The BBC and Master Computer Public Domain Library

Image Input. Scanners, Cameras, Digitisers

	Snap Camera. It simply plugs in to the user port. A simple bit of software then enables you to take pictures. It requires a lot of careful positioning to get an image, great fun. Below, some pictures taken with the camera. Below that, the insides. The software with it allows you to take still image, movies or use it as a security camera amongst many other things
	Thanks to Matthew Pye for these photos of another Snap Camera. This one has writing on it
	Polaroid Palette Film Attachment for the BBC Micro It is a device for taking pictures of the screen display. The Polaroid Palette Image Recorder with suitable software is capable of producing high quality full colour 35mm projection slides, overhead transparencies and photographic quality colour prints. It photographs a second screen not the main screen. The second screen is inside a light-proof main unit (see photos), and is a small black-and-white screen (better resolution) rather than a colour screen. The main unit also has a camera mounting point to which can be attached a camera body that takes the pictures from the miniature screen. With a black-and-white screen. It then turns the image into colour using filter wheels and multiple exposure. In use the unit gets its video signal from the BNC video out of the Beeb, and its instructions from the serial port. There is a pass-through to a monitor if you wish, or you can of course have an RGB monitor attached separately to the Beeb.
	Hand Scanner. The hand scanner is a well sought after item!
	Watford Hand Scanner. Thanks to Richard Hall for these photos. Info from Richard: Though it doesn't show it in the picture, the scanner's lead plugs into the right hand side of that box. Also pictured is a 1Mhz Bus extension ribbon.
	Thanks to the person advertised this on eBay for the photos and info: VIDEO MIXER FOR THE BBC MICROCOMPUTER. An amazing piece of BBC kit. It is called a VEL BEEB-LOCK, and essentially it is a video mixer specially designed to take BBC computer video output and mix it with another video source. You can then choose to show either the BBC output or the video source output (eg a VCR tape) on screen, or you can mix the two so that the BBC output overlays the other signal. In this way you can produce video titling on the humble Beeb. More than that, you can fade the BBC output or the video output manually to create special on-screen effects. The way that it works is by having a special extra circuit inside the BBC Micro producing an extra video signal suitable for video mixing. The unit that you can see has inputs on the back for both the normal RGB signal and the special extra signal, and there is an RGB output to a normal BBC monitor. In this way you can always see the normal BBC picture. The back of the unit also has an input for a video source such as a VCR, plus a mixed output in the form of a composite video signal that goes to another monitor capable of handling it. By using two monitors you can then see the normal BBC output and the mixed signal output at the same time. The mixed signal can be recorded of course in the normal way. The BEEB-LOCK can even be used to mix two video signals independently of a BBC Micro (eg two VCR outputs) increasing its versatility, and the instructions say that it produces broadcast quality output.
	Watford Video Digitiser
	Astrid Satellite receiver. Thanks to Richard Brain for the photo and info: VERY RARE BBC B/Spectrum COMPUTER ASTRID (Automatic Satellite Telemetry Receiver & Information Decoder) SATELLITE EARTH STATION The Astrid external decoding box, turns the BBC B or Spectrum computer into a Satellite base station (specialised recievers and antennas were required for it use), this was mainly used by colleges (due to its expense) to receive real time satellite images of weather etc . The unit was designed to work with the UoSAT1 and UoSAT2 weather satellites. This unit comes with its original documentation (called operators manual) and sales leaflets. It also comes complete with a casette tape - which has writing on it indicating that it contains satellite images.
	Bitronic SHAPE RECOGNITION SYSTEM. It comprises of a sliding perspex stage which has a row of 17 optical sensors underneath. As the object is passes over the sensor array, object and positioning information is passed into the Beeb's user port, enabling it to 'see' an image - this is a very primitive scanner. approx 4 dpi. Thanks to TIM WAYRE for this