BBC Micro PiTubeDirect Raspberry Pi Coprocessor

[@SimonEllwood]

I was the crazy inventor. Hoglet and Dominic did all the hard work however! It was a 6502 CoPro but I guess you know that now!

[@backofficeshow]

Great work! I haven't looked into it for a while. I was hoping that someone may have started adding some of the po peripherals to it.

[@SimonEllwood]

​@@backofficeshow As I said others did most of the actual work. I did some work on the 80286 and 32016 CoPros. The fastest is the Native ARM Copro which is way faster than 6502 one!

[@backofficeshow]

I've just dusted off my BBC master and decided to play with this again. It's been over 8 months so I guess I better see what the latest developments are 😁

[@ScottEarle]

Simon Ellwood the company I used to work for had the 6502 coprocessor serial number 3! This was back in 1987 though ...

[@backofficeshow]

That's amazing. There would have been a good chance that it was hand assembled by it's creator!

[@RockRedGenesis]

I love seeing the melding of Retro tech and modern tech. I mean, allowing a retro computer access to things like the web, or expanding the memory with modern flash memory. Love this type of ingenuity!

[@backofficeshow]

It's awesome, especially if it preserves the integrity of the original system

[@RockRedGenesis]

@@backofficeshow/playlists agreed! I remember watch a video from I think Retro Man Cave, I can't remember 100%, and he posted a message on Twitter from an Acorn 1000 computer (again, from memory!), using a pcb that allowed connection to a modern internet connection through Wi-fi, but the internals of the machine were pretty much stock. My first thought was, "Now that's cool!" Huge retro fan, mainly because my first micro was the good old speccy! So many good memories!

[@EgoShredder]

My sister was in some pretty bad thunderstorms the other night, while flying back from Turkey into the UK. I do not watch TV these days, so I only just heard about the thousands of lightning strikes darn sarf. As soon as I heard this I knew you were responsible! :-D

[@backofficeshow]

Not guilty! I promise you 😂

[@RetroMarkyRM]

BBC Master needs a different adapter to install internally BUT if you have one pi set up like you have you can you use it on both systems by simply swapping them out :)

[@felixokeefe]

Wish I still had my BBC model B. I had an electron at some point as well. Well you can't keep everything. There is something wonderfully poetic about the raspberry pi working together with the BBC micro. ARM, previously Advanced RISC Machine, originally Acorn RISC Machine. The Raspberrry Pi is running an ARM CPU.

[@backofficeshow]

It's as if things have gone full circle right? The beauty is that the system was designed to do this from day one. The architecture was created to allow it to interface to other bus architectures. Fantastic design!

[@andrewgrant788]

The first ever ARM CPU released was as a BBC Tube co-processor. The guys who designed the BBC Micro, designed the ARM CPU.

[@schrodingerscat1863]

ARM originally stood for Acorn RISC Machine, later they spun off the processor design part of Acorn and called it Advanced RISC Machines and the rest is history with it now being the most ubiquitous processor on the planet.

[@trickysoft]

PS The beep changes because on startup you get random noise which is silenced. Part of the 32K message has a "bell" character it it which gives the second tone - no 32K, no second tone!

[@backofficeshow]

This is great to know!! Are there other beep indications?

[@trickysoft]

I can't think of any, other than continuous beeeeeeeeep - time to get the scope out :(

[@YesiPleb]

I've got a somewhat pimped out BBC Master and I've got one of these which fits internally. Very easy to fit and although it's great and I love it, I don't actually use it. I wrote a nice games menu ion BASIC and machine code and I've had to check for TUBE presence and terminate gracefully because the machine code doesn't work.

[@backofficeshow]

That's nice! I really need to build a list of software that actually makes use of the tube so I came demo it!

[@ScoopDogg]

Wasn't it the 6502 Co Processor, always wanted one in the 1980's but cost a huge amount of money for a lad with a paper round, really regret selling my Beeb had the Microvitec CUB and GP100A Printer.... It looks so small on your video, I remember them been bigger lol

[@backofficeshow]

Are you tempted to reassemble your system now? Go on, do it!

[@ScoopDogg]

@@backofficeshow Iam yeah Would love to find a A1 mint condition

[@backofficeshow]

I'm sure you can find plenty, these warhorses still look fantastic

[@RetroBoxRoom]

The BBC Master can use all three versions. But I recommend using the internal version.

[@backofficeshow]

Does the internal version need slightly different commands?

[@RetroBoxRoom]

Nope. The internal connection, is just an internal Tube connection.

[@backofficeshow]

How does it know which tube interface you want to use?

[@RetroBoxRoom]

That I don't know. I'm still new to the whole Beeb thing.

[@backofficeshow]

No prob lamo 😁

[@Dr-Jamie]

The BBC's processpr is the Motorola 6502

[@elmosexwhistle]

Hi, what camera do you use? The zooming is great!

[@wisteela]

I plan to get an internal one for my Master. I didn't know you could get a User Port based card interface.

[@cmaconcept]

One question. Where is the imagefile to flash on the SD card? Thanks :-)

[@backofficeshow]

github.com/hoglet67/PiTubeDirect/wiki

[@shmoostead5419]

great but you dont show how to install the firmaware on the memory card.

[@damianbutterworth2434]

I use BBC BASIC for WINDOWS. Great for writing games and if you pay£27 you can run the programs as stand alone programs.

[@backofficeshow]

Are there and released games?

[@damianbutterworth2434]

@@backofficeshow I`ve just used it for programming not looked into that side. It`s a free download and does have example simple games. I`ll have a look into it mate.

[@TzOk]

LC Technology is just a Chinese manufacturer of generic breakout boards, like this (SD Card) one.

[@AndrewAHayes]

I used to have a model B way back when, and I also had something plugged into the ashtray socket but can't for the life of me remember what it was, I'm siding towards some kind of software package. Any thoughts?

[@backofficeshow]

Could it have been a speech chip?

[@AndrewAHayes]

@@backofficeshow That doesn't ring any bells, I used to use the BBC for spreadsheets and database initially and then in its later life as a sequencer for my synths

[@WX4CB]

nice.. still trying to get a b+ or a master over here in the states. :(

[@backofficeshow]

They just be pretty rare!

[@yjk_music]

Can USB used for debugging? I’ve never seen any BCM2835 SoC USB driver implementation in bare metal kernels. So it would be interesting if someone figured and open sourced it.

[@backofficeshow]

I believe it has a debug output on it

[@chrisproctor123]

If only you could get something like this for the Electron

[@backofficeshow]

I'm quite curious about the election, but they seem to be going for insane amounts these days! 😬

[@chrisproctor123]

@@backofficeshow I got a somewhat well-used one. It doesn't have nearly as much expandable options as the BBC. I want to get one of the MMC readers for it as waiting on cassettes loading is like pulling teeth

[@backofficeshow]

@@chrisproctor123 Is there any advantage to using an electron or are they a subset? I'm wondering if they had a few special perks that Acorn built into them to balance removing things.

[@chrisproctor123]

@@backofficeshow The Electron was more the lower-cost option for home users. It's a good bit slower than the BBC

[@backofficeshow]

I heard there were warehouses full of them. I wonder what happened to them all, maybe in a landfill somewhere.

[@DJSvenNo1]

Word work surface a little conductive?

[@backofficeshow]

Potentially

[@jonnyspeed8974]

why don't they sell them soldered in a case?

[@backofficeshow]

I think the ten people who are interested in them already made their own 🤣

[@jonnyspeed8974]

@@backofficeshow try reading again

[@RinksRides]

clicked on the click bait because i just got a lil BBC Micro (the school one) and I was like WHAAT?!

[@user-yv2cz8oj1k]

But what can it do?

[@backofficeshow]

Print "Hello World" a bit faster than usual

[@issyvarsano5622]

just one question.... WHY???

[@dafoex]

So you don't have to buy an expensive coprocessor. Maybe you're running a museum and want to demonstrate what a coprocessor could do, maybe you're a hobbyist and want to just play with old hardware; this is useful for both.

[@issyvarsano5622]

@@dafoex , it was a joke

[@Taffymctaffs]

Hiya where did you get the tube interface board from? I got a pi zero doing nothing that I would love to interface to my beeb :-)

[@backofficeshow]

I got it from Fairfight14 but shout out on the Discord as we are ordering more

[@Taffymctaffs]

Never mind managed to see the site on a screen grab of when you took the converter out of the bag! www.sundby.com/index.php/pitubedirect-2/ Cheers

[@Taffymctaffs]

Aha cool will do that thanks

[@backofficeshow]

I'd ping discord first. We are talking directly to the chap that makes them

[@jessejackers]

Can u help fix me odroid c2 plese

[@backofficeshow]

I don't have one, but mention it in the Discord channel and someone might be able to help 👍

[@samcoupe4608KB]

6502...

[@backofficeshow]

I believe I read that one of the creators of the 6502 recently posted down permanently ☹️

[@samcoupe4608KB]

@@backofficeshow when can u use raw pie processor n gpu as video output please?

[@backofficeshow]

@@samcoupe4608KB Google VideoNuLA that should have some demos