April 2011

BBC News: Recreating the era of 8-bit computers

Chances are that you are reading this article on a computer screen. Most would agree that a modern 32 or 64 bit machine is a pretty complicated piece of equipment.

While it is easy to buy the parts of a modern PC - motherboard, graphics card and processor - the sheer complexity would defeat any attempt to build one starting with electronic components such as resistors, capacitors and chips.

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28/04/2011

BBC News: ZX81: Small black box of computing desire

The Sinclair ZX81 was small, black with only 1K of memory, but 30 years ago it helped to spark a generation of programming wizards.

Packing a heady 1KB of RAM, you would have needed many, many thousands of them to run Word or iTunes, but the ZX81 changed everything.

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28/04/2011

Cholo - Novella

Cholo was a classic game released initially for the BBC Micro, it had wireframe graphics where you take control of a robot drone, taking over other more powerful robots to complete tasks (similar to that of Paradroid). The back story was set out in a novella which was included in the game's packaging.

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28/04/2011

Cholo Remake

Cholo was a classic game released initially for the BBC Micro, it had wireframe graphics where you take control of a robot drone, taking over other more powerful robots to complete tasks (similar to that of Paradroid). The back story was set out in a novella which was included in the game's packaging.

[ more... ]
28/04/2011

BBC Micro

Anyone over 30 is sure to feel a nostalgic inner-glow whenever the BBC Micro is mentioned.

The world has changed so much in the last 30 years with regards to computing. Now it is common for households of people who are not even considered geeky to have a couple of computers, a playstation, myspace and facebook pages, mobile phones with internet connections, etc...  But for a large chunk of the 1980s the 'Beeb', was one of the main ways people in the UK accessed computer technology.

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27/04/2011

BBC Micro Emulator

Unfortunately the days of the BBC Micro have been and passed, but the technology has been kept alive by the fans and the games can be played using an emulator, that will enable you to run BBC Micro software on your PC.

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27/04/2011