About the product

So now you've seen MM2 in action, read about it's features and possibly made your mind up as to it's competance in it's field. So why don't you drop me a line and tell me what you think. I really would like to get some feedback on my programs so that I know what's going on and what's going wrong. So here's my history:

   I started using a computer at the age of 6 (oi! Don't laugh). I had a ZX Spectrum 48K. This was "in" at the time, and we had to wait three days for it to be ordered due to it's popularity. I remember playing CRL's Jackpot (CRL is now called "On Line"). This program was written in BASIC. It was rather good for the language it was written in, but to restart it you had to press CAP SHIFT, and SPACE (the equivalent of CTRL-C) to break into it and then press R (the beauty of the Spectrum was the single-key entry, for pressing R would bring up the word "RUN"). This was actually as it was specified in the documentation. Once I made a mistake when playing this and pressed "Enter" which brough up a listing of the program. After glancing through it I discovered how "LET" worked (for example LET A=B was the equivalent of the AMOS A=B) just by looking at it. You could say I learned BASIC by hacking. After making this discovery I read through the manual and gave myself 1024 nudges after every reel spin, and made it joystick controlled! I bought Marshal Cavendish's INPUT, "The weekly computer course for fun and for the future" and learned BASIC simply by memorising the listings, editing them and altering them to my tastes. I wrote small programs like "Guess the number", and "Times tables" for my school's Speccy (so far the only school I knew to have a Speccy!). I once wrote an excellent user-defined graphics utility called CHARGEN which was much better than any utility in magazine, books and manual pages. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of sending the program to my ex-favourite games publisher, Hewcon Consultants. They, of course, rejected it because they only published games. They soon folded as a result of the recession, which serves 'em right (they would have lived longer if they'd have published my program!). So I learned Z80a machine code in a few months with just one book. This book was "Spectrum Machine Code" by Ian Stewart, and Robin Jones, now founders of Gremlin Graphics, I believe. I even wrote several small utilities in M/C. So in 1989 I got the Amiga, I thought that the BASIC would be better, but it wasn't. It was slugglish, unfriendly, and I hated it! Sure, I could solve maths equasions with it (and I got an award for it, too!) but it was crap, and I didn't want it. When I read Amiga Format's letters column, way back in issue 5, my first ever Amiga mag I read that someone wanted to start out in games. He was recommended the `imminent' AMOS (before years of delay!) for games. It sounded good, as things of this sort often do, but I thought it was a game creator, like HURG (High Level User Friendly  Real-time Games Designer) on the Spectrum. Many months later the advert whet my appetite so I sent off for the demo disc. I waited a long time 'til I saw that AMOS had finally been released so I bought it via Special Reserve (which I had to join first!). My first program was one which I had designed before I got AMOS, Splitz. I was going to pluck up the courage to write it in Amiga BASIC, but the lack of IFF support would make the program horrid to work with, so I lost interest. When I got AMOS the first day I spent making a mini-demo with some munching mouths, scrolly copper bars, and King of the Fire mountain for music! On the coming Saturday I wrote the first procedures for Splitz, and a few weeks later it was complete. That's how I started programming! At school, I managed to scrape up my knowledge of Beeb BASIC (I've also used CBM 64 BASIC (although it's naff!), MSX BASIC (Quite similar to Beeb BASIC), Amstrad C128 BASIC (and it crashed on a six line scrolly!), and many other BASICS) to write a password cracking system for the Acorn Econet network. I ran the program simply to prove a point to the computer studies teacher. After finding his password he admitted that my programming power and computer literacy urinated over his own and that he'd rather have me on his side (although, in not so many syllables) so I have now become co-network manager, and I've even written a security program to fish out any other computer hackers and store their activities on the hard-disc, for my surveillance. I was glad to be a member of Eastern Electricity's Wattville 90 project which closed earlier this year.  I used AMOS to generate some nifty scrolling credits, and pie charts for statstics on longlife bulbs which was especially noted for being "Extremely proffesional". I even got George, my graphics artist, to draw me a nice HAM picture of Frank (EE's promo answer to Frankenstein). I was surprised when we scooped the first prize of a 27 inch colour TV with Nicam digital stereo and fast text, for the school! I kid you not! AMOS has led the way to fame, and fortune (if you call 45 quid a fortune!). I'm 15 now, so I've had a good deal of experience growing up around computers, but I've never had a program published, maybe this'll be it, eh ?

Thanks for reading this boring doc, and I hope that I'll be explaining some more software to you in another publication of mine. Please note that the acronym RAMAGE is merely a composition of Random Access Memory, and my initials. This program, it's utilities, and the documenation remain the property of RAMAGE SOFTWARE, and Andrew Elia. Please do not alter the programs supplied on the disc, or the documentation. Thank you!