The EIectronics Inside 29: Retro BBC Micro Teardown

Thank you for sharing, it's great to hear of the less obvious uses for this education targeted machine.

I'll keep an eye open for a teletype machine, that could make for a fun tear down!

Loved your video! Brings back memories. THANKS!

The BBC micro was a brilliant workhorse, I used them for dozens of projects.  I would design and physically build 8 bit controllers using Intel 8048, 8080 and 8085. When the BBC Micro came out it was so much easier (and a lot cheaper) to use one of these. I wrote a 2 pass assembler and stuck it in one of the ROM slots.  All the code was 6502 assembler. Dead easy to write and bloody quick when it ran (but not by today’s standards). I remember using one to control a pulse generator with pretty quick rise times. We also used them as dumb terminals to replace very expensive Newbury terminals.  I think a Newbury was close to £1k for a dumb terminal! Unbelievable! The BBC Micro was about £300 I think (my memory isn’t brilliant). I also used them to replace old teletypes (old electro mechanical terminals) to DEC VAX mainframe. If you want to be marvelled by engineering look at how those old teletypes worked.  I also remember building a small board for one of them to give it a serial interface (110 BAUD)  Yes they did go that slow.  The BBC would run the serial port at 9600 BAUD and even faster. It sounds pathetic now but in the 1980’s it was like “snow” off a shovel!

I just found this - My last day of school in 1996! There were a lot of very bad photos taken, including this one. Note the Game Boy being played (With magnifying lens / light combo) and the BBC Micro on the desk with monitor and 5.25 Floppy Drive too!

I decided to go for red in the end.

Love it!

Ahhh, now I am too! At least my birthday is coming up, I think I might know whats going on my list!

After seeing this teardown, I'm very tempted by this T-shirt...

The mother of all chopping boards - there seems to be 1 in stock here:

https://www.yuppiegadgets.com/product/motherboard-chopping-board/

If I recall jw0752 uses a glass plate for soldering.

Not a bad imitation, but you can't beat the original

Fair warning: camp shirts and vintage electronics are rather addictive! Welcome to the Dark Side....

Seriously, though, groovy teardown! I'm not as familiar with the Micro since it wasn't so popular over here, but now I kinda want to get my hands on one

Ouch! Yep, that'll do it!