The EIectronics Inside 29: Retro BBC Micro Teardown

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!

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!

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!