Please see below for 2024 updates to BeebMaster

1st December 2024	The final update of 2024 ends a momentous year of upheaval following the vacating of the original BM Towers and shifting the whole enterprise 60 miles closer to the coast and then reconstituting the entire setup almost from scratch. More of that when the picture sets catch up, but until then, I'm still showing you the previous BeebRoom plus ever more Beebery which I hope will be of interest to all visitors:
		April and May 2022 saw the finishing touches to the BeebRoom, although they involved by far the most upheaval.		I discovered what I thought was a bug in ARM BASIC in May 2022 when trying to calculate some fairly big numbers.
		RaSCSI is the latest incarnation of SCSI interface doing all-old things using all-new parts. Or at least it was at the time mine arrived in May 2022, possibly the moveable feast of let's-remake-everything-we-used-to-make-but-half-the-size-of-the-previous-go has advanced further for'ard by now.		OneCat is a utility I wrote in 2021 to solve a problem with long filenames using the Level 4 file server with Beebs.
		Sometimes it's useful to be able to change the user root directory - commonly called the "home" directory nowadays, presumably to save on typing - and here's a utility I wrote in 2022 to set it at will.		Here's a look at disassembling my A420/1 during my attempts to try to fix the broken floppy drive on my A420/1 from June 2022.
		Another missing title in my BBC laserdisc collection arrived in June 2022.		Perhaps the original Econet bible, or at least the Old Testament, a real physical copy of this invaluable book came for my birthday in 2022.
		This is one of the Econet Socket Hubs to which I added clock and data LEDs so it could function as an Econet tester.		The final set for this final update of the year is slightly topical in this season of giving, and receiving of course.
1st November 2024	In these times of record breaking tax rises and price increases, incessant rain and shorter days, it's time for BeebMaster to bring you all some cheer: so I've decided to reduce nearly all the Beebshop prices! You'd better get over there before the bump on the head wears off! When you come back, take a look at November's updates:
		For the first time in over a decade, I have updated My Econet to accurately show the current status of my own network. Accompanying this work-in-progress update is an update to My Econet Timeline.
		RISC OS 3.50 introduces new operating system calls giving greater control over memory usage. Here's a look at Dynamic Areas on my RISC PC 700, with RISC OS 3.70 of course.		In May 2022, I tuned in my recently recovered A305 into the OSSC.
		A return to the subject of the Econet jumble my A305 had been experiencing, in May 2022.		Another go at understanding and even if possible solving the A305 Econet jumble in May 2022.
		One of the things I kept doing wrong with the Pi Econet Bridge was forgetting to add new Econet stations to the configuration file when I added one to my Econet. Instead I decided to write a utility in BASIC which would generate a configuration file.		Getting the Pi Econet Bridge working properly with Archimedes machines has been a bit troublesome, and here's a quick look at using the Bridge from a RISC PC.
		A quick set - taken using the OSSC - of the A420/1 communicating with the Pi Econet Bridge.		I hit upon this idea during a discussion about filing system checks on code intended to be run as a ROM, and whether the checks amount to anything.
		Here's something which I tried to do something about in May 2022 - when trying to close files but not being logged on to the current Econet file server, there's an error, so trying cleanly to close files at the end of a session ends up messy.		This is a look at the time taken for different types of Econet station to do a fixed number of retries.
1st October 2024	October's update begins with a new bit of screen capturing kit:
		I bought an OSSC - Open Source Scan Converter - in April 2022 as a way of improving screenshot quality on my 32-bit Acorns.		This is my first go with the OSSC on the day it arrived.
		This is the first picture set I made with the A420/1 after I tuned it in to my new OSSC in April 2022.		I found in April 2022 that the floppy disc drive in my A420/1 wasn't working.
		It's possible to switch a Microvitec Cub monitor from digital to analogue signal mode by moving a few links inside.		In April 2022, I did a silly thing, which was to attempt to make my own RGB splitter cable, with an RGB plug at each end, connecting together to a third RGB plug in the middle joining the two parts together. This was so that I could share the monitor I use with Stations 1 and 128 without always having to unplug the cable from the one to put in the other. It was a bad idea, as the cable ended up powering the machine which wasn't switched on, and if I wasn't careful, I could have ended up damaging one or both of the Beebs! A very kind chap called Derek had already designed an RGB switch box for multiple computers to be connected to a single monitor, and he sent me a blank PCB and kit of parts so I could assemble my own.
		Different Masters have different makes of CMOS chip fitted to them, and there is some slight difference between the functionality of the different manufacturers' parts.		I took the opportunity in April 2022 to take some new pictures of the co-processor board in Station 201 after I had removed it whilst checking what CMOS chip was underneath.
		"Read Write CMOS" is a utility I wrote in April 2022 to directly access the functions of the CMOS RAM and Clock chip, 146818 found in BBC Masters.		Jolly clever folks invented a way of displaying a split screen between modes 4 and 7 and in April 2022, I tried it out.
		After upgrading my RISC PC to 192MB RAM and 2MB video RAM, I wanted to be able to take a screenshot of the start-up screen showing the RAM reading, but I couldn't do it with any method available at time, until my OSSC arrived in April 2022.		This is the first screen capture recording of my A3010, which wasn't possible until I got my OSSC in April 2022.
		In February 2022, I bought some laserdisc parts which turned out to be some of the insides of a VP405.		I have an aversion to cable mount soldering as I have always been terrible at it, so in April 2022 I devised a way of making an Econet extension lead without having to use cable mount DIN plugs or sockets.
1st September 2024	For September's update we start with some time conversions:
		This is a utility to convert the time into a string as used by *TIME or TIME$, and the effect of different 6502 second processors on its operation.		At the beginning of British summer time 2022, I decided to write a utility to set the clock in all my Econet stations with a real-time clock.
		Here's an update to my utility to read and write the real-time clock dongle to support 7-bit years.		Read RTC 1.5 was quickly followed by version 1.6.
		In 2022, Ken Lowe made a new PCB for the Econet Level 3 real-time clock dongle, with the help of the RTC Prototype built by Flaxcottage. I bought 5 of the clock IC, the SAF3019P, to test with the prototype, and so I bought 4 of Ken's new boards to use with the 4 spares. Here they are when they arrived.		I made up a makeshift Econet activity tester using one of the Econet Socket Hubs in February 2022.
		This picture set is a look at the drive settings in the 1770 DFS which can set and unset the drive as being read-only.		In March 2022, I made images of as many 6502 Tube host ROMs as I could.
1st August 2024	August's Beebery looks like this:
		This is the beginning of an idea I had in February 2022 when I was dealing with a DFS disc, my Model B Sideways RAM master development disc, which had been working reliably for many years and then conked out. The conkage appeared to be confined to the loss of sectors 0 and 1 on the disc, which are the most crucial asthis is where DFS stores the catalogue.		I spotted a curious thing with the way View saves files when I was trying it with my HTMLGEN captions in February 2022.
		Whilst experimenting with using CVBS inputs into the Domesday laserdisc player, I needed a terminator. Naturally, I didn't have one, and ordering one would have taken a few days, so I made my own.		Here's some archive footage I taped in February 2022 showing bus racing, sponsored by Acorn!
		I don't normally re-cap power supplies, you may have seen various smoke emitting explosions on here, which whilst pyrotechnically exciting, are not normal particularly destructive.		This set shows me replacing the "usual suspects" capacitors inside my Tesco Cheese Biscuits Wedge 6502 Second Processor in February 2022.
		I got round to making up the Ken Lowe Econet module boards I purchased in August 2021.		Here's a quick workout for the Ken Lowe Master Econet Module I built and installed in the BeebMaster Domesday Machine.
1st July 2024	It didn't. (That's the possiblity of election fever gripping the nation by this time.) So instead, even more Beebing:
		This set looks at using Edit, from the Master MOS ROM, on a BBC Model B.		Some new pictures of my Uviprom EPROM programmer, from January 2022.
		Normally I use my HTML Generator to make picture sets one by one, but for the January 2022 update, I automated the process even more so that I could generate several picture sets where I had written the captions, all in one go.		In January 2022, I discovered a bug in HTMLGEN which had been present for a couple of months.
		For a long time, it was suspected that the chip inside the Econet real-time clock dongle was a PCF8573, but in January 2022 I was given the idea that it might be a completely different chip, the SAF3019P. So I bought some to try with the prototype.		This is a detailed look at whether the prototype clock board will work with the SAF3019P clock chip.
		This is a look at adding files to the Econet file server which is part of the Raspberry Pi Econet Bridge.		I added some activity LEDs onto the breadboard prototype Real-Time Clock in February 2022, so I could monitor what was going on.
	A bit unseasonal, but depending on what happens on Thursday, there might not be any Christmases any more, so here's festive set from December 2021 which allows me now to complete the uploading of all picture sets from 2021 meaning I am only 2½ years behind!
		In December 2021, I took part in a Christmas programming challenge, which was to draw a Christmas tree to a stated specification, using vintage computers, as inventively or as concisely as possible.
1st June 2024	Election fever has failed to grip the nation, though it might have done by this time next month, but instead let's just carry on Beebing:
		This is an attempt to repair my "Red Tigress" A4 in September 2021 after 10 years or more in storage.		Here's a tongue-in-cheek look at rotating the display of a Beeb.
		Here's a look at using ADFS 1.30, originally made for the Model B and B+, on a Master 128.		In December 2021, I brought back Econet Station 112 from storage to see if anything could be done to revive it. First it needed a clean.
		Here's a look at my new Sony DVD recorder, made in December 2021.		I kept looking through the vents and seeing cakes of dust inside, so I decided in December 2021 to give the thing a clean.
		This set shows how user privilege works on the Acorn Level 4 Econet file server.		This is the full set of BBC Video Monty Python laserdiscs, and they arrived as a set in December 2021.
		This is my second RGB-to-HDMI unit which arrived in December 2021.		Here's a reference shot of an A4000 keyboard I took in September 2021.
1st May 2024		Twenty-one years online today for me, and continuing the A305 theme established earlier this year, beginning with a look at fitting the hard disc to my A305.
		The next problem to contend with is the curious jumbling of data when using Econet.		This set shows the formatting of the Kyocera hard disc I installed inside my A305 in November 2021.
		If at first you don't verify, try, try again with a different disc - so now I have removed the Kyocera drive and replaced it with a Miniscribe 8425.		Having successfully fitted, formatted and tested the Miniscribe hard drive in my Archimedes 305, it was time to fill it up with some goodies.
		Now to add some games to my A305 hard disc.		And now, as I have often said before, the game which was apparently written using this very machine.
		Here's a look at using SpellMaster to check the spelling in a Wordwise document.		Here's a quick look at how BASIC is stored in memory, and the "overhead" that is required to store even the shortest programs, which can be quite significant when trying to write the shortest possible code.
	Regular listeners will not be surprised to know that the BeebBirthday update traditionally ends with an appeal for you all to have a rummage round the whole environs on this domain. My Tea pages have been specially updated for you:
		This is my Paragon china tea set, photographed in October 2021.		My Queen Anne china tea service, taken in October 2021.
1st April 2024	Following on from last month, I have started a new section on my A420/1, which you can find here with new picture sets:
		In September 2021, I brought my A420/1 out of storage so I could test its PSU in the ailing A305. At the same time I gave the A420/1 a workout.		Here's some more on the A420/1 in action, from October 2021.
		The hard drive in my A420/1 has been playing up since I brought the machine out of storage in September 2021.		In October 2021, I took a new set of pictures of my A420/1 whilst I was using it and investigating the hard drive.
		Now the beginnings of a disc imager I made using the A420/1.		Here's a further look at my ADFS imager on the A420/1, after I had made some improvements.
	And now some of the latest developments with my RISC PC 700:
		In October 2021, I finally solved my RISC PC disappearing RAM problem by replacing the memory module. For reasons unexplained, it had downgraded itself from a 128MB module to 64MB.		In October 2021, I made some very welcome progress with NetSurf on my RISC PC.
	To finish today's exclusively 32-bit update, some more sets on my A305:
		Another look at repairing my A305, which I had revived from being apparently dead the previous month.		Here's the start of the A305 re-assembly.
		With the podules restored to my A305, we can have a look at what RISC OS makes of them.		In October 2021, just when I thought it was safe to think my A305 was in full working order, it exhibited an Econet fault.
1st March 2024	For March's update, I bring a special feature on my Archimedes 305, which now has its own section here:
		In September 2021, I took apart my A305 keyboard to give it a bit of a clean.		This set shows existing, and potential future, upgrades for my Archimedes 305.
		From its arrival at BM Towers in May 2005, until August 2021, the A305 was officially dead. The fan came on, but nothing else ever happened. Here's a look in detail at the A305 being brought back to life.		For reasons as yet unexplained, the A305 sometimes crashes inexplicably. It's usually accompanied by screen corruption and some white noise - which sounds frighteningly like pre-explosive crackling - and sometimes ends with the A305 re-starting itself.
		Now to try to understand - and hopefully fix - these curious "data abort" errors the A305 generates nearly every time it's turned on.		This set shows how the A305 would have been in its original RAM configuration, with just the entry-level count of 512 kilobytes.
		Here I've reinstated the RAM expansion board so we can take a look at the A305 in 2MB mode.		When the recordings came out and I started making up the picture sets showing the progress I had been making with my A305, they all looked pink! This set looks at this curious problem further.
		I didn't want to make any more changes to my A305 having got it working and started to re-assemble it. But the pinkness of the picture called for the application of a couple of modifications set out in Acorn field change orders. Here's what I did next.		Now a look at the result of applying the Acorn FCO modifications to my A305.
	Continuing the 32-bit theme for March, here are some sets about my Acorn A4:
		One of the main features of the A4 is its re-chargeable battery pack. Here's a look at it in detail.		This is a look at the PSU for my Acorn A4.
		Here's a home-made Econet tester lead, which arrived many years ago and was always regarded as defunct until I repaired it in October 2021.		A little look at reading the EPROMs from the two Watford Electronics podules in my A305.
		New year, new venue for the latest ABug gathering at a Manchester Travelodge.
1st February 2024	Second month of 2024 looks like this:
		In June 2021, Blue Peter Makes... it 6 still needed!		A few weeks after the earlier part, the next stage of the BeebRoom came into effect.
		This is my first Econet lead, home made and fashioned from the wire off a mouse.		This is another early Econet lead I made.
		The BeebMaster Econet module may be no more, but fortunately there are alternatives! Here are 6 blank boards designed and manufactured by Ken Lowe, which I bought in August 2021.		The Kenda DMFS is one of the more unusual disc interface upgrades for the BBC Micro, and relatively little is known about it.
		In August 2021, I brought back my Acorn A305 after 10 years in storage to make another attempt at repairing it.		Here's a quick look at using my newly-repaired Archimedes 305 from August 2021.
		Another one down in August 2021 with the arrival of Play School.		By 2021, probably even a year or two earlier, my JVC DVD recorder was playing up and eating DVDs during almost every recording. After a final attempt to fix it in August 2021, I scrapped it when I bought a replacement - the Sony RDR-HXD770.
		This is the first of my two Acorn A4 Econet interfaces, from my Red Tigress machine.		Here's the second of my two Acorn A4 Econet interfaces, currently without an A4 to fit to.
1st January 2024	A multitude of picture sets for this 2024 new year update:
		My A3010, which was last seen looking like a very sorry old thing, was repaired and returned to me in July 2021.		Here's a SCSI enclosure with a Tandberg tape drive.
		In July 2021, I started to help with testing a new use for the Raspberry Pi - this time an Econet Bridge and file server!		An early look at the Pi Econet Bridge in operation.
		At last, it's coming together. You may have seen my temporary setup, but now the permanent arrangement is beginning to take shape from July 2021.		This item arrived in June 2021 after I was offered it by a school having a clear-out.
		Another addition to my BBC Video laserdisc collection in May 2021.		Two "silent" short features starring the Two Ronnies on this "By the Sea and the Picnic" laserdisc.
		By tradition at this time of year, I invite you to take a look around my non-Acorn pages, including today's update to my Tea Pages. This set is in fact the last set left over from the previous decade, having been made in August 2019, so it's a nice bit of unfinished business to end this new year update.
	Before you go, don't forget to take a look at the BeebShop for all your Econet and Beebing needs. And remember, I've held the price for as long as I can - since before the pandemic in fact - so something is going to have to give very soon! When you've finished buying, please come back in early February for more BeebUpdates!

For previous updates, please see here.