Thanks to Ian2U I finally got my hands on a beeb. I haven't used one since the 7th form, and the keyclicks bring back memories of wasted school hours playing Elite.
Anyway - it turned up in a box earlier this week, and I quickly unpacked it with a view to firing it up in my lunch hour to ascertain the state of things.
In hindsight, I should have done this in a workshop, and not the build area near my desk - even better yet, outside!
So yes, as expected (although not by me at the time...) there was the old familiar crackling pop followed by acrid white smoke. A lot of wafting and assuring everyone in the office that there was no cause for alarm, I popped it in the boot, deciding to further investigate at home.
Stripping the beast down to find the faulty caps revealed something I hadn't expected - a daughter board, and only a single ROM. The daughter board indicated it was a 65602 Co-Pro, making this machine a Master Turbo - and the single ROM was a red herring - it was a large one, with multiple images. A quick trip to JayCar the next day for replacement filter caps, and it was all go.
Ian had included a ROM cart, and manual, so now I can easily bridge the gap between the old BBC B and this incarnation.
I wanted to hang it off my Apple //e green screen, owing to my normal test TV setup being shattered in the recent quake, so I swapped the BNC connector for and RCA one, and lo and behold, it sprang to life.
I've now ordered an Arduino SD card board (<$3 from China) and if I can burn my own ROMs, should be able to have SD card images for a lot cheaper than the Apple CFFA option!