Date : Sat, 25 Oct 2003 23:20:44 +0100
From : "Darren T. Brown" <darren@...>
Subject: Re: introduction Electron
Hi Colin,
Thanks for the reply, its great to actually hear from another Electron
Owner!!!
My first computer was a 1K ZX81 which was actually a great little tool for
learning ( I still have it actually) But my Uncle ( a year younger than me)
had a BBC model B which blew me away, and I remember playing Defender, and
wow- what a great sound the ship made as it appeared! and then he got Elite-
complete with the poster of the ships on his wall, I had never seen anything
so cool! But they were so expensive. A friend rang me one Saturday and told
me the main CO-OP in Northampton were selling BBC's for £69.99 but I only
had £15.00 pocket money saved and I couldn't bring myself to ask my Dad to
buy me one...that was a lot of cash to a teenager in the mid 80s.
I was lucky soon afterwards, my father brought my Electron for me (I think
from Dixon's) right at the end of production, it was in a sale for around
£35.00. which was a big saving. To our family that was still a tidy sum
though. I was so excited loading in the Welcome tape, I remember wondering
over biorhythms and marvelling at the image at the end of the cassette of
space ships and spinning planets....wow. It came free with Arcadians, Boxer,
Hopper and Business Games (err did anyone actually play that tape??)
I saved hard for the plus one and it came with starship command..excellent-
complete with 'Liberator' form Blakes seven, enterpriseand a Klingon War
Bird (although of course the game never told us the names of the ships). I
managed to get a Citizen 120D too, and made up a joystick by breaking up a
TV game and working out the pin connections for the plus one. I still prefer
to use keys though.
Then I saved for more cartridges and sent a cheque off...a couple of weeks
later it was returned!!! No more cartridges available!!!
So I saved for the plus 5 disk drive...sent the money into Electron User
(remember the advert with the Magnus Pike type guy?) only to have that
returned saying they had run out of stock! So I never did get any further-
but still, I built up a library of games, and played Elite for years and
years. I added a volume control on the side of the electron as I often
played it till 3am when the rest of the family had gone to bed instead of
revising for my exams..hehe (Still haven't made Elite yet though, and now I
am panicking as I lost my cassette with my save game on!)
Well, enough nostalgia for one night..would still like to know about the
EPROM's.
Darren
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin" <cwhill@...>
To: <bbc-micro@...>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 9:58 PM
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] introduction and EPROM question
> Good for you!
> I never managed to afford the BBC so I still have my Electron and Plus one
> (and that cost an arm and a leg) and a brother printer (for which I still
> have the printing ink tapes which I bought a crate of just before they
> stopped making them) - never able to afford the disc drive either so still
> using a very old cassette player.
> I don't think I could sneak one in past my wife now but maybe someday I'll
> persuade her.
> Congratulations again on such a bargain- wish I'd seen it!
> Colin Hill
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Darren T. Brown" <darren@...>
> To: <bbc-micro@...>
> Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 8:37 PM
> Subject: [BBC-Micro] introduction and EPROM question
>
>
> Hi guys (and girls?)
>
> I never could quite get over my acorn electron, and as a youngster it was
> the best I could afford- the BBC was out of my price range. I did get
myself
> a Plus One for some serious gaming, and even set up my first business
using
> the electron and my own BASIC programs for printing flyers and customer
> databasing. Many happy our typing in games from electron user, and leaving
> the computer on overnight whilst Mandlebrot ran on a black and white TV
set.
>
> But the BBC was always my ultimate machine, time past by as did the
> Electron, only to be dusted off every couple of years to try and get past
my
> 'deadly' rating on elite and wishing for some missions which were cut out
of
> the Elk version.
>
> And then last week I saw on ebay (item no. 3052941939) a BBC and dual disk
> drive with a possible fault-fuzzy screen. I looked carefully at the cable
> (check out the auction and you can see the cable) and realised why the TV
> screen was fuzzy so I bid on it. cost me £22.00 including carriage.
>
> And there it sits, nice clear screen with the correct cable and (very
loud!)
> beep.
> BBC Computer 32K
>
> WATFORD ELECTRONICS DFS1.43
>
> BASIC
> OS 1.20
>
> is on the screen
> *HELP shows:
> DFS
> FILES
> SPACE
> UTILS
>
> Luckily I have Elite on cassette to play with and I spent a happy few
hours
> trying to remember simple commands like *TAPE as I have no disks yet.
>
> I have tons of games on cassette for both the BBC and the Electron, but
> these days I just dont like sitting by the cassette player, watching the
> screen for the dreaded "data?....searching"
>
> I have an eprom programmer attached to my PC which I use reguarly for
work.
> Can I use the disk and rom images to burn onto an eprom? Also what is the
> model of the eproms i should use? (27C128 for instance?)
>
> If its not possible to use the images already available, I obviously have
to
> do it the hard way, but where do you start with a stack of 50 odd
cassettes?
>
> Finally, its good to be here- and 20 years late I have myself a BBC
B...yey!
>
> Darren
>
>