Beebdroid (BBC Micro emulator)
See that Android phone in your hand? That's not Intel inside
- it's powered by an ARM processor. The 'A' in 'ARM' stood for Acorn, a visionary British company that produced the seminal BBC Micro, and thirty years later
- coming full circle
- your phone hosts its venerable ancestor today.
Have fun reliving classic games from the 1980s, hosted by BBC Micro preservation website stairwaytohell.com
- any questions, please email [email protected]
Works at the full 50 frames per second on most recent powerful Android phones and tablets. This means anything significantly better than an HTC Desire or Nexus One (except, annoyingly, the brand new Galaxy Nexus, because it has the archaic GPU from 2010's Galaxy S pushing 240% of the pixels), or any Android 3.x or 4.x tablet. If you try to run this thing on something like a Wildfire or a ZTE Blade, please don't whinge to us that it runs like a dog
- just go and buy a Galaxy S II already ;) It's an extremely faithful emulation, way moreso than other machines' emulators, but if you think you can make it quicker, get involved
- it's open-source
- code it!
Works with the specialised controls of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (but doesn't run at 50 frames per second).
This FREE and OPEN SOURCE application
- the source code is published on Github at https://github.com/littlefluffytoys/Beebdroid
- is based on B-Em for Linux by Tom Walker and licensed under GNU General Public License v2.0 as detailed at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
- we encourage others to assist us in developing Beebdroid further. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the license for more details.
Beebdroid does not ship with any third party programs such as games
- these are accessed via third party websites which have hosted such programs for years. Should any licence holders object to third party websites providing such programs, please contact the third party websites in question. We are furthermore also happy on a best-effort basis to block the visibility of specific programs within Beebdroid upon written request from verified product licence holders. We are also able to offer an in-app payment solution for your programs in such circumstances
- please contact us for details.
The rights to the BBC Micro ROMs are believed by the emulator community to have effectively fallen into the public domain, having lain unclaimed for many years
- Acorn itself is of course long bankrupt, and the documentation for the rights is rumoured to have gone down in the World Trade Center on 9/11. If you believe that you have a claim to the ROMs that has never been disclosed to the emulator community, or indeed has never been proven under law, remember that this is a labour of love, a free and open source preservation effort, and so please talk to us in the first instance, cheers!
Category : Education
Reviews (30)
Fantastic emulator! Thanks guys. I grew up coding on a Beeb and this took me right back! I ran "LIST" a few times on my code and the from nowhere my fingers did "L." That's 35+ years ago!! And who can forget LISTO7!! Such happy memories, brought back by this app. One question, should SAVE work??
NIce little app, using with my Chromebook and unlike a lot of emulators, it recognises the keyboard. Only niggle is that there only appears to be two screen sizes - phone size or full screen, though I appreciate that it's primarilly written for a touchscreen.
I've recompiled this in Android Studio (year 2020), and have fixes in my fork on GitHub for Bluetooth keyboards etc. Please contact me - I'd like this listing updated rather than to publish my own. It's working on, for example, the Amazon Fire TV stick.
Loving this. My youth, Mode 7 and red F keys in my hand. Big Acorn fan, and realised all too late the system was ahead of its time. Will there be a Master 128 version to take advantage of some games' advanced features? Thinking of my favourite Strykers Run enhanced edition here.... Great work by all involved.
Brilliant but in desperate need of an update! The joystick is unusable on a lot of modern phones.
Neat idea to have an authentic looking keyboard, but unfortunately the key labels are so small that I find them extremely difficult to read.
COOL. The included game 'controller' could be easier to see, though... Otherwise: Amazingly amazing!
great app, just wish the keyboard on my tablet worked fully with it.. the on screen one works, but such a pain when typing in long ish..listings.
Brilliant .So easy to use brilliant.i just wish it was this simple on my arcade table! Using gameex - tricky trying to set it up!
wish the developer who has not updated in ages allowed others to update this app real shame it has not been updated .. does not work well with modern bluetooth devices
So close to being able to play Citadel on my TV but so far, please add Bluetooth support and key remapping :)
Brilliant but desperately needs an update the controls are awful and make the games almost unplayable
crashes on startup. shame that this is the only one on the store and it doesnt even work.
Brilliant. Modes, colours, sounds, abbreviations like P. and L. Games, Frogger, Defender, Asteroids, Chucky Egg etc etc...
Android 10 armor 9 fails when trying to load a previously saved state.
Awesome pocket-based Beeb! Would love a few more games, but you can't have everything... ;)
Great emulator, but needs load local disc option. Great work
Please bring back the ability to open files stored locally...?
i open it it says you may need an update on it so then i updated it and it still does not wonr 1/10 horrible
Last update.... 2015 :-| Any one still looking after this app? would like to get in contact please. Thank you!
Poor input - while i typing keyboard but this emulator didnt entered. I'm glad Apple Store rejected this app.
Junk app. Just use an emulator on the PC or a real Beeb.
Galaxy Note 9 review! I tried to email you but it said that the domain doesn't exist. I test emulators on Android.
Brilliant app - relive your BBC Micro days - all games exactly re-created
It reminds me at school again with this emulator.
Impossible to use the onscreen keyboard
Can't even install The Doctor Who game on this ...
Can't see a way to add my own games.
Awesome :) any chance of adding Maths L?
Thanks.... There are only about 3 games playable on a 4 inch droid..... Nothing using the joystick is really playable.... It's too difficult to control. Another issue on the Invader games is the flashing of the player keyboard keys...... Distracting Game play But your app is amazing in of itself.... Thanks