Date   : Thu, 30 Nov 1995 15:22:07 +0000 (GMT)
From   : Mark Cooke <mpc@...>
Subject: Re: The Opus Challenger disk system

On Thu, 30 Nov 1995, Tom Seddon wrote:

> Does anybody have any programming information about the Opus 
> Challenger disk system? I know it used a 1770/1772 disk chip, but 
> apart from that I've no idea... I'm especially interested in finding 
> out how one might actually get at the disk controller registers, 
> since I want to play with a real 1770 before having a go at emulating 
> one.

Well, the BBC web pages I used to host on blue.bad.bris.ac.uk are still 
there (but slow). James took a copy of them, and is (I think) going to 
actively maintain them. I don't have the URL of the new pages to hand though.
One of the information files discussed the 1770/2 in some depth.

There are also archives of the mailing list available from the pages.

I should say that the X-windows bbc emulator has some read only support 
for disk drives - probably based on the 1770, and the source is available 
for you to get some ideas from.

---

For those of you who know me from the old days, hi! I'm afraid the BPC is 
on the back burner at the moment - well, actually buried under a huge 
pile of other projects and real work. That's right - I joined the 
workforce in August, and the x-ray telescope has lots of deadlines 
looming, etc etc. At some point I hope to resurect BPC, but unfortunately 
that does not look likely to happen in the near future.

Finally, I'd like to publically thank James for taking over the mailing 
list + web pages.

Best regards

Mark

Mark Cooke                             The views expressed above are mine
Systems Programmer                     and do not reflect in any way the
University Of Birmingham               current policy of my employers.