Date   : Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:23:58 +0000
From   : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: Serial console active at power-on

nicola giacobbe wrote:
> but since I want to remove the keyboard

If you remove the keyboard a BBC will hang as it "sees" that both the 
Ctrl and Shift keys are being pressed, and what happens if both the Ctrl 
and Shift keys are being pressed? I wrote the "Null Keyboard" ROM module 
to get around this:

   http://mdfs.net/Software/BBC/SROM/Modules/

On RESET it detects if there is no keyboard, then intercepts KEYV so 
that when the Shift and Ctrl keys are tested it returns "Not Pressed". 
Of course, if there is no keyboard, then the BBC also "sees" that all 
the keyboard links are made, so does a Shift-Break. If you have no 
filing system then you could either modify NullKeyboard and add OSBYTE 
255,247,0:OSBYTE 3,1:OSBYTE 2,1 or put a !BOOT file in a ROMFS ROM. (See 
http://mdfs.net/System/ROMs/SROM/ROMFiler)

Or, you could be even cleverer and put a Serial Tube client in ROM 
configured to connect to a Serial Host on startup, so the BBC 
effectively becomes a second processor to the remote (controlling) 
computer. Not only does this give you console in/console out via the 
serial port, but also filing system access to the remote computer. See 
http://mdfs.net/Software/Tube/Serial Note: I don't think I've tested it 
with no keyboard, so I may have to do a few tweeks to it.

-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...      - mdfs.net/jgh