Thanks Eros for the note about using the pointer for a string in the thread Advent of Code, 2017 by Petr, it is much speedier than Mid$
i have tested a timing demo for a text of 270000 digits, when we use pointers its time is about 0.15 seconds but with Mid$ it is around 3.9 , ie 27 times speedier. i choose input String input = Repeat$(30000, "123456789") for reasonable waiting time
if we replace 30000 by 300000, with pointer the time is about 1.6 sec. but with Mid$ it seems like Mid$ lost in the space for the text of 2,700,000 digits, even it should return after about 60 seconds, i have waited 5 minutes and then closed the console. it seems the time for the Mid$ is exponentially larger with the increasing length of the string.
so i deduce Mid$ is suitable for everyday strings while pointer to string is suitable for huge strings
Uses "console"
Long total 

Dim T1, T2 As Quad
Extended T3

String input = Repeat$(30000, "123456789")
Long index
Dim TXT(Len(input)) As String * 1 At StrPtr(input)
PrintL "length of the numeric text= " + UBound(TXT)
HiResTimer_Init
T1 = HiResTimer_Delta
  For index = 1 To Len(input)
    
    total + TXT(index)
    'total + Mid$(input, index,1)
  Next
T2 = HiResTimer_Delta
PrintL "sum of digits= " + total

T3 = T2-T1
T3 = T3/1000000 'the one second = million microseconds
PrintL LTrim$(Str$(T3))+ " (seconds)"
WaitKey