Hi I'm Kevin an Amstrad fan but it was the beeb that started it all off

[arnoldemu]

Hi,

I'm Kevin from Sheffield. I'm mostly known in the Amstrad community where I'm known by the same username.
I've written an Amstrad emulator and some games.

I've been a long time lurker.

The Beeb is where it all started for me. My first computer was a BBC B for the whole family which we got around 1983.

It has been a long time since I used it because after a couple of years I got the Amstrad CPC6128 and that was my interest and then the beeb went into the attic space in the garage where my late dad used it for a while.

Now I'm helping to clear out the garage and this year I will be resurrecting the original beeb and the Master my dad acquired and then installing one of the new devices (gotek, sdcard etc) so we can all play the games again (Citadel, Repton 3, Zalaga etc) and maybe if I have luck recover some of the programs we wrote. One of these programs I vaguely remember a magazine type in over many many pages that showed an image from the Dark Crystal? I would love to see that again.

In the garage I can see a full collection of Micro User magazines, boxes of discs (we were part of a local group at one time), all the various hardware we had (dual drives, rom boards, dnfs, teletext adapter and maybe a few more Dad got).

My dad had access to all kinds of electronics, datasheets, ics, hardware and hoarded them in the garage so it'll be interesting to dig through that and the beeb stuff and see what I can contribute.

[flaxcottage]

Welcome, Kevin.

Quite a job you have there.

[Multiwizard]

Hi Kevin,

welcome to this great Forum...


Greetings from my little Dutch Atomic Attic, Wim...

[1024MAK]

Welcome on board Kevin!



Welcome to the world of Acorn machines

Don't worry, we don't lynch Amstrad owners anymore...

Enjoy the forum

You can make your confession here
Put yourself on the map by sticking a pin in it at this link
You can list your Acorn machines vitals here

Mark

[GreyAreaUK]

Hi Kevin!

As someone who has recently bought a GoTek from RetroClinic, I have to say I’m extremely impressed. Superb bit of kit.

I’m torn for my next purchase: WiFi modem, or rPi 2nd Processor add on…decisions, decisions

(Actually my next purchase will be a replacement capacitor kit for a BBC Master power supply, as I plugged mine in on Saturday and it worked for 5mins, and then it was Magic Smoke time )

[fizgog]

Hi Kevin,

Welcome to the forum, I also remember typing in the listing for Dark Crystal back in the 80s, still got the magazine with it in, but you can get it from here on page 129 from C&VG

https://archive.org/details/computer-an ... 7/mode/2up

[tricky]

Welcome, here and back to the beeb
There are some data sheets for the beeb that we still don't have clean versions of, although they are serviceable and modern OCR is quite good.
I only posted this morning a version of the 6522 data sheet that I have converted to text to aid in searching it as I revise my 30 year old beeb emulator.

[lovebug]

Welcome

[scruss]

Hi Kevin - welcome!

Also an Amstrad user, and your emulator is my platform of choice — thanks! CPCs are even thinner on the ground here in Canada than BBC micros

[Dave Footitt]

Hi Kev,

I think we have some shared acquaintances from Krisalis days

Welcome to the forum!

[daveejhitchins]

Welcome to the Forum, Kevin . . . Enjoy . . .

Dave H.

[arnoldemu]

Hi all,

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I'll be collecting the machines and some bits in early march. In the same visit I'll list what I can find and cross reference that against what is already online and go from there.

@1024MAK: I've confessed my age and I'll add the machine info soon.

@GreyAreaUK: The gotek is great. I've got one for the 6128 and it works well. I expect i'll be looking to get a power supply repair kit because I expect both machines to smoke and possibly the battery pack in the master to have leaked.

@fizgog: Thank you! That brings back so many memories although my memory made me think it was 8 pages both sides

@tricky: np. I'll keep an eye out. I've seen lots of Intel datasheets so far.

@scruss: thank you!

@Dave Footitt: yep and more acquaintances from my current workplace too.


Kev

[VectorEyes]

How did I miss this thread? The creator of arnold is on StarDot now??? Welcome.

CPC is Z80 (yuck) but has a 6845 CRTC so it’s not all bad. In fact Beeb developers are insanely jealous of its palette although we rarely admit it.

[tricky]

... In fact Beeb developers are insanely jealous of its palette although we rarely admit it.

I'm not jealous, but it is the best native 8bit palette in my opinion
How early palette extenders for the beeb appeared suggests that lots of people would have preferred at least spectrum colours
I would also like it if every beeb owner had a crt monitor, but that might be a barrier too far for quite a few.

[segasonic]

Eyup Kev, fancy meeting you here! I'm on a similar mission with an A3010, going well so far.

Hope you're well

Jod