National Museum of Computing appeals for BBC Micro computer repairers

The National Museum of Computing – otherwise known as the TNMOC – has made an appeal for BBC Micro computer repairers to step forward in a bid to help it maintain its stock of BBC machines that are currently in use for exhibits and education programmes.

It is particularly looking for people who are familiar with the computer including disk drives and monitors.

The 8-bit BBC Micro was originally launched back in 1981, and the TNMOC currently has about 80 of the machines. Some of them are used for display purposes but most of them are part of an interactive exhibition that recreates a classroom in the 1980s.

Learning co-ordinator at the organisation, Chris Monk, said;

"We want to find out whether people have got skills out there that can keep the cluster alive as long as we can.

"A lot of the students are used to using Python and they know how fussy that can be when you do not put your indents in the right place. [The] BBC basic does not care as it was designed to be quite tolerant of spacing and it tries to give them sensible error messages."

A volunteer at the museum, Owen Grover, helps maintain the cluster of BBC Micro machines, said that despite their age, they held up well. He described the BBC Micro as being "pretty robust", with the power supply being "the main problem we need to sort out.

He continued;

"There are two capacitors that dry out and if we do not replace them they tend to explode and stink the place out. So we change them as a matter of course."

General maintenance on the machines includes replacing keys that stick and the occasional component that fails. Thankfully, he said, there were few custom-built components in the machine so getting spares is easy. Harder-to-obtain parts are cannibalised from broken or faulty machines the museum has in its stores.

Getting spare parts is easy as there were not many custom-built components in the machine, and general maintenance includes replacing occasional components and issues like sticking keys.

Mr Grover continued;

"The good thing about them is that they are repairable. We are not going to be repairing power supplies in modern equipment in 30 years' time because they are not designed to be opened up and replaced."

Anyone who may be able to help can apply via the museum’s website.

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