BeebLink

[JimR]

Just wanted to say thanks for Beeblink and the Tube serial board. I’ve been using this setup for over a year now and it’s a key part of my dev workflow. With a small script I can build my .ssd image and stage it on the Beeblink server. Then all I have to do is shift+break to execute on the BBC to try out my changes. It has really sped up my test/bugfix cycles. Such an awesome tool…

[tom_seddon]

That's great news! I have a Model B and a Master both connected to a BeebLink server running on a Raspberry Pi and it's so useful I have the ROM installed permanently in both machines.

Looking forward to the new release.

Thanks for the note - I always like to hear about people using BeebLink, and I'm glad you're finding it useful. It's the main FS in all my Beebs, and I have the ROM installed permanently too!

--Tom

[tom_seddon]

Just wanted to say thanks for Beeblink and the Tube serial board. I’ve been using this setup for over a year now and it’s a key part of my dev workflow. With a small script I can build my .ssd image and stage it on the Beeblink server. Then all I have to do is shift+break to execute on the BBC to try out my changes. It has really sped up my test/bugfix cycles. Such an awesome tool…

I do roughly the same thing myself, and this is exactly the sort of workflow BeebLink is intended to enable. Much as I love the BBC Micro, over the past 30 years I've got very used to the fancy mod cons you get on a modern system. When I got back into doing Beeb stuff, I knew I wanted to be doing the majority of any actual coding in Emacs on my PC, rather than in the line editor on the Beeb itself!

Credit for the Tube Serial board goes to Chris Morley (cmorley).

--Tom

[tom_seddon]

Still no official release, sorry about this, but there is a pre-release version up, that I've been using recently, and seems to have been behaving itself: https://github.com/tom-seddon/beeblink/ ... prerelease

For documentation for this release: https://github.com/tom-seddon/beeblink/ ... 9c8fe19317

This version has all the improvements I was hoping to get in for the planned April/May release, plus a new second set of ROMs to work around some BBC B issues I'd not seen before - which were the main cause of the delay.

Also... an experimental Electron version!

(The Electron version currently requires a hardware modification to the board. A future revision of the Tube Serial device will hopefully fix this, and the BBC B issues too.)

--Tom

[tom_seddon]

I have finally got round to doing another official release: https://github.com/tom-seddon/beeblink/ ... 25-db46514

Featuring numerous fixes and improvements, as per the release info.

The Electron version remains experimental. A hardware mod is no longer necessarily required, but it does need an updated PLD - so some DIY is still required. I'd like to do better here. Please continue to watch this space. (But: I do advise not holding your breath while doing that )

--Tom

[cmorley]

Great work as always Tom.

I know it isn't strictly part of BeebLink but perhaps it would make sense to commit the Electron compatible PLD source into your repo?

[tom_seddon]

Great work as always Tom.

I know it isn't strictly part of BeebLink but perhaps it would make sense to commit the Electron compatible PLD source into your repo?

If that'd be OK with you, I will. I've got a Makefile so you can build with the wincupl tools from the command line, so that can go in there too. (Much better than trying to use their GUI editor, which gives every impression of having been last compiled in the 20th century.)

--Tom

[Sazhen86]

I have finally got round to doing another official release: https://github.com/tom-seddon/beeblink/ ... 25-db46514

Hi Tom, thanks for the continued updates for BeebLink.

Any idea why I would get a build error when building on a RaspberryPi running the following?

Code: Select all

$ uname -a
Linux beeblink 5.15.61-v7+ #1579 SMP Fri Aug 26 11:10:59 BST 2022 armv7l GNU/Linux

$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="11"
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bullseye
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

$ node -v
v16.20.2

The "npm install" command was successful. The errors I see when running "npm start" are:

Code: Select all

$ npm start
> beeblink-server@0.1.0 start
> npm run compile && node ./.build/main.js


> beeblink-server@0.1.0 compile
> tsc -p ./tsconfig.json

main.ts:1151:54 - error TS2339: Property 'c' does not exist on type 'Response'.

1151             await writeData(Buffer.alloc(1, response.c));
                                                          ~

main.ts:1153:26 - error TS2339: Property 'p' does not exist on type 'Response'.

1153             if (response.p.length > 0) {
                              ~

main.ts:1154:42 - error TS2339: Property 'p' does not exist on type 'Response'.

1154                 await writeData(response.p);

Any pointers as to what I'm doing wrong would be appreciated.

[tom_seddon]

Any pointers as to what I'm doing wrong would be appreciated.

You'll be doing nothing wrong! I'm a bit suspicious this will be due to me using OSs with case-insensitive filing systems. I'll try this on a Linux VM later and report back.

If you're wanting something to try right now, no promises but here are 3 issues that probably do want fixing:

* "./Message.ts" should be "./message.ts" in request.ts, response.ts and tsconfig.json
* "./Response.ts" should be "./response.ts" in tsconfig.json
* "./Request.ts" should be "./request.ts" in tsconfig.json

Then "npm start".

Visual Studio Code will warn you about these, even on Windows, if you open the files in question - but these are 3 files I rarely modify, which is how I missed this! So I'll try to figure out how to get the compiler or linter to do that on every build.

--Tom

[Sazhen86]

If you're wanting something to try right now, no promises but here are 3 issues that probably do want fixing:

Thanks Tom, that looks to have resolved it. Now I have to blow myself an updated eprom.

[tom_seddon]

If you're wanting something to try right now, no promises but here are 3 issues that probably do want fixing:

Thanks Tom, that looks to have resolved it. Now I have to blow myself an updated eprom.

Good to hear, and thanks for trying it. I encountered a couple of additional issues while trying to fix this in my VM, and I've now pushed fixes to wip/master in GitHub. (Disclaimer: not tested with my real Beeb yet!) Optional if this is all working for you currently.

Definitely a good idea to upgrade to the latest ROM. I'm not promising anything just yet, but I've added some stuff that will hopefully mean the 2024 (or later) ROMs and servers will have better cross-version compatibility. So with any luck, further ROM updates will be a bit less pressing.

(Older ROM and newer server has always been semi-supported, but I've always wanted to do better than that!)

--Tom