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Just paid for my first BBC Micro computer!

VERAULT

VERAULT

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
8,493
Location
Connecticut, USA
My wife is heading to Britain to visit her sister and will be picking up a BBC Micro I bought and shipped there. Hoping it arrives safe and the marketplace transaction goes through. Once she arrives she will send me photos to make sure its ok to bring back to the states. And from there the repair journey will commence.

I'm not concerned about PAL as I have my methods for that but I am concerned about seeing if I can get 120V out of the psu with some modification.

Fingers crossed!

Mick
 
My model 3 beep was fairly simple to convert to 120 if I remember correctly. Think it was just jumper that needed to be added to the psu board. There were rifas on the power board as well that should go before they pop.

Keep us posted!
 
Thats excellent Gary, thank you for this.



Ill tell you trying to make purchases from UK Sellers using American payments is a nightmare. I understand they do Bank transfers in the UK which are fully backed up by your institution. But no banks in the state backup money transfers... Meaning if we sent the money and the seller never mailed the item.. We have no recourse at all. And UK sellers think you are a scammer if you offer to pay via ebay or paypal just so you have some protection. I think I tried 30 different people before I found one seller who would take paypal. It is crazy how in 2024 things are much much worse than 15 years ago as far as online purchasing. I feel Australia is going the same route as the UK as well in these practices.
 
Its the reputation ebay & paypal have gained that they are on the side of the buyer that puts people off.

I once sold a car (knackered and only wanted it off the drive) and had the money taken out of my paypal account after they claimed it was missold with no recourse to recover apart from the Police (though it saved me the cost of having it towed to the scrapyard)

To easy to be scammed as a seller.

Anyway, a BBC is a surprisingly 'grown up' machine for the home 8 bit era. OS is quite nicely put together and documented. ROM bank swapping works well and nicely integrated into the OS and of course a second processor version of elite is a must ! BBC Basic is great and the integrated assembler is easy to use. Its the machine that got me my first engineering job.
 
Welcome to the BEEB club (when you get it)!

Yes, the BBC microcomputer was a very good machine (much to the annoyance of Clive Sinclair at the time of course).

A very good implementation of BASIC with plenty of thought gone into the machine hardware and software.

The only thing to be aware of is the raspberry it blows at you when you turn it on :)!

We used the BBC we bought at work to do a number of prototyping jobs. Unfortunately (or is that fortunately) we couldn't use the BBC computer on the 'real' jobs - we had to convert the software over to a more 'professional' machine - the Ferranti Advance 86B in the end.

Dave
 
I get it. Its very sad that The united states has inferior banking practices to the rest of the world in 2024. So just so banks can shirk off responsibility and corporations (which now run the United States) can greedily charge ever increasing fees on every single transaction.... And then Tax it of course.

It must be nice to have a financial institution want you to be happy and guard your transactions.. You know, as is their duty anyway.


Sorry its just tough to swallow.


Enough ranting. Here is a photo of the setup. 427790242_7621459941211081_3529274774358330573_n.jpg
 
I may not be able to pay the post to send the CRT monitor home which would be a shame but expected. IF anyone is near the Reading area in the UK I may be able to leave it for you to pickup Gratis.
 
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VERAULT said:
My wife is heading to Britain to visit her sister and will be picking up a BBC Micro I bought and shipped there. Hoping it arrives safe and the marketplace transaction goes through. Once she arrives she will send me photos to make sure its ok to bring back to the states. And from there the repair journey will commence.

I'm not concerned about PAL as I have my methods for that but I am concerned about seeing if I can get 120V out of the psu with some modification.

Fingers crossed!

Mick
Click to expand...
I grew up in the UK and used them when I was at school. I have only just got myself one also. I love how configurable they are and the sheer amount of tinkering to be done!
 
daver2 said:
- we had to convert the software over to a more 'professional' machine - the Ferranti Advance 86B in the end.

Dave
Click to expand...

Oh I remember those machines. Great big black hulks.

I even 'liberated' one when someone decided the best thing was to throw them in to a huge pile and smashed most of the cases. Managed to piece one together but boy was it difficult to take though the turnstiles. I actually thought at one point I was going to get stuck hugging this PC and would be still there in the morning when everyone came in !

Shame I got rid of it.
 
Good luck and great journey with the machine :) It looks very cute.

Banking is different in EU, larger power larger responsibility, for the better and for the worse. I'm just baffled by those UK ebay senders, I haven't ran into that situation. So you have a buy button, you buy something via ebay, but then the seller contacts you? Isn't putting an ebay listing then avoiding ebay financial infrastructure some sort of tos violation?
 
Zare said:
Good luck and great journey with the machine :) It looks very cute.

Banking is different in EU, larger power larger responsibility, for the better and for the worse. I'm just baffled by those UK ebay senders, I haven't ran into that situation. So you have a buy button, you buy something via ebay, but then the seller contacts you? Isn't putting an ebay listing then avoiding ebay financial infrastructure some sort of tos violation?
Click to expand...
Thanks! Looking forward to it. Although the more time passes the more nervous I am. I haven't been able to reach the seller in a week. We shall see.


I never said anything about buying it from eBay.
 
Ah ok my bad.

Yeah if it was a private contract then I understand. I have had those and their demands. You do what you have to to get the item...

Hopes up it reaches you fine. Also a bummer you can't get the monitor right now.
 
Well I feel I may have been scammed. I just opened a claim via paypal against the seller. I honestly HATE farcebook and only the worst people seem to list items for sale one it.

What a complete waste of time and resources.

Id be happy just doing ebay if international sellers would send items like this to the states.


Seriously though, facebook is the most pointless waste of time and seems to attact the bottom rung of humanity. You cant honestly say even the terrible people on ebay are still slightly better than facebook people.

Why people use this service has been a constant puzzle to me.

Im aware this was a rant.
 
That stinks I am really sorry it didn’t work out :/ I have only ever used Facebook marketplace locally and also pay at time of pickup.

I got my beep on eBay several years ago. I was worried about it making the trip but it arrived safe and sound and in working order.
 
Damn, hope you get it sorted.

Would a UK intermediary help ? I wonder about a local pickup machine then send it on, though I have never posted something so big.
 
Gary C said:
Damn, hope you get it sorted.

Would a UK intermediary help ? I wonder about a local pickup machine then send it on, though I have never posted something so big.
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I honestly have doubts this character is in the UK. I think he may be russian.
 
I meant with another machine. If you track one down, I could pick it up and send it over. However it would not be cheap I think. Probably better with an ebay purchase and their global shipping scheme
 
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