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What's Old?

Here are the old news for those who are particularly interested in the history of this site... :-)

The links on this page are not kept up to date.

  • 11.05.2002
  • BeebEm for the PS2 Albert Soler is working on a port of BeebEm to the Playstation 2! Check this out: 
    Hi Robert,

I'm a big fan of the site and thought I should update you with some news
concerning a project I've been working on for the past three weeks.

Screenshots: 1 2

BEEBEM PS2 features the following :
- emulates a BBC Model B 32K with sideways ram
- full frame rate (between 4 and 5 times faster than the beeb)
- 48Khz mono audio output (matching the beeb)
- full USB keyboard support (USB 1.1 compliant)
- basic controller support (sufficient to play Exile)
- pretty user interface (so that you can select disk images)
- loads disks and states from the cdrom via an XML index.

BEEBEM v1.0B2 temporarily available from:
http://www.ps2ownz.com/beebem-1b2.zip

Included in the documentation are instructions on adding games, burning the
CD image, and also starting it up on your PS2.
  • ORLOK has a real life as well, which includes working on the London Live! site, a live webcam collection from throughout London. As you will see, he stays true to his origins, featuring graphics from the Beeb classic Spycat!
  • Paul Boddie let me know that he has used cc65 (a 6502 C compiler) to produce code for the Electron (tested in Electrem). He found that the basic configuration details needed for the BBC micros was already present, so it appears to be in a usable state.
  • 07.05.2002
  • James Watson's BBC pages have moved here.
  • Richard Gellman's BeebEm pages are available again, and a great release is in the works...
  • 29.04.2002
  • ORLOK dug up the key reference charts for Exile.
  • While on the topic, I mirrored Graham Bisset's scan of the Teletext adapter keystrips.
  • Colin Fraser posted scans of the AMPLE Nucleus programmer's guide and the Music 2000 manual on his Hybrid Music System page.
  • Andrew Weston added some hints on reading BBC disks on Acorn computers to the FAQ.
  • Wouter Scholten would like to point out that all his contributions in the last batch were conversions of scans made by others.
  • 10.04.2002
  • ORLOK contributed scans of the Genie Reference Guide, the BBC add-on board that provided an instantly accessible address book, calendar, calculator and more (much like Borland's Sidekick). Now I wonder, is this something that could be supported in an emulator... ?
  • Wouter Scholten contributed some documentation scans and conversions (the original efforts are usually credited within the archives):
  • Enigma Disc Imager
  • Xtend
  • Acornsoft Creative Assembler
  • BBC Advanced User Guide (HTML conversion added - images not inlined)
  • BBC Service Manual (HTML conversion)
  • Vine Micros Replay
  • Mark Usher's Disk Drive and DFS Guide (HTML conversion added)
  • Mitsubishi drives datasheet (HTML conversion)
  • Morley EPROM Programmer ad
  • Opus DDOS Challenger manual (HTML conversion)
  • Opus DFS manual (HTML conversion)
  • Solidisk ADFS manual (HTML conversion)
  • Solidisk Sideways RAM manual (HTML conversion)
  • Solidisk EPROM Programmer (HTML conversion)
  • Solidisk twomeg and fourmeg boards (HTML conversion)
  • Watford Speech Synthesizer Operating Manual (HTML conversion)
  • Watford DFS manual (HTML conversion added)
  • Watford ROM/RAM manual (HTML conversion)
  • Watford Solderless Sideways ROM manual (HTML conversion)
  • Wouter also sent me some disk images some time ago:
  • Beebug Hershey Characters
  • Beebug Spellcheck for View 1.7
  • Cambridge First Certificate Exam
  • Longman Screentest for First Certificate
  • Wida educational titles
  • 01.04.2002
  • A long while ago, Jeremy Stanton sent me the tape for Acornsoft's Desk Diary, with pretty poor audio quality. The tape has finally been converted, and the program is available here. (The conversion would have been impossible without Wouter Scholten's upcoming tape conversion program. His Fourier analysis-based utility decoded the tape with no problems whatsoever, where my own BBC-Tape and makeuef stumbled at numerous bad blocks.) Seeing Desk Diary in 2002 is pretty weird - much like watching a cave painting from the stone age... :-)
  • The BBC Computer web site has a full scan of Mike James' "The BBC Micro - an expert guide" online, as well as an animated GIF showing Stryker's Run in its entirety.
  • 25.03.2002
  • John Kortink has posted some info on the SN76489 sound chip used in BBC micros. He has also released a RISC module which accurately emulates this chip.
  • Sprow has released DOSFS, a file system ROM for accessing DOS and Windows 95 diskettes on a BBC, even with long file names. He also contributed some scans of the Master keystrips, and corrected my link to his BBC unzip utility.
  • 19.03.2002
  • Richard Gellman released BeebEm 1.41. Here are the news:
    - Fixed a small bug in teletext double height rendering (slants appear straighter now)
- Re-did the timing code. Runs at a better speed now. (See note below!!!)
- Sound code reverted back to using cycle counts, but more accurately. Should work better now the thing is running at the right speed
- Speech works! (and at the right speed too....)
- 1770 FDC Saving bug fixed (I think, no problems yet...)
- Sound muting in-menu redesigned, (sometimes) gives a smoother output when returning to emulation
- Firetrack smooth scrolling! yay!
- Interlace scanline timing bug fixed
- Vertical displacement/centering fixed
- Fixed ADC/SBC Decimal mode bugs
    Richard points out that switching from a frame-relative speed adjustment to a time-relative one might crash the emulator. So now you're warned, and you won't need to mail Richard about it! ;-)
  • 28.02.2002
  • Brian Jones has released BBC Connect 2.0, a major update to his BBC emulator front-end, adding support for B-Em, internet software archive database updates, improved downloading code, and more.
  • You might have missed Thomas Harte's Work In Progress release of ElectrEm - it has several new features, but the stability is probably not for the faint of heart.
  • This cool chess set, hand crafted by Peter Clements, was spotted by David Wooding. There's also an itsy bitsy Beeb on Peter's pages!
  • The same David Wooding also noted the release of Brandy, a BBC BASIC V interpreter that runs on many systems. It's been implemented in ANSI C, so should be easy to port.
  • Virtual Acorn might be of interest - it's an Acorn A5000 emulator for Windows. If you're familiar with Red Squirrel, Virtual Acorn is the commercial counterpart to the latter. Virtual Acorn comes with a comprehensive software collection on hard disk image, including RISC OS.
  • Wouter Scholten added a Dutch addendum for the Morley teletext adapter.
  • The RISC OS ROMs have been removed from the archive, by request from Paul Middleton of RISCOS Ltd..
  • 21.01.2002
  • Tom walker has updated B-em to 0.4a: 
    - Some 6502 bugs fixed, Exile now working properly.
- Re-added Model A emulation.
- Disc drive noise added.
- Default config file no longer points to a non-existant file.
- Can now log sound - invented new file format for this (.sn - player
  and format description included)
- Arrow keys and delete/copy now work again.
- Updated documentation
  • 20.01.2002
  • Brian Jones has updated BBC Connect to version 1.92, containing some software database updates specifically for 8BS and Stairway to Hell.
  • Thruster If you're a fan of Thrust, you might like to take a look at Thrust Deluxe, a reasonably faithful remake of the original. Try to ignore the cheesy SID title music - none of us like SID much, do we? :-) There are also hints of a graphically revamped version called Thruster, of which only a short 3 level demo is yet available.
  • 15.01.2002
  • Out of the blue, James Fidell released Xbeeb 0.4.1 - about five and a half years after the last patch to 0.3! :-) Xbeeb was one of the earliest BBC model B emulators - notable for having had a great mode 7 font all along. It originated on UNIX, but has been compiled on/ported to several other platforms. A lot of improvements (I quote): "including near-complete emulation of the undocumented 6502 opcodes and reasonable sound support. I've also added support for .inf files, so it should be straightforward to run many of the programs on The BBC Lives." Great work, James! Now, where did I keep those X files for Windows? ;-)
  • 14.01.2002
  • Tom walker has released B-em 0.4. Tom mentions the following great changes: 
    	- Sound is *much* better
	- Speed increased 2-4 times
	- Video emulation improved. Full overscan is supported, and the colour generation is the same as on a real BBC
	- New GUI
	- UEF support removed, as it were crap (ed. note: not so great...:-/ )
	- Directories semi-supported in TFS (for Dambusters and Sorcery)
	- Setup removed (no longer needed)
	- Some 6502 bugs fixed
	- Sideways RAM emulation added, but quite buggy
	- Exile now works! (just)
	- Elite is now playable!
  • Wouter send me some disk images as well. Adventurescape from A&B Computing is an adventure game authoring system. One disk has the system itself and the sample adventure Murder at the Abbey, the second disk has the samples Xanadu and Amnesia. More disks will appear soon.
  • 13.01.2002Morfix by Andrew Standford
  • Wouter Scholten contributed the following non-commercial titles to the software archive: Detonator Dan (from Beebug), Cosmonaut (a Hunchback clone in space by Dan Anderson), FlatOut (a Pole Position clone by J Millar), Pendragon (a Pengo clone by Gordon J Key, printed in Micro User), Morfix (a nice little JSW clone by Andrew Stanford), Rubiks Cube (in Dutch), and Scrumpy (a cute little action game).
  • I've discontinued the incoming FTP directory, as it hasn't been accessible for a while, and NVG seems reluctant to make a working solution. Contributing files to rsc@nvg.org is probably easiest for everybody anyway, these days (just make sure you send an archive - like zip - instead of many individual attachments).
  • 09.01.2002
  • Dave contributed Suburban Fox to the meagre collection of educational titles. Suburban Fox was published by Ginn Software; as Dave notes, a rather funny choice of name for a company in the kiddie edutainment business... This is actually a fulfillment of a request made by John Pattison, May 23rd, 2000. The system works! :-)
  • 02.01.2002
  • Richard Gellman has released BeebEm 1.4, with a huge amount of updates and fixes. Richard is aware that files can be corrupted during saving when the emulator is in 1770 FDC mode, and will look into it. Drive carefully!
  • Speaking of The Stairway to Hell, Dave's site has been updated with a huge number of new and many rare BBC disk images. There is also a lot of interesting updates to the docs and lost & found sections.
  • 01.01.2002
  • A happy new year to everybody!
  • Brian Jones celebrates the turn of the year by releasing BBC Connect 1.9 with further support for direct access to various BBC software archives on the Internet.
  • ORLOK contributed the Morley Teletext Adapter key strip, including a version adapted to modern PC keyboards.
  • 21.12.2001
  • Best wishes for the holidays! I'll be unresponsive for a couple of weeks from now, enjoying the peace and quiet. :-)
  • BeebIt, Michael Foot's BBC emulator for RISC OS, has been updated to version 0.32. There are loads of little fixes and speed-ups, so go get! He has also changed home on the web - here is his new place.
  • Michael has also made available BBCFiles, a BBC file/disc image conversion utility written by James Lampard.
  • 15.12.2001
  • BeebEm is being ported ported to the Agenda Vr3 PDA. Thanks to Mike for the link.
  • 10.12.2001
  • Brian Jones has released BBC Connect 1.8, the freeware BBC and Electron emulator front-end for Windows. Changes in version 1.8:
  • Developmental Internet access - basic URL and File menu. A common access interface will be explored from BBC Connect 1.9 onwards. Significantly, any Web site may be accessed through HTTP.
  • Zipped "standard archive" file format is processed for BBC emulators. Note, a number of files do not comply with any apparent standards within this archive.
  • Directory view (catalogue) of 31 and 62 file .BBC, .DSD, .IMG and .SSD disk images (option to view in-game and scanned box images remains as default).
  • Option to rename disk titles.
  • Option to modify *OPT4 settings.
  • Desktop: User interface updated.
  • 08.12.2001
  • The unstoppable Dave Edwards contributed the following material:
  • Slogger's Click user guide
  • Slogger's Tape To Disc ROM user guide (including T2P3, T2CU, T2P4, T2SD and T2SEDFS)
  • Official hint sheets for the Epic adventures Castle Frankenstein, Quest for the Holy Grail, The Kingdom of Klein and Wheel of Fortune
  • ACP's Advanced Electron 1770 DFS ROM, the user guide to the Electron DFS ROM, aka the Advanced Plus 4 ROM/Interface, which keeps PAGE at &E00
  • Jafa Systems' Shadow RAM Board user guide: Fitting instructions and a resume of the benefits of this internal Acorn Electron addon which results in a switch labelled 'Normal/Turbo/64K' on the left hand side of the machine.
  • "Endie" on the BBC micro mailing list pointed out this page, served to the Internet from a genuine Commodore 64. Has anybody done anything similar to a BBC? I noticed that the compiler used, cc65, has no run-time support for Acorn micros yet - this sounds like a worthwhile project on its own! Given a working cc, using the tiny uIP TCP/IP stack shouldn't be too hard. So, who makes the first 2- or multi-player game for Beebs/Electrons connected over the Internet? ;-)
  • 17.11.2001
  • Brian Jones has updated BBC Connect to version 1.7. BBC Connect is a BBC and Electron emulator front-end. This release supports more formats/extensions (*.BBC, *.DSD, *.IMG, *.ZIP decompression).
  • Check out Paul Weddell's new BBC Alive page! He has collected a number of useful answers to technical questions. There's also an account of the Acorn/BBC history.
  • Dave Edwards contributed a Word DOC version of the Exile novella, formatted as close to the original as possible, as well the user guide for Slogger's Disk Filing System for the Electron.
  • 25.10.2001
  • Mailing list back online! :-)
  • 24.10.2001
  • Chris Richardson pointed out that cloud9.co.uk, the BBC micro mailing list server, seems to have vanished from the 'net. The last mail passed the list almost 10 days ago, and the server is now unreachable. If anyone has any info on this (or a valid e-mail address for James Fidell, the list admin), please drop me a mail, and I'll put it here.
  • 21.10.2001
  • Brian Jones has released version 1.6 of BBC Connect. Brian says: 
    From 1.6 the version reference numbering will be limited to 2 
digits.  BBC Connect supports:
* BeebEm and PcBBC - the BBC Micro emulators
* ElectrEm - the Electron emulator
Version 1.6 features
Startup: initialisation sequence recoded.
Help system: development continued.
Desktop: redesigned and optimised.
Help system: restructured and re-edited.
File system: JPEG and GIF files recognised.
Database: option to save sorted data on exit.
New record: option on desktop instead of the Edit window
  • 20.10.2001
  • Dave Edwards contributed Slogger's Electron Switched Joystick Interface User Guide and the manual for Gilsoft's The Quill. As you may know, The Quill is an adventure authoring system. The software itself is not in our archives yet, but can be found (in UEF format) at The Stairway to Hell. Thanks, Dave!
  • 19.10.2001
  • Johan Paul Hendriks has put his old BBC software up on his website, JBF Software. Available are the games Blokkendoos and Strawberry Fields, a game key redefinition tool, and JPH ROM, his own Toolkit/Disc Doctor replacement.
  • Tom Henderson is looking for the game "Mickey's Marvellous Mixture" - can anybody help him?
  • G0WST sent a ZIP file with the software and documentation for the Peartree Sideways RAM board.
  • 11.10.2001
  • Dave Edwards sent another couple of scanned docs: Jafa's Mode 7 adaptor for the Electron, and Slogger's complete catalogue (great reading! :-). Enjoy!
  • 11.10.2001
  • Dave Edwards contributed docs for Slogger's Electron ROMBOX+ and Electron Expansion 2.0.
  • Tom Humphrey updated Jasper Renow-Clarke's ArcImg to version 1.1.2, which is now able to read and format 1.6 MB F format disks.
  • 05.10.2001
  • Richard Russell has released BBC BASIC for Windows, a programming environment that lets you use your favourite dialect of your favourite programming language to program your... uh... the operating system that you use. In his own words: "This is a development of BBC BASIC (86), but as well as having a Graphical User Interface it also offers much better compatibility with the BBC Micro and even incorporates many of the enhancements in Acorn's BASIC V."
  • Brian Jones has released version 1.41 of BBC Connect: "The latest release includes a version of the BBC Microcomputer User Guide's Basic Keywords system, accessible through Help."
  • 28.09.2001
  • Mark Usher's BBC Documentation Project now has its own domain. Update your bookmarks and links!
  • 24.09.2001
  • BBC Connect 1.31 is available, and now supports ElectrEm and UEF files.
  • David Cload is looking for ROM and software for the "snap EV1" CCD image system, possibly produced by Commotion.
  • 20.09.2001
  • Brian Jones' BBC Connect, a BBC emulator front-end for Windows, has moved to Emuunlim: ninsei.emuunlim.com.
  • 16.09.2001
  • Wouter Scholten and Mike Tomlinson contributed the 1.0 software and parts of the 2.0 software for the Acorn BitStik.
  • Brian Jones has updated his BBC emulator front end: "BBC Connect version 1.21 is now released. This is the second public release of BBC Connect. This version has a unified file set for Win98 and Win2000, and is untested on other Windows platforms. The setup file is greatly reduced due to removing the installation wizard, and should result in significantly shorter downloads."
  • David Bell's emulator page now has its own domain: Dave's Emulator Page.
  • 04.09.2001
  • Wouter Scholten contributed a StarBase ROM with accompanying Utilities disk, the files accompanying the Dutch book "Tekstverwerken op de BBC", and ROMs and utilities for redefining the character sets of the Watford NLQ ROM.
  • Greg Cook notified me that his TDTD software suite has been made obsolete by the UEF format and its related utilities, so he's letting his page be discontinued as he's leaving university.
  • 09.08.2001 Another month passed... at least there's some new software out there!
  • Brian Jones has just released BBC Connect emulator front-end. Version 1.1 is the first public release. There are (get this) different versions for Windows 98 and 2000, and only the Win98 version has been released.
  • John Kortink recently made available Labyrinth 0.50, a RISC OS port of the popular Acornsoft BBC game.
  • Dave Edwards contributed a solution to Shards Software's adventure game Woodbury End. The solution is in Word DOC format.
  • Thomas Harte has in the mean time put out beta 9b of ElectrEm. This fixes various issues with UEF files and sound.
  • Christian Pinder finally reached his major milestone by releasing version 1.0 of Elite: The New Kind, a re-engineering of the original BBC Elite source code to modern platforms. Mark Follett took it one step further, by porting Elite:TNK to OpenGL.
  • Doug Wheller notified me of his EzeeBeeb site, celebrating the BBC and many of its games, with downloads, screenshots, playing and cheating tips. He's also provides a one-file download and step-by-step guide to getting BeebEm running with a bunch of games ready to go.
  • 08.07.2001 Work and summer sure take their toll on me. 1.5 months since the last update. Isabel and I just returned from a great weekend biking in the woods north of Oslo, so now I feel like doing my duty instead of sucking up any more sun and mosquito bites. Here are the few tidbits of happenings since the last update:
  • Thomas Harte's just released ElectrEm beta 9, with lots of great news. In his own words:
  • the Electron system ROMs are included
  • real tapes, wav, aiff, au, raw sound and t2p files are all newly added tape data sources - t2p files even work with the fast load mechanism
  • uef-tape files can now be written to
  • improved autoload feature
  • can be used with file associations in all operating - the emulator is then near invisible
  • SDL target added to source, but no SDL release yet due to keyboard issues
  • two disc drive emulation added
  • various bug fixes including : false palette sets (e.g. EUG discs), menu system file jamming, erroneous tape interface interrupts, potential crash for non-joystick users
    • Thomas is also running a poll to determine the most wanted feature of a future release. Check out the ElectrEm home page for more info.
  • Richard Gellman has had BeebEm 1.36 beta available on his web page for about a month now. The changes include serial port support, as well as an improved Mode 7 display. It is crucial that as many people as possible test the serial port code, since it uses multi threading. I know how frustrating it can be to debug such code, so help him out. (Note that we don't mirror betas of BeebEm here, since regular releases appear often enough.) (But of course, never too often... :-)
  • David Boddie has updated his T2Tools file conversion suite with a couple of scripts for RISC OS users, and extended ADF2INF (an ADFS disc image reader) so that it should now read 800K and 1600K E format disc images.
  • A discussion is in progress on the BBC micro mailing list, about the feasibility and most suitable technology for scanning old magazine articles. Storage/web space seems to be no problem, at least 8BS and TBL! has volunteered with an unlimited amount of webspace. Some individuals have mentioned that they could certainly contribute with scans and OCR efforts. The current topic of discussion is what technology to use. Mark Usher has recommended LizardTech's DjVu format (very good compression ratios and other features, though highly proprietary, and costs a bit to use comfortably), of which he has provided a sample here. JPEG has been suggested, but is being bashed for its lossiness, old age (this also counts in JPEG's favour, together with the availability of software). PDF is a definite contender, but some report quirks, and the price of Acrobat is an issue. If you think you may have something to contribute to this discussion, or to the efforts that may be put into scanning old BBC-related mags, please join the mailing list. If you're new to the list, you should probably read the most recent parts of Mark Cooke's mailing list archives, so that you're up to date on the recent discussion.
  • Dave Edwards added a request for the AMX SuperArt demonstration pictures disc by Joseph Lavery. Please let us know if you can help him out! It'd make a great addition to the archive. Also check out the other BBC program requests.
  • Lawrence Edwards told me about his BBC Micro page, which can be of help to users having problems getting BeebEm to work. He also sports a collection of game screenshots and links to BBC related pages around the world. Check it out!
  • 22.05.2001
  • Just noticed that I'd forgot to put the latest BeebEm version 1.35 zip file online. Sorry about that! Go to Richard's BeemEm page if you'd like the InstallShield for an automated setup. The sound does sound much better, and the UEF support is great.
  • 14.05.2001
  • Wouter Scholten has released his Beeb tape utilities. They are available from his home page, and include programs for decoding tapes, decoding UEF tape files and producing tape audio, as well as a library of functions for use by developers.
  • Peter Lloyd and Mark de Weger contributed the Acornsoft Forth ROM. (I'd long assumed this language was faded into obscurity when I discovered that it's relatively popular on the PalmOS platform...)
  • 03.05.2001
  • Richard Gellman has released BeebEm version 1.35. Go to Richard's BeemEm page for all the details!
  • Mike Foot notified the mailing list that RISCOS Ltd has made available a partial mirror of the Acorn FTP site (R.I.P.). The 8-bit parts don't seem to be particularly complete - you may have more luck here. Acorn's FTP site contained useful "application notes" for the 8-bit series, as well as circuit diagrams for most of the micros and some peripherals.
  • 29.04.2001
  • David Alan Gilbert notified me that my FTP link for Arcem was way out of date, and this is duly fixed.
  • 27.04.2001
  • Mark West contributed Orlando's (of Aardvark fame) 3D Wars, a game-like demo which didn't get further.
  • BBC coding skills a bit rusty? Can't match the gfx of your friends? Stewe Fewell discovered this relic, which should be able to get you up to speed.
  • 23.04.2001 I'm back from a week's holiday on Malta (recommendable!), so here's a load of updates from my backlog:
  • Tom Walker has updated his B-EM emulator (for DOS) to version 0.3a. He has also made the source code available.
  • Paul Tribick converted the Repton Infinity manual from View to PDF format.
  • Paul Weddell has contributed a document on how to convert ViewStore databases to Microsoft Access.
  • Derek Walker sent a load of ROM images that are probably new to the archive. There are quite a few Electron goodies there are well. I haven't had the time yet to sort through them, so I've temporarily made them available in the unsorted directory. A readme has been provided.
  • The e-mail address for Dmitry Petrov (DOSFS author) has been corrected.
  • Matt Pioli is requesting the program "Graph Builder" by Sherston Software. His mother programmed it! Send him a mail if you can help him out.
  • I've released my tape decoding utility BBC-Tape 0.91 to the public domain. No other changes, though. :-)
  • 11.04.2001
  • TBL! has also joined the 8-bit Acorn webring, managed by Chris Richardson.
  • Red Squirrel is moving to its own .org domain.
  • 09.04.2001
  • Mark de Weger has updated his emulator front-end, BeebEF to version 2.3. This version adds XML support, implying that the entire database can be edited in any text editor, and browsed (including images and related documentation) using (say) Internet Explorer 5 and up.
  • 04.04.2001
  • Thomas Harte released ElectrEm beta 8 last night, adding JIM emulation (basically another 64 KB RAM), printer support (both direct and Epson FX-80 emulation), joystick support, a keyboard map editor, as well as the usual bug and timing fixes. Great work Thomas!
  • Pete Whyman contributed Shards Software's adventure Woodbury End, with cover scans.
  • 02.04.2001
  • Tom Walker has released a new BBC emulator for DOS, called B-EM! It already sounds quite feature rich. It is especially flexible in loading files, supporting disk images, UEF and INF files. Thanks to Dave of Stairway To Hell for the news!
  • 01.04.2001
  • TBL! has joined Thomas Harte's new Acorn Electron webring (check the main page for its banner). Any other sites related to the Acorn Electron are encouraged to enter! A BBC micro ring is also long overdue - we shall see...
  • Crispin Boylan contributed Superior Software's Mutant Spiders, a simple, but frantic shoot-em-up with a twist.
  • Pete Whyman contributed a few items for the software archive: Incentive's Winter Wonderland (with cover scan; this shows an interesting emulation artifact in BeebEm... Richard? :-), Micro User's Death Watch, Galactic Invaders, and parts of the August '89 tape (including Merrils and The Gate), Shards Software's adventures Mystery of the Java Star (with cover scan; this is tape based, and won't load correctly from a disk image because of CHAIN"") and Operation Safras (BBC version, with cover scan).
  • 22.03.2001
  • Thomas Harte released ElectrEm beta 7a, mostly bugfixes and small improvements.
  • The link to a page about L - A Mathemagical Adventure has been updated, thanks to Jonathan Hickford.
  • Telesoftware never appeared here in Norway. These were program listings transmitted as teletext pages alongside the television broadcast, "downloadable" through a teletext adaptor and the proper software. Alan Pemberton has put up a nice page of remembrance.
  • Crispin Boylan has made significant additions to The BBC Games Archive, including 120 new reviews and downloads, as well as a new "Battle of the Games"!
  • Aran has fixed several of my broken links (Mark de Weger's articles, John Allen's Z88 page, Mark Cooke's page, Symo's PC Exile (some PC screenshots since my last visit), the AODIS 6502 disassembler, Mark Usher's documentation project, Acorn SpaceCenter, and David Boddie's page).
  • 19.03.2001
  • Mark de Weger released BeebEF 2.2, which adds support for the BeebEm 1.32 "roms.cfg" file.
  • Thomas Harte released ElectrEm beta 7.
  • 12.03.2001
  • Richard Gellman has released BeebEm 1.32, with several improvements and new features.
  • Now also Philosopher's Quest has received the Mark de Weger treatment, as in instructions, hints, map and a solution being available.
  • 10.03.2001
  • In his relentless quest (if I may) to document Acornsoft's adventure games, Mark de Weger has contributed the hint sheets for Countdown to Doom and Kingdom of Hamil, as well as a nice map and walkthrough for the latter game, available here. His efforts constitute an adventure in themselves: 
    As you know, I've been looking for the Acornsoft adventure hint sheets of
Countdown to Doom and Kingdom of Hamil for a long time. I couldn't find
them, so I decided to reconstruct them myself. Maybe you could put them on
TBL!

I reconstructed the Countdown to Doom hint sheet from a disk with a cheat
version of Countdown to Doom. (Can you imagine someone, fifteen years or so
ago, creating a cheat version of Countdown to Doom by typing in the entire
hint sheet and creating a question-based program from it, and then someone
else reconstructing the hint sheet on the basis of this program fifteen
years later? :)

I took more radical measures to reconstruct the Kingdom of Hamil hint sheet.
I took the Topologika (PC) version as the basis and then solved the entire
game with the help of Topologika's hint system. Once I'd solved this
version, I tried to solve the Acornsoft (BBC) version on the basis of my
experiences with the Topologika version. It worked and in addition to the
hint sheet, I also created a map and a walkthrough.

Regards,
Mark.
  • 08.03.2001
  • Today, The Guardian (UK) had an article on Acorn and what happened to it, largely dominated by an interview with Acorn co-founder Hermann Hauser.
  • FTP access is down for some time.
  • 01.03.2001
  • Mark found that BeebEF 2.0 couldn't be used from scratch, so he has sent me this 2.1 replacement.
  • 28.02.2001
  • Mark de Weger has released version 2.0 of BeebEF, his Windows-based front-end for common BBC emulators. In his own words: 
    Please find attached the new version of my BeebEF program. Quite a few
enhancements, including extensive report functions, ability to display box
cover art, ability to enter and process program-emulator incompatibilities
and many user interface improvements. Still no XML support, but I did a
major source code cleanup, which should make it much easier to implement.
  • Mark de Weger contributed a slew of game cheats. In the game directories, each cheat has a text file with the description from his mail. He also included a good version of Arkanoid - all the old ones were cheats or hacks of some sort.
  • In Mark Usher's documentation project, the Technomatic Disk Book has been updated with a much more convenient RTF file, by Jim McLaren.
  • 17.02.2001
  • Stephen Ruddy contributed the Micronet terminal ROM user's guide to Mark Usher's documentation project.
  • Mark de Weger added solutions for Bored of the Rings and Spycat, as well as passwords for many Repton games.
  • 13.02.2001
  • A fixed BeebEm 1.3 ZIP file is now available. Some files were missing in yesterdays version. Also note that the BASIC ROM image has to renamed from "BASIC" (as used in 1.04 and earlier versions) to "BASIC.ROM" to be recognized by version 1.3. Send any bug reports and questions to Richard Gellman.
  • 12.02.2001
  • Richard Gellman released BeebEm 1.3, with many improvements, most notably Master 128 support! Go to RickyNet for all the information you'd need.
  • 04.02.2001
  • Michael Foot released version 0.30 beta of BeebIt, his BBC emulator for RISC OS. Changes include significant speed increases, a nice blinking cursor (except in mode 7), and more. Mike would really appreciate feedback from people with machines slower than a StrongARM.
  • Richard Gellman is working on Master 128 support for BeebEm. He would very much appreciate some information on the MC146818 CMOS RAM chip, so if anyone can help out, mail him! A few extra features and bugfixes can also be expected.
  • Chris Richardson contributed the Microtext learning tool and computer dialogue authoring system (ROM and software).
  • 06.01.2001
  • Happy belated new year, everybody! The first update of the year is Mark de Weger's contribution of some pieces for the documentation project: a command reference and function key strip for Acornsoft's BASIC Editor, command and error reference for ISO Pascal, and a command summary for Exmon II.
  • We've had a request for the text adventure "Fishy Business" from Salamander Software, by Dave. A contribution of this game would be most welcome!
  • Thomas Harte, developer of ElectrEm, the great Electron emulator, sent me the following: 
    I'm the author of the Electron emulator, ElectrEm, and I've reached more or
less the point where I can't make the emulator any more accurate without
getting hold of some more accurate information. Because of this, and because
there seems to be virtually no other documentation except the AUG, I've put
together a little document on what I know versus what I don't at 
http://electrem.emuunlim.com/techinfo.htm - and I was wondering if you would
mind adding it to your 'What's New' page with a request that anyone who
knows anything about the Electron hardware have a glance at it and e-mail me
regarding any errors they spot?

Thanks in advance,

-Thomas
  • 24.12.2000
  • All right, the turkey's stuffed and baking, so I'll slip in a wish for a merry Christmas to you all - but especially to those of you who need to go through your bookmarks, even today! :-)
  • I'm in the progress of organizing the documentation section a bit, with categories and cover thumbnails.
  • 21.12.2000
  • Added a link to Electron Forever, a relatively new site catering for Electron fans in general, and ElectrEm users in particular. It currently has some tape images and a fresh scan of the Plus 1 documentation.
  • Thomas Harte has released beta 6 of his ElectrEm, adding support for what must be the most novel feature ever in an emulator: multiplexed graphics. This trick simulates additional bus width (and corresponding memory size), fooling regular Electron 6502 machine code to move around twice as much data, furthermore enabling some games to be upgraded with 256-color graphics, without changing a bit of said 6502 code. Other news include vast UEF improvements, RAM support in ROM slots, and the usual improvements.
  • Updated the link to the EUG (Electron User Group).
  • Most of the old (and long dead) links to the Acorn WWW and ftp sites have been removed, or been replaced with links to our local mirror (containing mostly appnotes and circuit diagrams). Thanks to Keith Howell for reminding me.
  • 19.12.2000
  • ORLOK contributed a scan of the Cholo quick reference card.
  • Updated the link to Rob Sprowson's BBC Mecca.
  • 16.12.2000
  • Michael Foot contributed the following games: Epic's Lost Crystal (a graphical adventure), Beebug's Snorter (a tough arcade game), and Anthony Gaisford's sw/Various/Submarine-1.5.zip">Submarine (a simulation with missions in the Baltic or the Caribbean).
  • 15.12.2000
  • Simon Mathiassen notified me that Red Squirrel, the Archimedes emulator for Windows, was updated to version 0.3 a couple of weeks ago. The major new feature is HostFS access to the Windows file system.
  • 14.12.2000
  • ORLOK contributed a nice scan of the map for Firebird's Cholo.
  • The link to the main distribution site for FDC, as well as the e-mail address of its author, John Wilson, have been updated.
  • Dave M contributed the Welsh version of Edword, Slogger's Starword, KCopy (a protected disc imager), and the Data Harvest Video Digitiser software.
  • Sadly, 4Mation politely asked me to remove Granny's Garden and Flowers of Crystal from the archive.
  • 02.12.2000
  • Some server trouble during the weekend, out of my control, I'm sorry to say.
  • BeebEm 1.04 for Windows has been released by yours truly. Changes are mostly cosmetic, but include remembering where disc images and states were loaded/saved (requested by Mike Tomlinson), and various enhancements for DirectDraw enabled users. Read the file "changes" for a full description.
  • ElectrEm, Thomas Harte's great Electron emulator, was updated to beta 5b a few days ago, with some minor improvements.
  • 26.11.2000
  • Dave Daniels has released the first version of Brandy, his BBC BASIC V interpreter. The interpreter is available for many of the major platforms under GPL2.
  • 22.11.2000
  • ORLOK updated the quality of the Elite manual.
  • Check out yesterdays update to The Stairway to Hell - Dave has added tons of stuff! I've been reading for hours!
  • David Boddie has updated and made a web page for his BBC/Electron file conversion suite, T2Tools.
  • 19.11.2000
  • ElectrEm, Thomas Harte's Electron emulator, has been updated to beta 5a, with lots of smaller changes and improvements.
  • Seems like split screen was a piece of cake for Gordon Jefferyes' MESS driver. At least Elite looks as gorgeous as ever!
  • 04.11.2000
  • Michael Foot has released version 0.25 of BeebIt, his BBC B emulator for RiscOS. This release fixes the 8271 status problem mentioned on the BBC micro mailing list, so that Elite works better. Also, support for the B+ has been added.
  • 02.11.2000
  • Gordon Jefferyes warned me that the next release of MESS will have BBC B+ support.
  • 30.10.2000
  • ORLOK sent in a scanned Elite manual.
  • 24.10.2000
  • Symo (author of Citadel 2) is working on a PC port of Exile. Check out his site for early screenshots, a prototype version, as well as a walkthrough and map for the original game.
  • Michael sent me his updated Exile map, much improved with all details from the game.
  • Looking for a particular game, a ROM image or something else? You can now search the archive for parts of a file name.
  • 23.10.2000
  • Great things are afoot in the only part of MESS that we care about. Sound support is reportedly excellent, so this should be something to look forward to.
  • Some more games have been added to the archive (here and here). More will appear soon.
  • Contributions and suggestions for new features are always welcome. I'm still learning about php, for example, so challenges in server-side programming are very welcome.
  • A good way to show appreciation for "The BBC Lives!" is to visit some of the sponsors presented through the banners. Even though many consider ads a nuisance, they can be surprisingly beneficial when implemented and supported well in all directions.
  • 18.10.2000
  • ORLOK contributed scanned manuals for Firebird's Cholo, Superior's Exile and 4thDimension's U.I.M, as well as the reference card for Acornsoft's Elite.
  • Disk space is still a rarity on the server, so if the above files don't exist, try agaain a couple of days later. Sorry about that!
  • 16.10.2000
  • Now is a good time to update your bookmarks: TBL! can now be reached at a shorter, healthier and more environmentally friendly link: http://bbc.nvg.org.
  • Note that the old www.nvg.ntnu.no domain will only work a short while longer, so do update your bookmarks and links while it's still fresh in mind.
  • All pages have been ported from Apache SSI (*.shtml) to php3, so things might be broken. Don't hesitate to let me know.
  • 15.10.2000 Please let me know if you've gotten problems accessing any of the pages, or if you've started seeing odd graphics errors after the ads were installed.
  • 14.10.2000
  • I finally discovered how to tell the server to serve "*.rom" files as binary. I hope it works for you, because...
  • Dave M contributed the Electron cartridge version of Acornsoft's Countdown to Doom (also works on a Beeb), Electron versions of View and ViewSheet, Electron Slogger T2P3 ROMs, and ACP's 1770 DFS for Electron.
  • Matthew dug up a good disk image of 4Mation's Flowers of Crystal (use CHAIN"GO").
  • David Boddie updated T2UEF to 0.12.
  • Some time ago, Christian Pinder updated Elite - The New Kind to beta 2.0.
  • 12.10.2000 It slipped past me that ElectrEm beta 4a appeared last week. Among other changes, it has some null pointer bugs fixed, and in theory the Win32 version should work on DirectX 3.0 (and thereby Windows NT 4.0 - I'll test that myself at work tomorrow. (Update: nope, didn't work in NT4. Not that I care for NT4 anymore. Windows 2000 and Linux do the job for me now.)
  • 11.10.2000
  • Mark de Weger added some nice tidbits: the highly detailed and interesting Aviator map, hand-drawn (by Mark himself) maps for Level 9's Colossal Adventure, and a PDF version of the Welcome booklet from the Beeb package.
  • Further, David Boddie updated his T2Peg400 Slogger tape format conversion script, and added T2UEF, which converts to UEF format (suitable for ElectrEm).
  • Don't be alarmed if ads appear on TBL! soon. You can probably imagine I won't be expecting much in terms of payback, but it should definitely cover NVG's tiny fee, and I hope whatever else comes through will encourage me to do a better job at updating TBL! more frequently and adding more content. My employer could do with some competition for my time... :-) Here's to hoping it will prove beneficial for all of us, to that no regulars will be offended, and to your opportunity to support further developments at TBL!.
  • 22.09.2000 Some updates for the Acorn micro masses.... :-)
  • Thomas Harte released beta 4 of his ElectrEm to days ago. This release has improved some timing issues.
  • Peter Warden recently stumbled across the emulator entry for BBCEm, much to his own surprise. The emulator was never known outside a circle of friends around Nigel Gilbert, and apparently never passed beyond 6502 emulation and text display. I can't even for the life of me recall how I got what little information is there in the first place...
  • Mark Usher made a huge contribution of both games and ROM images (see the archive index for what's been added - all new stuff will appear at the top by default). He also added some contributions from Andrew Blount to the Documentation Project: operating instructions for Acorn's data cassette recorder, and a PDF version of the "additional user information" for BBC B+ w/128KB RAM.
  • Inspired by ElectrEm and, I guess, TBL!, Bas Verhoeven is creating a site dedicated to the Electron: The Acorn Electron Lives. Check it out!
  • 12.09.2000 A long time since the last update, so here goes:
  • David Boddie just uploaded T2Peg400, a Python script that converts Slogger T2 format tape files to actual Electron files.
  • Updated the link to Only the best BBC micro games.
  • BeebInC also has a new address.
  • Mark de Weger has made an online archive of most of his BBC micro-related articles from the eighties.
  • Vincent Yelland, author of XtraComms, contributed the user guide when he found the ROM image in the archive.
  • Greg Cook made available his TDTD package, a suite of programs for transferring disc images or tape data from a BBC to another system.
  • Adam Hamilton has started work on BBCmicro, a new BBC emulator, and as a teaser he has released a 6502 debugger with GUI.
  • Gordon Jeffryes reveals that MESS' BBC driver will have 8271 support.
  • Jonathan Bristow told me he's looking into porting Elite for... the Oric!
  • Colin Fraser recorded the recent BBC UK radio programme on the rise and fall of the Beeb micro and Acorn, including an interview with David Braben.
  • While on the topic of Elite, did you know about Elite - the musical?
  • Archie (the Archimedes emulator) has been updated to version 0.9.
  • 20.08.2000 Paul Bates, author of Atari ST emulator WinSTon, has revealed some early screenshots of his BBC emulator-in-the-works, WinBee. In the meantime, the new Archimedes emulator Red Squirrel has been updated to version 0.2.2. I've added some music and graphics disks from Mike Tomlinson. Some might require a Watford DFS. The animations disk has some Star Wars and other digitized animations, best suited for monochrome displays. I was unable to restrain myself from adding monochrome support to BeebEm (thereby releasing version 1.03) - in this new version, you'll be able to choose between RGB, B&W, Amber and Green from the View menu. Sick, I know, but at least those animations look pretty cool... :-)
  • 17.08.2000 The first release of Red Squirrel, a brand new Archimedes emulator for Windows, is out.
  • 12.08.2000 Through some black magic, Michael managed to get Ultimate's Nightshade running. For good measure, I've added some docs to the same directory. While on that topic, does anyone have a nice hand-drawn map of Knight Lore (from a magazine, for example) that they could scan? Thomas Harte's ElectrEm was updated to beta 3 over a week ago. Mark Usher added some contributions from Derek Walker to the documentation project: Marconi RB2 trackball manual, instructions for Ground Control's Uvipac, a Slogger ad, docs for Watford solderless sideways ROM board.
  • 03.08.2000 Simon Mathiassen sent me a disk image of "Hampstead" from Melbourne House, "Dave from Hell" sent Audiogenic's "Sphere of Destiny". Mark de Weger notified the BBC mailing list that Acornsoft's adventure games have been in the Public Domain for about a year. So here they are!
  • 30.07.2000 Mark de Weger updated some of the game documentation, and added several new items, most notably the solutions for Sphinx Adventure and Philosopher's Quest, which he's been looking for for years himself. Oh, and BeebEF has been updated to version 1.1.
  • 29.07.2000 Mark de Weger is back from a well deserved "sabbatical" from the "Beeb scene", and with a bang. He's now releasing version 1.0 of BeebEF, a Windows front-end for BBC emulators. With this release, he has focused on two of the most popular emulators for PCs, BeebEm and pcBBC.
  • 27.07.2000 I've added Geoff Cox' annotated disassembly of OS 1.2 (docs). Stairway to Hell added a landslide of Electron games ready for use with Thomas Harte's ElectrEm.
  • 20.07.2000 Mike Usher contributed a bunch of glorious ad scans. Greg Cook contributed Incentive's game "1984". Added a link to the Haven FTP archive. Dave's Stairway to Hell now has its own domain name.
  • 16.07.2000 Mike Gordon contributed the final version of Beebug's EXMON II (2.02). Thomas Harte has made available beta 1 and 2 versions of his Electron emulator. He's also promoting his versatile UEF format for storing disk and tape images, as well as emulation state information. People have been crying out for a better standard than the current multi-file format (*.inf) currently used by TBL!, so maybe this could be it? Feel free to discuss this on the BBC mailing list. Dewi Williams is working on a Java Repton 3. Christian Pinder has released beta 1 of Elite - The New Kind.
  • 28.06.2000 Long absence due to a short circuit in my TBL! master PC. (I always have an excuse, don't I!) I'll be in Germany between June 30th and July 15th, so there will probably not be any updates or e-mail replies until after that. Anyway, Graham Clarke has contributed the Watford Electronics DFS manual, with RTF conversion by Chris Richardson, to the documentation project. Richard Russell has now made BBC BASIC(Z80) freely available. Jasper Renow-Clarke sent me version 1.1 of his Arcimg utility for reading Arc disks on a PC. Chris asked me to move 8BS from the user groups page to the links page - so I did! On the other hand, David Edwards of the Electron User Group notified me of the EUG's great-looking new site, and that further enhancements are underway. Emulation of the BBC is now "officially" integrated with the MESS 0.37b3, courtesy of Gordon Jefferyes. Brian Swatton has put up what looks like a great site of BBC tidbits, including a neat system for "typing in" program listings from HTML pages. The address of David Devenport's BeebInC page will be invalid as of July 2nd - he's also hinting that he's looking at the code again! :-) Andrew Hill notified me (a month ago - sorry about that) that the original Acorn !6502Em applications which were on here [TBL!] many moons ago (when Superior Software could be distributed,) will be making an appearance on the next Acorn User CD, minus all the software that can't be distributed, of course. This should save any potential Acorn downloaders. It should be out in the next couple of months. Jason Bennison has made an ActiveX version of BeebEm, which lets you choose games to play from web pages. Why you would use this if you're already using an emulator is beyond me. Why you would use this if you were interested in running a BBC emulator is beyond me, too... :-) It's a fun idea, though, worth checking out. Did I mention that it requires Internet Explorer, running on a PC running Windows? So much for the platform independent web... :-(
  • 26.05.2000 Peter Norman is looking for a disk image of the game "Crown Jewels".
  • 19.05.2000 I decided to update today - to celebrate TBL!'s appearance in the June issue of PCW (it just arrived in Norway)! To the emulators page, I've added Thomas Harte's developing Electron emulator (already looking very good), and Tom Lees' emulator (which promises to support most Acorn micros and - can you dig it? - hard disk emulation). Wipe your tears over Acorn - the BBC is definitely being kept alive and kicking! :-) Mark Usher did some ROM additions, including a good BASIC 1 dump. Christian Pinder has made a new release of his Elite: The New Kind, which is based on the actual BBC Elite code. Check out the new Beeb mode! I've updated the links to The Machine Room on the introduction and history page. With the disappearance of Acorn's web space, I've put online a mirror of the BBC related parts of their old ftp archive. This includes Acorn's 8-bit application notes and some BBC B, Master and Econet circuit diagrams (all compressed with nspark). At some point in the future, I'd like to provide the notes in HTML and the circuits in PNG or JPG - volunteers are welcome. (Because of their size and irrelevance, the Archimedes circuits were omitted - I can send them to anybody who's interested.)
  • 04.05.2000 Adam Hamilton has announced his own BBC emulation project, called BBCmicro. Michael Foot annouched version 0.15 of his BeebIt emulator for RISC OS. Ken Lowe contributed the manual for "Integra B" (a multi-purpose expansion board) to Mark Usher's documentation project, while Robin Stuart contributed manuals for Pace's Commstar and Technomatic's Diskbook. Tim Hayes has requested the games "Nature Quest" or "Dragon's Eye". Aaron Littlefield requested Micro Power's "Barrage".
  • 02.05.2000 Archie 0.8 has been released!
  • 27.04.2000 Dr. Beeb of Only the Best BBC Micro Games has posted an open reply to David Bradforth's request for titles released by Superior Software to be removed from the site. While I sympathize with the good Doctor, the bottom line is that Superior Software has every formal right in the world to enforce their copyright and pursue violators. I have my doubts about Superior actually initiating such a pursuit, though - could they have the resources; especially across borders? This is more of an issue between ethics/law and common sense. On the one side, stealing is bad, and making copyrighted material available for free, on the grounds that most downloaders will already own the material, is a bit of a moot point. On the other side, none of us can see much future revenue potential for Superior from these games (I'd be happy to be proven wrong), so why bother? Do as many other publishers of popular games for microcomputers - make the games free to download. This would please many more people. The ideal would be if Superior made themselves a really nice anthology web page with all games, cover art, instructions, history, and so on. I'm sure many people would just love to help.
  • 24.04.2000 Back from Texas. Retro BBC had just changed its address slightly, as several people pointed out.
  • 09.04.2000 The Stairway to Hell has changed servers, and has seen a major update including almost 40 new Electron games. Mark Usher has complemented his documentation project with the ACP Advanced Control Panel manual, a Master 128 Optional System ROM ad and the Beebug C Stand Alone Generator Manual (contributed by Frank Lee), and the Filestore Service manual (contributed by Alan Williams and Mark Ferns). Jason Parsons is requesting the game "Goldfields", which was used in lots of schools in Australia. And just to prove that this works, Dave of said "Stairway" contributed Pettigrew's Diary requested in the last update. On a sadder note, "Retro BBC" seems to have closed, at least the link doesn't work anymore, and hasn't for over a week now. I'm going away on a business related trip to Texas from April 11 to 22. All mails will be kept and answered!
  • 27.03.2000 Michael Foot contributed three educational titles: "Fairy Tales", "Into the Unknown" and "Flowers of Crystal" (disk image has errors, though). Roger J. Chamberlain is looking for two adventure games: "Pettigrew's Diary" and "Woodbury End", the latter by Shards Software.
  • 24.03.2000 John Berry contributed a file with hints for Imogen. John Pattison is looking for the BBC BASIC game "Suburban Fox".
  • 20.03.2000 Janny Looenga sent me a demo - possibly of some Arab adaption of View. Weird, but well done in its own right. Gordon Jefferyes has cleaned up the BBC B circuit diagram by joining the two old pages. Through the able hands of Chris Richardson, Martin Hodgson and Mark Usher, comes the Beebug MagScan (bibliography disc) documentation. Tony Bartram has opened up his own BBC Micro Games page - featuring his own unreleased game "Vortex"! Luc Goosens sent me a transcript of how he successfully transferred VIEW and VIEWSHEET files to his PC. I would never have thought of that! There's a rumor out that the June 2000 issue of Personal Computer World (PCW) will have a section on the BBC in its Retro column. You might also like to check out Christian Pinder's alpha release of "The New Kind", promising to be an extremely faithful reproduction of the original BBC Elite.
  • 15.03.2000 Richard J Purves sent me version 1.3 of his GrabROM BBC utility.
  • 12.03.2000 Laziness and work focus have delayed some updates, but here we go again: Dave Moore contributed a load a of Electron games to the archive. Have fun! James Watson has put up a new BBC micro page - pay him a visit! Chris Richardson contributed a good dump of the 32KB B+ OS ROM. Thanks, guys!
  • 25.02.2000 Geordie Racer (a Look and Read game) and Fletcher's Castle (an educational strategy/management game) added to the archive. (They've both been in the requests for ages... :-)
  • 20.02.2000 Chris Richardson submitted a Membrain Utilities ROM. Membrain seems to be some kind of obscure memory board.
  • 17.02.2000 Gordon Jefferyes' BBC driver for MESS now has a home page. Just noticed that Paul Daniels is working on a MESS driver for Acorn Atom!
  • 16.02.2000 Michael Foot announced version 0.12 of BeebIt, his BBC emulator for RiscOS. Steven Flintham submitted the Watford Electronics Beeb Speech Synthesizer operating manual (phew) to Mark Usher's Documentation Project.
  • 10.02.2000 RetroBBC is back in business, though obviously in a limited fashion. Archie has been updated to version 0.7 without me noticing it.
  • 09.02.2000 Gordon S Jefferyes revealed himself as the author behind the MESS-based BBC emulation. It still needs a bit of development, but should be a very nice addition to the crowd of cross-platform BBC emulators. Check the link for more information. Dave Edwards updated my info on Bryan McPhail and his page on the Electron emulator based on MAME. Dave also wants everybody to know that EUG is still producing disk based magazines for those interested.
  • 06.02.2000 MESS will soon support BBC emulation! Can anybody shed some light on whether this is Bryan McPhail's work? (His link no longer works.)
  • 03.02.2000 RetroBBC closed 2 days ago, which is a pity. I'm not quite sure what Superior Software/Proaction hopes to get out of this "planned" re-release of Acornsoft/SS games, but it'd better be good after all these years!
    And here's a reminder that Edmund Burke's February instalment of his BBC BASIC Tutorial is online! You didn't seriously consider skipping class, did you??
  • 02.02.2000 If you're into BBC emulation for the games, you should definitely also check out Remakes, a portal of sorts that tracks various remakes of classic microcomputer games (usually remade for PC). I can't wait to get my skinny hands on Wulfryder, a "sequel-in-the-works" to Ultimate Play the Game's Knight Lore, probably my favourite BBC game.
  • 01.02.2000 Check out Robbie Harrison's Master 128 page.
  • 31.01.2000 The rom/Acorn directory has been opened. (No, I have not been given permission, but it has been impossible to hunt down anybody with authority in this matter. Do not hesitate to let me know if you disagree.) Among other things, Chris Richardson sent me the Beebug Command Master 3.11 ROM.
  • 14.01.2000 William Andrew Steer notified me he has fixed a problem with his download links on his Retro Computing page, which includes file extraction software for disk images. Through Stuart McConnachie, an anonymous user submitted a scan of the Manic Miner code sheet, for those of you who have lost it.
  • 09.01.2000 If you're a fan of Chuckie Egg, Steve McCrea's 3D adaption (for DOS) is a blast.
  • 03.01.2000 Welcome to "The BBC Lives! 2000"! :-) And a happy millennium for you all! Things happened a bit faster than planned for Christmas, so I didn't get around to do the final updates, including Dave's countdown - sorry about that! Here's the news:
  • Z Productions has a new address - check it out!
  • David Lodge has written some disc image utilities under the GPL - they should be especially useful for batch processing of images.
  • Edmund Burke has started a new (and more modern) BBC BASIC tutorial on Richard Russel's BBC BASIC(86) page, to be updated monthly during this year. Please send Edmund your comments!
  • To top it off, Dave's final contributions for the Christmas holidays' entertainment (belated by yours truly), are (were) Alligata's Q*Bix and Epic Software's first three adventures (preceeding Wheel of Fortune): Castle Frankenstein, Quest for the Holy Grail and Kingdom of Klein.
    • (Have you noticed how people are already saying things like: "Gosh - you still wearing that thing? That's so nineties!")
  • 21.12.99 Three more from Dave to catch us up... :-) Gunfighter by Atlantis, Galilee by Shards, and finally Classic Adventure by Melbourne House.
  • 18.12.99 Today's game is Renegade Robots, a Pengo clone by Senator Software. Thanks, Dave! Less than a week left, kiddies! Bryan McPhail is making excellent progress on emulating the Electron: some screenshots of running games are online, and he reports that Plus1 cartridge ROM images can be used.
  • 17.12.99 Yesterday's from Dave was Island Adventure by Glengary, and today's is Staircase Stampede from Comsoft.
  • 15.12.99 We're up to speed again: Dave sent Scott Adams Adventure #3, Secret Mission for yesterday, and CSL Microdata's Acorn Adventure.
  • 14.12.99 Both Dave and me were a bit slack yesterday, but yesterday's game was Magic Adventure 1 by Kansas City. John Bishop has made a page with a collection of disk images. David Bell sent me a link to his BBC and Spectrum emulator page. It has quite a few games for download, as well as the elusive ROM images.
  • 12.12.99 Today, Dave sent The Warlord.zip published by the Acorn User.
  • 11.12.99 Today, Dave sent The Valley by ASP Software.
  • 10.12.99 David Edwards just notified me that the address I have for EUG, the Electron User Group, was way out of date. He also tells me they're still producing disk magazines, and that the member list keeps increasing. Dave, our December angel, sent Flight of the Unicorn as the game of the day. And as if our daily treat weren't enough, Michael Foot throws in Birds of Prey (ROMIK) and Mr. Do (Paul Haigh).
  • 09.12.99 The Alligata collection was just extended with Diamond Pete, thanks to Dave.
  • 08.12.99 Today, Dave sent A&F Software's The Shrinking Professor.
  • 07.12.99 Dave's goodie of the day is MP Software's Crown of Mardan.
  • 06.12.99 Bryan McPhail has started looking into emulating the Acorn Electron using the MAME core! Though he's gotten hold of the Electron AUG, he'll probably appreciate help or input. William Andrew Steer has a page with utilities for transferring disk images and extracting files from them. Today's gift from Dave is Missile Attack by DoctorSoft.
  • 05.12.99 Today, Dave sent Scott Adams' adventures #10 and #11, Savage Island parts 1 and 2.
  • 04.12.99 Today, Dave sent Mysterious Adventure #9, Perseus and Andromeda.
  • 03.12.99 Dave's special this Friday is Mysterious Adventure #11, Waxworks.
  • 02.12.99 It's that merry time of the year again! Dave of The Stairway to Hell has certainly caught it, and will try adding one game to the archive for each day before Christmas. First ones out are Mysterious Adventures #5 (Escape from Pulsar 7) and #7 (Feasibility Experiment). Thanks, Dave!
  • 28.11.99 Anyone out there with "The Magic Telephone Box"? George, for one, is really anxious to play this one again... :-) Seems like Bell was deliberately pulling Braben's leg when releasing the sources - his pages are down again. Anyway, independently, The New Kind is a project dedicated to reverse engineering the original BBC version to be able to recreate (in C) as authentic an experience as possible on other platforms. An early Win32 version is already available.
  • 25.11.99 Ian Bell has opened up his Elite home page, as it seems David Braben doesn't mind public distribution and use of Elite for non-commercial purposes. As a surprising bonus, the sources for the original BBC micro version has been made available. Michael Foot has updated his BeebIt emulator.
  • 22.11.99 Tom Newman has opened up his tantric eggs, a worshipping page dedicated to the almighty Chuckie Egg. Rumor has it that Frontier Devlopments are hiring people for their Elite IV team.
  • 17.11.99 The Pi Mania song sample apparently originates from The Stairway to Hell, and Dave added some useful (pwahahah :) information on this piece of art. Richard T. Russell updated the info on BBC BASIC(86). He's got a web site dedicated to it, a new version, and a demo available for download. If this interests you, make sure you also pay a visit to The BBC BASIC Website by Simon Sheppard.
  • 15.11.99 Angus Duggan's XFer for Linux and Win32 is mirrored here.
  • 14.11.99 An amusing goodie was uploaded some time ago (not sure who, so mail me if you'd like the credit) - the Pi Mania song. Enjoy with any MP3 player. Similar rarities are most welcome! I'm now maintaining TBL! at home instead of after hours at work (which there has been too few of lately). Finally, the indexing script has been adapted for Apache, so it should be much easier to keep up with new files in the future. To celebrate this, I've added a couple of odds and ends to the software archive. See if you can find them using the index... :-) If you're a Beeb fan and a BeOS user, you'll probably already be aware of BeBeebEm, a BeOS port of BeebEm by Jonathan Belson.
  • 12.11.99 Whoah - I've been way too busy with work this last month. Anyway, Johnny Moran sent me some nice information on Alternative Software's games. Kosmos Software asked for their software (Answer Back Sport, The French Mistress, The German Master, The Spanish Tutor, and Identify Europe) to be removed from the archive. Janny Looyenga contributed Pi Mania. Jasper Renow-Clarke made a DOS utility ARCIMG for creating a disk image from an 800KB Archimedes disk in a PC floppy drive. MacBeebEm (the predecessor to Horizon) has been removed per Chris Lam's request. I found that Jonathan Belson released a BeBeebEm, a BeOS port of BeebEm, in May. Last, but not least, I'm sure you've noticed the new look of the site - there's even some subtle use of CSS for those with snazzier browsers. Constructive comments are welcome.
  • 11.10.99 Janny Looyenga sent me disk images for Codename: Druid which was published in Acorn User. In case you're still accessing "The BBC Lives!" through nvg.unit.no, note that this domain will cease to exist at the end of this year. Update your bookmarks to bbc.nvg.org.
  • 30.09.99 Mark Usher sent me the Exmon manual some while ago, it is finally online. And check out Archie if you haven't already - the new version 0.6 plays ArcElite!
  • 17.09.99 Richard Amstutz notified me that Greygum Software has some educational BBC software for sale. Fixed the link to Project Babel.
  • 16.09.99 Mark Usher announced his Project Babel, which will deal with the hardware and software necessary to network PCs with a BBC Econet.
  • 14.09.99 Carlo Concari has released his first prototype of Catorcio, his Acorn Master Compact emulator.
  • 24.08.99 Michael Foot has released version 0.6 of BeebIt, and contributed several items to the software archive. Philip Mulrane added a circuit diagram for the Master 512.
  • 16.08.99 Thanks to Gordon L. Craig, the Advanced User Guide for the BBC is now online. Crispin Boylan and Mark Usher have added more game documentation to the archive. Wouter Ras has updated his Atom emulator to version 1.33.
  • 04.08.99 BBC B+ circuit diagrams contributed by Mark Usher. Darren Izzard added docs for Alternative's Indoor Soccer, Atlantis' Frankenstein 2000, Electron User's Micro Olympics, Larsoft's Puppet-Man and The Rising of Salandra, Macsen's Bullseye, Micropower's Electron Invaders and Escape from Moonbase Alpha, and finally Tynesoft's Rig Attack and Wet Zone. Crispin Boylan contributed a heap of games.
  • 27.07.99 Chris Hatton has launched a new "portal" for BBC enthusiasts: BBC Central - check it out!
  • 26.07.99 Greg Cook uploaded his DumpDisc program for transfering an uuencoded disc image over an ASCII serial connection, and he contributed updated versions of ASL's Impact. Mark Usher added the OS ROM disassembly articles by Geoff Cox to the doc. project, as well as the following pieces of documentation: SJ Research Econet Network Installation, BBC BASIC Conversion Unit for the Acorn ATOM and the Morley Electronics Teletext Adapter Support ROM User Guide. Darren Izzard contributed docs for MRM/Blue Ribbon's Diamond Mine, Joey and Darts, Audiogenic's Sphere of Destiny, Atlantis' The Golden Figurine, and Mastertronic's Spectapede.
  • 21.07.99 Darren Izzard added docs for the games Acorn Chess, Tree of Knowledge and Spellbinder.
  • 20.07.99 Finally an update after long-lasting server problems. Added a link to DrBeeb's game archive site. I've had a request for the old text adventures PI Mania and The Seventh Star (latter by Acornsoft), an arcade game called Gremlins, and "Dr Who and the Warlord" - can anybody help us out? If you've been following the mailing list, you should know by now that Chris Richardson's 8BS has been enormously expanded with online disk images from most of his software library (several hundred megs!). S. Graham-Merret sent me an alternate version of Bug-Byte's Space Warp, which matches more closesly his memories of the game, while it still has some problems in the emulators. Mark Usher added ECOTRX sample code for programming the 6512 Ecolink PC-to-Econet connectivity card. Darren Rollason updated BeebDOS to version 3.00. Mark Ferns added Econet Installation Guides, both '84 and '88 editions. SPROW has made an unzip utility in BBC BASIC. Archie, Chris-Q's Archimedes emulator for PC, is updated to version 0.5.
  • 25.06.99 Mark Usher sent me his Citadel map.
  • 03.06.99 Michael Foot has released version 0.05 of his RiscOS BBC emulator, BeebIt.
  • 31.05.99 Gary Davies contributed a couple of games: Powerplay by Arcana and Greedy Dwarf (Electron) by Goldstar. Some documentation updates through Mark Usher: Francois Joubert and Chris Thornley contributed independent scans of the Opus Disk manual, Chris also added Opus DDOS, and Rob Sprowson added the Master 128 Service manual. Oh, by the way - head over to Chris Richardson's 8BS! He has now made most of his tremendous collection of public domain BBC software available online!
  • 19.05.99 Mark Ferns contributed docs for Solidisk's ADFS and EPROM Programmer, as well as Watford's ROM Paging System to the documentation project. Tom Lindberg has made a page for displaying hi-scores from Beeb games to the world. Can you make it?!
  • 11.05.99 Chris Creevy notified me of another Archimedes emulation project by Rob Pattenden. With the recent takeover of Acorn, any news on the legal status of Acorn's ROMs and/or software will be most welcome!
  • 04.05.99 The Archimedes emulator Archie has been updated to version 0.4. The screenshots look amazing! Now, if only I had the OS ROMs... :-)
  • 03.05.99 Mark Usher contributed docs for Spellbinder, and Mark Ferns contributed docs for the ATPL Sideways ROM and Solidisk Sideways RAM boards.
  • 19.04.99 Michael Foot released version 0.03 of his BBC emulator for RiscOS, BeebIt. Jonathan Harston added lists of 6502 opcodes and undocumented opcodes, as well an update of the OSWORD listing to the documentation page. Mark Usher added the BBC B Service Manual.
  • 07.04.99 Mark Ferns added the flyers for the BBC B and the Music 500.
  • 06.04.99 dllm notified me of his new site The Stairway to Hell, with literally hundreds of BBC game cover scans and other related information. Crispin Boylan and dllm contributed some more games for the archive.
  • 26.03.99 Mark Usher added the software for the ADE ROM, and a custom version of nspark that can optionally create *.inf files for emulation use on non-Acorn machines.
  • 16.03.99 Mark Ferns added the flyer Introducing Econet. I added circuit diagrams for Econet and BBC B from Acorn's ftp archive. Mark Usher added datasheets for the 6522 VIA and the 68b54 ADLC.
  • 15.03.99 Michael Foot released version 0.02 of BeebIt for RiscOS. Crispin Boylan notified me of a load of dead external links, and some moved ones. Mark Usher added some stuff for the PC EcoLink board, instructions on setting up an Econet bridge, 68b54 (Econet) and 6522 datasheets, and finally 6502 and Z80 second processor circuit diagrams.
  • 11.03.99 Michael Foot fixed the CRC error in the graphics version of The Hobbit discovered by Matthew Davis. Mark Usher added more datasheets.
  • 10.03.99 Mark Usher added Intel 8271 and Mitsubishi drive specs to the new datasheet section.
  • 08.03.99 Simon Sheppard has launched The BBC BASIC Website, which should be interesting for most of you. It currently has an online BBC BASIC maunal and keyword reference, and a challenging competition. If you have information or interesting code, don't hesitate to contribute to him! Crispin Boyland contributed the games Missile Control, Maze Man and Balloons from CJE Micros to the archive. Mike Ferns added more ads to the documentation project.
  • 02.03.99 Mark Ferns contributed a wonderfully scanned ad on the "Acorn Business Computer", which was canned by Olivetti soon after its announcement. Greg Cook fixed Pirates in Space and Darts.
  • 01.03.99 Mark added some software for Voltmace joysticks and DigiMouse.
  • 24.02.99 Mark sent some scans of some familiar promotional material. This brings the total volume of "The BBC Lives!" to over 100 MB!
  • 23.02.99 Mark Usher and Michael added three years worth of Micro User cover disks. The same Michael also contributed Tynesoft's BBC port of the classic Boulder Dash.
  • 10.02.99 Terje Larsen has contributed his Maya Electronics Terminal Emulator, including source code, to the public domain. The oh, ever so productive Mark Usher has improved BAS2TXT, and added some documentation for the Computerlock security ROM. I've fixed the bad internal links in the FAQ.
  • 25.01.99 Crispin Boylan sent me Robico's Escape From Enthar 7.
  • 22.01.99 Dextrovix allowed me to add a link to his site with hard-to-find BBC games and other usefulties.
  • 20.01.99 Mark Usher sent me the following updates: Bug Eyes 2 cheat, Mr. Ee! with cheat, a couple of ROM utilities, and update of MirrorSoft's Fleet Street, and update of the InterWord manual, as well as some minor archive fixes.
  • 18.01.99 Michael Grant sent me his game X*L*C*R, which appeared on PIAS 19, but is now released to the public domain. Read Michael's own story here. Also, Mark Usher sent me a link to a one-line BASIC V game playing Tetris... :-)
  • 13.01.99 Made the much overdue update to the mailing list info.
  • 12.01.99 John Kortink notified me of 65Link, his utility to make an ARM hard disk accessible from a BBC. Chris [chris@cjlj.demon.co.uk], through Mark Usher, contributed some nice scans of a Master 512 ad.
  • 07.01.99 Michael Foot has released his BeebIt BBC B emulator for RiscOS. Try it out, those of you who can, and give him your feedback!
  • 06.01.99 "The BBC Lives!" goes Y2K compliant! Actually, I've fixed my mirroring scripts to handle the turn of the millennium - and fixed problems with the turn of a regular year as well. (I just had to make use of the rare opportunity to use a buzzword on this site!)
  • 04.01.99 Happy new year everybody! Richard J Purves updated his GrabROM utility to version 1.2. Arjan de Lang has made available his DOS port of Repton. Updated the information on Atom emulators.
  • 14.12.98 Crispin Boylan updated a some games that didn't work, and added some missing Level 9 adventures. (The archive indexes still don't work, you will have to bear with me on this...) Mark Usher has added the BBC B+ Service Manual to his documentation project.
  • 26.11.98 Simon Hancock contributed volumes 1 to 3 of Cheat it Again, Joe, disk images with a comprehensive collection of cheats for popular BBC games.
  • 23.11.98 Mark Usher added three documents about the Z80 Second Processor.
  • 18.11.98 Updated FDC with more adaptions by Wouter Scholten, to make it easier to set the program up for BBC floppies. Added "B+ 128K Additional User Info" to Mark's documentation project. Mark also sent me some new cassette sleeve scans, and some nice Castle Quest maps.
  • 09.11.98 Added Chris Richardson's 8BS issues 61 through 66. Added NovaCAD manual, and docs for three Vine Micros hardware products for Mark Usher's doc project. (His "Harddrive" document should also be OK now.) Updated Carlo Concari's 65C12 emulator to version 1.1. Added the disk/graphics verision of The Hobbit to the Melbourne House directory (there might be problems in getting it to work in emulators). Added David Boddie's Tape2Disc for RISCOS.
  • 21.10.98 Mark's document is still not online because of disk space shortage. I you really, really need it urgently, I'll e-mail it to those who ask nicely.
  • 18.10.98 Mark Usher has updated his HardDrive document to version 1.2.
  • 14.10.98 4th Dimension's "Holed Out", "E-Type" and "Nevryon" have been taken off-line, as it has come to my attention that Superior Software owns the copyright for these games, and that some of them can still be purchased as "Play it again, Sam 18".
  • 05.10.98 I've had a great holiday in southern Africa these last three weeks, and I apologize for forgetting to put a note about that on this page. I'll reply to all e-mails that have been sent in the mean time. Mark Usher has added some more manuals (6502 co-pro, Watford Epson NLQ, LX80 Toolkit, Solidisk 2 and 4 meg boards), as well as cover scans of Starfleet and Dr Who. Michael Foot sent me a full BBC version of the Wheel of Fortune adventure. Carlo Concari has written a 65C12 emulator for DOS, which he's currently developing further into a Master Compact emulator!
  • 08.09.98 Mark Usher has updated his documentation project with Acorn Pascal and Countdown to Doom. David Devenport's BeebInC page is back up at a new address. Crispin Boylan has done some cleaning up in the Various section of the software archive.
  • 02.09.98 David Devenport's e-mail address has changed, and his web pages are temporarily (hopefully) off the net. David is the author of BeebInC. Paul Wilmott and Mark Usher has contributed documentation for some Acornsoft games and LISP. Please let me know of broken links - though I know the indexing scripts don't work yet. Please, access the archives directly for now.
  • 31.08.98 NVG has is now using an Apache web server instead of Roxen, and this implies that some changes are needed in my pages for server-side includes and so on. This explain why "The BBC Lives!" has been acting strangely the last week or so. I'll fix this as I find the spare time.
  • 10.08.98 Jonathan Belson annouced his BeOS port of Xbeeb!
  • 05.08.98 If anybody can help a person in Santa Monica, California, with reading some BBC floppies with material of incredibly high nostalgic value, mail me! Level9's "Lancelot" has been updated by Ken Lowe (with a disk image, as some files shared the same sectors). Added Richard J. Purves' GrabROM utility.
  • 28.07.98 David Alan Gilbert made great speed improvements on his ArcEm. Crispin Boylan has sent fixed versions of a load of games in the archive - they should now work better on real BBCs as well as emulators. Use the archive index to see the changes.
  • 21.07.98 Please note that my company e-mail address has changed - use rsc@nvg.org for BBC matters. David Devenport is requesting any and all information available on the Archimedes - seems like he wants to undertake the task of getting ArcElite running! Mark Usher updated a lot of the ROM archive with explanatory text files and various cleanups. Please let me know of any missing or erroneous files on the site. I hope everything is OK by now.
  • 15.07.98 I'm slowly picking up TBL! again! David Devenport just made a release of BeebInC. Laurie Whiffen has updated BBC Explorer to version 2, now supporting double sided disk images, and reading BBC floppies directly! Mark Usher updated some software (Psion VU Calc and VU File). Added some game documentation from Greg Cook. Some transfer problems have resulted in corruption of files larger than 1 MB, notably some of Mark's large documents. This is hopefully fixed now.
  • 18.06.98 "The BBC Lives!" will remain mostly unchanged for a while now (3 or 4 weeks), while I am in the process of changing jobs and sorting other things out. Updates, news and uploads are still welcome however, and everything will be handled and added in due time. Important news will still make it to this page, but the archive will remain frozen for some time. I assume all this shouldn't be too noticeable at this time of year... :-)
  • 15.06.98 Mark Usher has added his own "Disc Drive and DFS Guide" and the Beebug Toolkit manual to his documentation project (also found here)!
  • 08.06.98 I made a new subdirectory /bbc/doc/games for game documentation, hints and solutions.
  • 04.06.98 I added information about an Archimedes emulator named Archie - thanks to Stuart Axon for the link! Nigel Averill sent me a nearly complete solution to Imogen which I've added to the game archive.
  • 03.06.98 Chris Richardson uploaded scans of some common Acorn boards. Make sure you check out his great tour of the Acorn micro's innards! I've discovered that I can supply a subject in mailto: links, so I've made the mailing lists a bit more accessible. Hopefully this will reduce the junk traffic on the lists.
  • 29.05.98 Make sure you check out Joost Heester's page with Electron/BBC tape covers!
  • 19.05.98 Added many games contributed by "Dave". The modification dates are from around April 25th, so they will not show up at the very top of the index as usual (my mistake). I have removed the sw/collection directory, as it contained Acornsoft and Superior software. After all, most of the rest has been incorporated in the main archive by now.
  • 18.05.98 Laurie Whiffen fixed the "CRC=" bug in BBC Explorer. Mark Usher sent me good ZIPs of the View and Master Advanced Reference manuals, as well as Psion's VU-calc spreadsheet software. David Devenport released BeebInC version 0.99e. "Sammy" sent me a new ROM ripper which works directly with the APP2.ARC file!
  • 14.05.98 David released version 0.99c of BeebInC, with bug fixes and "neater code"... :-) Laurie Whiffen sent me version 1.03 of the BBC Explorer, with some important bug fixes, Watford DFS support, and a Windows help file .
  • 12.05.98 Hubert Nooijen made me aware that the View and Master Advanced Reference manuals had CRC errors, so they're taken offline until we get this sorted out. David Devenport (sorry Dave! :-) has released version 0.99b of his BeebInC emulator, with better white noise and OS ROM support.
  • 05.05.98 Check out Mike Elson's Chuckie Egg for Windows/DirectX! Mark Usher sent me a load of new and updated ROM images, and updated the ViewIndex and Advanced ROM Manager manuals.
  • 30.04.98 Added lots more documentation from Mark Usher, as well as a nice history page on Superior Software's Speech! from Dave Jeffrey. Mike Wyatt, here's a message for you - part of it applies to other AOL users as well.
  • 27.04.98 Miky Wyatt released a bug-fix release of BeebEm for Windows.
  • 23.04.98 Thanks to Chris Richardson for fixing some files in the archive, and to Michael for Superman. I've added to the FAQ my 4DOS/4NT batch script for converting the archive format to disk images using bbcim. I updated the information on bbcim for version 0.95.
  • 21.04.98 Made available version 1.02 of the pcBBC demo. Added a small section on transferring software from tape to the FAQ. Updated the link to "Repton 3 for DOS". Added some more games. You too can exhibit yourself on the users page!
  • 15.04.98 Added/updated quite a few games to the archive.
  • 14.04.98 Stuart posted a patch to upgrade his pcBBC emulator to version 1.02, with lots of bug fixes and some new features! I updated the link to the Catweasel floppy controller. Crispin Boylan updated some games to work better on BBCs as well as emulators. Chris Walton also contributed some more software, including Chuckie Egg 4!
  • 03.04.98 Mike Wyatt just released BeebEm 1.0 for Windows, which adds printer support, as well as the option to use DirectX for optimal output.
  • 29.03.98 Chris Richardson sent me 8BS images 52 through 60 for inclusion in the 8BS archive. Enjoy!
  • 25.03.98 I'm now updating the pages from my local copy using rsync through ssh (both are just great!), which is a much more streamlined setup than my own mirror-with-ftp-through-firewall hack. Please let me know of broken links or missing or corrupt files (there shouldn't be any).
  • 24.03.98 I've added a users page, where you can introduce yourself to the rest of the BBC community. Added a link to Crispin Boylan's BBC Games Archive. David Devenport has version 0.99a of his BeebInC emulator available. Mark Usher sent me some updates to the ROM archive, as well as some hardware releated software (note the new directories). Chris Richardson has sent me some nice GIF animations (from his 8BS pages), as well as the Master software and ROM needed to support the M5000 music board. Added Bungle Brothers, a freeware text adventure by Aran Johnson. Updated information on quite a few emulators, including both Atom ones. I've moved most of this page to the Old News page. And as you have realized by now, I am again able to update these pages (with a vengeance), though in a less then optimal fashion for myself. Sorry for the delay, and I hope the wait hasn't been to hard on you guys! :-)
  • 19.03.98 NVG blocked off ftp access to their web-server, so I've been unable to update the pages for you the last two weeks. Please read on for the latest news.
  • 16.03.98 Mark Usher has released his efforts on providing the BBC User's Guide for electronic consumption! No graphics are included yet. Stuart McConnachie, pcBBC author, now has an Internet prescence, including e-mail and his own web pages. Laurie Whiffen updated his BBC Explorer 1.01 with a version without debug information. I've tried limiting the available http links to the ROM archive, to force people to use ftp. As mentioned before, Netscape downloads *.rom files in ASCII mode through http.
  • 04.03.98 Laurie Whiffen sent me an updated version of his BBC Explorer, a Windows program for dragging and dropping files from the software archive into BBC disk images. The most annoying bugs should now be fixed, so give it a go! Other minor changes and additions to the archive.
  • 19.02.98 Mark Oakley sent me a collection of nice algebra/arithmetic programs from Griffin.
  • 13.02.98 Mark Usher sent me (some time ago...) an updated HardDrive document, the ACP Advanced ROM Manager manual, and various corrections to the ROM archive - thanks! Stuart has made available PCBBC version 1.01 which fixes some problems with the 8271 emulation.
  • 06.02.98 Right when I started feeling that the BBC "scene" had quietened down a little (judging by mail activity), Stuart McConnachie drops a bomb called PCBBC, a brand new shareware BBC emulator for DOS (works on Windows 95/NT and OS/2 as well). It has some rather attractive novel features: PC and BBC keyboard layout modes (have we missed this one, or what?), second processor support (for running the Tube Elite!), 65C02 and shadow RAM (for running Master Elite!), serial and parallel comms support, 50 fps on a Pentium 90 (when not using Tube), and he claims it runs all BBC games... :-) Go to the emulators section for a link to the home page with further information.
  • 27.01.98 David Devenport made available version 0.99 of his emulator, including full source code! Edwin Dorre's "Arm2" emulator (available here) now includes source code!
  • 22.01.98 Mike Wyatt's BeebEm 0.9 for Windows is released, supporting emulation of the AMX mouse, and using DirectX for screen updates (also full screen) and sound generation.
  • 19.01.98 Some minor updates to the ROM archive and FAQ. Angus Duggan's "Elite-A" hack (previously known as "Elite3") is now available from Ian Bell's Elite home! Elite-A seems to runs on Devenport's BeebInC, but resets BeebEm when leaving Lave.
  • 15.01.98 Version 0.9a of Devenport's emulator is available, with minor fixes. Some small additions to the ROM archive, from Mark Usher. Added a link to The Chuckie Egg Appreciation Society.
  • 12.01.98 Wouter Ras updated his Acorn Atom emulator to version 1.21.
  • 08.01.98 The BBC is definitely not dead: David Devenport has released version 0.9 of his emulator, now supporting a proper file system and sound, and with several new optimizations and the compulsory bug fixes! Elite works! Tom Seddon revealed his continued work on his emulator (no release yet), specifically a file system module designed to be reusable, which fixes most of the file related problems in his earlier releases. It will use the standard file format found in our archives.
  • 07.01.98 A happy new year to everybody! Mike Tomlinson contributed a huge batch of ROM images, and thanks to Mark Usher's relentless drive for organizing, they are already available. You'll notice that we've started added small text files in the ROM archive for hints and explanations. More of the kind will be very welcome! Mark also updated the Econet AUG. Also, Chris Richardson kindly sent me the missing Disc User cover disk images. T for Thanks, guys! Due to a suggestion on the mailing list, I'm willing to put up a page of BBC users presenting themselves (if there is enough interest): feel free to send me me a short mail about yourself, where you live and/or your BBC equipment - pictures are also welcome.
  • 22.12.97 Wouter Ras updated his Acorn Atom emulator to version 1.2.
  • 19.12.97 Paul Granjon pointed me to his Hamburger Duplicator - isn't it amazing what useful things you can do with a BBC? :) Actually, if any of you have performed noteworthy BBC stunts (they don't need to be as wacky, they don't even have to be all true or finished) I'd love to hear about them, and collect them on a page of their own.
  • 09.12.97 BeebInC now has a homepage - go there for bleeding edge updates! :-) Sound support is coming soon. Added a bunch of Acorn User ROMs from Mark Usher. Added David Ralph Stacey's dconv, a DFS image to Xbeeb format converter. An improved XDFS is coming soon! Added some more BBC software contributed by Gregory James Cook.
  • 08.12.97 David Devenport released version 0.7 of his Beeb emulator for DOS, now named "BeebInC", on Sunday. Of course, it is available here! Major new features include normal file loading operations and screen dumps (PCX format).
  • 01.12.97 Compliments of the season to everybody! Added entries for the Archimedes emulators I know of. Added ICODraw and the solution to "L: A Mathemagical Adventure", both by Darren Izzard. Added BBC2BMP (a BBC screen dump to BMP converter) and HardDrive 1.0 (documentation for attaching a hard drive to the BBC), both from Mark Usher.
  • 18.11.97 David Devenport has released version 0.6 of his BBC emulator, along with source code. Wouter Ras has released version 1.0 of his new Acorn Atom emulator for DOS! Added Acorn leaflet #13 from Dave Jeffrey.
  • 12.11.97 Another gem is added to the historical section: the Acorn leaflets page collects the texts of Acorn's original advertisement hand-outs. Many more interesting facts and tidbits have been added to the history page. Tom Seddon has resumed working on his BBC emulator, and has reopened his page. The disk problems on this server seems to have been sorted out.
  • 10.11.97 NVG's ftp/web disk has been full for a while, so very few updates have made it through.
  • 29.10.97 The history page has been greatly improved thanks to "Dave" in Hungary. In particular things have been cleared up around the Electron and Master, and you can read more facts around the BBC company's use of the BBC micro in its educational programme. I also added some more rambling about the superiority of the BBC BASIC, as well as quite a few interesting links. Added usage information for Horizon 95 to the FAQ - something I should have done long ago.
  • 21.10.97 Viewdata bulletin board systems (BBS similar to Prestel) are still alive or being revived - now you can even access them over the Internet. Check out WWW resources for a link to such a project. Added L: A Mathemagical Adventure. It doesn't seem to run straight away on BeebEm, but I only had to remove the offending BASIC line to get it going.
  • 20.10.97 Added WordWise Plus manuals, as well as the software accompanying Watford's BeebFont ROM, both from Mark Usher.
  • 13.10.97 Added MOS Plus manuals from Mark Usher.
  • 07.10.97 Removed the last traces of Superior and Acornsoft games (I hope).
  • 06.10.97 Added some ROM images contributed by Chris Thornley, with some more help from Mark Usher - thanks both of you!
  • 03.10.97 Superior Software is still active, contrary to the rumor I quoted some time ago. The company is now run by Richard Hanson's brother, Steve Hanson. With this, not unexpectedly, I'm bringing some sad news: Superior has asked me to remove all Acornsoft and Superior titles from the archive, so I did. These titles, including games and ROMs, will no longer be available through "The BBC Lives!". I'll need over the weekend to weed out some disk images as well. No reason to get bored and wipe that emulator, though, as there are still 32 MB of BBC games online from other publishers. Superior Software is still providing titles for all formats, and promises a 40% discount for any orders for BBC games that mention "The BBC Lives!" - an excellent opportunity to complete your collection of original software! (Contact Superior Software, P.O. Box 6, Brigg, N. Lincolnshire, DN20 9AX, UK. Tel: 01652 658585.)
  • 02.10.97 Mark Usher contributed some more manuals, specifically for InterWord, ADFS Utilities ROM, both in original and RTF formats - thanks! Fixed the local BeebEm 0.8 for Windows ZIP file. Mark Ferns sent me a mail describing how to use ROM images ona real BBC. Added link to Mythos Games and Richard Hanson's Utopia Software. Added a good Repton 3 disk image, because conversion to the standard format seemed to fail (I haven't had the time to hunt down the reason).
  • 12.09.97 Worked around an annoying bug in Netscape, which extends the blue underlined style to EOF if the FONT SIZE tag is used inside an A tag (hyperlink). "The BBC Lives!" should now look much more healthy to Netscape users...
  • 08.09.97 I've had a week's holiday, and returned to a mailbox with some nice surprises: Marcus Goodman sent me BeebEm for DOS 1.2 (as well as updates B and C - he also requests a full version of Firebird's Hacker - including an intro part with some organ music), Mike Wyatt (with Laurie Whiffen) has updated BeebEm for UNIX/Windows to 0.8 (with some greatly appreciated features!), Mark Usher sent me a nice picture of a 6502 co-processor board, Chris Richardson has released issue 58 of the 8BS magazine.
  • 28.08.97 Fixed links in the FAQ to Watford's DFS ROM image, to use ftp instead of http, as Netscape treats "*.rom" files as text.
  • 21.08.97 David Gilbert recently released ArcEm, an Archimedes A440 emulator for UNIX! Actually, he has added emulated the most useful hardware devices around ARM's own ARM emulator. Get it here. No, I don't have the ROMs! I might add more info on ArcEm later. BBC Explorer is updated to 1.01, fixing some glitches. Mike Wyatt has fixed some compilation and run time problems in the UNIX version of BeebEm 0.71. I added an entry for the latest BeebEm's in the FAQ.
  • 18.08.97 We've had problems ftp'ing through our firewall, so last week's updates didn't appear until now. Laurie Whiffen has sent me an interesting Windows program called BBC Explorer, for browsing and manipulating BBC disk images. Try it out! Mark Usher sent a truckload of more ROM images... have fun!
  • 14.08.97 Mark Usher got an unofficial blessing from the owner of most of MicroPower's old copyrights, for keeping their software on "The BBC Lives!". Darren Izzard sent me his improved PPM to BBC screen dump converter. Some more games updated and added.
  • 11.08.97 Version 0.71 of BeebEm was announced by Mike Wyatt, and it now plays Exile, as well as Castle Quest and Codename Droid! On his web page he explains how to use the unprotected (tape) version of Exile in the archive, and I've also been has also provided me with files from the original Exile disk, but this version is heavily protected. In addition, support for sideways RAM has been added. The OSWORD documentation has been updated, and a bunch of new ROMs have been added, thanks to Mark Usher.
  • 01.08.97 What a nice way to start August, with version 0.5 of David's up-coming emulator!
  • 25.07.97 Andrew Fox has unprotected a couple of useful ACP ROMs. Wouter Scholten has beta versions of bbcim 0.95 available on his BBC page. Try them out and report problems and/or praise to the guys!
  • 18.07.97 Finally, version 0.4 of David Devenport's emulator is available. Try it out, and tell him what you think! It has been brought to my attention that the copy of Exile in the archive is not a good one. Can anyone help with a good disk image? I've added a note to the text file in the Exile archive to clear up a few things.
  • 16.07.97 Got a rumor that Superior is out of business. Does anyone have any more information on this?
  • 15.07.97 Various odds and ends added: Most notably version 0.3 of David's new emulator. Please try it out and mail him some feedback! Also, Wouters Hobers sent me two DOS utilities: XADFS for extracting files from a ADFS image, and 6502dis, a (you guessed it) 6502 disassmbler.
  • 02.07.97 Somehow I missed Chris Lam's release of Horizon 95... it looks great, and information is now added to the emulator page.
  • 30.06.97 Mike Wyatt has made available his version 0.7 of the terrific BeebEm, with loads of new features. Snapshots of the emulator state can be saved and loaded, the window size and sound quality can be changed, mouse can be used as a replacement for joystick.
  • 26.06.97 Added a section to the FAQ about getting games to work. Should be useful for people who've forgotten how to use their BBCs... (shame!! :-)
  • 04.06.97 Added some words to the bottom of the FAQ on how to get going with the most popular emulators.
  • 21.05.97 David Devenport is anxious to get some feedback on his BBC emulator, which is now available from yours truly. Added several ROM images and 1770 fitting instructions, with the help of Mark Usher.
  • 13.05.07 Richard Broadhurst has moved development from C to Java, and is doing a more general computer architecture emulation. David Devenport is getting closer on his DOS BBC emulator, and version 0.3 of Frans J. Faase's UNIX/X Acorn Atom emulator is available.
  • 24.04.97 Added emulator recommendations to the menu of emulators. Added some nice GIFs and animations from David Ralph Stacey - thanks!
  • 21.04.97 Ooops, a month since the previous entry. Not too good! :) Well, Some may have noticed that Computer Concepts' software is unavailable from the archive - I came across their web page, and asked for their opinion. They're still selling some titles, and advised me to remove all of it - sorry about that. Chris Richardson has sent me many more 8BS disk images. Mark Usher has sent me the Watford Dumpout 3 user's guide. More software is added, and I just realized that Life of Repton is missing. Anyone got a good, stand-alone copy? Also, some of the graphics in Repton 3 is messed up.
  • 21.03.97 Tom Seddon has moved his emulator's pages, and is temporarily practically unavailable via e-mail. His new version sounds exciting, so let's all hope he decides to keep working on it! Added a couple of new links.
  • 19.03.97 Phil Ottewell made me aware of his VMS port of Xbeeb! Also, another emulator is under development for DOS, by David Devenport.
  • 10.03.97 I just tried something I should have tried ages ago: I ran BeebEm (the DOS port) using Watford's DFS 1.44, and it works great! (The newer DDFS crashes the emulator, though.) DFS 1.44 supports the commands *MRUN and *MLOAD, which many of the games in the archive have been modified to use. Watford disk images can also be used directly in BeebEm, after using "bbcim -interss" to join sides A and B to a double sided image. Added a simple FAQ page, where details can be found.
  • 09.03.97 The "Econet Advanced User's Guide" is Mark Usher's first contribution to what's hopefully going to be a line of scanned, original documentation. Added some more graphics to the pages (hardly noticable).
  • 05.03.97 Added the riprom2 and bbcconv utilities, as well as my improved bas2txt program. More games and fixes. Also, if you haven't already, check out Mike Tomlinson's disk image page. I've now started cleaning up the game archive so that you don't have to "*DIR X" before you start a game, and I'm making more of an effort to test the games first. (No guarantees that they work, though!)
  • 27.02.97 Removed some Watford disk images containing Acorn ROMs, fixed a few links and script bugs. Mark's XFer 3.0 is available!
  • 19.02.97 Long time, no update! No shortage of new stuff though, for example Marcus Goodey's DOS port of BeebEm, an updated ABeeb (Xbeeb for Amiga), version 2.3 of De Weger's XFer, and more BBC games and ROM images. Many fixed links. I'm now working on these pages on a PC, and I have to reimplement (and vastly improve) my indexing scripts, so things might not work properly for a while. I'm sure you can forgive me as long as you get yer hands on the goods! Happy new year, by the way! :-)
  • 09.12.96 Added Micro User's Christmas Crackers tape - it's about time you found that special mood!
  • 02.12.96 Made available Jonathan Belson's Amiga port of Xbeeb.
  • 28.11.96 Nigel Magnay has put up a home page for BeebEm/BeebWin! The up-coming DirectX version of BeebEm 0.6 sure sounds promising!
  • 18.11.96 Added 8BS issue disks 40-51, thanks to Chris Richardson.
  • 17.11.96 Done converting Acornsoft and Alligata Watford disk images. I have not had time to test these games, so let me know of anything that doesn't seem to work! I've also come across some stray files which don't seem to belong to any games...
  • 15.11.96 A lot of Watford DFS disk images are now available, and can be converted to the standard format using Tom Seddon's DCONV 2.0. Note that directory access though WWW has been disabled for a while, but it should now be working fine again. Added some new software. Updated bbcim to version 0.92.
  • 22.10.96 An Acorn Atom emulator is released, and is now up to version 0.2! Added Confuzion and Bug Blaster, Bored of the Rings coming up soon. Added David Glover's archive conversion utility for RISC.
  • 21.10.96 XFer updated to 2.2, where a couple of bugs have been fixed. Added Adventure Quest (Level 9) to the archive. Fixed the missing archive index pages.
  • 18.10.96 Split up the main page and did some rearrangements.
  • 16.10.96 Two nice Robico adventures today, The Hunt and Village of Lost Souls, thanks to Ken Lowe.
  • 15.10.96 Added more games (Cholo, Great Britain Ltd., Return to Eden, Lancelot, updated Frak!, Countdown to Doom), from Ken Lowe and Mark.
  • 14.10.96 Added a link to the Level 9 section of the Interactive Fiction archive, and a set of hints and solutions for BBC adventure games, thanks to Mark de Weger. He has also sent me a bug fix of his XFer program (now up to version 2.1). Thanks to Robert Sprowson for info on the Electron User Group.
  • 11.10.96 Another thing: the sooner someone makes me a converter from Watford images to standard archive format, the sooner I can start making available the software and ROMs in the 214(!) Watford DFS images in the incoming directory. :-) Thanks go out to therion23 of #emulate!
  • 11.10.96 Mark de Weger strikes again with some more BBC software and ROMs. Some are updates to archived software, including front pages for Cylon Attack, Fortress and Frak!, and there's a cracked Zalaga (runs on a BBC, but crashes Tom's emulator. Other highlights (for me, at least) are Jet Power jack and Missile Base. Thanks Mark!
  • 10.10.96 Mark de Weger's BBCXFER version 2 is now available. Some bugs are fixed, more DFS'es are supported, and the documentation has been extended.
  • 08.10.96 Made some corrections to the "Fool's guide..." page, thanks to Iain Barker.
  • 27.09.96 I'm getting a number of requests per e-mail which I can't reply to, because you have not set the "From:" or "Reply-to:" fields properly - usually in Netscape. "Jamie" who mailed from the "Aberdeen University Public Classroom", you're one!
  • 13.09.96 Added HTML archive indexes. Next to the list you're reading now, these are the quickest way to find file updates and new games.
  • 05.09.96 Thanks to James Pritchard for the Fool's Guide to getting BBC ROMs. Many Disc User cover disks and a truckload of games added, thanks to Tony Burton and Richard Sanderson.
  • 04.09.96 Added C64S disk image with the BBC BASIC emulator for C64.
  • 03.09.96 Updated BeebDOS to version 2.02, including conversion utilities and full manual - thanks to Connor O'Rourke.
  • 02.09.96 Updated Exile, with cheats, walkthru, GIF/PS maps and saved games. Updated Xbeeb links.
  • 27.08.96 Fixed the link to Acorn's 65Host.
  • 26.08.96 All software from the disks from Wouter have now been put into the main software archive. The disks won't hang around for long, except maybe a few for those who'd like to quickly try out BeebEm.
  • 25.08.96 More old games. (Check out the archive sorted by date.) New riproms-p.c for getting at those ROMs! Updated bbcim/Win32 to the latest version (0.83).
  • 23.08.96 Added Elite, Master version. More user groups (thanks to Mike Mallett). Other minor changes.
  • 01.08.96 The mailing lists have moved.

    • Robert Schmidt - rsc@nvg.org.