I'm going to get onto my emulator article in due course but first some information on BBC PD:

The entire collection of BBC PD disks is now looked after by Chris Richardson of 8 Bit Software. He has all the DFS disks and most of the ADFS ones as well. Although 8BS no longer produces a magazine it still supplies all its PD Software and also can supply some hardware. Visit the site and download disk TBI-00. This is a complete catalogue of all their stuff.

Onto business.

For the more enlightened and, some might say, wealthier, who can afford an Acorn RISC OS machine, !65Host is available and was up until recently given away with all A-series machines (A3000, A4000, etc). It can now be gleaned from Acorn's web site and has been on several Acorn User magazine disks. Load this up, run it and you can play with most BBC and Elk ADFS stuff without much trouble.

However, it won't work on a RISC PC. Now then. Someone produced Host Patch, to enable use on a RISC PC with ARM 600 or ARM 700 processor. This is available from Arm Club PD (Freepost, The Arm Club) and the disk costs £1.00 including P&P. For those fortunate enough to own a STRONGARM RISC PC, you need to type *Cache I at the command line before running the 'Host Patched' version of !65Host. Even better still, there's a nifty little patch by Jan de Boer called Pcr13, especially for STRONGARM machines. This runs !65Host on a STRONGARM RISC PC at full speed. In a lot of cases too fast. Pcr13 is only available on the internet at:
      http://home.worldonline.nl/~jandboer

It's PD though so I can pass on a copy to anyone like me who's not connected.

A good commercial package is called 6502Em and is produced by Warm Silence Software, PO Box 28, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1XX. This will work without modification across all ACORN RISC OS machines. When purchased it will emulate a BBC B+ (ADFS) and if you have an Electron, Compact or Master, a program is provided to make a ROM image of the Operating System so that a full emulation of these machines can be made as well. An add-on called ImageDFS can be bought to add DFS compatibility as well (Read only). A useful feature of 6502Em is that it can be slowed down if required when running on a fast machine.

Windoze abounds. Quite a few have been tempted. BBCs, at any rate, can be emulated on the PC platform. I have one running in a small way on my PC card and I'm told it performs excellently on a proper PC. It's called PCBBC and a scaled-down PD version can be found on the 8BS web site mentioned above. The fully featured version costs £10 from Stuart McConnachie. 43 The Hollows, Long Eaton, Nottingham NG10 2ES. Beware though - it runs in DOS so if using Windows 95, you need to set Windows to run it totally in DOS (not in a DOS window), preferably from a Shortcut on the Desktop. Not sure about Windows 98, nobody I know uses it. From what I've heard, Windows 98 generally seems to think it knows best, whatever its user may think.

I've only really touched o the basics of emulation here but hopefully I've stimulated some interest. I've used !65Host and 6502Em extensively and will happily field queries on the ins and outs of these two. PCBBC less so, as I don't have a 'proper PC', only a second processor card; but I'll do what I can. Perhaps fodder for a later article if someone can ask me the relevant questions, whatever they may be.

Next time, more of chat type article, unless I have a flash of inspiration.

John Crane, EUG #42