My name's James Watson. I'm 26, married and have a baby boy called Lewis. At the moment I have 4 BBC Bs, 1 BBC Master, 3 Electrons, a few disk drives and an A3010. In about 1983, my parents bought a BBC B and I have been interested in computers ever since. It was supposed to help me with my education but I mainly played games on it. About 1990 I bought an A3010 but never really used it and after that I stopped using my BBC B altogether. But through the 90s, I've bought the rest of the BBC Bs and Electrons at car boot sales for only a few pounds each. I can't resist it.
About six months ago, I bought a PC and started surfing the web. I found a few BBC sites and also that you can still buy BBC software from Superior, so I bought most of the Play It Again Sams which are very cheap and had a good chat with Steve Hanson who now runs the firm.
As I got my Master out recently, I thought I would have a go at writing a few basic games for you. So far I've completed Bomber Command and Powerball. I've never written a program before these two so don't expect too much.
At the moment I'm writing another game which is a Pacman clone, and it should be a lot better. I find the more you program and try to do different things the more you learn, and its the best way. Even though all I have for reference is the basic User Guide.
1st December 2000