Readers' Kind Comments/Requests/Correspondence 

16th March 2004

From John Burke:

Hi Richard.

Here are the speed test results for my pc.

Speed Tester - this will take a few seconds only...

Time to do 10 million empty FOR NEXT loops = 0.95sec

Rate = 10416666 loops/sec

My home built pc comprises an AMD3200 processor with 1.5GB Ram
and completed the speed test in the time above.

This was taken using Ctrl Tab to copy the screen.

I recently purchased BBC BASIC for Windows from Richard Russell and its just great. I then found your website and  things just got better. I haven't written in the language for 20 years but if I do anything worth while I will send you a copy.

Regards
John Burke
 
8th January 2004
My 2004 PC World Advent 3718 using a AMD64FX 3400+ processor, does
10,309,278 loops/sec (time to do 10 million = 0.97 sec)

Hope you find this useful

Stephen Riley

29th July
Tony Tooth writes:

Richard, I don't know whether you've had another look on my website recently, but I've added a Spirograph emulator, and a program to model fireworks.
 
I've also got a 3-D fractal landscape program to which I've just added sunlight to throw the landscape into true shading relief. It took me 2 days to figure out mathematically how to do this efficiently - then an hour or so to code it nicely into about 15 lines.
 
My landscapes are nowhere near as good as you'll find on www.fractal-landscapes.co.uk, but then I use well under 400 lines of code compared to the 80 THOUSAND lines of C++ they use.
 
Rgds
 
Tony


4th July 2003

David S writes:
Richard,
I was happy to find your website as I have just discovered BB4W, which
allows me to carry on programming on my windoze laptop whilst passing
long nights in hotel rooms (it was always too much trouble to pack a
RISC PC!).

Converting programs is generally not too much of a problem except when
they include those Acorn system calls that we all know and love. Sadly I
am not an expert on the windows API (I never liked to look too deeply
into windows) will you be covering the more useful system calls in your
examples in future; for example in some of my earlier stuff I used
OS_Byte &87 quite a lot (it was a games thing); I wouldn't know where to
start to find the windows equivalent.  

I shall continue to watch your site with interest.

Cheers

David
 
My reply (in part) :

David

Good to hear from you. Isn't it fantastic to be able to program the PC!
Richard Russell be praised...

OS_Byte &87 is not something I ever used, games were not really my scene,
and I'm struggling to understand the API commands by trial and error using
RTR's BB4W Help file ... I pass on what I've gleaned in the tutorials...

At the moment I'm trying to help a young correspondent with... a games program, so I am presently having to get to grips
with simple game-type thinking, after a gap of some 20 years. The progs I wrote
then are marooned on 5.25in discs, mice chasing cheese to amuse my young
daughter etc

Best wishes

Richard

27th June 2003

Adrian (Paris, France) writes (following a phone convesation in which I
gave him the Good News about the existence of BBC Basic for Windows) :

O.K. Richard, I got your site reference - thank you. I also just got a
shock off the power supply unit for my Beeb which I'm checking out!
Strangely it seems to be working again.

I had a brief look at the astronomy progs and downloaded the demo
version. It seems quite user friendly and your tutorials seem to be a
nice introduction for complete beginners, which let's face it is where
we all begin. My daughter will love the Lissajous figures.

As a hardened BBC programmer I would certainly miss the *FX commands and
function keys. That said, I think most of my old programmes would run
after a little tinkering.

I am in the throws of putting together a little program to calculate the
distance between two points on the earth's surface, with graphics of the
earth and Greek symbols!
If I complete it I'll let you have a copy.Then there are the Fourrier
Transforms...

18th May 2003
DH writes :
Richard
 I have for years wished that the programming skills that I developed in the early 80's on my BBC B machine could be used on my present day machines. As you will know, we chase bugs around until the small hours of the morning so the skill is hard won - and I really do not have time, or inclination to go through that whole learning process in another language.
   Do I understand that I can now obtain an interface that will, in effect, allow me to construct programs on screen as I did in the past? I operate on Windows 98.
best regards D.H.

Reply:
Dear D.
Yes indeed! Richard Russell has given us the very tool that you require. I was using Windows 98 until Jan this year. Everything now happens at lightning speed compared to the 80s on the Model B! Programs which crawled now whizz..
 
Just go to my homepage by clicking on this link:
 
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~richardweston/
 
and download the free unlimited trial version of Richard Russell's BBC Basic for Windows - it only takes about 4 mins on a normal modem.
 
Its now much easier to program than on the Beeb because of being able to copy, paste etc.
 
My site is designed to help you get going, but if you have any problems at all do email and I'll be pleased to help.
 
I'd be very interested to know how you get on.
 
Best wishes 
Richard Weston

15th May 2003
Mark :  My SATs are over and I'm not so short of time now. During the next week or two, I'll be continuing with my programming. My latest idea is a prime number generator, and then (hopefully) a 'perfect' number generator. I find that programming is sometimes a good and wholesome way to while away those (still) dismal wet Welsh days.

P.S. I've found a program to put on my Arc that will spare you having to make endless amounts of carriage returns when I send you my programs.

10th May 2003
Andrew: I like the new site, (havent visited for ages, not since I syncronised it to my HD.
My dad still likes watching Star dance!

 6 May 2003
Would you mind if I use the Slug idea as a screensaver in Marlowe OS 7.02,
(still in development)?  I would obviously have to remove the slime trail
after a while as well, but as an effect I think it would be nice to have.
Thank you, Andrew. (fellow BBC Basic for windows user)

Dear Andrew
Nice to hear from you.
Yes by all means do use it. That's what its all about in my book. Hope all
is going well with your studies/researches.
Best wishes
Richard Weston

23 March 2003  Firstly, thank you for a great website and for your free downloads and tutorials.....E.W.

11 March 2003  Thank you very much for creating your web site, I think that BBC BASIC is a great language, and I think you are doing a good thing by encouraging more people to use it. A.P.

21 February 2003 Your tutorials are very clear and have the power to teach quickly. M.L.

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