Choices

The hardware chosen for the host system being the ubiquitous PC. As the speed of execution running the target program was not of primary concern it was thought easier to use the PC and to write the application using BASIC. Trading off simplicity at the expence of speed.

The actual programming language used being Microsoft QuickBasic. This language has three things going for it:-

• 1. Basic is simple to use
• 2. it can utilise library routines, written in any language
• 3. and will produce a compiled (.EXE) code file.

Its disadvantage being that even a compiled program runs slowly, this is true when run on a P1-100 of uncertain vintage but maynot be the case when run on a 2+ GHz Pentium4 !

Although the speed bottle-neck, preventing fast emulation, lay with the Basic screen display routines and an increase in CPU power maynot have the required effect. An area of future experimentation perhaps.

Sponsored byMikeT