31 Oct
2011
31 Oct
'11
5:51 p.m.
It runs on the BBC Microcomputer, and the BBC BASIC
ROM is the usual=20
standard 16KB language ROM. You can probably get a BBC Micro on ebay; I=20
have no idea how many, if any, were sold in North America. The BBC Micro=20
Model B with 5.25" diskette drive (Watford DFS) was the first machine I=20
had at home, and I used it for hours every day (writing assembler when I=20
wasn't writing BASIC).
I regard the BBC micro as one of the best designed 8-bit micros ever. My
only wish is that they should have used a 6809 processor ;-)
I have (and use) an Acorn Cambridge Workstation. That's a BBC B+ board
(this has 64K RAM, it overlays the video memory giving more space for
BASIC programs, etc) built inot a monitor-style case. The monitor is a
Micorvitec colour unit, there's also a 5.25" 80 cylinder floppy drive, a
20MByute hard disk and a 32016-based second processor board with 4M RAM.
And yes, it runs BBC BASIC.
The machines were networkable and we had a laboratory of about 20 of=20
them, hooked up to a LAN file server with a 5(?)MB hard disk,=20
hierarchical file system, and user directory/permissions system. This=20
was around 1982-1986. I had a lot of fun playing with (abusing) the=20
network primitives, such as sniffing the administrator password... For a=20
long time I was never not in possession of that password. :)
One of the 'computing' teachers at school tried to make it against the
rules of have a Motorola 6854 [1] data sheet. Since I'd bought the
complete data boo kfor my homebrewing projects, I was not going to abide
my that. I refused to rip the pages out!
[1] No I don't mean 6845, which is the CRT controlelr (and is used in the
Beeb). The 6854 ias a synchronosu serial interface chip ans used used for
the Econet.
I still have the Econet programmer's reference -
handed to me, a=20
So do I....
-tony