BBC Master Reference Manual [Remastered PDFs]

[dv8]

Here is a completely remastered PDF of the BBC Master Reference Manual parts 1 and 2.

• The look and layout of the original books have been preserved.
• A number of error corrections have been applied to the text.
• All diagrams have been redrawn in vectors.
• There is extensive hyperlinking - click on any reference to a page, chapter or section, or on any OSBYTE/OSWORD or *command reference to jump directly to the relevant page.

Also included is a disc image containing the listings from part 2. Boot the disc to see a list of programs and which section of the manual they correspond to.

Master_Reference_Manual_Part_1.pdf

Second revision (March 2023)

(1.63 MiB) Downloaded 797 times

Master_Reference_Manual_Part_2.pdf

(1.58 MiB) Downloaded 1374 times

Master_Reference_Manual.ssd

(7.5 KiB) Downloaded 695 times

Other remastered user guides in this series:

Advanced Master Reference Manual
Advanced User Guide
New Advanced User Guide
BBC Micro User Guide (Model B and B+ editions)

[VectorEyes]

Absolutely amazing, thankyou so much.

Now that I'm looking at these, I wonder how I got by with only the NAUG for the past two years!

[tom_seddon]

+1 - this is great, thank you. An excellent (and searchable) replacement for the enormous PDF (of not-quite-aligned images) that I've been using so far!

--Tom

[TobyLobster]

Superb work. It's really nice to have these volumes as a proper fully searchable resource.

[Coeus]

Another excellent piece of work. Thank you very much.

[leenew]

Top notch as usual

Thank you.

Lee.

[mlouka]

Excellent and beautifully done. Thanks!

[spanners]

Ooh that's so crisp. What are you building these manuals in?

D.

[BeebMaster]

Great work these. I think there's a misprint on page C.5-3, also in the original:

Baud rate for selection 8 should be 19200.

Interestingly, although there are 9 options accepted for the configured baud rate, only 3 bits of CMOS RAM are allocated, and it in fact stores this value minus 1 in the 3 bits, with setting 0 actually being set as 6 (and reported as 7 by *STATUS)!

[tomkinsg]

these remastered books are awesome.

Has anyone remastered Acornsoft's Creative Graphics on the BBC Microcomputer?

If not, I'd be willing to give it a go, if i could get some pointers on best practice.

cheers
Glyn

[tricky]

Has anyone ever noticed that the joystick wiring diagram has the wrong pin descriptions for the fire button connections in the original as well?
They are labeled PB0 and PB1 (should be PB4/5), which I have always read as Fire Button 0 and 1, but that would have to be PHire Button!

[TobyLobster]

They are labeled PB0 and PB1 (should be PB4/5), which I have always read as Fire Button 0 and 1, but that would have to be PHire Button!

PB = Push Button perhaps?

[sweh]

They are labeled PB0 and PB1 (should be PB4/5), which I have always read as Fire Button 0 and 1, but that would have to be PHire Button!

PB = Push Button perhaps?

On the schematics they're referred to as I0 and I1, connected to PB4/5 of the 6522 (Port B pins 4 and 5)

[tricky]

PB obviously, they are sometimes even drawn as that on Beeb joystick diagrams, so not wrong, just coincidence that pb0 and pb1 are connected to system via pb4 and pb5.

[dv8]

The PDF for Part One has been updated to revision 2. Download link is in the opening post.

Changes since revision 1 (September 2020):

• C.5-3 (32) *CONFIGURE BAUD 8 : baud rate should be 19200
• D.2-18 (64) OSBYTE &01 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-18 (64) OSBYTE &02 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-19 (65) OSBYTE &03 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-20 (66) OSBYTE &04 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-21 (67) OSBYTE &06 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-21 (67) OSBYTE &07 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-22 (68) OSBYTE &09 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-23 (69) OSBYTE &0B : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-23 (69) OSBYTE &0C : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-24 (70) OSBYTE &0D : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-24 (70) OSBYTE &0F : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-25 (71) OSBYTE &10 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-25 (71) OSBYTE &11 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-28 (74) OSBYTE &19 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-30 (76) OSBYTE &6B : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-30 (76) OSBYTE &6C : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-31 (77) OSBYTE &70 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-31 (77) OSBYTE &71 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.2-32 (78) OSBYTE &72 : removed Y=0 from entry parameters
• D.3-10 (140) OSWORD &05 : removed note 2, &FFFExxxx addresses only apply to model B+
• F.5-1 (242) Hardware links : added legend for IC24
• F.5-2 (243) LK6 : corrected bullet point misalignment
• F.5-3 (244) LK9 : added link description

Thanks to BeebMaster and JGH for your corrections.

[BeebMaster]

I love these books. One thing I've just found that makes them even more authentic, if it's any use, is that if you have an option in the PDF viewer to show "odd pages left" then switching this option off means when using a 2-page view, the same pages are displayed left and right as when the real book is open. With that option turned on, the title page is on the left which puts all the pages out of step a page when compared to the real book.

[james]

Reference Manual – Part 1

J.10-4 “Notes”

Each directory has a two-byte master sequence number, held in binary coded decimal format.

Not so according to the previous page. Each directory has two copies of a single-byte master sequence number.

Edit: excellent resource, thank you.

[tom_seddon]

Minor correction for part 1: on page D.2-29, "OSBYTE 70 (&45) – 106 (&6A) are currently unused" should read "OSBYTE 70 (&46) – 106 (&6A) are currently unused"

--Tom