How to emulate a BBC Micro on a Raspberry Pi (full tutorial)

In this tutorial I show how to emulate a BBC Micro using a Raspberry Pi. This is a complete tutorial with full instructions, end to end. It also includes a quick how-to for getting a fresh copy of Raspberry Pi OS up and running, in case your Pi is in a poorly condition (as mine was!) I'm using a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B but the steps should work for any model, including the Pi Pico for which the original guide by Ashley Whittaker was written. As I say in the video, this is all very much "standing on the shoulders of giants", I didn't come up with this by myself and am hugely indebted to both Ashley and Graham for their work. All I want to do is try and promote the concept a bit more, because I think it's ace! 00:00 Introduction 01:27 Installing Raspberry Pi OS 04:16 Getting a Beeb wallpaper 05:03 The Terminal 05:20 Step 1 06:04 Step 2 07:28 Step 3 11:41 Step 4 15:35 Step 5 & 6 16:52 Step 8 20:50 Testing embedded disc images LINKS: Ashley Whittaker's article: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/emul... Raspberry Pi disc imager: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ Graham "kilograham" Sanderson's B-em Git repository: https://github.com/kilograham/b-em Raspberry Pi pico-extras Git repository: https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-e... Elesar keyboard: https://shop.elesar.co.uk/index.php?r... COMMANDS: I've tried to include all of the major commands used in the video aligned with the steps. You can also refer directly to Ashley's article. Step 1 sudo raspi-config Step 2 sudo apt install build-essential cmake libdrm-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxcb-dri3-dev libepoxy-dev ruby libasound2-dev Step 3 mkdir Pico cd Pico wget https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-s... tar -xzf 1.5.1.tar.gz git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-e... git clone https://github.com/kilograham/b-em.git cd b-em mkdir pi_build cd pi_build cmake -DPICO_SDK_PATH=path/to/pico-sdk -DPI_BUILD=1 -DPICO_PLATFORM=host -DDRM_PRIME=1 -DX_GUI=1 .. make -j4 Step 4 cd src/pico ./xbeeb ./xmaster Step 5 & 6 Press F11 to get the on-screen menu within B-em Use the cursor keys to navigate the menu, including the left/right cursors to select a disc image Press Enter when you have found the disc image you want to use Use SHIFT + F12 to boot up the disc image (or you can type *EXEC !BOOT and press Return) Use ALT + F4 to close the emulator Step 7 Deliberately skipped as I decided not to include this, since embedding disc images is - in my opinion - far more preferable. Step 8 Use the following syntax when adding new entries to the beeb_discs_user.txt or master_discs_user.txt files: Name Of Game = /path/to/discs/name_of_game.ssd You can use the "greater than" symbol next to one entry to designate the default disc image There seems to be a maximum limit of 144 entries in the configuration file, after which you run the risk of compilation errors If you haven't already got a pile of disc images, you can get almost any BBC Micro game from the Complete BBC Micro Games Archive site: https://www.bbcmicro.co.uk