Meetings > Previous Meetings > February 2020
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RISC OS User Group Of London
Meetings > Previous Meetings > February 2020 |
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Many ROUGOL members will have previously used a BBC Micro. Maybe you still have one, or have a hankering to get one? If so, this is the meeting for you! Jason Nicholls, an active member of ABUG (Acorn and BBC User Group), is going to be talking about some of the modern upgrades available to breathe new life into the Beeb.
Despite Acorn ceasing production of the Beeb over 25 years ago, that has not stopped enthusiasts producing new software and hardware for the systems, adding features the original designers could only have dreamt of. Much of this has been driven by discussions on the StarDot Forum and at ABUG get togethers.
On the hardware side, Jason will be showing some of the storage options that can be added to give access to USB sticks and SD cards, both of which can be used to mount images of your old floppy discs (and if we have time we will look at how to create these). The VideoNuLA graphics enhancer will also be on display, bringing a 4096 colour palette with a full 16 colours on screen in MODE 2 with smooth scrolling.
Rather appropriately combining Beeb and ARM, the PiTubeDirect uses a Raspberry Pi as asecond processor connected via the Beeb's Tube interface. This is able to emulate all the original Acorn co-processors (6502, z80, x86, 32016) and more. It can of course also be run as an ARM co-pro, mimicing the first ARM Evaluation System used to test the ARM1.
On the software side, some of the new games that have been produced will be on display, and we will look at how modern development tools and emulators can greatly ease the programming and debugging task. We might end the night with a browse through the online archive of (almost) every Beeb game ever released at bbcmicro.co.uk.
BeebIt, the BBC Micro emulator for RISC OS, can be downloaded from Michael J Foot's website.
Link to the slides from the talk - https://tinyurl.com/tx8njp6