Steve Furber - His First Computer and the Prototype Acorn BBC Micro!

[@orangedac]

You are doing a great service to mankind by carefully documenting and accumulating these pieces of history before all these legendary guys are dead & gone. Don't let them take the history to the grave with them. Please keep the museum alive as it serves as an inspiration to many. One day, this will be the only surviving record of how the world got to be where it is.

[@SuperBoobaloo]

What a fascinating interview. Steve is a national treasure.

[@another3997]

Excellent video and Steve seems like a great guy, as well as being a genius. So pleased to see these machines being preserved and hearing the history straight from the horses mouth is fantastic. Well done.

[@firsteerr]

lets have a shout to Steve , it was he and the others guys of the time that laid the foundation for the world we live in today they pioneered the affordable computer and put it in our homes , without Steve his acorn pals Sinclair etc competing with each other we would not be able to afford technology

[@peterjennings8258]

I could listen to BBC micro anecdotes for hours.... its so great you have recorded this history.... I hope to visit the museum soon.

[@cbturner46]

We used alphabetic PCB issues for prototyping / pre-production internal use. Switching to numeric issue 1 onwards for production releases at manufacturing sites.

[@dhuslin100]

Another brilliant video. Thanks. Steve is an amazing man and a really interesting interviewee. I can't wait to see the museum in person. Please keep these brilliant interviews and videos coming. I always look forward to them.

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

Thanks - We really appreciate the support :)

[@dangersam]

Fascinating conversation with an absolute legend! I'll have to check out the museum next time I'm back in the UK.

[@coolvideos8864]

Such a humble man. So many people owe there livelihoods to this man!

[@paulanderson7796]

IN what way is he horrible? (And it's "their", not "there").

[@coolvideos8864]

@@paulanderson7796 thanks for pointing out a post 2 years ago, but I’d work on reading before you start writing….

[@steve_ancell]

I bet you're glad you had clean socks :D You have another susbscriber BTW! ;-)

[@Rockythefishman]

Wow what a donation. What a lovely man

[@harvestjet]

The BBC Micro badge is designed to be attached to the radiator grill (cars had them in the 80's::-) ) the AA & RAC used them.

[@waldsteiger]

that 40 minutes just flew by. of course it would be nice to get the first machine going again, but i wouldnt be too sad if not. somehow it is in the state the original creator last used it in.

[@wisteela]

Superb I think I can solve the mystery of the 9 volt battery connector for prop use. It was featured on the BBC's Trojan Mouse, 10 year anniversary of the Computer Literacy Project.

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

Paul Potter Thanks - Did you know that as a viewer or were you involved?

[@wisteela]

I thought I recognised it as a viewer, and the light up prop part confirmed my thinking. I can remember him flicking switches and lights working.

[@limpfishyes]

Love this video. oh, and nice socks!

[@stevesgaming7475]

What a legend Steve is!

[@cpcnw]

At Liverpool poly, my course work marks started to go up when I got an old PC XT and a Dot Matrix printer and typing stuff up. The editor was Software ToolWorks, an office suite [WP DB SS] that ran in 256Kb - you could even task switch and paste data across apps. What's office now? 3GB?

[@Zadster]

This is the micro equivalent of going round to Moses' house and having a chat about the tablets he made, and the prototype Arc of the Covenant he put together as a postgrad. A bit of a coup for the Centre, but I can't think of a better place for the computer equivalent of whole books of the old testament to live.

[@melanierhianna]

That's a badge bar plate. Old sports cars often had a bar across the front which drivers would put on car enthusiasts badges, AA / RAC badges and so on.

[@keithrobinson6511]

Repopulate those sockets and get it running! And high-res scan those bare PCB for posterity.

[@outaspaceman]

Wow... Just, Wow

[@taketimeout2share]

So flight sims got him going. Maybe I might invent the quantum PC in my kitchen at home. I'm into them.

[@petermitchell6348]

Oh, I thought we were going to look at that BBC B that was on the side. Interesting show though, many thanks CCH and the legendary Steve Furber

[@penfold7800]

Regarding the 'issue c' bbc micro pcb. I used to work in a circuit board manufacturers that used a 'bed of nails' machine to test the boards for shorts or breaks (no resistance or capacitance test). that manually operated press-based machine used a bbc micro issue c board, which i think was a bbc micro b, issue II. the program that it ran was contained on eproms, presumably they were used in the same place as the volatile ram would have been. it had 6 columns of 8 sockets on the back, each supporting 64 pin-outs for the 'nails'. after it 'learnt' the correct layout from a verified good board, it only read the connections related to the plugs that were connected at the 'learn' stage. whats impressive to me is that on a completely populated pinout scenario it took less than 10 seconds to 'read' and compare the status of every single pin to every other pin with its 'learnt' status. the machine was called an MS2000, and this was in the early 1990's. in the UK.

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

That's interesting! Thanks for the comment.

[@robprupe]

Did you ever get the 2650 machine up and running again?

[@TJ-cg8mq]

...Aviator on the BBC Micro was a classic. . Was it created by the guy who did Stunt Car Racer..??!

[@marrrtin]

Steve Furber: This is THE board which accidentally proved the low power characteristics of ARM. Jason: So where exactly did you mess up?

[@connomar55]

Does the Centre have any Torch Machines. First time I ever saw Multi-processing via Acorn hardware.

[@8-bitsteve500]

A total legend!

[@axs203]

Limitations are what push you.....the old stuff made you do that............I love bbc micros!

[@GlassDarkly]

Everyone has to take their shoes off round at Steve's house... :)

[@EgoShredder]

Yep shoes are outdoor hardware! Once inside give your feet an airing and a bit of comfort on a nice soft carpet.

[@TerribleFire]

The only folks that might have done their thesis on computer before Steve were the folks at CERN. Maybe!

[@buffplums]

Does anyone know where I can donate a load of my old computer stuff. I have a BBC B and monitor, Commodore Amiga and C64 Floppy disk drives etc…?

[@jamesrbrindle]

Sygnetics 2650 was used on a few arcade games of 78/79

[@Spongman]

both these machines can be seen here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a560aouFm9aVfpo&t=368

[@peterjennings8258]

thanks for this Link! just watched the video.

[@goodfodder]

love the size of the psu of his first machine

[@jamesdecross1035]

In his 'home-brew' first computer, are those capacitors?!

[@paulanderson7796]

There are some in there, yes. A couple of hefty electrolytics in the PSU

[@kevroodenman3283]

i saw a kit built with wires wraped on nails

[@rdoetjes]

Kids have indeed arduino etc and those little tiny cheap machines like the Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi (to bring it back to arm) are astonishing and I would’ve killed to have one in the 80s. But kids now grow up with a computers as a mass product. Like we did with radios and TVs. Our dads build radios, we hacked computers. Not sure what kids hack today though. But I did realize back when I was employed, that when we had interns and I showed them programming electronics that they are really intrigued. The see computers as boxes that are fully integrated and not something that can control and measure external stuffz

[@unlokia]

Wait... he built a BAT PLANE? Does Bruce Wayne know about this?! :p

[@neocort4513]

Life is nothing but information. so we have to learn how to deal with information well.

[@penfold7800]

oh yeah, another thing, unlikely but... if somewhere on the white legend of that board, around the edge, it has the initialls PWC and a date, then it was made by our factory (just the board). I know that at the time, we made single-sided boards for Cambridge Systems that were for transistor-based amplifiers and were very well designed to make manufacturing easier so there were far less rejected boards at test stage. Sir Clive, doesnt get enough credit for how good he was at getting good people to work together to create well-designed products. Youve outlined well here why it was essential for him to source components that even though outside tollerances for thier intended use, worked well as alternatives in his projects - components were very hard to come by, and waiting a whole year for your own properly tested, experly designed component was not viable, because the technology that other companies will have developed by then would have been superior. My personal Sinclair favourite achievement is the ZX81 programming manual. Very well written and an excellent doorway for anyone at the time to get passionate about programming.

[@jkdsteve]

A prop for Dr Who, Blakes 7 or equally great BBC SciFi maybe? :D

[@mazharsaid4812]

In 1989 the acorn archimedes had sound in lander but today's machines have no sound in lander does any one know why maybe thanks

[@nigelbarrett4936]

if i recall correctly the free demo Lander had no sound but the full game Zarch did.

[@LawnMowersThingsThatMakeNoise]

I love the videos but. why is it good that he inhaled fairly noxious fumes. and you clapped your hands together lol. :-)

[@qwertyface]

The mystery of the 'C' circuit board seems to be resolved by your later interview with Chris Turner. Letters were pre-production, numbers production. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKCkiaKLgryWb5I at 26:22

[@TheCentreforComputingHistory]

Indeed :)

[@codewizard58]

Signetics 2650 was my first cpu. Not as nice looking.

[@ms-ex8em]

Lander on the Archie - no sound do u know where i can dl it with sound fx?

[@ms-ex8em]

hello does Lander on Archimedes (Archie) have sound? thanks.

[@connorcanwell]

This interviewer keeps talking about himself. He doesn't even seem interested in Steve Furber just wants to take his machines.

[@YouTubeSupportTeams]

why is he in his socks? lol

[@EgoShredder]

He's indoors.

[@YouTubeSupportTeams]

@@EgoShredder so?

[@EgoShredder]

@@KZbinSupportTeams That should be obvious. Shoes can step in all manner of things outside, that would then prevent you from walking bare foot indoors. Also dirt and filth transfers from the floors to the furniture and bedding. Despite washing, the dirt still becomes engrained over time, meaning it will never look clean again. The same goes for any clothes that are in contact with dirty surfaces like this. We once had a guest walk dog mess around our home once. A very expensive thing to fix, but the person responsible paid nothing towards this.

[@YouTubeSupportTeams]

@@EgoShredder sounds like the most pretentious thing i've ever heard. carpets get dirty no matter what, that's why they are cleaned when they are soiled.

[@EgoShredder]

@@KZbinSupportTeams Not at all. It's just decency and common sense.