My Computing JBP Style

I first started using a computer in the 1970's at university while taking my Physics degree. I found this a frustrating experience. Writing programs in ALGO using punched cards was slow and could never be called interactive.

My first home computer was the Sinclair ZX81 which had 1Kbyte of RAM and saved its BASIC programs onto a cassette recorder. It only supported a black and white screen using a standard TV. I soon upgraded this using its 16Kbyte add on RAM pack and its own spark thermal printer.
Next came the Commodore VIC20, this gave me colour and 16Kbyte RAM!
Both of these computers had their own dialects of BASIC which were by todays standards quite crude.

Then came the big step up to an ACORN BBC computer. For all you PC users who have never heard of one, this computer was way ahead of its time. It allowed pre-programmed ROMS to be inserted which turned it into a WYSIWYG Wordprocessor, or SpreadSheet etc. It had a colour screen which could have its resolution changed without switching off. A disc filing system 200K per side of a 5.25 inch disc.
Its operating system and BASIC language was in ROM and totally incorruptable!
Its BASIC language was easy yet a most powerful programming language which still stands up today.
I know of users today writing books and firms which have one connected to lathes etc.!! (Didnt I say it had every standard connection even a four channel A to D input!)

Time marched on and I upgraded to another ground breaking machine an Acorn Archimedes.
This machine had the same BBC BASIC language but also had RiscOS the first fully multi-tasking wimp operating system with full drag and drop, plug and play.
It used an ARM chip running at 8Mhz with 4Mbyte of free memory. This machine is still as fast as a 133Mhz PC running windows 3.1! This was in 1989!

Then in 1995 I bought an Acorn RiscPC.
This computer allows me to do the following...

• Produce multitasking wimp programs in RiscOS quickly and easily.
• Program in ARM assembler, producing ARM code.
• Run any Risc OS programs AND old BBC computer programs!
• Run Windows 3.1 and Windows 95! (Speed approx 100Mhz Pentium)
• Switch between any of the above OS's without switching off!
• Have 5 PC images on three harddrives.

Since designing this page I have now had to buy a PC for web use since my ISP does not support broadband on Risc machines! All I use the PC for is to transfer data to and from the web

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The Software I use