Hello. I was introduced to this site today at Console Combat. I currently don't have a BBC, but I plan to own one by next February. I've bought Zap! to show my support.

I know a few high-level languages pretty fluently (C, C++, most 80s BASIC dialects, bash shell script, a bit of Python, and *shudder* Windows batch), but I have never done any assembly. I am willing to learn, and once I get my BBC I'll probably start.

I can do testing (which I'm very good at) in an emulator.

Hi, it was good to chat with you. Beebs are fairly cheap to pick up so you should be ok there. Hope to see some of your work soon. From chatting with you you'll have no problem picking up assembler. Are you going to the Huddersfield event ?

Might be worth checking out the sister site to this (if you've not already done so).

www.stairwaytohell.com

Here you'll find lots of useful modern add ons for your beeb when you get it, particularly a plethora of storage solutions.

[Waves] H'lo, nice meeting you yesterday. =-)

(i'm still recovering...!)

Welcome to the forum - I can't wait to see what you end up programming.

Welcome to the forum, nice to meet you yesterday!

If you can do C you'll have no problems picking up assembler, in some ways programming assembler is simpler, it just takes more instructions to do what you want it to

Nice to see someone young being interested in the retro side of things too, you'll probably provide some fresh inspiration for us all!

Remember if you need help we're a friendly bunch

Nice to talk to you yesterday too, TMR... Very interesting chat, hope you can both make the next do!

Thanks all for the friendly welcomes!



Any good places in particular? Or should I just keep checking eBay?

No, it's a bit too far for us. I'm probably going to the Oxford one (Retrovision) in February 2010 though.

Thanks a lot, I've bookmarked it



I can't either :p
I haven't really done much game programming before, though I know quite a bit of the theory from picking it up in tutorials, etc., so I'm not really sure yet what I'll be best at
It'll probably be a shmup or a platformer as those are the ones I enjoy playing most, but you never know.

Ah, that's good. That's what I heard from the people at the event in general.

Thanks a lot

I really need to add username support to my quote script

eBay is a place, although you can sometimes pick them up for free. I've seen people offer kit tfor free if you can pick up. Often though they are shifted loads and want you to pick up most. But you can almost end up with a great collection for free instantly. I'll keep an eye out for you, if I here of anything I'll pass on the details.

Even if you have to do eBay, the prices range from about £10 for a working but possibly tatty example to about £40 for a very clean one.

Your next decision though maybe do you want a BBC modal B or Master 128 ? The Master is a later bigger version of the Beeb with more memory and capability.

If the master is fully compatible, I'll probably go with that. What's the price difference?

Also, do you think it would be a good idea sending messages out to all the schools in my area to see if they have any? I understand it was very popular in the classroom, so I'm just wondering whether or not many schools will still have them locked in the cupboard.

Finally, will you release any non-Acorn games? Or do you just release on the BBC/Electron/Atom/Archimedes?


EDIT: That's rather odd, on my phone I couldn't find any BBCs or anything, but now when I'm using my PC, I've found loads! eBay mobile is crap :p

Is this the right sort of thing? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BBC-MICRO-COMPUTE ... 7C294%3A50

i actually got some half decent footage of the Master playing SID tunes;

Clicky!

not entirely sure, they probably go for much the same money. Watch out for dodgy keys ( but they are fixable). As for fully compatible, yes they are if you bear in mind the differences (if that makes sense). The crucial hardware (i.e. Video chip/ core processor type etc.) are the same. But as it has so much more internal memory (approx 128K RAM for a start) there are some differences to handle this in the Operating system). It caught a few early games out, but by and large if you know where the differences are games will all run on early Beebs and later Master with none or extremely small changes.



To say it was popular in schools is a bit like saying "Houston we have a problem", an understatement. They were "the" choice for schools from the moment they came out and throughout the 80's. Schools do still chuck them out every now and then even now but it's getting rarer and rarer. By all means give it a try, you might get lucky. A lot of my stuff came from a school chucking stuff out and them putting it all on freecycle.


The remit allows any retro platform, but with emphasis on Beeb as we're mostly beeb people.

Yes, that's a Master. You'll find that they often look better and clean up better than an original Beeb as the key surround doesn't seem to come off as easy. They also don't have a "Knock out area" that the beeb had that is almost always missing on beebs that have been anywhere near a school.

Myself personally would go for a Master as it was my main machine back in the day and I love it's extra features (but others may disagree )

I would have to agree with Steve and recommend that you go for a BBC Master as it is a far more capable machine.

The only thing that I will add though is that the BBC Master can be a little bit trickier to set-up and use than the BBC Model B. When I bought a BBC Master off of eBay the battery backup for its configuration had long gone and it took me a while to remember how to reconfigure it so that I could use it.

Kind regards,

Francis

Retro Clinic, from the StairwayToHell forums, often sells kit on eBay:

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/retroclinic

Having seem some of his wares at Byte Back, I have to confess to being sorely tempted - he puts a lot of work in cleaning them up, and can also fit various modern add ons like the card readers etc.

Sam.

The only problem with concentrating on a Master, especially when developing games or utility software, is that one can quickly become seduced into using, and taking for granted, the Master's enhanced features such as Shadow & Sideways Ram and Page @ &E00 etc. This can then lead to the unintentional, and sometimes irreversible, bespoking of software to the Master when the 'B' is probably present in greater numbers than any other model out there. This is a similar effect to that suffered by developers when trying to port games, utilities and hardware gadgets from the Beeb to the Electron.

Martin

OK,


I think I'm going to buy a master, but I'll make sure I only use the features common to both it and the Beeb. Should be the best way.

I'm currently about 1/3 of the way through a tutorial for BBC B assembler (the first one listed in the "Useful docs" page). I'm finding it on the whole pretty easy, though there are a few bits I'm finding it hard to get my head around. I'm making lots of notes as I go along; it doesn't seem too well-written in some places (though mostly it's pretty good).

If you want to add clarifications or corrections, feel free to upload your notes as a document and link to it from the Useful Docs page or just start a new wiki sub-page, if you think it will benefit others as well.

Sam.

Or just shout here and see if anyone knows the answer; my Beeb knowledge is pretty naff right now but 6502 itself shouldn't be a problem (although i have this tendancy of avoiding the zeropage for some reason!)

Bought a master off ebay

Comes with no accessories so I hope to get a disk drive and cassette tape cable (my cassette recorder only has jack plugs). Anyone got a spare one of either (most of the disk drives on ebay seem to be untested or broken)?

*Applause*


I've got a few spare tape leads - PM me your address and I'll send a couple out (no need to cover postage or anything).

Thanks a lot! PM'd

I'll probably take my chances with one of the disk drives. Shouldn't be too much money if it's broken.