Make It With Matty

BBC Model B + MMFS: Complete Command Guide for SD Card Systems If you’ve upgraded your BBC Model B with the MMFS SD-card interface , you’ve opened up a whole new way to use your retro computer. No more fragile floppy disks MMFS lets you browse, load, and run hundreds of disk images (.SSD or .MMB) straight from an SD card. This guide collects every useful command you’ll need to explore, manage, and boot software quickly on your setup. Quick Start — Create & Use Your Own MMFS Disk Here’s a simple first project to prove everything’s working. Goal: Create a blank disk, format it, write a BASIC program that prints “Hello, World!”, save it, and run it again. You can watch my YouTube video below and see the guides below for more commands. Create or Select a Blank Disk Slot Insert your SD card and power on. To check what’s available: *DCAT Then choose an empty slot (for example, disk 100): *DIN 0 100 This mounts disk 100 into drive 0 (your working drive). Format the Disk ...

BBC Model B – Installing Turbo MMFS One of the easiest and most useful upgrades you can make to your BBC Model B is installing Turbo MMFS . It replaces old tape or floppy drives with fast, modern SD card storage making loading software instant and much easier. You can also add more software by updating what is stored on the SD Card. I bought a pre-burnt Turbo MMFS ROM and ready-made SD card interface , so installation was plug-and-play, this was also cheaper and less time consuming as you will see. Here’s exactly how to fit it and get up and running.  What Is Turbo MMFS? Turbo MMFS is an enhanced version of the BBC’s MMFS (Multi-Media Filing System). It lets your Model B load programs directly from an SD card while remaining 100% compatible with classic BBC software. It feels like a small modern miracle, you power up, type a couple of commands, and programs load almost instantly. Step 1 – Install the Turbo MMFS ROM Power off and unplug your BBC Model B. Remove the ...

BBC Model B Repair I love collecting and repairing retro computers, but prices can get high so I usually buy faulty ones and try to fix them. Recently I picked up a BBC Model B listed as “powers on, light comes on, nothing else working.” That sounded like a potential easy fix, so I made a cheeky low offer and it was accepted! In this post, I’ll walk through how I diagnosed and repaired the fault. Unfortunately, my camera corrupted most of the footage but I managed to save some photos from the process and the final video of it powered up and working. Please note that this is a hobby for me and you should not do this if you do not know what you are doing as you could risk electrocution!!! First off opening up the case, there was no obvious damage, which is a good sign. These computers are now over 40 years old, and the electrolytic capacitors in the PSU tend to dry out or leak, causing start-up failures or blown components. Since the previous owned powered this on, no doubt one of the...