BEEBOP

BBC Micro computer to STEbus Interface

The BEEBOP interfaces your BBC Micro to STEbus.

The board plugs - via a ribbon cable - into the bus of the BBC micro, taking 32 bytes of address space (&FCC0-&FCDF). The other end of the board plugs into the backplane of an STE system, and can then talk to any other boards on the STEbus. It can transfer data between the BBC micro's memory and any memory board on the bus, read or output analogue voltages with an analogue board control digital ports etc., all through the STEbus.

With the BEEBOP board, your BBC completely integrates into the STEbus environment, treating it like a normal filing system. It is called with and uses the familiar 'OPENOUT', 'OPENIN', 'PRINT#' and 'INPUT#' commands to transfer data. An EPROM containing the STE filing system fits in one of the 'sideways' ROM sockets. It comes with the board and contains 29 useful utilities, which use a page of BBC RAM - considerably less than most filing systems. The board also comes with a very comprehensive manual explaining exactly now the STEbus works and showing each of the commands in use.

Power consumption:

(from STEbus): 0.8A typical at 5V

Features:

• Full integration of BBC Micro into STEbus system with full support of STEbus protocol
• Works with BBC micro and BBC Master
• Programmable time-out
• Flexible byte- or block-transfers
• Onboard STEbus arbiter
• 1Mbyte STEbus memory addressing and 4kbyte I/O