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[higgi]

Hi folks,

I was wondering would anybody be kind enough to give me a very brief overview of the various Amos flavors and how they relate to each other?

I am an experienced c++ programmer who had an Amiga in childhood, and would love to do some programming on it now, just for the fun of it!

For example, is Easy Amos just a stripped down IDE, or an actual version of the language with less/simpler functionality? Ditto Amos "the creator" that I've seen references to. How does the compiler fit into the scheme of things? Does it work for programs created with all versions of Amos, is it necessary/recommended?

Finally, if it comes to programming on an emulator (which I really want to avoid), how would you go about getting the programs onto a bootable floppy to actually use in the Amiga?

Cheers for taking the time,

Higgi.

[Beezle]

Hiya,

If memory serves me correctly Easy AMOS is essentially a stripped down AMOS Pro. Some commands are missing, as is AMAL. Additionally, if Im not mistaken it also has a sort of guided tour tutorial.
AMOS The Creator is simply the initial version of AMOS. The "conversion" of STOS if you will. AMOS Pro was an updated/refined version with better tools and IDE, and ended up as most peoples version of choice

[higgi]

Hey thanks for that.

I guess I'll splash out on the pro version from the get go then. The animation scripting lang sounds handy.

Have you any experience with the compiler?

[SamuraiCrow]

The compiler generates code that works on a flat 68000 and doesn't optimize for anything newer than that.  It doesn't optimize much at all, quite honestly.  The only optimization it does, really, is bit-shift optimizations to get rid of multiplies and divides of even powers of 2.

[higgi]

Wouldn't it also save you some valuable space on the floppy, as I'm assuming you'd have to include the Amos interpreter on the disk for non-compiled code?

[SamuraiCrow]

It will save you some space and will make it somewhat faster than the interpreter.

[higgi]

Thanks so much for the replies. Amos Pro seems rather expensive and difficult to find so I've gone for the original Amos Creator and found a cheap version of the Compiler too so what the heck.

My gift to the poor 12 year old me who was so excited to get the Amos coverdisk and start making games (you can imagine how that turned out)!

[rednova]

Are you aware there was a free version of amospro?
it was a magazine coverdisk.

[SamuraiCrow]

You do realize that the .ADF files in our download area can be exported to disks and used on a real Amiga legally, don't you?

[higgi]

Well I guess that will be my next project, working out how to get .adf files from a PC to an Amiga floppy

I kind of like having the boxed, original products anyway.

[Hungry Horace]

what Amiga hardware are you using, and is HardDrive install an option?

much easier to set-up in a WinUAE environment.

Alternativly, get yourself an Amiga Gotek emulator, plug that into the machine and read the ADFs directly from USB stick.

[higgi]

Amiga 600 with Flash disk installed.

I suppose emulation + Gotek is really the way to go, but just for the sake of nostalgia I want to sit down and do some coding on the Amiga.

I don't really want to tear out the floppy to replace it with the Gotec either, and I only installed the HHD out of curiosity... (how was Monkey Island 2 for the rich kids who had a hard disk... the rest of us had to disk swap 11 disks on a single floppy... ) and I'm kinda already regretting it because it steals RAM so  now I had to order the 1mb trapdoor expansion to get most games running!

[higgi]

How about an external floppy drive for Mac/PC with some kind of adf maker/exporter software? Such a setup possible?

[SamuraiCrow]

The only way to do it is to get a PC with two internal floppy drives or a special external floppy drive controller like a Kyroflux.

[Hungry Horace]

If you are using a CF as an HD forget I even mentioned the Gotek.

Just attach that to uae as a drive, copy across everything, then put it back into the 600. You never even need use floppies or ADFs ..

You *could* copy ADFs to the HD, along with some software (adfblitzer?) and use that to write the data back to your real amiga drive.


I am working on a fully kitted out A600 myself atm...  I recommend the ACA630 for a long term investment. (Also, for extra chip mem, get the 604n, so that you can consider a flicker fixer later if you wanted - I'm loving mine!)