Date   : Fri, 21 Oct 2005 03:34:13 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Eurobeeb

Philip Pemberton wrote:
> In message <435820CF.80909@...>
>           Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Some Control Universal Eurobeeb bits are possibly going to be waiting 
>>for me when I get back to the UK
> 
> You lucky, lucky devil... I've been looking for one of those for ages :
-/

It sounds like there's a box of totally random bits - I'm not sure there 
are any enclosures or PSUs even, although it sounds like there's more 
than one backplane...

No mention's been made of any keyboards yet either - anybody know if the 
Eurobeeb used a custome keyboard, or was it the same as Acorn's System 
machines? (or maybe even a re-housed BBC B keyboard?)

Actually, the latter would be better, I'm in need of two System 
keyboards already and finding any is going to be tricky!

>>which makes me wonder whether we ever 
>>colletively uncovered any details about the system on the list?
> 
> It's basically a BBC Micro on a Eurocard from what I can gather.

Sounds like it's a BBC on lots of eurocards actually - the card 
functions sound divided between the major function areas of the BBC. No 
idea how many of each board there are yet though or what the current 
owner wants to keep, so I don't know how many "complete" systems can be 
put together.

>>b) it seems strange that Acorn would allow 
>>someone to copy one of their machines in the first place!
> 
> Perhaps a licence fee was involved? "We'll give you £x for every Euro
beeb we
> make that's based on your design" or something along those lines.

Hmm, yep I suppose that'd make sense. It's strange that Acorn didn't go 
into some kind of rack-mount fileserver market using the existing System 
technology though.

> You have my email address if you need someone to take a few of them off
 your
> hands :)

You have mail :) Basically I won't know what the situation is until I 
get back to the UK though! I know there are potentially several spare 
8080 CPU boards, but not sure of numbers of anything else.

Oh, there is a copy of the FLEX OS on disk for the 6809 board - I've 
been hunting that for ages now. I'm expecting that the CU boards in a 
lot of cases are just copies of Acorn's System boards. Having said that, 
I remember a few differences between Acorn's System boards and the 
corresponding circuitry in the later BBC - so if the eurobeeb is 100% 
BBC compatible then it presumably can't share all the circuitry of the 
System cards...

At least it gives me a bit of detective work to do when I get back :)

cheers

Jules

ps. your msg turned up on the list OK!