Master Series Reference Manual (Parts 1 + 2)

Acorn’s primary user/programmer documentation for the BBC Master 128. Two volumes totalling ~720 pages. Distinct from the Advanced Reference Manual (master-arm) which is the deeper technical/electrical-level reference for service personnel and hardware developers.

This pair (often referred to as “MRM” in BBC scene) is the canonical user-and-programmer-level documentation:

• Part 1 (400 pages): hardware, MOS, MOS commands, OSBYTE/OSWORD/OSCLI/OSRDCH/OSWRCH/etc., VDU driver (60 pages of detail!), filing systems (CFS/RFS/DFS/ADFS).
• Part 2 (324 pages): BBC BASIC IV, BASIC keywords, BASIC errors, BBC BASIC assembler, 65C12 ISA, system editor (EDIT), text formatter, TERMINAL emulator.

For Master-internal electrical and chip-level detail, prefer master-arm. For programmer-level “how do I use VDU 23,8?” and “what does OSBYTE &14 do exactly?” prefer this manual — its VDU and OSBYTE sections are noticeably more detailed than NAUG’s.

Bibliographic

• Title: Master Series Reference Manual, Part 1 + Part 2
• Publisher: Acorn Computers Ltd.
• Year: ~1986
• PDF source: bitshifters/bbc-documents archive
• Format: 400 + 324 = 724 pages across two PDFs.

Chapter index (performance/hardware-relevant only)

Part 1

Ch	Title	Pages	Filed into
A	System Overview	11-17	cross-checked vs master-overview
B	The Machine Operating System (MOS)	18-23	overview — cross-checked vs calls
C	MOS commands	24-44	Created star-commands (full resident MOS command table + FS commands + sideways-ROM dispatch + per-command detail for GO/CONFIGURE/FX/KEY/HELP)
D	Using MOS routines	45-164	D.2 (OSBYTE) filed into osbyte. D.3 (OSWORD) cross-checked vs osword — Master-new calls (&0E Read CMOS clock, &0F Write CMOS clock) already documented; master-rm added to sources. D.4-D.10 (OSCLI/OSRDCH/OSRDSC/OSWRCH/OSNEWL/OSASCI/OSWRSC/OSEVEN/GSINIT/GSREAD) cross-checked vs calls — already comprehensive.
E	The VDU driver (~60 pages)	165-224	E.1-E.3 filed: extended vdu + plot-codes. E.4 filed: created vdu-internals (variable table, page-0 workspace, second-32K layout, 8 C000 primitive entry points). E.5 pending.
F	Hardware and memory usage	225-264	Cross-checked vs master-overview / memory-map / shadow-ram / paged-rom / 1mhz-bus / system-via / user-via — already comprehensive (Master ARM ingest covered the same ground at greater electrical detail). master-rm added to sources of all 7 pages.
G	Filing Systems (common)	265-296	Cross-checked vs filing-systems (already comprehensive). G.7 sideways-RAM pseudo-addressing detail filed into paged-rom. master-rm added to filing-systems.md sources.
H	The Cassette Filing System	297-308	Cross-checked vs filing-systems — CFS API already covered via NAUG.
I	The ROM Filing System	309-320	Cross-checked vs filing-systems — RFS API already covered.
J	The Disc Filing Systems (DFS + ADFS)	321-383	Created disc-formats (DFS catalogue layout sector 0+1, ADFS Free Space Map + Root Directory sector layout, file/dir attribute encoding, DFS-vs-ADFS comparison table). Commands cross-checked vs existing star-commands + filing-systems.

Part 2

Ch	Title	Pages	Filed into
K-N	BBC BASIC / keywords / errors / technical	11-145	out of scope (BASIC programming primer); BASIC error list already in errors
O	The BBC BASIC assembler	146-169	Cross-checked vs basic-assembler — already comprehensive (via NAUG Ch2 ingest). master-rm added to sources.
P	Assembler keywords	170-205	Cross-checked vs 6502-isa / 6502-addressing-modes / 6502 — already comprehensive (via NAUG Ch5 + Master ARM App 8 ingest). master-rm added to sources of all 3 pages.
Q	Assembler errors	206-215	Cross-checked vs errors — assembler errors Byte/Index/Out of range already documented.
R-T	System editor / formatter	216-282	out of scope (productivity apps)
U	TERMINAL emulator	283-313	out of scope

Filed into (incremental audit trail)

Populated as chapters are ingested. Each entry: chapter → wiki pages created/extended.

• Ch E.1-E.3 (VDU driver: intro, summary, descriptions) → significantly extended vdu with: parsing model (byte-range table), OSBYTE &DA queue-length call, full VDU 18 GCOL mode 5 + ECF mode-byte encoding, VDU 23,n complete sub-function reference (cursor on/off levels, ECF row-byte pixel mapping per bpp, VDU 23,7 direct scroll, VDU 23,8 clear-block base-position table, VDU 23,16 cursor-movement-control flag bits). Significantly extended plot-codes with: precise “k mod 8” coord+colour semantics (relative/absolute + plot-mode selection), precise GXR primitive specifications (circles with radius limit, arc/chord/sector 3-point geometry, ellipse parameter convention with worked rotated-ellipse PROC, flood-fill workspace usage), move/copy rectangle special k handling.
• Ch E.4 (VDU variables + plot vector internals) → created vdu-internals — comprehensive VDU variable table (&300-&37F), Page-0 VDU workspace map, Master second-32K layout (ECF patterns + 7 character-definition pages + ROM defaults at &B900-&BFFF), and the 8 &C000-&C015 primitive entry points (load/store shadow-aware byte, PLBYTE, HPLOT, EIGABS, WIND with 9-position window-clipping table, GADDR, IEG) with worked example re-implementing PLOT 64-71 from the unknown-PLOT-codes vector. Sideways-ROM intercept caveat documented.
• Ch E.5 (Teletext modes 7 + 135) → refined saa5050 with the VDU driver’s 3-character substitution table (# ↔ £ ↔ _ swap to reconcile BBC ASCII with raw SAA5050 glyphs) and the canonical “which VDU commands work in MODE 7” reference table. master-rm added to sources.
• Ch C (MOS commands) → created star-commands with the full resident MOS command list (~45 commands), the dispatch chain (MOS resident → FS → sideways ROMs via service call &04 → *RUN <name> → error 254), filing-system command index per FS, and per-command detail for GO/GOIO/CONFIGURE/FX/KEY/HELP with internals.
• Ch D.2 (OSBYTE) → extended osbyte with MRM functional-grouping index (ADC/BREAK/CMOS/Econet/ESCAPE/FS/IO/keyboard/mode/printer/RS423/shadow/sound/system/time/Tube) and detailed list of all OSBYTEs marked £ “new on Master” or repurposed from Model B (108-114, 161-162, 164, 179, 182, 238, 250-251, 254 etc). master-rm added to sources.
• Ch D.3-D.10 (OSWORD + OSCLI/OSRDCH/OSWRCH/OSNEWL/OSASCI/OSWRSC/OSEVEN/GSINIT/GSREAD) → cross-checked vs osword / calls — Master-new OSWORD calls (&0E Read CMOS clock, &0F Write CMOS clock) already covered via NAUG Ch19. master-rm added to osword.md sources.
• Ch F (Hardware and memory usage) → cross-checked vs master-overview / memory-map / shadow-ram / paged-rom / 1mhz-bus / system-via / user-via. Master ARM ingest already covered the same ground at greater electrical-level detail. master-rm added to sources of 7 hardware/memory pages.
• Ch G + H + I (Filing systems common, CFS, RFS) → cross-checked vs filing-systems — already comprehensive. G.7 (sideways-RAM addressing modes — absolute vs pseudo with W/X/Y/Z bank IDs at &00000-&0FFBF) filed into paged-rom as a new “Master sideways-RAM addressing modes” section. master-rm added to filing-systems.md sources.
• Ch J (DFS + ADFS) → created disc-formats — DFS catalogue layout (sector 0 = title + names; sector 1 = title-tail + MSN + free-pointer + 31 file headers with 18-bit addresses split across nibbles). ADFS Free Space Map (sectors 0+1, lock-stepped 82-entry start/length arrays + checksum); ADFS Root Directory (sectors 2-6, 47-entry format with Hugo identifier, 32-bit addresses, 5-byte name+access-attribute encoding); attribute encoding in top bits of name bytes (R/W/L/E); DFS-vs-ADFS comparison table.
• Part 2 Ch O + P + Q (BASIC assembler + 65C12 ISA + errors) → cross-checked vs basic-assembler / 6502-isa / 6502-addressing-modes / 6502 / errors — already comprehensive (via NAUG Ch2 + Ch5 + Master ARM App 8 ingest). master-rm added to sources of all 4 hardware/tool pages.

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This wiki is curated by Claude following the LLM-Wiki methodology — a human curates source documents, the LLM compiles structured cross-linked markdown. Content may contain errors, omissions, or stale claims. For authoritative information refer to the original source documents in the bbc-documents GitHub archive.