To: 999 (all members)
From: E4W (Crispin Boylan)
Subject: High Density FDC?
Hi
As you are probably finding, it is
getting quite hard to find new 80t
double sided disks, and to a certain
extent, even 3.5 inch 720k disks.
What I was wondering, is if the beeb
could be adapted to use 1.44mb High
Density 3.5 inch floppies?
Ok, so maybe this is crazy talk, but
would it be impossible? To me it
seems as if the only things needed
would be the right controller, and an
adaption for it to the 8271 slot in
the BBC B (I don't know what the thing
in the Master is like, apart from it
is a 1770) and a compatible DFS, maybe
HDDFS?
I have been looking into this a bit,
especially the controller side of
things, and so far I have come up with
two possible candidates for the chip,
the Western Digital 37c65 and the
Intel 82078. The thing is that most
new floppy controllers have broken
single density modes, that is they
cannot write to single density disks,
but may be able to read them.
Just out of interest, how feasible is
this? Is there an unpassable
stumbling block? I would like to see
this done, but sadly I am hopeless at
writing any program, let alone DFS
chips!!! Anyone got any ideas? It
would be nice to see it done at least!
To: 999 (all members)
From: K8G (Jonathan Harston)
Subject: Using a Beeb on the Internet
In the last issue Chris wrote about
obstacles he saw in using his Beeb on
the Internet. This repsonds to some
of those queries.
There are loads of protocols to be
observed and loads of passwords to
pass.
Well, so there are with a BBS dial-up
system. Admittedly, the difficulty
here is obtaining the information on
the protocols to use in the first
place. The stock answer is 'why don't
you just use Netscape/IExplorer/Etc?
Because I'm trying to write my own!
You can very easily use the Internet
indirectly with any computer using a
gateway through a Bulletin Board. I
use Arcade which gives me full email
and access to the newsgroups they
subscribe to, and FTP (file transfer
protocol) where I can grab files
stored anywhere on the 'net.
I have been in contact with someone
via the comp.os.cpm newsgroup who has
written a dialup SLIP connection
program in Z80 and I'm going to
translate it into 6502 for the Beeb.
Some HTML files are huge.
Tell me about it! People use super-
all-singing mega-fast PCs and it still
takes them five minutes before any
information arrives because they are
trying to download a 15Mb file that
just says 'Hello'.
It's very easy to write an on-the-fly
LF to CR converter when downloading
text files. It's just another level
of complication to strip out
unneccesary hyper-text codes while
downloading. And of course, you don't
have to download the graphics images,
you can just stick to the textual
parts of the pages. It would still be
best to download to a disk rather than
to memory as this is more flexible.
Hypertext links
There's a standard way of displaying
hypertext links in a text browser, so
no problems there. Basically, the
links that appear in the area you are
looking at are listed on the bottom
few lines of the screen and you select
them from there.
Search Engines! How would you be able
to use a search engine on a BBC?
In exactly the same way you use it on
a PC. The engine doesn't run on your
computer, it's running on somebody
else's computer on the other side of
the world. You just send a text
string to it; when it's finished, it
just sends a series of text strings
back. Everything on the internet is
running on another computer somewhere;
the only thing running on your
computer is a sophisticated terminal.
And how would EMail be handled?
The same way as with email through a
Bulletin Board. You type in your
message, and the computer at the other
end deals with it.
In summary, I've been using the
Internet from a BBC since last
September. I can email anyone in the
world, read and write to newsgroups,
grab and send files and Web pages. I
would like to get a working Web
Browser finished for the Beeb, but the
only additional advantages it would
give me would be Web pages arriving
in a few minutes instead of longer.
To: 999 (all members)
ReplyTo: D5K (Ian Bell)
From: K8G (Jonathan Harston)
Subject: Internal CoPro
In Ian's advert in iss63 it mentions:
'Internal 65c02 Second Processor for
the BBC B/B+'
The Master's the only machine with an
internal CoPro socket. The B/B+ only
has an external socket. What exactly
do you mean?
EDITOR.......IMPORTANT! This event has
been organised by Jonathan without
consulting me. (I am on nights on this
date!). It is therefore NOT an 8BS
gathering.
To: 999 (all members)
From: K8G (Jonathan Harston)
Subject: NTAUS 3
Announcing...
Not the
Friday 24th July -- Sunday 26th July
70 Camm Street, Walkley, Sheffield
Contact me for directions
Tel: (0114) 281 8708
Beebs a-plenty, many networked. Bring
strange pieces of kit. Ask questions,
give answers. Many good local Pubs!