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From: steve@thelake.UUCP (Steve Yelvington)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Languages!!!
Message-ID: <1014891028322132@thelake.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 16:28:32 GMT
References: <46d19982.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM><8911110458.AA06278@jupiter.nmt.edu>
Reply-To: pwcs.StPaul.GOV!stag!thelake!steve
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In article <46d19982.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>,
     rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) writes ... 

>In article <8911110458.AA06278@jupiter.nmt.edu> ehsnsr@JUPITER.NMT.EDU (Eric Hobbs) writes:
>>     I am looking into trying to learn a new computer language, 
>>but I really don't know which one to try out. The only things that 
>>I must have is a language that is in the Public Domain or it is 
>>Shareware (I'm a poor college student!), the language must support 
>>graphics and sound without too much hassle, and it _MUST_ be able 
>>to run on a 520STfm with 512K and a 360K SS/DD disk drive. Well 
>>that narrows it down, doesn't it. I don't really want to learn 
>>68000 assembly language and I only know BASIC and a little bit of 
>>Logo. (Pretty Limited, Huh?).
>>     You guys and gals are my last hope! Save me from expensive 
>>languages and ST BASIC!!!!!ARRRRGH!
>
>If you just want a better BASIC, I'd suggest GFA BASIC.  I've never used it,
>but most people seem to like it well enough (certainly can't get much worse
>than ST BASIC, eh?).  I _believe_ the interpreter is (or was?) public domain?
>At least, I'd swear I saw a copy of the GFA BASIC interpreter on a STart
>magazine disk last year...

Not public domain. Public domain is a legal term that does not mean what
most computer users seem to think it means.

Antic (the magazine and software publishers) took over distribution of GFA
BASIC about the time GFA 3.0 was released, and disposed of the old version
by making it part of the STart disk.

>Your system memory & disk size is probably going to encourage you to use an
>interpreter (of whatever language), since they tend to be smaller than a
>compiler for the equivalent language. 

(stuff about Personal Pascal omitted)

>All of the other ST compilers I've had occasion to use require either more
>memory than 512K, or another drive, or a hard-drive, or all three to be
>useable & relatively pain-free.  Really, you may want to shop around for
>another SS drive at the very least.  Or, better yet, upgrade to 1M of
>memory and use a big RAM disk.

Mark Johnson's shareware C compiler, which is available from the
archive-server@panarthea if you can get it to answer your mail, was
developed on a one-drive 520ST. The C function library is not very
complete, but the GEM bindings are pretty good. It's a reasonable first
compiler for a student.

A second disk drive is well worth the investment, though.

   -- Steve Yelvington, up at the lake in Minnesota        
  ... pwcs.StPaul.GOV!stag!thelake!steve             (UUCP)