Ben Collier | Archive

Aug 30, 2023

Ten years ago, I created a conversion of the brilliant "Sleuth" that runs in browsers. It was always missing the custom character f…

Aug 30, 2023

A ZX Next development env on the M1 Mac

Feb 9, 2020

A lot of people are familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - the idea that we have basic needs which must be met before others c…

Feb 7, 2020

The use of parentheses and quotes in Bash can be quite confusing. Here is a quick guide.

Mar 26, 2019

It may seem incredible, but COBOL was first specified in 1959, before commercially available silicon transistors. To celebrate 60 y…

Mar 17, 2019

In this first of a new series of articles on the dodgiest of dodgy programming language features, we discover 'variable variables',…

Feb 9, 2016

I love a good text adventure. Some of the first games I played were early 8-bit texties. Like radio vs. television, the pictures we…

Jan 9, 2016

Just like every other sane person on the face of the Earth, I’m a big fan of Commander Riker, from Star Trek. Since the release of …

Jan 2, 2016

I recently got my copy of RISC OS Pico, and the very first thing that I wanted to try was running some software from the BBC Welcom…

Mar 1, 2014

Earlier this evening, I was wondering how easy it would be to learn (or experience) *every* programming paradigm out there. I've tr…

Aug 1, 2013

I'm sure lots of you out there remember the excellent DOS game Sleuth, which was written by Eric N. Miller in the 1980s. I absolute…