COW - Computer Originated World

[ppppenguin]

We've recently been given a GPS locked SPG, along with antenna etc. Ideal for our purposes. If GPS fails there will be many with greater problems than us. Our SPGs with crystal ovens aren't bad timekeepers. I think we're better than 2 parts in 10E7, or at least we should be to meet the PAL spec which is 1Hz in 4.43MHz. A year is about 3E7 seconds so that's a few seconds per year.

The modern way to lock SPGs is PTP over the internet.

When I first designed SPGs, you could only get the PAL spec with an oven which is expensive and slow to warm up. Albeit a pretty low grade oven. I used TCXOs in later designs when their digital compensation meant they could achieve the spec at lower cost in a smaller package.

[BVH2000]

Jeff, It's nice to know the Broadcast Museum has a GNAT to accompany the COW. what is the "clockface" is it from the very end of on screen clocks or something earlier ?

I wonder if the Wales GNAT still survives, it was sitting under their COW back in 2012 in this flickr link

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyhoeddwr/...8356584153

Sadly I doubt there is any incentive to get it functional as clocks on air are in effect banned these days

Back to COW related things, I realise that a lot of the work we did 10 or more years ago is stored on several devices / storage media and I need to collect it all together into a cohesive record`- don't worry the EPROM data is safe on a laptop, a desktop, 2 separate USB sticks and CDr discs! 
The original COW thread on another forum seems broken with many posts gone (and my account is disabled with seemingly no way to contact admin) 

I have also remembered that I was contacted by someone who wanted the globe map sequence RLE data as he wanted to emulate the cow on other hardware, I'm sure he successfully decoded the data and sent me some example frames - must find that up.

[ppppenguin]

I've no idea about the clock face. We've got what I've shown. I have an alternative BBC2 background but no other clock faces. I will probably try putting the BBC EPROMs on the BBC1 card in the positions currently occupied by RAM. Then it should be switchable by users. It's a shame we don't have the drop-down front panel. I'm making some discreet enquiries about getting machine readable copies of D&ED Handbooks.

In those photos we can see that the COW is serial number 10 while the GNAT is 107. Our GNAT is 102. I don't have immediate access to the serial number of the our COW. Serial numbers below 100 probably mean that they were built by Designs Department. Putting the GNAT directly below the COW without a vent panel was a bad idea. The other way round would have been much worse.

Clocks can't appear on air due to the long and variable coding and decoding delays. Even the pips aren't right if you're listening on DAB or online.

I also have all the COW files with multiple backups.

While we're not allowed to discuss other forums here, I understand that the forum owner concerned deleted all my posts which would have broken many threads. You've got my email address.

[BVH2000]

Evening everybody,
Apologies from the new boy regards discussion of other forums - duly noted 

Jeff, apologies too, I missed the pic of the GNAT clock face you posted earlier thereby pre - answering my question.
Interesting you comment on the numbering of equipment and sub modules. I started a spreadsheet with the details, as far as could be gleaned from photos or physical confirmation, of all the various COWS component serials.

The memory cards UN27S/26 in all the pictures I can find are in the /1xx or /2xx series. When these are plotted against the chassis crate numbers and extrapolated backwards it means that crate 3 had  card 101 and the highest number I have seen is 298 suggesting a batch of 200 ish including some spares. Now going by a comment in the “Bright new world” article in Eng Inf, these were built by the Equipment Department.

So, what went in crates 1&2 ? I have 4 cards numbered 9,10,11&12 ( which had the BBC1 CEEFAX ident EPROMs). As you surmise this probably indicates an initial batch built by the Designs Dept themselves.
These 4 cards were not in the original eBay listing, the seller advised he had some other items I might be interested in.

I’ll leave you for now with a trick question and a bit of a teaser about the initial COW development.

When is a COW not a COW ?

   

When it’s an OWL!
( Open World Logo)

Incidentally there is an only just visible ghost of the number 609 or 607 hand written after ROOM on the Designs Dept labels

This one is on the front
   

Bye for now 

[BVH2000]

I just remembered Today 19/02 is the official 40th of the Regions COW idents
Here's an old montage I did for the 30th
   

[ppppenguin]

I'm well aware of OWLs. The machine was designed by Brian Mason who dubbed it OWL - One World Logo. Richard Russell, who designed the GNAT and who knew Brian, doesn't like the term "COW". For better or worse that's what it's known as. This is the start of an article I've written for the next issue of the BVWS Bulletin:

The BBC menagerie – ruminations on fixing a COW
This article is about my work on what is formally called the GE6SM/565 BBC1 Symbol Generator. It was originally dubbed OWL (One World Logo) but is better known as COW (Computer Originated World).


In the 1980s the BBC designed a whole zoo full of devices with animal names. The LEOPARD was part of a lighting system. The MOUSE (Moving Open University Symbol Equipment) and BAT (Breakfast Analogue Time) were both types of DOG (Digitally Originated Graphics). At the Broadcast Engineering museum we would love a GNAT (Generator, Network Analogue Time) which could generate almost any kind of analogue clock display. If somebody were kind enough to donate one, we’d definitely display it working.

Returning to matters bovine, the COW generates a rotating world and caption as the symbol for BBC1. It superseded a “Noddy” camera mounted on a mechanical contraption that could view a number of captions or objects. The COW was followed in 1991 by more modern computer graphics systems.

The COW was designed by Brian Mason at BBC Designs Department in 1983/4 and entered service in 1985.

We were given the GNAT after the press deadline.

[BVH2000]

Any BBC Regions history experts about ? 
As has previously been mentioned by Jeff, the official manual for the COW lists 12 variations

Code      Centre                  sub-caption
LO          London                 CEEFAX page
BE          Belfast                  NORTHERN IRELAND
CF           Cardiff                 WALES
GW        Glasgow                SCOTLAND
BM         Birmingham           MIDLANDS
BS           Bristol                 WEST
MR         Manchester           NORTH WEST
LS           Leeds                  NORTH
NC          Norwich               EAST
NT          Newcastle            NORTH EAST
PY           Plymouth             SOUTH WEST
SO          Southampton       SOUTH

A press release issued on 11/2/85 states 14 have been installed. The other 2 would seem to be 
EAST MIDLANDS and 
SOUTH EAST
There are screen caps of both, but I'm not sure the idents appeared in Feb 85. I have seen mention that SOUTH EAST began towards the end of 85 and EAST MIDLANDS possibly later ?

Can anyone confirm ? 


       

[ppppenguin]

We have the COW that was converted to BBC World. Not sure which one it was.

I've been tempted to burn some 27512 EPROMs with four different idents and add some switching. On reflection it seems like too much effort at the moment.

I'm not sure which region we would be in at the BEM. Our TX is almost certainly Belmont.

PS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_tr...ng_station says BBC1 North

[BVH2000]

From my spreadsheet The BECG unit was re purposed in 1991 from “my local” BBC EAST Norwich COW - crate number 5

The customisation ( as the manual puts it) is archived by swapping 16 EPROMs, 8 on the luminance and 8 on the chroma background image store cards.

These hold the horizontal slice of the image from just under the globe that contains the 
      BBC1
 XXXXXXXXX

COWs also have the ability to blank the ident under the BBC1. The main use of this was so the London “national” COW could display CEEFAX 888 ( originally 170) when subtitles were available, it normally showing just BBC1. The switch to do this is actually marked CEEFAX

The regional COWs could also blank their ident if required. - which has made me think, I’m sure I have seen images somewhere of the mechanical globes having a flap arrangement to achieve the same effect.
Or I could be having a Corporal Jones moment and “heading off into the realms of fantasy”

[BVH2000]

Just to prove I'm not going senile 

BBC1 NORTH WEST mirror globe with and without region ident. pictures courtesy of TV Ark