| Adrian,
AMIGA COMPUTING and/or ST/AMIGA FORMAT, have reviewed the BEEB
emulator within the last few months. (I will look up the details
for you). They should answer most of your questions. I seem to
recall that like most emulators it does a creditable job, but does
not really do justice to either machine.
Regards
David
|
| RE - 0
Amiga Computing reviewed the BEEBULATOR in January 1989.
" The job the Beebulator was designed for was to allow schools to
run their existing programs - often home grown - on the Amiga.....
Commodore assumes that anyone who wants to use the Beebulator will
also have a BBC Micro, so the approved way to get programs from
a BBC to an Amiga is through a 3 wire cable from Amiga's RS232 to
BBC's RS423. ....... But the Beebulator is at its best when you
realise its an Amiga program. It will multitask but you will need
a 1Mb machine to get more than one emulator running.... any ex BBC
owner who gets to grips with the Beebulator will love the system.
It is great to see programs whizzing along on an Amiga, typically
2 to 4 but possibly 7 times faster than on the machine it was intended
for."
Summary RRP #49.99 Schools #39.99 (Pounds Sterling)
Usefulness 12/15 - Provides a good powerful Basic and a way to run
a large base of existing educational software.
Ease of Use 14/15 - Click the Icon and you have a BBC Micro. you
will need a book on the Acorn if you dont already have one.
Intuition 10/15 - the BBC operating System obviousely doesn't
obey Commodore guidlines but the emulator will multitask properly.
Speed 14/15 - Up to 7 times faster than a BBC which was one of the
fastest 8 bit micros. Rapid text print.
Value 13/15 - A well written and interesting program which does
a good job of emulating a BBC Micro.
Overall 84% - Wont run any games or programs which break Acorn
rules. Slow at machine code but magfnificent for running educational
software."
WITH ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO AMIGA COMPUTING.
ST/AMIGA FORMAT reviewed the Beebulator in March 1989
"Any program written in BBC BASIC should run perfectly .....Being
aimed specifically at the Education market the Beebulator will not
run coded games such as ELITE and Superior Software's Recepton series.
...the emulator uses a layered software approach. at the lowest
level is the Amiga operating system, on top of which is a 6052
micro-processor emulator.....the BBC BASIC emulator is loaded on
top of this.
...the version of BBC BASIC included is a complete implementation
of BBC's infamous BASIC. the only omission is the lack of support
for sound generation ENVELOPE commands. 99% of the *FX and *VDU
commands that make the operating system calls are catered for.
.... the first thing that strikes you about the BASIC is its blinding
speed.......
If you wish to run BBC software and have no intention of moving
over to the Amiga completely , you are best advised to stick to
your BBC.....What the emulator does provide is a way of easing
the pain of upgrade......
the Beebulator was tested using the most poular educational programs
used in schools. ....clever machine code programs and games like
Elite will not run .....Below is a list of some of the programs
which will work fine:
SchoolSoft's range of software
SnakeWorks
The Longman series of programs such as;
Tray, Cars, Maths in Motion, MicroDiet, Explorer ,
Other Worlds, The Visitor.
Summary (max = 5)
Features: 3.5
Performance 4.5
Ease of Use 4.5
Manuals 3.5
Value 4.0
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO ST/AMIGA FORMAT.
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| Thanks a lot for all the reponses to my original note, they were
exactly what I was looking for. Incidently, does anyone have any
addresses etc of the people who produce the educational software
mentioned in 2927.3 ( Schoolsoft, Longman Series ) ?
Regards, Adrian.
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