Date   : Wed, 18 Jul 2007 22:20:12 +0100
From   : info@... (Sprow)
Subject: modern BBC remake

Hi,

In article <n55q93deg52ov6g078f99ha1pajtvnnc0g@...>,
   John Kortink <kortink@...> wrote:
> >What do the rest of you think?
>
> It's a recurring idea, and I've been toying with some
> ideas myself. There's not that much to gain though.

Indeed - I've been chewing it over for at least 5 years under the project
name "TurboB", but every time I think of a new interface to add I have to
slap myself and say 'no, don't be ridiculous'. But more on that seperately.

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:02:05 +0100, "salahdin mahmud" wrote:
> I know some other bbc addictss who would buy one if cost is reasonable.

Is reasonable:
 "less than the cost of a machine on ebay"
 "more than ?100"
 "less than the cost of a brand new PC"
or some other value? 

I think shiny new things like GoMMC and my ARM coprocessor are probably
pushing the upper limit of people's discretionary spend for things related
to beebs, when the base machine they're being plugged into costs less than
the respective upgrade.

Indeed a number of people who originally expressed interest in the ARM copro
quietly slipped away into the shadows when it was released.

In article <469DC630.8080100@...>,
   Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:
> I have a feeling that Sprow's MiniB is tied to using the LCD, and has no 
> 'full' expansion support (just the 1MHz bus), so it can't be expanded with 
> additional hardware to make it look like a full BBC.

True, but that's by design rather than because it can't be done. If someone
made a 6845 CRTC add on which went on the 1MHz bus they're quite welcome to
intercept OSWrch and drive a TV instead. In much the same way that you can
take the LCD from MiniB and connect it to a beeb's user port and run without
a monitor attached.

In article <930176.49611.qm@...>,
   F. Haroon <haroonnet2002@...> wrote:
> Or, has anyone thought about what can be done with the extra virtual
> memory from the GoMMC?  Write a new RISC OS style GUI interface and
> implement modern-day applications compatibility!

I wrote a simple windowing interface once ("SOS" - Sprow's OS), and it ran
soooo slowly as to not be useful. In hindsight some bus bandwidth
calculations could probably have told me that and saved me some time.

In article <47DC42E3-5026-438C-860B-D26AD45BC047@...>,
   Tom Kranz <tom@...> wrote:
> Sprow's MiniBeeb is pretty awesome and seems to do most of what's  
> needed. [...] I'd buy a load. In kit form, too ;-)

I look forward to receiving your order!
Sprow.