BeebControl

BeebControl - headed by Neil Fazakerley - specialises in any electro-mechanical gadget that an Acorn computer is able to control or interact with.

One of the most spectacular categories is robot arms. BeebControl will be demonstrating three or four of the biggest beasts that were once advertised in Acorn User and similar 80s magazines.

The Cyber 310, for example, will be put through its paces by a RISC OS Iyonix and a USB experimenter's driver board.

It will be accompanied by a big red Atlas Polar Manipulator with its unique design, bizarre action and R2D2-like motor noises.

Both will also be running via teach pendants so you can try your hand at 'picking and placing'.

StealthMaster - a BBC Master crammed into a BBC Micro case - will also be helping to control the mayhem.

And the big daddy of Beeb arms, a hydraulic monster from the Genesis/Feedback range will be towering over proceedings.

That and more could be happening on the BeebControl stand!

Homepage: www.anf.nildram.co.uk/beebcontrol

The Domesday System

Enthusiast and collector Joel Rowbottom will be displaying a fully-working BBC Domesday System: the rare, interactive snapshot of life in 1985 compiled by schools across the British Isles. It is one of a handful of surviving laserdisc systems incorporating photos, video and narrative to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book.

Quoting Wikipedia: This new multimedia edition of Domesday was compiled between 1984 and 1986 and published in 1986. It included a new 'survey' of the United Kingdom, in which people, mostly school children, wrote about geography, history or social issues in their local area or just about their daily lives. This was linked with maps, and many colour photos, statistical data, video and 'virtual walks'. Over 1 million people participated in the project.

"The Domesday Project is always popular with visitors," says Joel. "Frequently we find contributors who were 7 years old when it was written, who can now finally see work they participated in over 20 years ago."

Viewdata BBS

Rob O'Donnell will be bringing the RingWorld Bulletin Board System out of retirement at Acorn World 2009. Says Rob:

Resurrected from a 20-year-old backup, here’s your chance to operate a Viewdata Bulletin Board, just as it was back in the heyday of the 1980s. Using an original licensed copy of The Gnome At Home software, this was my own BBS I ran on half a dozen beebs from my Bedroom in Stockport as a way of trialing software and pages that might one day be published on Prestel or other Viewdata services of the day.

We’ll have some new content, and hopefully a way for those who couldn’t come to the show to dial-in and interact with the local users!

Although the hosts all run on BBC Micros, the fileserver is now an Acorn A5000, being a little more reliable than the original Amcom 10MB hard disc that used to run off an upgraded Master ET. It also means we can access it from more modern clients, including a yet-to-be released AUN version of the BeebEm emulator!

Econet Island

We have some very exciting and ambitious plans for the Econet Island which will comprise four tables filled with Econet-enabled Acorn Systems in addition to a PC-based laptop or two running the BeebEm emulator.

Further details will follow, but it is hoped that we will be able to include a variety of traditional econet, AUN, emulators and bridged machines within the network. Subject to BeebEm updates, we might even be able to allow remote stations to log onto the show servers from all around the world!

Hybrid Music 5000 System with M4000 Keyboard

The Hybrid Music System comprised a number of musical upgrades for BBC Micro and later Acorn Electron computers.

The Music 5000 featured an 8 voice digital synthesiser which could be programmed via a powerful ROM-based language called AMPLE.

Mark Haysman's Hybrid setup at Acorn World will include the Music 4000 keyboard, so any keen pianists can play and record their own performances!

Retro Clinic

In addition to the Hybrid items (see above) Mark Haysman will also have the following on display:

• BBC Micro Model B with Retro Clinic External CF IDE Interface
• BBC Micro Model B and Master 128k fitted with RetroClinic DataCentre

DataCentre is a new 5 in 1 upgrade for the BBC Range, including USB Host and Slave interfaces, 1MB RAMdisk, NVRAM and 16 bit IDE Interface.

A number of Mark's upgrades will be available to purchase at reduced prices, including:

• Internal and External CF Upgrades
• DataCentre Internal and External
• 1770 DFS Kits
• DualOS Kits for Master 128 and BBC B+

Homepage: www.retroclinic.com

Sprow's BBC Mecca

Robert Sprowson has been designing BBC Micro add-ons and accessories for many years and during this time he has created some of the most technologically-astounding upgrades available, such as the ARM7TDMI Co-Processor and MiniB.

Robert will take a selection of the following upgrades to demonstrate and sell at Acorn World:

• Ethernet upgrade for the Master series (connect to Windows networks and the wider internet with a plug in replacement for the Econet module)
• ARM7 coprocessor for BBC micro series (contains 16MB RAM and runs up to 200 times faster than the host machine)
• MiniB 32K (floppy disc sized BBC micro compatible single board computer. Runs original BASIC unmodified. Output via LCD, with any standard PS/2 keyboard for input)
• Second serial port interface for BBC micro series (standard PC serial port or 5 pin domino DIN connector, with programmable transmit and receive rates via supporting free software)
• 8Mbyte RAM disc for BBC micro series (high speed solid state RAM disc, operating via the 1MHz bus - ideal for speeding up disc intensive operations such as databases)
• BBC to PC serial crossover cable (ready made 9 pin D sub female to 5 pin domino DIN male, approx 2m length)
• 1770/1772 disc upgrade kit for the BBC Model B
• ROM/RAM cartridges for the Master series and Electron.

Robert will be travelling to the venue via rail; therefore, stocks will be extremely limited. If there is anything in particular that you would like to buy, you are strongly recommended to contact him before the event (for contact details, see website link below).

Homepage: www.sprow.co.uk/bbc

Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC)

Members from this well-known local group will be demonstrating some modern RISC OS systems and a selection of the software that runs on them.

Acorn's 32-bit operating system has come a long way in the past ten years, and the club plan to be showing examples of RISC OS 4, 5 and 6 running on modern ARM-based desktop machines as well as under emulation on Windows and Linux systems. Club members will be on hand to explain why they still find RISC OS enjoyable, interesting and productive to use.

Their monthly meetings provide a place for enthusiasts in Yorkshire and the surrounding areas to get together for talks, presentations and events relating both to RISC OS and to computing more generally. The club also offers help and support to their members around the UK. Visitors with an interest in RISC OS or Acorn in general may wish to become members of WROCC.

Homepage: www.wrocc.org.uk

RISC OS User Group of London  ** Exhibitor to be confirmed **

ROUGOL will also be promoting both their own RISC OS User Group (which includes a monthly meeting) as well as the upcoming RISC OS London Show which takes place on Saturday 3rd October at the St Giles Hotel in Feltham, London.

Homepage: rougol.jellybaby.net

The Centre For Computing History

Representatives from the Centre For Computing History will be exhibiting the following rarities:

• Acorn ARM Evaluation System
  
  Featuring one of the first production RISC processors, the ARM Evaluation System was part of the development programme leading to the Acorn Archimedes and its early Arthur operating system.
  
  The system was supplied in the standard BBC "cheese wedge" case and connects to the BBC Micro via the TUBE connector port on the base of the BBC.
  
  
• R260
  
  After the Archimedes range had been established, Acorn turned their attention to an Operating System other than RISC OS: a disc-based UNIX system called RISC iX which had been built using BSD.
  
  The first machine to use RISC iX was the R140 (1989) and the following year they released a higher-spec model - the R260, which was fitted with a 100MB SCSI Hard Drive and 8MB RAM as standard (though the demonstration machine has been upgraded to 16Mb).
  
  
• Acorn Briefcase Communicator
  
  A business computer developed by Acorn Computers in 1985 which sold in very low numbers. As a dedicated Prestel terminal with built-in word processing and spreadsheet capabilities, the Communicator found a niche market amongst travel agents in the United Kingdom and Italy.
  
  The system used a 16-bit Western Design Center 65816 chip rather than the 8-bit MOS Technology 6502, which was used by all of Acorn's previous offerings. The communicator boasted 512kB of memory, which was expandable to 1024kB.

Homepage: www.computinghistory.org.uk

Mole Miner

Kenton Price - author of the BBC Micro port of Starquake and also the infamous Ripton - will be on hand to demonstrate his latest gaming project: Mole Miner.

Mole Miner is a "Rocks and Diamonds"-style game for Android Mobile Phones and (soon) the iPhone.

Link: www.moleminer.com

Bring and Buy Table

If you have any items of Acorn-related hardware/software that are surplus to your requirements, feel free to earn yourself some extra pocket money by taking them along to the Acorn World Bring & Buy.

Items should be labelled with a) name of seller, b) asking price, and if possible, c) seller's mobile phone number.

Please note:
It is unlikely that this table will be manned and therefore sellers are responsible for keeping an eye on their goods. Any unsold items must be taken away by the owner. Sellers must ensure that items offered for sale are electrically-safe.

Sale of "New Old Stock" BBC Micro & Electron Software

Original games and applications for sale, all of which are new and unused.

BBC Micro Interfaced to an MMC Card via a PIC

This BBC Micro - which belongs to Rob Coleman - is very interesting as it uses a 16F874A PIC to talk to the BBC Micro speech interface socket and an MMC card. The interfacing and PIC code are pretty simple: the PIC waits for the write signal to go low and then grabs a byte from its parallel slave port (PSP). This is then sent to the MMC via the PIC's SPI port. The MMC's response is then captured from the SPI port and sent to the PSP. An extra output pin is used to tell the Beeb that data is waiting to be read via the ~READY line.

As the PIC is running at 5V, a regulator is used to provide the 3.3V for the MMC and there are a couple of resistor divider networks to bring the SPI outputs down to the correct levels. The MMC card sits in the ashtray socket and is connected to the PIC via some ribbon cable.

The MMC Rom for the MM-Beeb interface has been modified so that the memory mapped driver routines now pass data to and from the speech interface.

Rob will also demonstrate Chameleon: the interface designed by Mike Cook which gives the BBC Micro a 4096-colour pallette.

Repairs Table

The purpose of this table is to provide an area where show hardware can be repaired should it fail whilst in use. It may also be used for other, general repairs/modifications if required.

N.B. Operators of repair equipment should ensure that it is handled and stored in a safe, responsible manner.

Upgraded Acorn Electron Machines

Alan Daly presents two of his own hardware projects, each of which centre around the Acorn Electron (1983):

• an IDE Interface for the Acorn Electron
  
  The picture to the right also features a Sideway RAM upgrade, which allows ADFS to run with PAGE @ &E00 as opposed to &1D00.
  
  
• an Acorn Electron in FPGA
  
  Based around an XC3S1000 demonstration board, this is not a pure Electron clone but rather "Elk-alike" hardware that will run most Electron software.
  
  It features
  
  • a mode that simulates 1MHZ ram access and hold offs during video access to ram
  • a switchable mode via the ps2 keyboard interface that allows the processor to run 2MHz continuously
  • a simple rs232 interface that i used to transfer stuff from the PC.

Acorn Electron: Gaming

This table will contain two machines:

• an Electron with GoMMC interface, loaded with ALL of the Cassette Images from the Stairway To Hell website as well as a selection of Disc Images from Acorn Electron World
  
  
• a high-specification Electron featuring 64K MRB Turbo Upgrade, Internal JAFA Mode 7 Mk 2, A 4-Channel Sound Cartridge as well as a Solidisk Disk Interface and Winchester Hard Drive.
  
  The Hard Drive will contain a number of games that play with improved sound and/or speed, as well as a large collection of BBC Micro music demos, many of which are Mode 7 (teletext) based.
  
  

BBC Micro Gaming Table

The BBC Micro boasts some of the most well-known and fondly-remembered games of the 1980s, including Exile, The Sentinel, Imogen, the Repton series, Chuckie Egg and of course Elite.

All of the above titles will be available to play on two MMBeeb-equipped BBC Micros, as will many other memorable releases such as:

• the entire ACORNSOFT catalogue including the faithful arcade conversions Arcadians, Hopper, Planetoid, Meteors and Monsters plus original titles like Labyrinth and Revs
  
• Frak, Zalaga and the groundbreaking FireTrack, from coding legend Nick Pelling aka ORLANDO
  
• early MICROPOWER titles such as Ghouls, Mr EE, Cybertron Mission and Castle Quest
  
• classics from the illustrious SUPERIOR SOFTWARE (now Superior Interactive) back catalogue e.g. Ravenskull, BoneCruncher, Stryker's Run and its sequel Codename: DROID, Galaforce and Pipeline
  
• other favourites like Wizadore, Psycastria, Impossible Mission, Plan B, Dunjunz and Cholo.

An extremely limited supply of MM-Beeb interfaces will be available for purchase at the event priced £14.95 each plus an additional £5.00 for the support ROM (for customers who do not have the facility to blow their own EPROMS). Memory card not included.

Archimedes & RISC PC Gaming Table

This table will contain two machines:

• a StrongARM RISC PC containing games such as Quake, Doom and Descent as well a number of sound and music demos.
  
  
• an A3010 w/ joypads and internal Hard Disc drive loaded with games
  
  The machine will also be used to demonstrate the latest development version of Retro Software's thrilling 5-player arcade game Bomber Blaster.

Homebrew Coder's Area

If you have an interest in writing or contributing towards the development of new gaming software for 8-bit/16-bit computers, then you're invited to spend some time at the Homebrew Coder's Area where a number of talent programmers from the UK Homebrew scene will congregate to share knowledge and ideas.

PCs will be available for use; each of which being equipped with Emulators plus development tools such as Integrated Development Environments and Assemblers.

Links: Retro Software Forum  Old School Gaming  Cronosoft  Psytronik  RGCD

Homebrew Special

Homebrew coding legend Jason Kelk (aka TMR) has agreed to take on a very special task to provide a unique opportunity for one lucky visitor to actually be in a videogame!

Jason will be creating a brand new shoot-em-up with a difference: the lucky ticket holder drawn out of a hat will be dressed up and photographed before being digitised and used as in-game art!

BeebSID

Designed by Tom Walker and Martin Barr, the BeebSID interface gives the BBC Micro capability of playing back music written for Commodore 64 computers through use of the powerful 8580 SID chip resulting in an unsurpassed audio experience on the Beeb!

Tom's new shoot-em-up White Light - to be published by Retro Software - features optional in-game SID music and the very latest version will be demonstrated on a BeebSID-equipped BBC Master at Acorn World 2009.

Retro Software

Homebrew specialists Retro Software will be on hand to give demonstrations of the latest Acorn games that are currently in development, including:

• Repton: The Lost Realms (BBC Micro & Electron)
• Mountain Panic (BBC Micro)
• Arcade Adventure Design Kit (BBC Micro, Electron & Archimedes)
• Cyroid-X (BBC Micro & Electron)
• Sparse Invaders (BBC Micro)
• Treasure Island (BBC Micro & Electron)
• White Light (BBC Micro) [see BeebSid table]
• Bomber Blaster (Archimedes) [see Arc Gaming Table table].

On Saturday 12th September - the opening day of the event - Retro Software will release their second commercial title for the BBC Micro: The Krystal Connection, a platform game by Stephen Smith.

Visitors to Acorn World will be able to purchase copies at the Special Introductory Rate of £1.95 for the Cassette release and £2.95 for either the 5.25" DFS or 3.5" ADFS Disc versions. Versions for Emulator Users will also be available on CD-ROM priced £1.95 for the Standard release and £2.95 for the Deluxe version (go here to learn more about the different types of CDs being offered).

The BBC Micro version of Zap! (pictured) will also be available to buy at the same, discounted prices.

Homepage: www.retrosoftware.co.uk