Hi there.

I have just bought an Amiga 500, as I wanted to relive/refresh some of my programming skills on the Amiga. But I haven't done any Amiga programming in about 25 years. In about 1988-89 I made two demos. So this isn't really new to me, but although I remember how to code the copper and blitter and mostly the M68k assembler (of course I need to refresh the adresses and such things, but I still have the old books I used to use back in the day).

But now to my question:

I don't remember what assembler/compiler I used. So, what would you recommend to use on an A500? I will be buying Amiga Forever as well, so I might do the typing on a windows computer. The code will then be transfered to WinUAE and compiled and run there.

But of course I will also test my code on the real A500.

Does anybody know or remember what editors and compilers democoders used to use in 1988-89? I know I didn't buy any compiler, so probably it was something that was distributed on discpacks, or as a magazine coverdisc. Perhaps I remember wrongly in this case, but somehow I think that the editor I used was an bundle of both editor and compiler, and somehow I remember that the editor used coppercolors for the text (but I might be wrong on the coppercolors).

And if you think it makes a difference in the choosing of assembler/compiler according to what I'm trying to make: I have for a long long time been thinking of making one final demo for the A500 in oldskool-style.

Have any other oldtimers gone back to making A500 demos? I have an A1200 as well, but for some reason I didn't do any real coding on it, and even now I think it would be more fun to code for the A500 to try to get something done with limited resources. I did some coding on the C64 as well, but Amiga was where I really learnt to make real code utilising the special chips.

AMIGAAAAAAAA!

@Vikke

Some coders lurking here too;

http://ada.untergrund.net/

I used to use AsmOne and AsmPro...But I´m not a demoscener.

Last edited by t0lkien on 25-Feb-2013 at 08:09 PM.

@Vikke

Maybe it was Argasm.
Most coders use Asmone or Asmpro. Others Devpac or Vasm. I've read that Barfly is good. If you're looking for help goto eab.abîme.net that the place for oldskool coderz.
Kamelito

@Vikke

ECS/OCS demos were lots of fun, but the AGA ones are much more polished. If you can venture onto the A1200 you will have so much more at your fingertips.

Amigaz Power!

_________________
Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

On the other hand, if he only knew A500 then that'll obviously be much more readily accessible. The limitations can also be a fun obstacle course

@Vikke
First off: WELCOME BACK

I always used asmone (I believe it had an editor and the assembler with easy switching between), but I was never a demo coder, nor much of a programmer at all until I started university. Seems hardware hacks was always much more my thing, and even that came rather late. I still cannot wrap my head around 3D programming.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@kamelit0

It might have been Argasm. I found only a demoversion on the internet of Argasm, but I will try searching some more tomorrow.

And then do some small tests on it, but it feels like something I have been using before.

@olegil

Thank you.

Yes, I could start coding on the A1200, that wouldn't be a big problem compared to the A500. I had big plans back in the days to make demos on the A1200 as well, so i have read all the technical stuff regarding the A1200, and as well made quite a lot of codesnippets to test out things.

But the A500 is for me personaly the computer I _really_ started to code on. Mostly I want to get back into the mentality that you have to optimize things in your code on limited hardware, and of course I really want to get both the blitter and the copper to get a hard time :)

Regarding programming, I lost a lot of my spirit to code when I started my courses on programming at univesity. Scheme....WHAT!?!?!? I wanted to code in assembler, and perhaps some bits in C, but a Lisp like language???? It wasn't coding, it was fiddling around with parenthesis, I hated it.

But you never know, after I at some point get some code published on the A500, perhaps I'll make something on the A1200 after that. I have my old supercharged A1200 in the garage (well... it felt like it was supercharged when I bought it, with a 80Mb? harddrive and expanded memory, it wasn't cheap).

Having seen what kind of demos have been made lately on the Amiga, I'm not too keen on making similar stuff that is the norm today. I really want to make _oldskool_ stuff, like crazy things with the copper, scrollers, bobs etc.

@Vikke

Are you sure you cannot be talked into making a classic game (platform, shoot-em-up, anything really) instead?

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Well... I have to first get a demo made, that is the urge I have right now to do. After that you never know, I have started on a couple of games back then, but I never got them finished as I ran into problems on how to get the graphics animated. One frame of a sprite/bob is not a problem, but to make a bunch more for animated movement is a totally different thing. That wouldn't be much of a problem with software that is available nowadays.
The other big problem for me has always been the music and sounds for a game.

Shoot'em ups were my passion when I was younger. For a game I think A1200 would be a better platform. Let's see... some ideas are comming back from my earlier attempts on games.
One was an Ikari Warriors type of game, another was a spaceshooter. Of these the spaceshooter would be closer to my heart.... hmmmm.....

Anyhow, I won't promise to make an attempt on a game, but if I at some point will, then it would be better to start with a demo. To get back on track on how to code efficiently on the Amiga and be confident on my own skills that I can make it. I could easily have made a game some 20-25 years ago, but I can't do it now without some re-training on using the Amiga hardware.

@Vikke

Quote:

I don't remember what assembler/compiler I used. So, what would you recommend to use on an A500? I will be buying Amiga Forever as well, so I might do the typing on a windows computer. The code will then be transfered to WinUAE and compiled and run there.

Crosscompiling on the PC using, for example, vasm+vlink is a pretty handy option if you're going to be using WinUAE. At least that's the way I make my amigastuff nowadays (I used AsmOne earlier).

You might also want to take a look at this.

@Britelite

Perhaps I'll try to crosscompile. It would be easier to just copy the exe to WinUAE for testing. Thanks for the idea.

@olegil

Hmm... And now I have a hard time to think about effects for a demo, I mostly have ideas for a game in my head at the moment.
I'm just not good enough to make graphics for a decent game, even though I the Adobe Creative Suite Master Edition including Photoshop on my computer (and yes, I have bought it). But Photoshop isn't at all good at making pixelgraphics.

Is there any good Windows Dpaint clones for pixelperfect graphics?

And then there is the sound issue. But perhaps I can get help with these things when (if ever) I have some code done and running.

Damn it! I have more or less the same idea of a shoot'em-up on my mind as some 20 years ago. The only problem is that at a younger age I had a lot of time to code, now with a family and work it isn't as easy to find the time.

And one question. Does new games for the A500 or A1200 still get published?

@Vikke

I can help you out with the music! still got protracker & MED running here...

@Vikke

http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/
Kamelito

Now that I have gotten to test different assemblers and setups I think this is the way I'll do things:

I'll write code in Notepad++ on Windows, at least as long as it is pure ASM, but if I need to have some C as well, then perhaps something else.

From Notepad++ on my Windows computer I save the sources into a directory that os mapped in WinUAE as well, this works very well.

I think I have used both Argasm and Seka assemblers before, but now I'll try to use Asm-One as it seems to work well, and I can easily compile my sources from a mapped Windows-directory, and store the objectfiles there too.

At first I had an idea that I would like to code just like before, but editors from 20 years ago aren't the same as modern ones.

There are other things as well that are speaking for this approach: it's nice to be able to use hig resolution on a 30" screen for coding, and what really helps is this:
I have 2 different configurations on WinUAE, both with the same Windows-directory as DH1, so both can access the same files. I have both WinUAE:s running at the same time, one just for compiling and the other just for running the compiled code.
If the code has errors and the computer hangs, then I only reboot one WinUAE, while I can work with the editor on Windows or assembler on the other WinUAE.

I don't know if there are crosscompilers for MC68k on Windows, but my setup is working really well. I just wanted to share my experiences, perhaps it can be of use for others as well.

@Vikke

If you're coding using Windows, you might consider SubLime 2, its one of the best text editors I have ever used and it supports MacOSX / Linux /Windows, it's really a shame it does not support AmigaOS, I defiantly be willing to send a Sam460 to them If they were willing to port it.

http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/2012/12/680x0-development-enviroment-on.html

vbcc assembler is what I found to be easiest compiler to use whit the least amount of bugs.
AsmPro is a big improvement over AsmOne, you might want to try it out, it does not work well under AmigaOS4.x, but that might be just down to some compatibility issue.

I really don't care what program language you're using, but please consider supporting AHI, and use Timer.device for timing, if possible if not you might fall back to CIAA.ressource and CIAB.ressource, but only if you do not find Timer.device.

And also please consider using lowlevel.library for joysticks, please do not read hardware registers directly try stick whit graphic.library and intuition.library, and possibly picass96.library or cybergraphics.library for RTG graphics.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@Vikke

Well, now I have after some testing got something to work as planned.

I'm talking real oldskool here: copperbars and wiggly sinuseffects with copper, nothing spectacular yet, but I have to take it slow in the beginning.

Next up: scrolling...

One thing I have to say is that coding and testing is a lot faster now than lat time I did it on my old Amigas. Eventhough a lot of time goes looking into MC68k-assembly books regarding addressing and Amiga hardware references.
It was easier before, when you could start typing just from the top of your head. But perhaps I'll be in that spot again at some point.

@Vikke

What do you think, should I make a website regarding programming on Amiga. I could now make something with pictures on progress and perhaps some description on the code used?

Would this be of any help for others that are coming back into Amiga coding?

Websites are easy to put up, and I have some suitable domains of my own.

@Vikke

It sure would help, I'll read it.
Kamelito