ULA

Change of Electron.txt

69:b9641b6b8b16
Electron.txt
     1.1 --- a/Electron.txt	Sat Feb 01 17:55:57 2014 +0100
     1.2 +++ b/Electron.txt	Sun Feb 16 01:42:42 2014 +0100
     1.3 @@ -42,11 +42,18 @@
     1.4  means of installing ROM-based software - the Plus 1 and other expansion units
     1.5  offered ROM cartridge slots, and various expansions provided ROM sockets - the
     1.6  improved Electron would ideally need to offer a ROM cartridge slot as part of
     1.7 -the unexpanded machine. A side-benefit of adding this feature to the base
     1.8 -machine would arguably be an increased demand for cartridge-based software,
     1.9 -potentially at a slightly higher price and also offering additional hardware
    1.10 -features if necessary, thus making any cost incurred in the manufacture of the
    1.11 -base unit more bearable.
    1.12 +the unexpanded machine.
    1.13 +
    1.14 +A side-benefit of adding this feature to the base machine would arguably be an
    1.15 +increased demand for cartridge-based software, potentially at a slightly
    1.16 +higher price and also offering additional hardware features if necessary, thus
    1.17 +making any cost incurred in the manufacture of the base unit more bearable.
    1.18 +And in school environments where unexpanded BBC Microcomputers were often used
    1.19 +with tapes, the use of ROM cartridges for instant and reliable loading of
    1.20 +software would have given the Electron a practical advantage: it would be a
    1.21 +cheaper machine that could later be expanded with disk drives (the other main
    1.22 +way of providing fast and reliable storage) while still offering a substantial
    1.23 +saving over the BBC Micro.
    1.24  
    1.25  The Slogger/Elektuur turbo board modified the system to permit the CPU to
    1.26  access the bottom 8K of RAM without interruption by the ULA. This feature,
    1.27 @@ -76,3 +83,16 @@
    1.28  circuitry and would only benefit UHF and colour composite video displays, but
    1.29  the latter limitation might not be a significant issue for the majority of the
    1.30  intended audience.
    1.31 +
    1.32 +Supporting Local Area Networking
    1.33 +--------------------------------
    1.34 +
    1.35 +The Electron was mostly aimed at the home market, but a cheaper computer would
    1.36 +have been very attractive for schools, especially those wanting to purchase a
    1.37 +number of machines for networking. Having an option available in the standard
    1.38 +Electron would have given such customers a cheap Econet terminal, albeit
    1.39 +without the MODE 7 capabilities of the BBC, whilst ignoring the requirement of
    1.40 +reliable, fast storage that standalone machines need to have in such
    1.41 +environments. With content available on demand over the network, the need for
    1.42 +low-memory screen mode usage - in order to retain as much content in memory as
    1.43 +possible - would also be diminished.