Rare North Polar Expedition Box Set added

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The North Polar Expedition box set is the only laserdisc made specifically for the Acorn Domesday system that was not produced by the BBC.  Instead the laserdisc was produced by Virgin Media.  Although this is not a LV-ROM (the data was provided on two floppy discs), it is extremely rare and virtually no information has been available on the web Continue reading Rare North Polar Expedition Box Set added→

Philips VP415 Module Guide added

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Continuing the effort to provide extensive technical documentation on the BBC Domesday system, a new section has been added detailing the individual modules present in the Philips VP415 Domesday Laserdisc player. Each module contains a description and a high-resolution photograph of the module.  More information will be added to the individual module pages over time (with the intent of providing Continue reading Philips VP415 Module Guide added→

Domesday Duplicator released!

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I’m pleased to announce that the Domesday Duplicator project has finally reached release status.  The Domesday Duplicator is a sub-project of Domesday86 that aims to allow the creation of detailed (RF level) back-ups of the BBC Domesday AIV laserdiscs. The Domesday Duplicator is an open-source, open-hardware solution for direct RF capture of laserdiscs that allows the raw information on any Continue reading Domesday Duplicator released!→

Emulated Domesday system demonstration at Midlands ABUG 2017

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The Domesday86 team recently attended the Midlands ABUG meeting in Leicester and demonstrated the emulated Domesday system.  The demonstration system consisted of a standard Acorn Master computer (using both the Acorn Co-Pro and the Raspberry Pi based co-pro emulator), SmallyMouse2 (with USB trackball), BeebSCSI (providing the SCSI emulation) and the Windows-based VP415 video emulator (all available from the project’s Github Continue reading Emulated Domesday system demonstration at Midlands ABUG 2017→

Eco Disc CD-ROM

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A copy of the Eco Disc CD-ROM produced by Apple and the BBC’s Interactive Television Unit was kindly donated by its original producer Stewart Atkins and copies of the graphics and user manual are now available for download on this site.  The CD-ROM was produced for the Apple Macintosh range of computers and is based on Hypercard. Please see the Continue reading Eco Disc CD-ROM→

Original Domesday development machine imaged!

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Thanks to a dedicated group of enthusiasts over on the Acorn Stardot forums, an original Domesday development machine has been imaged and the hard drive contents are now available on this website.  The original machine was an Acorn A500 (a prototype type of the Acorn Archimedes) which was used by Logica (the company that originally developed the Domesday project for Continue reading Original Domesday development machine imaged!→

National disc surrogate (virtual) walks

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The section covering the National disc has been expanded with a new section covering the Domesday surrogate walks (better known as virtual walks these days).  This ‘street view’ like feature was one of the innovations of the Domesday system and allows you to walk around towns, forests and homes from the 1980s.  The new guide includes screen-shots, plans and real-world Continue reading National disc surrogate (virtual) walks→

Modern version of the Domesday user guide released

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Domesday86.com have created a new version of the BBC Domesday system documentation covering the use of both the Community and National disc software and data.  This easy to use PDF based document is available for download and will be periodically updated with new information.  Unlike the old documentation, the user guide features large high-resolution screenshots of the Domesday system.  This Continue reading Modern version of the Domesday user guide released→