[vcf-midatlantic] BBC Micro

David Comley david at comley.us
Fri Jun 1 11:15:27 EDT 2018


> 
> 240 ... What were they thinking!?


Heh heh - well I grew up burning my hands on 240V. You get used to it after a while.

> 
> What do we do for a disk drive?


To start with you’ll need a floppy disk controller IC - either an 8271 or a 1770 - and a copy of the Disc Filing System ROM. Different versions supported different controllers IIRC. There may be extra installation work involved if it’s a model A.

 Ian Primus probably has the necessary EPROM or I can burn one for you if I can find where I stashed my EPROM stuff during house moving.

Dave

> 
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2018, 7:24 AM David Comley via vcf-midatlantic <
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
> 
>> Glad to hear you have a BBC Micro now. They’re fine machines, and as you
>> rightly point out, require 240V power plus some sort of monitor. Ignore the
>> PAL outputs and go straight for the RGB which is on a DIN connector. I
>> vaguely recollect making up a special cable when I got mine going and
>> hooking it up to a Sony studio monitor.
>> 
>> Watch out for the X2 cap in the power supply which is a known point of
>> failure. It’s easy enough to replace if that hasn’t already been done, but
>> annoying to have it fail...
>> 
>> Dave
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jun 1, 2018, at 1:36 AM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic <
>> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Well that was interesting!
>>> 
>>> Several of us were there: me, Doug, Chris F., Dean, Chris L., Brian C.,
>> Bill Lange (not Bill L. the auction seller), and Jason Scott. All of us but
>> Bill made it into a photo (https://tinyurl.com/ydbuy6pd) kindly taken by
>> Chris L.'s girlfriend.
>>> 
>>> The auctioned started at 3pm. I was the last to leave at midnight -- but
>> the auction was still going strong! They had another hour or two remaining.
>>> 
>>> Some people got amazing bargains (valuable nuggets discovered after
>> buying boxes of inexpensive items) and other people paid full retail or
>> higher for various things. We spotted a few people who were professional
>> sellers, but most of the people (maybe 100?) were individual collectors,
>> and most of those were gamers, not computer collectors like us. However we
>> did see a few people who said they attended VCF East, and I couldn't help
>> myself from recruiting a few new folks.
>>> 
>>> VCFed itself had a good night:
>>> 
>>> - Dean purchased a box of stuff which happened to contain a CGA/EGA/VGA
>> adapter -- exactly what I posted about us needing a few days ago -- so I
>> commandeered that item for us. :)
>>> 
>>> - VCFed has several S-100 computers, but there was one item I'd never
>> seen: an industrial (rackmount) chassis with a keyboard built into the
>> front edge of the case. It is from a company called MBR. No boards inside,
>> but it looked unique. At my request, Dean entered an absentee bid for it
>> (it would be one of the last items auctioned due to placement in the room).
>> He'll donate it to us if he wins. We will find out tomorrow.
>>> 
>>> - VCFed has an Amstrad 640 and various Sinclair computers, but we didn't
>> own a BBC Micro. There was a first-gen (1981) unit available in the
>> auction. At my request, Bill (and his wife Lucy) successfully bid on it and
>> donated it to us. It also has some nice software. We'll have to get a power
>> adapter for it to use an American outlet.
>>> 
>>> It was fun hanging out with several group members all afternoon/evening.
>> There were a few times where some of the group members bid against each
>> other ... a little healthy competition!
>>> 
>>> Overall a very successful time for Bill Log. and all buyers.
>> 
>> 




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