BBC BASIC Programs

In its time the BBC computer was one of the finest computers available in the UK before the advent of the modern IBM based PC and Windows. The BBC was developed with co-operation of the British Broadcasting Corporation as an Education project – hence the name BBC. It had nice ‘ clicky ’ keys, and although the first A version was intended only for storing code on Cassette Tapes, the following version B was designed for use also with one or more 5.25 Floppy disk drives, by insertion of an additional ROM. This shows the great versatility of this type of PC over the modern PC, in that the operating system could easily be updated ( without any threat of a virus ) by just changing the ROMs, providing rapid Boot up compared with even the modern Hard Disk. Later further ROMs became available, such as alternative languages, WPs, DBs etc, especially with the advent of ROM/RAM expansion boards. This also allowed ROM images to be copied for temporary quick loading to RAM. A later version called the BBC Master allowed for an additional CPU such as the 8086 for early MSDOS operation.

Even the original BBC BASIC has numerous commands to provide extra control of screen display, printer output, Disk, and key functions, speech etc. The * prefix indicates a system command such a Disk or Tape control, and to access the numerous functions available within a variety of ROMs. It also had a versatile 3 channel sound system. A considerable number of extra commands have now been added under BBC Basic for Windows used to create or upgrade the programs below. Here are some programs demonstrating its capabilities to produce both music and Graphics etc. They can all be run by clicking on the BBCMENU.EXE included, and the code converted to ASCII/BAS file using the BBCtoBAS programs.

BBC Games BBC Clipart BBC Animated GIFs PROGRAM MENUS << These will also run while online.

MUSIC Over 80 Public Domain Music programs obtained from BBS in the 1980s showing the Sounds that can be generated.

UTILITIES Mailer, Labels, Phone List, Adders, First Aid, Keys CAD, Music Composer, Patterns etc. BBCtoBAS included with all Zips

FUN1 FUN2 Games, Animations, Sport, Variety of Sounds, Musical Keyboard, Clipart Viewer etc.

PUZZELS Various puzzles mostly with unlimited time to solve, together with various popular card games

LEARNING Aids such as Speech generating programs, Typing Tutors, Arithmetic and Word tests etc

PROGAIDS Demonstrations of BBC sounds, and using Windows boxes, buttons, and instrumental sounds for programmers.

AMATEUR RADIO Variety of older programs Radio Amateurs may find of interest, some now need improvements.

ZIPPER Use ZIPPER to Zip up one or more files, or unzip a ZIP file into the same directory using PKZIP and PKUNZIP included.

BBCBASIC Tutorial for beginners to BBC BASIC and BBC Basic for Windows. BBCGUIDES Articles on the original BBC Computer.

Converting these programs to run under Windows was made possible using Software available from http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/ listed by the UK government's National Grid for Learning (http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/). You will need this software to alter the CODE to any of the programs, such as improving some of the many old games above to use the Joystick of Mouse . Very comprehensive instruction HELP is included together with several sample programs. The only limitations with the Shareware version to download is on memory/programs size, unlike other programming languages it does NOT have any time limit to its use.

Gordon Sweet gordonsweet2000@yahoo.co.uk VISIT http://bb4w.wikispaces.com/ OTHER PROGRAMS HOMEPAGE