Comment - Is code portable?
David Bradforth comments on the Acorn market: is there any reason why
products for the Archimedes should not make it to the BBC?
Being quite a regular user of the Acorn 32-bit range - including a Risc PC
during my school course - I have become quite fluent in Acorn terminology in
general (and also of software on either platform. These days, I mainly seem
to use the Archimedes (with Impression Style) to produce a school magazine -
although as Beebug proved in it's early years, it's perfectly possible to
produce such magazines on the BBC (all of it's text was typeset using
Wordwise - quite succesfull for it's time!)
I am writing this comment on an A310, using Zap - quite a succesful text
editor available in the Public Domain - but; if you saw Configure It and
Label It; I wrote the instructions for both on Edit on my Master 128. The
key reason I am using the Arc to write this, is because I am, admittedly, an
Arc addict: but mainly because software development seems to have accelerated
quite rapidly these days for the RISC OS machines.
Anyway, back onto the subject of this comment. How many of you have seen
Wolfenstein 3D, arguably the most addictive game of ALL TIME on the PC? (And
the obvious inspiration for the Doom series.) Recently, Powerslave Software
released the Arc version, written by Eddie Edwards (a veteran
programming-type person who started off on the Dragon 32.) He also seems to
be a dedicated hobbyist: he programs his Arc in his spare time, so one can
tend to wonder how he managed to finish Wolfenstein in the short space of
time he did. Anyway, the point to this is that I have a suspicion that
Wolfenstein could work on the Beeb, should somebody have the will (and money)
to convert it. The blocky effect would certainly be there: but so what,
that's a signifying feature of BBC micro software.
The point of the matter is that I would like to see a lot of Arc software -
and software from other 16-bit platforms (and yes, I know the Arc's a 32-bit
platform) ported to the Beeb series. (And, to quote Peter Scott, if Last
Ninja (2, I think) can be converted to the BBC, ANYTHING can!)
I would like to conclude by thanking Chris Richardson for providing me with
an example issue of the 8-bit Software magazine. It is really good to see a
band of dedicated users keeping the Beeb alive - believe me, I'm still very
fond of my Beeb!
If you would like to disagree with me, feel free: I hold the line that ANY
machine can do anything: just so long as there is a programmer to make the
machine do it. What do you think?