BBC Master + Roms advice

[Muddyfunster]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the boards and I'm hoping I can ask some of the more experienced hands for advice. I only really used BBC's when I was at school in the 80's and most of my retro computing / projects are with Sinclair and Commodore computers. However recently I managed to acquire a BBC Master 128 with a pretty awesome Retroclinic Datacentre. I've been having a great time getting to know the machine (I even fired up Granny's Garden !)

So the last 3 weeks have been something of a learning journey

I've been reading up on the threads here and at other sites on the interwebs and I've done a fair bit towards getting my Master back to a good working order. I pretty quickly realised it didn't have a battery pack and added one so it would retain settings. I also moved the ROM for the Datacentre into the right slot so I could access the full 128K and run games like the pretty amazing port of Stunt Car Racer and I've set the *STATUS settings to the ones most recommended and so it boots to RAMFS

One thing has me stumped and I think I know the answer but I don't know how it will work :

I want to run games that don't seem to work natively with the Master. From reading I figure that they need OS1.20 as in the old Model ?

If that's so, then I figure I need a MultiOS switchable ROM. (Again Retroclinic seems to have just what I need).

But,

If I have that installed and set to 1.20 would I still be able to access disc images from the USB on my datacentre? or would I need to add or do something else?

Sorry if this is covered somewhere else.

Thanks !

[SpaceFlightOrange]

Hey there! Welcome to the forum.

The Master is a lovely machine. I've only had mine a few weeks having just been a Model B owner for many years.

The MultiOS is what you need to run OS1.20, and in fact it comes with a few games preloaded, which is cool. but its worth getting just for the Y2K and DFS fixes. It's nice having a computer that knows what century it is!!

I don't personally own a Datacentre, sadly. but I do know it runs on the Model B so I wouldn't have thought there would be a problem accessing, I just assume you'll have to manually switch over to RAMFS. Certainly worth dropping Mark H. (RetroClinic) a message and asking him. He's a really nice guy and very helpful, as is everyone on this forum. They've certainly been a big help to me, and the amount of knowledge on here is staggering!!

You didn't win this on eBay did you? I saw one for sale with a DataCentre a few weeks ago. It looked in great condition and went for what I thought was a bargain.

[Muddyfunster]

Thanks!

Yes, its probably the same machine. I was quite lucky because the seller was quite local so I could collect it rather than trusting it to a courier.

I pinged Mark an email, I should have probably done that in the first place as he already kindly helped me with the replacement battery pack for my master.

I can't help looking for more things to do with my Master, it's an amazingly versatile machine. I'm still pretty amazed at the port of Stunt Car Racer.

[SpaceFlightOrange]

I can't help looking for more things to do with my Master, it's an amazingly versatile machine. I'm still pretty amazed at the port of Stunt Car Racer.

Yeah. I was pretty much blown away by that too!

Try Tricky’s Frogger. It’s easily the best version made for the beeb.

Also, there’s lots of fun to be had with a Raspberry Pi coprocessor.

[Muddyfunster]

That is a great port of Frogger!

My co-pro board arrived today so i'll be planning some time to tinker with that at the weekend.

Also got a CF card for the datacenter and the multiOS ROM. Love how easy that was to get installed and working, managed to get a bunch of the older games working.

[tricky]

Welcome, its good to hear that you are enjoying you master and frogger