Denford Software & Machines

Dear all

I think I am on the home strait with regard to getting my Starmill to work on the BBC. I now have the software (thanks to Phil for his Kind Loan) I also have the EPROM (thanks to Denfords Mr Bishop back in 2002).

I have copied the disks and made images I will post those with instructions on how to extract them back on to 5.25 floppy. I will also post a binary dump of the EPROM so anyone can "blow"/programme one and finally post a drawing of the (starmill) RS 232 <---> RS 423 (BBC) lead which is different from any of the drawings that I have found on this forum.

Now as I say I am almost there. I have managed to get the machine to work correctly on its own (sans BBC). Then managed to get the Software to run on the BBC, then I have got the BBC to control the Starmill after a fashion.

What happens is that the BBC requests you to Datum the machine, you press D and off the Starmill goes on its merry way. Once done the starmill displays COMMAND ERROR on the the front panel, and the BBC just sits there. I suspect that the Starmill, once it has completed the datum sends back a communication, "ok I am done here" to which the BBC responds, "great" but that conversation is not happening. I suspect the RS 423 settings.

So does anyone have a working starmill on BBC control? if so could you let me know what settings you are running this is easy to find out on the BBC 128 Just type *st.
at the ">" The settings I am after are "Baud X" and "DATA X" the X has 8 meanings as set out below:

There are 8 baud RATES: 0=9600, 1=75, 2= 150, 3=300, 4=1200, 5=2400, 6=4800, 7=9600, 8=12000
There are also 8 data settings:
VALUE---Word length---Parity---stop bits
0------------7--------------even------2
1------------7--------------odd-------2
2------------7--------------even------1
3------------7--------------odd-------1
4------------8--------------none------2
5------------8--------------none------1
6------------8--------------even------1
7------------8--------------odd-------1

Do any of the Denford Admin/staff remember these settings or do you you have a Workshop/software manual for the Starmill BBC stuff? The programming manual does not have this in it.

Finally the problem could be with the cable as I have gleaned the info rather than find a drawing. If anyone has a lead that they could "bell out" and let me know if the drawing attached is correct.

Thanks Alastair

I have just had a thought It might also be because the BBC Software from Phil was for a ATC starmill and mine does not have an ATC.

Any thoughts?

Alastair

The only person I can think of who would have any clue, would be MrMagoo
btw - did you see this manual recently uploaded here:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2314

I know its for a turn, but may give you some clues...

Hi Admin

Yep I posted that along with the starmill manual, but none of those have any trouble shooting or error lists so I can understand the problem. What I need is the technical manuals that your engineers would have had way back in the day.

regards
Alastair

I do remember that the BBC Starmill software was different for the ATC and NON-ATC versions of the machine. I am sure that the machine is being sent a command to datum the axes, then an extra command to tell it to datum the ATC, which it does not understand.

Can you get s/ware for a non-atc machine? (I'm amazed you managed to get any s/ware!), or perhaps you can get around the error message? (although I think that the BBC software wont let you get past having to datum which is the problem!)

As a side issue have you attempted to get the IBM software talking to the Starmill? I have a feeling the electrics were common in both the BBC and really early DOS based stuff.

As a side issue I would be really interested in the ROM and DISK images for the starmill s/ware. I've just downloaded the pcBBC emulator for DOS and would like to give the old BBC Starmill software a go with it

Mr Magoo - are you a geek or a nerd ? ... https://geek.urbanup.com/1939356

Well I'd LIKE to think of my self as a geek...

But I'm currently trying to find a ROM image of Computer Concepts Basic Accelerator for the BBC (https://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/docs/CC/CC_ ... nROMSw.pdf) so now I'm not too sure

Mr magoo
I will swap you one rom and 2 software discs for the NEE SMCU manual
I don't think it's the ATC for 2 reasons 1) the manual I have says if you don't have the ATC then enter tool 1 if you dont have the ATC then enter tool 0. 2) the extracts of the SMCU manual you have posted on the forum say that a command error is caused by using the wrong baud rate/ parity. I get a COMMAND ERROR on the starmill LCD and the red light flashes 6 times then a pause. I think the manual will reveal all.
Is there a way to intercept the rs 232 commands and see what they are saying?

I might just get my old dos laptop out and try that with the dos software but iwould really like to get this going as a BBC. I was thwarted with getting the starturn going by the EPROM dingle and I am so close with this.

Magoo - I think you should be playing Elite, not programming in Basic! https://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/bbc/index.htm

I'd love to but I don't seem to have the SMCU manual anymore
I've just been searching thru my old archives & can't find anything - I swapped out my hard drive while back and think it may have disappeared. I originally got it from the old NEE website but I see that no longer exists (and I also see they want to charge you for it )

I'd be interested to see if you can get something like beebDOS or FDC to create an image of your BBC floppy disks. See https://bbc.nvg.org/software.php3#transfer for more info.

In the mean time I'll see if I can come up with any more info

Admin: ChuckyEgg atm...

google Omni flop should do it but you need a 5.25 to write the disk. Haven't tried it yet though

BBC Stuff

I use beeb em https://www.mkw.me.uk/beebem/BeebEm411.exe as it can emulate a master which is what I have.

Use Xferhttps://www.g7jjf.com/progs/xfer51a.zip to transfer from BBC with 5.25 disk to a PC
OR
Use Omnidiskhttps://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniDisk.zip on a PC with a 5.2

This gets the disk in to the PC then make an immage using Omnidisk or from XFER use BBC Explorerhttps://bbc.nvg.org/util/BBCExplorer-2.01.zip. BBC explorer can also extract files form immages or combine files to make an immage.

Roms can be extracted using readrom or an eprom programmer (which I have).

Attached are the disk immages and the rom but they are untested Once I get everything working i will tru extracting back to 5.25 and see if they work. They do work on the emulator.

Have fun

Without wanting to appear too sad.... this evening I thought I'd have a go compiling the old BBC starmill software in the rather impressive BeebEm emulator you pointed me to.

I've managed to dig out the source code and have had some success in compiling the stuff, but unfortunately not the machine control module. If I have any success I should be able to produce a non-ATC version of the "O.MACEXE" file for the machine control disk.

In the mean time, if you interested (and Admin agrees - there's no secrets in this old stuff ) I'll look at zipping up the source and posting them on here with some instructions of how to get things done. It's a bit fiddly so only worth doing if you're really interested in having a go.

Yep I am Interested in having ago this is fun for me (sad i know)!!!

Alastair

In the mean time, if you interested (and Admin agrees - there's no secrets in this old stuff ) I'll look at zipping up the source and posting them on here with some instructions of how to get things done

I can't see any problem - it's older than the DOS s/w which we already let people have for free now...The only issue might be with the license...people can get very particular about open source code and all that GNU GPL MPL stuff

Does it mean you'll be able to comment out the security eprom check as well ?
Should I be buying BBC micros now before they go up in value ?

Is this the SMCU manual /circuit diagram here ?
viewtopic.php?f=54&t=3272