| 1 | They were made in the 1980's |
| 2 | They only cost around £25 - so if it bursts into flames you can just throw it in the bin and get another one |
| 3 | Rather than one application coming on several discs (or a 650MB CD!) several applications come on one disc. |
| 4 | Being restricted to just 32k RAM (or a bit more in a Master 128) programs are efficiently written and are fast as a result |
| 5 | They're yellow (not just because they're 26 years old this year!) |
| 6 | All the parts for them are cheap - for example the CPU costs about £5 new |
| 7 | No fan to give you a headache, and they can even be viewed on a TV set if you want |
| 8 | Still loads of support (see my links page) |
| 9 | The Escape key isn't ignored - it actually does something |
| 10 | Excellent for interfacing to cobbled together gadgetry you make yourself. |
Although this is mainly an 8 Bit BBC page, the free software available here has been divided into three catagories. There are programs for the original 6502 based machines, and BASIC software which should run on any version of BBC BASIC for other platforms.
| BBC only software | Suitable for 6502 machines only for hardware reasons |
| BBC BASIC software | Suitable for any machine that can interpret BBC BASIC II (or later) tokenised BASIC programs |
| BBC ROM software | Sideways ROM or RAM format software images |
To ensure that the BBC software's load and execution addresses are maintained no matter which machine you're viewing this page from the software available has been ZIPped.
Having saved the software to a suitable medium, you'll need to transfer it to your BBC Micro. Of course if you're using an emulator then this is simplicity itself - just start the emulator and unzip the software. If you're using a genuine BBC Micro then a serial lead or DOSFS can be used to transfer the ZIP file by wire or on a PC format floppy.
Once inside the BBC the ZIP file can be opened and the files extracted to the currently selected directory with the unZIP program, whose documentation should also be consulted, which will also validate the integrity of the data. Uniquely the unZIP program is tokenised BBC BASIC.
The software presented on these pages is free for distribution or inclusion in other non profit making products in their unmodified form. Custom assembled versions, or versions which are to be shipped as part of a profit making package are available for a nominal fee. Contact the author.
All of the software is supplied on an "as is" basis, with no fitness for any purpose given or implied. It is not intended for use as a component in safety critical situations and no liability can be accepted for loss or personal injury arising from its use.
The software on these pages is subject to continuous development and improvement, so the information given in the corresponding documentation is given on the understanding that it may not represent the most recent software version.
The term 'BBC' refers to the computer made for the BBC literacy project.
