Vintage Computing & Consoles BBC Micro; Teletext Adapter, Winter Project

I'm really enjoying this thread. I remember being told a few years ago by a colleague that someone on a BBC Micro forum acquired a machine but was mystified as to what a ROM called 'DMTER52' was for. Said colleague had written that ROM and it was for interrogating the Rank Cintel Slide File, a digital still store from the mid-1980s.

Next you'll be wanting a genlock board for one... 😉 

Softel SE3010 Teletext Editing Terminal, ready and waiting for input......

OK, so where is the help screen 😮 

Forgot to mention, I replaced the failing battery backup.

It was fortunate that battery backup had been implemented differently by Softel than how the original Master implemented it. They had a 3-wire affair soldered to an IC, the original would have been a two wire to PL8. This meant I could reinstate the standard battery backup to PL8, whilst the failing battery was still connected, thus not losing CMOS. Briefly, it would have seen 4.6V for a couple of seconds before I cut the old out. Tested by going into the edit loading the help system, then cut power to the unit. Powered back on and the Softel went exactly back to where I previously was in the help screen.

As for help, yes I found the help screens, but still wish I had a physical manual, now all I have to find is an old Softel training course manual on creating teletext content.

I figured out how you do coloured text, need to figure out how to change background too. Most importantly, how you create graphics. Also need to get some 5.25 floppies and I need to be able to save work.

Adrian how do you break to o/s the keyboard does not comply to the standard BBC, there does not appear to be a break key?

Now you are asking! I cannot remember if I hit the reset key as the machine was booting or I hit the break key, which is not fitted as on original keyboard only. Connector 13 & 14 PL24 have to be momentarily shorted. You will need the diagram to work this out. the "break" key shorts pin 13 to ground pin 14 which is ground on the original keyboard connector. It is not the easiest diagram to follow. It is easy to do with a small screwdriver. If you get stuck I'll get one on the bench to try. You could unplug the ROM cartridges so it cannot boot into Sprite but I didn't need to do that.

Hi Crusty, Please see attached picture. I have outlined the two pins in red that are the Break key pins 13 & 14 and still work when shorted. The two rows of pins there are the original keyboard connectors. The IC socket arrowed is where the keyboard encoder sat. On yours they just unplugged the IC as it was in a socket. Where they were soldered in they just cut them out.

Hope this helps

Thanks, though removing 9-screws, removing the case lid to short those pins with a screwdriver each time is hardly ideal, I wonder why they never thought of keeping a break key. I also wonder and suspect there is likely a hidden combination that only support staff would have been aware of to exercise a break. I cannot believe it would have been left out, as support engineers would surely need to have had access to the command line from time to time.

I guess in the absence of this knowledge, the fallback solution is a tact switch wired across those pins with the button placed on the rear panel of the case, until such a time I can find out more about the softel system implementation.

Following on from that, in an effort to seek information about Sprite Teletext Page editor by Andrew Lambourne, and the Softel hardware, in the vain hope of locating some documentation, I stumbled across this article.

It's about the BBC moving at TC 7013 (who what where?) to the Andrew's Windows version of Sprite editor, stating it is the biggest upgrade they had seen as word-wrap was the only advance in teletext editing they'd seen over the previous 18 years.

https://transdiffusion.org/2024/09/21/ceefax-new-technology/

Posted by: @crustytv

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It's about the BBC moving at TC 7013 (who what where?)

Room 7013 - on the 7th floor of the much-missed Telly Centre, which is where I (vaguely) remember them operating from.

Hi Crusty, I have just tried my correctly booting Edit terminal and to get it to Basic, I turn the unit on whilst holding down the lower right hand "SKIP" key. You can use the * key to enter MOS instructions like *Status to see the configuration settings etc. Sorry about the slight hijack with the PPM's Must open that in the Broadcast folder.

Posted by: @hurty

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Sorry about the slight hijack with the PPM's Must open that in the Broadcast folder.

Split to here

Posted by: @hurty

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Hi Crusty, I have just tried my correctly booting Edit terminal and to get it to Basic, I turn the unit on whilst holding down the lower right hand "SKIP" key.

👍

I spent the afternoon upgrading my Model B, this entailed fitting a ZIF socket for easy access to using new ROMs which I don't need always loaded. This saves on having to open the case each time.

I also fitted the second 6502 processor, before doing so, I would need to fit the Watford 12-ROM extension board as the second processor needs two ROMS, HiBasic and a file system ROM. For the later I used DNFS which not only supports a second 6502, it also supports ECONET.

For the most part it was trouble free, except my games menu system would not work as it does not support the second processor. Also, the Beeb would just hang if the 2nd pro was turned off, resulting in the system failing to load. This was resolved by organising the order in which the BASIC and HiBASIC ROMS loaded. Thanks to the lads over on the Beeb forum for their advice on that.

@Crustytv some memories from those last pics, particularly remember Wordwise and Exmon. The latter I used to crack the copy protection of Micro Power games, they were using control codes in the filename. Poke the codes into the correct memory locations and copies worked. Happy days.

@jayceebee glad it stirred some memories for you John. 👍 

When we have a get-together, you'll have to take me through all you know and your memories. As I mentioned at the start of this Beeb journey, at the time these were new, I was far too engrossed in learning all I could about ICL (1900 & 2900 series) mainframes, so they went under the radar. Next thing I remember after dumb terminal domination was the slow creep of the first PCs hitting the desk, IBM XTs. I also clearly remember ICLs one-per-desk arriving, I had one in my office, basically the Sinclair QL, it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. The next one I remember was installing windows V2 from 5.25 floppies on a Viglen 386. Anyway, I digress, this thread is about BBC Micros.

My Model B is pretty much where I want it to be, except for figuring out getting ECONET on it and building the ECOLAN, for which I will need a clock. The plan is to eventually get it talking to the Softel Terminal (BBC Master). I also need to start learning how to create and edit Teletext pages on the Softel, and what format teh files save as, hopefully .TTI? Then how I get these files to my VBIT2 teletext Pi server which needs .tti to push them out to the TV's and Model B. I may also then look into finding an inserter so I can overlay teletext onto a video feed. Not a five-min job, all this while I still have TVs that need fixing.

Just for a bit of fun and to test if my SD card interface, that resides in the user port of the BBC, will act as a disc drive.

I formatted the SD card then used MMBimager, this created 511 disc locations, more than I will ever need. Then created a blank floppy image using FSmanager, saving that as a .ssd. I then downloaded the image for Elite Extended edition, this is the version that has more colours and makes use of the co-processor so runs much faster.

Back to MMBimager, drop the elite .ssd and blank floppy .ssd on to a disc location, making sure the blank floppy is write enabled, then save the MMB file. Finally, copy the MMB file to the SD card and install it into the beeb and boot.

*ddrive shows I have two discs 0 blank floppy and 1 ELITE, obviously I can add another 500+ disk images to the card and have them all available, which is insane!

It all works, I have the standard version of Elite I ran before I got the co-pro, the extended version does indeed, excuse the pun, fly! More ships, stations colours and graphics. More importantly, I don't need to invest in a floppy drive, as I can emulate 511 on one small micro SD card using the MMFS ROM.

Edit:

Elite was a game for the 8-bit that was deemed impossible at the time, 3D wire frame, open world. If you're interested, see here.

Oh, I well remember the fuss about Elite at the time! When I was in training at Evesham, there was a computer room in one of the teaching blocks (Bredon, I think) and I can remember many people playing Elite on the machines there in the evening after lectures.

My two favourites were much simpler: Bugblaster and Danger UXB.