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Author Topic: Learning how to Program the Amiga  (Read 7720 times)

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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« on: May 02, 2010, 04:14:21 PM »
Quote from: Super TWiT;556324
I want to program the amiga in assembly and learn how to take advantage of the custom chip features. What should I get as far as learning material and software (the cheaper the better!) I have an amiga 500.


PhxAss is free. To use the latest version, you'll need OS2.04 at least.

For using the OS, the required LVO definitions are usually present in the NDK.

From a literature perspective, you can't beat the RKM.

If you buy the DevCD 2.1, it includes these as HTML (as well as the OS3.5NDK), which you can read on a spare PC if your A500 isn't up to the task.
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2010, 04:22:07 PM »
Quote from: Super TWiT;556329
I only have workbench 1.3.


PhxAss 3.95 will run on OS 1.x and is available on the same page.
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2010, 04:23:50 PM »
I tell a lie, all the links on his page seem to be broken :(

The 4.x versions are here: http://aminet.net/search?query=phxass

Will need to try and find a working link for 3.95
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2010, 04:39:04 PM »
Quote from: Super TWiT;556336
Where could I find that devcd? Who makes it?

Software Hut still sell it: See here

You could try asking amigakit too.

I should point out that it's aimed at OS3.5+ development but it does include the old 1.3-3.1 NDK too.
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2010, 04:42:55 PM »
Note that Software Hut also sell DevPac 3, which is a full commercial assembler development suite. Alas, not cheap.
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2010, 07:05:08 PM »
@SuperTwit

If you'd care for some free advice, I'd suggest you actually start with C, if you want to do a bit of Amiga development. The reason for this is that the NDK examples focus on C.

Once you are familiar with the basics of opening screens, handling input etc, you can then start looking at doing the same sort of stuff in assembly language. Even then, I'd say for non time-critical stuff, it isn't really worth it.

In the end, I favour writing in high level languages and only reimplementing those things in assembler which are either impossible (or impractical) to do in C, or where I feel that the compiler hasn't done a decent job optimising some critical piece of code. Integrating C and assembler is pretty straightforward, you just have to know what calling convention C is using, or failing that, write your own register-specific argument list when defining a C callable assembler routine.

Writing entire applications from the ground up in assembler is comparatively time consuming and can be very frustrating. Although, I have to admit, when you get an executable down to a few hundred bytes, there is an undeniable feeling of satisfaction :D
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Offline Karlos

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Re: Learning how to Program the Amiga
« Reply #6 on: May 02, 2010, 07:15:49 PM »
Quote from: Super TWiT;556370
Is the rkm information pertinent to c? What compiler is included on the Devcd?


The RKM tends to focus on C for it's examples but the information about the OS is obviously language independent. The DevCD comes with StormC/C++ 3, which provides a complete IDE. You can actually write assembler with it too. On the whole, it's very easy to write applications with both C/asm sources with the included software.
int p; // A