| RETROCLINIC DATACENTRE REVIEW The context of this review is in relation to the variety of tasks normally undertaken at the Archive. The Datacentre has been reviewed extensively elsewhere on the web and this review does not attempt to replicate those.
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SUMMARY
The Datacentre is a device that plugs into the 1MHz bus of the BBC micro. It is available in two forms - internal and external. The Archive has both versions. The device can provide up to 2Gb of storage using Compact Flash (CF) cards which emulate up to four 500Mb ADFS drives. In addition there are four RAM drives of 200K capacity each that can appear as 40/80T floppy drives. USB memory sticks may be plugged into the USB socket of the device allowing infinite external storage. The USB drives appear as RAM drive 5. Provided with the Datacentre are two support ROMs that allow ADFS access to the CF card storage and manage the RAM filing system. Although the Datacentre works with the BBC model B it is best used with a BBC Master computer. On the BBC model B PAGE is raised markedly to allow DFS, NFS, ADFS and the RAMFS coexist. On the BBC Master PAGE remains at &E00.
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| Archiving DFS Discs Unprotected DFS discs are easily archived as SSD or DSD images to a USB memory stick using the Datacentre command *EXPORT. Discs that are protected by altering the disc size byte or hiding the catalogue can be imaged by using the ADI and ADT ROMs. ADI is used to read the catalogue to find the file names. ADT's *XFER command is used to copy the files from DFS to the Datacentre RAMFS. The disc title is changed in the RAMFS and the boot option is set. *EXPORT will write the RAMFS copy to USB memory stick. The above technique can also be used to image some discs that are physically damaged. Often the necessary files are readable and can be copied to RAM so that a new, undamaged disc can be imaged. As well as writing to SSD/DSD files on USB memory sticks, some educational software can be written to the Datacentre's hard drives, so building a large, runnable, archive of software all linked through a system of menus.
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Archiving ADFS Discs Although the Datacentre cannot make ADL images of ADFS discs, its hard drives can be used to store copies of ADFS titles and these can be linked into an educational archive by menus. Copying the software from floppy disc to hard disc is usually performed by DirCopy 2.8, a version of the Acorn directory copier modified to work with the Datacentre's hard discs. Damaged or protected titles are copied manually using the ADT *XFER command to copy the files to RAMFS and then from RAMFS to the hard drive - tedious but it does work.
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| Running SSD titles The Datacentre is fully able to load and run DFS images in the SSD or DSD format. Not used to a great extent by the Archive, this facility has been used to check that archived images do work before uploading to the web.
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| USB interface As well as accepting USB memory sticks the Datacentre USB interface can work with other devices such as a USB mouse or USB robot arm. Not really an Archive activity, this facility nevertheless provides for much entertainment.
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| Conclusion The Retroclinic Datacentre is an amazing add-on for the BBC micro and highly recommended, if one can obtain one, that is. Occasionally a Datacentre may be offered for sale on internet auction sites. Unfortunately it will command a high price. Even so that could be well worth paying to obtain such a superb piece of kit.
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