Hello from Birmingham

[Zakala]

I bought my first Model B in 1982/3 In my first year of High school. It came with a Microvitec cub, a Viglen 40/80 track disc drive and an Epson FX80. I know I also had a Peartree ROM expansion board and a Cheetah Speech synthesis board for it, because I still have them.

It was subsequently traded in (much to my later regret) for a Master 128 with 512 coprocessor from Watford Electronics in 1986/7. This saw much use including a lot of word processing, running a UMI midi interface and sequencer, and for running compliant PC software under DR DOS, though GEM wasn't used so much. This was still in active daily use as late as 1994 when I was using it for work admin, alongside an Amiga A1200 for graphical work, though my first real PC, a 486 DX66 relegated it to midi only duties and eventually to the loft.

I still have the Master 128 and Cub, though the FX80 replaced by inkjets and subsequent laser printers. The software that only ran on the BBC B was lent/gifted to the drummer in my then band who had still had a Model B. As the Master 128 hasn't been used for years I figured before restoring it I should try my hand at working on a simpler version, a model B, because it would give me experience and jog my memory while hopefully netting me a cheap (OK so not so much) Model B.

Luckily I found an oddity, an Issue 7 in a wooden case with an Integra B ROM/RAM board and two keyboards in wooden surrounds. There was also a homemade veroboard sensor(?) board attached to the analogue port and aux power port. It looks as though it had had the econet upgrade at some point as all the sockets, resistors and jumper pins are installed but no chips (so they are on the shopping list too now!).

Thanks to the fault finding info on this board, some replacement PSU caps and my trusty can of Servisol Super 10 I have a working Model B. I'm still hunting for my physical disk drives but a Turbo SPI has enabled lots of retro gaming fun. Of course now I've got the bug...

[Edited for typos]

[Multiwizard]

Hi,

welcome to this great Forum...


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

[Neil]

Welcome my friend,

Come on, take a few pictures, I am dying to see your new machine, in all it's wooden glory. Seems like you got a bargain, a little TLC does wonders! It's good to know you used the beeb for so long, by the late 80s I was programming Spectrum, Amstrad, PC and Amiga - I had a 20Mhz 286 for work, that took about 20 minutes to boot up, due to fact it was so cold in the office, definitely the wild west of games programming! I always missed my BBC B.

You are amongst like minded friends here,
Cheers Neil

[flaxcottage]

Welcome, Zakala.

[vela025]

Morning neighbour, sending you best wishes from Worcestershire! I think a few of us can relate to selling/giving away/parents throwing out whilst we weren't looking our childhood beebs...and now their eBay prices are more than new (ignoring inflation that is, lol).

I second the call for a few pictures of woodgrain beebs! Were both the keyboards attached to the same unit?

[tricky]

Welcome, that sounds like a heck of a setup. My beeb was my main programming machine until I got a very early 486dx50 and even after I still did something on the beeb first daily then weekly and then monthly until I started retro coding for the beeb 10 years ago now - 10 years, where did they go!

[Neil1980]

Hello Zakala,
I too would love to see some photos of your issue 7 in a wooden case. Please could you post when you have time?
Many thanks

[daveejhitchins]

Welcome to the Forum, Zakala . . . Enjoy . . .

Dave H.

[Zakala]

So the wooden beeb, fair to say we are talking plywood rather than timber. From the outside it looks like a wooden chest.

The lock catch has been removed and it looks like it was stored as the vents at the side and top had paper taped over them, presumably to prevent dust ingress. Inside is the guts of a model B with an Integra B board:

There was an internal multi way socket that had a 240V fan above the PSU which was secured to the side of the case with the vents to the side and above the fan.

One keyboard was loosely fitted on an internal support while the other was loose with it.

Sadly it is huge and really awkward to use so the motherboard has been transplanted into a donor case while I revamp the PSU and the board from the donor. I imagine it was used somewhere to monitor something as the board plugged into the analogue port has a couple of leads marked S1 and S2. Sadly, whatever it connected to is gone. Photos of that later.
I also discovered that at some point the wood beeb had econet fitted, but the chips had been pulled and S2 re made, though the DNFS ROM was still in it. I've sourced some chips and put them back, though I've nothing to connect it to yet.
I've not got the Integra B installed yet. Inserting the IBOS ROM hangs the machine without the board and I'm trying to figure out how to mount it without the original fixings.

[Multiwizard]

Looks lovely nicely done...

[Zakala]

@vela025:
No, only one of the keyboards was attached. I initially thought the veroboard gubbins may have been some sort of remote keyboard circuitry, but I would have thought that would connect to the user port rather than the analogue port.

[Neil]

Ken,
that's fantastic! Reminds me of my fishing box I made in woodwork at school, it brought a big grin as I look at my stock BBC Master and consider a redesign, maybe... Would be great to see your progress, so keep the pictures coming.

Regards the econet, well, there's another Ken on the forum that you might want to chat to, KenLowe, reference his PiEconetBridge HAT. I just got one, so have my BBC Master, PC (Econet adaptor) and Beebem connected. It's a game changer! Or, hmmm, this is a perfect excuse to just buy a few more BEEBs, if I had my way, we would have a BBC Master in every room, including the Water Closet!

Cheers, Neil

[vela025]

@vela025:
No, only one of the keyboards was attached. I initially thought the veroboard gubbins may have been some sort of remote keyboard circuitry, but I would have thought that would connect to the user port rather than the analogue port.

That's great Ken, what a find! Thanks for uploading the pictures. I've always been fond of Beebs in homemade cases, or rack-mounted Beebs like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-sGpTpkxE.

...I feel a project coming on