The BBC Micro - Interview with Steve Furber

Hi, everyone, and welcome to episode 97 for February 2020 of the Floppy Days Podcast.

This episode kicks off a series of episodes on one of the iconic British machines that was so important to the home computer revolution: The BBC Micro.  This machine has an amazing history and continues to have a very large following among vintage computer enthusiasts. What better way to start off this series than by beginning with an interview with someone who was right on the front lines in the development of the machine.  Those of you who aren’t familiar with Steve Furber will be much more familiar after listening to the interview that I was able to get with him for this show. Steve worked at Acorn Computers in the decade of the 1980’s where he was the principal designer of the BBC Micro and the ARM microprocessor.  I’m very honored to have been able to talk with Steve for about 50 minutes and am elated that I’m able to bring this interview to you this month.

Next month, we’ll kick off some episodes to cover all of the usual topics on the Beeb (as it’s affectionately called), such as its history in depth, tech specs, modern upgrades, Web sites and a ton of other information about this machine.

Before we jump into the interview, I’m a bit behind in letting you know about any new acquisitions I’ve managed to get for the hobby and any hobby-related things I’ve been working on, so I’ll try to do some catch-up there.

Please enjoy the show and let me know what you thought of it. 

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

• Juiced.GS - https://juiced.gs/ 
• SDrive MAX 810 case, Gavin at Vintage Computer Center -  https://www.vintagecomputercenter.com/product/atari-810-sdrive-max 
• The SDrive MAX daughterboard and basic case idea are thanks to the great work of Steve Boswell - atari8bit.net 
• TRS-80 PC3 LCD - Robert Baruch - https://www.tindie.com/products/halfbakedmaker/lcd-replacement-for-trs-80-pc-3-sharp-pc-125x/ 
• Incognito for Atari 800 -  https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=275 
• BBC Micro CF formatted card and ROM - http://www.retroclinic.com/ 
• BBC Micro single joystick adapter - https://www.ebay.com/itm/283745815116?ViewItem=&item=283745815116 
• Astra 1620 dual disk drive for Atari 8-bit - http://gury.atari8.info/hardware/162.php 
• “Adventures with the Atari” by Jack B. Hardy - https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-adventures-with-the-atari 
• “Atari Pilot for Beginners” by Jim Conlan and Tracy Deliman - https://archive.org/details/Atari_Pilot_For_Beginners/mode/2up 
• C64 Maxi - https://retrogames.biz/thec64 

Upcoming Shows

• March 21-22, 2020, Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest, Living Computer:Museum+Labs in Seattle,Washington - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-pacific-northwest 
• March 21, Indy Vintage Computer Club Expo, Camby, IN - https://www.facebook.com/events/188334755647918/ 
• April 18-19, 2020, CoCoFest, Elk Grove Village, IL - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest   
• April 24-26, 2020, Vintage Computer Festival East, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east 
• July 21 - July 26, 202, KansasFest, Kansas City, MO - https://www.kansasfest.org/ 
• Fri, Aug 14, 2020 – Sun, Aug 16, 2020, Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Portland OR - https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ 
• Aug. 20 - Aug. 23, 2020, Fujiama, Lengenfeld, Germany - http://abbuc.de/~atarixle/fuji/2020/ 
• October 30 - November 1, 2020, Tandy Assembly, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/ 

Feedback

• “Micro Men” (movie) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1459467/ 
• The Home Computer Course (magazine) - https://archive.org/details/TheHomeComputerCourse