Turbo MMC

Background

Turbo MMC is a modern solid-state storage solution for the BBC Micro Model B, B+, and Master. It emulates a DFS environment using an MMC/SD card, allowing access to hundreds of virtual floppy disks without the need for original drives and media.

OldSkoolCoder reviewing BBC Micro MMC

Running Software

Once Turbo MMC is active, you can launch the games menu with:

*DBOOT 0

(or use the shorthand *DB.0).

Not all games work perfectly across all BBC models (for example, Alien Dropout has issues on the BBC Master).

Disk 2 contains a small number of games and demonstration programs. You can run these in two ways:

Use *DBOOT 2 – this inserts disk 2 into drive 0 and automatically boots it.
Or use *DIN 2 followed by CHAIN "MENU"

The first method is faster, while the second gives you manual control.

Accessing Disks and Files

Turbo MMC provides four logical drives (0–3). Up to 511 virtual disks can be stored on the card. You “insert” a disk into a drive with *DIN.

Example – insert disk 300 into drive 0 and list its contents:

*DRIVE 0
*DIN 300
*CAT

Think of the MMC card as a box of hundreds of DFS floppy disks – you must insert the one you want before accessing it.

Example: Utilities on Disk 300

Disk 300 includes sideways ROM images: BUTIL, AXR, and MXR.

BUTIL – BASIC utility ROM toolkit
AXR – Assembler Extension ROM
MXR – Maths ROM

Manuals for these are provided with Turbo MMC distributions, and the ROMs remain © IFEL.

Other included tools:

RFS – formats programs for the ROM Filing System (see RFS.pdf)
RLOAD – loads sideways ROM images into sockets. Syntax:

*RLOAD <image> <ROM socket in hex> (Q)

Example:

*RLOAD BUTIL B Q

Loads BUTIL into socket B (11 in decimal). The Q parameter speeds loading by using main memory as a buffer, but corrupts RAM in the process.

Formatting and Copying

Example: format and use a new disk (312 in drive 2):

*DRIVE 2
*DIN 312
*DFORM 312
*DIN 312
*CAT

Assigning a title:

*TITLE MYDATA

Copying files:

*COPY 0 2 RLOAD (copies RLOAD from drive 0 to drive 2) *COPY 0 2 *.* (copies all files from drive 0 to drive 2)

Resetting the BBC Micro

A quick reset command (equivalent to power cycling):

?&FE4E=127

or

*FX 151 78 127

Press BREAK afterwards. On a Master with MOS 3.50 this also clears sideways RAM.

The !BOOT File

Disks may contain a special !BOOT file, which runs commands automatically.

Run manually:

*EXEC !BOOT

If it needs to be executed:

*/!BOOT
*RUN !BOOT

If configured, holding SHIFT at power-on auto-executes !BOOT from disk 0, usually displaying a menu.

Useful References

DUTILS.pdf – details MMC utilities and commands
Manuals for BUTIL, AXR, and MXR ROMs
RFS.pdf – using the ROM Filing System formatter