Games That Push the Limits of the BBC Micro

[@ColinHoad]

Tremendous video, and thanks for the lovely shout-out - you did the Beeb proud there 💪 For the programmatically minded, Mark Moxon's annotated source codes for Elite, Revs etc. are a goldmine, great to hear him get a namecheck 😀

[@curtislongbow]

ahhhhh there's a station called moxons mojo in elite.

[@markmoxon]

@@curtislongbowThat’s the station that I got to name from the original E:D Kickstarter. Worth every penny to have something in-game like that! Always use it as my home station, can’t think why. 😀

[@Interference22]

Extra credit to Geoff Crammond's sense of humour: the race drivers in Revs are called things like Roland Slide, Wilma Cargo (will my car go), Rick Shaw, Hugh Jengine, Slim Chance, Gloria Slap (glorious lap) etc.

[@MrRhoobarb1]

Gremlin did similar with Supercars II; jokey versions of real racing driver's names: Nijel Mainsail Ayrton Sendup Nelson Pickets Mickey Louder Crashhard Banger

[@videogamebookreviews]

@@MrRhoobarb1 I vaguely recall the name T Hairy Boots On for Thierry Boutsen (might have been in one of the Lotus games).

[@AnthonyFlack]

It's amazing what he could Crammond 32kb of memory.

[@Interference22]

@@AnthonyFlack BADUMTISH.

[@KevReillyUK]

@@videogamebookreviews Yes, it was the Lotus series. I still think of that quite often, whenever I'm putting boots on. Funny how some odd stuff sticks in the brain from decades ago (but none of the stuff I was _supposed_ to be learning at the time).

[@TimberwolfK]

Thanks for the shout-out! I love the way half of "games that pushed the limits of the BBC" is basically "so you know that Geoff Crammond, right?" - absolute genius at getting the most out of the early 8 and 16 bit systems.

[@TheUAoB]

The flickeriness of the OG Elite was due to a deficiency in the line removal code which was improved in the Master version. There's a version now avaiable for the model B with the improved rendering.

[@fattomandeibu]

Exile was my granda's favourite game. He had it on C64, but seeing it in action instantly made me smile and think of a old Scottish bloke muttering obscenities to himself in front of the TV with a Woodbine hanging out his gob.

[@TheGrumpyGuide]

😅🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 Brilliant!!!!

[@simonm7848]

In the early 8 bit days, my mum's employer had a staff computer scheme that would allow employees to take home and borrow a computer for a week. I LOVED Starship Command...

[@AnthonyFlack]

15:58: "Space dude marooned on a hostile alien planet is the basic THRUST of the plot..." - I see what you did there.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

15:13 "...kind of like two BBCs strapped together..." I think I saw a Robert Mapplethorpe photo of that once.

[@mashk]

I’m not going to google image Maplethorpe 😅

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

@@mashk Good news! You can actually get a game for CD-i called "The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe," so no Google required!

[@davy_K]

The Beeb was interrupt driven so you didn't have to poll the keyboard which was a super efficient way to operate. It ran like greased lightning. You were able to embed assembly inside BASIC programs if you wanted. Chuckie Egg was magnificent on it.

[@fredsmith1970]

I understand that the original prototype/ concept of the ARM (Acorn RISC Machines) processor was written in software on a BBC micro.

[@dna9838]

Not sure but the first arm processor hardware was an expansion second processor module for the beeb. 1985 I believe. 2yrs before the archimedes came out.

[@AmcogG]

Yes it was : "Sophie Wilson designed the instruction set, and a simulation of the processor was developed in BBC BASIC running on a BBC Micro with a 6502 second processor - in just over 800 lines of code"

[@simonochana3189]

From what I remember of Elite, by 1985, it had sold over 120,000 copies for the BBC Micro alone. At the time, that was over 25% of BBC Micro owners!

[@AFourEyedGeek]

Like many middle aged Brits, we had BBC computers at primary school. They had a couple of computers, but nobody could use them because they were too expensive and they didn't want to risk breaking them.

[@belstar1128]

the 80s are so fascinating how you could have a different type of computer designed mostly for schools but still getting decent 3rd party support .but its quite strange because when i went to school in the late 90s we had no computers at all in school i had one at home that quite modern. but our school didn't have any until the year 2000 and then they kept the same computers until i graduated so i am not sure what to think about that era .

[@AnthonyFlack]

You mention that it's appropriate to have a version of BBC Elite with a Raspberry Pi co-processor, because of the Acorn connection, but you forgot to mention that David Braben, one of the co-authors of Elite, also created the Raspberry Pi...!

[@Sharopolis]

Yeah good point, I missed out on that one.

[@fradd182]

Also, while new Elite runs incredibly good for a BBC, its very slow given the power of the ARM CPU in R Pi. Actually even the first 8Mhz ARM CPU, from 1987, is capable of running it perfectly smooth, let alone a modern PI.

[@chrismingay6005]

We all know Granny's Garden was the real limit pusher

[@bruhbruhbruh645]

Explain how.

[@dl-6932]

The magic tree pushed the limit of my patience for sure

[@cruxinc]

No way! ive been wanting this video for ages, thank you so much!

[@PigDogBay]

Great video, and as you say Colin’s channel is a must for any Beeb/Electron fans

[@faenethlorhalien]

Sometimes looking at the micro computer panorama in the 80s in the UK feels like a parallel universe / Mandela effect version of what we got in southern Europe... Mostly the same computers, some of them just by name (Dragon, Oric, etc... the ones that failed), but then you got the Acorn computers. NEVER EVER I heard of the BBC micro or even the Acorn Electron where I lived. I am amazed that it managed to stay pretty much in the UK.

[@TT-pi8ww]

I think the development was commissioned by British television (BBC), which is why it was only available in the UK. In Germany, we only had British computers from Sinclair and Amstrad, but under the name Schneider, a company that otherwise only sold the cheap Hi-Fi equipment 😂.

[@dgmt1]

you need to keep in mind that the 3rd era of globalization only started in 1989 and prior to that importing consumer electronics was quite expensive if there were already well established trade and shipping lines between those countries. For example in Australia the ZX spectrum actually sold at similar prices to the C64 due to how much more expensive it was to import from Europe compared to across the pacific to the US while Amstrad systems were even more expensive likely due to the cost of needing to ship the monitors with them. The amount of trade between countries as well as proximity to factories meant there was a massive amount of variation between what systems were popular in each country. Commodore success in Europe was helped greatly by establishing factories in Germany in 1980 before the real boom happened while PC clones had major success in NA and Oceania thanks to how cheap it was to import Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese parts then assemble & rebrand them locally. Once the 90s hit, costs became much more standardised and hence you start seeing far less variation in both the computer and console industries.

[@3rdalbum]

The BBC Micro was definitely in schools in Australia. The first primary school I went to had them as late as the early 1990s. I moved schools and they briefly had BBC Micros there too before replacing them with Acorn RISC PCs. (My, what an incredible difference)

[@AnthonyFlack]

Acorn computers were present in New Zealand and Australia. My school had BBC Master computers in the computer lab, and later upgraded them to Archimedes A3000s.

[@StreborKram]

Brilliant thank you so much. Appreciate the links to other sources too. Such a mind blowing piece of history

[@RayBellis]

The cheat mode excerpt from Sentinel clearly showed there's no ray tracing involved - just depth sorted polygon rendering (i.e. the painter's algorithm)

[@sinkorswim-du5xi]

24:30 YESSS finally some PODD on youtube lol . respect ,that's like an 11/10 on the nostalgia scale

[@pauldine4072]

I love my BBC B. Probably more than any other computer I’ve ever owned. I learned to program on it - I owe my IT career to it in some respects. I also loved the games - both Geoff Crammond and David Braben were gods to me for their pioneering 3d games.

[@adamsaint2890]

Plan B was the absolute pinnacle of BBC Micro gaming IMHO.

[@Lord-Sméagol]

The BBC Micro with 2nd processor was very fast; The base 2 MHz 6502 dealt with the graphics, sound, keyboard, tape, disc, leaving the second 3 MHz 6502 to just get on with whatever it was doing. It felt pretty much twice as fast as before!

[@Hologhoul]

I like the way you mentioned the BBC taking off due to education, then the photo shows the schoolkids playing Pac-Man on it!

[@videogamebookreviews]

Educating themselves about games. :-)

[@Hologhoul]

@@videogamebookreviews Quite right too!

[@andrewdavies2109]

Cheeky bugger. We definitely had a chip pan. Great video, thanks

[@leedn5]

Another great 'Limits' video. Thanks.

[@md5451]

As someone who played those games back in that time, you've picked out some gems.

[@dbnpoldermans4120]

Thanks for the explanation of coding these games, you absolute legend!

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

Always great to see 80s computers getting showcased! This one was very interesting!

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Big up thanx for uploading at this exact moment. Still in bed and feeling cosy, absolutely perfect. Alright...let's see what my old primary school standard issue machine can do.

[@richardgodivala4680]

Loved the BBC. I have 4 up and running at home now, on an Econet, just like schools had (well, almost - a Raspberry Pi is running the network server..) And I played all of the original games shown here... but I was too stupid to be able to beat Sentinel, ever!

[@whatamalike]

Exile really is an absolute marvel for the era. Most impressive 8 bit micro game ever imo

[@gjwestonable]

Stunt car racer looks faster than the Amiga version. I managed to land the plane in Aviatior after I converted my Dragon 32 joystick to work on the Beeb. Cholo was another great game. Great video fantastic memories.

[@chessoc7799]

Good to see Elite a new kind running. I have only ever seen screenshots as it was jumped on for copyright at least a decade ago. It looked good :)

[@MammaApa]

From only ever seeing Amiga screenshots of The Sentinel in old computer mags, I always assumed you moved seamlessly through the landscape. The Amiga could certainly have achieved that. Didn't realize it was a way older game converted to the machine.

[@perfectfutures]

I don’t think the Amiga could do that either, though it had faster drawing and sharper graphics. When you play it, it just feels like that the way the game is meant to be.

[@Metal_Maxine]

Please ignore my previous comment, it was epically wrong and I clearly got my wires crossed

[@tarstarkusz]

@@perfectfutures Sure it could have.

[@Colin_Ames]

Excellent video. Thanks!

[@malibugrove]

I used to love playing Sentinel on the school BBC B

[@atomiclemon77]

Thanks for a great video.

[@s0t0h]

Always happy when I see you uploaded something

[@perfectfutures]

Brings me back to when the school computers were such Beebs and the computer club students loaded up Elite onto it. I’d never seen anything like it, and if I’d have been able to dock without crashing I think I’d have enjoyed it more. As it was at the time I enjoyed a cheeky game of Chucky Egg the most, though in my later years I had Elite on my Spectrum and also The Sentinel, which is still one of my favorite games. Quite amazing to see what was made for this system and it makes me want to see more of the likes of Exile.

[@bobmcbob4399]

Exile was amazing. My introduction into the Metroidvania genre, which didn't exist by name at the time.

[@edjack1993]

I remember having my mind blown by Elite. It was stunning at the time ( and arguably still is ❤)

[@jimmyporter8941]

Level 9's Colossal Adventure pushed the limits. It was a game originally made for mainframes. It seemed impressive enough that they managed to fit it into 32K, but they added an extended end-game to it as well. And even had a cut-down version for the 16K Model A. Defender (aka Planetoid) pushed the technical limits. It wouldn't run on a Model A, even if you had upgraded the memory to 32K. It needed the second 6522 chip to be installed to work, which other games didn't. The 6522 had a timer in it that was used to make the animation of the game seem smooth, even though the frame rate varied depending on how many sprites were on screen at the time. And yes, it's scrolling landscape and large number of fast moving sprites were really pushing the limits of the time. Very impressive.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

23:58 ARM went on to total _CPU_ domination. Statistically every other architecture is a rounding error compared to ARM

[@10p6]

Can you image if back in the day, someone else at the BBC said regarding the BBC specs, "hey, lets drop some of the non needed parts, and add hardware sprites, hardware scrolling, DMA and 16 on screen colors....."

[@goranisacson2502]

The micro-computers were too before my time for me to have any real connection to them, but I definitely have heard of Sentinel and Elite before, mostly because I read about the remakes in PC gamer way back when. Had no idea the original Sentinel was for this computer I hadn't heard of, or that it managed to look like that on such old hardware. An intriguing look back on an old and very peculiar world, and what impresses me the most is probably that such impressive games were made on what sounds to be a government-ordered computer that wasn't near a 'super-computer' or anything.

[@michaelhill6453]

Exile. My fave of all time. even now. Although I played on a C^$.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

It's a modern port, but take a look at the BBC Master port of Prince of Persia, it's a miracle impossible port

[@MostlyPennyCat]

22:21 Wow that was quick! 😂

[@cruxinc]

i would love to see one on the acorn archimedes one day :)

[@C.I...]

Stunt car racer actually looks fun to play, something I cannot say about other 8 bit games (having owned a master system). It has proper physics by the looks of things!

[@itstheterranaut]

There are a few sites where you can play it in a browser. Its still great.

[@3rdalbum]

It was also available on the Atari ST, although the ST is 16-bit. Needless to say, the ST version is far superior.

[@AnthonyFlack]

Stunt Car racer is great fun, although I mostly played it on the Amiga. It was ported to lots of different systems and the physics are the same in each case. It's a much-loved classic. A pity that you couldn't find anything to your taste on the Master System, but that's just one small corner of the 8 bit world.

[@simonochana3189]

I remember playing Revs on my mates BBC Micro back in the day 🕹️

[@FavoritoHJS]

You said at 7:24 that you would put mark moxon's dissasembly in the description, but i can't find it there...

[@KilledByAPixel]

You mentioned The Sentinel using "a simple sort of raytracing". This looks like standard projection of the verts, drawing from back to front. Raytracing would take forever.

[@trickysoft]

The ARM co-pro is even more appropriate as I believe the ARM 1 was only available as a co-pro for the BBC Micro :)

[@talbotter632]

There is another game series called Exile for the japanese computers which are action rpgs that are basically Assassins Creed but crazier.

[@daveangel2991]

Exile is still among my favourite games of all time. How they managed to fit it into the few kb available still astonishes me.

[@bobmcbob4399]

Yes, that perplexed me and absorbed me in equal measure for years.

[@Daz555Daz]

Uridium on the Beeb is a marvel as well.

[@Highretrogamelord]

Hell yeah, Beeb time!!!

[@ryancraig2795]

In defense of SubLogic's FS1, which I played on my C64, it had a comprehensive set of gauges and controls. And color. But managed, maybe 2 FPS from what I recall.

[@James-fo8rf]

A very important computer which played a part in modern ARM processes and modern smartphones.

[@AcornElectron]

A full play through of Strykers Run part 2: Codename Droid would be brilliant!

[@steveford1070]

Sentinel in 32k? that's pretty amazing, it's great on the C64, half as fast but twice the ram.There's technically 10,000 levels but they generated by an algorithm and quite a few aren't playable

[@ScratchedWinter]

I know i said this before but id love to see you do a collab with DF Retro, your stuff is excellent and you have a unique way of investigating the material. Its easily on par with their quality of presentation

[@pjcnet]

As far as I know schools got a discount on the BBC Model B compared to home users which made it a lot more appealing.

[@gwalla]

AIUI adding processors using the "tube" interface didn't really add their processing to the BBC Micro's CPU, they basically replaced it and the built-in CPU was reduced to a dependent processor mostly just handling I/O.

[@AcornElectron]

We’re getting there ❤😂

[@RobertPayne556]

British Rail: 😮

[@espfusion]

You can see a lot of games make good use of hardware scrolling thanks to the flexibility of the 6845 CRTC. It really gives it a good leg up over other framebuffer based computers that didn't have this capability. Too bad the color palette is so limited.

[@AnthonyFlack]

Yeah the CRTC can turn in some quite impressive graphics when it's put to full use, especially with the slightly larger colour palette of the Amstrad CPC. Hardware scrolling as you say, complete flexibility with screen dimensions, hardware double-buffering, split-screen effects etc. It's thirsty for RAM though, it really wants 128k.

[@thegreathadoken6808]

I scoffed at this computer as a kid. Seems I was wrong. It did have some knockout games.

[@fearlessjoebanzai]

7:20 - surely you mean Crammond in!

[@DenkyManner]

I'd never heard of Exile, looks great. I used a bbc micro in school in the 80s but didn't know it could run actual games, I never saw any!

[@bobmcbob4399]

Exile is great. Massive map to explore and tricky puzzles.

[@alienfish8521]

Yeah they had one in my school back in the day.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

While it wasn't used in this machine (it came a little later), Acorn created their own CPU architecture that is still in use today, in low power devices. They called it Acorn RISC Machine. Or ARM for short.

[@johneygd]

I found those expansion chips indeed cheating.

[@RobertPayne556]

Game Genie and Action Replay Pro went awfully quiet.

[@Metal_Maxine]

I was talking to one of my Dad's friends (ex teacher?) and she was telling me about her addiction to Repton. EDIT: I started school in 1988 and while I have clear memories of using The Computer on its trolley, The Computer was almost certainly a PC or Clone with a 5in floppy drive and the shape matching game was really boring. DOUBLE EDIT: lack of sound in BBC micro games maybe reflects that they were likely to be used at school in the computer room and the racket would have driven the responsible adult mad.

[@simonochana3189]

The Acorn Electron was slower than the BBC Micro, only one sound channel compared to the BBC Micro 3 or 4 channel’.It’s biggest letdown was not having Mode 7 (teletext style graphics)

[@valley_robot]

revs is incredible , given the 32k of ram

[@NorthWay_no]

Firetrack - advanced gfx chip handling.

[@deavo74]

Yeah, I’m kind of an Elite fan.

[@pjcnet]

The BBC was designed for education, but for gaming the C64 ripped it to shreds on the vast majority of games along with a much larger library. The only time the BBC won was with pure processing power when the C64's custom hardware couldn't be utilised, mostly 3D gaming, also if they could use a higher resolution mode with just 32K it was another advantage over the C64, Revs was impressive on the BBC.

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

That racing game (2nd game featured. ) - is that the precursor to Indianapolis500 [scuse spelling] On 286 pc's and the like?

[@tf1090c]

Elite is the most impressive IMO

[@IainDavies-z2l]

Zonk Marco from Planet Zarco would never play, it would load and then would show sintax error at line 5414. It was the same on 3 of my mates machines.

[@shane1489]

Yikes, never even heard of this thing😂 I was expecting number muncher to max it out but these are pretty impressive for early 80s.

[@BurritoKingdom]

BBC Micro vs Apple IIe. Did you Brits get anything as good as Oregon Trail?

[@RobertPayne556]

Yes, we got dysentry. 😂

[@gwishart]

The source code of the Oregon Trail was published in loads of those "100 BASIC Computer Games" books, and there were several versions (of varying legality) released on the BBC Micro - sometimes renamed to be more relevant to British kids eg. "Wagon's West!"

[@the4thviewer28]

Yellow Valley Kingdom on the Welcome Tape was pretty good

[@fuzzix]

For people who don't own chip pans ... 😆

[@steveford1070]

They made a big deal of Exile when it was released, the future of gaming!!! or something lol

[@PartyDude_19]

I've never clicked on a video so fast in my life.

[@Falstad88]

Can you post the link to Mark Marxton's website? It's not in the description.

[@dgmt1]

Microcomputer prices were deceptive because the base units were sold cheaply often without the necessary accessories to actually run them. For example the C64's base price unit was 199.99 but the datacorder added 44.99 and the 1541 disk drive was 229.99. Then you need to think about the cost of a colour TV (180-230) as most families only had 1 TV and the C64 wasn't really suited for sitting under a living room TV like an instant loading console. So realistically a basic C64 system would cost around 430-450 pounds with a the datacorder & TV/monitor or 660-680 with a disk drive. By comparison the BBC with cassette player & monitor would have been about 600 and presumably 800+ with a disk drive. So while the BBC was more expensive, the difference was nowhere near as great once you factored in the costs of the accessories you would need. It also shows just how good of a deal Amstrad CPCs were and why they were able to find success in the 8bit european market despite coming late.

[@Colt45hatchback]

Sort of, but i guess they could split up the purchases over time, like when you buy a console, super nintendo for example, i got one for my 6th birthday. I had one game for a year and we rented a couple over the course of the year, the next christmas i got two more games, and another the year after. So i guess with a c64, people who got it new, probably got the computer itself, then later a tape drive, later a disk drive, maybe a printer later etc, so its not like you had to deck it all out on day one

[@dans.8198]

Not the case with Sinclair ZX Machines. You just used any tape recorder, and you were ready to go. They were so small they could be considered “laptops without a screen”, so no need to keep them near the TV when not in use. Sinclair is often blamed for inferior machines, but they were truly affordable by most families.

[@belstar1128]

yea i never had a c64 or other 8 bit computer but i think having to use your tv as a monitor could be quite annoying. i know i rarely got to play my consoles and i mostly stuck to game boy and pc gaming .

[@AnthonyFlack]

@@dans.8198 48k Spectrum is a beautiful thing. Tiny, cheap, rugged, and plenty powerful, with a library of thousands of games, also cheap.

[@javierespinazopagan3172]

Is Elite wireframe or unfilled polygons? It looks to me like lines behind visible polygons aren't rendered in the rotating ship from the title screen

[@AnthonyFlack]

Wireframe, but because all the ships are basic convex shapes it can simply not draw any back-facing lines.

[@dans.8198]

I guess “unfilled” polygons, with objects described by polygons and their center normal used for backface culling. Polygons are not rasterized, and only their sides are drawn using lines.

[@jimmyporter8941]

​@@dans.8198 I don't think they used normals. Rather they used the anticlockwise rule. All model faces were defined in anticlockwise order. That way the code can decide not to draw any faces that would be clockwise when drawn on screen. And because all faces were convex, the code could tell that by just looking at the first 3 vertexes.

[@dans.8198]

@@jimmyporter8941 I never examined Elite’s code, but I think using normals would require less calculations for non-trivial object (e.g. a spaceship). The clockwise test requires transform and projection of at least three vertices per face.

[@dans.8198]

@@jimmyporter8941 I checked the data structures today. They use normals.

[@EdmundKempersDartboard]

Not where i thought you were going with "BBC as in..."

[@RetroJack]

w00t! I've been waiting for this one forever!

[@RHINOWINOLUNATIC]

What no "Uridium"?

[@Kimarnic]

The huh micro??? Oxymoron

[@MabuseXX]

I don't think it works that way. To complex for very small gain in speed. There is more than enough place in 32k for a second frame buffer. 3:59

[@jimmyporter8941]

Aviator came from the early days of the BBC, before people had worked out how to make custom screen modes. And none of the standard modes offered a 160 pixel wide monochrome screen. So it did indeed use 4 colour Mode 5, and palette switching as a pseudo double buffer.

[@RussBlake80]

Nothing can push the limits because its limits are just being able to turn on.

[@cruxinc]

i disagree , the bbc was and is a very capable and powerful computer for when it came out.

[@KopperNeoman]

@@cruxinc Can you imagine DEI hires and BRIDGE culture doing anything with the Beeb?

[@cruxinc]

@@KopperNeoman how do you mean? the beeb was excellent fir office tasks die to easy networking with other machines via econet

[@Raderade1-pt3om]

Make auch videos on java phones j2me

[@samcoupe4608KB]

To b honest it's not that difficult 20kb video ram only leaves 12kb for a program!

[@user95395]

bbc micro? isn't that an oxymoron?

[@RobertPayne556]

The Mini will be even larger.

[@kristianTV1974]

The nerds computer.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

Unlike the other ones for body-builders and street hooligans.

[@kristianTV1974]

​​@@noneofyourbusiness4616​ Don't get me wrong, it was a great machine that well deserves its place in computing history. Just that every kid I knew that had one had a dad who was a teacher, geologist, or accountant. Us zx or 64 owners were at least known for a bit of Bostik abuse.

[@dans.8198]

Actually, rich nerds’ computer. Poor nerds had a Spectrum.

[@kristianTV1974]

​@dans.8198 this country has an IT industry built on the legacy of the cheaper, more affordable machines, not the beebs. But sure, if you want to be classist about it..

[@dans.8198]

@@kristianTV1974I had a Spectrum.