Date   : Tue, 03 Apr 2001 08:41:44 +0100 
From   : Andrew Chesterton <achester@...>
Subject: Re: Trying to get an old BBC to go

Hi Greg,
       It looks as if the machine is booting in ADFS mode, this means that
it is looking for a boot disk. Try ctrl-d-break this should boot the machine
in DFS mode and give you a prompt.

If that works then do the following:
*CONFIGURE FILE 9
that will set the battery backed memory so the machine boots in DFS mode, if
it doesn't retain the setting, then your battery is probably flat.

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Ewing [mailto:greg@...]
Sent: 03 April 2001 06:40
To: bbc-micro@...
Subject: [BBC-Micro] Trying to get an old BBC to go


Recently I acquired a junked BBC Master Compact for $3, and I'm
trying to get it to work.

Before applying power, I looked it over and found that the
keyboard PCB was cracked, breaking some of the tracks. I
did my best to repair them by soldering some fine wire
across the gaps.

Then I connected a monitor, powered it up and got:

  ACORN MOS

  ACORN ADFS

and then nothing. Pressing the Shift Lock and Caps Lock
keys causes the appropriate lights to come on and off on
the keyboard, and the Break key seems to perform a reset,
but there is no prompt of any sort and no response from
any of the other keys.

Could there be a fault remaining in the keyboard that
would cause this behaviour?

Could it be waiting for something else, such as a disk
to boot from?

Is it conceivable that this machine does not have any
Basic in ROM? I would have thought that all BBCs came
with Basic, but maybe I'm wrong.

My experience with BBCs is limited, so any advice you
can offer will be appreciated.

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,         | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a       |
Christchurch, New Zealand         | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc.  |
greg@...          +--------------------------------------+