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VK6BE > IBM 18.04.06 12:05l 38 Lines 2044 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 160763VK6BE
Read: GUEST DC9BM
Subj: Re: BBC micro
Path: DB0FHN<DB0MRW<OK0PPL<DB0RES<ON0AR<IW2OAZ<IW8PGT<VK4TRS<VK6HGR<VK6BBR<
VK6ZRT<VK6TJ<VK6JY
Sent: 060417/1429Z @:VK6JY.#ALY.#WA.AUS.OC #:14175 [Albany] wFBB7 $:160763VK6B
From: VK6BE@VK6JY.#ALY.#WA.AUS.OC
To : IBM@WW
The BBC Acorn we were issued was an early model, and as I said was so
expensive that as far as I know only schools used them here and then only
for limited usage. The musical capabilities of the BBC Acorn came nowhere
near what could be done with the Commodore which had a synthesiser with
several voices. The music capabilities of the Commodore according to our
Director of Music in the WA Education department was far better than that
of any other computer including the Beeb. The music it could produce was
quite sophisticated and I certainly found it so.
The Beeb may have had all sorts of capabilities but not for us. We were
interested only in educational use at primary school level. For the Beeb
we could only get the limited programs produced by our Department whereas
the Commodore had plenty of cheap and effective educationaly programs
available at low cost. Make no mistake about it the Commodore was a very
good reliable computer which when it first came out outplayed all of the
competition. Its great memory allowed this. For primary school use it was
ideal and it was comparatively cheap, only a fraction of the cost of the
Beeb.We could buy 6 Commodores for the price of one Beeb. At the time that
was very important as money was limited.
Bob VK6BE.
>
> Unless my memory is wrong, the Beeb had four sound channels - three able to produce notes and a
fourth able to produced programed white noise. I remember messing with
tone hone dialing using the beeb, which involved being able to produce
two simultaneous tones.
>
> The early production suffered from an IC which was susceptible to heat. An interim fix added an
heatsink, until the IC could be replaced. Other than that initial problem
the Beeb proved to be a very reliable machine.
> Later models of the Beep added a range of co-processors and even a level of PC compatibility. I
ran an early version of PC Autoroute on the Beeb, the software used to
find the best road route from various parts of the UK.
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