AMOS BASIC
Encyclopedia
AMOS BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC
programming language
implemented on the Amiga
computer. AMOS BASIC was published by Europress Software and originally written by François Lionet
with Constantin Sotiropoulos
.
for the Atari ST
. AMOS BASIC was first produced in 1990.
AMOS competed on the Amiga platform with Acid Software's Blitz BASIC
. Both BASICs differed from other dialects on different platforms, in that they allowed the easy creation of fairly demanding multimedia software, with full structured code and many high-level functions to load images, animations, sounds and display them in various ways.
The original AMOS version was interpreted
which, whilst working fine, suffered from performance problems. Later, an AMOS compiler
was developed, that reduced this problem.
To speed up the animation of sprites, AMOS later included the AMOS Animation Language (AMAL), a compiled sprite scripting language which runs independently of the main AMOS BASIC program.http://grove.ufl.edu/~cwarner/computers.html It was also possible to control screen and "rainbow" effects using AMAL scripts.
After the original version of AMOS, Europress released two other versions: Easy AMOS, a simpler version for beginners, and AMOS Professional, a more advanced version with added features, such as a better IDE
, ARexx
support, a new UI
sublanguage and new flow control constructs. Neither of these new versions was significantly more popular than the original AMOS.
AMOS was mostly used to make video games (platformers and graphical adventures) and educational software.
The language was mildly successful within the Amiga community. Its ease of use made it especially attractive to beginners.
Perhaps AMOS BASIC's biggest disadvantage was its incompatibility with the Amiga's operating system
functions and interfaces. Instead, AMOS BASIC controlled the computer directly, which caused programs written in it to have a non-standard user interface, and also caused compatibility problems with newer versions of the operating system.
Today the language has declined in popularity along with the Amiga computer for which it was written. Despite this, a small community of enthusiasts are still using it. The source code
to AMOS has since been released under a BSD style license
by Clickteam
- a company that includes the original programmer.
As of July 13th 2011, AMOS Professional has been runnable under UAE using the free AROS-68k
AmigaOS
replacement ROM created by Jason McMullan and Toni Wilen.http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=766617#post766617 A legal, out-of-the-box installer has been created for Microsoft Windows
using WinUAE.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhp7XGDKIic
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
implemented on the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
computer. AMOS BASIC was published by Europress Software and originally written by François Lionet
François Lionet
François Lionet is a French programmer, best known for having written AMOS BASIC on the Amiga and STOS BASIC on the Atari ST . He has also written several games on these platforms....
with Constantin Sotiropoulos
Constantin Sotiropoulos
Constantin Sotiropoulos is most famous for being the co-creator of AMOS BASIC, a popular beginners programming language for the Commodore Amiga home computer, and STOS BASIC on the Atari ST....
.
History
AMOS is a descendant of STOS BASICSTOS BASIC
STOS BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language implemented on the Atari ST computer. STOS BASIC was originally developed by Jawx by François Lionet and Constantin Sotiropoulos and published by Mandarin Software ....
for the Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
. AMOS BASIC was first produced in 1990.
AMOS competed on the Amiga platform with Acid Software's Blitz BASIC
Blitz BASIC
Blitz BASIC refers to the programming language dialect that was interpreted by the first Blitz compilers, devised by New Zealand-based developer Mark Sibly. Being derived from BASIC, Blitz syntax was designed to be easy to pick-up for beginners first learning to program...
. Both BASICs differed from other dialects on different platforms, in that they allowed the easy creation of fairly demanding multimedia software, with full structured code and many high-level functions to load images, animations, sounds and display them in various ways.
The original AMOS version was interpreted
Interpreter (computing)
In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
which, whilst working fine, suffered from performance problems. Later, an AMOS compiler
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
was developed, that reduced this problem.
To speed up the animation of sprites, AMOS later included the AMOS Animation Language (AMAL), a compiled sprite scripting language which runs independently of the main AMOS BASIC program.http://grove.ufl.edu/~cwarner/computers.html It was also possible to control screen and "rainbow" effects using AMAL scripts.
After the original version of AMOS, Europress released two other versions: Easy AMOS, a simpler version for beginners, and AMOS Professional, a more advanced version with added features, such as a better IDE
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
, ARexx
ARexx
ARexx is an implementation of the REXX language for the Amiga, written in 1987 by William S. Hawes, with a number of Amiga-specific features beyond standard REXX facilities. Like most REXX implementations, ARexx is an interpreted language...
support, a new UI
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
sublanguage and new flow control constructs. Neither of these new versions was significantly more popular than the original AMOS.
AMOS was mostly used to make video games (platformers and graphical adventures) and educational software.
The language was mildly successful within the Amiga community. Its ease of use made it especially attractive to beginners.
Perhaps AMOS BASIC's biggest disadvantage was its incompatibility with the Amiga's operating system
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
functions and interfaces. Instead, AMOS BASIC controlled the computer directly, which caused programs written in it to have a non-standard user interface, and also caused compatibility problems with newer versions of the operating system.
Today the language has declined in popularity along with the Amiga computer for which it was written. Despite this, a small community of enthusiasts are still using it. The source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
to AMOS has since been released under a BSD style license
BSD licenses
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named....
by Clickteam
Clickteam
Clickteam is a software company, founded in 1993 by François Lionet, Yves Lamoureux and Francis Poulain, headquartered in Paris, France. Clickteam is perhaps best known for the creation of a script-free programming tool that allows users to create video games or other interactive software using a...
- a company that includes the original programmer.
As of July 13th 2011, AMOS Professional has been runnable under UAE using the free AROS-68k
AROS Research Operating System
AROS Research Operating System is a free and open source multi media centric implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs. Designed to be portable and flexible, ports are currently available for x86-based and PowerPC-based PCs in native and hosted flavors, with other architectures in development...
AmigaOS
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
replacement ROM created by Jason McMullan and Toni Wilen.http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=766617#post766617 A legal, out-of-the-box installer has been created for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
using WinUAE.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhp7XGDKIic
Software using AMOS BASIC
- ABase
- MiggybyteMiggybyteMiggybyte was a free disk based magazine for the Amiga range of computers, published by Pickled Fish Software and edited by Ben Gaunt. From 1995 to 1997 twelve issues were published all being on a single floppy disk only....
- Scorched TanksScorched TanksScorched Tanks is an artillery style game released for the Amiga platform in 1993. The game is inspired by MS-DOS game Scorched Earth .-Gameplay:...
- Spectrapaint
- games by Vulcan SoftwareVulcan SoftwareVulcan Software is an independent computer games company founded in 1994 in the UK. Vulcan started creating software for the Amiga computer systems. Its first commercial game was Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity, which was notable for being the first ever Amiga speech adventure game. In January...
, amongst which the Valhalla trilogy - AmigaAmigaThe Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
version of Ultimate DomainUltimate DomainUltimate Domain is a computer game developed by Microïds and published by Software Toolworks in 1993 for the IBM PC.-Plot:Ultimate Domain starts in the 17th century in the colonies of the new world, where the player has four settlers and a few raw materials...
(called Genesia) by MicroïdsMicroïdsMicroïds is a French software brand belonging to Anuman Interactive that publishes and develops video games. In recent years the company's collection of brands and game licenses has grown since being a part of MC2 France... - Operation Gigabyte
See also
- BASIC programming language — For the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code family of programming languages.
- Alvyn Basic — An attempt to recreate an open sourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
multiplatform BASICBASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
interpreterInterpreter (computing)In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
, syntax-compatible with AMOS Professional. Project seems to have gone inactive during 2004. - sdlBasic — a multiplatform Basic interpreter, multiplaform and open-source, using SDL libraries, very inspired by AMOS.
- UAE (Amiga emulator compatible with AMOS and AMOS games, now works without a Kickstart ROM image)
- AbkViewer — a Java-based AMOS sprite and icon bank viewer.
- jAMAL — An open-source reimplementation of the AMOS Animation Language in Java. Currently under development.
External links
- Source code for AMOS and STOS (68000 ASM)
- The AMOS Factory (An AMOS support/community site)
- Mattathias BASIC (Open source AMOS compiler, early alpha)
- Amigacoding website (contains in-depth info and references for AMOS)
- Back to the Roots (Contains full AMOS downloads for Amiga or an emulator)
- AMOS Professional manual
- How to install AMOS BASIC on Windows in under 30 seconds