BBC Micro - ROMs

[dongfeng]

I dug out my BBC Micro today after hibernation for a couple of years. I bought this computer complete with monochrome display for £15 in the early '90s and was the first computer I actually learnt to program in depth! Most schools in the '80s had these

Anyway, it appears to have a revision 4 motherboard and 32K, which I think makes it a BBC-B? It also has the original style full height BBC 5.25" floppy drive :D Date on the power supply is 29-04-1983.

Startup says

BBC COMPUTER 32K
ACORN DFS
BASIC

Anyway, my question!

There are 5 ROMs installed in the expansion, STARTUP, WORDWISE PLUS, VIEW, BASIC and a Mystery ROM labelled 'OS'.

The computer boots to BASIC, but I remember when I bought the computer it booted to Wordwise Plus, so I swapped these two ROMs to get it to boot to BASIC.

What does the STARTUP ROM do?

And how can I find out what the mystery ROM is?

The owner's manuals don't really go into detail about the hardware

Cheers :D

 

[dongfeng]

 

[nige the hippy]

can't immediately see a DFS rom there, I'm pretty sure the HN613128PB04 (startup) is the machine operating system, the XXXXXX05, is basic as pencilled, and the one marked OS could be the disk filing system. do a *rom and see what comes up!

post counting... I'm just about to overflow!

 

[carlsson]

How much does it matter if an EPROM has its window protected or not? I picked up a plate of old chips, most probably untouched since 15 years or more. All are without a protective strip. When I read them in the EPROM burner, one chip still contained data, which seems to be an intact version of some Commodore ROM image. I haven't checked exactly what, but I was a bit surprised to see that it still was fine. Perhaps the protective strip is only useful if you expose your EPROMs to constant sunlight?

 

[nige the hippy]

Unfiltered sunlight, bank on a week,
Flourescent or halogen light, a month or two.
In a drawer, no prob!

I'm going to have to upgrade to 16 bit membership

 

[dongfeng]

can't immediately see a DFS rom there, I'm pretty sure the HN613128PB04 (startup) is the machine operating system, the XXXXXX05, is basic as pencilled, and the one marked OS could be the disk filing system. do a *rom and see what comes up!

post counting... I'm just about to overflow!

I tried the *ROM but it doesn't show anything, the cursor just drops to the next line.

I can get to Wordwise Plus by typing *WORDWISE, but I can't find any way to get to the others. I always thought View was *VIEW or *WRITE, bu they don't work...


Hmmm.

 

[dongfeng]

Ok, I sussed out View (good things these owner's manuals :lol: ), it is *WORD .

When the Beeb was new, would it just come with the STARTUP and BASIC ROMs?

 

[dongfeng]

I think I have it sussed now.

It is *HELP that brings up the ROMs installed. It shows...

DFS 0.90
DFS
UTILS

VIEW A1.4
Stored
Cmode

WORDWISE-PLUS 1.4C

OS 1.20

The annoying problem I have is that the utilities disk does not have a diskcopy program. I think it was only the BBC Master that had the utilities in ROM.

 

[nige the hippy]

I was trying to remember *H. and *?

There are quite a few images etc on the "the bbc lives" website, and utilities for transfer. can't be more precise at the mo duty calls!

 

[dongfeng]

No worries! The brain was a bit rusty after not using it for so many years. Amazing what you forget over time, even on a system you used an awful lot in the past. I did look on the websites, but I was searching for the wrong things!

Most annoying is that the LOGO ROM I had seems to be missing a pin

I think I have the two SPEECH ROMS about somewhere, which I managed to liberate from a pile of scrapped Beeb's at my old school in 1994ish. Just a matter of finding them!!!