How to extract BBC Micro ROM images to disk (and then onto your computer)
=========================================================================

Author	: Richard J. Purves
Date	: 19th June 1998 6:32pm
Update  : 2nd January 1999 1:56am
          3rd January 1999 12:26am
E-Mail	: rjpurves@yahoo.com
WWW	: http://www.angelfire.com/sc/rjpurves

Version : v1.2

All information is current as of most recent date.

You might want to print this after reading.

Introduction
============

 So finally, you've decided to get a BBC Micro emulator but now you're stuck. You can't extract
(or find) a copy of the BBC Basic and Operating System roms but you do have access to a BBC 
Micro somewhere. Or perhaps, you're finding it slightly difficult to "grab" images of your
favourite roms to port to your emulator.

 If this sums up the trouble you have, then this is for you!

Requirements
============

 1) A way of transferring files across from your BBC to your computer and vise versa.
    (I'm using Mark de Weger's excellent program XFer. Available at "The BBC Lives!" Web Site.(1)
     This needs a COM2 - RS423 cable.)

 Assuming that you've got the above (or some way of doing the above then onto the next step.

 2) A floppy disk drive attached to your BBC Micro (or this won't work. Sorry)

 3) Access to an actual working BBC Micro. (Like you couldn't guess that one!)

 4) The program supplied transferred and working on your BBC Micro.#

Method
======

 This is starting to sound like a cookery recipe! Anyways, do the following :-

 1) Transfer the program supplied to your BBC Micro.
    (Make sure that the load and exec addresses are present with the file. You can check this by
     examining the .inf file and comparing it with the copied file on the BBC. More on this
     later. (2) )

 2) Run it. 
    It's very straightforward to use, since it displays exactly what roms you've installed.
    Press @ to save a rom and then select the appropriate bank. It should then save it straight
    to disk. (Drive 0 only i'm afraid) (I couldn't make it change drives because it's been a
    long while since I did any BBC stuff.)

NOTE
====
    If you're after the OS ROM then you'll have to forget the above program, because like an
    idiot, I forgot that it doesn't grab that particular ROM (duh!). Instead, you'll have to
    use the other program supplied called "OSGRAB". This is a little proggy written by me to
    grab the OS rom on both disk and tape machines.

    It does one or two strange things to do this, because the OS ROM doesn't like being saved
    for some strange reason. Don't worry, it's not incompatible with your BBC unless you have
    only 16k of RAM in it or some add-on that grabs so much memory that there's less than 16k
    of free memory left.

    Feel free to examine the program. It's nothing really special.

 3) After you've saved all the images you need, then use your connection method to transfer the
    images back to your computer. XFer is excellent for this. You may need to add ".rom" to the
    filenames to make them work with your emulator (BeebEm). Read the documents that were
    supplied with your emulator.

 And  voila! You have your rom images on your computer. I've personally used this method to
transfer all my rom collection to my PC. I recommend using XFer (on the PC) since it can
transmit and well as receive files and it preserves the load and exec addresses of the program.

 Mind you, it does generate load and exec addresses for any files you transfer, including your
rom images. Remember, you don't actually need these for ROM images.

Appendix
========

 1) The BBC Lives! web site can be found by searching for :-
	"The BBC Lives!"
    at http://www.yahoo.com/

    I can't remember the address at the moment. My net connection is at college not at home :-<

 2) To examine load and execution addresses of a file on the BBC Micro type the following :-
    i) *INFO (filename)

 3) Apologies, but this is not my program. I found it while trawling through some of my old
    disks one day. I used it to load images in and out of my (defunct) sideways ram module. This
    is why it can also try to load images into the rom area on certain occasions... :-S

Revision History
================

V1.2  3-1-98 : Added a program to grab the OS ROM. Changed documentation to fit alongside the
               changes.

V1.1  2-1-98 : Temporary cure for the fact that the program cannot retrieve the OS image.

V1.0 19-5-98 : Initial release.