8-Bit Software Online Conversion

          BBC 8 BIT Machines And 32 Bit Acorns By A.Burgess. D2C. As the owner of a simple BBC B (well actually 2 now) I have often wondered what all the other versions are. When BEEBUG tried to seduce me to an Archimedes with an (unrepeatable?) offer of an A3010 for a cheap price I started ploughing through my back numbers of BEEBUG Magazine to sort out all the versions of the Arch to see what was actually on offer. In the process I also listed out all the 8 Bit machines with their specs. For anyone who is interested I will reproduce the list here and perhaps those in the know will tell me if I've got anything wrong. At the risk of castigation I will also list the Arch's I found, but this ends at a point a couple of years ago when BEEBUG stopped the Magazine. 8 Bit Machines: 1981/82 BBC A & B Launched 6502A Processor at 2MHz. A = 16K RAM, B = 32K RAM Operating Systems OS 0.1, 1.0 & 1.2 BBC BASIC 1 & 2 (August 1983 Electron 6502A Processor, BBC BASIC 2, 32K RAM) June 1985 BBC B+ 6512 Processor, Issue 10 Board 64K RAM, 1770 Disc Interface, OS 2.0, BASIC 2 December 1985 BBC B+ 128K RAM BASIC BAS128 (on disc) January 1986 Master Series MASTER 128: 128K RAM 65C12 Processor Operating at 2MHz, BBC BASIC V4.0, OS 3.0 MASTER TURBO: 128K + 64K RAM, 6 C12 Processor with 65C102 8 Bit co-processor operating at 4MHz internal, HI-BASIC 4 on disc. MASTER 512: 512K RAM, 16BIT 80186 Co-processor at 10MHz, OS DOS Plus, MS DOS compatible, Mouse, 16BIT BBC BASIC. MASTER SCIENTIFIC: 512K RAM, 32016 32 bit co-processor at 8MHz plus 32081 Floating Point processor, FORTRAN, PASCAL, C, 32BIT BASIC, 32000 Macro Assembler, PANOS Operating System. MASTER TERMINAL: Econet version of M128. September 1986 MASTER COMPACT: 128K RAM, 3.5 Disc. OS 5.0, BASIC 6, ADFS. May 1993: Master 128 Ceases Production! 32 BIT Machines July 1987 Archimedes Series Launched All with 32 BIT RISC Procesor(ARM2?) operating at 8Mhz, BASIC 5 A305: .5MB RAM A310: 1MB RAM A410: 1MB RAM, Hard Disc Interface, 'IBM' Keyboard. A440: 4MB RAM, 20MB Hard Disc, 'IBM' Keyboard. April 1989 A410/1: RISC OS A420/1: 2MB RAM, RISC OS, Hard Disc May 1989 A440/1: 50MB Hard Disc + faster circuitry. June 1989 A3000: ARM2 Procesor, RISC OS, 1MB RAM, Archimedes BBC BASIC, 3.5" Floppy Drive. October 1990 A540: ARM3 Processor at 30MHz, 4MB RAM, 100MB Hard Disc, RISC OS, 3.5" Floppy Drive. October 1991 A5000: ARM3 Processor at 25MHz, RISC OS3, 2MB RAM, 40MB Hard Disc, 3.5" Floppy Drive. July 1992 Acorn A4 Laptop ARM3 Processor at 25MHz, RISC OS 3.1, 3.5" Floppy Drive. Version 1: 2MB RAM Version 2: 4MB RAM & 60MB Hard Disc October 1992 A3010: ARM250 Processor at 16MHz, RISC OS3.1, 1MB RAM, TV Modulator. A3020: As 3010, but 2MB RAM, Hard Disc Controller, No TV Modulator. A4000: ARM250 Processor at 16MHz, RISC OS3.1, 2MB RAM, 80MB Hard Disc, 3 Box style.    