The BBC B, the first computer I ever used in the workplace, a couple of years after leaving that job I bought a BBC Master, loved these old computers...
The BBC Micro and Acorn Archimedes were the standard computing platform in the Tasmanian state education system from the 1980s through to the mid-1990s. Even as 286 and 386 DOS - and occasionally Windows 3.1 - systems became more commonplace the BBC Model Bs and Master Compacts were still in use for teaching programming. BBC BASIC definitely was the best BASIC! ;-) Thanks for the great video. It’s remarkable just how open and flexible these systems were.
The BBC B is one of my favourite computers. I've had mine for decades, and picked up a couple back when nobody wanted them. I always loved the fact their BASIC and machine code seemed extremely logical to me, and it's no surprise the architecture to it's langauge is so similar to what PCs became.
80186 trivia: The Unisys ICON computer, made specifically for schools here in Ontario, Canada used the 80186 too. It was the result of a BBC-like computer program, and after the program had run its course and the computers were considered obsolete, they were rounded up and destroyed. Barely any survived, so it's exceedingly rare even here.
That's really a shame that they where destroyed, I guess they did not think about their histroic value. It does explain why I have never seen one. I did not know they where based around a 186.
In my first programming job we used the Unisys (or Burroughs as it was then) B20/25 systems, which were originally designed by Convergent Technologies (CT). My first machine there was the earlier B21, which used the 8086 and the B25 used the 80186 or which we had several (these were the same as the CT NGEN systems). The BTOS (and later CTOS) operating systems were like a much improved DOS and their command line interface was vastly better than MS-DOS (or CP/M). They also solved the problems around segmented memory addressing on the early x86s far earlier than Microsoft ever did.
Funny how the 80186 keeps showing up in such projects - the Compis/Scandis system was also a result of a BBC like program(but in Sweden), and coincidentally also used the 80186. It even had the networking/fileshare capability much like the BBC/Econet stuff.
The Master is my favorite computer, no contest. For all of it's primitiveness (to modern eyes at least) it has a class that sets it apart from other machines. And there's an elegance to it's technical design that still surprises me now, as i discover more of what lies beneath it's iconic beige, black and red exterior. But then, I am somewhat biased to love it, like many british children, it was the first computer I ever used. And like many british nerds, it was the first computer I learned to bend to my will!
Even though I spent many years as a kid with my BBC (I wanted a C64 or spectrum, but my Dad got me it because it was what the schools were using... 😒😏 lol), I did really get into it, bought the 'Input' weekly magazines (built up all four binders) and inputted the programs they printed. Played 'Elite' a lot, and I did a lot more with it. Some time later my Dad then bought the 'Viglen PC Kit' for it, and installed a couple of 5 1/4 floppies (which helped as loading from tape... SHEESH! lol. He then taught me about PC's (as he was bringing IBM PC XT's and AT's to work on.... Oh them were the days! I DON'T regret my Dad getting the 'Beeb' in the end.. 😏 😎🇬🇧
My Master 512 was still alive and well last time I turned it on... But that was 15 years ago! I also had a Viglen 28MB (yes, megabyte) Winchester which I remember costing me £620. Still, it got me through my computing degree after which it was 1987 so I bought an Archimedes. Loved the Master though, so wouldn't part with it, even if it did spend 80% of its time in bbc mode.
I remember having to "park" the heads on the PC 20Mb Drive we had for a x086 (would imagine the same had to be done for the BBC if you wanted to move the unit)
All 186-based computers were at most "IBM-compatible-ish". This is because some of the I/O ports that mapped to standard PC devices and chips in the PC, mapped to different on-chip devices in the 186, preventing the building of a fully PC-compatible, 186-based computer. We had a few of these in the USA, too, most notably the Tandy 2000 from Radio Shack, but also the Mindset, a computer with Amiga-like graphical capabilities intended for video production (and released a year before the Amiga!).
That Star command and the file stuff with an echonet network would have been a game changer at this point. This would have actually been a god tier computer for certain use cases.
Its a shame acorn could not push the networking side of things more, it seems there was just not enough poeple who really understood what you could do with networking to drive the demand.
You got in my recommendations. Instant subscribe for "many of you probably know about CP/M's significance" so you can just pour much more interesting details and not get lost in yet another ibm/ms/digital research retelling thanks! lots of interesting facts well presented!
Same here although I'd go as far as say I love my massively expanded BBC Master and my massively expanded Amiga 1200 equally as I could never choose one over the other.
I've learned a lot. This explains why BBC Basic became available for DOS. It also explains what the TUBE is and how it was instrumental in the development of the ARM processor. It's so amusing that the Raspberry PI has found it's way back onto the TUBE where it's ancestor was created.
We had RM Nimbus PC's at school in the early 90's. Supposed to be used for 'Business studies' classes but were mostly used for file swapping nude or bikini BMP or JPEG picson floppies amongst ourselves whilst the teacher played solitaire on an Amstrad luggable laptop.
@@RetroBytesUK funny enough my school ran two RM nimbus networks, ( one got put back on line funny enough) They were only used for maths and french, Maths program was called smile.
@Caeser Romero, i remember when the class, crashed the RM Nimbus network, by keep restarting the machines, to the point the server got pissed off, and just froze.
Thanks for this video, I've learnt a lot from this. I grew up with a Model B which was later upgraded to have Acorn DFS and a 5.25" floppy drive connected. Now, I've got my BBC Master and it's got a PiTUBE like you've explained but I've added more. It's got a multi-OS switcher allowing me to choose between FOUR different operating systems (OS1.2, OS2.0, MOS3.2 and MOS3.5 - each selection comes with a specific set of built-in ROMs), I've got a Gotek (modded with dual line OLED screen, piezzo buzzer and rotary encoder) in an external 3.5" case from an old Amiga disk drive, two battery backed-up SRAM carts, Lancs Assembler v1.6 on EPROM in slot #8 (I do have EXMON II) and a "DataCentre External" from RetroClinic giving me SSD/DSD file access via USB sticks as well as a 2GB hard drive. Yes, that's a TWO GIGABYTE hard drive on a BBC Master comprised of four drives (0-3) each 512MB! I've chucked loads of stuff on there replacing the default games menu with a version I've written using BASIC and 6502 as well as heaps of games and ROM images and I've only got just under 7MB full. This is a monster of a machine now, just wish I could enjoy it as much as I would like to but grown up has got in the way. I also own two microswitched ZipStick joysticks for this machine and still prefer to use the keyboard controls I grew up to know and love.
I appreciate the soundtrack! You put Django and Grapelli playing "Minor Swing" in there! Thanks! And.. I did play around with the BBC (B-model) back then - the fastest BASIC interpretor at that time! I spent more time doing BASIC programs on this than on the C64. The turning point for me was the sound capabilities, so I stuck with the commodore, went with Amiga and then we all know what happened after then 🙂
I grew up with a Model A 32K (because Bs were like rocking horse sh*t at the time), first major soldering I did was making it into a full B. Then upgraded the OS to 1.2, added sideways ram, floppy controller (the rare 8271) before it gained a 1770 too (with switch for backward compatibility). I think I might have it somewhere in the attic, but it also might have got thrown out :'( I did my school O level computer science project in 6502 assembler written inline in BBC Basic. At college they taught Pascal on CP/M on Z80 second processor equipped BBC Micros. I've used the PC BBC Basic in anger on PCs, it's where I learnt 8086 assembler too.
The more I've learned about the BBC Micro, I must say it had some admirable design elements. This coming from an American who's used and programmed computers since about 1982, and has been a fan of Atari computers for many years. Speaking of which, Atari computers had a CP/M expansion available from SWP Microcomputer Products, called the ATR8000. It was a whole separate box that had a Z80 CPU, its own memory, and I/O ports for adding industry-standard disk drives, modems, and printers. The way it worked was it turned the Atari into an 80-column terminal into the ATR box, which was accessed through the Atari's SIO port. This allowed Atarians to run CP/M, and compatible software. Though, with such expansions, one could easily wonder, "Why not just buy a whole separate CP/M machine," since all it really lacked was a keyboard and display hardware. I looked at some sample BBC Basic recently that showed it had much higher-resolution graphics capabilities than the other 8-bit computers I knew from the era, while still being able to display multiple colors. I've looked at GW-Basic on the PC, and it looks to me like BBC Basic is comparable in features. Thanks for covering the topic of "PC-compatible-ish." I remember those PCs, and I didn't understand the point of them at the time, "Why get a 'PC-compatible' if you can't be confident it will work with all PC software?" Your explanation helped me understand why they existed (they had Intel hardware, just not exact to that of the PC), and the appeal of such a machine, particularly if you had a list of compatible software, so you could assess whether it was the right choice for you. Once the PC BIOS was reverse-engineered, though, all bets on "PC-compatible-ish" were off, because why bother?
The Swedish educational computer 'Compis' used the 186 and ran CP/M-86. It was quite a nice machine actually. Looks like the BBC + PC add-on is a bit of kit that very nearly ended up being better than the sum of their parts.
I loved my BBC micro. I nodded it. It had a toggle switch on the back that allowed you to switch between the 1700 and the 8271 iirc.. I used to use it with an 2m FT290 to run packet radio... The forerunner to the internet kind of... Happy days.. Oh and Frak! Chuckie Egg and Castle quest were cool too .. And I never did master Elite!!
Handy mod. I would have really liked to use packet radio back then. AX.25 and RTTY fascinated me back then well it still does now, but I don't have a ham license, or the time to get one.
@@RetroBytesUK it felt very pioneering back then.. I think the Ham licence is not too difficult to obtain these days. I have used it off an on for the past 42 years (I feel old!!). You should give it a look see... Analogue.. it's the future 😂😂
I agree - only really compiled BASIC like Blitz (Amiga) I felt were worthy. I use Blitz to this day on PC, but all the knowledge I gained from BBC BASIC is the basis still.
1:36 Not only was it first in a BBC machine, the A in ARM stands for Acorn, Acorn RISC Machine originally :D The story about the development of it is fascinating, there are CZcams videos floating around. The interview with Paul Fellows(lead engineer) is excellent on The Retro Shack channel, he couldn't believe the efficiency. There's also a good one with Steve Furber
Paul is a very interesting chap. He was one of the first few developers at Acornsoft writting Sphinx Adventure. After acornsoft was folded into Acorn he led the team writing ArthurOS which for verison 2 was renamed RiscOS. After Acorn he when on to write the firmware for all the Amino set top boxes (hence their firmware has a !boot file that starts it). He then went on to create the home smart thermostate Hive, which is now owned by british gas.
@@RetroBytesUK He is indeed! I love hearing him tell stories about his past and all the weird and wonderful things he's been a part of over the years. There are some brilliant interviews and such. He's a fascinating fellow!
I'm quite into retro tech but this video was very informative - I never knew such a thing existed for any micro. heady stuff for the time. Glad I was alive through the micro boom, great memories
Excellent look at the BBC M512 and its' DOS compatibility. I would have given this multiple thumbs up, but CZcams only allows for the single thumbs up. Thank you for giving us this video. :)
When I first went to school, our computer lab consisted of 1 BBC B, 13 (can't remember whether it was 13, 14 or 15) Research Machines 480Zs, and one RML 380Z. The 380Z was a file/print server and had a green screen monitor. The 480Zs and BBC had Microvitec Cubs monitors (which had an amazing picture). At some point, they upgraded the computer room, and in my 6th form, we had RML Nimbuses. I think "ish" describes their PC compatibility quite well..
Always interested to see any content about the 'beeb'. After the Commodore PET, this was the 2nd computer I had. I still have 2 model B machines and a Master 128, all recapped and in perfect working order, with the Pi zero 2nd co-pro installed and Gotek drives, plus various other enhancements.
I recently bought a restored Master 128. I've started trying to design a Yamaha FM sound card cartridge for it. Because the master needs more cartridges.
I enjoyed the video, I had a 512 board when I was younger although the Master was a family machine, I did do a bit of programming in C on the machine using a free C compiler that was on one of the cover discs of a PC magazine at the time (and to clarify it was not the GNU C compiler, it could have been a version of Small C though). In later years, I have ended up with a Torch Graduate, which is the IBM compatibleish second processor from Torch for the BBC micro and this did run MS-DOS 2.0. We did have a Acorn Cambridge Workstation which was basically the BBC Micro main board, the 32016 second processor and a monitor. Sadly I think the capacitors have blown on this machine, so it is not in current working order. Acorn also sold a version of this second processor for the Master as the Master Scientific.
I've had a play with the 32016 thanks to pi tube direct. I've always wanted to lay my hand and on a cambridge workstation, but given how few acorn sold I doubt I ever will.
I have understood that the 186 was more or less planned as an 8086 code-compatible microcontroller, and not so much as a computer processor. The following 286 and later cpu's were then better equipped for 8086 compatibility. But maybe I'm wrong.
Great video, even though I still like and use DOS, yours is the only video I've watched :) I did see a few 186s back in the 90s driving sound boards in pinball tables. I wonder why no one added a sound driver; I guess because that was directly accessed too. I assume that all of the "legally" written BBC micro basic programs would also run on the DOS side, although would they have needed copying as text (*spool, list, *type I guess).
I did not check if it could read tokenized basic files. That's somthing for me to try. I think pinball machines etc is alot closer the the use case intel had in mind for the 186 rather than running a PC.
This approach is very similar to what Commodore did with the PC Bridge Boards for the Big Box Amigas later, only they were really IBM compatible, not just compatible-ish. I saw a BBC Master in action at the Centre for Computing History in 2018, it had the Domesday software loaded. Was quite an experience.
Brilliant video! I'd like to add a master to my collection, it's a great machine I think and the Tube is really spectacular! But yeah, they're expensive.
I'm glad you covered this as I don't believe anyone else has covered it. I was waiting for Neil at RMC to do something on it but you beat him to it :)🙂
I had one of those, still do up in the loft somewhere. Bought the 186 board as an upgrade for my Beeb Master at a computer show. Had a lot of fun programming it in TurboPascal.
Oh nice, its only thanks to pi tube direct that I could try it. It's interesting to know what poeple used it for, so far most people who have left comments used it for software development.
great video.... i remember playing around on the nimbus in school... of course i'm of the age when you got really excited when they wheeled in the beeb in primary school, not to mention when they pulled out a big sheet of paper and you got to play with the turtle and logo :D :D as a matter of course, i did my 5th form computer project for the gcse in BBC basic. it was basically a copy of ceefax for the school but as a slide show all in MODE7 of course .... all run from a BBC B that I had at home. then i moved it over to the school and had it pulling the slides from the 380Z file server with it running on the RM 480Z machines with their version of bbc basic :D..... yes i was a nerd... i still am... but i was a nerd that actually had admin access to the 380Z server and helped the computer teacher in the breaks running stuff for other kids, even had me teaching a couple of lessons by the end of the year lol
Well... Any computer model sold to a private person, is basically a Personal Computer. Smartphones are personal computers as well. But what the BBC micro was not, is an IBM Personal Computer.
yep even a zx80 is a pc. A personal computer does not need anything to do with IBM :) At least back then before pc became slang for IBM compatible. Ok I am sure retrobytes knows this :)
@@chessoc7799 True. Vic20 was sold as "The personal computer for the 80's". So IBM jumped on the Personal Computer wagon, and ultimately it was shortened to PC. In a brief time periode, game boxed referred to generic computers as IBM Clones as well, and now IBM is out of this market. Heck, even a Mac is a PC in this sence. And yes, that statement pisses off Macintosh sheep's. Personally I use a PC with Intel and Linux, and as Intel plus Windows are named Wintel, then do I not use a "Lintel" machine? Or "Intux". What do you think?
The main BBC CPU _also_ did not have to share access with graphics. Sophie Wilson designed it so that the RAM ran at twice the clock speed of the CPU, enabling the graphics hardware to access said RAM on alternating cycles with the CPU. Bloody cleverly designed machine, it was!
I clearly did not explain this part of the video sufficiently well, as your the 2nd person to mention this. I'm aware of the tick tock system for ram access. The point I made about the 2nd 6502 cpu was supposed to illustrate that the 2nd 6502 could be clocked close to the rams true access time, as there is no graphic access needed on the alternate cycles. Sophie's design for the BBC was predicated on the cpu being clocked at half that of the rams access speed, with nothing else needing to access ram that limit is lifted. So the CPU does not need to be limited to 2mhz, the only ceiling now is limit of how fast a 6502 can be clocked (upto the 4mhz ram bandwidth) which was 3mhz (for the part selected). Its also not true to say ram bandwidth is not shared as it is, Sophie's design cleverly avoids any contention over access. This avoided having to any hardware to police ram access, it was a very elegant soloution.
@@RetroBytesUK in order to not BS you… yes, you definitely did. _But_ you also worded things comedically enough that I subscribed. So what is the _real_ crime here? 🤔
@@RetroBytesUK The downside was cost: getting your hands on RAM that fast wasn't easy. That, and the Beeb's 6502 was clocked on the very edge of what was possible for it, which lead to some interesting issues with the bus, requiring a bodge with some resistors, though nobody could explain _why_ the bodge worked!
Back in the 80's I had a thing called a BBC Master Compact. Bought by somebody because they thought we could use it to control electronic kits. If I remember right there was a operating program called Nimbus too. It never worked beyond a bit of typing. Not only that but nobody else had ever heard of any of it.
Crikey I remember them Winchester suitcases from school. We had them in the Computer suite with the BBC's. They weren't even called Hard Drives back then they were Winchester drives, A bit like how we call vaccuums Hoovers or 4x4 's Jeeps, when not all vaccuums and 4x4 are Hoover or Jeep.
Going to get BBC DOS for Windows and see if I can remember how to do the Gas Bill program I wrote at School way back in 1984/85 - This was for a CSE Computing exam.
The PiTube is interesting. I wonder how easy it would be to get hardware emulated that the BBC never had, like the AdLib card and have sound come out of the Pi itself over HDMI or the audio jack on the bigger Pis. Could you emulate a 486 in there? Doom has to run on everything, right?
Seeing Defender of the Crown made do a combination of smile and shrink back in terror. Loved that game, but man, being dual tape(I had it for C64) meant you'd either be stuck in loading hell or would have to plan your game out VERY carefully. It'd load the main game into RAM permanently from tape 1 side A, then whenever you wanted to do a raid, tournament or siege, you'd have to load the mini-game from either side B of tape one, or either side of tape two, which could take upwards of two minutes in some cases.
BBC BASIC became the root of all future BASICs, including Microsoft's. Although if you're going to sing the praises of BBC BASIC, credit really should be going to Sophie Wilson. Who also wrote MOS and ARM.
Outrun for MS DOS didn't support a soundcard of any manner. The glitch you're seeing is likely related to a timing error as it set up the PC speaker for music, ie bleeps and bloops.
Acorn made a GUI for the compact, that came on the welcome disk, but its not compatible with GEM and uses the 6502, which meant you could run it on a regular Master 128. Saddly that UI was a bit of a deadend as I don't think acorn made any further software for it. Unfortunetly the Compact is the only Acorn machine after the BBC that you can't add a tube port to. Even the electron has a tube interface cartridge, but no one as produced anything for the compact. There is an edge connector, but I remember someone saying that connector was missing some of the signals needed to implement the tube, also the tube code is missing from its rom, so it would need a new OS rom.
@@RetroBytesUK At our school we definitely had PC DR DOS running on Acorns and GEM in some bundle, maybe it was the Master 512s in the lab and not the Compacts and I am remembering it the wrong way round. As soon as the first Amiga Trapdoor V30/8086 cards were advertised back then it reminded me of my school days and the 80186 equipped BBCs.....memory of that memory is all I have now :)
I always assumed the "PC compatible-ISH"ness of things like the Nimbus and the M512 was somewhat intentional, as both machines were intended mainly for the education market, and the fact that a lot of games wouldn't run on them was a definite selling point to teachers!
The 6502 in the BBC does not have to share bandwidth the hardware either. It's got such fast RAM one cycle goes to the CPU the other to the IO. The tube 6502 ran at 3Mhz, 50% more speed, but it also saved on graphics tasks and such. The computer has no accelerators, so it has to do everything itself. Letting one CPU do the app and one doing the drawing makes it quite a bit faster.
I should probably be a little more clear on this point I guess. Yes thats spot on in normal operation (with no 2nd cpu) memory access works on a tick-tock system. On the clocks tick the cpu access memory, on tock the gfx chip accesses memory. So the ram can be accessed at 4mhz and the cpu runs at 2mhz. So the cpu uses 50% of the memory's bandwidth.
Memory lane: Ventura Publisher on GEM on DOS, on 386 I think it was? (soon after, XPress on a slightly beefed-up Mac IIci just blew everything remotely comparable out of the water. My dad probably mortgaged my soul for that machine back then. :edit: not to mention a Radius Pivot A4, and -- drum roll -- a laser printer!)
I just say remember using one of these 30 years ago in primary school, I think by the mid 90s the school had chucked these for windows 3.0 machines, the very last time we used one, was in 1995, when you could program the turtle. From what i remember, we never got the turtle to work. That was the very last time i saw a working BBC, i suspect that when the school, did their end of year clear out, that went a long with the turtle. My secondary school still had a couple but they were never ever used at all, when i was there. They still used two RM nimbus networks for french and maths, Program called smile for maths, not sure what the french one was called. By the year 2000, the school was chucking all DOS based systems. By the time i left secondary school, Windows 95 was on the verge of been pushed over to windows 2000.
Its amazing how much things changed over such a relatively short window. Shame you never got to use a working turtle they where so much fun. I want to lay my hands on one, lets say for a video (I total want to play with one).
@@RetroBytesUK it would be great to actually see one working, i cannot remember ever seeing one working, i am sure we watched a video on programming it. I know we used to use the education programs on the bbc, The teacher used to set some word program on it and we would take turns to go on it, i remember the paint program too. ( only just mind lol). I know the school only had a 4 BBC computers at the time.
@@procta2343 Our school had one, we did not get to use it very often. You would get to write you bit of logo code, then run it on the BBC with the real turtle as opposed to the on screen turtle.
I'm using a HDMI upscaler connected via a scart to rgb cable. The upscaler is then connected to a fairly generic USB HDMI capture device. Some of the footage is from Beebem capturedwith obs, as I did not want to format the dos hard drive file on my BBC Master.
@RetroBytes I've spent a small fortune trying to get VGA to HDMI, almost all the devices I've found will only take some specific resolutions, none will show a bios/post screen.. So this is an analog -> hdmi upscaler that takes rgb scart? Interesting! I should try that!
@@RetroBytesUK Oh, so you're actually using a scart hdmi upscaler and an rgb cable? neat! Okay then I can see how it's possible, that'd not work with at VGA resolutions though, would it?
There was a 286 version I think there really where not very many of those at all, almost all the units shipped where 186. The reason it shows up as 286 in the footage, is that I am using pi-tube to act as my second cpu and it emulates a 286.
I still use BBC BASIC - BBC BASIC for Windows. I did some fairly complex programs on my Archimedes and kick myself for not keeping them to run on my PC !
There may have been a bit of that. I supsect part of the idea behind it was about positioning the BBC in schools as a posible PC, to help keep some of the PC vendors out.
They had a design for a machine that they called the proton, which had not made it to production yet. That design was altered a bit to fit the spec the BBC had put out. That updated design won the contract and became the BBC Micro.
The Crown's obsession with controlling major technologies through state education and law will never make sense to me. Neat tools though, I almost wish we had something similar states-side.
UK did very well in the 80s with homegrown micros. BBC decided to jump on the trend and make a TV programme about them. It wasn't a sinister thing. Like a lot of science and tech, the UK had an early lead and then was wiped out when the mighty USA got into gear ... But it wasn't wasted, the 80s generation are still using those computer skills today.
Keep an eye out for the Torch Graduate. The Graduate connects to an unexpanded ( ie no DFS ) BBC Model B via the 1MHz bus rather than the Tube interface. 256k of RAM, but you could, with a lot of patience and a desolder pump, upgrade it to 512K. 8088 CPU with a socket for an 8087, two 5 1/4" floppies, two 8 bit ISA slots. It came with MS-DOS 2.1, but would run 3.3 or even DR DOS 4.x ( as supplied with the Amstrad PC1640 ) The CPU could be, and should be, replaced with an NEC V20. Adding in an 8087 was a waste of time and money. The ISA slots would take an ST506 host card, but it wouldn't boot from a hard drive. Once booted from a floppy, the hard drive was visible. Boot ROMs seemed to be ignored. The supplied software included a suite from Psion called Perfect Works. Compared to the Inter series from Computer Concepts, Perfect Works was abysmal. Graphics support was, err, hmm. Nope. Not really.. Terminal graphics requiring programs such as Norton or Migent Ability worked, but that's about it. Slow. That 1MHz bus ain't no Tube. The keyboard differences were annoying, but if no DOS disc was inserted, the BBC would boot as normal, but it now had twin disc drives to play with. Compatibility with DFS for read/write/format was spot on, but any program using DFS calls would fail. Total dead end, but if you like lame-duck hardware, hunt one down. We got one in for evaluation where we tried to like it, but decided it was pants compared to an Amstrad PC1640, which was only a few £ more than the Graduate.We tried to return it, but were told we could keep it. I ended up with it when we had a cupboard clear out. No-one else wanted it. The Torch Graduate was a dead end. Interesting concept, good execution, but ultimately, a bit shit.
@@RetroBytesUK Torch made some very high quality products for the BBC micro. Their Z80 CP/M processor was very good indeed, and they made a BBC - CP/M hybrid with twin floppies or a floppy and 20MB drive. The monitor they chose for it was the 12" Microvitec Hi-Res ( ha! ), which is worth finding. They made a metal cased twin floppy unit too. Built like a brick dunny. Their Winchester was half the ( physical ) size of the Acorn offering, and half the cost per MB. The Graduate was shockingly shyte to use compared to their CP/M system ( which beat the pants off the Acorn Z80 ), but their Z80 board didn't work on the Master. Luckily the Master 512 had good CP/M compatibility. Torch also made a Unix-a-like called the Unicorn. For its day, it was OK, and by far the cheapest way to obtain a Unix-a-like system at the time. Extremely well built, but sold like cold shit sandwiches don't. Well worth acquiring if you should ever come across one. Man, the more Acorn Master videos I watch, the more I miss mine. I had a 512 and Winchester, but rarely bothered with DOS. Having all the games on the HDD was fun. I genuinely believe the Master was the pinnacle of 8-bit computers. Whack a Computer Concepts MEGA-ROM in, with Inter-Spell and it'd run rings round a basic PC running MS-Works or Migent Ability for work machine.
I've not tried, but given its DOS 2.0 compatible and works with CGA there is a good chance it would at least work partly. If it uses its own mouse and keyboard drivers that would probably not work properly. If someone developed drivers for it then it would probably work more or less fully.
The jump from 6502 to 80186 was such a relief. 8 bits are just stupid, a byte should have been 16 bits right from the start. Every 8 bit computer requires two memory locations to store the address of one memory location. Why? Because 8 bits alone are useless!!!
You're right its not 100% compatible with all BBC-B software it is compatible with 100% of OS legally written software. Most of the software that was in the it did not work with the master category, either got updated versions which where, or someone in the community patched them into working. These days there is a very small quantity of software that does not work with the master (not that is was a particular large number when the master was lunched).
So the 80186 is a bit of an odd ball CPU as it was designed as an embedded CPU for industrial control applications etc, rather than as a general CPU for use in micro computers, it was released at the same time as the 80286 so it was not a fore runner to it. Intel designed it as an x86 compatible industrial control chip, but its not completely compatible with the chips that went before it unlike the 286. IBM never produced a model of the IBM PC using it they went from 8088 to 80286. So there are plenty of people who don't count the 186 as part of the x86 family of processors. There where also a fair few applications that just did not work properly on it, due to it not being full compatible with the 8088.
The BBC B, the first computer I ever used in the workplace, a couple of years after leaving that job I bought a BBC Master, loved these old computers...
We used to call DR-DOS, Doctor Dos.
Wait… It’s not? LOL!
That was great though
We did indeed
I grew up in the Windows 98/XP era but whenever I read about DR DOS, that’s how I pronounced it lol
I still call it doctor does.
The BBC Micro and Acorn Archimedes were the standard computing platform in the Tasmanian state education system from the 1980s through to the mid-1990s. Even as 286 and 386 DOS - and occasionally Windows 3.1 - systems became more commonplace the BBC Model Bs and Master Compacts were still in use for teaching programming. BBC BASIC definitely was the best BASIC! ;-)
Thanks for the great video. It’s remarkable just how open and flexible these systems were.
I definitely agree with you about basic :-)
The BBC B is one of my favourite computers. I've had mine for decades, and picked up a couple back when nobody wanted them. I always loved the fact their BASIC and machine code seemed extremely logical to me, and it's no surprise the architecture to it's langauge is so similar to what PCs became.
80186 trivia: The Unisys ICON computer, made specifically for schools here in Ontario, Canada used the 80186 too. It was the result of a BBC-like computer program, and after the program had run its course and the computers were considered obsolete, they were rounded up and destroyed. Barely any survived, so it's exceedingly rare even here.
That's really a shame that they where destroyed, I guess they did not think about their histroic value. It does explain why I have never seen one. I did not know they where based around a 186.
In my first programming job we used the Unisys (or Burroughs as it was then) B20/25 systems, which were originally designed by Convergent Technologies (CT). My first machine there was the earlier B21, which used the 8086 and the B25 used the 80186 or which we had several (these were the same as the CT NGEN systems). The BTOS (and later CTOS) operating systems were like a much improved DOS and their command line interface was vastly better than MS-DOS (or CP/M). They also solved the problems around segmented memory addressing on the early x86s far earlier than Microsoft ever did.
Funny how the 80186 keeps showing up in such projects - the Compis/Scandis system was also a result of a BBC like program(but in Sweden), and coincidentally also used the 80186. It even had the networking/fileshare capability much like the BBC/Econet stuff.
The Master is my favorite computer, no contest. For all of it's primitiveness (to modern eyes at least) it has a class that sets it apart from other machines. And there's an elegance to it's technical design that still surprises me now, as i discover more of what lies beneath it's iconic beige, black and red exterior.
But then, I am somewhat biased to love it, like many british children, it was the first computer I ever used. And like many british nerds, it was the first computer I learned to bend to my will!
Even though I spent many years as a kid with my BBC (I wanted a C64 or spectrum, but my Dad got me it because it was what the schools were using... 😒😏 lol), I did really get into it, bought the 'Input' weekly magazines (built up all four binders) and inputted the programs they printed. Played 'Elite' a lot, and I did a lot more with it. Some time later my Dad then bought the 'Viglen PC Kit' for it, and installed a couple of 5 1/4 floppies (which helped as loading from tape... SHEESH! lol. He then taught me about PC's (as he was bringing IBM PC XT's and AT's to work on.... Oh them were the days! I DON'T regret my Dad getting the 'Beeb' in the end.. 😏
😎🇬🇧
My Master 512 was still alive and well last time I turned it on... But that was 15 years ago!
I also had a Viglen 28MB (yes, megabyte) Winchester which I remember costing me £620.
Still, it got me through my computing degree after which it was 1987 so I bought an Archimedes. Loved the Master though, so wouldn't part with it, even if it did spend 80% of its time in bbc mode.
That was a fantastic spec for a master back then, I kept hold of all my BBC’s too.
I remember having to "park" the heads on the PC 20Mb Drive we had for a x086 (would imagine the same had to be done for the BBC if you wanted to move the unit)
All 186-based computers were at most "IBM-compatible-ish". This is because some of the I/O ports that mapped to standard PC devices and chips in the PC, mapped to different on-chip devices in the 186, preventing the building of a fully PC-compatible, 186-based computer. We had a few of these in the USA, too, most notably the Tandy 2000 from Radio Shack, but also the Mindset, a computer with Amiga-like graphical capabilities intended for video production (and released a year before the Amiga!).
Good point about the I/O mapping on the 186.
That Star command and the file stuff with an echonet network would have been a game changer at this point. This would have actually been a god tier computer for certain use cases.
Its a shame acorn could not push the networking side of things more, it seems there was just not enough poeple who really understood what you could do with networking to drive the demand.
@@RetroBytesUK Comodore tried to licence Econet, in the early 80s, but Acorn said nope.
@@AndrewRoberts11 I did not know commodore approached them, that's somthing I need to find out more about.
You got in my recommendations. Instant subscribe for "many of you probably know about CP/M's significance" so you can just pour much more interesting details and not get lost in yet another ibm/ms/digital research retelling
thanks! lots of interesting facts well presented!
Thanks Chris, good of you to say.
What a beast of a machine. Second favourite to my Amiga 1200.
Same here although I'd go as far as say I love my massively expanded BBC Master and my massively expanded Amiga 1200 equally as I could never choose one over the other.
I've learned a lot. This explains why BBC Basic became available for DOS. It also explains what the TUBE is and how it was instrumental in the development of the ARM processor. It's so amusing that the Raspberry PI has found it's way back onto the TUBE where it's ancestor was created.
Does does feel like completing the circle.
_holds a tiny lion over a cliff_
We had RM Nimbus PC's at school in the early 90's. Supposed to be used for 'Business studies' classes but were mostly used for file swapping nude or bikini BMP or JPEG picson floppies amongst ourselves whilst the teacher played solitaire on an Amstrad luggable laptop.
Some how I doubt your school was the only one where that was the main use for the RM machines :-)
@@RetroBytesUK funny enough my school ran two RM nimbus networks, ( one got put back on line funny enough) They were only used for maths and french, Maths program was called smile.
@Caeser Romero, i remember when the class, crashed the RM Nimbus network, by keep restarting the machines, to the point the server got pissed off, and just froze.
Thanks for this video, I've learnt a lot from this. I grew up with a Model B which was later upgraded to have Acorn DFS and a 5.25" floppy drive connected. Now, I've got my BBC Master and it's got a PiTUBE like you've explained but I've added more. It's got a multi-OS switcher allowing me to choose between FOUR different operating systems (OS1.2, OS2.0, MOS3.2 and MOS3.5 - each selection comes with a specific set of built-in ROMs), I've got a Gotek (modded with dual line OLED screen, piezzo buzzer and rotary encoder) in an external 3.5" case from an old Amiga disk drive, two battery backed-up SRAM carts, Lancs Assembler v1.6 on EPROM in slot #8 (I do have EXMON II) and a "DataCentre External" from RetroClinic giving me SSD/DSD file access via USB sticks as well as a 2GB hard drive.
Yes, that's a TWO GIGABYTE hard drive on a BBC Master comprised of four drives (0-3) each 512MB! I've chucked loads of stuff on there replacing the default games menu with a version I've written using BASIC and 6502 as well as heaps of games and ROM images and I've only got just under 7MB full.
This is a monster of a machine now, just wish I could enjoy it as much as I would like to but grown up has got in the way.
I also own two microswitched ZipStick joysticks for this machine and still prefer to use the keyboard controls I grew up to know and love.
I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS - ESPECIALLY YOUR VOICE, ACCENT, DELIVERY! I'm American too but love the British accent and the computer talk.
I appreciate the soundtrack! You put Django and Grapelli playing "Minor Swing" in there! Thanks!
And.. I did play around with the BBC (B-model) back then - the fastest BASIC interpretor at that time! I spent more time doing BASIC programs on this than on the C64. The turning point for me was the sound capabilities, so I stuck with the commodore, went with Amiga and then we all know what happened after then 🙂
I think thats why Beebsid got created, us BBC users finally decided well we are going to have the cool sound chip too 😆
I grew up with a Model A 32K (because Bs were like rocking horse sh*t at the time), first major soldering I did was making it into a full B.
Then upgraded the OS to 1.2, added sideways ram, floppy controller (the rare 8271) before it gained a 1770 too (with switch for backward compatibility). I think I might have it somewhere in the attic, but it also might have got thrown out :'(
I did my school O level computer science project in 6502 assembler written inline in BBC Basic.
At college they taught Pascal on CP/M on Z80 second processor equipped BBC Micros.
I've used the PC BBC Basic in anger on PCs, it's where I learnt 8086 assembler too.
Did it get thrown out?
The more I've learned about the BBC Micro, I must say it had some admirable design elements. This coming from an American who's used and programmed computers since about 1982, and has been a fan of Atari computers for many years.
Speaking of which, Atari computers had a CP/M expansion available from SWP Microcomputer Products, called the ATR8000. It was a whole separate box that had a Z80 CPU, its own memory, and I/O ports for adding industry-standard disk drives, modems, and printers. The way it worked was it turned the Atari into an 80-column terminal into the ATR box, which was accessed through the Atari's SIO port. This allowed Atarians to run CP/M, and compatible software. Though, with such expansions, one could easily wonder, "Why not just buy a whole separate CP/M machine," since all it really lacked was a keyboard and display hardware.
I looked at some sample BBC Basic recently that showed it had much higher-resolution graphics capabilities than the other 8-bit computers I knew from the era, while still being able to display multiple colors.
I've looked at GW-Basic on the PC, and it looks to me like BBC Basic is comparable in features.
Thanks for covering the topic of "PC-compatible-ish." I remember those PCs, and I didn't understand the point of them at the time, "Why get a 'PC-compatible' if you can't be confident it will work with all PC software?" Your explanation helped me understand why they existed (they had Intel hardware, just not exact to that of the PC), and the appeal of such a machine, particularly if you had a list of compatible software, so you could assess whether it was the right choice for you.
Once the PC BIOS was reverse-engineered, though, all bets on "PC-compatible-ish" were off, because why bother?
I’ve been on edge since the Novell Netware video, really great!
The Swedish educational computer 'Compis' used the 186 and ran CP/M-86. It was quite a nice machine actually.
Looks like the BBC + PC add-on is a bit of kit that very nearly ended up being better than the sum of their parts.
I loved my BBC micro.
I nodded it. It had a toggle switch on the back that allowed you to switch between the 1700 and the 8271 iirc..
I used to use it with an 2m FT290 to run packet radio... The forerunner to the internet kind of...
Happy days..
Oh and Frak! Chuckie Egg and Castle quest were cool too ..
And I never did master Elite!!
Handy mod. I would have really liked to use packet radio back then. AX.25 and RTTY fascinated me back then well it still does now, but I don't have a ham license, or the time to get one.
@@RetroBytesUK it felt very pioneering back then..
I think the Ham licence is not too difficult to obtain these days.
I have used it off an on for the past 42 years (I feel old!!).
You should give it a look see...
Analogue.. it's the future 😂😂
@@G-Cam1 It's something I will do one day. I also want to play with the software defined radio stuff.
BBC BASIC is probably the best BASIC of the 8 bit era, and even well into the more advanced 16 bit era it holds its ground well!
Completely agree with you Ponder.
One of the many reasons Sophie Wilson is a legendary computer designer!
100%
I agree - only really compiled BASIC like Blitz (Amiga) I felt were worthy. I use Blitz to this day on PC, but all the knowledge I gained from BBC BASIC is the basis still.
I want to get into AMOS BASIC but need some spare time first ;)
1:36 Not only was it first in a BBC machine, the A in ARM stands for Acorn, Acorn RISC Machine originally :D
The story about the development of it is fascinating, there are CZcams videos floating around. The interview with Paul Fellows(lead engineer) is excellent on The Retro Shack channel, he couldn't believe the efficiency. There's also a good one with Steve Furber
Paul is a very interesting chap. He was one of the first few developers at Acornsoft writting Sphinx Adventure. After acornsoft was folded into Acorn he led the team writing ArthurOS which for verison 2 was renamed RiscOS. After Acorn he when on to write the firmware for all the Amino set top boxes (hence their firmware has a !boot file that starts it). He then went on to create the home smart thermostate Hive, which is now owned by british gas.
@@RetroBytesUK He is indeed! I love hearing him tell stories about his past and all the weird and wonderful things he's been a part of over the years. There are some brilliant interviews and such. He's a fascinating fellow!
I'm quite into retro tech but this video was very informative - I never knew such a thing existed for any micro. heady stuff for the time. Glad I was alive through the micro boom, great memories
It's the way the TUBE was the thing that spurred Acorn to develop the ARM processor which fascinates me.
Excellent look at the BBC M512 and its' DOS compatibility. I would have given this multiple thumbs up, but CZcams only allows for the single thumbs up.
Thank you for giving us this video. :)
When I first went to school, our computer lab consisted of 1 BBC B, 13 (can't remember whether it was 13, 14 or 15) Research Machines 480Zs, and one RML 380Z. The 380Z was a file/print server and had a green screen monitor. The 480Zs and BBC had Microvitec Cubs monitors (which had an amazing picture).
At some point, they upgraded the computer room, and in my 6th form, we had RML Nimbuses. I think "ish" describes their PC compatibility quite well..
Always interested to see any content about the 'beeb'. After the Commodore PET, this was the 2nd computer I had. I still have 2 model B machines and a Master 128, all recapped and in perfect working order, with the Pi zero 2nd co-pro installed and Gotek drives, plus various other enhancements.
I recently bought a restored Master 128.
I've started trying to design a Yamaha FM sound card cartridge for it.
Because the master needs more cartridges.
I enjoyed the video, I had a 512 board when I was younger although the Master was a family machine, I did do a bit of programming in C on the machine using a free C compiler that was on one of the cover discs of a PC magazine at the time (and to clarify it was not the GNU C compiler, it could have been a version of Small C though). In later years, I have ended up with a Torch Graduate, which is the IBM compatibleish second processor from Torch for the BBC micro and this did run MS-DOS 2.0. We did have a Acorn Cambridge Workstation which was basically the BBC Micro main board, the 32016 second processor and a monitor. Sadly I think the capacitors have blown on this machine, so it is not in current working order. Acorn also sold a version of this second processor for the Master as the Master Scientific.
I've had a play with the 32016 thanks to pi tube direct. I've always wanted to lay my hand and on a cambridge workstation, but given how few acorn sold I doubt I ever will.
I have understood that the 186 was more or less planned as an 8086 code-compatible microcontroller, and not so much as a computer processor. The following 286 and later cpu's were then better equipped for 8086 compatibility. But maybe I'm wrong.
Lovely job! Learned a lot from that!
All of this reminds me a lot of the KCS PowerPC and ATonce pc-boards for the Amiga 500.
Its a very similar device in many ways.
Great video, even though I still like and use DOS, yours is the only video I've watched :)
I did see a few 186s back in the 90s driving sound boards in pinball tables.
I wonder why no one added a sound driver; I guess because that was directly accessed too.
I assume that all of the "legally" written BBC micro basic programs would also run on the DOS side, although would they have needed copying as text (*spool, list, *type I guess).
I did not check if it could read tokenized basic files. That's somthing for me to try. I think pinball machines etc is alot closer the the use case intel had in mind for the 186 rather than running a PC.
This approach is very similar to what Commodore did with the PC Bridge Boards for the Big Box Amigas later, only they were really IBM compatible, not just compatible-ish. I saw a BBC Master in action at the Centre for Computing History in 2018, it had the Domesday software loaded. Was quite an experience.
Brilliant video! I'd like to add a master to my collection, it's a great machine I think and the Tube is really spectacular!
But yeah, they're expensive.
They are a fantastic machine for their time, but they where never priced at a level most could afford.
I'm glad you covered this as I don't believe anyone else has covered it. I was waiting for Neil at RMC to do something on it but you beat him to it :)🙂
Well its nice to be able to beat Neil to something :-)
Thank you very much indeed.....v helpful. Have a great day.
I had one of those, still do up in the loft somewhere. Bought the 186 board as an upgrade for my Beeb Master at a computer show. Had a lot of fun programming it in TurboPascal.
Oh nice, its only thanks to pi tube direct that I could try it. It's interesting to know what poeple used it for, so far most people who have left comments used it for software development.
Thanks to this video I have found a DOS Plus v2.1 for my (emulated) Master 512, previously I was running v1.2 and a lot of things didn't work.
Nice.
great video.... i remember playing around on the nimbus in school... of course i'm of the age when you got really excited when they wheeled in the beeb in primary school, not to mention when they pulled out a big sheet of paper and you got to play with the turtle and logo :D :D as a matter of course, i did my 5th form computer project for the gcse in BBC basic. it was basically a copy of ceefax for the school but as a slide show all in MODE7 of course .... all run from a BBC B that I had at home. then i moved it over to the school and had it pulling the slides from the 380Z file server with it running on the RM 480Z machines with their version of bbc basic :D..... yes i was a nerd... i still am... but i was a nerd that actually had admin access to the 380Z server and helped the computer teacher in the breaks running stuff for other kids, even had me teaching a couple of lessons by the end of the year lol
Fascinating thank you. X
I used to teach an adult evening glass computing using a BBC Micro's. This so takes me back.
Well... Any computer model sold to a private person, is basically a Personal Computer. Smartphones are personal computers as well. But what the BBC micro was not, is an IBM Personal Computer.
yep even a zx80 is a pc. A personal computer does not need anything to do with IBM :) At least back then before pc became slang for IBM compatible. Ok I am sure retrobytes knows this :)
@@chessoc7799 True. Vic20 was sold as "The personal computer for the 80's". So IBM jumped on the Personal Computer wagon, and ultimately it was shortened to PC. In a brief time periode, game boxed referred to generic computers as IBM Clones as well, and now IBM is out of this market. Heck, even a Mac is a PC in this sence. And yes, that statement pisses off Macintosh sheep's. Personally I use a PC with Intel and Linux, and as Intel plus Windows are named Wintel, then do I not use a "Lintel" machine? Or "Intux". What do you think?
Amazing to be able to say "My BBC Micro has more RAM than an Amiga 1000"
The main BBC CPU _also_ did not have to share access with graphics. Sophie Wilson designed it so that the RAM ran at twice the clock speed of the CPU, enabling the graphics hardware to access said RAM on alternating cycles with the CPU. Bloody cleverly designed machine, it was!
I clearly did not explain this part of the video sufficiently well, as your the 2nd person to mention this. I'm aware of the tick tock system for ram access. The point I made about the 2nd 6502 cpu was supposed to illustrate that the 2nd 6502 could be clocked close to the rams true access time, as there is no graphic access needed on the alternate cycles. Sophie's design for the BBC was predicated on the cpu being clocked at half that of the rams access speed, with nothing else needing to access ram that limit is lifted. So the CPU does not need to be limited to 2mhz, the only ceiling now is limit of how fast a 6502 can be clocked (upto the 4mhz ram bandwidth) which was 3mhz (for the part selected).
Its also not true to say ram bandwidth is not shared as it is, Sophie's design cleverly avoids any contention over access. This avoided having to any hardware to police ram access, it was a very elegant soloution.
@@RetroBytesUK ah, that makes more sense, thanks 😊 still, great video overall!
I think I must have phrased the section rather poorly.
@@RetroBytesUK in order to not BS you… yes, you definitely did. _But_ you also worded things comedically enough that I subscribed. So what is the _real_ crime here? 🤔
@@RetroBytesUK The downside was cost: getting your hands on RAM that fast wasn't easy. That, and the Beeb's 6502 was clocked on the very edge of what was possible for it, which lead to some interesting issues with the bus, requiring a bodge with some resistors, though nobody could explain _why_ the bodge worked!
can we talk about the camerawork at 9:38 ? loving the energy
DOSnuary?
Yeap lets go with that.
CP/M inspired DOS and CP/M was remade with DOS compatibility. Feels like a full circle moment if I’ve ever seen one.
The old timer lives on!!❤️😊
Back in the 80's I had a thing called a BBC Master Compact. Bought by somebody because they thought we could use it to control electronic kits. If I remember right there was a operating program called Nimbus too.
It never worked beyond a bit of typing. Not only that but nobody else had ever heard of any of it.
Crikey I remember them Winchester suitcases from school. We had them in the Computer suite with the BBC's. They weren't even called Hard Drives back then they were Winchester drives, A bit like how we call vaccuums Hoovers or 4x4 's Jeeps, when not all vaccuums and 4x4 are Hoover or Jeep.
You dont know the number of times I've said winchester then had to recorded that section as anyone under 30 will have no idea what a winchester is 🤣
Going to get BBC DOS for Windows and see if I can remember how to do the Gas Bill program I wrote at School way back in 1984/85 - This was for a CSE Computing exam.
The PiTube is interesting. I wonder how easy it would be to get hardware emulated that the BBC never had, like the AdLib card and have sound come out of the Pi itself over HDMI or the audio jack on the bigger Pis. Could you emulate a 486 in there? Doom has to run on everything, right?
There is a verison of doom for the BBC using the pitube, but its running in arm native mode.
You know what i loved about the BBC... it's silly really.. but the speaker! boop beep! i Had a master and CUB to boot when i was 12... Hi girls!
Those cub monitors where great. Nostalgia Nerd did a video about them a month or so ago.
Seeing Defender of the Crown made do a combination of smile and shrink back in terror.
Loved that game, but man, being dual tape(I had it for C64) meant you'd either be stuck in loading hell or would have to plan your game out VERY carefully. It'd load the main game into RAM permanently from tape 1 side A, then whenever you wanted to do a raid, tournament or siege, you'd have to load the mini-game from either side B of tape one, or either side of tape two, which could take upwards of two minutes in some cases.
Nice video. Did you get the background music from the game Mafia?
BBC BASIC became the root of all future BASICs, including Microsoft's.
Although if you're going to sing the praises of BBC BASIC, credit really should be going to Sophie Wilson.
Who also wrote MOS and ARM.
Outrun for MS DOS didn't support a soundcard of any manner. The glitch you're seeing is likely related to a timing error as it set up the PC speaker for music, ie bleeps and bloops.
The Master Compact was bundled with GEM as it had the x86 card inside as standard or was in some hardware bundle for schools.
Acorn made a GUI for the compact, that came on the welcome disk, but its not compatible with GEM and uses the 6502, which meant you could run it on a regular Master 128. Saddly that UI was a bit of a deadend as I don't think acorn made any further software for it. Unfortunetly the Compact is the only Acorn machine after the BBC that you can't add a tube port to. Even the electron has a tube interface cartridge, but no one as produced anything for the compact. There is an edge connector, but I remember someone saying that connector was missing some of the signals needed to implement the tube, also the tube code is missing from its rom, so it would need a new OS rom.
@@RetroBytesUK At our school we definitely had PC DR DOS running on Acorns and GEM in some bundle, maybe it was the Master 512s in the lab and not the Compacts and I am remembering it the wrong way round. As soon as the first Amiga Trapdoor V30/8086 cards were advertised back then it reminded me of my school days and the 80186 equipped BBCs.....memory of that memory is all I have now :)
This video was entertaining-ish :)
🤣
There were no PC sound cards in 1986 except the PC Jr / Tandy specification.
I always assumed the "PC compatible-ISH"ness of things like the Nimbus and the M512 was somewhat intentional, as both machines were intended mainly for the education market, and the fact that a lot of games wouldn't run on them was a definite selling point to teachers!
Had one back in the day 32k and played Repton 3 with Mozart's rondo as it's earwig music
I did love playing Repton, definitely one of my favourite games.
Everything about the BBC Micro I know I learned from Retro Gamer Magazine and you.
The 6502 in the BBC does not have to share bandwidth the hardware either. It's got such fast RAM one cycle goes to the CPU the other to the IO. The tube 6502 ran at 3Mhz, 50% more speed, but it also saved on graphics tasks and such. The computer has no accelerators, so it has to do everything itself. Letting one CPU do the app and one doing the drawing makes it quite a bit faster.
I should probably be a little more clear on this point I guess. Yes thats spot on in normal operation (with no 2nd cpu) memory access works on a tick-tock system. On the clocks tick the cpu access memory, on tock the gfx chip accesses memory. So the ram can be accessed at 4mhz and the cpu runs at 2mhz. So the cpu uses 50% of the memory's bandwidth.
My school had a Nimbus network. We used to run SETPC to run PC games.
I had very mixed luck with getting setpc to run any games on the Nimbus.
Me too. Elite wouldn’t work. Leisure Suit Larry would. As well as a Tetris clone called Blox.
Memory lane: Ventura Publisher on GEM on DOS, on 386 I think it was?
(soon after, XPress on a slightly beefed-up Mac IIci just blew everything remotely comparable out of the water. My dad probably mortgaged my soul for that machine back then. :edit: not to mention a Radius Pivot A4, and -- drum roll -- a laser printer!)
Instant sub
I have a BBC B model i had it at school in the uk during the 1980's
I just say remember using one of these 30 years ago in primary school, I think by the mid 90s the school had chucked these for windows 3.0 machines, the very last time we used one, was in 1995, when you could program the turtle. From what i remember, we never got the turtle to work. That was the very last time i saw a working BBC, i suspect that when the school, did their end of year clear out, that went a long with the turtle. My secondary school still had a couple but they were never ever used at all, when i was there. They still used two RM nimbus networks for french and maths, Program called smile for maths, not sure what the french one was called. By the year 2000, the school was chucking all DOS based systems. By the time i left secondary school, Windows 95 was on the verge of been pushed over to windows 2000.
Its amazing how much things changed over such a relatively short window. Shame you never got to use a working turtle they where so much fun. I want to lay my hands on one, lets say for a video (I total want to play with one).
@@RetroBytesUK it would be great to actually see one working, i cannot remember ever seeing one working, i am sure we watched a video on programming it. I know we used to use the education programs on the bbc, The teacher used to set some word program on it and we would take turns to go on it, i remember the paint program too. ( only just mind lol). I know the school only had a 4 BBC computers at the time.
@@procta2343 Our school had one, we did not get to use it very often. You would get to write you bit of logo code, then run it on the BBC with the real turtle as opposed to the on screen turtle.
Interesting - I hadn't realised that DOS was an option for a BBC!
nice prehistoric stuff
Great video! Interesting system indeed!
Which devices did you use to capture the screen?
I'm using a HDMI upscaler connected via a scart to rgb cable. The upscaler is then connected to a fairly generic USB HDMI capture device. Some of the footage is from Beebem capturedwith obs, as I did not want to format the dos hard drive file on my BBC Master.
@RetroBytes I've spent a small fortune trying to get VGA to HDMI, almost all the devices I've found will only take some specific resolutions, none will show a bios/post screen.. So this is an analog -> hdmi upscaler that takes rgb scart? Interesting! I should try that!
@@RetroBytesUK Oh, so you're actually using a scart hdmi upscaler and an rgb cable? neat! Okay then I can see how it's possible, that'd not work with at VGA resolutions though, would it?
The Amstrad PCs had GEM, too
Huh - I know Brandon Butterworth, credited on BBC BASIC, and never knew he did that!
Check out the Winchester on that. Oof. Ample.
Its a heafty slab of hard disk is that thing.
The Tandy 2000 was the only computer I remember that ran an 80186.
6:11 Schneider!
Huh, it says 80286 on the BIOS. I wonder if they were planning a 286 option for more IBM compatibility and the same BIOS code brings up both x86's.
There was a 286 version I think there really where not very many of those at all, almost all the units shipped where 186. The reason it shows up as 286 in the footage, is that I am using pi-tube to act as my second cpu and it emulates a 286.
Also that's a good eye for detail you have there.
I remember my secondary school had a load of RM Nimbus machines and they were all crap.
You love your -ish, right? ;)
Thanks for the video. 186 systems are kinda interesting.
I do like ish. I agree with you about 186 systems, most of them are fairly odd ball systems.
I recognize some of these tracks from... Mafia?
Did anyone else ever see and use the Torch Unix that used the bbc are a terminal ?
Hello tiger.... That's the sample from GEM paint
I love watching videos like this on my phone... that has 8 GB of ram and 256 GB of storage... and cost
Oh I miss my BBC :(.
I still use BBC BASIC - BBC BASIC for Windows. I did some fairly complex programs on my Archimedes and kick myself for not keeping them to run on my PC !
The narrator sounds slightly drunk, which I rather enjoyed.
Looks like one of those original tandy coco computers, seems like a pretty good lot of machines were made like that....
Eyyy my name on the streets is BBC Master
it seems a "because i can do it" gymnic
There may have been a bit of that. I supsect part of the idea behind it was about positioning the BBC in schools as a posible PC, to help keep some of the PC vendors out.
I have One of these in Italy
the BBC micro when first made was called Proton or a prototype of it was called the Proton ........
They had a design for a machine that they called the proton, which had not made it to production yet. That design was altered a bit to fit the spec the BBC had put out. That updated design won the contract and became the BBC Micro.
The Crown's obsession with controlling major technologies through state education and law will never make sense to me. Neat tools though, I almost wish we had something similar states-side.
UK did very well in the 80s with homegrown micros. BBC decided to jump on the trend and make a TV programme about them. It wasn't a sinister thing.
Like a lot of science and tech, the UK had an early lead and then was wiped out when the mighty USA got into gear ... But it wasn't wasted, the 80s generation are still using those computer skills today.
Yes, it is a personal computer :D
so many ishes made me laugh
Keep an eye out for the Torch Graduate.
The Graduate connects to an unexpanded ( ie no DFS ) BBC Model B via the 1MHz bus rather than the Tube interface. 256k of RAM, but you could, with a lot of patience and a desolder pump, upgrade it to 512K. 8088 CPU with a socket for an 8087, two 5 1/4" floppies, two 8 bit ISA slots.
It came with MS-DOS 2.1, but would run 3.3 or even DR DOS 4.x ( as supplied with the Amstrad PC1640 ) The CPU could be, and should be, replaced with an NEC V20. Adding in an 8087 was a waste of time and money.
The ISA slots would take an ST506 host card, but it wouldn't boot from a hard drive. Once booted from a floppy, the hard drive was visible. Boot ROMs seemed to be ignored.
The supplied software included a suite from Psion called Perfect Works. Compared to the Inter series from Computer Concepts, Perfect Works was abysmal.
Graphics support was, err, hmm. Nope. Not really.. Terminal graphics requiring programs such as Norton or Migent Ability worked, but that's about it.
Slow. That 1MHz bus ain't no Tube. The keyboard differences were annoying, but if no DOS disc was inserted, the BBC would boot as normal, but it now had twin disc drives to play with. Compatibility with DFS for read/write/format was spot on, but any program using DFS calls would fail. Total dead end, but if you like lame-duck hardware, hunt one down. We got one in for evaluation where we tried to like it, but decided it was pants compared to an Amstrad PC1640, which was only a few £ more than the Graduate.We tried to return it, but were told we could keep it. I ended up with it when we had a cupboard clear out. No-one else wanted it.
The Torch Graduate was a dead end. Interesting concept, good execution, but ultimately, a bit shit.
I am now going to have to find one of these, it sounds fascinating.
@@RetroBytesUK Torch made some very high quality products for the BBC micro. Their Z80 CP/M processor was very good indeed, and they made a BBC - CP/M hybrid with twin floppies or a floppy and 20MB drive. The monitor they chose for it was the 12" Microvitec Hi-Res ( ha! ), which is worth finding. They made a metal cased twin floppy unit too. Built like a brick dunny. Their Winchester was half the ( physical ) size of the Acorn offering, and half the cost per MB.
The Graduate was shockingly shyte to use compared to their CP/M system ( which beat the pants off the Acorn Z80 ), but their Z80 board didn't work on the Master. Luckily the Master 512 had good CP/M compatibility.
Torch also made a Unix-a-like called the Unicorn. For its day, it was OK, and by far the cheapest way to obtain a Unix-a-like system at the time. Extremely well built, but sold like cold shit sandwiches don't. Well worth acquiring if you should ever come across one.
Man, the more Acorn Master videos I watch, the more I miss mine. I had a 512 and Winchester, but rarely bothered with DOS. Having all the games on the HDD was fun. I genuinely believe the Master was the pinnacle of 8-bit computers. Whack a Computer Concepts MEGA-ROM in, with Inter-Spell and it'd run rings round a basic PC running MS-Works or Migent Ability for work machine.
Can you run Windows 1.0 on it?
I've not tried, but given its DOS 2.0 compatible and works with CGA there is a good chance it would at least work partly. If it uses its own mouse and keyboard drivers that would probably not work properly. If someone developed drivers for it then it would probably work more or less fully.
Yes, I have seen it done. Makes me want one myself
The jump from 6502 to 80186 was such a relief. 8 bits are just stupid, a byte should have been 16 bits right from the start. Every 8 bit computer requires two memory locations to store the address of one memory location. Why? Because 8 bits alone are useless!!!
The Master wasn't totally compatible with the BBC-A and B. Especially when you started running code of EPROM..
You're right its not 100% compatible with all BBC-B software it is compatible with 100% of OS legally written software. Most of the software that was in the it did not work with the master category, either got updated versions which where, or someone in the community patched them into working. These days there is a very small quantity of software that does not work with the master (not that is was a particular large number when the master was lunched).
"80186 was designed as a x86 compatible processor"
Isn´t it literaly a x86 CPU?
So the 80186 is a bit of an odd ball CPU as it was designed as an embedded CPU for industrial control applications etc, rather than as a general CPU for use in micro computers, it was released at the same time as the 80286 so it was not a fore runner to it. Intel designed it as an x86 compatible industrial control chip, but its not completely compatible with the chips that went before it unlike the 286. IBM never produced a model of the IBM PC using it they went from 8088 to 80286. So there are plenty of people who don't count the 186 as part of the x86 family of processors. There where also a fair few applications that just did not work properly on it, due to it not being full compatible with the 8088.
@@RetroBytesUK Right.. .it i was confusing the 8088 with the 80186