Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: jj on December 22, 2015, 01:40:56 PM
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Hi,
So I fancy doing a bit of old school basic programming on the miggy. I used blitz a bit in the past and on the PC and always thought it was pretty powerful.
Is blitz the best one to go with? I want to use aga features if at all possible , do both have extra libs for AGA ?
Thanks
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I've been using amos for many years, and I am very happy with it.
Is very easy to use and can make outstanding amiga games.
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Amiblitz 3 is good and still maintained. http://www.amiblitz.de/ There also the excellent PureBasic 4.0 but it's no longer maintained. http://www.purebasic.com/index.php
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Hi,
So I fancy doing a bit of old school basic programming on the miggy. I used blitz a bit in the past and on the PC and always thought it was pretty powerful.
Is blitz the best one to go with? I want to use aga features if at all possible , do both have extra libs for AGA ?
Thanks
Use Blitz, it's faster, has proper data structures, a real debugger, works properly with the operating system and doesn't need any extra libs to work with AGA.
The inline assembler is also a god send if you want to optimise an inner loop.
Also it gives full access to the interrupts, the most useful is the VBL interrupt... Which Amos "sort of" works with when you use the limited version (synchro on) of AMAL... But that is a bit of a pain to do anything serious with.
I could go on... Simply put Blitz is the more modern of the two.
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Use Blitz, it's faster, has proper data structures, a real debugger, works properly with the operating system and doesn't need any extra libs to work with AGA.
The inline assembler is also a god send if you want to optimise an inner loop.
Also it gives full access to the interrupts, the most useful is the VBL interrupt... Which Amos "sort of" works with when you use the limited version (synchro on) of AMAL... But that is a bit of a pain to do anything serious with.
I could go on... Simply put Blitz is the more modern of the two.
Thanks. You had me at proper data structures :) was it blitz i remember having the type command ?
Anyway where to get blitz, manual etc legally ? back2roots ?
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Amiblitz 3 is good and still maintained. http://www.amiblitz.de/ There also the excellent PureBasic 4.0 but it's no longer maintained. http://www.purebasic.com/index.php
Is there an english version of that site ?
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found this
http://www.blitz-2000.co.uk
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Is there an english version of that site ?
http://amiblitz.de/community/
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will check out purebasic as well as this seems to be the sequel to blitz
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will check out purebasic as well as this seems to be the sequel to blitz
IIRC PureBasic was written by demoscene coders which would explain why it's really fast and optimized.
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Blitz no doubt about it.
There is also plenty of docs in the blitz archive.
What those guys have done with blitz is amazing!
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Thanks. You had me at proper data structures :)
In Amos, you ended up having lots and lots of arrays... And a mess of variables.
To make a large game in Amos you had little choice but to use the software version of Amal (synchro off), just to stop the code becoming a mess.
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That made no scence Amal was just to allow beingers to Animate stuff who couldnt write there own routine.
In Amos, you ended up having lots and lots of arrays... And a mess of variables.
To make a large game in Amos you had little choice but to use the software version of Amal (synchro off), just to stop the code becoming a mess.
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That made no scence Amal was just to allow beingers to Animate stuff who couldnt write there own routine.
No, Amal was to allow asynchronous operation. Essentially multithreading.
The hardware variant used the vertical blanking interrupt, the software version ran the threads with a timer.
But since each Amal program was self contained, it allowed you to encapsulate your onscreen objects and was the nearest you could get to a structured design in Amos.
Amal was not for beginners, it was tricky to use and was excluded from "Easy Amos", the beginner's variant of Amos.
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Sorry I dont see what this has to do with the size of the code? If you write a good routine it probably quite poratable between all basics and other languages and Amos wouldnt take any more lines of code than any other basic. Eazy Amos left out other things that would have made life easier.
I just thought it a bit misleading thats all.
Most Amos books etc describes Amal as an easy way to dispaly Animation and I agree.
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Sorry I dont see what this has to do with the size of the code?
Nothing. I was talking about structure. Amos lacks proper data structures so your code ended up as a big mess of Arrays and variables. By using Amal, you could encapsulate the variables related to each screen object into it's own Amal program, which made for neater code.
If you write a good routine it probably quite poratable between all basics and other languages and Amos wouldnt take any more lines of code than any other basic. Eazy Amos left out other things that would have made life easier.
Without proper data structures, writing good code (readable and maintainable) is very difficult.
I just thought it a bit misleading thats all.
Most Amos books etc describes Amal as an easy way to dispaly Animation and I agree.
Without using Amal, you would have to handle all your animation code as part of your main loop, in a primarily interpreted language like Amos, that made it very difficult to do anything close to 50fps. Amal eased that problem.
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Cool im not arguing with you just my opinion and Amal attempt to update everything 50fps is actully very slow with more than few bobs on anything below 68020.
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I'm mucking around with AMOS and Dice at the moment and I have to say with my vast library of AMOS stuff I find AMOS way more entertaining and fun to play with. Blitz is fine but never really enjoy it as much as AMOS. I dug out a whole bag of AMOS files today that I thought I'd lost and so the magic just goes on and on.
OkeeDokee? Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid ! If you know what I mean. Or not, in my case.
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encapsulation is something I still find people struggle with. Its the basis for all good code design and should not be restricted to OO languages.
Will have a play with all three but people seem to be leaning heavily towards blitz and pure basic.
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JJ:
Please give amospro a try.
On http://www.pspuae.com
there are a lot of free amos stuff.
I even believe there is free amospro file around, ask on pspuae.com
Long time ago, i got blitz basic, and it was impossible for me to get
anything done. Then I tried amos pro, and it was super easy and made
lots of stuff. If you want to make like an rpg/dungeon and dragons
kind of game, is super easy with amos professional.
Don't try the old amos, try the latest version which is amos professional.
I am very sure amos professional is free to get, ask on pspuae.com
Also, on the site, there are lots of support and files for amos, all free.
Try amos !!!
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JJ:
There are 3 books, which teach you how to get the most out of amos.
1- Mastering amiga amos
2- Amiga Game makers manual
3- Amos in action
You can usually see them on ebay,
I believe, the mastering amiga amos book, and the complete amos pro manual,
are both available for free on the http://www.pspuae.com
site.
These books' teachings, will allow you to get the most out of amos.
There is also a special CD, called the amos PD CD, which has around
500 disks of amos specific files.
Amos is very easy to learn, and it can make amazing games for amiga.