BeebEm - BBC Micro and Master Series Emulator

Menu Options

File Menu

Run Disc

Loads a disc image into drive 0 and boots (runs) it.

Load Disc 0 / 1

Loads a disc image into drive 0 or 1. Discs are write protected when loaded to prevent any accidental data loss. Boot a disc by pressing Shift + F12.

Load Tape

Loads a tape image. See the Tape Images section for info on running a tape.

New Disc 0 / 1

Creates a new disc image in drive 0 or 1. Use the Save as type field to select the type of disc image to create. New disc images are write enabled when created. The images have a standard 31 file catalogue by default.

Eject Disc 0 / 1

Ejects the disc image currently loaded. The name of the file currently loaded is shown next to the menu option.

Write Protect 0 / 1

Toggles write protection for drive 0 or 1. Keep discs write protected unless you intend to write to them. Also see the warning in the Disc Images section.

Write Protect on Load

Indicates if a disc should be write protected when it is loaded.

Reset

Does a power-on reset of the emulated Beeb, useful for when a game crashes.

Load State / Save State

Loads or saves the state of BeebEm as a .uefstate file. This is useful for saving your position in a game for example. State files are put in the BeebState directory by default.

Quick Load / Quick Save

Loads or saves BeebEm state without having to specify the filename. The state is saved and loaded from the BeebState/quicksave.uefstate file. BeebEm keeps the last 10 quicksave files so you can go back to an earlier state using the Load State menu option. There are keyboard shortcuts for Quick Save (Keypad /) and Quick Load (Keypad *) so you can save and load without having to go through the menus.

Screen Capture Options

Selects the resolution and file format for screen capture to file.

Capture Screen

Captures the BeebEm screen to a file. You will be prompted for a file name. Note that you can also use the Alt + Keypad 5 shortcut to capture the screen to file.

Video Options

Selects the resolution and how many frames get skipped for video capture. If video and audio get out of sync when playing back then try selecting a lower resolution and lower frame rate (more skipped frames).

Capture Video

Starts video capture. Video is recorded at a maximum of 25 frames per second at a resolution of 640x512. Sound is captured at the sample rate selected in the Sound menu. If sound is disabled when capture is started then sound is not recorded in the AVI file. You can edit the AVIs using Movie Maker and save them as more compact WMV files.

End Video

Stops video capture.

Exit

Exits BeebEm.

Edit Menu

Copy

Copies the current BASIC program to the clipboard. Sets the printer destination to the clipboard, enables the printer output and lists the current program.

Paste

Pastes the clipboard content into BeebEm.

Translate CR-LF

Adds/removes linefeed characters as text is copied and pasted from the clipboard.

Import Files to Disc

Allows files to be added to a DFS disc image. BeebEm will look for a .inf file containing file attributes but files without .inf files can also be imported. If a file name matches one already in the disc image the imported file will overwrite the one in the image.

Export Files from Disc

Allows files to be exported from a DFS disc image. BeebEm will create a .inf file for each file exported to hold the file attributes.

Comms Menu

Tape Speed

Selects the speed at which tape software loads and saves.

Rewind Tape

Resets the tape position to the start.

Unlock Tape

Removes the lock flag from files as they are loaded. This enables you to *LOAD a locked file.

Tape Control

Opens the tape control. See the Tape Images section.

Printer On/Off

Switches printer capture on or off. To start and stop printing within BeebEm use the VDU2 and VDU3 commands or Ctrl + B and Ctrl + C.

Printer Destination

Selects where to send the printer output. WARNING: if you direct printer output to an LPT port that is not attached to anything BeebEm may hang.

RS423 On/Off

Switches the Beeb's serial communications port on or off.

Select RS423 Destination

Selects where to send the serial port data. Select Microvitec Touch Screen to enable touch screen support. Select an IP option to route data to a TCP/IP port. See the Serial Port section.

View Menu

Display Renderer

Selects how BeebEm draws to the screen. DirectX9 will probably be the fastest.

DirectX Smoothing

Enables smoothing, which blurs the display slightly and gives it a smoother look, using bilinear interpolation. This option only applies when using DirectDraw or DirectX9 display rendering.

Smooth Teletext Only

Enables DirectX smoothing for mode 7 only.

Speed and FPS On/Off

Shows or hides the relative speed and the number of frames per second.

Full Screen

Switches to full screen mode.

Maintain Aspect Ratio in Full Screen

Enables 5:4 aspect ratio output in full-screen mode.

Window Sizes

Sets the window size.

DirectX Full Screen Modes

Sets the screen resolution to use in full screen mode. The higher resolutions may look better.

Monitor Type

Selects the type of monitor to emulate.

Hide Menu

Hides the menu. Makes full screen mode look just like a real Beeb!

LEDs

Shows or hides the Beeb keyboard and disc LEDs at the bottom of the BeebEm window.

Motion Blur

Fades out the contents of previous frames rather than blanking them out (like phosphor persistence). Can improve flicker in some games. The % intensities of the 8 frames can be edited in the preferences file.

Screen Reader Text View

Switches screen reader compatible text view on or off. See the Accessibility Features section.

Speed Menu

Real Time

Runs BeebEm at the same speed as a real BBC Micro.

Fixed Speed

Runs BeebEm at a fixed speed relative to a real BBC Micro. The frame rate may need to be reduced for the higher speeds. The Keypad + and Keypad - keys will change between fixed speeds.

50/25/10/5/1 FPS

Runs BeebEm at a constant frame rate. The slower the frame rate the faster BeebEm runs relative to a BBC Micro.

Pause Emulation

Pauses the emulation.

Sound Menu

Sound Streamer

Selects the sound streaming interface for BeebEm to use.

Sound On/Off

Switches sound on or off.

Sound Chip

Switches the sound chip on or off. Useful when you want to hear the cassette sounds.

Sound Effects

Options for switching on emulation of cassette motor, tape software loading and disc drive noise.

44.1/22.05/11.025 kHz

Sets the sound sample rate. The higher it is the better the sound quality but the slower BeebEm runs.

Full/High/Medium/Low Volume

Sets the sound volume.

Part Samples

Smooths sound sampling. Using part samples usually sounds better.

Exponential Volume

Enables an exponential volume scale. Makes the sound output better.

Text To Speech

Opens a sub-menu with options that control text to speech generation. See the Accessibility Features section.

Enable

Switches text to speech generation on or off. See the Accessibility Features section.

Speak Automatically

Toggles auto-read of text as it is written to the BBC micro screen. See the Accessibility Features section.

Speak Punctuation

Toggles speaking of punctuation. Support for this feature depends on the capabilities of the selected voice. See the Accessibility Features section.

Voice

Selects the voice used for text to speech. See the Accessibility Features section.

Music 5000

Enables or disables the Music 5000 Synthesiser emulation.

AMX Menu

On/Off

Switches AMX mouse support on or off. It may be useful to hide the Windows cursor as well (see the Options menu).

L+R for Middle

Simulates a middle button press when you press the left and right mouse buttons together.

Map to 160x256 / 320x256 / 640x256

Sets the coordinate range to map the Windows mouse position to. Pick the one that gives AMX mouse movements nearest to your Windows mouse movements.

Adjust +50%/+30%/+10%/etc.

Sets the percentage to increase or decrease the AMX map sizes. Pick the one that gives AMX mouse movements that are slightly greater than the corresponding Windows mouse movements. You can then match up the AMX and Windows pointer positions by moving the Windows pointer to the edges of the BeebEm Window. This is easiest to do in full screen mode.

Hardware Menu

BBC Model

Allows you to switch between the supported Beeb model types: BBC Model B, Model B with Computech Integra-β, Model B+, Master 128, and Master ET.

Model B Floppy Controller

Allows you to select the Model B disc hardware emulation. To use an alternative floppy disc controller (FDC) board you will need to use an appropriate ROM (e.g., Acorn DFS 2.26 for the Acorn 1770 board).

Second Processor

Allows you to select a second processor, connected via the Beeb's Tube interface. The following second processors are supported:

Allow SW RAM Write

Enables or disables writes for each sideways RAM slot. See the ROM Software section.

SW RAM Board On/Off

Enables Solidisk SW RAM board emulation. The RAM bank that is enabled for writing is selected via the User VIA port B. Set port B bits 0-3 to output (e.g., ?&FE62=15) and select the bank via port B (e.g., ?&FE60=4).

Edit ROM Configuration

Allows you to edit the ROM configuration. Note that you will usually have to press the Break key (F12) before a new ROM configuration is recognised.

Basic Hardware Only

Switches off Analogue to Digital (Joystick) and Serial (printing, comms, and tape) emulation. May speed BeebEm up.

Teletext Half Mode

Uses half the number of screen lines for teletext mode 7. May speed BeebEm up.

Econet On/Off

Switches Econet emulation on or off. See the Econet section for more details.

Teletext Adapter On/Off

Switches Teletext adapter emulation on or off. See the Teletext section for more details.

Select Teletext Data Source

Selects the capture files or packet server to use as source data for the teletext adapter. See the Teletext section for more details.

Set Keyboard Links

Sets the keyboard links, which allow you to change the default screen mode and other options (Model B/B+ only). See the Keyboard Links section for more details.

Floppy Drive On/Off

Switches floppy drive emulation on or off.

SCSI Hard Drive On/Off

Switches SCSI/SASI hard drive emulation on or off. See the Hard Disks section for more details.

IDE Hard Drive On/Off

Switches IDE hard drive emulation on or off. See the Hard Disks section for more details.

Select Hard Drive Folder

Selects the location for hard drive image files. See the Hard Disks section for more details.

User Port Breakout Box

Opens the User Port Breakout Box dialog. The breakout box allows keys to be assigned for switch box emulation.

User Port RTC Module

Enables the Acorn Econet Level 3 File Server Real Time Clock Module, which connects to the BBC Micro's User Port. This is used by the Econet file server software. See the Real-Time Clock section for more details.

Options Menu

Joystick

Switches on or off PC/Beeb analogue joystick support.

Freeze When Inactive

Enables or disables freezing BeebEm you switch to another window. This option is automatically switched off if you open the Debugger window.

Hide Cursor

Shows or hides the mouse cursor while it is over the BeebEm window (useful when using the Mousestick or the AMX mouse).

Define User Key Mapping

Allows you to define your own keyboard mapping. See the Keyboard Mappings section.

Load User Key Mapping

Loads a user defined key mapping from a file.

Save User Key Mapping

Saves a user defined key mapping to a file.

User Defined Mapping

Selects the currently loaded user defined keyboard mapping.

Default Keyboard Mapping

Selects the default keyboard mapping. See the Keyboard Mappings section.

Logical Keyboard Mapping

Selects the logical keyboard mapping. See the Keyboard Mappings section.

Map A,S to CAPS,CTRL

Maps the PC's A and S keys to CAPS and CTRL keys on the Beeb keyboard. This is good for some games (e.g., Zalaga).

Map F1-F10 to f0-f9

Selects a slightly different mapping for the function keys.

Disable Keys

Allows you to disable selected keys within BeebEm. The Windows (start) keys can also be disabled but note that this affects all Windows applications, not just BeebEm.

Debugger

Opens the debugger window (see the Debugger section).

Save Preferences

Saves the BeebEm settings to the current preferences file. Settings include the selected menu options, user defined keyboard, window position and CMOS RAM contents.

Autosave CMOS RAM

Automatically saves the Master 128 CMOS RAM on exit from BeebEm.

Autosave All Preferences

Automatically saves all preferences on exit from BeebEm.

Save Disc/Tape/State Folders

Enables or disables BeebEm automatically remembering where the folders where you last loaded or saved disc, tape or state files.

Select User Data Folder

Selects the location for the BeebEm data files. When creating a new folder BeebEm will copy a default set of data files into the folder. BeebEm will default to using the last folder selected.

Help Menu

View Help

Opens the BeebEm help documentation.

About BeebEm

Shows the BeebEm version number and release date.