The Acorn Electron
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2024
- This is a machine I've been wanting for sooooo long, and I finally have one.
So in this video I'll be taking a look at the machine, some way of loading software, and checking out some games.
Linky:
RMC - The Cave: / rmcretro
Least Significant Byte: / @lsbyte
0xC0DE: github.com/0xC0DE6502/
Snuggsy: github.com/Snuggsy187
ElkSD128: www.ramtop-retro.uk/elksd128.html
SVI-CAS: www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/ha...
Patreon: / mrlurch
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / mr_lurch
Facebook: / mrlurchsthings
Instagram: / mr_lurchs_things
Merch: www.redbubble.com/people/MrLu... - Věda a technologie
And within hours, 0xC0DE released an update to his Electrobots game (thanks @ozretrocomp for the tip)
github.com/0xC0DE6502/electrobots-going-underground-releases
One game you really should get your hands on for the Elk is Tynesoft's Kastle. It's hard. Merciless. But really beautiful. Most impressive game I have seen on the Elk.
I was travelling back from the Replay Event in Blackpool to my native Netherlands one day. I had an ELK in my backpack - so when I needed to go through security where you have to put your computers, laptops, phones etc in a tray to be scanned I pulled out the ELK and put it next to tablet and phone in the tray and proceeded through security. The guys at security later pulled me apart, actually to reminisce their own experiences with the system back in the day - we were about the same age and it actually was quite fun to experience. :)
"It is more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow" - As someone who once got their 1978 Austin Maxi up to 140 kph, couldn't agree more!
Epic. I couldn’t get my ‘75 Marina past 95.
Did you drop the maxi from a plane?
@@Edgel-in6bs 😅
Impressive. Once got my Skoda 105s up to 92 km/h! Damn fast!
The first computer my family ever owned! Love the Elk, so much character and a worthy little brother to the iconic BBC Micro.
Such a shame it was delayed getting to market, could have been a whole different story if they'd managed to get it out in time for Christmas.
Now, if I had such an absolutely ❤gorgeous machine❤... I'd name it Simon... Because to quote the great John Cleese:
"Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me, who talk loudly in restaurants, see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our esophagus, the guard's van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first-class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? It's over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8:15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8:13 from Gillingham. The train is the same only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew his sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is molting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion, and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is great, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted."
... now who in their right mind would even attempt to disagree with that? 🤣
So the other reason this computer is amazing is the in-line assembler to do 6502 assembly language programming. And again, because the Elk is a cut-down version of the BBC, the learning materials were far more focused. Electron User was a super little magazine to follow along with using this neat little machine!
The amount of inovation in the home computer market in the early to mid 80s in the UK was incredible and the Acorn Electron is certainly a part of that important time in home computing. Awesome to see you now have one to play around with. I've never owned nor seen one in real life myself but maybe now that I've got time on my hands, I might have to look at getting one since they're still selling for a reasonably low price. Fantastic video too.
A thought struck me watching this. The pinnacle of home computing in that era was a keyboard with EVERYTHING else sitting under it. Sure, there were RAM packs and peripherals but you could have a main computer in you home with just a keyboard and all the circuitry underneath. That was so important to the era this type of machine was born into. I can't see many homes in the 1980s having towers and monitors, the initial investment into something you could plug into a telly and get on with it was a catalyst for the home computer, and all these brands were part of that revolution.
Oh wow - This brings back good memories. I owned a Electron for a relatively short time, because it was a (in my eyes that time) a stopgap during the process to get a "real" BBC-B computer. Around that time I already had a relatively long experience with the Acorn computers.
You see - My first real "programmable" computer was the Quest Cosmac Super Elf (I still have that in working order, including lots of documentation). But I wanted a computer with a "real" keyboard in stead of a few hexidecimal keys. After much searching I finally settled for the Acorn Atom. This was the predecessor for the BBC-B and Electron computers (I still have an Acorn Atom lying around, but it needs some revision). As said, I was using the Electron on the road to the BBC-B (and later on the Acorn Archimedes and finally the RISC-PC) and I had loads of fun with that computer. It was also a big help in learning the first language beside Basic, namely LISP. Acorn LISP was a implementation of MACLISP, and was very valuable for me, because it fed my enthusiasm in learning programming languages.
What can I say? I really, really had a good time with that good old Electron. That's for sure...
I had a Beeb as a kid, and Chuckie Egg was my all time favorite game on it. I spent hours playing it.
Looks like a nice clean machine. Great to see a real Aussie enjoying one. Re sticky keys, mine was like that and I found it just needed use to get them working. Probably why you " . " suddenly came back. Enjoy 😁
If you're not put off by the (slightly) slower performance, the Electron was good value at the time and still is. The speed only really affected games, and a number of my university colleagues bought electrons to allow them to do programming in their rooms in hall rather than having to go to the computer labs. That said, there were lots of good electron games. The fact that the electron had full BBC basic was a major plus, as it was much more advanced than the Microsoft basic derived versions that most other home computers had. It also had the bonus of a decent keyboard.
If one dug into BBC BASIC, there were some pretty Pascal type features in the array implementation. It really was like someone had read the seminal papers on structured programming and good practice (for the time - Objects were just becoming a 'thing' as I was graduating in the late 80s) and thought, "I can do that in 16K" I implemented a 'virtual memory' system in BASIC to allow the programme I was working on to exceed by quite a way the limits of 32K of an unexpanded BEEB or Elk, by manipulation of HIMEM, and loading procedures from disc into the area I reserved between the programme RAM and screen memory. It was quite tight since I was using Mode 1, with three graphic viewports. An advantage of programming on the Elk was that, if it worked acceptably on it, it flew on the Beeb
one thing i found interesting is when computerphile interviewed one of the lead engineers of the BBC and electron, he had a ton of insight into how kludgy and thrown together the machines were. apparently the biggest issues were the ones sent to australia, you see if you get the machine much warmer than about 30-ish degrees celsius...the machines would fail catastrophically.
Yeah, the video ULA on early Beebs was notorious for cooking itself. Despite that, the Beeb did very well down here (mainly in the education market). Apparently the Australian importer had a fair bit of input into running changes made over the Beeb's lifetime, but info about how much input the Aussies had is scattered all over the place.
I find myself having a soft spot for compact computers. I really like the idea that a small, entry-level computer has a full travel, mechanical keyboard that’s found in more expensive computers. I also like the minimalistic design of the Elk. I certainly wouldn’t pass an Elk if I would cross paths with one.
I like how you gave us a taste of the recent games ported to Elk. It’s great it gets to have high quality versions of these classics.
Any Elk video is such an occasion. I also enjoy your presentations, so all the more reason to like this specific video. Two thumbs up👍👍
I had one of these as a kid, brilliant little machine, I used to play citadel a lot I remember there being a prize for the first one to complete it, think it was something like £200 lot of money back then
This is a nice video that focuses on the Electron as a machine in its own right, as opposed to it being compared unfavourably to the BBC Micro, which otherwise tends to happen quite a lot. Obviously, price was a big reason for buying the Electron back in the day, although the machine's compactness was also something of an attraction, as you point out. A lot of people are fond of the Electron they had (and maybe still have), and I am pleased that you managed to get the machine you wanted.
Those focusing on games might have bought joystick interfaces, of which there were several introduced quickly after the machine's launch, but these (like the one on the ElkSD) must be supported by software in a different way to that of the Plus 1's analogue port. Otherwise, the Plus 1 was generally the gateway to adding expansions more easily, with various disk systems using the cartridge ports.
I would say that the floppy disk systems on the Electron were better than they were on the Beeb in that they tended to provide on-board RAM and therefore didn't take workspace away from the system. The Beeb was saddled by an early dependency on the 8271 controller, later remedied in the B+, whereas all of the available Electron expansions started out with the 1770.
There is a community developing new hardware and software for the Electron and other 8-bit systems. I would encourage you to check out Stardot and the offerings from Retro Software and Retro Hardware if you haven't already done so. And, of course, the machine has a considerable back catalogue of games, as you've noticed. In fact, the Electron kept the Acorn 8-bit games market alive by providing a fair number of paying customers, even though the number of units sold was just a fraction of the number of Beebs sold.
Although it was always fun to take a dual-format game title to a friend's house or to school to play the Beeb version of a game, which might have had a larger playing area and perhaps some music, many of the games were pretty solid on the Electron. I'm sure you will have fun finding your favourites and also improving your Chuckie Egg technique!
I had an Electron back in the day and it was very good. Performance was not an issue for me but a lack of memory was. For me, Acorn needed to release an Electron+ with 128K RAM and MODE 7. The keyboard on the Electron was one of the best I have ever used until I got an IBM Model M when working at Intel.
Chuckie Egg was the first game I played on my Amstrad CPC464 back in the day. I used Up, Down, Left, Right, Copy as the controls. Manic Miner was another favourite.
I love it when things go right that you were expecting to go wrong :) ..........
The Elk (and the Beeb) are on my list of "never had-must get" machines. One day...
Welcome to the Elk club!
BTW the key switches should respond well to some contact cleaner. If that doesn't work, try reflowing the joints where the ribbon cable attaches to the keyboard (and make sure these joints are covered with tape afterwards, otherwise there's a risk of shorts).
if cleaner still doesnt help, remove switch and blast with high voltage such as from a 500v insulation tester, pressing the switch a few times, or as a last resort, mains via a 15w filament bulb to limit current...(be careful doing this, though, obviously..do at your own risk..), that'll blast any stubborn oxidation
My primary school had one in the mid 80's remember playing Frak and Chuckie Egg. The colours were excellent and I has a speccy 48k at the time. Only last night I was enjoying these games again on retroarch mame which emulates the beeb very well.
Lovely stuff mate! Gutted I couldn't get one over to you before you finally splurged on one yourself.
The keyboard is so nice on these, almost agricultural, but so satisfying. Quite nice to work on too.
Great video. Follically challenged computer nerds make the best content by far. 😁 I didn't have either machine back in the day, but did get to use them. The Beeb always felt very "serious", whilst the Elk had a nicer form factor, a perfectly good keyboard and probably enough features for most people. It just seemed the more approachable machine. Nowadays, I'd really like to own both.
This machine was made in Cambridge, UK (where I live)...
designed in cambridge, yes, some were made in hong kong, as were some BBCs and maybe elsewhere, one of my electrons is honk kong made, cant remember about the other
I had one, and tbh I don't recall any issues running games on it, anything for the BBC would run OK. 'Cylon Attack' was my favourite game. I donated mine to the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester a while back. Back rhen I worked at Woolworths, selling computers, TV and HiFi. I went on to work for IBM, and my mate is head of technology for the BBC. It all started with 8 bit computers.
Wow, look at that small motherboard! There is SO little on there. I'm assuming that is how they got the price down for the targeted market.
That cart is the way to go for present day owners. I love it.
Yeah - there really isnt much going on with everything mooshed into the ULA
Love the t-shirt, though the pager should say "Grande Central Station" ;)
Quite a neat little machine. Side I/O echos today’s laptop design!
The Electron may not be the most technologically advanced machine, but IMHO it is one of the best looking 8 bit micros.
The sounds that device he was loading the game from sounded like the old Nintendo "Game & Watch"
Trolled by the period key
Probably already been mentioned, but Lode Runner on the Apple 2 looked smoother and if anything faster than the one shown here. I loved that you could fit 150 levels on a 140Kb floppy disc.
Toss up between Lode Runner and Ultima 3 for my favourite Apple 2 game...
I do remember playing with a BBC micro at a summer school back in the early 80's, but never heard of the Elk back then.
Awesome vid Lurchy :) very cool little beast
you're right about the BBC Micros, they were school computers when they came out, if someone had one at home they were loaded, cos they cos big money for the time.
This first computer I ever got to touch was a BBC model B, Mr Pearman was the teacher, and he'd sit there with the basic manual on his lap, and we all learned at the same time.
The ELK... It's the first computer I owned. I was about 8 when I got it from my parants and this was in '88 so it was already a while on the market, but it was my first 'real' computer. I eventualy had a plus 1 and a plus 3 jammed into it. With both these expansions, it was a very capable machine, maybe a bit bulky, but capable. With the plus one, you could even attach a printer to it...
And I agree with you, it's a fun little machine.
Nice one. British computing was impressive in the early 80s.
An Electron is definitely on my wish list. Never used one, but spent plenty of time playing Chuckie Egg on the Beeb!
I believe there is a better version of Elite going round. They updated the drawing routine, in stead of first removing all lines and then redraw them they remove and draw each line after the other. This results in a screen that doesn't flicker as much and is nicer to the eye.
Jam in all new ceramic 104 caps!
Great to see an Elk in your collection Jason! Nice example that! (Need to get me an ELK128SD at some point... have a byteone joystick adaptor that just crashes mine). What's the pole position Clone? 🤔
Overdrive (it just occured to me that I didnt actually the name :D )
The red and white stripes on the power capacitor are quite sporty. I bet those make it go at least 5% faster.
thats the makers, Astec, model label 😉 they also did the BBC PSUs.... and at least some Apple 2 machines
Great Video as always, Id love to get a Beeb but living in the US, yeah like Ill ever see one, the Elk though I do kinda like it bait more, it is literally like the simplified home version of the 1337 beast you use at school. but again like ill ever see one lol.
Acorn key switches are good quality like the rest of the machine. Nothing a bit of switch cleaner on the stalk won't fix.
Yup - Ill go through it with some cleaner in the next day or so. It only became an issue whilst trying to wrap up filming
Nice little machine.
Wish I had one.
I remember getting the Electron at Christmas when they came out. This was the first computer we had, hours and hours playing Arcadians and same with Elite when that came out. I did soon start to notice though the limitations against the beeb, alot of my friends has the speccy and commodore which blew it out of the water and made me quite sa . Still though invested in buying the plus1 upgrade and a citizen 9 pin dot matrix printer and getting more and more frustrated that the local computer store never stocked a compatible joystick (did eventually manage to get one) but every other make and brand had anything and everything available under the sun. Eventually sent it to a pal in Germany to tinker with.
Great video sir!
Nice little machine, I like that it has a proper keyboard.
I picked up a Oric Atmos, same thing keyboard wise, however I know of no XD etc adapter, so mine just sits there.
I love my Electron for the same reasons. It's so simple, inside and out. Also really like the pure white aesthetic. It's classy.
no, they werent 'pure white' 😉
@@andygozzo72 Yes, watching that RMC clip again in this video, I wondered if Neil hadn't been mistaken about the colour himself.
I did most of the programming for my BSc Computer Science on an Electron I bought cheaply (ex-display unit) so I could work in halls and then test on the BBC B B units in the computer labs. Mine is an Iss. 6, with the blob chip ULA. Still works pretty well,. The Plus 1 (or the Slogger ROMbox+) is worth getting, since that opens up the ability to use a modern version of the Tube processor.
I can heartily recommend the ElkSD128. I've had most of the iterarions of the ElkSD series, and they've always been great.
Chucky Egg, Killer Gorilla & Frogger were my go-to games.. Its still all in my parents loft, although I`m pretty sure the PSU was knackered...
getting a new PSU shouldnt be hard. I know a lot of people just use a decent amp 12v DC Laptop PSU.
I borrowed one of these from a friend many years ago and I took the casing and keyboard off it just out of curiosity (without him knowing) to see the inner workings of it. I connected everything back up apart from the keyboard and powered it on. It didn't work anymore. My friend didn't take it lightly that the computer stopped working when he came to pick it up.
I found out in later years (watching certain CZcams videos), that if the keyboard isn't connected, it doesn't even attempt to boot. If anyone can back this up then that will explain where I went wrong.
In Jetpac your meant to collect the rocket parts and fly over the 🚀 on the ground then they'll fall down automatically once you collect all of the 🚀 then you collect the fuel once filled up you fly to the 🚀 and will fly off to the next level. You start the same process all over again you can shoot the enemies coming at you.
Now sure how I missed it, but I didn't even know there was a modern port of Jetpac for the Elk. I usually play it on the Speccy, as it's one of my favourite Speccy games.
totally get what you're saying about Elk vs Beeb. What is worth checking out though is the Beeb version of Repton as the soundtrack is brilliant. Across all versions
I had no idea there were so many Elk games about!
Apparently there were more games released for the Elk than the Beeb. There were over 1000 games released for the Elk back in the day, and there is still a handful of very prolific developers (Snuggsy, 0xCODE, Tricky and a couple of others whose names escape me) that are putting out either brand new games or ports of old ones.
@@OzRetrocomp I'm blown away! Thanks for the feedback.
Had one of these years ago, with the PlusOne add on and the disk interface with a rom pack and a speech synth. Used it to pass my GCSE's. Loved the BBC Basic and the assembler. Till the ULA died.
You gotta play Exile if you have a Beeb or Electron, helluva game.
I'm glad you like the Electron so much! I had one of these back in the mid 80s and spent many, many, happy hours playing games and programming on it. I think my favourite games were Gisburne's Castle, Repton, and Thrust to name a few. The BBC basic on it is excellent with a built-in 6502 assembly language compiler. I put mine in the loft some time around 1990(ish) but when I got it back down again a couple of years ago it was dead. My guess is that the ULA had failed. I tried to source a replacement but they're as rare as hen's teeth! I reluctantly sold it on eBay in the end. I now have a BBC Micro but will always have a soft spot for the Acorn Electron.
Bugger... the thing with the Electron's ULA is that sometimes it's the socket that's the problem and not the chip. Sometimes a fix is as easy as reseating the ULA.
@@OzRetrocomp yeah I tried that, several times, no luck I'm afraid 😞.
@@trance_trousers dang... at least you didn't let it go without trying first!
I think these were picked up mainly for the excellent BBC Basic. I certainly asked my mum for one as a child for that reason, then became a programmer as an adult. Anyone else do something similar?
Interesting video, I remember using the BBC Micro but can’t remember using the Electron.
The Acorn Electron was my first computer back when I was 6 years old. I read and learned everything I could about it from the included manual set (which I wore out completely twice). I still have four of them with lots of expansion accessories.
Those switches are usually Futaba Linears and can be cracked open and thoroughly cleaned up. The legs twist out like a screw with pliers and are silver plated so will likely be black inside by now. Don’t bend the spring contacts or they’ll never work right again.
That's good to know. The keyboard on my Elk is now working (it wasn't when I got it), but stripping down the keyswitches and cleaning them could be a fun weekend project.
@@OzRetrocomp yes but if I were you, I’d buy a few key switches and only work on the ones that aren’t working. Then just replace the ones that can’t be recovered.
These switches may have stood the test of time but they’re not made any more and I haven’t found a single alternative so we’re at the stage of cannibalisation or major engineering.
Remember, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
@@Jenny_Digital Thanks for the heads up. I think I'll leave them be.
@@OzRetrocomp You could go half way by pulling a key cap and squirting Deoxit down key stem, hitting it fast and furious for a minute or two, that’s nice and easy and above all safe.
very nice video, first time viewer and will return ;)
5:33: "...a chip that is basically irreplaceable..."
Could you do a video on a retro build using a P3 or P4 machine, I've recently purchased a P4 system and I'm after ideas for a build? Love your videos, keep up the good work mate :)
My first ever computer
I saw you struggling with Lode Runner and was wondering why you didn't dig holes to trap the enemies.
At the start, you say how the Beeb is a serious business machine, and yeah. I've personally never seen one outside of a school and they cost £800, there's not many people gonna splash that much cash for a games machine for the kids, hence why the Elk was born in the first place as Acorn wanted a piece of the Speccy's market.
"..30 year old gravy" lol
Chuckie Egg and Repton are classic beeb games. For the Elk may I recommend Dare Devil Denis? It was very popular with schoolies in the computer club back in the day. Very simple game, even girls can play it.
Try playing Electrobots and also Galaforce, even though the latter is much better on the BBC Micro.
I'd add Elementum to the list of "must play" Elk (and Beeb) games.
cant see on the video but whats the date code on the modulator?? i've had 3 electrons and all seem to have had their modulators replaced, theyre date coded well after manufacture of the machine was discontinued, so maybe they had a bad batch???
just subbed :) - good to see you know the bald guy and are also bald and do videos like this :)
Thank you for sharing your experience. I was thinking about getting an Elk but my impression is it is just another machine with the same games I already know from my Speccy... But I have to admit that it is quite attractive from a hardware standpoint. But what I liked best about this video is you failing in all those games. Looks like your even worse than me at games. ;-)
I'm probably worse at games than either of you ;)
DOOD!
Funny how iPads are related to that.
I’ve got a bbc master but this is so much better looking that that ugly thing, but I love it none the less, but come on, the b and master swing on the ugly tree.
'crisp white electron', er, no they were never 'white' i remember them when they came out, definitely 'cream' 😉
But why?
I wonder why so many British and European computers play their audio through a tiny built-in speaker, while virtually all American computers play it through the TV or monitor speaker. It's a shame to have such decent graphics matched up to such poor sound.
Cheaper RF modulators?
@@MrLurchsThings Maybe, but other UK systems like the Dragon were able to do audio through the RF modulator. Perhaps they were thinking "we're trying to compete with the Spectrum, so let's make our audio sound just as crappy as it"!
@@vwestlife The speakers weren't actually bad on the Acorn machines. One reason why they didn't pipe the audio through the RF signal might be that the machines have other display options, as shown in this video, and so you wouldn't get any sound if you were using the RGB or composite outputs. I used the composite output quite a bit with an amber monitor back in the day, and RGB monitors were used widely in places like schools. It might have been nice with a headphone socket, though.
i never seen the Acorn Elektron...The games are nice ,,but i dont like the sound ..Looks like they gave them a nice Keyboard...Nice Computer..
rename it .gz and see if it auto uncompressed. cool video.