BBC MODEL B & MASTER 128 EXTERNAL DUAL CF HARD DRIVE With PC Software and FREE USB CF Reader Start Price GBP 64.95 Current Price GBP 64.95 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Saturday, November 15, 2008 End Time Tuesday, November 25, 2008 Location Hainault, Essex See more about 'BBC MODEL B & MASTER 128 EXTERNAL DUAL CF HARD DRIVE' Description This is a Buy-It-Now sale for a Universal 1MHz bus External Dual Compact Flash Solid State Hard Drive kit for the BBC Master 128 or BBC Model B Computer. Give your BBC B or Master up to 2GB of fast, solid state storage space, with this unique external Hard Drive from RetroClinic. This kit uses  Compact Flash cards instead of old style spinning platter drives, which gives the advantage of a smaller, lighter unit, no noise, no spin up time, and faster access speeds, with greater reliability. It acts as a huge repository of files and directories, and works in exactly the same way as the original Acorn Winchester drives did. Think of it as being the BBC version of memory sticks you use in your PC, you can load programs on it from all your existing BBC floppies, or now you can load them from your PC to the flash card via a USB reader, please see below for more details. The kit comes with almost everything you need, the only thing left for you to get are the Compact flash cards themselves. You can buy just one to get you started, you don't have to fit 2 if you don't want to. These are available all over the high street, as well as here on eBay, this kit does not need anything special, a bog standard off-the-shelf one will do just fine. As well as the Interface itself, which plugs into the 1MHz bus, comes the ADFS 1.53 for the Master and ADFS 1.33 for the BBC B on a special single ROM that is suitable for either machine. The Master has ADFS 1.50 inbuilt, which accesses SCSI drives, so the replacement is needed to access the later style IDE drives and Solid State devices. A leaflet of instructions and recommendations detail which socket to put the rom in, how to connect everything up, and how to reconfigure your Beeb to access the Hard Drive. It is very straightforward, and completely compatible with your original ADFS floppy disks*, as well as the other operating systems like the 1770 DFS and Econet. A 5.25" disk of utilities is also included, for Formatting, Copying, Initialising blank cards etc. I can supply the disk on 3.5" should you prefer, please let me know at auction end. The unit also needs to be hooked up to power, and there is a power adaptor included in the kit, so the precious auxiliary output on your Beeb is not tied up. I would recommend using Flash Cards of 1 or 2GB capacity. All IDE devices are 16 bit, but as the BBC is only 8 bit, it can only access half the capacity of the card. Add to the fact that the ADFS can only handle a maximum of 512MB per partition (as could most computers of that era), a 1GB card is the most logical to use, or 2GB if you wish to put 2 partitions on each card - so with a 2GB card in each slot, you get 4 x 512MB, or 2GB of storage - that's a HUGE amount for an 8 bit Beeb! This kit also comes with a CD containing specially written programs that allow you to plug the CF card into your PC, via the included USB Multi Card Reader, and take an image of the card for backup purposes, and write the image back to the same card, or another one of the same size. The Image these programs create are fully compatible with Jon Welch's ADFS Explorer, which allows you to load the image, browse it, add and delete files from downloaded floppy disk images, change the size of the drive for larger CF cards, manipulate it in almost any way you wish. You can then save that image, and reload it back to a CF card, and presto, your files are instantly ready to use on your Beeb. No messing with cables or serial transfer, nice and easy. And as it's an external unit, no opening the lid everytime you want to change card either! The backup and restore programs are supplied free with the kit, but DFS & ADFS Explorer is shareware, and whilst trial versions of both are included on the CD, they require a small registration fee to the Author for full functionality, please see his website for details. Sample hard drive images containing a selection of public domain software and games are also on the CD for you to try and use as a basis for your system. In essence, this means that you can add any files you like to the CF card using your PC. With the internet containing almost the entire software library of the BBC ever written, you're slightly spoiled for choice, and with up to 2GB of storage on tap, you're unlikely to run out of space either! Please see my website above for further information and more options for this kit. *Please note that for compatibility with ADFS floppy disks on the BBC Model B, you must have a 1770 Disk interface kit fitted. The hard drvie will function with an 8271 controller perfectly, but will not be able to access ADFS floppies with it, as it is only single density. The Hard drive will also function with no disk interface fitted at all, so you can upgrade a tape only machine too with this kit! **LIMITED OFFER** - The Kits available on this sale will come free with a PC USB Multi Card reader, that not only does Compact Flash, but other popular formats such as SD, XD, Memory Stick etc. PayPal accepted with NO surcharge. Please see the photo below, and note that the utilities disk supplied is now DFS for the BBC B and Master, unlike the one shown. Also, the design of the power adaptor may vary. Thanks for looking! Place a Bid!