Dear Mark Sibly

Dear Mark,

Thank you for giving me hopes and dreams in making games, and making me believe I could make games, since the days of the Amiga.

Thank you for the hope, when all hope seemed like a distant horizon. Do not pretend you are just a guy doing a job, making a living.

You are not.

You are a person to us, a leader, a visionary and more. I write this not as a hero worship, but simple observation. We are all creators at heart. Thank you Mark, for giving me the simple gift of being able to make from nothing.

You shared with us, a vision of being able to do stuff "within our means" and guess what Mr. Sibly? it worked. No matter where you go now, or if you fail, or wane from your ambitions... Know that you gave us our hopes and dreams. Our failures from this point are not your failures but the fun and experimentation of what you allowed us to achieve.

Imagine, if back then you didn't have a big ambition? if you didn't share that? you would have denied us all those dreams.

So thank you Mark, for all the fun times and dreams you have given us, and here's to all the dreams which may come!

Sincerely,
Robert Cummings

On behalf of your community.

Amen

(Have you been at the disco biscuits or what? ;)

Wow, Rob! Never realized the name change. But yeah that's a great message.

Were have all the worklogs gone?!
Long time passing.
Were have all the worklogs gone?
Long time ago.
*tumdumdum*

I think I'm going to puke.

Isn't this just another way of asking about the status of Max3d? :-)

@CS_TBL : Lol

@Lowcs - I will second that, and then double it - B3d has given me the power to provide clients with bespoke interactive Real-Time 3D solutions for many years ( http://www.smartscreenuk.com ).

IPete2.

Would you marry me Mark?

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Geez...

I think someone's been eating bits of furry cheese from under the cooker again...

I send along my thanks for the fun I have had with blitz basic as a language. Only because I know that when I get a positive fan mail like this it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

All those nay saying the post, I guess you just need to get busy creating something worthy of such praise ;)

Nope just facts. Fact is without this guy I would have made nothing at all, whatsoever on the computer.

I wouldn't have even gotten into computer artwork.

..im very sure without this guy you will look for something else..however, B3D rulez, hat down for it..

ROFL!!!

Although makes a nice change from the usual moaning and groaning.
...so thanks from me as well :P

I agree. Blitz 3D is an exceptional product and always will be.

Thanks Mark for creating it :) The best money I`ve ever spent on my PC.

Jason.

Well it might be a bit more sugary than I would have put it myself, but I guess I'd have to agree that I wouldn't be doing any programming today, let alone game programming, if it hadn't been for Blitz2D, and later Plus, 3D, and Max.

some of us (not me) came from other game making langauges finding fault in them and looked for an alternative
if blitz wasnt around what would they have done
some might have slogged on hoping for improvements or just abandoned ship and dreams along side

eg i dont recall darkbasic having much to do with 2d at the time of blitz2D so some people migrated due to that and others followed when blitz3D arrived

others like click and play were just too limiting to be nothing but a toy a few wistles and bells over seuck

I've been making a life-size statue to Mark Silby for 5 years now.

Made completely from my nail clippings and hair. It's held together by the juicy love of my utterly devoted spit glands - and when it's ready I'm going to deliver it personally to him in my least soiled pink-matching underpants and vest, wearing a pair of rugged looking fisherman waders. It's all in the details.

I feel sure someone who creates such wonderful software cannot fail to appreciate where I'm coming from...Ooops! I'm just off to the barbers.

I only have the nipple mounds and nose to mold now - I bet he can't wait!!

(By the way - the above letter should start 'Dearest'..tsk. tsk.)

HAHA!! that's hilarious!!!

i think this is one of the best posts yet. Not only for its original content of thanking mark, but also for the entertainment.

i agree though, blitz sparked my love of programming. thnx mark.

BBasic 2.1 on the Amiga was a class piece of work, and its just got better from there.

Regards, BP.

Yes it's a very nice language (Blitz 2d/3d for instance) and fun to create games with.

First I had fun.
Second I learnt stuff (lots of stuff).
Third I made some cash (sometimes using Blitz, sometimes just the stuff I'd learnt).

Any one of these reasons would have made it worth the cost, but, instead I got all three.

So, hurrah! :)

i agree without blitz2d I wouldnt have made money on a game, although I have a engine coded in C++ it was a DOS system.

I love Blitz3d its VERY powerful for loads of things the only thing its missing is threading if Blitz had that I would use it no end.

If it wasn't for Mark, I'd still be using dark basic...

Well, somebody woke up in a good mood today.

Yeah, thanks 2 Mark Sibly for the Blitz languages.

BMax rocks.

smooch

My experience with the Blitz family is short. So far I am impressed with the language (Blitzmax) but would like to see more responsibility from the team to have better docs, better examples, timely updates to both the IDE and the language itself. After all it is a commercial product, let's not forget that. They are not giving this away for free.

I agree BMax has been a little shaky but B3D on the other hand is really solid has great docs and just feels more complete to me.

I really want to like BMax but it still feels unfinished in various ways despite some great efforts by the community to fill in some of the blanks.

There are a few outstanding issues that I feel should have been addressed by now as lots of people here have been very patient.

Jason.

I love my good ole B+. Its kind of getting forgetten as time goes on, but it never fails to suprise me on what I am capable of doing on a computer. I guess thats because I'm still a beginner in the grand scheme of things.

But its a lot better than QBASIC! (which I had previously used)

If you mean 'forgotten by the scene': I think the B+ ppl simply moved towards BMax/GUI.

Yeah Sauer I made the old Qbasic->Blitz transition. It's a quantum leap in performance!

I finally decided to adhere to BRL's will: BlitzMax is for games only (which still is not my domain), and for everything else I have now finally decided to switch to wxPython with Eclipse and PyDev as my development environment.

I just feel, like many others, that BMax has so much untapped potential.

Jason.

speech, speech, speech, speech, everyone say it load, maybe mark will say a word or two if you all scream speech speech! :)

Rather than a speech I would prefer if Mark adds to his worklog what he has been up to recently.

nah I definitely go with the speech idea

S P E E C H ! !

and pass the sick bag

Do you mean on the part of the developers of BMax or on the part of the users of BMax?

I really like BMax. I needed something for custom apps that could easily handle animated graphics, that was affordable, stable and fast. It has also got me interested in making some simple educational games for my grandkids.

Coder grandpa, sounds great!

..hmmmm....

I agee..Thank You. (even though I never finshed anything, it's fun trying)

Since back in the Amiga days using BB, I would also thank Simon Armstrong.

Jason

And thanks to Simon Harrison. Did we leave anyone else out?

There's a Richard Keam but BRL don't like us talking about him. He had a hand in un-banning my perma banned account once before a long time ago. :)

Ooh... mysterious. It's almost like Fight Club. First rule of Blitz Club: there is no Richard Keam!

I thought the first rule of Blitz Club was that there is no Max3D. O.o