Wouter's BBC microcomputer stuff

BBC microcomputer stuff

A bit of history...

It's been a long time since my last BBC web page, do you remember "Wouter Scholten's BBC B, emulators and classic videogames page" at http://www.cistron.nl/~wouters/bbc/bbc-etc.html :-) In 1995 I started the bbc archive as there were no utilities or software available on the web at that time, especially nothing to transfer files to/from a PC (there were a few files hidden in some ftp archives). I put up a notice of my intention to stop publishing my bbc pages in june 1996 (I did keep a small page with some information until late 1997), largely because I did not have enough webspace; I had at that time what now seems a paltry 2 MB available... Robert Schmidt mirrored what I put up, and is doing his best since that time to provide everything for the BBC on what is now known as The BBC lives!). He probably does it better than I would...

I'm not going to put a large archive back up on the net, as others do a good job already, but I will present a few programs I made, then and now, and dicuss various other topics.

Software for download (DOS/windoze, unix)

FDC: a floppy disk controller program, for DOS (based on fdcdemo, the lowlevel code has been reorganized, the highlevel stuff has largely been replaced). Latest version is from 1998. For DOS/windoze. Note: Robert Schmidt provided me with the assembler, so he deserves credit for FDC's existence (and if you think that's not much of a service, try fdcdemo and see if you can read/write BBC disks...)
Download here: bbc lives utilities
NOTE: You will likely fail to read/write single density discs using a 1.2MB drive. What very likely will work is read/write single density discs using a 360K drive! (of course, you can then only read 40 track discs; actually this is not quite true, but then you'll have to use anadisk & dummy files etc. Mail me if you're desperate) Double density should be readable/writeable on 360K & 1.2MB drives on a PC.
bbcim: essentially a collection of separate utilities I released first in 1995. This means there's code duplication in various places, and it's not all that clean. The current devel version is 0.99, a major rewrite, which needs more work before I release it.
You can get 0.95 and 0.97 (with adfs support) here: bbc lives utilities Note: Robert Schmidt provided me with the compiler to make/test the DOS version...
Here's a postscript manual page for the latest bbcim version (mostly also applicable to 0.95/0.97).

Note that all of the following locally downloadable utilities point to a single zip file containing all of them, and are source code only (with makefiles for unix, will probably need a few changes for DOS/windoze).

bbctape 0.95 This program makes, reads, decodes BBC computer audio tapes (it uses a bit of code from R.Schmidt's bbctape 0.91 and Ole Stauning's tape utility (heavily modified!)). A tape can be converted to files, blocks, or tape image. These can be converted back again to a audio file/tape (or played directly to the BBC's cassette port via the computer's line-out).
Note: At the moment bbctape only reads/writes raw tape dumps, no header/block information as suggested below, and as produced by 'uef_extract'.
bbctapeblocks Show file information or combine tape blocks into a single file (only works correctly for programs that do not modify the blocks while loading).
make_tape_blocks Reads a tape and writes each tape blocks to disk, based on T.Harte's 'make_uef'. Use this program to read blocks of bad tapes that 'bbctape' for some reason doesn't decode. You can then combine the blocks you got with this program and from bbctape, by using either bbctape (->make a new audio file) or bbctapeblocks (->combine the blocks into an archive format file).
uef_extract Extracts tape blocks from uef format files into: separate tape blocks (including header & data CRC), files (only works correctly for programs that do not modify the blocks while loading), tape images.
Updated version of Ole Stauning's tape utility: It now extracts all files (in archive format) from a single audio file, also, I fixed some compilation issues. Note that bbctape makes this program obsolete...
archive format utilities Ready to use functions to decode .inf files (BBC file attributes) and .dsk files (disk image attributes) for emulators and utilities. Used in bbcim 0.99. Also includes a test program.

Software that's not available for download (unix)

I describe the following program because it's referred to in a few places (www pages etc):

bbccom (serial communcation between BBC computer and other computer, requires unix like OS): not released except to a few people (that was a very old version from 1997), mainly a tool for myself, you might want to use xfer. I use my program because it's much faster (up to 940 bytes/s reading from a floppy), has a much smaller bbc side program (which you can transfer after a few keypresses in about 7 seconds using a safe 4800 bps, so no need to look for a disk where you stored the program ...), although it does not handle errors (like disk full) as good.

Suggested tape format

 Tape image format:
   first the identifier:
        - 8 bytes: "BBCTAPE" + terminating 0

   followed by data blocks which consist of:
    byte  0 : block type:
    bytes 1 - 4 : block len (MSB)
    bytes 5 -  : data
   .

   Currently assigned block types (no other types are needed I think):
   block type = 0 : silence
       - 4 bytes : MSB block length (=1+4+4)
       - 4 bytes : MSB duration (ms)

   block type = 1 : bit stream:
       - 4 bytes : MSB block length (=1+4+2+4+ ({nbits} +7)/8)
       - 2 bytes : MSB tone frequency (Hz) (= baud rate)
       - 4 bytes : MSB number of bits in the block
       - { ({nbits} +7)/8 } bytes : data block with the bits

   block type = 2 : standard BBC tape block
       - 4 bytes : MSB block length (=1+4+2+ {tape block size})
       - 2 bytes : MSB tone frequency (Hz) (= baud rate)
       - { tape block size } bytes : data block with the actual tape block

Example tape images

None yet for the above format, but here's a single bitstream of fortress: fortress.tape.zip

    bbctape -w /dev/dsp -T fortress.tape

writes it to line out...

Converting a batch of uef images to tape images is easy:

   for i in *.uef do; uef_extract -t ${i%.uef}.tape; done

Wants:

I decided to have a go at trying to get back the things I lost around 1992 (magazines, books, tapes, 6502 2p case :-( ) when someone in my family decided to clean up some drawers and nuked all my BBC stuff and old computer magazines like PCW (I still have 4 of my tapes with self written programs, but that along with the BBC computer itself was about it of what I had left). I've succeeded in getting some of what I had again (and I do have many other things I didn't have), but not all of it; maybe you can help with what I'm still looking for:

Programs typed in from magazines

On my 1995/1996 web pages I also asked for the following programs, still haven't found them...

There are two programs I would really like to find, these are:
1. The grid (probably typed in from a late 1983 issue of PCW): You move around on a grid, and have to shoot the aliens which move downwards, if they reach the bottom the game is over, you also have to shoot fuel that is deposited randomly on the grid at various times, and if fuel=0 or you hit the fuel the game is also over). Shooting is done in the direction you last moved in.

2. A game which was probably called 'meteors' (no, not the acornsoft game). A BASIC game that was a vertical scroller; You had a little space ship (a triangle thingy) that you could move only left or right, and you had to avoid all the meteors (blocks in 3 sizes that moved from the bottom of the screen upwards) and pick up +'s that were placed randomly around the screen; if you had collected enough +'s you had fuel to propel yourself to the bottom of the screen, and then you started a new screen, (I think starting lower on the screen, giving you less time to think ahead, you also had to pick up more +'s). I'm not sure where I got this from, possibly PCW or 'The micro user'.

Miscellaneous

 - Acornsoft catalogue of late 1983 (blue cover, white letters on black paper inside).

Magazines

 - PCW (personal computer world) any from 1983, early 1984
 - (BBC) micro user: vol.1, no.1 March 1983 - up to - vol.2, no.10 December 1984
 - Acorn user: jan 1984, aug 1984

Books

 - Acorn disc filing system user guide
 - Creative sound (Acornsoft) { I may get this one mid may }

Software (original)

 - Acornsoft: Defender (cassette) { probably doesn't exist on disk }
 - Acornsoft: Tetrapod (cassette/disk)
 - Acornsoft: Star swarm (cassette/disk) { almost the same as Tetrapod }
 - Acornsoft: Rocket raid (disk)
 - Acornsoft: Planetoid (disk)
 - Acornsoft: Meteors (disk)
 - Acornsoft: Arcadians (disk)
 - This version of Acornsoft's Meteors if it really exists...
   (from Acornsoft's Autumn 1982 catalogue)

   

 - Micropower: Imogen (cassette/disk)

 - Dynabyte: 3D tank zone
 - Kansas: Bomber scramble

Hardware

 - Ferranti Tube ULA: ULA9C018E-7 (or a complete 6502 2nd processor for the right price)

If you know someone who has any of these items for sale/trade, or if you have something on this list yourself, and want to sell it or trade it mail me at wouter.scholten@wanadoo.nl

I'll send the latest trade list upon request; Examples: complete Acornsoft ISO pascal 2 rom package with books, Computer concepts graphics rom + manual, software, books, magazines (Acorn User's from 1983, 1984, 1990 & 1991), original dutch view/viewsheet/viewstore manuals (by the dutch importers), photocopied manuals of many roms; I also have a technomatic time warp real time clock with software, and maybe an Acorn Atom (with FP ROM, extra RAM etc), that I'm willing to trade for micro user mags.

Wouter