Aminet 8/Aminet 8 (1995)(GTI - Schatztruhe)[!][Oct 1995].iso/Aminet/dev/amos/AMOS_0795.lzh/AMOSLIST/[e-mail]_Wed Jul 19 07:41:18 1995.msg

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Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 11:34:02 +0200 (METDST)
From: Branko Collin <[e-mail]>
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To: Amos Discussion List <[e-mail]>
Subject: Article in Dutch magazine
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As most of you are aware, I wrote an article in the Dutch Amiga magazine,
appropriatley called 'Amiga Magazine'. I have translated it, but do not
think for a minute that I can write in English.

This article appeared in the Dutch magazine 'Amiga Magazine', issue 34
(July/August 1995). It is copyright 1995 Branko Collin. Subscribers of
the Amos Discussion List may have this article for personal use.

The translation was made from my draft version, so readers of Amiga
Magazine that also subscribe to the Amos discussion list may notice some
discreppancies.

Enjoy!

      Branko Collin <[e-mail]>    ---    19 July 1995



--------->8---------------->8-------------->8------------------------
Amos and Internet

Internet can be useful for Amos programmers. The main reason for this is
the existance of the Amos Discussion List. The subscribers talk about
anything related to this basic variant. Often simple programming problems
are mailed to the list, but also announcements of soon to be appearing
software, discussions about what should be in new extensions and how Amos
should be further developed. The special thing about this group of Amos
users is that some of the top-developers are amongst them. Take Dominic
Ramsey, programmer of a number of the official Amos Professional demos.
Dominic managed to capture the attention of the British press with his
program that successfully predicts the outcome of horse races - the
program was written in Amos.
Paul Hickman is the author of the Easylife extension. It is the life of
the professional programmer that is made easier with it. Easylife adds
structured variables, pattern matching, console I/O and MUI
compatibility. But those readers that did not understand a thing of the
last sentence need not dispair. Paul also added some helper programs that
anybody can use. Amongst these are a variable checker and an Amiga Guide
viewer. For the latter he converted the Amos Professional on-line
documentation.
Andy Church maintains the Procedure Library. Have you ever had the
feeling that you were re-inventing the wheel with a certain procedure you
were writing? Then there is a chance that someone else has added that
procedure to the Library. Amongst others it offers you routines for the
manipulation of screens and palettes, using Bobs with AMAL and
circumventing the archaic Input command.
Furthermore some projects are inspired by the threating expiring of both
Amiga and Amos. Mike Sikorsky is working on MARP, Mike's Amos Replacement
Project [NOTE: Now called M-Lib]. MARP is a library that contains all
Amos commands as C-procedures. Mike tries to take over as much of the
programming as possible, so that the Amos programmer's only task is
converting Amos commands into C-procedure calls. He is even thinking of
taking away this last task by adding a conversion program. People about
to leave the Amiga can still benefit from this project, as there are
plans to make versions for both MS-DOS and X-Windos environments.
The other big project is called ADT, Amos Development Team. A year ago a
rumour on the net said that Europress would make Amos' source public
domain. The ADT got founded by the list's subscribers to coordinate the
further development of Amos. Nobody would benefit from a proliferation of
badly coded 'improved' Amos versions. Europress did not come true, but
the ADT still exists. Now the members concentrate on inventing a whole
new programming language that contains all the good of Amos and more. The
ADT is of course open for all suggestions.
Besides all this serious stuff people are of course programming games.
People like Ben Marty (TechnoVenture), Christian Mumenthal (Colonial
Conquest) and the members of Dark Unicorn Productions (Scorched Tanks)
know what they are talking about and so they do.
The Amos Discussion List is maintained by Michael Cox. He is not a
moderator, but keeps track of the subscriptions and the FAQ.

Those that have access to the Internet can subscribe by sending an e-mail
to [e-mail], including the word 'subscribe' in the
text. The language of choice is English. Not that it is obligatory to
post in that language, but there are only a few Dutch subscribers, so...
There is also a website, maintained by Andy Church, at
http://mmm.mbhs.edu/~achurch/amos/.

Branko Collin

[NOTE: The article contained a screenshot of the website. Originally
provided by Gareth Edwards. As it was a picture of the old website, the
editors decided to make a new screenshot of the new site.]