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BBC Model B question
scudderfish - 16/12/13 at 01:03 PM

Can LCB answer this?

I got a Model B from Freecycle with disk drives (but no copy of Elite, I didn't think that was possible!) It also has a word processor ROM in it which it boots directly to. Is there a magic key combo to get it to boot to the standard ROM? I don't want to take a screwdriver to it to lever the WP ROM out.

Regards,
Dave


chrism - 16/12/13 at 02:03 PM

Have you tired pressing the BREAK key (or CONTROL and BREAK), I always thought you had to do something to load the word processor.

Found this about fitting ROMs, it could be someone has moved them about.

http://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/docs/CC/CC_ROMFittingInst.pdf

[Edited on 16/12/13 by chrism]


trikerneil - 16/12/13 at 02:33 PM

It has been suggested that the ROMs have been swapped over i.e the WP ROM is in the OS slot.

HTH

Neil


nick205 - 16/12/13 at 02:34 PM

Blimey, not seen one of those since I left school

Those were the days, Green screen and disks like frisbees

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

RUN



matt_gsxr - 16/12/13 at 03:06 PM

I remembered it being a physical ROM swap too.

Here is a disc image of Elite
http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/bbc/


garyo - 16/12/13 at 03:54 PM

Ours used to always boot in to the BASIC rom then I thought we typed *W. to boot the wordprocessor, so if they've been swapped then that would make sense...?

[Edited on 16/12/13 by garyo]


HowardB - 16/12/13 at 07:02 PM

there was a thing called a sideways rom,. that meant that the machine could be booted into several different ROMS.

sideways rom

When at school we had a 1MB fixed disc that ran the entire library book system, cost over £10,000!!!!

There was also a trick with the hard wired network address, where it was possible to get a student machine to spoof the one in the staff room. Hours of endless fun,....

Not that I would do anything wrong of course


stevebubs - 17/12/13 at 12:20 AM

I don't remember there being a key combo for this on the B (you could try holding down the number keys), but you should be able to get into basic by issuing *BASIC from somewhere in the WordProcessor