It's a hamster ahead of the rest!
Introducing the BBC II Micro
By RON H.J.POETH and SAM MacMAB
COMPUTERS are becoming more user-friendly. At one time, in the
prehistory of microcomputing, the difficulties of using a micro
were so great that only trained specialists and 14-year-old schoolboys
could cope.
The machine had to be given instructions in a complex and difficult
language such as Ada, Pascal, or, more commonly, Basic, which
often took as long as a day to learn and a month to become reasonably
familiar with.
Not only that, but the executive user had to lower himself to
the status of one who used a typewriter keyboard.
All this has changed with the newest generation of micros, which
is made up of machines whose sole function is to support packages,
and not to provide a vehicle for programmers to mess about.
There is no business that cannot be restructured to fit in with
the workings of a standard accounting or stock control package,
and designers see the computer of the future as providing the
information and control packages around which a business can be
redesigned.
Once such packages are in existence there will be no more need
for anyone to write another program or learn a programming language.
Computer experts will be men who specialise in the selection
and use of these packages. Even program generators such as "The
Last One" and "Pull The Other One" will be rendered
obsolete.
Only a tiny number of people will be able to write programs,
and these will produce and maintain all the smoothly running and
flashy packages that will appear for use on the micros.
The new generation of micros is called the last generation because
no further generations will be possible. It will only be possible
to improve on the machines inside the generation.
So far two manufacturers have released machines onto the market
which aspire to the last generation - the ACT Sirius and the Apple
Lisa. Recent leaks from Acorn, however, show that British genius
is about to release onto the market the only machine truly worthy
of the last generation. Tentatively named the BBC 2 Micro it is
a true last generation product. Once it has been released no other
manufacturer will be able to compete without the years of research
needed to catch up.
In last generation micros the architecture of the machine is
not particularly significant when compared to the range of software
that will be supported as soon as it is written.
Even the colour of the casing is more important than the fact
that the BBC 2 micro is based on the new 32 bit Z90 processor,
which is a new design expected to repeat the success of the old
Z80 processor, on a larger scale.
The 32 bit register on the Z90 is the status register, which
allows a new concept in random condition codes. The accumulator
is a 16 bit register, and the X and Y registers and the data bus
have 8 bits to allow for the use of cheap 8 bit support chips.
The instruction set is completely compatible with both Z80 and
6502 processors, and both instruction sets form subsets of the
Z90 instruction set. When using these instructions the top 8 bits
of the accumulator and all but 7 bits of the status register are
ignored.
The remaining instructions on the Z90 are mainly stochastic
or random instructions such as XRI (Execute Random Instruction)
and SRS (Store in Random place on the Stack). The address bus
has 32 bits, allowing a Gigabyte to be addressed, but as the address
register has 16 bits, this must be addressed in pages of 64k.
The most striking feature of the BBC 2 micro is its complete
lack of keyboard. Input is performed using either the 32 user
defined function keys or the hamster. The hamster is a small box
on a rolling ball which, when moved over the desk top, causes
a corresponding movement in a cursor on the screen.
Apple have made a near miss at the hamster idea with the object
they call a mouse on the Lisa microcomputer, but the mouse completely
lacks the storage facilities of a hamster. A keyboard is available
as an optional extra, when it plugs into the RS632 port.
Another obvious point about the BBC 2 is that it is a completely
soft machine. Indeed, the casing is so heavily padded that it
should be able to withstand all possible damage, whether from
moving to a new office or from the blows of frustrated users who
have just pressed the wrong key and accidentally deleted 60,000
records from their master stock file.
The screen is mounted on a device like the framework of a anglepoise
lamp, thus allowing a virtually unlimited range of working positions,
which should see an end to stiff shoulders, "VDU strain",
and "computer neck" caused by hunching over to view.
The manual recommends that, for maximum comfort, the BBC 2 micro
should be operated while lying on one's back on the floor.
The BBC 2 micro possesses a bewildering variety of ports and
interfaces. Apart from the usual A to D converter there is a D
to A, a D to D and an A to A. Printers can be run from Centronics,
RS632 or IEEEE sockets (the IEEEE bus is an extension of IEEE).
The micro also supports a tunnel, which is an enlarged version
of the tube. No manuals are available for this because it does
not work.
The 1mHz bus has been upgraded and made more comfortable, and
has thus become a coach. The most spectacular port is, however,
the RS632. This is fully RS232 compatible, but has much extended
facilities. For example, the transfer rate of the RS632 can be
adjusted from 2 baud to 32 megabaud (not guaranteed) and the range
of operation is 50km without a booster.
The RS632 is also British Telecom approved, and can be linked
directly into the telephone system without a modem. The BBC 2
micro should therefore be able to perform all the tasks of a telephone
exchange, given the correct software.
The only reason for the existence of micros is to run personal
business software. In the old days this meant Visicalc, but the
BBC 2 micro goes far beyond this (or anything else) in offering
packages for every conceivable zone of business life. These include
the following:
Visi-Onary: This is a forecasting package which not only guarantees
its forecasts to be 100 per cent accurate, but has a hindsight
function (called Visi-Ssitude) which explains afterwards why they
were wrong.
Visi Bull: This is a general bureaucracy package. It designs
forms, fills them in in triplicate and can be used to generate
hundreds of pages of meaningless trivial and restrictive regulations
using its special word-processing feature Bumf-Star. VisiBull
is guaranteed to be between 29 and 107 times as mindlessly awkward
as a professionally trained human bureaucrat.
Visi-Tation: This mailing list program was originally designed
for use in churches, and is one of the few mailing list packages
to distinguish between an epistle and an encyclical.
In-Visi-Ble: There are many office diary programs around, but
this one has the special feature of noting appointments made by
unwelcome or awkward visitors and producing an audible warning
in time to arrange to be out when they call.
Other packages include stock control (Pro-Visi-On), data base
(Subdi-Visi-On), an education package (Re-Visi-On) and a program
for keeping track of company admin called Long Di-Visi-On (5 mbyte
and above versions only).
The package of special note is Super-Visi-Or, which performs
exactly in the same way as a secretary. It will file all your
work where it can't be found, delay all your typing for inordinate
lengths of time, and when there is no longer enough time to correct
a memo will release it with scores of embarrasing typing blunders.
Super-Visi-Or sulks if given more than a minimal work load, and
bursts into tears in a most realistic fashion if told off.
The other software feature is the software on/off switch, Visi-On.
This uses three permanently assigned user defined keys marked
O, N, and F. Using these to type ON switches the machine on, and
typing OFF switches it off again. A small battery is used if ON
is entered when the machine is not plugged in. In this case the
message "NO POWER SUPPLY - PLEASE PLUG IN" appears on
the screen with a little picture of a 13 amp plug.
The CP/M operating system is used for the BBC 2 micro. At present
this is only available in a preliminary version, called, for traditional
reasons, 0.1 EPROM. Unfortunately this contains no bugs, and is
thus incompatible with any other CP/M system. A team of programmers
is working night and day implementing all the necessary bugs,
and when this is complete the result will be put into ROM and
called series 1.
CONCLUSION
The BBC 2 microcomputer is a last generation machine worthy
of the name. Indeed, if this machine becomes standard for the
future it is doubtful whether any more computers will ever be
bought.
