Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!ultima!vilkas
From: vilkas@ultima.cs.uts.oz (Peter Sumskas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: BBC micro emulator ?
Message-ID: <17780@ultima.cs.uts.oz>
Date: 7 May 90 01:07:28 GMT
References: <1437@trlluna.trl.oz>
Organization: Comp Sci, NSWIT, Australia
Lines: 55

aduncan@rhea.trl.oz.au (Allan Duncan) writes:

>I was speaking with a high school computer teacher the other day, and he
>said that he was interested in the BBC micros for school b/c "there is
>a lot of education software available for them".
>Now _I_ see the Amiga with networking and NFS as a good arrangement, but
>can't answer the education software situation, unless there is some
>means of running this existing software pool.  (Yes, I know that most of
>a high school's teaching can be done on the Amiga side, but the ability
>to run this other stuff makes them feel secure :-))

>So, has anyone heard of an emulator?  I don't even know the basics of
>the BBC micro (CPU=6502/Z80/in house?).

>Allan Duncan	ACSnet	a.duncan@trl.oz
>		ARPA	a.duncan%trl.oz.au@uunet.uu.net
>		UUCP	{uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz.au!a.duncan
>Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.
 
	Ahhh! The BBC! What a fabulous machine that was!
I am one of the lucky few who have cut their programming teeth on such a wondrous
computer. Admittedly it is outdated now, but in its day....

There is actually a BBC emulator for the amiga...I believe it was written
by the same bunch as wrote the Transformer, ut is called Beeb. It is an English
product and that is all I can tell you.

It comprises of a 6502 emulator so that it can run machine code programs and
BBC Basic (the BEST BASIC EVER MADE.....EVER!!!) which runs under the native
amiga. Apparently BBS Basic runs 7 times as fast as AmigaBasic, which isnt
surprising as AmigaBasic is a slug.

Really, the dude should be looking at Archimedes machines as they are the
new educational systems endorsed by the English education department. They
are a LOT faster than the Amiga (due to their RISC architecture) and come
with the emulators as standard (which I dare say would work better and more
productively than the Amiga version). In fact if I could afford one, I would
buy and Archimedes (to sit beside ny 2000, not to replace it....).

By the way as indication of the Arch's speed. Virus on the amiga, written in 
assembly language, was a conversion of a program called Lander that came
bundled with the Archimedes when purchased. Virus is a little bit flashier,
but not much.

The real point of this is that Lander was written in BBC Basic on the Archimedes

And it flew along (it is almost the splitting image of the Amiga version).


Oh well, read some of the English Amiga mags and they might tell you
a bit more about the emulator (the Beebulator as it was sometimes referred to)

Dregs

Iron Wolf