On 15 Dec 2021, JoE DooM said the following...
Hey Joe,
Sorry I only just saw this now, I've been terrible over the xmas break for
not being around BBS-land at all.
But recently I've had a fascination for 8bit BBC micros. I don't recall JD>
ever seeing them out in the wild, except for the guy who introduced me JD> to them and his friend, who were both programmers for those systems. JD> I've been playing around with BeebEm and those machines are awesome. From JD> an OS and BASIC programming perspective, they were miles ahead of other JD> 8bit machines I've used (really only C=64's, VIC
20s, Atari 600/800s). JD>
So, I *did* grow up with BBC micros, being born in the UK, in the late '70s, the computer literacy project was dreamed up by the government and eventually
a number of TV programmes were released to help people get literate with computers, but the govt. had the foresight to actually see that the computers of the time coming from the UK were actually a bit rubbish (at least for schools and education via broadcast purposes), so the market was opened up
for tender and the two big contenders were Acorn and Sinclair. Acorn won and the rest is history. What came out was a subsidised machine for schools which was absolutely stellar in quality. Had the subsidisation been extended to
homes or small businesses, I could only imagine how far the beeb would have gone. Those same minds went on to make the archimedes of course, and then the ARM processor which is in every smartphone today, so their talents were not lost, but I feel that the beeb could have been bigger outside of the UK than
it was.
And I just watched a video where someone identified the keys they used on the keyboard as Cherry MY(?) keys.. Predecessors of the current Cherry MX keys, so that was really surprising. JD> JD> That's another thing I've
found on most 8bits, and even 16bit machines, JD> their keyboards weren't as good as those in the later IBM/PC world. But JD> Acorn/BBC micros were. JD>
I'd love to get my hands on actual hardware to see how good they really JD>
were, but as I don't think they were that common around these parts, JD> they'd be even harder to come by now.
They get a little stickier than the IBM Model F/M after 40 years, but they
have a wonderful tactile feel and are great to type on. I have one here but there's an issue with (I think) the RAM which i'm still struggling to figure out.
Hyjinx, maybe you've got more insight into our local retro scene than I do.. Any ideas of how to get hold of one?
The quickest path here in New Zealand is to go on to Ebay UK, they are still common there, but of course, the shipping costs are very prohibitive.
I asked a mate to see if he could find one and after about a year he called
me up and that's how I got my one, but as I say, it's not in great shape.
Either way, it's a lot of fun playing with it on the emulator. I think I missed out on something really good growing up and am surprised they weren't more common.
They were absolutely brilliant. I spent so much time with them in the classroom, learning BBC basic. Aside from QuickBasic (which came out _maaany_ years later), BBC basic was the best basic around IMO.
Cheers,
Al
hyjinx // Alistair Ross
Author of 'Back to the BBS' Documentary:
https://bit.ly/3tRINeL (YouTube) alsgeeklab.com
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