About
Football Prediction from Bell Software, the English and Scottish edition: a football pools predictor written in Xtal BASIC, which works from a file of past results and predicts each fixture. Its menu reads BELL SOFTWARE FOOTBALL PREDICTION MENU and its opening screen carries “(C) 1985”. The program also advertises its own sequels: “Your data files can be updated by BELL SOFTWARE at the end of each season for a £4 fee if you wish,” and “A prediction package for the Australian pools is now ready @ £12.99”, which is the Australian edition the library is still looking for.
The Disc
Side A carries Bell Software’s printed label, “Football Prediction, English/Scottish”, with RUN "PR added by hand. It holds the main program PR.XBS, eight subprograms FSUB1–FSUB8.XBS, and ten data files of results: English and Scottish league and non-league matches in four-letter team codes, such as WATF2 ARSE0. Side B has a handwritten label, “Copy of original side minus any data”, and is exactly that: the same programs, line for line, with the data files present but empty, plus a plain-text listing of PR. The program itself asks whether “the results are to be used on the currently available side of this disc”, so a second side for your own results is how it was meant to be used.
Running It
The programs are Xtal BASIC, and XBAS.COM is not on the disc. Side A boots XtalDOS; with XBAS.COM copied onto a disc, type XBAS PR. It asks for the time, then the drive (0 or 1), then whether the results are on the side of the disc in use. That is how it was run in MAME for the screenshots.
Files in the Package
| File | Side | What it is |
|---|---|---|
FBPREDES_A_PREDICTION.scp | A | raw flux capture |
FBPREDES_A_PREDICTION.mfi | A | MAME flux image, which MAME can save to |
FBPREDES_A_PREDICTION.dsk | A | disc image |
FBPREDES_B_NODATA.scp, .mfi, .dsk | B | the same three for side B |
Can You Help?
If you have the Australian edition, a later season’s data disc, or any printed instructions that came with Bell Software’s football predictors, we would love to hear from you.
About this Dump
Dumped on 26 September 2026 with a Greaseweazle V4 and an original Einstein 3″ drive, and checked with the Einstein Disc Tools. Both sides read all 400 sectors with good checksums on the first pass. Nothing has been cleaned up.
Gallery
