Retro BBC Micro Teardown -- The EIectronics Inside 29

Thank you! I had a little chuckle making the Matt moment too!

I remember being vary familiar with the inside of one of those when I was about 12 or 13. That was until the fateful day I was building an EPROM programmer, and shorted 30V AC through the ground plane. It completely killed the PC.

BBC Computer Literacy Project 1980-1989 Archive

https://clp.bbcrewind.co.uk/

The Matt Eargle imitation is AWESOME!!!  Fantastic episode!

I suspect it will take me quite some time to get to your standards of coding, probably close to the 35 years since this machine was new!

Thanks James, I am always weary of caps! It comes from years of bad decisions on checking if things are off or wired right. It's just safer to assume everything is trying to hurt you!

I didn't know about the FCC issues with the machine, thanks for that!

Thanks Dab,

I keep thinking about this chopping board my Mum has, it took me ages to find it. But i'm pretty sure this is a Timex 1000 (or ZX81 ish)?

Now this is my kind of episode! You know you want to join us on the retro programming dark side. I can think of no better way to "waste" your time.

Great episode David!

When you said, "that is not very many ports for a computer of this era," I was about to yell, "turn it over!" The awesome amount of ports is why it failed FCC certifications, at first, in America.

Careful with those larger electrolytics. The ions in the electrolyte stay mobile, causing the dielectric layer to build up a decent charge even without power applied. Enough so, they'll give you a good shock. So leaving it disconnected is a good idea, but after a while, they become dangerous again! A 100-100K resistor across their leads will make them safe.

(FYI. The 1uF you poined out is probably a paper X2 cap. These are EMI filters and not necessary for operation. Film/paper caps nearly always fail open. Though, I still recommend replacing them.)

I never saw inside of a BBC Micro before. One thing that caught my eye is the RF modulator. It looks like the same manufacturer (and maybe part number) that Sinclar used in the ZX-81!

Another great tear down.

It looks similar to the inside of the old Commodore PET 2000 I still have, but with more options.

DAB