on ROM, but maybe not. A BBC Master was hard drive–ready out of the box, and the drive simply plugged into the 1 MHz bus (this is what I was using, because only my Master had ADFS). Ghiraddje 19:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

ADFS contains the "hard drive driver", so nothing else is needed (beyond a Model B with OS 1.2). ADFS supports a logical format for hard drives up to 512MB and sends SASI commands over the 1MHz bus. Recent third-party products come with a lightly-patched ADFS that uses the IDE command set instead, meaning it can be used with a simple IDE->1MHz bus interface, and modern Compact Flash drives. --KJBracey (talk) 10:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

For hard drive connection, the 1MHz bus would connect to an adaptor board comprising about a dozen standard logic ICs which provided a basic SASI interface (later known as SCSI) using a 50 way connection. A few drives existed which could connect natively to this interface, but more commonly a SASI to ST-506 controller board was then used (if memory serves, my board was a Xebec S1410). This board would be responsible for managing low level disk operations such as seeking, clock and data recovery, deserialising and error recovery. The hard disc drive would then connect to this board using a 20 way and a 34 way connection. The ADFS would allow generate the SASI commands needed to maintain and access the filing system. Utilities written in BBC BASIC were typically used for initial disc formatting (true low-level formatting in those days) and for setting up the base filing system. (My personal use was a home built 1MHz bus to SASI adaptor, the Xebec controller, and a Microscience 40MB hard disc, in use from about 1987 to 1990.) [LFMable 2011] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.98.142 (talk) 21:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Expandability and the API

Acorn took great pains to provide an API for most low level functions, the B+ User Guide was full of warnings against using "indirect addressing" (=direct PEEKs and POKEs) to access hardware, instead to use an official call so the code is portable. In this way the BBC-badged machines (and the Electron) were more compatible with each other than might be expected. How did this compare with other machines of the time, and is it worth mentioning this under Expandability? -- Regregex 00:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

How much of this was done for the sake of the Tube? That is the explanation I always read: direct hardware access, and of course writing directly to the framebuffer area, don't work on the far side of the Tube. Ghiraddje 04:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, Tube compatibility is how it was presented in the User Guide; however very few machines ever got a coprocessor. I think Acorn was also partly setting an example to novice programmers and partly ensuring that the software base wouldn't be imprisoned on old hardware. The Tube extension itself was a sign that Acorn thought the BBC would soon be underpowered, with 16 bit micros already on the way. -- Regregex (talk) 12:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

IIRC at the time - around 1982 - the 8-bit 6502 was just about obsolete - as was the Z80 - and the replacement of choice for the 6502 was the 16-bit 6809. IIARC, the desired replacement for the Z80 was the 8086.

Generally the problem with all the British machines was lack of staying power and support from the manufacturers, in that planned developments never materialised, so one was left after a few years with a machine that was incapable of doing any more than it could when it was built or bought. That and the lack of software, although this applied less to the Acorn/BBC machines.

Looking back with hindsight, if the government had wanted to promote the micro computer both to business and to the public, they should have provided significant financial backing for a consortium of companies - rather like what eventually became ICL, to design and produce one or two common micro designs at an affordable price and with the appropriate backing for a full and comprehensive range of commercial software - rather like what later became the IBM PC. At the time, there was no way any British micro computer company was going to achieve a large enough market to survive, let alone grow to become of any significance. Writing as someone who built a Microtan 65 only to see it completely dropped by Tangerine Computer Systems within a year or two of building it, as - rather in the manner of Dougal MacGuire - their limited attention span had already switched to the Oric, I can write from some experience! Luckily I only built the Microtan to learn about computers, and at least it was fun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.215.177 (talk) 17:58, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Successor machines and the retro scene

There are also a number of BBC Micro emulators for many OSes, so that even the original hardware is no longer necessary.

"no longer necessary" for what? Earlier in this section, it is stated that "thanks to its ready expandability and I/O functions, there are still numbers of BBCs in use" - the bolded text obviously doesn't apply to an emulated BBC running on modern PC/Mac hardware, which may well have nothing more than USB ports for peripheral attachment. Emulators such as BeebEm can run most if not all BBC programs, but mere software compatibility is not much good to someone who needs to be able to plug things into the various sockets (RS423 port, user port, Tube, etc.) that a real BBC has but a PC does not. 217.155.20.163 (talk) 02:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

ROM in BBC model A/B

32 KB ROM composed of 16 KB MOS (Machine Operating System), and 16 KB read-only paged space defaulting to the BBC BASIC.

The above implies that a single 32KB ROM chip was fitted, when in fact there were two 16K chips, one for the OS and one for BBC BASIC.

This actually caused problems for owners of early BBCs: as I recall, OS versions prior to 1.2 were upgraded by Acorn for free, whereas BBC BASIC version 2 was never offered as a free upgrade. As a result, quite a few pieces of commercial BBC software refused to run on older BBCs because they used features of BBC BASIC 2 that weren't present in BBC BASIC 1. 217.155.20.163 (talk) 02:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Added "of"x2, "chip"x2 to show that 32 KB is a total, not a chip size. -- Regregex (talk) 23:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:MrMephisto 1 BBCMicro.png

Image:MrMephisto 1 BBCMicro.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 16:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Replaced with an existing screenshot of the more familiar Elite, to which I've added a rationale. -- Regregex (talk) 01:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Awkward lead section

Fitting all the boldnames in has been difficult especially as they refer to different concepts:

• BBC Microcomputer System - the name of the 12-model series and of the first four models (printed in full on the case as "BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION / MICROCOMPUTER SYSTEM")
• BBC Micro - Colloquial term for a Model A/B/B+64K/B+128K, or a Master/Master Compact at a stretch
• Acorn Proton - The name of the Model A/B while it was a Literacy Project candidate machine. When it won the contract it became the first 'BBC Micro' (BBC A, BBC B). The name Acorn Proton is not well known.
• BBC Computer Literacy Project - Only in italics as this article is about the computer. I have tagged the redirect as R with possibilities because the Literacy Project included TV programmes and literature, and could get its own article later.

It would be nice to cluster as many as possible in the first sentence (if it wasn't breathless enough already) but there's a peculiar problem. Because the machine is not known as the Proton, and it had to have won the tender in order to be called the BBC Micro it's a bit jarring to say in the historic tense "The Acorn Proton won the Literacy project tender" or "The BBC Micro won the tender under the name Acorn Proton". As it stands the second paragraph is a little inaccessible. There isn't a 'good' place to put a comma in the first sentence of the article either. Help! -- Regregex (talk) 04:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

There's no need to bold (or even include) every single redirect for title. Acorn Proton and BBC Computer Literacy Project could both point directly to the Background section, for instance. Chris Cunningham (talk) 10:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. -- Regregex (talk) 23:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: R with possibilities above, it's worth noting Eric Schmidt's recent comments for future inclusion. --Trevj (talk) 11:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Expanded Infobox

Noticed User:Thumperward's new fields in Template:Infobox computer and put down some tentative contents. Only listed the typical configuration (i.e. Media doesn't list the speech ROM, Connectivity doesn't have IEEE 488 or Teletext receiver although they were genuine Acorn options.) Comments/reverts/surgery welcome. -- Regregex (talk) 02:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

WD floppy controller?

Was the FDC a WD1770 or a WD1771? I moved the WD1770 page to WD1771 because it was describing the earliest WD FDC chip, which was the WD1771. The WD1770 came much later. But I have no idea which the BBC Micro used. --Brouhaha (talk) 21:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It was definitely the WD1770 in the B+, see ch.43 of the B+ User guide. The 1770 was also used in all major 8271-replacement boards (Opus, Watford...). FYI first gen Archimedes used WD1772 because of the 3in drive. Can't confirm on Master or Compact. -- Regregex (talk) 23:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I was going to add this, but not quite sure where would be best:

• Due to the difficulty in getting hold of the 8271 disc controller for the official upgrade, many third parties offered disc upgrades for the Model B (and A) which used alternate parts. These were generally incompatible with the 8271, and each other. Acorn eventually released an official 1770 based disc-upgrade kit which was hardware-compatible with that used on the B+ and Master models. A number of third parties whom had used the same part adjusted their designs to match, finally bringing back some limited compatibility.

90.198.191.2 (talk) 10:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Price

I recall the prices from the time.

The BBC Micro was never on sale at £375 that I know of. Launch price was £235 (A) and £335 (B), soon increased to £299 and £399.

I have no references, but no references are supplied for the quoted price. Is it wrong to change the price? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.132.229.67 (talk) 04:55, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to change the price, but add a {{fact}} tag. -- Regregex (talk) 02:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Title of article

From the article itself: "The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro ..." - If the full title of the computer is "BBC Microcomputer System", then shouldn't this be the article title, with "BBC Micro as a redirect? Xmoogle (talk) 03:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Single-board variant

I'm adding some material here in case anyone finds this useful. It's in the talk section because I have no verifiable sources to hand.

Around 1984, Reuters commissioned Acorn to design and build a single-board rack mount variant on the BBC model B. The exact specification escapes me, but it was a BBC model B with Econet, and I think it had the ability to load 8 16K sideways ROMs. The operating system was a modified OS1.2 and BASIC was not supplied. Keyboard was not standard BBC, but modified to connect to a proprietary keyboard provided by Reuters. Econet and 100MHz bus were standard. (Unfortunately an error on the board caused the Econet to be less reliable; I think the collision detection was compromised in some way). There was also a hardware-driven auto reset timer. It was able to drive North American video circuitry with slightly better resolution than the NTSC domestic hardware.

Primary programming language was BCPL for which Richards Computer Products was contracted to produce a modified run-time. A number of internal applications for Reuters were designed and built by RCP around the time of the "Big Bang". (For example, I and a colleague worked on a graphics/chart package for technical analysts which compiled into 90K of CINTCODE in 5 sideways ROM images).

As technology improved, Reuters discussed the creation of an improved single-board version with Acorn, but I think they decided to use an 80186 based design after declining Acorn's offer of an ARM-based board.

Rob Burbidge (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Suggest importing the content of BBC Master into the article so that all models in the series are covered (viz. Apple II, Sinclair ZX Spectrum). The Master is a continuation of the BBC series and IMHO doesn't need its own article. -- Regregex (talk) 15:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• I agree: if the merge were carefully done so as not to clutter the article it would be better than the neglected BBC Master article we have now. —Blotwell 15:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• I disagree. Despite compatibility the BBC Master was a significant change from the BBC B et al. The argument that just because it's a continuation is not as clear cut - the Commodore Amiga has different articles for all of the Amiga variants.

Secondly, the BBC B article is already 33Kb in size, adding to it will sure bring about the recommendation that the article be split up into sections, at which point some bright spark will say "Hey - let's put all the different models into their own pages" - and we're back to square one. The Apple II page is 60Kb+ in size, the ZX Spectrum page 44Kb+

Thirdly - the Master page is not neglected. In comparison to others it may seem so, but it is regularly updated when appropriate, and has a reasonable amount of technical detail that is only relevent to the Master. Size is not everything.

Fourthly, if we import the BBC Master article, then logic dictates we should do the same with the Acorn Electron & Acorn Atom pages... a_man_alone (talk) 17:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose - BBC Master is not a stub, and I can see no benefit in merging it. WP is not limited by space (WP:NOTPAPER) and the Master article seems more than able to stand by itself. The 'A', the 'B' and the 'B+' should be dealt with in the same article here, but the Master is more different than these and logically should be handled separately. Hymek (talk) 07:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

GXR

While the article is substantially correct, my memory says the GXR did offer star commands. Depending on whether it was in an odd or even numbered ROM socket it would be active or inactive by default and there was some way to tell it to enable or disable itself, whatever wasn't the default. (*GXR ON??) It also contained some sprite facilities which were at least in part star-command based, both to allocate memory for sprites and to edit them. I haven't edited the article as I haven't used any of these facilities since twenty years ago so I just may be wrong, and maybe they are too pedantic, but I'd rather the article was factually correct. We could just not mention the GXR, or at least avoid saying it had no star commands. Anyone have any thoughts? --186.48.133.24 (talk) 04:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Dear IP, I'll take your word for it, the paragraph in question needed integrating with the article so I have rephrased to avoid implying the GXR has no *commands. -- Regregex (talk) 01:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Oxhey comms link

A BBC B+ was observed running the communications link in an unattended water pumping station in Oxhey in 1995.

I sent an E-mail to Veolia Water asking for some more information about this. Apparently they have no record of these machines ever being used, by themselves or any previous company they now own. I have no doubt that BBC B+ computers were used in this capacity, but I've been unable to verify this particular case. Is there any way to confirm their usage in this way? Mongoosander (talk) 15:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Winchester capacity?

The table here says 5, 10 or 20 MB. I've seen a couple of sources (eg the Centre for Computing History) say 30 MB. I've never seen one working in real life, so can't be sure myself. Who's right? 86.132.140.210 (talk) 20:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The Watford Electronics supplied kits went up to 40MB (I have one in the garage) A.j.roberts (talk) 15:03, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Use in the entertainment industry

[...] numerous 1980s episodes of Doctor Who including "Castrovalva", "The Five Doctors" and "The Twin Dilemma". The Twin Dilemma is on youtube if anyone fancies finding out what time the Beebs are visible so a ref can be added! (The comments confirm they're there: "watch out they've got BBC micros".) --Trevj (talk) 23:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

The BBC was used in many BBC (funny coincidence, neh?) programmes in the early eighties. Just off the top of my head I remember also seeing it in Only Fools and Horses - where it was cunningly rebadged as a dodgy imported computer, and also Bird of Prey where a BBC was used for cut scenes, and Griffiths character used an Electron for some nefarious purpose while he was being blackmailed by Le Pouvoir. a_man_alone (talk) 10:55, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Just remembered - Michael Cain uses a BBC in a Viglen case to try and identify East European agents in the film version of The Fourth Protocol. I know that 'cause I watched it last night. a_man_alone (talk) 10:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Acorn computers#Proposed move/new title

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Acorn computers#Proposed move/new title. Trevj (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Australian and New Zealand Involvement

It's a shame that throughout the articles on the Beeb that the story is so one-sided. The contribution that Australia and New Zealand made to its development seems to have been forgotten completely. e.g. The first machines sold into the Education market occurred when the Australian Distributor for Acorn and Sinclair won state supply tenders in Western Australia (which required the DFS), Tasmania (which required the NFS) and South Australia (which required both filing systems). With assistance from Brian Cockburn, I ported the Atom DFS in 1982 and the NFS shortly after that. They also required a word processor, so I ported an Atom text editor -- probably the first ROM resident word processor in the Beeb -- well ahead of the UK releases. I wrote the first networking text in 1984. So from a technical standpoint, Australia and New Zealand were the crash test dummies for the DFS and NFS, at least two years before Europe; and we sold literally thousands of machines into schools while the UK was still focusing on the home/entertainment market. Rob Napier (talk) 13:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

BBC #100002 and #100007 (two of the first 10 to be hand built in the Acorn labs are in Australia. #100000 was Hermann Hauser's. It was stolen at a computer show in London. #100001 was Chris Curry's. As far as I know, he still has it. I donated #100002 to the Power House Museum in Melbourne. I can provide a photo of it, though the museum might be willing to provide a more professional shot. This is historically significant, I believe. "Networking with the BBC Microcomputer" gives a lead into this. I'll need to check it up. I also have copies of "Could you use a computer" and the proceedings from the Australian Education User Group also has a paper I presented with more details. BTW John Coll spoke at that conference, dressed in a wet suit. Not really relevant but kind of cute! I have other publications from the time that I should be able to locate. Rob Napier (talk) 13:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It is no problem to add these points into the article - can you provide any published references that could be used to cite these claims? Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 13:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

What exactly makes the teletext mode "teletext"?

Did the "teletext" mode use the built-in teletext decoder of the attached TV set, instead of its normal TV picture? If not, why exactly is it called a teletext mode rather than simply a text mode? This is unclear for a reader who never used the machine (like me). -- 92.226.92.158 (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

These links [1] and [2] have some info. Shyamal (talk) 11:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Added a sentence to clarify. re/greg/ex;{mbox|history} 17:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Teletext mode used the teletext character set including the ‘block’ graphics characters (as seen on BBC Ceefax Weather maps) and embedded control characters for colour, blinking, double hight lines, etc. Essentially, it allowed you to reproduce teletext pages using the same text and control codes. 84.92.59.184 (talk) 15:36, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Memory speed

[quote]A feature that the Micro shared with other 6502 computers such as the Apple and the early Commodore models was that the RAM was clocked twice as fast as the CPU (4 MHz)[/quote] I have no knowledge of the BBC micro, but about the Apple ][ this is plain wrong: in that venerable computer, both the CPU and the RAM are clocked at (slightly more than) 1 MHz. It seems hard to imagine the BBC micro could do this trick, neither can I see any advantage to such a setup. To be confirmed? Jan olieslagers (talk) 02:27, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed on the BBC Micro, citation added. Tagged the claims about the other computers, which will be removed if they're not verified. re/greg/ex;{mbox|history} 20:34, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much for bearing with me. You'll excuse me for not being convinced yet: the ref. you added does not confirm the double frequency memory - or I should have missed something, which is by no means impossible - nor can I see any reason to do this, and it would certainly have drive up the price very much because double speed RAM chips would have been required. It seems extremely likely to me that, like the other 6502-equipped micro's mentioned, the BBC Micro used one clock phase for the CPU and the other for video refresh, which served the dynamic RAM refresh at the same time. This was so nice about the 6800/6502 bus definition: the CPU promised to only access the buses on one clock phase. The 8080 and its derivatives never had any such guarantee, making dynamic memory refresh and memory mapped video a good deal harder. Jan olieslagers (talk) 08:11, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I've found a direct citation for the 4 MHz RAM – this is the best I can do without hitting the dead trees. You're absolutely right, this is how the memory sharing is implemented on the Beeb, however the 6502 runs at 2 MHz, and so the DRAM array must fetch and store bytes at a cycle rate of 4 MHz to service both the CPU and the video chip.

Acorn needed such fast memory for the Proton to meet the BBC's requirement of 80 column text. Wilson chose the RAM on spec and got samples from 'a nice chap from Hitachi' just in time for the demo to the BBC. re/greg/ex;{mbox|history} 20:44, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, I can live with that, the 80 columns are a perfect explanation. Again my gratitude for the polite and edifying discussion! Jan olieslagers (talk) 17:19, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering about this too. Bil Herd of C128 fame said that it was a push to get the C64 and C128 working with the technology of the time, so I found it strange that the BBC could run so much faster than other contemporary computers.

The Apple II does also run its RAM at double speed, 2MHz. The book "Understanding the Apple II" relates a story from Wozniak about when he initially tried running the RAM at CPU speed (1MHz) and found that the CPU couldn't stand being held off for an entire scan line's worth of DMA, so he had to switch to interleaved memory cycles. As a result, the Apple II's 6502 runs at 1MHz with no DMA contention and thus the RAM has to be double clocked to service video refresh. The C64 almost does this trick too except that the VIC occasionally needs to steal some CPU cycles as well for extra bandwidth. The Atari 800 doesn't do this at all, instead running both CPU and RAM at 1.79MHz and holding off the CPU for all display DMA cycles.

I found the answer on Everything2 (http://everything2.com/title/BBC+Micro) -- Acorn had to use extremely fast memory for the time to hit 4MHz, 150ns, and paid a cost premium for it. Still, I'm surprised that it initially shipped for 399 pounds with 64K of RAM in 1981. Despite being repeatedly mentioned as expensive, this seems to compare favorably to many of the other 8-bit computers of the era. 24.130.133.67 (talk) 06:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

IIRC, the 6502 featured instruction pre-fetch which meant that a 1Mhz 6502 would execute instructions almost as fast as a 2Mhz Z80.

BTW, the BBC were obliged to commission the development of their 'own' computer because the BBC Charter forbids commercial advertising which would have prevented the corporation from being seen to be favouring a machine of any one particular manufacturer. They therefore would have had to feature a number of different machines from different companies in their programmes which would have made the computer literacy project much more difficult for the viewer to follow.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 21:04, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comments

These have been moved here from a subpage as part of a cleanup process. See Wikipedia:Discontinuation of comments subpages.

Assessment, August 12 2007

Re-assessed from mid to low importance: though this certainly belongs in the BBC WikiProject, it has nothing to do with television, radio, and little to do with the BBC as others see it. Just my opinion. _TheIslander 13:23, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Relevant piece of news

One might like to write a paragraph about this recent public appeal of a museum for those who can repair these machines of great historical value: BBC News — Computer museum seeks BBC Micro fixers --D'AroemenenZullenNiVergaan (talk) 19:34, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

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