BBC Basic future continuation...

[Ivan]

Hi all,

What is the state of BBC BASIC and will it continue to evolve or?

Regards,

Ivan

[DDRM]

Hi Ivan,

Richard Russell is still actively developing BBC-SDL, his cross-platform version of BBC BASIC, and providing active support for BB4W. Indeed, he has recently identified a small bug, and I understand he is planning to release a new version to correct it. Richard mainly reports his progress on the Stardot forum, now, I think, though he has his own facebook page. As you will see in another thread, I am trying to support Richard in feeling able to post on this forum.

There are of course other versions of BBC BASIC still in active use and (I think) development, supported on other fora. Richard has been unhappy with people publicising other "competitors" on this forum, so I won't.

Best wishes,

D

[Ivan]

Hi D,

Is Richard Russell doing all that development/maintenance himself or is Richard Russell a "company" with employees?

Do you know why Richard Russell don't make reports about BBC BASIC on this site?

Nice he will correct errors and I am looking forward to a new version - I now have ver. 6.12a installed.

I have an old love for BBC BASIC from the eighties and hope improvements still will be implemented.

Best wishes,

Ivan

[RichardRussell]

Is Richard Russell doing all that development/maintenance himself or is Richard Russell a "company" with employees?

I am a 'company' (for example I am VAT registered and I prepare Annual Accounts) but I do not have any 'employees'. I am categorised as a Sole Trader.

VATnumber.png

[Ivan]

Thank you very much.

If I understand correctly, you have been on the game for some time. Do you have plans for a company or person(s), which can continue your excellent work or can you at least tell me/us someone will?

I'm absolutely not suggesting myself. That task will be way, way over my head.

Best wishes

Ivan

[RichardRussell]

Do you have plans for a company or person(s), which can continue your excellent work or can you at least tell me/us someone will?

My approach has been to ensure that the important information is in the public domain, to which end I created the Github account where you can find the source code and build information for BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 (at least, those editions which are compiled from C code). That should allow anybody to maintain and/or develop 'my' branch of BBC BASIC if I'm not able to, or indeed now if they so choose (they can fork the project and decide to develop it in a different direction if they want).

What I can't do is guarantee that anybody will actually take up that opportunity, that's completely out of my control. The likelihood of it happening will be increased if there's a large and enthusiastic user community.

I'm absolutely not suggesting myself. That task will be way, way over my head.

What you, and everybody else, can do is to promote BBC BASIC whenever you have the opportunity. If you have a presence on social media, talk about it, tell people what you use it for, spread the word as much as possible. A 'killer' application which would get it into the public eye would be nice (we've not done badly with Colour Recovery attracting some attention)!

[Ivan]

I do promote BBC BASIC.