I often say Erel saved my life… Here's why...

I was working as a sub-contractor for the region's branch of the national Cable TV Company… (Who would have guessed it, given my nickname?), this was back in the 2000's...
PockectPCs where the latest in technology, but they still lacked a lot of features. I had gotten myself a HP PPC and the "Sleeve" Add-on which allowed me to add PCMCIA card to it.
My goal was to use it with an Ethernet card and program the Cable Modems I installed through it. But my coding skills were, as they still are, very limited, and so I started looking for ways to accomplish this.
Many months passed, but I kept on searching, and one day I found a post about a BASIC based IDE.
Basic4PPC it was called, and targeted the Windows mobile platform… perfect, I thought… But there was not an actual forum available at the time (2002?) and the Compiler still only produced cab files that needed a Transpiler DLL. A few moths later we finally got a real forum, kindly provided by a member (GeoCoder if I recall correctly) and things really started to take off.
I never did actually produce the program I was aiming to, but I was addicted. A few moths later I bit the bullet and bought the licence. It was my first payed software I ever had.
Erel kept pushing Basic4PPC forward, and eventually there was no need for the transpiler DLLs anymore, and the IDE produce both Cab and EXE files. We could now create our own Win32 programs!
Then I had a major setback in my life… I got divorced. After 19 years together, it was not expected at all, and I went through all the grief stages… and at one point, even considered suicide.
But there was this thing that I did, and that was important; I managed a Thread in the Forum that listed all the available User Created Libraries, and so I was needed!
I managed this thread for over 3 years, if I recall correctly. This saved my life. Kept my mind busy, with the thread management, the library creation, and the "noise" I created in the forum (at that point I was the 4th most posting member), my mind was too busy to even think of any other thing.
Shortly after my divorce, I moved to France, but kepted my presence in the forum.
B4A had been created, and I jumped on that train too, although it was though at start as it was a whole new ball game… understanding activities, views, etc... where had the controls go?
This was 2010... and I kept coming, kept trying to help others, kept asking expert newbie questions...
I often say its been 13+ years since I joined here, simply because I just lost track… I suppose its almost 18years now...
And I hope to be here for many more.

Oh, btw… the only 2 real piece of software I ever released was an Android game called Pairs4Android and a B4J based app called B4X-Launcher...
You may have guessed by now… I'm here for the ride… not for the destination!
 

Swissmade

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@Cableguy Very nice to share this.
And Erel is doing a very good job with B4X thanks for that.
 

techknight

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I have a my own little story of life saving.

B4A built the very foundation of our business and that alone saved my life. Prior to this business, i was still suffering the drastic effects of the 2008 recession and simply doing side jobs to make ends meet. I was fresh out of collage, broke, and in debt, plus being an experienced consumer electronics technician, as you can imagine, things wernt going well. Nobody was getting TVs and Stereos fixed anymore. and Tablets/Cellphones had just begun to rise, and are damn near impossible to fix for old school guys like me.

but then an opportunity came up with a scoreboard company falling out of business due to the recession, and retiring of the owners. So we built a whole new business off the ashes of that one, and used B4A/B4J to power the technology that runs our current product line.

At this point, the success or failure of B4X means the success or failure of our company. That's alot of weight to put into a specific product line. That tells you the amount of trust I have in this product.

So in my eyes, it absolutely was a life saver.
 
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netsistemas

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Cableguy, sharing your experience with us and with everyone says a lot, and very good about you. In this world of vanities, recognizing who we are is what makes us great people, and you are.

In these current times, I think this tool released, which scared me 2 months ago when it happened, I recognize that it can be a door for many people to earn a living. That other type of life that we are going to face. I know that there are many programmers who banned it years ago, and when they know this product, they will see an open door to walk through.
 

jnjft

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@Cableguy A very profane wish in between: Could you please post your 'Pairs4Android'-app here in the forum? I'd so much like to see it...
And I wish you all the best, thanks for all your contributions from which I had lots of benefit!
Never mentioned it to you, though, maybe I should have...
 

AlexOfOz

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Wow, what an excellent discussion. Well done Cableguy for being so brave and honest to share your story. I take my hat off to you. And Turtle for B4K is a brilliant idea.

As you all realise, I am a very newbie, even though I did my first Basic programming on the Commodore 64 all those decades ago. But my current focus is creating puzzles. My latest one, which I've been waiting now for 12 days for Google to publish, is a whole series of simple jigsaws, most of which are aimed at children. I would love to think that this forum can help kids get interested in Basic, as it is still the best language for the masses. If I could teach myself to program on the Commodore 64, then Basic has to be the goto language for kids.
 

Unobtainius

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I did the same, taught myself on the good old commodore 64. My first program was to display every sequence of lotto combinations and count them as it went. It took the poor thing over 12 hours to reach the last combination. The same program now runs in minutes not hours 😁
 

Mark Turney

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Another C64 guy here! I believe the year was 1980 ... Christmas present from my parents ... C64, a hand-me-down B&W TV and the Commodore cassette drive. I wore that thing out. FWIW - I have held on to one book from that platform ... an engineering formulas book for C64 BASIC.
 

Cableguy

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@Cableguy A very profane wish in between: Could you please post your 'Pairs4Android'-app here in the forum? I'd so much like to see it...
...

It was written over 8 years ago. It was very rudimentary and now simply obsolete by today standards. It was written for Android 2.3.7.
Unfortunately, due to a few pc crashes and a complete meltdown, I no longer have the source code.
 

mr.Alex

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Someone wrote: "I could say that Erel saved my life... if he gave away me a few hundred thousand euros."
That's not fair. Erel didn't give us all that money, but he created and offered us B4X - most of us paid for it, but the price was pretty low for the piece of software B4X (B4A, in my case) is!
(lots of) thumbs up! 👍👍👍
 

ivanomonti

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we all have a story to tell and sometimes we do not know to whom, I have left computer science now for 10 years and on this occasion of detention imposed for coronavisur b4x gave me an intelligent way to commit my time.

The forum is better than other socials, I see and find people always available, smiling and with fast jokes but always ready to give you a hand.

maybe erel didn't think at all all this and in his desire and I believe enthusiasm to create a big family (community), I after a big car accident and immediately after the loss of parents and immediately after the separation I was destroyed, computer science helped me a lot in finding the solution instead of posing the problem and this has always saved me from every event.

Thanks to all of you, also because your presence here in this uncertain period dictated by this virus fills the hours of every holy day.
 

PoliceFreez

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Well, I've been a member of this forum since 2013. I started with computers with a VIC 20 ;) but was too young to know what it could do really. I studied IT and as part of the Diploma, I worked on Basic and Cobol. I have always been interested in programming but never published anything. I wrote two different Lotto randomizers for my father-in-law and designed a grocery calculator for me (does not work so great.🙃) but it was the first B4A project.

I purchased a license back then but it expired and for many years I was just making use of other free languages for practice. I'm a bit lazy and I procrastinate with new plans so ideas I had long ago are still only ideas.

Then I saw that B4A is free and I immediately downloaded it. I must say it is one of the best IDE I have used. Currently, I am busy with a new grocery calculator, and this time I'm taking my time on design and streamlining the code, etc.

What I also love about this forum is when you have a problem you just search and you find the solution, you don't even need to actually ask the question, hence this is my first post since 2013.

I must also add that I don't know enough of coding to give people advice on this forum so that is another reason for not commenting on the forum.

When I saw the post from CableGuy I thought it would be the best time to make my first contribution to this forum. You guys have helped me countless times sorting out coding issues and giving new ideas. Thanks for that.

Without you guys knowing it you have also been part of my Internet family.☺
 

Theera

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I was working as a sub-contractor for the region's branch of the national Cable TV Company… (Who would have guessed it, given my nickname?), this was back in the 2000's...
PockectPCs where the latest in technology, but they still lacked a lot of features. I had gotten myself a HP PPC and the "Sleeve" Add-on which allowed me to add PCMCIA card to it.
My goal was to use it with an Ethernet card and program the Cable Modems I installed through it. But my coding skills were, as they still are, very limited, and so I started looking for ways to accomplish this.
Many months passed, but I kept on searching, and one day I found a post about a BASIC based IDE.
Basic4PPC it was called, and targeted the Windows mobile platform… perfect, I thought… But there was not an actual forum available at the time (2002?) and the Compiler still only produced cab files that needed a Transpiler DLL. A few moths later we finally got a real forum, kindly provided by a member (GeoCoder if I recall correctly) and things really started to take off.
I never did actually produce the program I was aiming to, but I was addicted. A few moths later I bit the bullet and bought the licence. It was my first payed software I ever had.
Erel kept pushing Basic4PPC forward, and eventually there was no need for the transpiler DLLs anymore, and the IDE produce both Cab and EXE files. We could now create our own Win32 programs!
Then I had a major setback in my life… I got divorced. After 19 years together, it was not expected at all, and I went through all the grief stages… and at one point, even considered suicide.
But there was this thing that I did, and that was important; I managed a Thread in the Forum that listed all the available User Created Libraries, and so I was needed!
I managed this thread for over 3 years, if I recall correctly. This saved my life. Kept my mind busy, with the thread management, the library creation, and the "noise" I created in the forum (at that point I was the 4th most posting member), my mind was too busy to even think of any other thing.
Shortly after my divorce, I moved to France, but kepted my presence in the forum.
B4A had been created, and I jumped on that train too, although it was though at start as it was a whole new ball game… understanding activities, views, etc... where had the controls go?
This was 2010... and I kept coming, kept trying to help others, kept asking expert newbie questions...
I often say its been 13+ years since I joined here, simply because I just lost track… I suppose its almost 18years now...
And I hope to be here for many more.

Oh, btw… the only 2 real piece of software I ever released was an Android game called Pairs4Android and a B4J based app called B4X-Launcher...
You may have guessed by now… I'm here for the ride… not for the destination!
Whenever you have the problems,Please don't kill yourself. I'm one of your friends helping and stand by you. Cheer up.
 

Theera

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Longtime User
I after a big car accident and immediately after the loss of parents and immediately after the separation I was destroyed
I'm sorry to hear that. we are new family with you. "B4X Family"
 
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