Date   : Wed, 17 May 2006 20:28:02 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: BBC Master 128 with VFS and SCSI

Ian Wolstenholme wrote:
> I have a Genlock card identical to this
> which I bought from Chris at 8BS 

wow. Did you get any other stuff (docs, software) with it? That makes the 
total number of known people with one of those genlocks a whopping four :-)

> The Domesday Machine was originally developed on the BBC B as the
> Master wasn't out at the time and I have seen pictures in one of the
> Acorn magazines from c. 1984 with a BBC B connected up to a "top-
> loading" type of laserdisc player.

Interesting - any idea which mag? I could scour the collection at Bletchley 
then and scan the article (I've done that with a few Domesday-related bits, 
but don't remember a pic of the top-loader)

If I'm getting my model numbers right though the VP405 is a top-loader, and I 
believe we have a stash of those at Bletchley - they're pretty basic compared 
to the later players. Would take me a while to trawl email archives to check 
who told me that the 405's served as the first dev systems...

> There would be no way of connecting a standard VP410 to a Beeb so
> presumably the SCSI section was always intended to be bolted on to
> the player but maybe the idea of putting the Genlock in there as well
> was a late decision.

Yep, that sounds a fair assumption - maybe they had trouble with overheating 
issues or signal quality with the genlock in the beeb...

cheers

J.