I visited the UK and brought back some computers! Let's see if they work.
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- čas přidán 21. 01. 2019
- #britishcomputers #vintagecomputing #retrocomputers
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We are lucky in the North America to have easy access to a lot of old vintage computers. They were sold in large enough numbers that most aren't that hard to still find for a reasonable price. There are some machines, however, that never sold here but were popular in other parts of the world.
On a recent business trip to London, I decided to order some computers off eBay and bring them back in my luggage. That way I could get cheaply and not pay for expensive international shipping.
Let's see if I can get these well used inexpensive computers working.
Specific useful bits is modifying a BBC Micro power supply to work in the US on 110v-120v.
ZX Spectrum Part 1: • ZX Spectrum Part 1 - I...
ZX Spectrum Part 2: • ZX Spectrum Part 2: T...
ZX Spectrum Part 3: • ZX Spectrum Part 3 - R...
Time codes to jump directly to specific sections:
5:21 -- A tour of the machines
14:40 -- Looking inside the computers
20:40 -- Modifying the power supply for 115v
25:05 -- Testing these machines - Věda a technologie
Adrian, the cut out on the BBC Micro was never factory. I paid my way through college by fixing BBC's and it was a rare mod designed to dissipate the PSU heat. If you need any parts for the BBC, or need help, please let me know. I have tons of s/w and utilities including ROMs....
@@adriansdigitalbasement
the -5v problem will prevent the sound chip working as well as the serial and tape interfaces
You've got me wondering how it was cut out so neatly.
Not sure if you've tried the printer, but it works with a little stylus that is dragged across the paper on a loop. It actually burns through to a black backing with an electric arc. Very odd, but also very Sinclair.
So what can carry more current the metallic face on the Sinclair paper or the carbon paper from the male USB hole warmer.
Hey Clive, nice to see you here.
An electric arc? You have got to be kidding me. I have never heard of that before.
Didn't know you were into vintage computers Big Clive.
have a fan running or crack open a window while running it, I hear the fumes are none-to-pleasant ;)
In the UK in 1984 there was a TV show called 'Database' which actually broadcast live software over the end credits which could be recorded onto your machine.
That genuinely is incredible! In 1984?
@Fonzie It varied from programme to programme, one week it was the C64, next week the ZX Spectrum, next week the BBC Micro etc.
It didn't require any additional hardware; just a tape recorder. Although it really helped if your TV had a headphone or audio out socket.
@@willitwork4330 'database thamestv' is on here. if there are no sound issues then I imagine someone could attempt to use the end credit audio (if it exists in any clips) within a capable 8-bit emulator, such as spectaculator
The CTL sticker is from a company called Clyde Technics Limited in North Wales, the UK. I used to work for them 30 years ago. They sold and repaired BBC micros.
Hey Adrian love your channel, and your enthusiasm, I can't add any more about the company or the sticker, but I actually live in the town of Mold, it is less than 2 miles from location mentioned on the sticker.
Yes, it would have been. Clwyd Technics sold 1000s of BBC micros.
Cymru am byth!
@@adriansdigitalbasement the Welsh one was most likely an OEM system, whereas the micro with the full bbc name was probably sold by Acorn and distributed to schools
It’s awesome seeing these bbc computers again I used them in a secondary school in the clwyd county where we had computer rooms filled with them and they had the boxy monitors mounted on top of each one that matched the computer........even the piece of paper taped to the plastic trim was a common thing on all the machines we used....will be interesting what you do with them 👍🏻
I’m from the UK and to see you take an interest in these systems and give them a new home in the US makes me proud. Great video and I have now subscribed. Thank you.
well done for saying ZED-EX spectrum ;)
Ha never picked up on that.
Its the same at Jay- Z it sounds wrong if you say it the English way he would be Jay-Zed
Ben Heck calls it zee...it really irks me!!!!
But he lost half of them bonus points for saying "sodder".
and the rapper 50 pennies
Great to see an American embracing these two UK machines, instead of the usual, sneering, dumping on them and regarding the Apple II or TRS80 as the be all and end all.
Nah, the Commodore 64, which was by far the most popular 8-bit personal computer in the US, leaves them all for dead. ;)
I thought he was Canadian
You have the bbcs, now you've got to find yourself a copy of Elite.
yes elite loved that game took me almost 6 months to reach elite used to count all the right on commanders every time one of those came on looking to see if I had been promoted, I played on the acorn electron based on the BBC great computer for its time better than the spectrum in my opinion wireframe graphics in elite but never spoilt the game, how I miss the the early 80's
And make sure it's the floppy disk and not the tape version - the disk version has extra features not found on the tape one (or conversions like the C64 one that I played back in the day) such as the interior of the space stations!:-)
DavstrWrexham I did have one
Elite has been reborn thanks to kickstarter, now available on xbox and ps4 as well as pc.
I still have my BBC Model B and all the kit and games, including Elite on tape and disk
Awesome. I'm from the UK and had a ZX Spectrum +2 as a childhood computer (but this was in the very late 90s WAY after it was relevant lol!)
I had the +3 but most of my childhood was spent using a 48k
@@Lee_B77 Ouch lol.
@@Lee_B77 Ah that sucks. My +3 is still in my parents attic so I'll pick it up sometime and get it hooked up to see if it works.
@@terminusaquo1980 The most common fault on +3s that have been in storage for a long time is that the disk drive belt snaps or rots away. You can get new ones from various places, like www.dataserve-retro.co.uk/index.html they also sell cables to connect the monitor port on the +3 to the SCART input on a TV - much better quality than RF and saves having to find an analogue TV.
@@gwishart Thanks for letting me know, when I get it out again I'll keep an eye on the drive belt.
The excitement of having a ZX Spectrum and the ultimate - a kempston joystick
Nice pickups. I'm very glad to have discovered your channel, i can't enough of quality retro computer restoration :)
Fantastic to see these lovely BBC B machines being brought back to life in the US. I used to work for the BBC and your video brought back so many happy memories of my early BBC career as back in the late 80s these machines were used to create CEDFAX (teletext) pages and I spent many happy hours tapping away on my old BBC B back in the day. Looking forward to your further restoration of these excellent machines.
Seems like yesterday this was the cutting edge in home computer tech!
Great stuff! My first computer was a Beeb, which I eventually donated to a local school when I ‘upgraded’ to a PC.
Now that I’ve caught the retro bug, I have 2 BBC model Bs, and a Master 128.
Some add-on suggestions; a Gotek drive is a good start, especially if you mod it to use an OLED display and a rotary encoder & piezo sounder.
You can add co-processors by using a raspberry pi and the ‘pitubedirect’ software.
Also worthwhile is a turbo MMC, or equivalent, and a ‘Data Centre’ from Retro Clinic.
Details of all these can be found on the Stardot forum, which I see you have already joined.
So, enjoy your Beebs, and have fun!
Both of those computers were my introduction to computing: I had a ZX Spectrum 128K +2 at home (mostly gaming obviously!) and used the BBC Micros at school. Hope you enjoy your finds!
You have both my childhood computers right there! I have been planning to make a pilgrimage back to the UK this summer to pick up some of those myself :) Can't wait to see what else you do with them.
machine with the hole cut out is in an early issue 4 case, the texturing is different to later issue 4s and issue 7s
the later cases also had the anti-finger trap design
NB issue 7, issue 3 and issue 4 cases had the ashtray perforation to the left
issue 2s don't have the perforation
the mention of the BBC function key strip is absolutely correct...bbc copyright in europe held by a swiss company
@Tone. was going to say the same if my looking around didn't yield anything. :D
Thanks for the memories, I had the BBC Model B computer, a company in the UK called Watford Electronics used to have lots of accessories for them
Ah yes! I bought my model B from them. Still have it, though unused for so many years.
Growing up here in the United States I had no exposure to these computers back in the '80s. So I'm definitely looking forward to following along as you combine the best of each of these BBC machines in to one. I really enjoyed watching what you've done so far with testing, and repair. Now it's just a matter of cleaning everything up, and assembling one nice example.
brill ..... you bring back my days from long ago ..... thank you
Brings back some memories, I we had 1 BBC in my primary school, when I started secondary school they was a computer room with 40 of them. And that was 1997!
I remember using Micros in school around 1999/2000. Most of them were masters but there was a B i remember. My younger brother told me they still had risc pcs there in 2006, and possibly still the beebs.
The paper has a metallic coating because it's used in the electroerosion "spark" dot matrix printer. The metal is blasted off by current flow heating where a dot is desired.
Winston Smith Should be fun to listen to on a shortwave receiver :)
Amazing. We have 3 working BBC Micros here and a couple of Masters. I can't recall the cut out on the top of any of them thought there were multiple versions of the original BBC Micro, model a, a+ etc. Great to see them working, nice job. Now you just need a disc drive, Elite and Castle Quest!
Great videos on here,really brings back good memories
Oh how I loved using those BBC Micro keyboards!! The feeling of pressing those keys, the sound they made, I miss them! Typing now is just not the same
Woof l agree woof woof
Nice pickups!!! Regards ideas for mods / upgrades on the BBCs - get yourself one of the Turbo or Super MMC adapters (allows you to play all games off a single MMC card), consider adding some sort of ROM expansion board - or some of the RAM / EEPROM adapters you can get off eBay. These are also cool with the speech chip added - you can buy a kit from RetroClinic in the UK. I've done some repair and upgrade videos on these myself just last year. Lovely machines!
You can also add a Raspberry Pi as a co-processor to these too (via the TUBE connection), and I recently added a SID chip to mine too. If you want a "Beeb SID" bare PCB for free just let me know and I will post you one from the UK - just needs some TTL chips and a Swin SID / SID chip etc, but its easy enough to assemble. I used a Swin SID to avoid reducing physical SID chip stocks from my C64 systems.
Also worth considering doing switchable audio mod too - so you can have audio out into the SCART connection or line out, rather than being forced to use the speaker.
@@adriansdigitalbasement Yes, that darned 245 really gave me a run for my money lol! It was litterally the last thing that could possibly be affecting the databus - why couldn't it have been one of the earlier chips I removed lol. I couldnt see an email address on your about page (maybe YT changed permissions or something related to that recently). I have added you in Twitter but cannot message until you add me in at your side.
@@adriansdigitalbasement @GadgetUK164 definitely the guy you want to ask about British Computers. He can probably also give you some more insight on the ZX Spectrum
The Master is a nicer machine, but it had some incompatibilities didnt it? That said, I am sure those progs / games have been patched up already to work these days.
I added a daughter board to mine and installed a number of EEPROMs for different compilers and interpreters. I remember learning Modula2 and Forth for example. It was a great machine to learn on, plus of course Elite and a brilliant racing game called Revs. After that it was the Atari 520ST.
The Tube socket is so so cool :3 I suppose a Pi is as close as you'd get to the original ARM dev Tube board from a modern system?
Magical! can't wait for the next video
This is so awesome, most of the Information on the Hardware went over my head with confusion, but interesting none the less! Subscribed :)
I had these machines when I was a kid. I loved the spectrum
The BBC micros were used in alot of schools in the uk my school had loads till the acorn archimedes came out that was defantly a blast from the past
Zarch.
Computer studies for me 1984 derby england on bbc 🤓
Yep and me we had 10-15 all in one room, seemed really space age at the time lol
@@Georgeasaurus2001 yh I remember well bloody old gits we are lol it did seem all space age its crazy how tech has advanced so fast where dose the time go mate
I think I know why one BBC has a cut out section. It's because the BBC wanted a specific power supply that wouldn't interfere with their equipment, against the advice of Acorn. But when it became clear the kind Acorn recommended was required for reliability, it was changed to fit the original specification. All learnt/vaguely remembered from last week on Retromancave. That might be something to do with it.
I still have my BBC Model B with tape, disk drives, BBC joystick, 6502 second processor, word wise eprom, a huge selection of games, including Elite on tape and disk.
Mine is a 1982 model, according to the sticker on the pcb.
Yes it still works.
There was an Spectrum interface we had made by US Robotics that let you control Lego Technic models via a cable to a couple of motors, we made things like a plotter printer and driving robots, it would be amazing if one of them was on eBay
Retro computers and a box of Kleenex, perfect night in.
Pixel Porn?
Great to see these working, I grew up with these old computers and good to see them travelling around the world being used 40 years on
Good to see you back, Adrian. Nice score!
Got to love the Beeb, one of those few early micros that feels like a "proper" computer. And you can't go past a system that lets you do inline assembly code in BASIC!
Sophie Wilson really did care above user experience and sensible design, designing to a cost was so low in her priorities. Even though so many more Speccies were sold than Micros and Electrons, at least her RISC CPU design has stood the test of time... and the strengths in her design of the Micro still show through today - as Adrian said, the connectivity is out of this world. The mods people could do to these things were incredible. Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett both had highly extended systems hooked into various smart home devices from back in the day... crazy stuff. And incredible. Leaving those unpopulated sockets for expansion ROMs was a small stroke of genius. That kind of stuff gets washed away with the first skim of cost cutting when taking a design from prototype to production. But they kept it for the Micro. Same about the keyboard.
10 PRINT “HELLO WORLD!”
20 GOTO 10
RUN
10 FOR a=1 TO 29
20 PRINT "Hello World for the ";a;"th time."
30 NEXT a
@@elektron2kim666
Hello World for the 1th time.
Hello World for the 2th time.
Hello world for the 3th time.
@@chrisatherton8234 a$="stndrdth"
10 PRINT "MARTIN IS ACE!"
20 GOTO 10
I used to go into Dixons on the high street. They had Oric-1 with it's onomatapaeic (sp?) BASIC key words
10 SHOOT
20 GOTO 10
@@martinj.fowler6262 how many times we did this in the 80's.
Dixons was ace, Roland synths, mahoosive hifi systems, battleship proportions televisions.
As soon as you had that box and said "It's a small thing" .. I knew it would be a rubber-keyed 48k ZX Spectrum. My first computer in 1983 and still my favourite machine of all time..
And the BBC was the first computer I ever used...we had ONE of them at school..
You had to have been there to understand!
Great video, good to see you restoring these antiques and was happy to hear that BBC boot-up sound for the first time in decades.
Subbed...
The best peripheral I had for the Spectrum was the RAM Turbo II interface.. It had 2 joystick ports and was compatible with almost all games and it had a cartridge slot for a few select games that came on carts.
Liked your video. Funny to hear an American talking bout our home computers from here in the uk.
My first home computer was a ZX81 then I got a Spectrum 48k.
They were so so popular back then. Good to see it again.
So cool seeing that CTL sticker - Clwyd was the County name at the time but has since been split up & Techneg is just the welsh for Technics. These and other Acorn machines we're the go-to computers in schools in my area until around 1997/8!
The Sinclair, by my understanding, was like the Tandy in North America, with BBC being the bigger player like IBM, or something.
The sinclair/spectrum shown is (in my mind) most comparable to the Commadore 64. The BBC Micro's were build by Acorn (ARM originally was Acorn RISC Machine) - at the time they felt like an educational only tool rather than a big company!
Yep this is more correct.. ZX Spectrum was like the Commodore 64 of the time. BBC wouldve been more like the Apple.
Micro Men, a one-off BBC drama television show set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market (Thks Wikipedia), illustrates the relationship between these companies
@@TheXJ12 the one with martin freeman in? good shout out, that's a great watch for anyone who loves retro computers!
You should buy one of the Soviet ZX Spectrum clones on eBay and compare their internals with the authentic one. The Russian ones are cheap.
I remember my school having ONE of these BBC computers back in the 80`s. They were on a desk with wheels that was pushed into each class on a rota basis. We were allowed 10 minutes a week with a friend to work on the computer, it was then pushed on to the next class when everyone took a turn. My teacher had created a traffic light that we took turns to program.
Wow, just seen this - such a nostalgia trip for me. I was always a speccy guy. I spent years on that computer, probably waiting for games to load just as much as playing them but I so loved that little computer. Its fascinating for someone from America to grab hold of these and look at them. As for the BBC, we had them at school but they were out of reach financially for the average home user. Thank you for this video, very appreciated!
ZX Spectrum Sinclair was assembled not far from me in Dundee Scotland in the old Timex factory,
I used to have a sinclair ZX81, and also did some of my first songs using an old Archimedes Acorn A3000
You had an Archimedes? maaaan those machines were not cheap in their day! As far as I remember your particular model possessed a RISC CPU, I could be wrong, it's been a while?
UK here, the ZX 48k was my very first computer my parents got me for.Christmas way back in 1984, it was used but I got so many hours of fun out of that thing.
Awesome little machine.
Great video buddie I love the speccy it brings back so many memories also the BBC was primarily a school computer i remember my school I'm 1983 having about 15 of the things in the computer class room great days lol
I only live 20 mins drive from southgate tube station in the UK 😀 in fact i have done a few courses in southgate college over the years lol
I remember playing the "Magic Telephone" on the BBC computer in school
Just found your channel! Really cool video as the BBC Micro was the first ever computer I used at school in the mid to late 1980’s here in the UK. I remember playing some Dungeon Crawler / Quest game on it. Great memories! My brother and I were quite lucky as our Dad bought a Commodore 64 for the family which is where my gaming began. Seems like only yesterday.... I’ll be 40 this year! 😌
That brings back memories... The ZX Spectrum was my first computer way back in the early 80's.
That small printer uses heat sensitive paper, don't put it in the sun or on hot surfaces.
Great! I really appreciate your love for european computers! My first (well, actually second) computer was a 48K Speccy, so can't wait for that video!
KolliRail british
WTF? Those computers were still running our missile defence system. We need those back, dude.
So true and with 8 inch floppy drives installed .
@@jari2018 That's right. The government drafted in Sir Clive Sinclair to personally design and build the interface for that. Cost them £10M and was classified until 2016.
Adrian, I LOVE the fact that your main priority on coming to the UK was to get a BBC B. They're still great machines!
I remember doing my school O level computing project on the BBC micro. loved it.
Same here, still have my computer wrapped up in the loft
ZX Spectrum, convert it to composite - it's a very simple & quick modification.
BBC Microcomputer was used in every school in the UK during the 80's
Until they were replaced in favour of the Acorn systems line in the late 80's, early 90's. The old BBCs and other Acorns had an impressive life. I was using them at my school right up until the end, in '97.
@@mikejandrews They were all Acorns, Acorn made the BBC Micro and the Archimedes. Yes, well-built computers, guess they had to be for school use. I owned both of them back in the day.
@@andrewnorris5415 Yes, I know. The story behind the BBC machine's development is fascinating. They were strong, well-built machines.They probably anticipated bothersome primary school kids going wild with them.
But I never owned either, though used both at school (mostly the Archimedes) and my brother had the Electron. Played a lot of games on that. (After they finally finished loading.)
Till RM Education took over
Some schools still used them well into the 2000s. It's still a perfect educational computer for young children. There is no American software with incorrect spellings, they are so limited there are no pointless distractions, and they are extremely robust. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still a handful in use.
The Risc PC was great for slightly older kids. I remember it having a really nice word processor and paint program, so it was more productive without being too full of distractions, and still had correct English.
Still got my original ZX Spectrum 48K that I got when I was 9, along with his 6 brothers and many many retro computing friends.
I grew up on the Speccy 48, learned the basis of everything I know now in the good old days of the 1980s.
BBC was the first ever computer I used when I was about 6/7 i played a game called badger, Which was lame but amazing at the time.
Was that Geordie racer game on the BBC?
Do you remember a game called "Chuckie Egg"? They have just in the past couple of years released a new updated version and damn it brings back some memories.
The BBC computers (when fully equipped) were very powerful compared to other 8 bit systems for back in the day. They were very expensive too. Games on the BBC generally suck though, well other than Elite which has the best and fastest 8 bit version.
I think you should make one perfect machine and load up all the parts like speech synthesis chips etc and get a floppy emulator. Maybe add the Z80 Tube for CPM, LOL.
Exile
You need to try and find a cheetah speach synthesiser ☺
@@dlew3624 I have one ;-)
I'm really pleased for you Adrian, enjoy messing about with these iconic computers ;)
The additional 8 DRAM chips take it from a model A to model B. It was a UKP100 upgrade that added 16K more RAM and some extra ports. I have an A-->B upgrade kit still.
8:36 a chip? I believe they call them "crisps" in the UK. I look forward to seeing you work on these
Very droll, sir. Very droll.
We certainly do. There used to be a salt 'n' vinegar 6502.
Yeah and our crisps were made from aluminium 😏
A chip is a thickly cut french fry and a crisp is a potato chip. An English or Irish bloke might say “ pass me a bag er ready salted crisps barkeep and a pint or yur finest bitter for me mate”
@@keithmarsh8120 They weren't limited to only 2 of the 4 countries that make up the UK, Scotland and Wales have them too.
The Econet machine was definitely from a UK secondary school in the 1980's. Nobody else but the criminally rich and insane (ok, Acornsoft) would have a network of Beeb's back then. They would all need a fileserver too which would be a rack mount Acorn Atom based machine (called an Acorn System something) with massive 5MB Winchester drive or perhaps dual 5 1/4" floppies.
The -5V is used for the RS423 interface. You definitely need it for trying to transfer files between a real BBC micro and your PC. The PC end is the usual TTL/RS232/USB adapter and the other uses a 5 pin "domino" plug for the BBC Micro. The domino/dice plugs are rare but Farnell CPC does sell them. Deltron 611-0520 for example.
There are few ways to wire it - I go with the simple CTS/RTS and RX/TX swap over, all that nonsense with DTR and DSR really isn't needed.
ETA: I'm pretty sure the -5V is needed for the cassette interface too, as a negative bias for the op-amps.
I agree with Drew i went to school on Anglesey late 80s and the school had loads on a econet so your unit is 90% likely from a north wales school at some point and the rom is likely to have a build that if it detects econet connection and the file server it would have booted differently.
I worked at a school in London where we had ~50 Beebs & 15 (there may have been more) Archs. I hated chasing down Econet disconnects, network clashing and just outright disaster. But when it worked it worked fine, I would come in the morning and power up the server a BBC with a Winchester drive a big smoky glass dome with the HDD platters spinning (later upgraded to a ST506 I think), give it a few mins to warm up then hit the breaker, powering up the bulk of the BBC systems and in general it was reliable.
The rackmount fileserver WASN'T Atom based, it just looked like it. What looked like an Atom was actually just a keyboard. The CPU board would have been an Acorn system II ( I think).
Ahhh, Beebs on Econet. Four character passwords that, if you didn't want to spend a few hours brute-forcing, you could just sniff while they were typed from any machine on the network, IIRC
@@mrswinkyuk The Atom was basically a cut down System 3 without the Eurocard chassis for the home computer market. Looking at some googled photos I definitely remember the System 5 with that Atom style keyboard, drives, and monochrome monitor as our school Econet file server. When I said Atom based I meant those System X's were ancient tech even back in 1983. They were decidedly not BBC Micro hardware, and clearly didn't need to be (colour graphics on a file server?).
The good thing about the Spectrum is that pretty much everything bar the ULA is either off-the-shelf, or in the case of the keyboard remakes of the membranes and rubber mats are readily available. Makes them very easy to bring back online when they do fail.
Just found your channel, an interesting find there. I had a spectrum 48k - i think its still in the attic and used the BBC at school up until the early 90's.
... I am from the UK !, My Zx, was like new, i kept it very good condtion, I wish i had not sold it now ! :). Still have my Amiga computer though, and box !.
The rectangular aperture is probably a (very neatly-done) mod to get rid of the heat from the PSU. Early Beebs had a transformer power supply (at the BBC's insistence, to limit RF interference) with dissipative regulators, which got very hot. Acorn eventually convinced the BBC to allow a switched-mode supply. It was my understanding that linear PSUs were only fitted up to Issue 3. So an Issue 4 machine should have had the SMPS from the factory; but Acorn would have wanted to use up all their existing stock, and if your machine was a very early Issue 4 it could just about have been fitted at the factory with a linear PSU. If I had to take a guess, I'd say the disk drive was overloading the PSU; cutting out the top proved a temporary fix, but it eventually blew and was replaced with a switched-mode one. They might then have tried gluing the cut-out piece back in, but the glue perished in storage and it fell out.
The sound circuits (and the memory, on Issue 2 Beebs) require the -5V supply, so if that was absent on the machine while still in the UK it would explain the weak power-on beeps. You were only getting the crests of your waves, not the troughs!
The BBC keyboard was an absolute delight to use. The switches are proper heavy-duty tactile switches. The letters on the keys are not printed: they are actually moulded right through the coloured plastic layer!
Most CGA monitors will sync to the BBC's 50Hz signal. There is only a composite sync, but nearly all monitors will accept a composite sync on the HSYNC input with VSYNC left unconnected. There is a +5V available on the 6-pin socket, so you can tie the BRIGHT input high.
If you type
REPORT
at the prompt immediately after switching on or pressing BREAK, the computer will display a copyright message. (REPORT normally repeats the last error message.) If the date is 1981, you have BASIC I; if the date is 1982, you have BASIC II. This has better accuracy on trigonometric functions, a few reliability enhancements, and some extra options and directives in the built-in assembler. Both are capitalisation-sensitive (though, interestingly, the built-in assembler isn't .....)
Both the User Guide (supplied with the machine) and the Advanced User Guide (sold separately, but pretty much essential anyway) can be found online. When you get bored of BASIC, you can start using the built-in 6502 assembler. The instruction set is nice and easy to learn, and most instructions can be used in several different addressing modes.
Good luck with it! You have a fine piece of computing history there, standard issue in every UK school and also very common in homes, offices, and even -- thanks mainly to its analogue, user and 1MHz bus ports, accessible directly from BASIC without resorting to machine code -- used for controlling machines in factories and recording measurements in laboratories.
Just for interest I have one of the very early model B's and it has a linear PSU but no output connector for the disk drive. I managed to obtain the disk drive chip (it was a crazy price as they were on limited supply) and initially fitted a dual 40 track floppy drive before "upgrading" to a dual 80 track pair of drives. I still ended up using an external PSU as I couldn't get hold of a switched mode PSU then.
@@graemescott990 Ah, yes. My BBC was an Issue 7, and my local Acorn dealer (who would later become famous for selling an Electron joystick interface .....) had some 8271s in, so my disk upgrade was a same day job.
agree that the hole was a user modification...probably with a dremel or just some careful cutting and filing
the hole was sometimes necessary due to internal ROM boards and/or beeb powered disk drives which made the PSU get very hot
I've got a few beebs with similar mods
"used for controlling machines" etc. SO true. Even as late as the mid-nineties a certain defence company (who shall remain unnamed, but their name rhymes with "Hark Phony") still used a model B for testing certain aspects of their laser-guided missile systems.
@@aitchpea6011 Well, if something isn't bust, why fix it?
Wow, this is a blast from the past. I still have ZX somewhere.
BBC Basic is an absolute joy to use, very feature rich and great way to get to grips with simple procedural progamming techniques - it even has an in-line assembler when you get into more advanced techniques.
Don't leave the Beebs and speccy near each other, a fight will break out!
- The Beebs will win BTW ;-)
I'm not sure the age/generation of electrolytic caps is the whole story. If you open something and it has a ton of chong or shamwa or whatever off brand in there you can be sure at least some of them are out of spec (probably never in spec) or leaking. If it's all Japanese brands then you're probably ok unless whoever designed the PCB did an oopsie and put a cap right next to something that gets hot. Even worse in some machines like some commodores you get capacitors that are reverse polarity from the factory.
I've replaced capacitors on LOADS of machines from our old labs back in the early 2010s when that whole bad cap fiasco was going on.
@@adriansdigitalbasement in the BBC machine you want to check for "RIFA" branded capacitors in the power supply. These fail with age and because they are directly across the power line, they make a LOT of smoke when they let go! Replace with good quality "X2" rated film capacitors.
I've read somewhere that it has to do with a stolen recipe that was actually missing a bit. So the caps were not being made with the proper recipe, so they are missing a component that keeps them stable. Which is why Japanese caps are considered better than Chinese caps.
Here is a link. And I've now learned that it's called a formula, not a recipe.
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/stolen-formula-for-capacitors-causing-computers-to-burn-out-106907.html
@@NaoPb While I believe that story might be true I don't think it's the overall issue with cheaper caps. I think poorer materials and wider tolerances are probably a bigger issue. Interesting enough I know a guy that used to work at one of the Japanese capacitor manufacturers and he said they used to ship all the parts that weren't right on spec to customers outside of the country because they were less fussy.
@@NaoPb Yes, this was largely responsible for the problem
Good old ZX. I got one when they first came out and using a CB we would send very simple sounds and our friends would record it and then play it back to say HELLO.
Great video, thanks for pushing through the cold. :-)
I had a BBC micro model B back in the day. Later I had its successor, the Acorn Archimedes which was, of course, the first RISC based personal computer with the Acorn designed ARM processor (which then stood for Acorn RISC Machine). That. of course, begat Advanced Risc Machines with the ubiquitous ARM architecture chips.
So, if it wasn't for that BBC micro, then the world wouldn't have had it's most popular microprocessor architecture with over 100 billion ARM processors having been produced by 2017. No doubt something else would have come along, but it's still the case, that BBC micro is what financed the development of the ARM architecture, even if this model used a 6502 running, if I recall correctly, at 2 mhz.
Just a shame ARM was sold to a Chinese tech company.
nb. even before the BBC micro, I had a NASCOM II which I built from a kit. If you want a fairly rare UK computer, try and find a Nascom I or Nascom II, both of which were Z80 based machines. They truly were the first UK microcomputers.
Minor correction, ARM was sold to Softbank, a Japanese company. Yes, a shame though.
I'm not sure why I had it in my head Softbank was Chinese.
Haha so funny listening to an American talking about iconic uk computers
But what about iconic Welsh computers!? Dragon 64 anyone? Anyone...?
As a 40 yr old, the bbc micro was the very first computer i ever saw as a 5yr old kid, that would have been 1983 ish, and there was only one that arrived at my school and it was considered SACRED incase it got damaged, the fact is that we barely got to use it which is a shame because im sure by 1986 or so they were pretty much defunkt. However at the time It was state of art and had a program called pod or similar, you could guess at the things the caracter could do “pod can JUMP” if you typed that in and it worked it was written on the wall for the other kids to also try, we were hooked.
Loved my Spectrum when I was a teeny person. REALLY loved getting to play on the BBC Micro at school too.
"I am not going to touch this" *proceeds to wave hands within millimeters of it* .... This was hard to watch hahahaha
Outside of England? You mean I can't buy this in Wales or Scotland?
No, there are HMRC officers on the Severn Bridge and at Gretna Services to make sure you aren't exporting any forbidden technology ;-)
The Dragon 32 mafia would find you.
These were available throughout the uk as my old schools had them in wales.
I remember “Beagle Bros.” Software; I had their BeagleWrite WP for the Apple //GS, as well as the Apple ImageWriter dot-matrix printer, both of which saw heavy use in my early College days! 😎
We had those BBC computers way back in primary school. You were deemed very lucky to get to have a go. Only the well behaved kids usually got to play on them. I vaguely remember a game on there that we went mad for even though it was like a few pixels at best!
I want to dump those boards in an ultrasonic bath. filthy!
DaveJustDave real men like their bitches dirty !
If you think that's filthy you should see my browsing history.
So long as everything's still watertight, that should work. I don't know what automotive solvent does to PCBs though. I should drop a board into my cleaning tank and find out.
Nah, give them a spray with brake cleaner, should do the trick.
BBC means Brown, Boveri & Cie in some places. Brown, Boveri (BBC) was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies.
Exactly. That's why the name was changed.
Seen their kit on U Boats.
They made pressure wave superchargers, which are another quirky but cool technology
That was grteat video. cant wait to see what you do with these.
you can play the original Elite on that I believe
Fun Fact. BBC Model B was the first time i ever played a Networked game.. took my BBC to a friends house (along with a monitor & cables) and using a huge cable that looked like a Aircraft carrier tow rope.. connects BBC to BBC (connects on the underside of both machines).. 1st networked game (only one we had) was Ridge Racer V1.0..
also the Model B is the more powerful, the micro was a rediced version aimed for schools..
My first spectrum was the wedge doorstop, the Zx80... with the. 1K ram block.. size of a house brick..
Hey he's stealing or computers! 🤣
British retro computers are the best. Fight me.
Hi, enjoyed this video, just subscribed. I’m in the UK and used BBC micros at school. They were staple computers in the eighties and were still used in the early nineties. I used to use it with a plotter to make printed circuit boards. There was also a BBC Master which I think was similar to the micro but had 128k. Look forward to your speccy video.
Hi Adrian - sorry about the cold. We've all been incubating it for a few weeks now and one of us probably gave it to you the second you arrived.
Great video!
Boo BOOP
@@adriansdigitalbasement To more accurately re-recreate the typical startup sound of a BBC micro, you need to accompany it by the sound of 30 impatient 10-year-olds shouting "Is the computer ready yet Miss?" and the sound of the caretaker complaining about having to wheel the computer trolley across the playground to the classroom :-)
OMG!!
Had a ZX Spectrum years ago. Loved it so much.... I even had flight sims that would run about 2 fps 😂
Some of the best games I ever played on it was Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Knightlore, Lords of Midnight, Daley Thompson Decathlon and so on...Ahh my Rose tinted glasses are working overtime👌😍
The big hole used to have clear perspex grid in it and found alot on the units that were used in school
I had a ZX Spectrum when I was a kid. My dad bought me it for me to learn coding but I ended up playing games on it, mostly. Great little gadget for it's time.
We had this turtle thing that used to draw stuff on paper when you typed in commands, this was around the same time as our Primary school having a Big Trac that we all used to take turns using in our little village school hall. I loved that thing lol
Wow. Memories as you unboxed. ....a Sinclair Spectrum c/w printer and the special silvoid paper roll! This was one of the first home micro computers that had a printer. Laughable by today's standards, but back then it was amazing. I played my first adventure game on the Spectrum, and the cutting edge game at the time was by a then thrusting high tech software company called Melbourne House, who came out with The Hobbit!
Thank you for actually pronouncing things properly, brilliant video! Subscribed!
No, he doesn't. The ZX not only uses a Z80 microprocessor, it was named after the Z80, which is American. Therefore, the proper pronunciation of ZX is ZeeEks. :) OK, I suppose it is arguable, but the CPU's name is definitely Zee80, at the very least.
Hello Adrian, and first, thanks a lot for your always very great and appreciated videos. You need now to come over France and take back some THOMSON Computers to the US ! See you there. Kind regards from France. Stéphane