BBC Emulation (merged thread)


Stainy

Stainy

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I did do a search for BBC.. nothing returned.. so...


Is there ( not that I can see one ) or is there one being developed.


BBC Emulator? that would be ace..


There are quite a few top games for the Beeb!


Dare Devil Dennis.


Bandits.


Stock Car.


Felix in the Factory


Revs etc..


Starship Command!!!


Would make my Pandora complete pretty much!


EDIT: I see Beembem for the GP2x.. talk about porting.. but that thread was back in 2008!!
 
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Why can't I think of anything other than "Radio station emulation"?
 
Austin25 said:
Why can't I think of anything other than "Radio station emulation"?
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Because you're too young :)


bbc_1.jpg
 
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it was named BBC because it was linked to the British Broadcasting Corporation.


and BBC isnt just radio :) its tv too.


excert from wikipedia.

The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Designed with an emphasis on education, it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability and the quality of its operating system.
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Of course Acorn went on to design the "Acorn Risc Machine" or ARM chip, an evolution of which is living inside the Pandora. Acorn's decision to design a Risc chip was inspired by the simple instructions of the 6502 in the BBC Micro. So in a way the Pandora owes its existance (or at least its processor) to the Beeb.


Seems only fair that the Pandora should have a Beeb emulator.
 
Austin25 said:
Why can't I think of anything other than "Radio station emulation"?
Click to expand...
Please, PLEASE, at least tell me that you know of Granny's Garden*.
worried.gif



*(The original one, not the Microsoft Windows ports of more recent times. :p )
 
I remember watching a programme called Micro Live in the 80s which I always remember featured the owl from the BBC micro logo at the beginning of the titles. It used to cover other computers of the time as well.


Watched some of them on youtube, brings back memories! Here's a few excerpts on youtube if you haven't seen them already:


Micro Live - Introducing the Amiga - just for the owl at the beginning :)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qlOytA6C_hg?feature=oembed
 
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I loved the beeb. There is an excellent version of beebem on the gp2x you can use through ginge. this version was by Fru.T.Bunn and i do remember a post long ago where he confirmed he would port to the pandora.


Only real problem through using ginge is the keyboard isnt recognised and the sound is distorted a bit.
 
pabloh said:
Of course Acorn went on to design the "Acorn Risc Machine" or ARM chip, an evolution of which is living inside the Pandora.
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And they designed an OS for it, too. RISC OS should already run, although I understand that the screen and keyboard drivers may need addressing. So if anyone fancies giving it a go, please do!
 
trevj said:
And they designed an OS for it, too. RISC OS should already run, although I understand that the screen and keyboard drivers may need addressing. So if anyone fancies giving it a go, please do!
Click to expand...

I gave RISC OS a go on my Pandora with the latest Beagleboard build from riscosopen.org. It clears the screen and the words "cessor" and "resent - autobooting" appear on the screen. That's as far as it seems to get, it doesn't seem to respond to the keyboard. I guess you're right that we need a specific screen and keyboard driver. And there was me thinking I could just boot it up and play Stunt Racer 2000!


Also had a go at cross-compiling the unix beebem for the pandora. It works, but very slowly and the keyboard mapping is all wrong (can't find the * key!). Unfortunately I'm not a linux programmer, so I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to modifying the code. The gp2x version runs fine under Ginge though, although obviously without proper keyboard support. I fired up AcornSoft Snapper and it worked fairly well.
 
BBC Emulator?, Hasn't American Television been emulating their programming for years.
 
pabloh said:
I gave RISC OS a go on my Pandora with the latest Beagleboard build from riscosopen.org. It clears the screen and the words "cessor" and "resent - autobooting" appear on the screen. That's as far as it seems to get, it doesn't seem to respond to the keyboard. I guess you're right that we need a specific screen and keyboard driver. And there was me thinking I could just boot it up and play Stunt Racer 2000!
Click to expand...
Good news! But for Stunt Racer 2000 and similar 26-bit games, you'll probably need Aemulor (when it's complete).

Also had a go at cross-compiling the unix beebem for the pandora. It works, but very slowly and the keyboard mapping is all wrong (can't find the * key!). Unfortunately I'm not a linux programmer, so I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to modifying the code. The gp2x version runs fine under Ginge though, although obviously without proper keyboard support. I fired up AcornSoft Snapper and it worked fairly well.
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Sounds fun! There are a lot of old Beeb games which don't support joysticks, so I guess that'll be another thing to consider.
 
As per the title did anyone ever get anywhere with Beeb emulation ? I had a look at the *nix version of BeebEm over at this site, tried compiling it on my Pandora using my SD boot disk, several levels of dependency hell later my Pandora wasn't accepting my login anymore :blink:


So anyone faired better than me (wouldn't be hard) ?
 
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I'll have a quick look now using my Dev card :D


Out of interest, How badly did you break things?


edit.... ouch thats some dependency hell. pkg-config should die, or at least compile nicely


edit2. Now recompiling a gtk to a later version.... oops another dependency missed


this is going to result in a rather large /lib directory if it works
 
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mhaws said:
Out of interest, How badly did you break things?
Click to expand...

Well it wouldn't let me login, so pretty badly then ;)

edit.... ouch thats some dependency hell. pkg-config should die, or at least compile nicely


edit2. Now recompiling a gtk to a later version.... oops another dependency missed


this is going to result in a rather large /lib directory if it works
Click to expand...

Lots of fun huh ?

dgame said:
Code: 
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/59465-bbc-micro-emulation/page__p__949480__hl__BeebEm

"For anyone just wondering which of the four BBC Micro emulators in the archive to get. . ."


See:


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/59465-bbc-micro-emulation/page__p__949480__hl__BeebEm
Click to expand...

Yeah I know we can run the Wiz emulator via ginge but it kind of defeats the object of having a physical keyboard there below my screen.
 
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I did manage to get a beeb emulator working using the cross-compile method. Unfortunately it was very slow and the keyboard mapping was all wrong. I'm not a unix developer so wouldn't know where to start modifying the code.


The wiz version under ginge works well, but as mentioned it would be nice to use the Pandora's keyboard.


Another thread here:
 
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