========================================================================== Newsflash Product Review : AMOS - THE CREATOR ========================================================================== Released by : MANDARIN SOFTWARE Retail Price : £49.95 Program Type : BASIC style Programming Language. ========================================================================== Readers of Newsflash and Amiga owners alike will no doubt be aware of this program, it's been talked about for many months and finally it's been released to a very patient Amiga public. Amos is a language, much like BASIC but rather like the BASIC all Amiga owners have been waiting for... imagine incredibly easy control of screens, scrolling, coppers, sprites, bobs, animation, sound and music through a basic-like language. Well, that's what Amos provides. I can imagine the heads of Commodore sitting down and nodding approvingly at Mandarin and Francois Lionets masterpiece, I certainly believe that this product will become one of the 'classic' programs no Amiga user can really be without. In as much as Dpaint2/3 is the same. Programmers will no doubt criticise it, saying it's best done in Assembler etc but they overlook the aims and achievements that AMOS more than meets and most certainly provides. With the eventual release of the AMOS compiler, I am sure commercial games will be written with the product, especially educational and strategic software which can be written with a zest like never before. Amos comes on 2 disks although shortly this is to be added to by way of a third utility disk (send your registration card back to receive the 3rd disk) and features a good quality manual, some 300 or so pages in size. This would undoubtedly have been much bigger except that many example programs are on disk rather than listed, saving the task of typing them in. The manual is well written and contains many examples, hints and tricks to try out. Some of the commands (and there are about 500) aren't as well documented as you'ld like to see but what's there is just about enough to suffice. The comparisons between other BASICS and AMOS end at the first chapter, AMOS is basic-like and not 100% compatable with other forms, even Microsoft so depending on what you're used to, it's going to take some adjusment as Amos handles things differently, it's not hard to change but it does require a little studying of the methods that need to be employed. Almost anything you could care to mention has it's own command, there's no need to program secondary routines to do things, it's just a matter of slotting in commands where necessary. Hardware scrolling is made easy and in fact the whole screen system has been re-written and the notable lack of intuition based windows is quite strange at first. (Intuition is the program that looks after 'normal' windows such as your CLI and workbench). Many utilities are provided such as sprite editors, sample editors, music converters (you can convert Sonix, Soundtracker and GMC music) to the AMOS format for use in programs, the music being interrupt-driven thus not affecting your programs performance in the slightest. These utilities are all written in AMOS too and can be edited and altered as you see fit. They can also be loaded into memory and called as accessories. To do a full report of all the possibilities and features of AMOS would take an age... suffice to say I'm more than impressed with what it offers - which is access to full power of the Amiga to the average Amiga-user. Whether it's programming for fun, for demos, for presentations, for education or for games you'll find AMOS suits your needs perfectly. Criticisms ? Hmmm, there's not a lot left to criticise really, maybe a few things could have been better explained in the manual but that's about it. The software should not be criticised in any way, due to exactly what it offers. I also found the program to be stable, I don't think it's crashed at all yet - which the same cannot be said of other languages. Some people have commented that it's not really a multi-tasking product, in this case I just cannot see the disadvantages... Comment On a personal note I've been involved with the development of AMOS for a considerable time, ever since i talked to Richard Vanner of Mandarin at a Commodore show way back in June 1989. I've seen how things have developed and how the programmer and Mandarin have tried to put in everything that was suggested, they've pulled it off admirably. For many people AMOS will provide a means of self-expression and a way to be very creative. For others it'll mean the ability to write their own graphics utilities, programs and other productions... all without having to worry about the complex routines needed for animation, copper-colours, screen scrolling etc. Suffice to say AMOS comes HIGHLY reccomended, take time to 'ease' into the language, don't dive in at the deep end! If you know BASIC then you should have no real problems apart from getting used to a few differently organised commands. With time and a little patience you'll be delighted at what you can achieve and come to regard the programmer, Francois Lionet as somewhat of a demi-god! Instead of taking the easy route and just porting STOS, Mandarin have produced a piece of software that will soon become a classic Amiga program, that no self-respecting Amiga-enthusiast can afford to be without. All in all AMOS is probably JUST what you were looking for... Go For it! We plan to support AMOS on Newsflash by including news, utilities and routines, starting this month... if you have any problems or routines, help, hints or advice that you'ld like to share with other users then drop a line to Newsflash UK. This month we feature a nice little intro that demonstrates the use of Copper-bars, multiple screen scrolling, music and fades etc. For an interview with Francois Lionet, the programmer of AMOS, check out Issue 8 of Newsflash and read all about the man and his life... ========================================================================== AMOS - The Creator is available now at the retail price of £49.95. Contact MANDARIN SOFTWARE: Customer Service, Europa House, Adlington Park, Adlington, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 4NP. England. ==========================================================================