Jeroen Groenendaal

[Richard Russell]

Does anybody know what became of Jeroen Groenendaal, proprietor of Gek Programs and author of several BBC BASIC games for the Archimedes (including Emotions, Flying High) and Windows (Vapiki, Joop)?

As he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth I presume he may sadly have died, but I would be interested to know, and especially to discover, if possible, who currently holds the Copyright to his games.

[Richard Russell]

I am still alive.

Wow, I wasn't expecting that response!

As a brain exercise, I've recently been converting Joop (which is the only one of your BB4W programs for which you released the source code, as far as I know) to BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0. If I get it to a stage that I'm happy with, I'll be asking you for permission to publish it.

[Richard Russell]

I can share you a html5 version of Joop I created. Its only html/javascript not having original BBC basic, but its optimized for 16:9 ratio and on screen touch controls. In some ways its a more closer conversion from the Acorn Archimedes version.

I am aware of that version, because I found it mentioned in an archived web page at the Wayback Machine. However it isn't really of practical relevance because translating it back to BBC BASIC would be an impossible task (for me). Adapting a BB4W program to work in BBCSDL is at the limit of what I would attempt now.

If the 16:9 and touch modifications could be relatively easily incorporated in the BBC BASIC version that would be of interest, although I'm guessing the changes are quite extensive so I probably wouldn't be prepared to tackle it myself.

[Richard Russell]

Please let me test it. I am probably the only person in the World that knows how to complete all 26 levels!

You can run it in your browser (not IE) here. It will probably be better run in fullscreen mode, although you don't get a mouse pointer then.

If you prefer to run it locally I can make a Windows executable, although I haven't got an icon for it. Would you be able to send me that?

This BBCSDL version is largely untested, and is bound to have bugs. If it bombs out with an error message, please make a note of it and let me know.

[Richard Russell]

I am unfortunately unable to continue this exchange because it has been pointed out that I am abusing the automated #feed from the forum to the group, which was not intended for this purpose. Any further discussion will have to take place either at the forum or by private email.