Date : Sun, 26 Oct 2003 00:07:19 +0100
From : "Colin" <cwhill@...>
Subject: Re: introduction Electron
Bother! Am I the only player in the world that has never even managed to
land his/her ship on the confounded space station at the start of Elite?
Tried it for years and still no joy - just couldn't get the co-ordination
for it! :-)
Colin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren T. Brown" <darren@...>
To: <bbc-micro@...>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] 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
> >
> >
>
>
>