BBC Micro info

For many years, the BBC Micro computer, as produced by (the now defunct) Acorn Computers Limited (formerly of Cambridge, U.K.), gave a great deal of pleasure to many people.

Although somewhat dated now, the machines still have loyal fans, and these pages address some of the odd issues I've come across over the years.

Disk Controllers

The gory details on the 8271 floppy disk controller, the 1770 floppy disk controller, DFS/DDFS/ADFS ROMs, and the Solidisk DDFC and DFDC boards

Floppy Disk formats

BBC Micro users will have a large number of DFS and ADFS floppy disks, which may contain useful data. I have hints on reading DFS and ADFS floppy disk under Linux.

Adding a Hard Disk

Floppies are old hat these days, so you could think about adding a Hard Disk to the BBC Micro.

Y2000 problems

The original BBC Micros had no real-time clock IC, which made them pretty well immune from Y2000 problems :-)
The BBC Master 128 computer has a few Y2000 problems. Here are some fixes for the computer itself, utility ROMs, etc.

Operating System

Y2000 fixes for BBC Master series (excluding Master ET)

Utility ROMs

Beebug Master ROM.
I used to maintain this for Beebug, and I have the source code. The versions made available (last was 1.05) have some Y2000 problems, which I plan to fix. Beebug have agreed that I can provide updates.
The update may only be to switch the century to "20" from "19". If you need more functionality than this (e.g. to cope with 1980 to 2079), mail me.

Andrew Benham (G8FSL), Southgate, London N14 4XD, United Kingdom

Mail Andrew Benham (adsb@adsb.co.uk)