Beeb Spotting

[joachim]

"If you've got a computer in your school, it's likely to be one of these" (gestures to Acorn monitor attached to an A5000)

Was that ever true?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L59xEQsy2r4&t=245s

[BeebMaster]

Well, we certainly had them in our school, after the Boys' School computer room was moved into the main school extension in about 1992 (replacing the shared classroom in a separate building 10 minutes' walk away consisting of mainly Master ETs, some Master 128 and a lone BBC B, with a Level 3 file server (with Boys' and Girls' schools having separate Winchester Discs) and printer server station.)

I don't remember a lot about the spec of the A5000s in the new computer room, but they weren't networked which was a shame. I think the new Girls' School computer room initially took over all the 8-bit kit because I recall that they had trouble with some of it and I went to help out the Girls' School teacheress once or twice. That was phenomenally rare at the time to be allowed in the Girls' School at all, I must have had to have had special dispensation from the Board of Governors and the Secretary of State and wear a hazard suit so I didn't contaminate any females or anything. Later on I think they were selling off the old kit but I don't think I got any of it. Not sure what happened next in there, but they didn't get Acorns.

[paulb]

That was phenomenally rare at the time to be allowed in the Girls' School at all, I must have had to have had special dispensation from the Board of Governors and the Secretary of State and wear a hazard suit so I didn't contaminate any females or anything.

Since it is you, BeebMaster, I would like to think that Her Majesty even had to sign off on the whole procedure.

[BeebMaster]

Well, we did have a visit by HRH The Princess Royal in September 1995 (after I had left but I was allowed back) so hopefully that counts as the Royal authority which may have been required.

[tricky]

I found a trailer for the new Tetris film, it is a Docu Drama (I think) a bit like Micro Men but higher budget!
What do you think those russian games programmers used (in the film)?

Can you spot who has wireless connections to their monitors!
The guy on the left must be the new one as he gets books instead of a monitor stand, probably realistic!

White stickers over the BBC logos!

Who really wrote that version of tetris and did CUbs have a mono switch or could they run from composite?

[Trelach]

Plenty of Beebs at the Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in 1985, plus Econet and Acornsoft Business Games too:

https://www.youtube.com/v/fpJhLYxGWYc?t=85s

Just spotted this post, I was at Bucks College of HE in September '85 albeit doing my A Levels.

We also used the Beebs with Econet. There were nearly my downfall as I was almost kicked out because one afternoon a few of us decided to hack into our teacher's account for fun so we wrote a script which would brute force the account (iirc).

From there I went off to the University of Teesside (which sadly didn't have any Beebs).

Happy Days

[archie456]

Plenty of Beebs at the Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in 1985, plus Econet and Acornsoft Business Games too:

https://www.youtube.com/v/fpJhLYxGWYc?t=85s

I like the way the Beebs are screwed to the table with a small metal angle bracket! (See 3:49)... IT Security was much more simpler in those days!

[jgharston]

Just spotted this post, I was at Bucks College of HE in September '85 albeit doing my A Levels.

We also used the Beebs with Econet. There were nearly my downfall as I was almost kicked out because one afternoon a few of us decided to hack into our teacher's account for fun so we wrote a script which would brute force the account (iirc).

From there I went off to the University of Teesside (which sadly didn't have any Beebs).

You must be almost the same age as me. I almost went to Teesside /Poly/ because it *did* have Beebs, but my Head of Sixth Form got me into Stirling University ("I've got you into a *UNIVERSITY*!), which didn't have Beebs*.

I actually wrote to SJ Research asking if they could give me a list of sites with MDFS servers so I could target them as places to apply to, but they refused.

*Well, they had a few. In the first semester we had a maths practical lesson in a room with Beebs, which astonded me as I'd not seen sight nor sound of any computers on my computing course, and I'd only added the maths course as a filler. I was doubly astonded that the Beebs weren't networked. By the time I'd wrangled getting to use the room in my own time, they'd got rid of them. Two years later found a room of networked Beebs (but no server!) half a mile away at the other side of the campus in the Education department. But, as I said before, I kept *not* finding any computers in the actual *computing* department, spending three years wondering when my "computing" course was going to do some actual computing. Not realising that their definition of "computing" was not what all us here call "computing", but was more like "typing".

"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." Attributed to Edsger Dijkstra. I'd wanted to be "doing telescope stuff", but everybody had told me that that was called "astronomy", and I and all my peers naturally assumed it was "astronomy".

[jgharston]

I like the way the Beebs are screwed to the table with a small metal angle bracket! (See 3:49)... IT Security was much more simpler in those days!

Oooo, I would have found that *SO* painful, not being able to push the keybaord away from myself to a comfortable distance with my elbows resting on the table, instead of using all the muscles down my back to support my arms in mid-air. The insanity still persists in "computer desks": Where do I put my hands? Where do I put my paperwork? Where do I put my feet?

[Trelach]

You must be almost the same age as me. I almost went to Teesside /Poly/ because it *did* have Beebs, but my Head of Sixth Form got me into Stirling University ("I've got you into a *UNIVERSITY*!), which didn't have Beebs*.

I actually wrote to SJ Research asking if they could give me a list of sites with MDFS servers so I could target them as places to apply to, but they refused.

*Well, they had a few. In the first semester we had a maths practical lesson in a room with Beebs, which astonded me as I'd not seen sight nor sound of any computers on my computing course, and I'd only added the maths course as a filler. I was doubly astonded that the Beebs weren't networked. By the time I'd wrangled getting to use the room in my own time, they'd got rid of them. Two years later found a room of networked Beebs (but no server!) half a mile away at the other side of the campus in the Education department. But, as I said before, I kept *not* finding any computers in the actual *computing* department, spending three years wondering when my "computing" course was going to do some actual computing. Not realising that their definition of "computing" was not what all us here call "computing", but was more like "typing".

"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." Attributed to Edsger Dijkstra. I'd wanted to be "doing telescope stuff", but everybody had told me that that was called "astronomy", and I and all my peers naturally assumed it was "astronomy".

I took some time out of education with time spent in hospital so I may even be a little older - I just managed to creep into being a 60's child. I was notorious in the hospital as I would turn up each time with my Acorn Electron, portable TV and tape player

Teesside Poly switched to the University of ... just in time for my degree - not that it makes any difference.

Maybe my record went ahead of me and they sensibly kept me away from the Beebs I cannot remember what we did have but I do recall for the first year having to submit a written version of any code we wanted on the computers so that it could be entered for us.

I do like that Dijkstra quote - I sometimes quote it to my students when they complain about doing theory rather than coding (I teach secondary school ages) - but am a bit gob smacked that there was a distinct lack of computers on a computing course.

[jgharston]

I do like that Dijkstra quote - I sometimes quote it to my students when they complain about doing theory rather than coding (I teach secondary school ages) - but am a bit gob smacked that there was a distinct lack of computers on a computing course.

That's the thing, it was a "computing" course, not a software engineering course. Or even - as I found many years later that I should have been looking for - an electrical engineering course. yerwot? I don't want to go to uni to become an electrician!?!? I want to be designing and building computer hardware and software! Y'know, the stuff I've been doing since I was 12! But, at that time (and now, judging by reading through course notes), *electrical* *engineering* is what you should be doing if you want to be doing a university course that does "the stuff wot we call computing". What *universities* call "computing" is akin to "driving" not "automotive engineering". If you wanted to design and built cars, would you expect "Driver's Ed" to be the course to do? But that's what the things that universities label with the name "computing" is. How to *USE* the damn things. Which, I admit, is what the English formulation of that word actually means. When you "calculate" you are performing a process using tools, not creating the tools.

(From your first comment you're probably the same age as me. Year of the Monkey?)

[jgharston]

A bit of googling gives me my univerty's prospectus for my year of entry, 1987. Nineteen eighty SEVEN!:

Many sections of the University enjoy the benefits of the new technology and the computer equipment is used in an increasing number of academic courses at all levels of study.



Rolls on floor laughing!

And we didn't get to use this "state of the art" equipment until Two. Years. Later. in 1989!

[jgharston]

And before anybody tells me off for asserting people mis-use "computing", we are doing exactly that here on this very forum in the thread title:
"Any info on Acorn's own computing environment?"

We here all know that what that thread is asking is really "Acorn's hardware and software *creation*, designing abd putting together hardware and software, plugging bits of kit together and getting it working". That's what *we* call "computing". The pure happy joy of programmable-electronic-based creation, and the hope and ecstacy of somebody amazingly paying us to do it.

But "computing" in academic circles is exactly that, Comput - ing. The do-ing of computation. Using tools to compute stuff.

Typing.

[Trelach]

That's the thing, it was a "computing" course, not a software engineering course. Or even - as I found many years later that I should have been looking for - an electrical engineering course. yerwot? I don't want to go to uni to become an electrician!?!? I want to be designing and building computer hardware and software! Y'know, the stuff I've been doing since I was 12! But, at that time (and now, judging by reading through course notes), *electrical* *engineering* is what you should be doing if you want to be doing a university course that does "the stuff wot we call computing". What *universities* call "computing" is akin to "driving" not "automotive engineering". If you wanted to design and built cars, would you expect "Driver's Ed" to be the course to do? But that's what the things that universities label with the name "computing" is. How to *USE* the damn things. Which, I admit, is what the English formulation of that word actually means. When you "calculate" you are performing a process using tools, not creating the tools.

(From your first comment you're probably the same age as me. Year of the Monkey?)

Year of the Monkey it is

The course I did was boldly titled "Computer Science" and included a fair amount of coding (C, Lisp, Fortran, Cobol, UNIX shell, 68000) as well as a little hardware along with some databases and things like compiler/interpreter design and formal proofs (Z Specifications). Tho iirc, the coding was only for the first two years of the course and about 2-3 hours per week (of 16 or 17 total). In the final year we got to specialise in one unit which did not include coding.

I did a post-grad at Teesside as well in Software Engineering which did not include much if any coding from what I remember.

[AndyMc1280]

A bit of googling gives me my univerty's prospectus for my year of entry, 1987. Nineteen eighty SEVEN!:

Many sections of the University enjoy the benefits of the new technology and the computer equipment is used in an increasing number of academic courses at all levels of study.



Rolls on floor laughing!

And we didn't get to use this "state of the art" equipment until Two. Years. Later. in 1989!

I feel like I've seen this before... From my own uni alumni FB posting #Throwback pics.... where did you do your undergrad ?

[jgharston]

A bit of googling gives me my univerty's prospectus for my year of entry, 1987. Nineteen eighty SEVEN!:

Many sections of the University enjoy the benefits of the new technology and the computer equipment is used in an increasing number of academic courses at all levels of study.



Rolls on floor laughing!

And we didn't get to use this "state of the art" equipment until Two. Years. Later. in 1989!

I feel like I've seen this before... From my own uni alumni FB posting #Throwback pics.... where did you do your undergrad ?

Stirling University, 1987-1990.

[AndyMc1280]

A bit of googling gives me my univerty's prospectus for my year of entry, 1987. Nineteen eighty SEVEN!:

Many sections of the University enjoy the benefits of the new technology and the computer equipment is used in an increasing number of academic courses at all levels of study.



Rolls on floor laughing!

And we didn't get to use this "state of the art" equipment until Two. Years. Later. in 1989!

I feel like I've seen this before... From my own uni alumni FB posting #Throwback pics.... where did you do your undergrad ?

Stirling University, 1987-1990.

Me too - that was the Lab in the Y coridor (I think) 3 Y something ?
I was there 1998 - 2002 for undergrad (Comp Science/French and did an MSc there. Looked exactly the same in 2000 except instead of that stuff, it had P3 933's Same dodgy blackboards at each end and same weird browny orange (70's) carpet. We probably crossed paths with the same Academics hahaha.

Oddly when I started there were 'spare' rooms full of old kit, both under the library and in the Pathfoot Building. The Library catalog was still run on dos based 8088-80286 machines that sounded like jumbo jets... wasn't replaced with an online system until I did my masters and the library had the first of its long overdue "refits". Dare I ask where you stayed ? I was I'n Murray Hall and then Muirhead.

Apologies for the derailing of this thread, although the Disabled Students Lab In my Residence (Murray Hall, Matthew Nelson Lab) had an extremely well expanded BBC Master in it..... until I left in 2003. So yay lol, I made it relevant

[jgharston]

Stirling University, 1987-1990.

Me too - that was the Lab in the Y coridor (I think) 3 Y something ?
I was there 1998 - 2002 for undergrad (Comp Science/French and did an MSc there. Looked exactly the same in 2000 except instead of that stuff, it had P3 933's Same dodgy blackboards at each end and same weird browny orange (70's) carpet. We probably crossed paths with the same Academics hahaha.

Oddly when I started there were 'spare' rooms full of old kit, both under the library and in the Pathfoot Building. The Library catalog was still run on dos based 8088-80286 machines that sounded like jumbo jets... wasn't replaced with an online system until I did my masters and the library had the first of its long overdue "refits". Dare I ask where you stayed ? I was in Murray Hall and then Muirhead.

Apologies for the derailing of this thread, although the Disabled Students Lab In my Residence (Murray Hall, Matthew Nelson Lab) had an extremely well expanded BBC Master in it..... until I left in 2003. So yay lol, I made it relevant

I was in Murray Hall, floor 4 almost overlooking the bridge. Matt Nelson was one of my friends, the DSL was named after him after he died with Cystic Fibrosis. I bought my first Beeb from him! I think the Master was originally in a office/lab in one of the ground floor cross corridors.

Yeah gods I was thin:


I think that's Matt with his back to the camera:

[AndyMc1280]

Wow. Small world eh ? I knew the lab was named after him (plaque on the wall, him with a beeb!) I assumed the Master was his or had been for his particular use. But didn't know much else.

Other than my own beeb/arc history, it always seemed really out of place in a Lab full of wintel PC's, certainly by the year 2000. I even asked the lab tech that maintained the place, "wtf's that old thing doing here" and he didn't know.

My first year in 1998/9 was odd, there was lots of old kit just lying around in corridors and some tutorial rooms. Obviously it had gone out of use, most labs had at least pentium or P2 stuff. I don't remember seeing much mac stuff in Computing until the 3x7 (it was 3x, I think y was Psychology, which i also did for a year) lab got refitted with the multi-coloured imacs around 2000 (never used personally) But obviously other departments used them a lot, one particular room out back of pathfoot was an 80's -90's mac graveyard, everything from Pluses to classics with various II/ 2e/3 and even some iigs 8/16 bit stuff.

Maybe I'm expecting too much but I can't remember any Acorn kit, apart from the odd beeb, and certainly no Archimedes machines. Of course it was long past that era by 1998, but given that my moderately large high school still had plenty in service by the time I left, it seems strange, but perhaps not, thinking about it. Maybe they weren't suited to that environment.

Although my first "day visit" earlier that year, I went and saw Dr Bob Clarke, and he had a huge unix machine on a rather rickety table beside his desk... someone else had a sun workstation....

God I feel old now, that was 25 years ago

PS They were still offering a COBOL unit in 2000 (Richard Bland) as well as Prolog ( Aforementioned Dr R G Clarke's pet fave)

[fuzzel]

Latest edition of The Economist:

Have they photo-shopped another beeb+monitor photo?

[BeebMaster]

Hmm. Dunno. There's a photo credit on the Economist website which suggests it's a real photo. Suit & tie just look too bland even for Sunak.

[BeebMaster]

Looking at this, discussing a previous cover photo "by" the same "artist" suggests it is a "fake":

https://www.economist.com/the-economist ... -as-an-nft

So probably I have insulted the sartorial splendour of a 1980s Beeb hero!

[fuzzel]

Surely if Sunak (and his missus) had a beeb it would be that gold-plated one.

[BeebMaster]

Very true. Mind you he was only 1 or 2 years old when the Beeb came out. And that makes him our first PM younger than me, which is a pretty depressing thought.

And I think even in the crazy political world of today, some adviser or other would have pointed out that a picture of the UK PM with a 1980s computer wasn't the best way to showcase "Britain leading the way in technology " etc.!

[paulb]

Very true. Mind you he was only 1 or 2 years old when the Beeb came out. And that makes him our first PM younger than me, which is a pretty depressing thought.

Or look at it another way: with a PM younger than yourself, you can justifiably say that kids these days not only do not know what they're doing, they really are ruining the country!

And I think even in the crazy political world of today, some adviser or other would have pointed out that a picture of the UK PM with a 1980s computer wasn't the best way to showcase "Britain leading the way in technology " etc.!

It kind of fits in with all the cosplaying, I think. Like all the people who now claim to be big fans of ARM (erm, "arm") and to have been avid Beeb users back in the day, probably being half-hearted at best about their school computing experiences at the time, gladly telling everyone that the A in ARM really stands for Acorn and doing the equivalent of waving/gurning in the background of a television broadcast with respect to ARM's post-Acorn success.

[OneSwitch]

This is a bump of an old thread, but I thought people might find this progression of Stephen Hawking communication technology interesting. From using a BBC Micro in 1984 onto his Cambridge Adaptive System and beyond. Some of this (not the BBC Micro sadly) is now on show at the Manchester Science Musuem: https://switchgaming.blogspot.com/2023/ ... s-aac.html

In Stephen Hawking's office, from a 2008 documentary on his life and research.

Hawking-Beeb.png

[sP1d3r]

I actually wrote to SJ Research asking if they could give me a list of sites with MDFS servers so I could target them as places to apply to, but they refused.

I'm unimpressed by SJ Research for the reason that the Econet clock PCB has a very cheapo and possibly dangerous flaw, which is that the heatsink for the 7805 has a self-tapping screw securing it directly to the ground plane on the solder side of the PCB.
This is instead of the ubiquitous nut and bolt so typical of a 7805-heatsink connector, as demonstrated on Beebmaster's version of this PCB.

The 7805 can't be more than nearly finger-tight so the heatsink isn't being correctly utilized on a component which will stay on for a long time, not a very practical design.

I expect that someone had gotten the idea that you were a rival targeting their installations using a zero-day, possibly as I can't imagine why they wouldn't want you to know [case Ex-IBM security staff employed].

[KenLowe]

OK, so I didn't actually see the beeb. This was at an Aussie Pink Floyd tribute band concert yesterday in Glasgow. There was a video playing in the background when they were playing 'Welcome to the machine'. There was a better view of the retro image earlier in the song, but I didn't capture it.

[Pernod]

OK, so I didn't actually see the beeb. This was at an Aussie Pink Floyd tribute band concert yesterday in Glasgow. There was a video playing in the background when they were playing 'Welcome to the machine'. There was a better view of the retro image earlier in the song, but I didn't capture it.

See post at viewtopic.php?p=255066#p255066

[KenLowe]

Ah, yes. That's a bit clearer than my grainy effort.