Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga.applications:335 comp.sys.amiga.games:4549 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!cam-cl!news From: phg@cl.cam.ac.uk (Philip Gladwin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications,comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: re. AMOS - SUMMARY Message-ID: <1991Feb22.210853.8297@cl.cam.ac.uk> Date: 22 Feb 91 21:08:53 GMT Sender: news@cl.cam.ac.uk (The news facility) Reply-To: phg@cl.cam.ac.uk (Philip Gladwin) Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK Lines: 109 This seems to have sparked a little discussion: here's the summary of the stuff I received by email, for those of you who are interested. I would like to find out more about the user groups, PD fixes, libraries etc, as it certainly looks like I will be buying it in the near future. (ie tomorrow) Thanks to all those of you who took the time to write - you will probablybe hearing from me as soon as I get into trouble with the thang. :) phg@uk.ac.cam.cl phg@cl.cam.ac.uk Here are the comments I got. See for yourself... ******************************************************** AMOS disables most multitasking, and runs outwith Intuition. ******************************************************** GFA BASIC v3.51 is superb, even before compilation. Wouldn't recommend AMOS for anything other than demo-ish messing about. ******************************************************** It is definately not a toy, I have it and makes game programming many times easier. As for applications, you could do some very good stuff, but it would be mostly stand-alone. (Ie, don't expect to be able to integrate all your OS utilities into such an application. It is very OS independent and very hardware dependent. ******************************************************** (Mandarin claims lots of productivity stuff has been written in AMOS in Europe but I have yet to see anything arrive here.) ******************************************************** One of the nice things about AMOS is its ability to store all the data the program needs (sprites, sounds, machine code, compressed screens(!)), as part of the interpreted code. This means you could create an application that has only one file - the program itself ******************************************************** It is a VERY comprehensive BASIC language...Just about every command you could ever want is in there...Line numbers are not needed (but allowed), and has all the optional "structured" BASIC stuff. It has integers as well as floating point (single precision) Machine code is easy to make part of a BASIC program. No structured data types (ala "C") are present. :-( ******************************************************** AMOS only uses the OS for I/O...everything except Exec & DOS gets punted when you run it. (See why it only has limited application value) Interestingly, it DOES multitask - CLI, Workbench, and other programs still run in the background. AMOS just takes over the screen completely, and you press L-Amiga-A to get back to the "OS-created" screens. (AMOS programs can also be running when you are using the Workbench, etc.) Since it punts Intuition, it has its own window and gadget routines, which are not as good as Commodore's. It also has its own pull-down menu code, something the author went overboard with - it has different styles of menus (pull down, pop-up,etc.) and you can do weird things like attatch Bob animation sequences to menu items... You can make system library calls directly, so you can open Intuition screens and windows, but since they are incompatible with all of AMOS' animation commands, it isn't all that useful. You could add an AREXX port if you really wanted to by using this facility. ******************************************************** The only thing I know for sure is it doesn't seem to work with the A3000 - probably uses the CIAB timer for something - I have a A2630 installed in my A2000 and have no problems with it. ******************************************************** >AMOS disables most multitasking, and runs outwith Intuition. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This isn't true. AMOS multitasks. The first version had a busy wait that clobbered all other tasks, but this has been fixed. It is true that AMOS doesn't use intuition. --- END