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MBEESQL.MWB - Connecting a microbee program to the world

Sun, 10 May 2026 16:03:55 +1000

(SQL, or Structured Query Language, is the standard used by database systems for over 20 years worldwide, to store, retrieve and manage structured data.)

Originally I wrote a SQL demo program and then thought why not make it actually do something useful.

MBEESQL is a relational database engine written in MicroWorld BASIC for the MicroBee Z80 running CP/M. It implements four fundamental SQL database operations known as CRUD — Create (INSERT), Read (SELECT), Update (UPDATE) and Delete (DELETE) — along with WHERE clauses for filtered searching, primary key management, and a VACUUM command to compact the database by removing deleted rows. MBEESQL brings these concepts to the Microbee, emulated using UBEE512. The BASIC program stores its data in DBMWB.DAT — a plain comma-delimited text file cataloguing the MicroWorld BASIC programs from the MBUG disk library by name and disc nos. RAM constraints prevent listing what each program does.

The flag field in each record marks it as Active or Deleted, enabling soft-delete — records are never immediately removed but flagged for later compaction. All write operations implement ACID compliance: data is written atomically to a temporary file first, then renamed over the live database, ensuring a system crash at any point leaves the data intact and recoverable. On startup MBEESQL automatically checks for and recovers any interrupted write. Browsing a large collection can be sped up by using --clock-200 in UBEE512.

Local PC access is enabled by rcpmfs, which maps a Windows folder as a CP/M drive. DBMWB.DAT is stored in that folder and updated whenever MBEESQL writes it. The beesql.html web viewer, opened in any local browser, reads the file directly and auto-refreshes every five seconds — search, sort and scroll across all 1,199 records is instant. An Excel workbook accesses the same data with filtering and charting.

Internet access via ngrok requires a small Python watcher script on the PC that serves DBMWB.DAT over a local HTTP server. ngrok creates a secure public tunnel with a stable URL. The web viewer, with one line changed to fetch from that URL, becomes globally accessible — anyone with the link can browse the MBUG catalogue in real time, seeing updates within seconds of entry on the MicroBee.

The result is a three-tier system — emulated MicroBee for SQL data entry a BASIC program, a PC as the bridge, and any browser anywhere as the front end — all anchored by a 21KB plain text file written in 1980's Microworld BASIC.

Anyone interested? I only need to get my head around ngrok to complete the proof of concept. cheers G

A fan from the 80s

Fri, 08 May 2026 12:23:31 +1000

Hey guys, it's a pleasure to finally make it to the board.
I am a MicroBee user from the 80s.
If you want to know more about me, well, the first sentence in my LinkedIn bio says it all!

"My passion for technology began in the 1980s with exposure to MicroBee, an Australian educational computer company, sparking a lifelong interest in tech."

I am just here to talk MicroBee and talk hardware, and tech generally.
Reach out and say hi, and feel free to ask any questions.
I live in Queensland State, on the Gold Coast.
It's great to meet y'all!

Full bio:

Code:
My passion for technology began in the 1980s with exposure to MicroBee, an Australian educational computer company, sparking a lifelong interest in tech. 

Growing up during the personal computing boom, I witnessed the pivotal developments of the 1980s and 1990s. 

Immersed in systems like the Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, and Amiga, I gained early programming experience. 

BASIC on the VIC-20 and C64 fueled my interest, while the Amiga broadened my understanding of computing. As I advanced through school, I saw rapid innovation with systems like the Apple Macintosh and Intel’s processors. 

My programming skills grew with Q-BASIC on MS-DOS, and Windows 95 revolutionized user interface design. 

In 2002, I adopted Linux, deepening my engagement with technology. 

Over the years, I’ve contributed to projects like Creative Commons, Tor, Tails, and cloud computing. 

Recently, my focus shifted to artificial intelligence. 

In 2012, I co-founded Freedom Publishers Union, advocating for free speech, digital rights, and open information. 

I’ve held roles as a Linux technologist, web entrepreneur, and publisher, with skills in photographic imaging and graphic design complementing my technical expertise. 

From my home in Gold Coast, Queensland, I stay active in the FOSS and Linux communities. 

As an anarchist and advocate for free speech, anti-censorship, and digital rights, I criticize capitalist structures for perpetuating inequality and greed. 

I’m also a strong proponent of encryption to combat government surveillance. 

I was a member of the Pirate Party of Australia and later founded Democratic Pirates Australia, which merged with Freedom Publishers Union. 

I continue to support Creative Commons and the Tor Project. 

In January 2023, I was appointed Director of Cicada 3301 AU, and in October 2023, I joined the Australian Republic Movement. 

Zen Buddhism also plays a key role in my personal and professional life.

A Brief History of Microworld BASIC article

Tue, 05 May 2026 17:29:12 +1000

Thanks to MbeeTech for providing this Wordstar document that was found on a Basic source code disk.

It was written by Garner Annett and dated 25 May 1987 with a small update on 9 June 1988. It covers the history of Microworld BASIC from version 5.00 through to the last version 6.35 and includes both ROM and floppy drive versions. We have most of the versions available in the Repository.

The Wordstar doc was loaded into Wordperfect on my Win 11 PC. It natively supports Wordstar 3.0, 3.3 and 4.0 versions and then saved out as a MS Word document. A couple of minor layout issues were fixed, margins adjusted and saved out as a PDF.

So in the MbeeTech Repository in the Microbee\Documentation\Articles folder we placed

MicroWorld_Basic_History.pdf

Pomodoro Program

Mon, 04 May 2026 21:22:51 +1000

Here is a quick and dirty program for the Pomodoro Method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

00100 REM pomodoro for the m'bee 2026
00110 CLSRINTRINTRINT,,"POMODORO for Microbee 2026"
00120 PRINT
00130 INPUT "press ENTER to begin 25 minute work session:"W1$
00140 S=0:F=S
00150 X=IN(12):IF(X AND 32)=32 THEN 150
00160 X=IN(12):IF(X AND 32)=0 THEN 160
00170 F=F+1:IF F<50THEN150
00180 CURS 960:F=0:S=S+1RINT 2210-FLT(S);:IF S<2210 THEN 150
00190 PLAY 8,4: PLAY 13,4LAY 16,8
00200 PRINT "Twenty Five Minutes Up, Have a Break"
00210 INPUT "press ENTER when break finished"G1$
00220 RUN
00230 SAVE "POMO"

StarNet network Client adapters?

Mon, 04 May 2026 10:07:55 +1000

Hi Folks -

Does anyone have a StarNet Network adapter pcb diagram or a physical adapter?

Hoping to find one of these so I can potentially setup a "Yesteryear's classroom" demonstration.

Cheers

50 years of Tiny Basic

Fri, 01 May 2026 17:56:28 +1000

1975 was the year Tiny BASIC was conceived. Dennis Allison of Stanford, urged by Bob Albrecht of the People's Computer Company (PCC), published a design specification for a minimal BASIC interpreter. This was a direct response to Bill Gates’ open letter complaining about hobbyists copying his Altair BASIC. The PCC called for programmers to implement the design and submit their versions for publication.

Implementations soon flowed in. In January 1976, the first issue of Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia, Running Light Without Overbyte was published — the birthplace of Tiny BASIC in working code.

Two Tiny BASIC implementations published in DDJ would prove historically significant for Australian computing. The first, by Dick Whipple and John Arnold of Tyler, Texas, appeared in the January 1976 issue. The second, Palo Alto Tiny BASIC by Li-Chen Wang, appeared in May 1976 and later became the basis for Tandy’s TRS-80 Level I BASIC in 1977.

Whipple and Arnold took an unconventional approach: rather than using an assembler, they wrote their interpreter directly in octal! Fellow Tiny BASIC author Tom Pittman later described this as “a surprisingly popular Luddite methodology whose proponents have never survived long in the marketplace.” Harsh, but it speaks to the unmaintainability of code written without symbolic structure.

From Octal to MicroBee: The Lineage of MicroWorld BASIC

In January 1976, Dick Whipple and John Arnold published TBX — a Tiny BASIC interpreter for the Intel 8080 — in Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Written entirely in octal with no assembler, it supported variables named as a single letter or a letter followed by a digit (0–7). By May 1976 it had been paired with Robert Suding’s TV-Cassette Operating System for The Digital Group’s S-100 hardware.

Within a year, Whipple and Arnold commercialised an expanded version called **Basic Etc**, sold through Binary Systems Inc in Richardson, Texas. By July 1977, a disk-capable version — **Disk Basic Etc** — was announced. The product targeted the iCOM FD3712 dual 8-inch floppy drive (the MITS/Pertec/Altair standard). It assembled to roughly 12,000 bytes of 8080 code from a 6,000-line source listing, sold for $100, and retained the distinctive base-8 variable system (A0–Z7).

A business suite built on it included a general ledger package (CPA) and a letter-writing system (Write-On). By June 1979, both Whipple and Arnold were listed as Associate Editors of Kilobaud Microcomputing. That same summer, The Digital Group declared bankruptcy, which destroyed much of Binary Systems Inc’s primary customer base. The $100 source listing continued to be available by mail order.

In Australia, Applied Technology of Waitara, NSW, was selling S-100 hardware and software, including MicroWorld BASIC for the 2650 processor. Written in 1979 by Ian Binnie (with a manual by Martin Hood), this interpreter used the identical A0–Z7 base-8 variable naming convention.

Meanwhile, Sydney hobbyist Alan Peek had independently written a 2650 BASIC in 1978 that used only single-letter variables — confirming that the two-character base-8 system in MicroWorld BASIC was a deliberate design choice, not an obvious default.

In 1982, Matthew Starr was credited with MicroWorld BASIC for the MicroBee. The A0–Z7 variable convention survived intact into every MicroBee shipped — around 70,000 machines used in Australian and international schools — carrying the octal philosophy of the two Texas hobbyists forward six years and twelve thousand miles

Earlier, by 1981, Ron Harris had ported BASIC ETC to the Zilog Z80 for Dick Smith Electronics, producing Super-80 BASIC. The Super-80 Reference Manual explicitly states:

“Developed and written by John Arnold and Dick Whipple. Re-written and modified by Ron Harris for Dick Smith Electronics. Super-80 BASIC is based on a BASIC interpreter written in the USA by East Texas Computers, originally titled ‘BASIC ETC’.

Harris was closely connected to the MicroBee ecosystem — he also wrote EDASM (the Z80 Editor/Assembler that shipped as an optional ROM for the MicroBee) and co-authored the Graphic WordBee manual.

MicroWorld BASIC, written by Matthew Starr and burned into the MicroBee’s 16KB ROM from 1982 onward, thus shows the clearest surviving evidence of this lineage. Its variable naming convention of A0–Z7 (letter plus digit 0–7) is identical to that of BASIC ETC and distinct from Microsoft BASIC’s 0–9 range. This is not coincidence — it is a direct inherited trait from the 1976–77 octal implementation by Whipple and Arnold in Tyler, Texas, through Ron Harris’s Z80 port, and into every Australian MicroBee.

Dick Whipple continued working in electronics, particularly in Amateur Radio. He contributed to Nuts & Volts magazine and later published the two-book From Scratch series on Amazon 11 - 1) Build Your Own Computer and 11 -2) Build Your Own BASIC, the latter implementing Tiny BASIC on an FPGA. His author biography notes that he “was there at the beginning of the Microcomputer Revolution, programming an Intel 8080, first in machine code then in assembler” — a quiet acknowledgement of where it all started.

NB: “East Texas Computers” appears only in Australian publications with no other records found. It seems to have been an informal or trading name for Whipple and Arnold / Binary Systems???

references
"\micro_basic_2650_manual.pdf"
"\dick_smith_super80_brochure.pdf"
"\Creative_Computing_v05_n04_1979_Apr.pdf"
"\Interface Age 1979-03.pdf"
"\Kilobaud_Microcomputing_1979_June.pdf"
"\dr_dobbs_journal_vols 1-2-03.pdf"
\amazon.com.au\
\archive.org\
\microbee_repository\

Super Expansion Board for the Super-80

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 08:48:46 +1000

Thanks to gg for providing pictures of the PCB and schematics of his Super Expansion Board. After much cleanup they are now converted to readable PDF files.

The Super Expander Board provides Joystick, Paddles and Centronics Printer ports as well as user Input and Output ports.

So in the MbeeTech Vintage Repository in the Super-80/Documentation/Hardware/PCB folder we placed

super-80_expansion_board_pcb.pdf

super-80_expansion_board_schematics.pdf <-- in the Documentation/Hardware//Schematics folder

G'day guys

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:08:53 +1000

I'm not the most eloquent bloke out there, so I'll keep it short.

Family bought the Microbee 32k with tape drive way back in the 80's when I was a pre-teen boy with the inability to sit still at school. I have 3 very clear memories that I have held onto and think about often in the last 40 years:

1. I scored 912 in Dodgem, and no-one else saw me do it.

2. I learned what a factorial was when I played Escape from Colditz, and never finished the game because I was too young to figure out the other questions.

3. I did my first programming ever in Basic and it got me hooked on computers for life.

I will be honest, I have been thinking about the first 2 memories disturbingly often over the last 40 years or so. One of the younger guys here at work, as we were discussing old computers, said to me "Why don't you ask Grok how to find the games?". I sort of looked at him disdainfully, thinking that I don't need some silly AI thing to find something on the internet, and by the time I finished rolling my eyes and telling him that, he'd already put the question to his phone and it spat out the Microbee Technology website.

So here I am, now I am going to do whatever is required in order to finally solve Escape from Colditz. The Dodgem score is not something I will ever attempt to beat, that memory is a strong anchor that holds me to earth during some crazy times.

Thank you all for keeping these things alive, guys.

Cheers,
Gommy

Two Microbee Matilda brochures

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 20:17:35 +1000

Thanks to lloydb for providing scans of these 2 early brochures/flyers. These were converted to a searchable PDF as usual. Both are a single sheet double sided.

The Matilda was the last official version of the Microbee released before Microcorp closed the doors. Only about 200 Matilda's were ever sold.

The Microbee Matilda delivers all the benefits of the MS-DOS operating system at a speedy 8 MHz with superior EGA full colour graphics. The Matilda allows you to also run the thousands of programs available to the traditional Microbee user.

So in the MbeeTech Repository in the Microbee\Documentation\Brochures folder we placed

matilda_flyer.pdf
matilda_promo.pdf

Fun with HD18..rom compatible drives

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:39:51 +1000

I have been working on patching the ship, init, maintain utilities to allow the use of a 20Mb hard disk drive (612/4/17) - effectively the same geometry as the Teac SD-520.

I didn’t have access to the assembly source for any of the software so started by disassembling the executables and working with GPT to identify the routines that called

The ship.com utility was the easiest as it’s effectively a tiny assembly routine that performs a seek beyond the 612 cylinder and waits for power to be turned off or a keypress.

The init.com utility was a lot more complex - as there were values that weren’t as obvious as cylinder / head / sectors - the total # of cylinders was calculated and ‘guard-rails’ were used as validation - I could get the ship.com hard disk routine to format the drive to the size I wanted quite quickly.

What was more complex (and is still ongoing) is the partition definition - the logic within the init.com routine allowed a maximum of 10Mb to be divided up in 0.5Mb increments - this needed to be extended to 20Mb while maintaining a maximum partition size of 8Mb.

A minimum of three partitions is required on a 20Mb disk as it needs to fulfil the criteria of no partition can exceed maximum CP/M 2.2 size of 8Mb, and the remaining space is automatically added to the last partition if the full drive capacity has not been reached.

I have managed to get the interface to work correctly -but- what appears to be the final *Hopefully* issue is the calculations of the DPB and placement of the directory blocks with the right offsets from track 0 for the second and subsequent partitions - use of partition #3 causes the system to crash.

Fun with a 32mb CF image

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:58:34 +1000

using Grok and Claude I have managed to get a working 21mb image:

MicroBee 512k CP/M Compact Flash Image — Project Summary

Background
The MicroBee 512k is emulated here under the ubee512 emulator. The system boots from a Compact Flash card image, with the ROM BIOS (version 0.58/cf8) loading a secondary bootloader (BOOT.SYS) which in turn initialises the CP/M environment across multiple disk partitions. The starting point was a working 30MB image with four partitions — A: through D: — each limited to approximately 5MB, leaving roughly 11MB of the image completely unused.

Objective
To safely expand the D: partition to use as much of the unused space as possible, while keeping A:, B: and C: fully intact and bootable.

Investigation

The project required significant detective work before any modifications could be made safely. Analysis of the MBR partition table revealed the image geometry — 123 cylinders, 16 heads, 32 sectors per track — correctly decoded from the filename

Code:
cfboot_0_58_cf8_123_16_32

Early attempts at enlarging D: failed because the CHS fields in the MBR were being calculated against the wrong geometry (16 SPT instead of 32 SPT), producing partition table entries that confused the BIOS.

A key breakthrough came from the PART.COM utility output running inside CP/M, which revealed the BIOS was reporting 32 sectors per track — not 16 as initially assumed. Once the correct geometry was confirmed by reverse-engineering the original CHS values mathematically, partition table entries could be constructed accurately.

Further investigation uncovered a second constraint: an apparent signed 16-bit boundary in the BIOS or BOOT.SYS where any partition whose LBA start address exceeded 0x8000 (32,768) would become inaccessible. This explained why earlier 8MB attempts with incorrectly positioned partitions failed — D:'s start address was being interpreted as a negative number.

Testing Methodology

With the geometry corrected and D:'s LBA start address confirmed safe at 0x7600, a systematic binary search was conducted on D:'s size, testing incrementally in cylinder units (each cylinder = 512 sectors = 256KB):

20 cylinders (5MB) ✓ original
21 cylinders (5.25MB) ✓
24 cylinders (6MB) ✓
25 cylinders (6.25MB) ✓
26 cylinders (6.5MB) ✗
28 cylinders (7MB) ✗
32 cylinders (8MB) ✗

The ceiling of 25 cylinders is consistent with the compiled-in DSM value in the CP/M BIOS Disk Parameter Block — the maximum block number the BIOS was built to address for that partition. Exceeding it causes silent failure without any error message.

Result
The final production image retains the original filename for compatibility, with the following partition layout:
Drive A:4.73MB (unchanged, bootable)
B: 5.00MB (unchanged)
C: 5.00MB (unchanged)
D: 6.25MB (expanded)
Total
~21MB usable

All four drives are accessible, existing data on A: was preserved throughout, and files copied to D: during testing survived correctly. The expansion represents the maximum achievable without recompiling the CP/M BIOS with a larger DSM value — a significantly more complex undertaking.

UBee512 Launcher UI

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:07:07 +1000

Hi people, I am a nostalgic Microbee user who is infrequently using ubee512 and something I have found is that I am constantly having to relearn how to use it each time I get hit by a wave of nostalgia.

This is the reason I decided to build myself a UI launcher using tkinter that can scan my ubee folder for disk images and roms, and then builds the launch code. I can just hit the start button and get into whatever old game I decided to play or try writing some old basic code for a laugh.

Is anyone else interested in trying the launcher? If there is interest from other users I would be happy to share.

I have support for printing to a text file on the host computer from the microbee and I am working on integrating CP/M tools as well. But right now the launcher is working well for me on my linux host.

Many Microbee articles and Magazine extracts

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:28:52 +1000

From a recent purchase there were a number of Microbee related articles worth scanning and archiving. More Your Computer magazines were found on archive.org of issues we dont have, so all the Microbee related articles were extracted.

Check out the prices Microcorp was selling Microbees for just prior to their release of the Microbee Matilda back in June 1990.

So in the MbeeTech Repository in the Microbee\Documentation\Articles folder we placed

denistone_east_demonstration_program.pdf
letter_to_smug_selected_to_evaluate_premium_series_86_01.pdf
list_of_3rd_party_microbee_software_suppliers.pdf
microbees_1986_christmas_promotion.pdf
microbee_changes_and_solftware_prices_1982.pdf
microbee_inservice_courses.pdf
microbee_system_letterhead_press_release.pdf
microbee_user_groups_discounts_&_price_list_84_11.pdf
microcorp_microbee_clearence_sale_90_06.pdf
northside_membership_application_form.pdf
telememo_use_instructions.pdf

ausbug_membership_application_form.pdf <-- Public\Newsletters\Ausbug folder

give_your_programs_a_good_start_yc_87_07.pdf <-- in Public\Magazines\Your_Computer\1987 folder
glyphic_software_advert_yc_87_08.pdf
greymatter_zeephon_advert_yc_87_04.pdf
your_microbee_yc_87_04.pdf
your_microbee_yc_87_08.pdf

microbee_upgrade_policy_yc.pdf <-- in Public\Magazines\Your_Computer folder

Microbee 5.25" Floppy disk labels

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:11:33 +1000

Thanks to davidm for making these disks available to have their labels scanned. Scanned at 300 dpi and saved as JPG files.

While we already have these games/programs in the Repository, imaging the disk was not needed but we didnt have the actual disk labels in the collection. Most are from Jacaranda Willey and CARE. The 2 Turbo disks were updated as these are actual Microbee version disks.

So in the Mbeetech Repository in the Microbee/Documentation/Pictures/Disks/5.25_inch folder we placed

cherry_maths.jpg
cunning_running.jpg
decide_your_destiny_1.jpg
decide_your_destiny_2.jpg
decide_your_destiny_3.jpg
dreamcards_flip.jpg
dreamcards_misc_disk.jpg
flashprint_release_h.jpg
gold-dust_island.jpg
mbug_dos_disk_catalogue.jpg
micro_ed_1.4.jpg
pmedit.jpg
quick-cartage_company.jpg
scavenger_hunt.jpg
secrets.jpg
sheep-dog_trial.jpg
spelling_manager.jpg
turbo_database_toolbox.jpg <-- updated
turbo_pascal.jpg <-- updated
whats_the_time_mr_wolf.jpg

GreaseWeazel Fun

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 23:14:00 +1000

Hi All

I have decided to aquire a Greaseweazel so I can assist with software preservation activity, both for my private interest but also for the local ACMS.

Does anyone have a cookbook they'd like to share ? Recipes to make use easier?

A co-worker pulled an enclosure stl and has printed it for me - I have opted for a 5.25" Mitsubishi drive (as used in the early SBC) and have a NEC high density drive in transit to fill it - a 720kb and 1.4mb drive will eventually be fitted to a second enclosure.

Could the greaseweazel drive a SBC01/02 - the cable should be compatible if I've read the specifications right?