Run a classic BBC Micro under Ubuntu
The BBC Micro was a popular fixture in 1980s classrooms in the UK. It was developed by Acorn Computers after successfully winning the interest of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Computer Literacy project with its hastily created Acorn Proton computer. This catapulted Acorn’s fortunes and saw the BBC Micro become a popular, if expensive choice for home computing enthusiasts.
The BBC Micro was also quickly adopted by educational bodies, and children (including us!) learnt programming via this machine. One of this author’s first encounters with a BBC Micro was controlling a simulated nuclear reactor that may have gone critical due to a careless mistake.
The BBC Micro was powered by a MOS Technology 6502/6512 processor running at 2MHz. It came with a plethora of ports, some providing access to a GPIO of sorts: a 15-pin analogue port typically used in science experiments, and a user port which has a digital interface that can be used to control basic electronics.
Initially, the BBC Micro had two “main” models: the 16KB Model A and the 32KB Model B. But future releases saw further models: the B+, Master and Plus 32. All of these models saw expanded memory options as well as additional ports and functionality while retaining compatibility with
