BBC printer port (ever used for anything else?)

From: Graham Toal <gtoal_at_gtoal.com>
Date: Sun Sep 19 10:05:35 2004

ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
> I am suprised a sound sampler used the printer port -- there's only 2
> bit of input (the ACK line). Why not use the user port?

My memory is really starting to fade. Now I think about it more, it
was an ARCHIE peripheral! :-/

> It's brought off-board. It's linked to a 24 pin Blue Ribbon connector
> (looks like a GPIB connecotr, but isn't the same wiring, of course) on
> the back. I will certainly make a cable to link it to a printer...

I may have the proper cable. I have an ACW but I think I finally
scrapped the printer I was using with it. (One of those crummy Olivetti
inkjets - really not worth repairing)

> > By the way I'm borrowing Joe Rigdon's US Beeb so I can recover the code
> > on my BBC 5.25" floppies, which is where the sideways RAM loading code
> > you were looking for is stored. Unfortunately I did't have any copies
>
> Ah, so there is a loader program. I will dig about on the 'BBC Lives'
> website, I can't believe there's nothing suitable there.

There are *many* loader programs and they're easy to write. This
particular one was one of mine and I don't think the source ever
made it anywhere public. Fortunately I have at least 20 floppies
containing the source and one of them is surely still readable!

As well as a small stand-alone utility I wrote myself, a friend I
was working with wrote a clone of the Master rom extensions,
including SRLOAD etc, that I supplied with my Rom/Ram board.

> If you want to transfer individual files, there is a kermit for the beeb
> (and for that matter for the ACW's 32016 side...). Kermit may not be
> efficient, but it's available for anything....

I know, look in the sources of ACW kermit and see who ported it :-)
I was amazed (and depressed) that the ARM port of Kermit was simply
my ACW port with another layer added to fake out the ACW routines,
which themselves were just a veneer over BBC OSBytes! What a mess!

But my experience has been that sucking off the entire disk as an image
is not only faster, its more reliable in terms of disk errors, plus you
find interesting deleted files that way :-)

G
Received on Sun Sep 19 2004 - 10:05:35 BST