BBC Micro Teardown - The Electronics Inside

My very first experience of computing was with one of these. I was probably 5 or 6 years old, in school, one per class of 30 children. Now I'm an adult, I have one! But of course, not to learn with, to tear down! bit.ly/3jBcx9X
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[@Croaker369]

My favourite computer - EVER! I bought it new, and eventually added duel floppies, Side Ways RAM, Z80 Second Processor, Parallel printer. I even had wireless comms - Packet Radio using a 2m Transceiver. Boy, I loved that computer!!! 👍👍👍

[@kaminutter]

Back in 80's second processors could be bought for the BBC. But unlike other machines the second processor doesn't need to be a 6502, instead you can use Z80, ARM or other. The Raspberry PI co processer system is brilliant as it runs as 6502, Z80, 80286, ARM native and other cpus without swapping components. There is adapter boards to allow 16 ROMS/RAM slots and shadow memory for the graphics system which allow you to use all the RAM for your program. For the 1 MHz bus there are plans for SID, Midi, 8MB Ram cards as well. For a machine designed and built in the 80's it is very easy to upgrade and design stuff for.

[@a531016]

I love it, and would be the first to admit my knowledge of it is still a tiny percent of what there is to know! I'd encourage anyone to get one a take it for a spin!

[@patricklepoutre]

Lovely video. I still have my BBC micro somewhere in a box. I have a ROM expansion board with cmos ram, and external zif socket as shown. The user manual was sooo good! That was quite a thing at those time, there was no internet. And receiving the thick "bbc micro" magazine was so much a joy. Good old times!

[@a531016]

I did get a user manual for this project too, I'm gradually working my way through it (with bookmarks and hand notes from the original owner too)!

[@sebastianthomas8507]

element14 presents my fav channel ever

[@ches74]

I find your lack of faith disturbing! BBC micros are bullet proof, unless someone has done something really dumb, replacing the PSU capacitors will get it going. They're always salvageable and worth resurrecting. Superb design, a work of genius.

[@a531016]

Follow the link in the description to see what the outcome was!

[@Kobra31677]

Still have mine here that I've just had the PSU rebuilt. About to rebuild it back up. Absolute classic :D

[@bomberaustychunksbruv4119]

I have one of these up and running on an LCD monitor. With the SD Card in the disc drive port with all the games on it. They had just come into the schools when I was 12. I learned to code BASIC on it and I now code still in C++, I have had to do the Capacitor in the PSU as mine smoked - as they all do with age. Very easy to fix. I went onto early PC's and wrote stock control setup for a local supermarket. Paid for my first Motorcycle with the money. Happy Days.

[@TanjoGalbi]

Back in the late 80's I went to a centre to learn computing and electronics. While there they moved their location and in the new location I was tasked with setting up the econet network for all the BBC computers used in their main BBC room. I actually enjoyed that, wiring the network, testing the connections and making sure each BBC worked on the network :) They also used the BBC for electronics too and I had made a simple light pen and coded the BBC in assembly to use it. Alas, after leaving that place I never touched a BBC computer again as I moved on to PC programming.

[@chaoslab]

"I love the smell of 6502 in the morning"

[@a531016]

Who doesn't!

[@markchambers7147]

im having the same isue, almost brought one from Trade me in NZ, i under stand you can use a pi in the tube socket....... go on would love to see more from the element 14 community on this ..... Please... prity please....

[@booboyBL]

The Beeb was, and still is, a fantastically versatile and upgradeable computer. Even now, there is a ton of modern hardware add-ons available for it, such as the Gotek floppy emulator, and a Pi based (multi)2nd processor. See the websites 'Stairway to Hell' for loads of software, and stardot.org.uk for discussion, mods, NEW software and more for Acorn computers. I have 2 of these Beebs, plus a BBC Master, and I use then all regularly. BTW, the RIFA caps in the PSU, can, and usually do, fail spectacularly, with lots of magic smoke and an awful smell; BUT the Beeb will still boot up, but with less filtering on the power side.

[@YourPalHDee]

Was JUST learning about this computer yesterday, from Mark Brown!

[@a531016]

It's a classic, and warrants more time than I gave it here!

[@SuperCloneRanger]

Rifa madness strikes again.

[@a531016]

"Strikes" is just about the right word if you happen to be on the end of it as it happens!

[@IljaSara]

Came here to say the same. Dang Rifa for disabling our retroware! But we will prevail!

[@tyrewald9083]

Lovely machine.

[@satriautama3673]

there is a thrift store putting this on sell without a price. so here i am to research about this "keyboard". i might get it (if it in good price) and try to turn it on. i hope it still working. if not, i will be like you... hope to see more updates on your side about this machine.

[@trickysoft]

Isn't Element 14 descended from Acorn? I think that "the ashtray" was for an expansion speech phrom, but is also handy for bringing out an internal ROM socket.

[@talideon]

Different company entirely. The one that came from Acorn is now part of Broadcom.

[@atc9000]

I have the BBC Micro Owl as a Tattoo on my right upper arm, Used to use one at School.

[@a531016]

Epic!

[@rubusroo68]

I have fond memories in the early 80s reprogramming the break key to old:run, much to the teacher's confusion.

[@a531016]

There is one in every class....

[@tackline]

*KEY 10 OLD|MRUN|M

[@andyspoo2]

I used to love the clicky keyboard on those. You can buy an adapter to make the keyboard usable on a PC, but can you make one?

[@minuslr]

Great breakdown thanks. This was a Genius bit of kit created by the crème of Cambridge including the future designer of the ARM processor. I made commercial light-pen software for Datapen on it such as Cirkwik and a PCB Designer which needed a ROM and a disk drive, for Watford electronics.

[@patricklepoutre]

Oh yes, I remember this Watford brand. I think I had a light pen and a floppy drive from them. The light pen I had was just a very light white tube of plastic with a bit of blue maybe

[@a531016]

Awesome! I love to hear things like this in the comments! Did you develop for other contemporary machines? How did the BBC compare?

[@minuslr]

@@a531016 Yes we developed for most home micros at the time. The BBC was just so professional for example in the screen clarity, it could have been a business computer, although its expense meant that far more other cheaper machines such as the Spectrums made their way into 80s homes. Most other computers had minimal input / output ports - the BBC was overflowing with them!

[@peterjf7723]

Back in 1982 the BBC B computer cost £399.00

[@sprybug]

Yep, those 70's & 80's systems with RIFA capacitors are known to fail, explode, and leak. Gotta replace them with modern replacements!

[@mintzbuck]

With the shirt and glasses I was expecting a Techmoan impersonation.

[@a531016]

I said the same thing when making it...

[@a531016]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/iX_Kf35_otCFoLM The outake...

[@damothekiing]

does any remember the name of a game for this system it was a text adventure but has some images throughout the game all i remember it had something to do with vampires/dracula

[@a531016]

Granny's Garden was the best, you were trying to rescue some people from a Witch that poped up when you got caught?

[@damothekiing]

@@a531016 im pretty sure it was vampire themed you had to put you password in to load your game and also i remember either a graphical enterance of maybe a cave you could enter or a door of some sort ithey were only seen rarely thorugh the game alot of text :) thanks

[@paulb4uk]

You can get a rasberry pi based copro emulator psu is common for capacitors and easy to sort out .

[@twoodall88]

I know just how you feel.. I've been reluctantly glancing at eBay for my childhood 286 system.

[@peteregan9750]

typical refer cap = common problem with all older power supplys of that erra

[@joshedt521]

But can it run Crysis?

[@a531016]

Probably, but at about 1 frame per hour?