Where to start? Old Amiga user looking to try Amiga development

[mintfresh]

Back when I was a full time Amiga user, I tried my hand at some programming, but never really did much since I was young and inexperinced.

Fast forward a few years and I know have a fairly decent grasp of programming but no real knowledge of doing so on the Amiga!

So, where do I start if I want to try my hand at developing something for my old Amiga?

Most of my programming knowledge is of C++(Windows) and PHP and I currently have a A1200 (upgraded with accelerator and harddrive)

[Heinz]

There are two different concepts of Amiga Development.

1. Native Development

That means, that you write and compile your program on your A1200.
For that I would recommend Cubic IDE.
It comes with compilers.

2. Cross Development

That means you write and compile your Programs on Windows or Linux using Cross Compilers
For that I would Recommend AmiDevCpp.
Download Page.
It can be used to compile programs for any amiga-like OS and for Windows too.

[Rob]

Amikit have the Amiga Developer CD which contains a fair ammount of reference material.

You can use WinUAE for development too and it's recommended for Cubic IDE if you don't have a graphics card.

[amigakit]

Welcome!


Storm C for Amiga:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=477

[rednova]

Dear Amigan:

If you can get a copy of amospro...it is very easy to learn and powerful enough to make all kinds of nice amiga games.
amos.pspuae.com
At this site I believe you can get a legit original copy of amospro + the compiler. Amospro was used to make many commercial and pd games. I used amospro to make 2 pd amiga games:
www.feryogi.com/amos.html
you can get amospro for free...and is great to make amiga games...you are only limited by your imagination.
good luck!!!!

rednova
-mobilis in mobile-

[xeron]

Don't use AMOS; its outdated.

Use C, and be system friendly. Your code can run on classic Amigas, OS4 and MorphOS systems, and can be compiled natively to classic, os4, morphos and AROS.

[amigadave]

I agree that AMOS Pro is outdated and should not be used for anything EXCEPT games for yourself.  But if you want to share your creations with the whole Amiga community, use C/C++ and do like xeron suggested, be system friendly (don't try to hit the Classic Amiga hardware directly).

[Kronos]

@Amigakit

Not to ruin your parade .......

Advocating StormC4 to a newcomer is bad idea, it's quite outdated,far from bug-free and not cheap.

AFAIR there is a version of StormC3 on one of the developer-CDs, oki even more outdated, also not free, but it gives him all he needs to start (including doku).

Best start (for an C++ coder):
http://www.developers.2go.cc/cubic/download.html

Download the demo and the C++ package, install and of you go.

[mintfresh]

Thanks for all the replies. Seems theres a few schools of thought on where to start!

I think I like the sound of a proper IDE for C++ development, so I will look into that.

I do have Amos (not sure if its Pro) installed from an old Amiga Format disk. I did dabble a bit with it, but never progressed much.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I hope to achieve with the programming, I just faniced doing something different with my Amiga, and thought now I have more knowledge programming might not be so bad.

Anyway, I will check out all the suggestions. Need to figure a good way to get files onto my Amiga from the PC now! (I used Am2PC before, but I don't think that works in XP?)

Any specific resources on Amiga programming? I would know where to start programming something with a GUI for instance on the Amiga.

Thanks again.

[skurk]

As I've been yapping about before in other threads, give AmiDevCpp a try.  It runs on Windows and lets you build Amiga executables.  Run the executables in WinUAE to see how they work, then test them on the real thing afterwards.

For transferring files, you can either:
- Use crossdos and mount 720k MSDOS-formatted disks
- Get a PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter
- Get a PCMCIA network card

I have all of the above on my A600 just to be sure.

[TheMagicM]

here's some books and C stuff on ebay.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280148802784

[mintfresh]

Ok, I think to start with I'm going to give AmiDevCpp a go, as well as seeing what I can do with just AMOS.

I think AmiDevCpp will provide a better enviroment to develop, it just dosn't have the same feel as doing all the development on the Amiga.

Also AMOS has so much stuff built in for games, that it seems it should be pretty easy to get something done with it.

I've used SDL in the past with PHP, a quick search reveals that there is an Amiga SDL project. Is this worth using? Or is there anything else like this for the Amiga, like the equivalent of Direct X for Workbench/Amiga?