Retro Rendezvous

Connect, Collaborate and Code

Hardware Accessories

Solid State Storage for a BBC Micro

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My BBC Micro B came with a solid state storage device, allowing a Micro SD card to provide many of the original games published for the Beeb in the 80s. It was fantastic to have this included and great to have any of these games load in a split second. Fast, reliable solid state storage. No more dodgy tapes, floppies or clunky disk drives! The filing system code is supplied on EPROM – so taking one of the available ROM slots.

The solid state storage is known as MMC.

When I opened up the BEEB to see how the MMC SD Micro card was mounted I discovered this:-

The 1GB SSD card can be ejected, but the trouble is that there is a capacitor right next to it (as pointed out in the image) that prevents it from being pulled out of the slot. I haven’t tried that hard to do that, not wanting to risk damaging anything. But it’s pretty much blocked in.

It seems an odd mounting position that prevents the SD card from being taken in or out. Perhaps it’s the only sensible place where it can be mounted.

My objective at the end of the day is to have an easy and accessible way to transfer files between a Macbook Pro (where I could create programs for a BBC B on an emulator) and the Beeb but the current MMC facility doesn’t look to serve me for this.

Plus how robust would an SD card be being pulled in and out from this board multiple times? It wasn’t made for this kind of use I suspect. Plus it was the pain of lifting off the computer cover every time I needed to transfer the file, even if the MMC SD card was mounted in a different place.

In the end I decided to gain a GOTEK device from RetroClinic.com (see the eBay shop site as well) This is a USB Floppy emulator drive, where you could store hundreds of floppy disc images on one USB stick. A GOTEK device can be used with various retro machines, but this example has been especially configure for use with BBC Micro / Master / Electrons. This is the later type AT435 GOTEK USB Floppy emulator, equipped to connect to the Disk Interface port. This version has a faster CPU with more memory, and a larger 3 line screen, to make seeing the image and folder details easier

A selector on the front of the GOTEK allows you to choose and mount your floppy disk. It’s an external device that you can sit on top of your BBC Micro. The USB stick allows you to easily copy SSD (Disk files) from a PC or MAC which can be read straight away by the BEEB.

Best of all RetroClinic provides a preformatted Sandisk USB stick with many games and utilities for multiple Acorn machines.

For example the Owlet BBC Basic online editor, has a built in option to write your code to an SSD disk file – ready to transfer to a USB stick. It’s a great solution for allowing you to do most of the editing and testing of code on a modern machine and then finally doing final tweaks and RUNs on the BBC Micro.

Using a BBC Micro B with an HDMI Monitor

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In my last post, I had this question left unanswered.

  • Could I somehow use the Beeb with a modern display?

Some Acorn aficionados like the idea of pairing their Acorn machine with original monitors from the same period, notably the Microvitec Cub colour monitors. Personally I wanted a space saving and clear display, that I didn’t have to worry about repairing later down the line. Besides, the Cubs cost a pretty penny – fetching between £200 and £300 at the time of writing.

After searching if the BBC B could support a modern display, I quickly came across this YouTube answer from Retro Computer Shack showing how to connect to a display with an HDMI input. This provides a crisp display on a monitor or TV, using a RGB to SCART cable (£13.50) plus a SCART to HDMI video converter (£29). I went with the advice to get this more expensive converter (Prices at time of writing), since I could see from Amazon feedback the cheaper converters were giving problems.

What was trickier was getting hold of a monitor (rather than a TV) with an HDMI input which from reading from a few sources are a little harder to get hold of nowadays. I got hold of a Dell 19″ HDMI Monitor IPS LED 1280 x 1024 P1917S P1917SF from eBay seller UK Computer Parts which do have a 100% feedback rating. When I received the monitor it was packed adequately but hastily, with some of the packing tape coming off the misshapen box. The fuse was also missing from the plug which caused a bit of initial alarm when I tried switching it on, but once a fuse was put in, the monitor was fine and in good condition.

So the answer to the above is that the Beeb can use a more modern display. You could use of course a display with a SCART input (more common with TVs) saving on having an adaptor – it depends on your preference.